Flux Theatre Ensemble

(What is Flux Sunday?)

After two weeks off (one for Thanksgiving, one for NET's Micro-Fest), we returned to our trusty Flux Sunday back-up at 520 8th ave. That meant reads around the table, which, while not as fun as playing on our feet, does give us the opportunity to read more pages. And they were some solid pages, if I do so solid myself.

Playwrights: Fengar Gael (Devil Dog Six), Aja Houston (Superwomen?), Brian Pracht (Wendell Wants), August Schulenburg (One More Go Around The Darkness)

Actors: Will Lowry, Matthew Archambault, Alisha Spielmann, Jason Howard, Ken Glickfeld, Carissa Cordes, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Kathleen Wise, Ryan Andes, Ingrid Nordstrom, Heather Cohn, Garth McCardle, Regine Mont-Louis, Tiffany Clementi

Highlights:
-Aja's hilarious pageant play (wish we could have staged that second scene!) with a goofily lovable Grier from Regine and a fiercely focused Tiffany Clementi as Venus.
-Ken Glickfeld was ON this day: relaxed, nuanced, focused reads as Bernard in Devil Dog Six and Eliot in Wendell Wants.
-Watching our progression of Wendell's, from Isaiah's perfectly pitched younger Wendell to Garth's irony-laced teen Wendell to Jason's painfully present lover Wendell; it was a wide world of Wendell Wants.
-Ryan Andes dangerously funny cool kid. If you were there, you know what I mean.
-Ingrid Nordstrom taking my note of excitable and running with it as Charity in One More Go About The Darkness. I also appreciated Kathleen Wise's formidable Ellen.

What fireflies of the day did you catch in your bottle? Leave them in the comments below! Read the full story

Ken Glickfeld to the rescue!

With our usual Flux Sunday spaces occupied, Ken rode to our rescue, allowing our theatre-making momentum to continue. I had thought we'd only be able to read scripts, but he was willing for us to stage scenes, and though that shift led to a time miscalculation on my part, some lovely work happened.

Playwrights: Katherine Burger (Ever Ever), Fengar Gael (Devil Dog Six), Brian Pracht (Unplugged In), August Schulenburg (The Hand That Moves)

Directors: Heather Cohn, Katherine, Brian, August

Actors: Jane Taylor, Kimberly Klein, David Crommett, Ken Glickfeld, Lynn Kenny, Alisha Spielmann, Ryan Andes, Kathleen Wise, Chudney Sykes, Damon Kinard, Candice Holdorf, Leila Okafur

Highlights:
-Um, holy crap, Lynn Kenny. Evidently, she had a big bowlful of Acting for breakfast. Not only did she ably navigate Lois' tricky future-vision scene in The Hand That Moves, but her performance as Leah in Unplugged In was high strung as Christmas lights on the top of the tree. Yeah, that metaphor may have failed, but how would you describe that awesomeness?
-The many hats of the day award went to impressive newcomer Chudney Sykes, who rocked out a lovestruck do-gooder, a Jamaican nurse, and outraged slacker dude, respectively.
-Strong direction from both Heather and Brian sharing the end of Unplugged In, with Lynn's scene above matched by go-for-broke turns in the blinding scene from Candice as Zero and Leila Okafur as Leah.
-Ryan Andes's playing of Jean-Pierre in Devil Dog Six - he was as French as a baguette made out of berets (metaphor failure again?).
-Kathleen Wise and Alisha "Paint It Black" Spielmann making some invisible/banana children feel all too real.

If you were there, what did you remember before the Feud benefit made you forget? Read the full story