Flux Theatre Ensemble

By August Schulenburg
(What is Flux Sunday?)

We're back! After an Ajax in Iraq sized hiatus, we returned to the friendly confines of Judson Memorial Church for some Flux Sunday action. It was a full day - we went over our 7PM limit - and everyone was really bringing it.

Playwrights: Fengar Gael (The Cat Vandal), EM Lewis (Now Comes the Night), August Schulenburg (Perse, The App of Paradise), Isaiah Tanenbaum (Viva Fidel)

Directors: Heather Cohn, Kitty Lindsay, Brian Pracht

Actors: David Crommett, Jane Taylor, Ken Glickfeld, Heather Nicholson, Kari Swenson Riely, Anna Lamadrid, Matthew Archambault, Ingrid Nordstrom, Vern Thiessen, Ryan Andes, Becky Byers, Leila Okafor, Carissa Cordes, Drew Valins

Highlights:
-Brian Pracht and Matthew Archambault found some really funny phone business in Viva Fidel, the play that routinely requires three times as many props as any other scene.
-Ken accidentally kicked my character's wounded leg in Now Comes the Night, and wow, that really helped my intensity the rest of the beautifully ravaged scene! Ellen said she might even keep it...
-No one gathered at this Flux Sunday will ever forget Ryan on the yoga mat as the cat-possessed Omar in Mary's The Cat Vandal. A supple kudos to Andes and director Heather.
-It was really cool to see two Perses and two Melindas in the long chunk of Perse we did - Anna/Becky and Heather/Ingrid each found completely different energies in the roles. I'm also unclear as to how they directed such a long scene so cleanly in so little time. Magic?
-Drew Valins was back! And he brought a real tenderness to Paco in The App of Paradise that grounded such an idea heavy short scene.

If you were there, what do you remember from the day? Read the full story

While we prepare for our next Food:Soul, Fluxers and friends are out and about in full force this February.

Candice Holdorf is playing principle role Terri Succi in the upcoming film, An Affirmative Act.

Michael Davis has founded his own company (thankfully, he's still in ours!) called Eurisko Performance Group. Learn more here, and then fan them there.

Ken Glickfeld is appearing in Demon Bitch Goddess (that's right!) at Workshop Theater Company.

Crystal Skillman has a reading of her play The Sleeping World (developed at Flux Sundays!) at the Woodshed Collective on Monday, February 22nd.

Mary Fengar Gael has a reading of her play Beggar At The Feast (also Fluxed!) at Reverie Productions on Sunday, February 28th.

Andrew Valins is reprising his performance as Rotpeter in his adaptation of Kafka's A Report to an Academy on February 10th and 11th.

And two of our Flux founding plays are being read - Rue (2006), pictured above, will be read at Direct Arts as part of their Take Two series on Tuesday, February 9th. Hopefully, we'll see you there for a nostalgic trip back to the island.

And for our Philly friends, Riding the Bull (2005 & 2007) will be read at the Walnut Street Theater Rehearsal Hall 4 tomorrow at 7:30PM. For those who can't be there, I give you the brilliant poster they've cooked up:

See you out and about in February! Fluxers and friends, what must see events did I miss? Read the full story

MONDAY, BUSY MONDAY:
This coming Monday, for those of you who aren't going to the opening of this, and aren't participating in the next workshop of this, you should check out Zack Robidas' company At Play Production's next installment of their 24 hour play festival. Zack was Jeremy in 8 Little Antichrists and Bobby in Pretty Theft, so if you saw those, you know anything he's working on is worth seeing.

Also, our friends in Bird House just got a crazy good review - check it here. And any plugging post would be remiss without a reminder of Nosedive's Infectious Opportunity extension.

Those looking for summer Shakespeare may went to check out Flux Sunday regular Drew Valins in Drilling Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Carissa Cordes in Hudson Warehouse's Hamlet.

And have you bought your tickets for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards party yet? It's a great opportunity to support an organization that does so much for Indie theatre - hope to see you there!

Anything I missed that's worth seeing? Post in the comments, please!
Read the full story

What is Flux Sunday?

We're back!

And very happy to be back. Though we were a smaller, Memorial Day weekend crowd, the thrill of being back to work was strong. We read through three scenes: the end of Mary Fengar Gail's The Usher's Ball, the beginning of Jeremy Basescu's Onion Amnesia, and a rewritten How To Go from me.

Finishing Mary's play was bittersweet. Set in World War I, Anabelle and Wilfred are bound together during a lightning strike that gives them both enhanced perception. To say of what exactly would spoil the play, but suffice to say, the end took full advantage of this power. The Usher's Ball is a play about pacifism in a warlike culture, about love of music and theatre, and as with Mary's play Devil Dog Six (which I just finished), about a singular woman with an uncanny power, desperate for connection and uncertain of place. The play has a melancholy end, though there is a moment of grace in its ritualistic epilogue. Brian Pracht and Ingrid Nordstrom gave moving reads as Wilfred and Annabelle in their final scene.

We then turned to my How to Go, a play last worked on at Flux Sunday in November of 2007 - a week before this blog began! Yup, sometimes producing plays means you have less time to write them. But, I knew I'd have some key players to do it right, and so I did some rewrites and wrote a new scene, and the play seems to be demanding a move up the queue (the queue currently stands at: finishing 2nd draft of Lesser Seductions, plotting Dark Matter, first draft of Stepping, and 2nd draft of Honey Fist and then a mob of plays elbowing for position- Far Distant Classes, Angel Juice, Denny and Lila).
ANYWAY, the reading featured some stand out work from Gregory Waller as Sand, Ingrid Nordstrom as both sisters (Lucy and Sammy), Isaiah Tannenbaum reprising his role as the terrified and precocious Alexander, and of course, Ken Glickfeld returning as the Gonzo patriarch of the clan, Parker.
The reading sparked an interesting conversation about outlandish or brilliant ways to end ones life that made us all eager for something lighter after the break.

