Showing posts with label Carissa Cordes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carissa Cordes. Show all posts
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I AM THEATRE: Carissa Cordes

Thursday, September 8, 2011 3 comments


Flux is thrilled to be participating in the I AM THEATRE initiative launched by Theatre Communications Group (the place where Tiffany and I spend our days). This is an amazing project that I'm thrilled to be working on, and so was eager to get Flux involved.

Kelly O'Donnell shot some videos after a recent Flux Sunday, and has been editing them over the past several weeks. I'm especially excited that the first video is Carissa Cordes - if anyone is theatre, it is this remarkable actor/designer/technician/hero that has touched more Indie Theatre shows than you can shake a 2x4 at.

Carissa is one of the most impactful Friends of Flux we have, most recently appearing in our Have Another of Projects and our ForePlay New World Iliads, as well as joining us for our Retreat. She is pure theatre, and a great way for us to kick-off our participation in this project. If you want to join in the action, let Kelly and I know, or shoot the video yourself - you can learn how here.
(Carissa Cordes in Viva Fidel at the Flux Retreat)
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Flux Sunday, August 14th

Sunday, August 21, 2011 0 comments

(What is Flux Sunday?)

Our first Flux Sunday back from the retreat had a smaller turn out, but that allowed us to do an exciting thing. We staged and shared four plays: two in the first hour and a half, and two in the second. This led to a bunch of rushed choices, but all together the experience was, well, a rush. It's not everyday, after all, that one is able to play a rolling Oedipus, a cop fighting organ theft, and a political activist clown in three hours.

Playwrights: Larry Kunofsky (Tragedy on Ecstasy), Kristen Palmer (Bridgeport), August Schulenburg (Jane the Plain), Adam Szymkowicz (Market)

Directors: Heather Cohn, Marielle Duke, Leigh Hile

Actors: Carissa Cordes, Kitty Lindsay, Anna Lamadrid, Alisha Spielmann, Melissa Herion, Kathryn Lawson, Isaiah Tanenbaum

Highlights included:

-Anna tearing it up as Donna in Kristen's Bridgeport, not to mention the thrill of Larry's spellcasting. I'm very excited to see how these fanciful and gritty threads weave together.
-The whole Tragedy on Ecstasy cast, which embodied the Flux Sunday spirit of "let's just go for it."
-Melissa's chilling Clarissa, and Carissa as her hapless (puppet) victim in Adam's Market. I also loved Heather's use of the space (and Ann's scene changing shakers!)
-Kristen Palmer as Scotty the Hotty. 'Nuff said.

If you were there, what did you walk away with?

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Have Another #7 Pictures

Wednesday, August 17, 2011 2 comments

(Don't you want to Have Another with these peeps? Photo: Alisha Spielmann)
Our seventh Have Another was a particularly joyous affair, feeling as it did like an echo of the happiness of the Retreat. With our usual photographer Isaiah Tanenbaum unfortunately absent, we turned to the mighty lens of Alisha Spielmann, who also somehow found time to turn in a moving performance as Telly in Erin Browne's Projects.

If you were there, what are your favorite memories of the event?

(Photo: Alisha Spielmann. Pictured: David Crommett, Matthew Archambault, Marnie Schulenburg, Kari Swenson Riely)
Oh, Wendell of Brian Pracht's play, Wendell Wants. You want so much...money, Sadie, your parents to stop humiliating you at the dinner table...

(Photo: Alisha Spielmann. Pictured: Matthew Archambault, Marnie Schulenburg)
Happiness isn't always a warm gun. Sometimes, it's a narrow bed and a newfound love.
(Photo: Matthew Archambault, edited by Alisha Spielmann Pictured: Becky Byers, Tiffany Clementi, Alisha Spielmann, Kelly O'Donnell, Matthew Murumba, August Schulenburg, Will Lowry, Carissa Cordes)
I can only hope watching the dinner table scene from Projects by Erin Browne was as much fun as being in the scene. I could sit at the table with those people all night long.

(Photo: Alisha Spielmann. Pictured: Cotton Wright)
Should Cotton, playing Rene, tell the story of Justin and her honey hand?
(Photo: Alisha Spielmann. Pictured: Cotton Wright)
Yes, yes she should.
(Photo: Alisha Spielmann. Pictured: Lightbulb, Rainbow-Neck Deer)
What's that you say? Hankering for the picture of a rainbow-neck deer? Hanker no longer.

(Photo: Alisha Spielmann. Pictured: Marnie Schulenburg, August Schulenburg)
Sister, brother.

(Photo: Alisha Spielmann. Pictured: Larry Kunofsky, August Schulenburg, Alisha Spielnmann, Matthew Murumba, Christina Shipp, Will Lowry)
We smiled for the camera...and closed the party down.

For pics from past Have Anothers, click here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. And if you were there, share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Flux Sunday, December 13th

Monday, December 14, 2009 3 comments

(What is Flux Sunday?)

Playwrights: Throwing Gumballs (Rob Ackerman), Red Horses (Johnna Adams), Going Out Dancing (Katherine Burger), McTeague (James Comtois), Moving Statues (Corey Ann Haydu), Untitled Russian Project (David Ian Lee), Dark Matter (August Schulenburg), The Sleeping World (Crystal Skillman)

Directors: Angela Astle, Rob Ackerman, Katherine Burger, Crystal Skillman

Actors: Ryn Andes, Matthew Archambault, Carissa Cordes, David Crommett, Nancy Franklin, Candice Holdorf, Ingrid Nordstrom, Gretchen Poulos, Jane Taylor, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Richard Watson, Cotton Wright

Sometimes, I plan things out just right...and then there was this Sunday. We went way over time, though for good reason - we had a ton of great material, and actors and directors who wanted to dig deeper.

