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Poetic Larceny Artists Reveal #5 -- Erin Browne

Monday, March 30, 2009 0 comments



What is Poetic Larceny?

And how can I learn more about Flux's upcoming production of Pretty Theft?

ERIN BROWNE

Playwright, May 11th

Previous Flux stuff: Most recently the Food:Soul staged reading of Narrator 1, wrote for last year's Imagination Compact, participated in the 1st Have Another, and developed plays at Flux Sunday like Then and Trying. Her work has been read and produced at various places in NYC and the UK. Erin works in television and is learning to enjoy oatmeal.

We asked the amazing artists of our upcoming staged reading series Poetic Larceny to answer some questions about stealing, beauty, and consequences. Read on for their answers!

Question #1: What is the worst thing you've ever stolen?
A classmate's doll. She was so sad and it was purely malicious, not for monetary value. Even though I returned it almost immediately, I still feel like it's one of the meanest things I've ever done in my life. It's one of the few things I regret.

Question #2: What is the worst thing that's been stolen from you?
Either my bike or a VCR. They happened within months of each other when there was a rash of thefts in the apartment complex I lived in. Both represented a certain kind of freedom and were birthday presents from my Dad who lived far away. Probably the VCR because it was taken from inside my home and represented how easy it was for an intruder to enter space I considered safe and mine.

Question #3: What do you find pretty?
Standard things: flowers, things that sparkle or shine, stained glass, some babies, most eyes. Things that are clean, like a fresh sheet of paper or cotton fabric before it's been turned into something.

Question #4: What do you find beautiful?
Generosity. Scars. Things that are incomprehensively vast like the ocean and the sky and the belief people can have in each other or in concepts. Science. Nature. Things that make sense. Light. The physical embodiments of hope and wonder and joy.

Question #5: If you could steal something beautiful without consequences, what would it be?
The night sky over the desert. I would put it over New York instead so I could have it there every night just for me (and the other people who live in NY could look too if they wanted). The desert can keep it's sunsets, which seems fair. Read the full story

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Poetic Larceny Artists Reveal #4 -- James Comtois


What is Poetic Larceny?

And how can I learn more about Flux's upcoming production of Pretty Theft?

JAMES COMTOIS

Playwright, April 13th

Previous Flux stuff: First time with Flux, after dazzling us with plays like Colorful World and Nosedive's annual Blood Brothers

We asked the amazing artists of our upcoming staged reading series Poetic Larceny to answer some questions about stealing, beauty, and consequences. Read on for their answers!

Question #1: What is the worst thing you've ever stolen?
A car. Just kidding, that's a felony, and this isn't the appropriate
venue to discuss that pending case. So my attorney advised I answer
with, "Someone's heart." He also advised me to stress,
"metaphorically," not literally. I'm not some sort of...uh...psycho
that likes collecting people's organs. That's...huh...that's crazy!

Question #2: What is the worst thing that's been stolen from you?
My dignity.

Question #3: What do you find pretty?
Blondes.

Question #4: What do you find beautiful?
Sunsets. And redheads.

Question #5: If you could steal something beautiful without
consequences, what would it be?
Really? I can steal a chick without consequences? I dunno, I'd
imagine there'd have to be SOME consequences. Stealing a person isn't
like jaywalking. Unless you mean they suffer a form of Stockholm
Syndrome
, but like, times 1,000. Then again, I could go for the
esoteric and say "a sunset," but where the hell would I keep it? Just
too many logistics. My pretty little head is hurting. Let's just say
a car. A beautiful, beautiful car.

Bio:James Comtois is the co-founder and co-artistic director of Nosedive Productions, where he serves as the company's resident playwright. Scripts for Nosedive: Monkeys, Allston, The Awaited Visit (2001 OOBR Award winner for Overall Excellence), Ruins, Two Parties, Evil Hellcat and Other Lurid Tales, Mayonnaise Sandwiches (2004 OOBR Award winner for Overall Excellence), A Very Nosedive Christmas Carol, Dying Goldfish, The Adventures of Nervous-Boy (published in NYTE's Plays and Playwrights 2007), Suburban Peepshow (published by Original Works Online), Vagina Dentata, Metaphor, Listening to Reason, Colorful World, and Nona (based on the short story by Stephen King). In conjunction with the Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company: The Symposium, Captain Moonbeam & Lynchpin, Beowulf Krygor 9 & the Unicorn, Pinkie (a five-part serial play), and Speed Demons (also a five-part serial play). Read the full story

