Flux Theatre Ensemble

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Should Cotton, playing Rene, tell the story of Justin and her honey hand?
Yes, yes she should.
What's that you say? Hankering for the picture of a rainbow-neck deer? Hanker no longer.

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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We'll be returning to the friendly confines of Jimmy's #43, located downstairs at 43 East 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd Ave. There is no cover, just some of our favorite scenes from the Flux Retreat shared over drinks with friends. Read the full story

New World Iliads will take place on three nights with each night treating a contemporary war from a mythic perspective. In the same way that Ajax in Iraq re-imagines a war from thousands of years ago, New World Iliads will imagine what our contemporary wars may look like from the same distance: the gods, the heroes and villains; what details will be erased by time and what will remain? How will the art inspired by today's conflicts inform the myths of tomorrow?

Join us on May 16 for ForePlay #1

New World Iliads: Iraq

Liz Duffy Adams

Johnna Adams

Erin Browne

August Schulenburg

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We'll be reading a scene from the play, but to know which one, you'll just have to come. See you there tomorrow night!
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Our friends at Judson Memorial Church, hosts of our last Food:Soul Hearts Like Fists, have another Bailout Theater planned, and some Fluxers are contributing plays. Judson is partnering with Living Wage NYC to stage short plays inspired by their work.

Myself and Erin Browne (playwright of our upcoming production of Menders) are among those contributing scripts, and I reckon there may be a few more Flux folk involved before all is said and done. Given my recent post about widening theatre's frame, this seemed a great way to wrestle with some hard issues in a playful way.

See you on the 6th? Read the full story

Flux is thrilled to announce our fourth season!

Our fourth season explores the cost of a society remaining always vigilant. In our see something, say something world, what happens to empathy when we're always on guard?
What is our responsibility to those keeping watch?
And what happens when our defenses are breached?

Information on the plays:

Dog Act: A theatrical, post-apocalyptic dark comedy, Dog Act follows Zetta Stone, a traveling performer, and her companion Dog (a young man undergoing a voluntary species demotion) as they walk through the wilderness of the former U.S.A with their little troupe. They are heading toward a gig in China, if they can find it…and if a secret in Dog's past doesn't undo them.

"[A] delightful dark comedy…. It’s a bright dystopian blend of pop and high culture… peppered with astonishing and exhilarating eruptions of storytelling and wondrous plays within the play…. Adams’ vaudeville routines are each a stroke of genius…. The monologues by each of the performers are near classics of their kind. Best of all is ‘The Mortality Play...’ a blissfully eclectic history of humanity… Dog, as they say, has legs.” –Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

Ajax in Iraq: Past and present collide in Ellen McLaughlin's mash-up of Sophocles' tragedy Ajax and the Iraq War. The play follows the intertwining paths of the Greek hero Ajax and A.J., a female soldier in Iraq, both undone by the betrayal of a commanding officer. The atrocities they commit as a result of those betrayals force us to look at our culpability in the actions of those keeping us safe.

Developed over 16 months in 2009 with the graduate acting students at A.R.T., Ajax in Iraq weaves together Sophocles' play with material based on interviews with veterans. Says McLaughlin, "[Ajax's] pain, however much we wish to turn from it, compels our attention and our empathy. Looking at this play in the light of our times, his agony suddenly seems terribly modern. His voice can be heard in the voices of veterans speaking now about their experiences in Iraq. I came to feel that this disturbing and impossible play might be the means of grappling with this disturbing and impossible war."

Menders: Corey and Aimes are new recruits mending the wall that guards their city from an unnamed threat. But as their teacher Drew tells them stories of the world outside, they begin to wonder at the real purpose of the wall. His subversive tales also unlock personal desires, until an unexpected act of passion tears the menders apart. Inspired by Robert Frost's poem, Mending Wall, Menders is a hauntingly lyrical look at what we're walling out.

Menders continues our development of Erin Browne's work. After developing plays like Trying and Return at Flux Sundays, and giving her Narrator One a Food:Soul, we knew it was time to share her work at the level of full production. We'll be developing this play with Erin over the next year, so stay tuned for updates from that process.

We are thrilled to be bringing you these three plays, that for all their differences, speak to a common question. We'll be talking a lot more about these plays over the next months, and the fascinating ways they work individually and together. We very much hope you will join us for our Season 4: Don't Look Away. Read the full story

To begin, I apologize for the title of this blog post. I've been staring at a computer for so long when I go to the bathroom I click on the doorknob.