Highlights included:

-Isaiah Tanenbaum playing Luke Wilson, a Bengali physicist, an elderly shut-in, a miser, and a friendly barkeep all in one day
-Carissa Cordes as a fierce Bright Wing in Johnna's prequel (!) to Angel Eaters
-Ryan Andes' lovably simple McTeague facing down Richard Watson's drunkenly embittered Marcus (the fight scene hilariously directed by Rob Ackerman)
-Katherine's direction of David Ian Lee and Jane Taylor in her Going Out Dancing - I'd previously seen this play at a much faster clip, which put the epiphany in the hands of the audience: here, the more deliberate pace gave Jane's Anna the full opportunity to realize what was happening, and to a degree, accept it
-Working with Cotton on Crystal's The Sleeping World, where complex emotionally rich moments must move quickly - a surprisingly challenging script for a seemingly naturalistic play
-Matt Archambault and Candice Holdorf got to let their hair down a little in Corey's Moving Statues, and the result were two relaxed, highly present, and engaging performances

Artists who attended, what were your highs and lows? Read the full story

 

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Out and About, III

Saturday, July 11, 2009 0 comments

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!
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Poetic Larceny Artists Reveal #16 - Carissa Cordes

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 1 comments

What is Poetic Larceny?

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

CARISSA CORDES

Actor, April 13th

Previous Flux stuff: A new Flux Sunday participant!

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?
I tried stealing second base once...I got caught. Oh, and on my sixth grade basketball team there was this girl who would always hold the ball directly behind her head, so whenever we scrimmaged I always stole the ball from her. Also i try to steal some zzz's whenever I can.

Question 2: What is the worst thing that's been stolen from you?
My sense of safety and self in my neighborhood was stolen on a night four years ago when a neighbor forcefully stole my backpack from me half a block away from my apt. The idealism came back quickly, but shadowed with realism...and I still panic and go into survival mode when someone walks directly behind me for longer than necessary.

Question 3&4: What do you find pretty? What do you find beautiful?
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" For me a person may or may not have a pretty face, but it is in knowing them as a person -then I will find them beautiful.

Question 5: If you could steal something beautiful without consequences, what would it be?
A moment of pure joy to keep in my back pocket.

Bio:
Carissa has been a long time fan and supporter of Flux and is incredibly flattered and pleased to be asked to participate in Poetic Larceny. Carissa is currently in the process of creating new theatre and is usually involved with some project or another. She has recently been seen with Red Handle in Yellow Electras and with Mir Productions in the world premiere of The Mary Trilogy as La Madia, the killer mother, and was in Mir's original dance theatre piece How to Be a Doll. She also was a part of Octavia Cups' Whistle Me Higher. A past role of great joy was Rosalind in Hudson Warehouse's As You Like It.

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Flux Sunday, September 21st

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 0 comments

FRAMES
This last Flux Sunday was the most powerful work we've done since our return from our Annual Retreat. We continued through Ten Black Boxes, Volleygirls, and We Are Burning; and also saw the 1st scene of Jeremy Basescu's brand new play, The Will. The writing and the performances were all at an exciting level, as if Flux Sundays just needed a few weeks back under her belt before she gathered full steam.

VOLLEYGIRLS
Rob Ackerman's fast, funny and heartfelt exploration of a girl's high school volleyball team continued apace; with a string of 5 losses setting our heroines against each other as they try find a way to win. Highlights of this table read included some cross gender casting of Richard Watson as crash and David Crommett as an impassioned Marisol.

THE BLUE FLAME
Aaron Zook's play We Are Burning reached that fire heat that makes a blue flame this Sunday. An unsettling monologue from Prometheus (again excellent work from Crommett) about the glory of our human illusions is followed by the near end of Will and Lucy's troubled relationship, which broke into a gorgeous threnody between Will and the Chorus for an lost love named Beth; Aaron's evocation of Beth's cold lips, simply rendered by Brian Pracht, Isaiah Tanenbaum and Matthew Archambault held our audience in warm hands, until Prometheus pulls the bottom out by announcing our lover's final fate.

THE WILL
Jeremy's new play The Will crackled with two ex-lovers negotiating over an exceedingly unusual will. Richard and Kate Neuman nailed the dance of desire and disgust between these two formidable adversaries, and Jeremy compressed years of relationship into one tight scene. He also admitted to completing his zany president play over the summer, so Fluxers will have to beg him for those now completed pages!

WHATEVER IT IS NOW
Tegan, our political junkie, is looking at the frames of Kennedy's assassination as our ten characters moved through another year of the 60's in my Ten Black Boxes. Highlights included Cotton Wright's wrangling three roles (Martha, Lizzie, and Anisa), Rob's staging of the Beatles invasion, and Carissa Cordes as Marie and Michael Davis as George battling it out for Isaac. Looking through the frames to write this scene was profoundly unsettling...313...

It was a bit of an unsettling day, with the joy of Volleygirls and the lust of The Will battling against the darker premonitions of We Are Burning and the center coming undone in Ten Black Boxes. Only one more Sunday before the Trilogy sweeps all away... Read the full story