Check Out Crystal Skillman's Birthday

No, not her ACTUAL birthday, her new play Birthday, playing at Jimmy's #43. Crystal is a new Flux Sunday participant, a playwright for Poetic Larceny, and all around awesome person. So give her the un-birthday present of seeing Birthday! Read the full story

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Adam Szymkowicz on nytheatrecast

Martin Denton and the good people at nytheatre.com are kicking off a new series where playwrights interview playwrights 1-0n-1 (no steel cage, though, this is a podcast). They're kicking off the whole thing with playwright Matthew Freeman (When Is A Clock) interviewing our own Adam Szymkowicz, playwright of our upcoming production of Pretty Theft!

Want to be the first to hear it? Subscribe to nytheatre.cast here. Read the full story

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Poetic Larceny Artists Reveal #3 - Havilah Brewster

Sunday, March 29, 2009 1 comments

What is Poetic Larceny?

And how can I learn more about Flux's upcoming production of Pretty Theft?

HAVILAH BREWSTER

Actor, May 11th

Previous Flux stuff: First time with Flux! (We hope the first of many).


We asked the amazing artists of our upcoming staged reading series Poetic Larceny to answer some questions about stealing, beauty, and consequences. Read on for their answers!

Question #1: What is the worst thing you've ever stolen?
--A snap bracelet. Come on. Lame.

Question #2: What is the worst thing that's been stolen from you?
--My innocence. No I'm kidding, that was fucking useless. So, probably my back pack.

Question #3: What do you find pretty?
--Little girls. But not in a creepy, pedo way.

Question #4: What do you find beautiful?
--Haute couture dresses (but only the beautiful ones).

Question #5: If you could steal something beautiful without consequences, what would it be?
--A soul. How neat would that be? And what an adventure! I wonder how I'd do it.
Bio: Havilah- When I was 16 I had a barn jacket with several large pockets. My girlfriends made me steal all the stuff they wanted because my jacket had so many pockets. I loved that jacket, but I stopped wearing it altogether because that was easier than telling them no. I'm 27 now and I never steal. I don't even use Lime Wire (yes, that's stealing...stop lying to yourself). Read the full story

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Poetic Larceny Artists Reveal #2 - August Schulenburg

What is Poetic Larceny?

And how can I learn more about Flux's upcoming production of Pretty Theft?

AUGUST SCHULENBURG

Playwright, April 6th

Previous Flux stuff: Rue, Riding the Bull, Other Bodies, The Lesser Seductions of History, acted two professors (one of which was a fallen angel), directed A Midsummer Nights Dream, and on and anon.


We asked the amazing artists of our upcoming staged reading series Poetic Larceny to answer some questions about stealing, beauty, and consequences. Read on for their answers!

Question #1: What is the worst thing you've ever stolen?
Fun-inducing illegal things.

Question #2: What is the worst thing that's been stolen from you?

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
-One Art, Elizabeth Bishop

Question #3: What do you find pretty?
Tiramisu at fancy restaurants. Also, a recent pretty e-blast we sent for Pretty Theft.

Question #4: What do you find beautiful?
Every single day. Overwhelmingly so.
Lately and less grandly: Mary Oliver, Regina Spektor, the subway, Pretty Theft, Sans Merci, Jolie Holland, the people who believe in Flux, my brother's marriage, National Geographic, Othello, Scientific American, Lydia, Iron and Wine, Yael Naim, learning Spanish (maybe for real this time), the little thunder storm we just had, my sister's acting, not drinking, game night, empty theatre spaces, my dearest love.

Question #5: If you could steal something beautiful without consequences, what would it be?
A house on Sandy Neck, right there on the water, near the lighthouse, and with all the dunes behind us. Failing that, immortality. Failing both, an original First Folio. Read the full story

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Poetic Larceny Artists Reveal #1 - DeWanda Wise

What is Poetic Larceny?

