Flux Theatre Ensemble

(What is Flux Sunday?)

If the previous Sunday was the Flux of the actors, this Sunday was the Flux of the playwrights - as many strong pages as we've seen in a long time, and despite my best attempts, we simply could not stage them all.

Playwrights: Johnna Adams (The Anguisher), Fengar Gael (The Cat Vandal), Larry Kunofsky (So Retarded), Kitty Lindsay (Life is a Dream House), Kristen Palmer (Bridgeport), Brian Pracht (Unplugged In), August Schulenburg (Jane the Plain), Adam Szymkowicz (The Note)

Directors: Pete Boisvert, Kristy Dodson, Heather Cohn

Actors: Isaiah Tanenbaum, Jason Howard, Alisha Spielmann, Melissa Herion, Drew Valins, Tiffany Clementi, Cotton Wright, Ken Glickfeld, Kersti Bryan, David Crommett

Highlights included:
-Well, it's not everyday one gets to play a fundamentalist possessed by the spirit of a cat - so that was certainly a personal highlight.
-Working on Brian's Unplugged In - we've seen many incarnations of this play (and first scene), and while Flux Sundays are used less frequently for longer term development, it's always exciting when it happens
-Cotton and Jason as the tormented Karbie and Ben dolls - they found the slightly askew physicality that made those parts pop
-Reading through So Retarded allowed us to do two big scenes that play off each other...and boy, did they ever, and the second scene really highlighted Kersti Bryan's Flux Sunday debut

Now I had to leave early, so...did I miss anything that should be forever recorded in the annals of time? Read the full story

(What is Flux Sunday?)

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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

Much like an elephant, I won't soon forget our 7th Food:Soul of Miss Lilly Gets Boned. Please leave your thoughts on the play and the event itself in the comment field below. To whet your mindblade, I offer up these pictures from photogenie Isaiah Tanenbaum.






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About the play:
Miss Lilly, a Sunday school teacher, has been waiting patiently for God to drop a man in her lap. When a new student disturbs the harmony of her classroom and his father disturbs the harmony of her heart, Miss Lilly is forced to re-examine her own sense of faith and self. Right or wrong, sinful or holy - a natural force is at work in Miss Lilly's classroom where her hymns are accompanied by the rumble of angry elephants and her prayers are answered by a stranger to her god.

About the playwright:
Bekah Brunstetter's plays include A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE (Naked Angels, Spring 2011), OOHRAH! (The Atlantic Theater) and HOUSE OF HOME (Williamstown Theater festival.) She is a member of the Primary Stages writer's group, a Playwright's Realm Fellow, and resident playwright of the Finborough Theater, London, where MISS LILLY received its debut in the Summer of 2010. MISS LILLY has also been developed with the Lark, Luna Stage the Babel Theater Project. MFA, The New School. www.bekahbrunstetter.com Read the full story

(What is Flux Sunday?)

Playwrights: Johnna Adams (The Anguishers) , Mary Fengar Gael (The Gallerist), Kitty Lindsay (The Pipe Cleaner), Isaiah Tanenbaum (The Transendental Etudes)

Directors: Heather Cohn, KL, August Schulenburg, Christina Shipp

Actors: Becky Kelly, Ryan Andes, Richard Watson, Ingrid Nordstrom, Brian Pracht, Gretchen Poulos, Nancy Franklin, Anthony Wills Jr, Alisha Spielmann, Ken Glickfeld, Cotton Wright, Paula Roman, IT

After a week's hiatus, Flux Sunday returned with what can only be described as a vengeance. We looked at 4 plays, staging them all, and welcomed Paula Roman and Alisha Spielmann to the group, as well as enjoying acting stalwart Kitty Lindsay's first pages.

Highlights include:
-The mutual slammings in frustrated desire by Richard and Cotton, orchestrated by Christina in Johnna's The Anguishers
- Ryan Andes' proving that he is the king of Twin Peaks creepy-time naturalism (Opaline anyone?) as the nightmare plumber of Kitty's The Pipe Cleaner
- Becky smiling grimly, but politely, at the imaginary (?) animals in Laura's (played with warm daffiness by Alisha) cages in The Gallerist
- Ken Glickfeld miraculously navigating every bit of ornate direction in my over ambitious attempt to squeeze too many of Isaiah's pages into too short a time with too many actors. Shall we go with the Napoleon theme and say it was my Waterloo?