To continue, it's time for some shout-outs for deserving plays getting published!

James Comtois' play, Infectious Opportunity, is being published by the good folks at Original Works. You might remember this play from our series, Exploding Moments; and we're thrilled for James and his deserving play.

Speaking of published plays, have you picked up your copies of the Angel Eaters Trilogy yet?

And I am not even going to ask if you've purchased your copies of Out of Time & Place, which features plays from past Flux collaborators like Crystal Skillman, Bekah Brunstetter, Andrea Thome, and Christine Evans; of course you have.

I know what you're thinking: that's all well and good, but what about the New York Theater Review and it's impending publication of The Lesser Seductions Of History and Erin Browne's Flux-developed play Trying? One word, one number: October 15th. That's when you can see the cast from Lesser Seductions read from the play as part of the book launch at New Georges' The Room. See you there? Read the full story

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What is Jacob's House?
What is ForePlay: Divine Reckonings?
Erin Browne
Playwright, ForePlay
Previous Flux Experience:
Erin's play Narrator 1 was a Food:Soul, a scene from the play was read in Have Another, and she has participated in several ForePlays (The Imagination Compact, Poetic Larceny). Plays Narrator 1, Trying, Projects, Return, and others have been developed with the help of Flux Sundays and the Flux Retreat.

Do you have a favorite Bible character?
Mmmmm, there are so many! That's the exciting part, there is a seemingly endless number of interesting people who are mentioned briefly but have these whole immense stories.

Are you blessed?
Sooooo blessed.

If you were wrestling an angel, what moves would you use?
Would playing dead work on an angel? I think that would be my only chance - to fake an injury or some kind of trickery. Have a feeling angels can probably see through that though.

What would you do for more life?
Cut down on fried foods. That's what I'm doing now and trust me that's a huge sacrifice for me.

What's the weirdest thing in your parents' attic?
My parents don't really have attics. My dad has a collection of broken cameras from the 40s - 70s in his basement. My mom who lives in the desert had a wooden sled and toboggan rotting in her garage until recently. Mementos of past lives.

What is your prior experience with the Old Testament?
As the intro to the Jesus book.

If you believe in a deity or deities, what kind do you believe in?
I don't. I wish I did. I am jealous of people who live with faith, and it's a positive influence in their life.

Anything else coming up for you the Flux readers should know about?
My play Trying is coming up April 15-18th. I'm super excited about it. Come check it out if you can (learn more on Facebook and buy tickets here).

Erin Browne's play Trying was awarded the BBC Worldservice International Radio Play Award and A Meth Play was awarded the International Playscript Award through NSDF. Trying will be produced at the Bushwick Starr in April. Read the full story

(What is Flux Sunday?)

Playwrights: Throwing Gumballs (Rob Ackerman), Projects (Erin Browne), Yellow Wallpaper (Katherine Burger), McTeague (James Comtois), Untitled Russian Project (David Ian Lee), Dinkles and Holly (Zack Robidas), Caged (Adam Szymkowicz)

Directors: Angela Astle, Heather Cohn, Nancy Franklin, August Schulenburg

Actors: Matthew Archambault, Jaime Robert Carrillo, Carissa Cordes, David Crommett, Becky Kelly, Ingrid Nordstrom, Gretchen Poulos, Brian Pracht, Jane Taylor, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Drew Valins, Richard Watson, Travis York

We're back! And as you can see from above, we had a full house. Highlights include:

- Zack Robidas' first pages, the Christmas-themed romp Dinkles and Holly (best line: elf-improvment?)
- Travis York's first FS, rocking out the disturbing-funny Man of Adam's Caged and the disturbing-frocked John of Katherine's Yellow Wallpaper.
- Becky Kelly's picnic enthusiasm as Trina in James' McTeague
- James showing the actors how it's done with his hilariously serious turns as Paul and Santa (yup, the Claus)
- Gretchen Polous' third rock star Flux Sunday in a row as the lonely/under pressure Emily in Erin's Projects
- Angela's moody environmental direction of David's Untitled Russian Project, with an all-star cast and lighting cues to boot (I'd pay to see Captain Adam ordering Zack to be funny)
- Rob Ackerman playing himself in Throwing Gumballs. 'Nuff said.