And how can I learn more about Flux's upcoming production of Pretty Theft?

DEWANDA WISE

Actor, May 11th

Previous Flux stuff: New Flux Sunday artist and Martha in the upcoming Fall production of The Lesser Seductions of History


We asked the amazing artists of our upcoming staged reading series Poetic Larceny to answer some questions about stealing, beauty, and consequences. Read on for their answers!


Question #1: What is the worst thing you've ever stolen?
Time. Although I am disciplined, I have been guilty of a little something I like to call "recreational dating." I mean, would I really settle down with a dude who hates Simon and Garfunkel, thinks all illicit drugs should be legalized, and believes that recycling is a global conspiracy that originated in California after Happy Days was canceled?...Of course not. But would I find it fascinating to share a pot of Jasmine Green tea from Teaspot with said dude? You betcha.


Question #2: What is the worst thing that's been stolen from you?
My love of movie-going. Yes, I can't decide if the culpability belongs to New York for it's inflated price tags or if it belongs to me for choosing to live life an artist, but I used to go to the movies AT LEAST once a week in Middle and High School.

Question #3: What do you find pretty?
Myself. I know. It's vain. It's terrible. It's socially unacceptable for a pretty girl to admit that thinks herself to be pretty. But I like my face, and I think everyone should work hard to think so of themselves too.

Question #4: What do you find beautiful?
Strong spirits and people who know that their greatest strengths live in the full knowledge of their weaknesses. Retribution is beautiful. Shades of gray, complexities, vulnerabilities, living optimistically in dismal realities is beautiful. People who do that which exhausts them knowing that nothing is given. Entitlementlessness. Listlessness. Limitlessness.

Question #5: If you could steal something beautiful without consequences, what would it be?
My lovers' heart. If I could capture his affections permanently, knowing I would have them forever and without consequence, I would. (Don't begrudge my hopelessromanticness.)

Bio: Originally from Baltimore, MD; DeWanda is an actress across genres in theater, film, and television. Favorite Theatrical roles include Electra from the Adrianne Kennedy adaptation (Tisch); Mercy in Charlayne Woodard's Flight (City Theatre, Pittsburgh); and Abigail of In the Continuum (Playmakers, Chapel Hill) Favored Film roles include Claudia in Spinning into Butter, a young Wendy Williams in Queen of Media, & Miriam in Push: Based On the Novel by Sapphire. A proud member of Equity, SAG, & AFTRA, she is a Tisch scholar award recipient, an Atlantic Achievement in Studio Award recipient, and the BFA Representative of her graduating class of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
Read the full story

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CB3 Arts Task Force Resolution Passes Unanimously

Good news from the folks at NYIT - read the resolution for the multi-faceted and persuasive case made by the Community Board Arts Task Force. Read the full story

Cast of The Lesser Seductions of History Announced

I am so excited to announce the amazing cast we've put together for our fall show, The Lesser Seductions of History! We have 8 Members involved, and 3 newish folks - Matthew Archambault (so good in our Imagination Compact last year), Ingrid Nordstrom (our dramaturg for Midsummer and Other Bodies) and DeWanda Wise (a find from Daren Taylor's Exodus in the Fringe).

The company looks like this:

The Lesser Seductions of History

DIRECTOR: Heather Cohn
PLAYWRIGHT: August Schulenburg
STAGE MANAGER: Jodi Witherell
SOUND DESIGN: Asa Wember
SET DESIGN: Will Lowry
LIGHT DESIGN: Lauren Parrish
COSTUME DESIGN: Brenda Abbandandolo
Cast
ONE - Candice Holdorf
MARIE - Tiffany Clementi
ISAAC - Jake Alexander
LIZZIE - Christina Shipp
ANISA - Ingrid Nordstrom
TEGAN - Kelly O'Donnell
LEE - Isaiah Tanenbaum
BARRY - Matthew Archambault
BOBBY - Jason Paradine
MARTHA - DeWanda Wise
GEORGE - Michael Davis

What is the cost of changing history?
Following ten characters through each year of the 1960's, this play was written specifically for the actors of the Ensemble. History becomes as intimate as a lover when the decade's fracture points of race, sex and war break and remake the characters. Fringe NYC award winning director Heather Cohn teams up again with the playwright of Other Bodies, Riding the Bull and Rue.