If you were there, what did I miss in the highlight reel? Read the full story

(What is Flux Sunday?)

Our last Flux Sunday before The Lesser Seductions of History takes us over was great, if it nearly killed me getting us there! Sometimes, the amount of roles the playwrights write match perfectly with the attending actors; and then there are times where I have to write us into a balance. With a production meeting that morning, I had two hours to pump out some pages, but I hadn't quite finished by 4PM so we started rehearsing some of the scenes while I finished writing enough pages for all. Hot off the presses, indeed!

Luckily, I was ably assisted by Crystal Skillman's second scene from The Sleeping World (and if you haven't already read Crystal's new great interview at the Clyde Fitch Report, check it out.)

Directors Nora Hummel and Heidi Handelsman split the long second scene of The Sleeping World, and we saw beautiful work again from Gretchen Poulos as Sam, and reveled in the returns of Amy Fitts as Sam in part two (welcome back from Italy!) and Richard Watson as Luke. His funny and moving read of Luke's long remembering of his betrayal of Peter, a recently passed friend, was especially stunning. (If you're looking for a new monologue for auditions, Luke's would be a hell of a choice - funny, sad, caustic and detailed). Brian Pracht and Matthew Archambault split Tom, and Christina Shipp took a heartfelt turn as the wounded wounding Angie.

We then looked at (the very) new scenes from my Dark Matter (character/plot info here). First we saw two overlapping scenes - Winny telling Max about the job that will take her away from the family, and Marie convincing Donny to sleep with her - followed by a third scene where Maxine is caught stealing research from Afruz by her mentor Nikolay. Candice Holdorf found a great deal of complexity in Winny - thrilled by her new job, worried about the cost of leaving, bitter of having had to play the caretaker role for so long - as she navigated the reactions of the wildly emotional Maxine (played by Flux's scientist-in-residence, Ingrid Nordstrom).

Kitty Lindsay's portrayal of Marie found an especially strong moment when she explained to Donny why everything had to be perfect the 1st time they had sex (and their fumble to turn off "Single Ladies" was hilarious!) And everyone winced as Afruz (Isaiah Tanenbaum) showed his well-meaning pity for Maxine after catching her in the act of stealing from him, finally causing her breakdown (sensitively captured by Nancy Franklin).

It was a Sunday of bold and nuanced acting choices - a real actor feast that will have to keep us full until Lesser Seductions releases us from its clutches.

And if you were there - what were your favorite parts? Comment away! Read the full story

Our first Flux Sunday at NYR Studios, where Flux is a resident company, was everything we'd been hoping for. We had room to move! Each of our three scenes had a comfortable space to work in, and the results were undeniable. There was a burst of energy and productivity that has me hoping this relationship with NYR will last (remember to mention Flux if you rent there!)

But to the nitty and then to the gritty...

THE SLEEPING WORLD
First, Kelly O'Donnell staged the first scene of Crystal Skillman's The Sleeping World, a melancholy-funny look at playwrights gathering to read the newly discovered last script of their recently passed friend. Once close, the three friends clumsily fall back into the push and pull of their painful-sweet old intimacy. Their friend's script, as it turns out, is a thinly veiled portrait of them, and brings to the light all the old wounds and longings they'd kept in the dark.
Kelly O'Donnell did a lovely job of staging this - I watched the run before the shared run, and with a few small adjustments to blocking, she brought out the story beautifully. A special shout-out goes to the triumphant returns of Gretchen Poulos and Kitty Lindsay, who brought Sam and Angie to a subtle, detailed life. Crystal is bringing back scene 2 next week, and we're all excited for more.