I was also fascinated by the speed of the first scene in Erin's Projects - usually in her work, the pauses are as important as the words, but the rapid pace made for an interesting dynamic. I also had a great time trying Adam's bird scene three different ways with Ingrid Nordstrom - that kind of trial and error is what makes these Sundays so valuable.

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

I just finished a read through of Rami Metal's lovely play, Lullabye (thank you Mark, Polly, Matt, Lynn, Marnie and Christina) and was reminded of just how many good plays are out there that need doing here in NYC. The idea that most new plays are bad may be true, but it is more true that there are way too many great new plays that aren't being done in NYC, or at all.

Well, Flux can't do them all. So here is a completely subjective but passionately felt list of plays that your company should be producing now.

Please add to this list in the comments section, and while you're at it, why not send those plays to me at gus@fluxtheatre.org? Here's the kind of plays I like.

So...what plays do you need and want to see in NYC now? Here's me:

Lydia by Octavio Solis: This play has been done at Denver Center Theater Company, The Mark Taper Forum and Yale Rep, was featured in the December 2008 American Theatre magazine, and yet somehow has not graced an NYC stage. The ending of the first act is haunting; the end of the second, corrosively beautiful. I want to live in a city that does this kind of play first, not last; get on it, bigger NYC theatres!

Sans Merci by Johnna Adams: If you've seen the various readings, you know why I'm so crazy about this play. The mother and lover of a political activist meet to sort out the meaning of her violent death. It is sweet and hopeful, brutal and sad - the scene where they decide who gets to keep her last things is unforgettable.

Incendiary by Adam Szymkowicz: This play about a pyromaniac fire chief manages to be both screamingly funny and oddly moving; it combines the humor, speed and style of Hearts Like Fists with some of the awkward longing of Pretty Theft; this is the kind of play that could be a break out hit for any company smart enough produce it.

Ajax In Iraq by Ellen McLaughlin: You've already heard me rave about this play; so what are you waiting for, theatre-company-with-greater-resources?

Narrator One, by Erin Browne: Read all about it here. Erin's play is the kind of romantic comedy that's actually both romantic and funny. It also has a bitter undertow and some sparkling meta-theatrics to make your mind as well as your heart buzz and burn.

This Storm Is What We Call Progress, by Jason Grote: Speaking of making your mind buzz and burn, Jason's dizzying dagger of a play looks at both the need and the cost of power. Read the take on our Food:Soul here, then read about Rorschach Theatre's well-recieved DC production here. Then get producin'.

Lullabye, by Rami Metal: This rhythmic and lyrical play weaves three generations of a haunted family as they attempt to let go of various ghosts. The language of the play is both raw and poetic, and will need a brave and capable company of actors to make its moving heart sing. We just put together a joyous read-through of it, and maybe you should, too.

Miss Lily Gets Boned, by Bekah Brunstetter: A play about elephants, people and how loss and loneliness makes both species run a little mad; try to see it at The Lark, though I think the reading's got a wait list yards long. It is a wild and funny piece of bewildered wanting.

Texas Toast, by Katherine Burger: Oh man I love this play! A loving liberal couple falls apart when the husband brings back a statue of Kali from Thailand along with the guilt of an irreconcilable secret. Their disintegration is hastened by the vitality and hunger of a charismatic and destructive Texan couple that befriends them. There are five beautiful roles in this unsettling and funny play for any company tough enough to take them on.

Blue Beard, by Matthew Freeman: This haunting and spare look at the classic myth of the Red Door has that rare gift some plays have of making an entirely new world seem real; it is a beautiful and brutal nightmare of a play that the right company could knock out of the park.

Of course, I could go on (and will later), but that's a good start for now. Please put in the comments section plays unproduced in NYC that you want to see. Read the full story

Congratulations to Erin Browne for making the shortlist of BBC's World Drama Competition with her play Trying...

...and to Corey Ann Haydu for the upcoming production of her play Runaway Love at The White Box Theatre Festival. Go see it!

Trying was developed at Flux Sunday, and Runaway Love was part of Poetic Larceny. We are thrilled to see these plays (and playwrights) getting attention - so congrats to Erin and Corey! Read the full story

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

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:

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...