(A sneak peak at our 1st developmental reading at the Women's Project below, courtesy of Candice Holdorf.)


(Pictured: DeWanda Wise, Matthew Archambault, director Heather Cohn)
Evidently, this play is a comedy...

(Pictured: Jason Paradine, Jake Alexander, August Schulenburg, pinch hitter Amy Fitts)
...a very funny comedy...
(Pictured: Michael Davis, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Kelly O'Donnell)
...except when it's not.

Read the full story

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Poetic Larceny

Need a little more pretty
and a lot more theft?

Then save the dates for
Flux Theatre Ensemble's Reading Series

Poetic Larceny

...because inspiration is the sincerest form of larceny...

A play reading series where playwrights steal three things from the playwright before them, only to have three things stolen from them by the next shifty scribe. A staged reading series inspired by the themes of our Spring production of Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft.

For reservations, please email August Schulenburg at gus@fluxtheatre.org. Reservations encouraged, but not required.

The dates:
Monday, April 6th at 7PM
At Primary Stages Studio A, 307 West 38th Street, Suite 1510
Monday, April 13th at 7PM
Small Pond Studios, 38 2nd Avenue, between 2nd and 3rd Street
And

Mondays, May 4th and 11th at 7PM
At Access Theater's Gallery, 380 Broadway, 4th Floor
$5 suggested donation

The playwrights:
Rob Ackerman, Johnna Adams, Bianca Bagatourian,
Jeremy Basescu, Erin Browne,
Bekah Brunstetter, Katherine Burger, James Comtois, Corey Ann Haydu,
David Ian Lee, Jeff Lewonczyk,
August Schulenburg, Mac Rogers,

Crystal Skillman, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Andrea Thome

The directors:
Michael Davis, Jessi D. Hill,
Kate Marks, Kelly O'Donnell

The actors:
Johnna Adams, Ryan Andes, Havilah Brewster, Tiffany Clementi, Carissa Cordes, Amy Fitts, Aidan Kane, Mariam Habib, Katie Hartke, Ian Heitzman, Kelli Holsopple, Kitty Lindsay, Elise Link, Nick Monroy, Matthew Murumba, Carolyn Ratteray, Isaiah Tanebaum, Gregory Waller, Shannon Michael Wamser, Anthony Willis Jr., Cotton Wright, Travis York, Aaron Michael Zook

Read the full story

Last Chance for $9 Tix to Pretty Theft

(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Cotton Wright, Candice Holdorf, Lynn Kenny)

Last Chance for 50% Off Pretty Theft
Offer expires this Saturday March 28th at midnight, so buy now!
Use the code PICKPOCKET for $9 tickets the 1st week of performances
(opening excluded)


Flux Theatre Ensemble presents

Pretty Theft
By Adam Szymkowicz
Directed by Angela Astle

1/2 price tickets
Use the code PICKPOCKET for
$9 tickets
for the 1st week of performances (opening excluded) - offer expires this Saturday, March 28tht at midnight -
so click here now to save!

Preview: Thurs, April 23rd, 8PM
Opening: Friday, April 24th, 8PM
Pretty Theft runs Thurs-Sat at 8PM
And Sun at 7PM
From April 23rd - May 17th
Patron's Night with Pre-show Reception Sat, May 2nd!

Tickets: $18; 866-811-4111
or click here.

Access Theater's Gallery
380 Broadway, 4th Floor
New York, New York 10013

2 blocks south of Canal St
N,R,Q,W or 6 trains to Canal St
Flux's 2009/10 season begins with Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft, a play about ballerinas, boxes and the dangers of beauty. After losing her father, Allegra falls under the wing of bad girl Suzy, only to find an unexpected friendship with Joe, an autistic savant. When things between them take a violent turn, Allegra and Suzy escape cross country and befriend Marco, a mysterious thief who claims he cannot be caught.

Newest Flux Member Angela Astle stages this unsettling comedy from the critically acclaimed playwright of Nerve, Food for Fish and Incendiary.