DARK MATTER
Then, Heather Cohn staged the next two scenes of my play, Dark Matter. (For plot and character, check out last week's entry). Jimmy (Nancy Franklin) and Winny (Jane Taylor) battled it out over Jimmy's dreams (Winny is now a Jungian analyst, after reading that great article about Jung's Red Book in NYT Mag) and dementia; followed by Maxine (Carissa Cordes) confronting her mentor Nicolay (Isaiah Tanenbaum) about approving funding for a project from rival physicist Afruz Sen. These scenes were a nice contrast to the elliptical loveliness of Crystal's scene - these were jugular collisions between formidable opponents. I especially loved the staging and playing of Jimmy luring Winny back with the promise of his truly disturbing dream, and the moment where Nikoly kindly but firmly exiled Maxine from his office, her realizing too late she'd gone too far.

LION CREEK
Speaking of triumphant returns, auteur Jeremy Basescu's back from the wilds of summer with a brand new joint. Lion Creek follows two couples, one seemingly thriving, one falling apart, navigating an awkward night of wine and Wii. There were notes of darker twists than twenty-something malaise, however; hints of secrets, hints of spies, hints of the mystery of Lion Creek sneak their way through the banter. Special shout outs to an icy-sweet Lynn Kenny as Tess and
goofy-charming Ryan Andes as Drake.

Yup, Flux Sunday and NYR are a good fit. Here's to many more.

And for those of you there, what were your favorite moments? What did you think of the new space? Read the full story

OR, FELICIA IS A CAMERA

Well, not exactly, but at our Flux Sunday on the 20th, she did some acting worth a thousand words. In the staging of the final scene from Rob Ackerman's Icarus of Ohio, Felicia Hudson (picturing here) played Maggie, our protagonist's poetically pushy girlfriend. After a buoyantly happy ending where protagonist Jay outwits the government forces intending to abuse his creation of human-powered flight, Maggie reads the melancholy concluding lines of Ovid's Icarus, and Felicia nailed the sad beauty of the end of this play. Though Icarus died, and Jay lives, something has changed forever from their flight to close to the sun.
One of the sad pleasures of these Flux Sundays is coming to the end of a play we've worked through week after week, and that was especially true for Rob's theatrical tale of flight and the things that keep us grounded. I have two additional regrets: that audition/workshop rescheduling kept Flux from attending Rob's reading at hotInk, and that we didn't have a chance as a community to discuss our work on this beautiful play. As per Felicia's suggestion, we will now offer the opportunity for the community to discuss our work on play's when a full-length has been completed.
Also in this picture is fellow member Joe Mathers, who added a note of hilarity to the scene as a star-struck friend and former foe of Jay's.

FENDELL ON MARRIAGE, OR THE RETURN OF EURO-KITTY
We also read a new scene from Melissa Fendell's as yet untitled play, with a bunch of 20 somethings skewering the institution of marriage, featuring the triumphant return of Flux Sunday veteran Kitty Lindsay from her tour in Germany. And what better way to welcome an actress back than give her a vibrant page long rant against institutionalized monogamy?

NO SLEEP TILL HARTKE
Casting is 90% of directing unless you're casting Katie Hartke and Jane Taylor, in which case it's 190%. In David Ian Lee's pressure cooker political thriller Sleeper, I had the joy of unleashing these two talents on each other in a scene between liberal activist and grieving widow Teri (Katie) and right-wing attack dog Rachel (Jane) who made her name breaking the story of Teri's husband's capture by terrorists. It was thrilling to watch these two actresses try to win a scene with everything at stake. And to make matters even better, Gretchen Poulos played the stunned TV page filming the entire debacle, and her reactions were the perfect comic counterpoint to the serious game being played.

TRYING NOT TO LOVE TOO MUCH
We continued through two scenes of Erin Browne's Trying, her play about two young sisters trying to make it after being abandoned by their parents, and the love affair that threatens to break up their house. That description is far too purple for Erin's subtle play of guilt, love, and duty; and it was given excellent life by Caitlin Kinsella and Cotton Wright as our two Lena's, Anja Brannstorm as Chels, and Elise Link once again as the irresistible Belle Walker.

Very different plays at this Flux: a tale of flight ending, a battle of political wills made personal, a Shaw like attack on marriage, and the simple story of how hard and sweet love can be, all in a mere three hours. Read the full story