And Jeremy Basescu's Onion Amnesia: The Terifying Tale Of A Woman Who Forgot What A Vegetable Is delivered. The plot is ably summarized in the title, so all I will add is that Nora Hummel was hilarious as Laura, the eponymous de-vegetabled heroine, constantly struggling to keep up with a world gone several degrees askew. Also strong was Drew Valins double turn as hapless husband Hal, and as Cindy, Laura's ferociously nice boss.

Yes, it was good to be back. And I'm going to try to be better about posting our progress at Flux Sundays, which fell off early this year. Hold me to it! Read the full story

ALL CYLINDERS CLICKING

Every once in a while, Flux Sundays will have a lightening strike day. All the scripts are tight, the actors connect with the roles, and each scene passes some essential undroppable thing to the next. It doesn't happen often, but boy did it happen on January 11th, and with all of us seated, no less.

VOLLEYING
Rob Ackerman brought in more of his kinetic comedy, Volleygirls. It's always good to start the Sundays with this play, because the energy and shared laughter brings the whole group together and gets us breathing in rhythm. Matt Acrhambault continued his duel with Jason Pardine for the laurels of the role Coach, and Drew Valins returned after a long break with his passionate Russian referee.

STEPPING
We next read the first few scenes of a new play of mine, Stepping; a welcome diversion from me finishing the 60's play! Following a brother and sister with unusual powers stepping through alternate Harlems, I enjoyed especially Ken Glickfeld's Druncle and Gretchen Poulos' scrappy Saffire, the bewildered best friend trying to keep up with her new blood sister Bahiya. With 60's done, I hope to bring more of this play to our Sundays, as it is eager to be written.

LICKSPITTING
Johnna Adam's epic hexameter farce about a professional lickspittle, buttonholer and go between exiled to the Napoleonic court picked up some heat as their French female counterparts, a not so Simple French Boy, and Napoleon himself battle for supremacy of state and end rhyme. Highlights included our once Oberon Michael Davis crossing gender to play a very different Eglantine, Becky Kelly as the subversive haiku spouting French boy, and Brian Pracht's continued perfection as Peder Pars the Lickspittle.

WILLING
The zanies of Jeremy Basescu's The Will continued their power struggle for inheritance of an eccentric tycoon's fortune as Jane Taylor's Eleanor nearly seduced David Ian Lee's Richard into breaking his lawerly judgement. As always, Aaron Michael Zook's Victor was a hapless triumph. I won't soon forget watching him, even before his character entered, watching the action as Victor, with the hopeful simpleness that makes this character so much fun.

BOATING
We had more Rob Ackerman as he brought in an older plays of his, Loon Island Picnic. A family has returned to their unchanging summer haunt only to find they've changed more than they'd like to admit. Nancy Franklin's defiance against time as Phylis played beautifully off Richard Watson's cantankerous honesty; and Katie Hartke's Marcy was perhaps pleasantly suprised by some unusual admissions from her tongue tied cousin Ben.

SLAPPING
The gentle regret of Loon Island Picnic became a violent defense of older values in David Ian Lee's Long Sought, More Perfect. David Crommett's Rodney tried to reason some values of the 60's into Christina Shipp's mockingly post-PC Heather; as a battle for social right masked a deeper battle for inheritance. An almost unwitting act of violence sears the end of this scene, and send another battle for a will into high gear.

Six very different plays caught fire in one of our hotter Sundays in some time. Read the full story

What is the Imagination Compact?
And how can I support it while partying with Flux?

Drew Valins

Actor, The Mechanicals, May 19th

Flux History: Segismundo and others in The Dream Chain, Have Another #2, many Flux Sunday roles

1. What Shakespeare role would you like to play next?
Hotspur
2. What Shakespeare role would you like to play that no one will ever cast you in?
I'd like to play Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Does that count?
3. Describe the best Shakespeare production you've seen.
Macbeth at Juilliard, 2005...sh, wasn't so much the whole production as much as the performance of one Oscar Isaac- pure and grounded, yet light as a feather- playing Macbeth..
4. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word "flux"?
Fux.
5. Fairies: colorful playmates or dangerous tricksters?
Bizarre creatures that appear when on mushrooms. Could be good or bad, depending on the set and setting. They can only be communicated with via Andrew Weil.
6. If the Flux Capacitor made time travel possible when the DeLorean reached 88mph, what do you think would happen if Flux Theatre Ensemble got theatre up to 88mph?
Michael J. Fox would appear on a skateboard with Huey Lewis and the News dangling from his asshole. They'd beat up the bad guys and kiss the curlie q girls and then have chocolate malts in the malt shop..
7. Complete this sentence: "It's too late to go back now, I'll just have to do without my______"
Certainties
8. If a capricious fairy turned you into an animal against your will, what animal would you be and why?
A freshwater salmon, so I could revel in beautiful rolling rivers and babbling streams all the live long day.
9. How many licks does it take...?
To take down that bully Kevin Turtle that picked on me in 7th grade. Probably only one; the guy was like 2.4 feet tall. What ever was my problem?
10. Would you rather have a beer with Richard Burbage or William Kemp?
William , who would provide the hemp.
11. If we could compact your imagination, what color would it be and why?
Black:it just feels very powerful to me. Read the full story