Visit our
website for more info on our 2009/10 Season of Give and Take
Read the full story

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The American Theater Company and The American Blues Theater

Saturday, March 28, 2009 0 comments

Here's a sad, fascinating article about the break up of Chicago's venerable ensemble, The American Theater Company (h/t Mission Paradox). Artists who founded the company 25 years ago, and helped build the theatre in every way imaginable, are leaving because they do not see themselves reflected in the new Artistic Director's vision. The real heat of the article is in the comments section, where people familiar to the history of the company defend and attack the actions of both sides.

Reading this article, so many of the conversations we have had, and are having, as a very young Ensemble are reflected in frightening, inspiring, and instructive ways. A company is defined less by a grand vision than a series of difficult daily choices; but if you lose sight of that vision in the fog of daily decisions, that vision will be defined for you. Read the full story

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Check Out The New Clyde Fitch Report!

Leonard Jacob's The Clyde Fitch Report has a brand new, very fancy-shiny-sleek-impressive home here.

Check it out!

Also, we've at last updated our Blog Roll to reflect Patrick Lee's less new, but also fancy-shiny new home here.

Gradually, our humble blog emerges from last year's links... Read the full story

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Pretty Theft Tickets Now On Sale

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 0 comments

"Look at me. It's not wrong. It's not wrong."

(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Cotton Wright, Candice Holdorf, Brian Pracht, Lynn Kenny)

FLUX THEATRE ENSEMBLE presents
Pretty Theft
by Adam Szymkowicz

Directed by Angela Astle

April 23 through May 17th
Thursday through Saturday at 8PM
Sunday at 7PM
Opening: Friday April 24th
Patron's Night: May 2nd

Tickets: $18, call (866)-811-4111 or click here.

Access Theatre Gallery
380 Broadway, 4th Floor
New York, NY. 10013
2 Blocks South of Canal Street
N,R,Q,W or 6 Trains to Canal Street













































































































































(All photos: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Marnie Schulenburg, Maria Portman Kelly, Todd D'Amour, Lynn Kenny, Cotton Wright, Zack Robidas, Candice Holdorf)
Read the full story

Congratulations Susan Louise O'Connor

Monday, March 16, 2009 0 comments

A special congratulations to Susan Louise O'Connor for her great reviews in the New York Times and Backstage for her Broadway debut in Blithe Spirit. It's wonderful to see such a talented, warm-hearted Indie theatre (Nerve, The Silent Concerto, Never Swim Alone) actor achieve recognition on the GWW.

Choice pull quotes:

"Susan Louise O’Connor is a delightfully polished screwball in the small but crucial role of an inept maid."

"...while Susan Louise O'Connor steals each of her scenes as the jittery maid. In this company, that's saying something".


Read the full story

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See Christina Shipp in Belles



Hey there! Did you love Flux's own Christina Shipp as Rosaura, Bottom, Zara and Time (etc.)? Then check her out in Heiress Productions' Belles at The Lion Theatre from March 19th through April 12th.

If you do, you might just make her smile - and look at what a sweet smile she has (awww) ((That's the Little Pond Retreat glow, in case you're wondering)). Read the full story

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Rob Ackerman on Volleygirls

Saturday, March 14, 2009 0 comments




Are you missing Rob Ackerman while he's away in SF at A.C.T? Then check out this great entry in the A.C.T blog about his writing process for Volleygirls.

Bump, set, spike! Read the full story

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More Pictures from our Third Food:Soul

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 0 comments

(Pictured: Michael Davis, Scott Ebersold, Brian Murray, Christina Shipp, Jake Alexander, Erin Browne, Isaiah Tanebaum, Cotton Wright)
Our amazing cast, director and playwright, minus the lovely Polly Lee and AD Kyle Fox.
(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum)
Did we mention there was food?
(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum)
The program, the audience, the magic (can you spot two Davids?)
(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Michael Davis)
Our star Narrator Two, wearing a bracelet by Ryan Andes (shouldn't you be?)
(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Angela Astle, Kelly O'Donnell)
What do directors wish for? Perhaps great production of their upcoming projects, Pretty Theft and J.B.?
(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Jake Alexander and Ingrid Nordstrom)
Stars Jake and Ingrid of our fall production The Lesser Seductions of History are happy to see each other...
(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Candice Holdorf and Brian Pracht)
...and stars Candice and Brian of our upcoming Pretty Theft are happy to be seen.
(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum)
Anyone for dessert? Read the full story