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:

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:


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.
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:


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

What is The Imagination Compact?
How can I learn more about Flux's Midsummer?

Erin Browne


Playwright, The Fairies, April 28th

Previous Flux History: Plays developed at Flux Sunday include Narrator 1 and Trying.

1. What is your favorite Shakespeare play?
Measure for Measure

2. Does Shakespeare influence your writing at all?
Yes. Constantly. Unfortunately.

3. If you had to date one of the Midsummer lovers,
whom would you date and why?
Helena, because she is obsessive and usually humble.

4. Fairies: colorful playmates or dangerous tricksters?
Colorful tricksters and dangerous playmates

5. 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?
Um, you guys are nerds.

6.If a capricious fairy turned you into an animal against your will,
what animal would you be?
I would want to be a giraffe but I'd probably end as a lemur.
Neither is bad. I like them both.

7. Which would win in a fight - the forest of Midsummer
or the forest of Arden?
Birnam Wood could kick both of their asses!

8. How many licks does it take....
Oh, you guys.....You don't really want me to answer that.

9. If we could compact your imagination, what color would it be and why?
Blue because it's the best color.
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(This is not a picture of playwright Erin Browne, which alas I could not find. This is a picture of Elise Link, who so memorably played Belle Walker in Trying.)

This last Sunday we finished reading through Erin Browne's beautiful and sad play Trying, and due to my own chaotic running of the day, we did not have time to discuss it. And it is a play people should be talking about!

The plot is straightforward and simple: two sisters, Lena (19) and Chels (21) are left by their parents after something horrible happens. Fending for themselves is made more difficult by their poverty, and Chels' pregnancy. This hardship draws them together, even as Lena the younger struggles to find her own identity independent of her family.

After a fight of sorts, Lena goes to buy a book, her current means of escape. But the nature of the book she purchases prompts the clerk, Belle Walker, to ask Lena out on a date. Flustered and flattered, Lean eventually accepts.

And eventually tells her sister, who at first views her sister's relationship with a woman with confusion, then hopeful amusement. As Walker and Lena's relationship deepens into something more than a fling, however; Chels recognizes that her sister may be leaving her just when she needs her most. The conflicting pulls of love and family, desire and duty, play subtly out at Lena tries to have them both, and realizing she can't, decides between the two.

The first play of Erin's Flux worked through on our Sunday's was Narrator 1, a fascinating, theatrical exploration of how the inner life of characters in novels was mirrored in real life by that of their novelists. In that play, Erin mined great comic and ironic power from the theatricalization (word?) of that subtext.

In Trying, however, that subtext is buried more traditionally beneath the words, causing the ironic power to become heartbreakingly sincere. Each of the scenes is so simple: a girl buys a book and gets out asked on a date; a dinner to meet the family is thrown; lovers talk about their scars and are accepted in spite or because of them; people knit and nervously eat fast food and try to ignore each other while reading; but through it all, a simple question begins to grow, until it becomes almost unbearable - can Lena be there for her sister and for her new love? And then that question becomes something even more difficult - is it even possible for Lena to have a different kind of life than the one she grew up with? And if so, does it mean leaving that good parts of the life she grew up with behind? These questions of identity become so powerful because they are so deeply rooted in incompatible relationships of love.

And the process of working through this play was particularly exciting because it featured the strengths of the Flux Sunday structure: we were able to see different directors and different actors takes on the roles while simultaneously seeing certain artists return to the play every week. Elise Link's Walker, Anja Braanstorm's Chels, Hannah Rose Peck's Lena and Cotton Wright's work in both roles and as a director brought a growing understanding to their work on the play every week; and that work culminated in the final two beautiful scenes last Sunday (and I must also mention Gretchen Polous' work as a lovely first time Lena!)

We're still figuring out how to make these Sundays run better; and I regret we didn't have a chance to talk about the play as a company; but I encourage all who read this blog and loved the play to leave a comment or start a discussion about something I missed in this lovely work. And it is my hope to continue to use this blog as a shared memory of our three hours of weekly work. Thanks to everyone and to Erin for Trying! Read the full story

SUNDAYS ARE FOR ENDINGS

Due to the chaos of casting, this particular Sunday was more disorganized than any in recent memory. But in spite of that, it held a particular power, as both Trying and Honey Fist played out their last scenes.

