Flux Theatre Ensemble

(What is Flux Sunday?)

We had one of the biggest actor turn-outs ever for this Flux Sunday, and it was exciting!

Playwrights: Larry Kunofsky (So Retarded), EM Lewis (If I Did This), Kari Swenson Riely (The Bicycle), August Schulenburg (Jane the Plain)

Directors: Heather Cohn, Leigh Hile, Brian Pracht, Alisha Spielmann

Actors: Lynn Kenny, Jason Richards, Kitty Lindsay, Maiken Wise, David Crommett, Tiffany Clementi, Matthew Archambault, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Rob Maitner, Anna LaMadrid, Cotton Wright, Melissa Herion, Jen Kipley, Jane Taylor, Robb Martinez, Stephen Conrad Moore

Highlights included:
-The debut of Kari's writing! She's been an acting force at Flux Sundays for some time, and it's always exciting when we see a different side of a talented artist.
-The moment when Lynn as Lucy negotiated Jen as Jen's sudden arrival with the audience - pure natural comedy - in Larry's So Retarded
-Speaking of that play, the whole New Haven/ n sympathizer section was painfully funny.
-Watching Rob and Robb offer two different but equally compelling takes on Hal, the dissolute mystery writer of Ellen's If I Did This
-Cotton's lovely Jane in Jane the Plain somehow maintaining the honesty of the character in the face of a shirtless, gleeful Matt Archambault as Scotty

If you were there, what do you remember? 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

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

(What is Flux Sunday?)

We're back! After a break in August for our 4th Annual Retreat at Little Pond and our Food:Soul of Volleygirls, we're back for the month of September.

We started with a more intimate crowd than usual, but that was lucky for me as I was the only playwright (beedle dee, deedle dee, dee).

Director Heidi Handlesman, hot off Bird House, returned after a long absence to helm two scenes from my new play, Dark Matter. This play follows Maxine, a physicist working with her mentor Nikolay at Princeton. At a conference, they drink and mock Afruz, a physicist more known for his showman mass appeal than his scientific accomplishment. Then Nikolay tells her that he has hired Afrux to work with them at Princeton.

This is the first of several shocks for Maxine: she then gets a call from her partner Winny that her father, the roguish charmer Jimmy, has managed to get his hands on the car keys. Suffering from the early stages of Alzheimers, Jimmy crashes the car.

Meanwhile, Maxine's daughter Marie, sick with a possibly terminal illness, is falling under the spell of her ne'er-do-well older cousin Donny. Determined to give her every experience life has to offer, Donny leads her down some dark alleys.

It was great to spend some real time with the play: Carissa Cordes and Lynn Kenny shared the role of Marie, David Crommett read Nikolay, Jane Taylor and Mariam Habib shared Maxine, Ryan Andes played Donny, Tiffany Clementi played Winny, Anthony Wills Jr. read Jimmy, and with her usual daring, Candice Holdorf played a wee bit against type as the older male Bengali physicist Afruz.

Highlights included Candice's Afruz handing the peace offering of the gum to Maxine; Ryan's bewildered amusement as Marie cleverly traps him in a lecture from Maxine; Anthony's realization that Jimmy's "How fast?" story was actually a ritual he plays with Marie and Donny; Lynn's reaction to the East Coast Chronic.

Thanks to everyone for a great return to Flux Sunday - if you were there, what else would you add to this brief history? Read the full story

What is Flux Sunday?

While not quite the groove fest of last week, our last Flux Sunday before our short summer break was solid. We heard scenes from Johnna Adams, Jeremy Basescu, Mary Fengar Gail, myself and first time (as playwrights) Zack Calhoon and Anthony Wills Jr. Some Sundays, each play speaks to the other, but this Sunday, they carved out their own unique territory.

I LIVE IN A BOX OF PAINTS
Zack's new play Paint was up first. In it's first scene, Paint takes time to let the complicated relationship between a recently divorced middle-aged couple (Ray and Sarah) unfold. The pacing of this scene is lovely: fights break out, only to be dodged through another glass of wine, a deft change of subject, or a simple touch, still erotically charged in spite of time and spite. Because of the length, Ray was split between David Crommett and Ken Glickfeld, and Sarah, between Nora Hummell and first-timer Lynn Kenny. Lynn and David especially found the uneasy but unavoidable attraction between these two difficult people.

Later in the day, we returned to Paint to read the next scene, where David (Sarah's son, and a major source of trouble between her and Ray), is trying to convince his older girlfriend Christina to treat him seriously. Isaiah Tanenbaum and Ingrid Nordtstrom found the darker currents under the happy banter, and we ended excited to hear more from this play.

FORGET ABOUT THE VEGETABLES...
...in this Sunday's read of Jeremy's Onion Amnesia, the subject of comedy was the internal warfare of the office. Fen, sweetly and posionously played by Hannah Rose Peck (she was back visiting, yay!) squares off against the sour (and equally poisonous) Annalee (played by Marnie Schulenburg). This scene showed off Jeremy's talent for sustaining the furious rhythm of farce.

ABSINTHE MAKES THE HEART GROW, WELL
You've heard that one before. But you've definitely not heard anything like Mary's trippy murder mystery Opaline, where intrepid forsenic anthropologist Hargraves may be up against a power that exceeds his own sure-handed intelligence. Watching Matt Archambaults's disheveled delight of a Hargraves match wills against first-timer Ryan Andes' seductive force of nature abysnthian painter Gaston was thrilling, and Nancy Franklin's mysterious Opaline and Johnna Adam's hilariously precise Celestia made this my favorite read of the day (and perhaps my favorite of Mary's contributuons to our Sundays). Can't wait for the next scene!

EDDIE FALLS
Then we turned to Anthony's absurd spin of Pirandello, Eddie Falls. The dizzyingly fast word play was disorienting, but the actors' surprisingly naturalistic take on the material gave it some sea legs; and I was especially drawn to Ryan Whalen's guru like Peter. This is a play that will be well-suited by our return to playing on our feet in July.

LICKSPITTLING GOOD
We also looked at the fourth act of Johnna's rhyming Alexandrian verse play, Lickspittles, Buttonholers, and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens. The sheer verbal energy of this play is intoxicating, but what was really exciting about today's scene was the darker, human turn her play took when rival go-between's Guthbert (Anthony) and Candine (an excellently fierce Cotton Wright) explain their tragic histories. An additional treat was seeing Marnie and Brian Pracht reunite after Pretty Theft to play the sniveling Lickspittles, Christienne and Peder.

Wildly different plays, and no theme to unite them; all the same, the Sunday was satisfying. Much work awaits us when we return in July! Read the full story