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Food:Soul - Erin Browne's Narrator 1

Monday, March 9, 2009 1 comments

Link(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Polly Lee, Jake Alexander, Michael Davis, Christina Shipp)

WHAT A NIGHT!
And long overdue. After our first two Food:Souls - Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft and Jason Grote's This Storm Is What We Call Progress - somehow a year snuck by and we were, well, ravenous.
Luckily, our third Food:Soul featured Erin Browne's Narrator 1, a play we've been hungry to spend some time with since we staged a scene from it at our 1st Have Another.
Here was our artistic team:
Narrator One
By Erin Browne
Directed by Scott Ebersold
Assistant Directed by Kyle Fox
Food:Soul Coordinator: Tiffany Clementi

Zara: Christina Shipp

Dan: Jake Alexander

Narrator 1: Polly Lee

Narrator 2: Michael Davis

Haiku: Isaiah Tanenbaum

Ari: Cotton Wright

Noah: Brian Murray


It was great to see Membership so well represented, and especially exciting to have Packawallop Productions superstars Polly Lee and Scott Ebersold in the action! But the best part of the evening was hearing Erin's beautiful play...

(Photo: Isaiah Tanebaum. Pictured: Polly Lee, Michael Davis)
Narrator One is about the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives. It is a romantic comedy, and therefore especially concerned with the stories we tell ourselves about love. And like any true romantic comedy worth it's salts, the question of whether the story of looking for love is better than actually finding it hangs over the play like an axe. If they fall one step too far in love with their own stories, our lovers will miss each other.

This danger is especially keen when our lovers are writers. In a brilliant theatrical move, Erin conjures two Narrators who tell the story of our lovers, Dan and Zara, even as Zara and Dan write their novels and poems of love. These three worlds - the 'real-life' Dan and Zara, the fictional Narrators, and the fictional fictional Haiku, Noah and Ari - weave in and out of the action around the question lingering in Narrator 1's description of Zara's love for Dan:

"Zara went home and stared at the wall, thinking about money, her dwindling money. Then about poverty. Then about hunger, and about how many times in her childhood she’d been truly hungry. Which was a lot. Maybe this had accustomed her to want. To want want. To need it. To need emptiness of the things she couldn’t have. Now that she could eat foods, all sorts of foods, anytime she wanted. Now that she had shelter that was as permanent and consistent as shelter could be, she needed something else unattainable. She needed a Dan.
She needed Dan."

(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Christina Shipp, Jake Alexander)
To want want...to need emptiness. The question is simply will Dan and Zara allow themselves to be happy, or at least find that kind of happiness that comes from not being a coward towards love.
Of course, it's easier to muck up loving someone else if you suck at loving yourself (though we manage it all the time, thankfully). And a second theme emerges of the self-loathing that only the overly thoughtful perfect - the minds of our two lover/writers turn in on themselves and devour any trace of earned confidence or ease. They don't have what they want, or if they do, they don't deserve it.
And so, both our writer/lovers write about simpler things. Dan turns to (spoiler alert) haikus, embodied by enigmatic Haiku who urges Dan to act through his seventeen syllables:

So few answers now
We step into worlds unknown

My faith in you whole.


Zara (I nearly wrote Christina, so closely paired are the two in my mind) writes about two teen lovers, Ari and Noah, who in contrast to her own ceaseless doubts, live so simply he speaks to animals and she walks on water. Of course, being a romantic comedy (about a writer writing a romantic comedy), something stands in their way of being together; and even if Zara wanted to, she is unable to write them an entirely happy ending. Their story is about the opening of love, where suddenly you realize everything is possible, colliding with the opening of maturity, where you eventually realize you can't have everything you want.
(Photo by: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Cotton Wright, Christina Shipp)
But to quote the famous philosophers, if you try some times you just might find you get what you need. Do our lovers, and their fictional (and fictional fictional) counterparts, get what they need? Well, to quote our eminently quotable Narrators:

Things become more and less complicated.
(Photo: by Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Jake Alexander, Christina Shipp)

There were many exciting surprises in the evening - how funny the play is! how funny Polly Lee is! how fast a play about thinking can move! And Jake brought a soulfulness to the troubled Dan, Michael's wry Narrator 2 was a perfect foil to Polly's inspired Narrator 1 (her Maggie's crying brought the house down), new friend Brian Murray found the sweetness of Noah, with Cotton finding the bittersweetness of their journey; Isaiah made of his seventeen syllables a character of intention and hope; and Christina slipped on Zara like a perfectly tailored elegant suit, and the part (and play) sang.

A great thanks to Scott (and Kyle!) for his excellent direction - he was able to capture the three interlocking worlds with grace and simplicity. A huge thanks to Tiffany Clementi for making everything run smooth. And above all, a thanks to everyone who came (and brought delicious food) to our third Food:Soul.

I left full. Read the full story

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Check out Catherine Porter as Hillary Clinton


Did you love to fear that fierce widow of the Dust Bowl Myrtle, memorably played by Catherine Porter in Angel Eaters? Well, for two shows this week she's playing another formidable woman - Hillary Rodham Clinton. Check it out at Dixon Place!

And if you don't, well...
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Read the full story

The Lark Has A Blog

Saturday, March 7, 2009 0 comments

One of our favorite play development centers now has their very own blog - here's to many more posts! Read the full story

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More Battle of the Bards Pictures

Friday, March 6, 2009 0 comments

These are courtesy of Molly Pearson at Partial Comfort Productions - thanks, Molly!

(Michael Davis as the God of Television tries to seduce the crowd away from the wiles of Cotton Wright, the God of the Internet)

(Packed crowd at the Canal Room)
(The winners of the critic's choice and our goodly hosts, Partial Comfort Productions - with the tuba!)
Read the full story

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Two for Tuesday

Sunday, March 1, 2009 0 comments

Looking for something to do this Tuesday night?

Well, you could see a reading of Johnna Adams' Sans Merci directed by Jessi Hill at the New Group featuring Judith Ivey. After all, this is the play that lovingly destroyed me only a month or two ago in a reading at APAC. It is an extraordinary play, and you should see it.
Here's the info!

Date:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Time:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location:
Theatre Row - The New Group, 4th Floor Studio Theatre
Street:
410 West 42nd Street (between 9th & 10th Ave) 4th Floor


Featuring Judith Ivey, Catia Ojeda, and Catherine Yeager

FREE, but seating is limited so reservations are a must. You can RSVP here or send and email to james@thenewgroup.org

Synopsis of Sans Merci
An idealistic young woman - a crippled survivor of an attempted murder by South American revolutionaries- is visited 3 years later by the mother of the other attack victim. Slowly, the two dance through their grief, while negotiating the truth of what brought the two young women together, why they undertook their dangerous humanitarian mission, and what happened on that final day.

OR...........................................

...you could see Sheila Callaghan's Fever:Dream, her new adaptation of Calderon's La Vida Es Sueno. For those of you who saw The Dream Chain, our seven playwright riff on La Vida, you may remember Sheila's uniquely wild contribition of the penultimate scene.

Here's the info:
FEVER/DREAM
by Sheila Callaghan
directed by Howard Shalwitz

Say your father was the President of a multinational corporation and you were chained to the customer service desk as soon as you could dial a phone... if someone made you CEO for a day, would you go crazy?

And if all around you the inner workings of the company were in turmoil--people in disguise, marriages plotted, overthrows planned--and you were told that everything happening to you is only a dream, what would you do?

A modern corporate dynasty phantasmagoria freely adapted from Pedro Calderón's LIFE IS A DREAM.

with:
Rosal Colon
Daniel Eichner
Kimberly Gilbert
Mark La Mura
Jenny Morris
Anna O’Donoghue
Brooke Parks
Joseph Raik
KenYatta Rogers
Mike Willis
Jesse Wilson

Tuesday, March 3rd
7pm

New Dramatists
424 West 44th Street
btw 9th and 10th Aves

Call 212-757-6960 to reserve. Read the full story