HOW NOT TO BE SEDUCED BY YOUR OWN CHARACTERS
One of the problems I have as a playwright is being so consistently surprised and seduced by what my characters' say that I let them go on for longer than they should. This was especially clear in the reading of the final scene of Honey Fist, a play of mine we have been working on for many months, off and on again. And because it had been so long since I'd worked on the play, I really let Gretyl (Christina Shipp) and Stu (Greg Waller, pictured here in a very different role as Zynth in Rue) go on longer than they should.
Into this verbal flood I flung Scott Ebersold, a director I'm particularly excited about bringing into the Flux Sunday process. And he did a great job of finding the need coursing through the rivers of language, and giving a shape to the scene.
And a particular highlight was Christina figuring out exactly what Gretyl wants in this strange final scene - all at once the epiphany hit her and she knew more about the character than I did!

ON LOVE AND SPACE ALIENS
Sandwiched between the book ends of endings, three plays about love gave a welcome dose of beginnings. Katherine Burger's Way Deep continued to cast its spell of young love, and Rob Ackerman's new short gave Nancy Franklin a tour de force as a woman in equal thrall to her love for her boyfriend and her fear of alien invasion.
And David Ian Lee's Sleeper gave us a more unusual love scene - two friends, brought together in the Pashtun by the kidnapping of an American, figure out how far is too far in the pursuit of what's right. While the scene seems on the surface to be about two terrorists plotting evil acts; it really is about how far the love between these two friends can go. This very human exploration of how the love of God, country and brotherhood drives fundamentalism was made especially fascinating by Candice Holdorf's gender-bending portrayal of the more fiercely devout of the two.

But the day belonged above all to Trying, and I will post separately about that play. Read the full story

FLEX IS FLUXIBLE
Er...strike that, reverse it.
But as our mission statement plainly states, we do value the multi-faceted theatre artist. And that flexibility was plainly on display on this particular Sunday (as it is here to the left as Cotton Wright stretches skyward as Thalia in Rue).

Short on our regular dose of directors, Flux membership stepped up to direct our five scenes. The result was one of the smoothest run Flux Sunday's I can remember.

PUSHING CERTAIN ENVELOPES, OR, PINTER ME THIS
Jeremy Basescu's A Wonderful Wife returned, directed in a long scene by Flux Associate (and frequent blogger) Isaiah Tanenbaum. This tea and saucer Pinter-esque exploration of a family politely falling apart as the father takes a mistress came to a boil; and that boil provided several Flux Sunday veterans a chance to push their work in places I'd not yet seen it go. David Douglas Smith and Jane Taylor kept up a smooth veneer only to shatter it suddenly; and Brian Pracht, as their stunned son, battled to make sense of the ruins of his family in his most daring work yet. Isaiah's work as a director kept the action moving, with Candice Holdorf's mistress the still center of poison in the center of the family circling around her.

DIRECTING AS A WHOLE BODY EXPERIENCE
Directing Adam Szymkowicz's Open Hearts was Christina Shipp, and it was a joy to watch her unique style of directing again. Some directors work clinically, by diagnosing the needs, objectives and obstacles and laying them before the actors as the cure; Christina, on the other hand, incarnates those needs, objectives and obstacles by living them in front of you; the urgency and stakes are palpably communicated like one guitar ringing a chord into another. And it paid off, with a passionately crazed take on this nearly penultimate scene.

Also exciting was Katherine Burger's Way Deep, a lovely play of hers she is transforming into a musical, and Rob Ackerman's Calculating Route 5, a hilarious short on a GPS system navigating a tricky new relationship. And we came once scene closer to completing Erin Browne's Trying, as Cotton lovingly directed the dinner table scene where Lena's choice between her pregnant sister and her passionate new girlfriend becomes ever more starkly clear.

Four Flux Members directing and five great scenes, and it ran so smoothly; like the little clam before the storm of the casting process descended upon us. But more on that anon. Read the full story

Congrats to Flux friend playwright Erin Browne on winning the International Student Playscript Competition that is part of the National Student Drama Fest with her A Meth Play.

Erin also has her play Lucky in Love at the Spork Festival, and Rattler's director Jerry Ruiz is directing his own piece, Under the Skin, featuring Life is a Dream and Rue actor David Crommett. Be sure to check it out! Read the full story