Flux Theatre Ensemble

I think we're going to like it here.

Our fourth Flux Sunday at Judson was a moving recovery from our haunted Halloween Sunday. really strong, heartfelt work marked all 3 scenes.

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

Directors: Tiffany Clementi, Katherine, August

Actors: Alisha Spielmann, Kari Riely, Mariam Habib, Gretchen Poulos, Nora Hummel, Jason Howard, Carissa Cordes, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Ken Glickfeld, Becky Kelly, Marnie Schulenburg, Jane Taylor

-Marnie and Mariam making the ex-lover reunion scene between Lois and Aaseya in The Hand That Moves (formerly The Baby Play), especially Marnie's handling of the rush of fear over Aaseya's safety.
-Tiffany directing the living daylights out of Devil Dog Six! Jane leaning cool against the wall, Carissa skipping fiercely between the horses, all of it flowing from one strong stage picture to the next.
-Jason Howard's crocodilian Dial in Ever Ever was as close to a tour de force as one can get in a hastily staged scene: strutting, leering, carelessly picking the lost boy from his teeth.
-Kari's handling of Paula's confession - full of simple feeling in a difficult monologue.
-Nancy's moving read as the dreaming lost boy terrorized by Dial. I won't ever forget that scene that left my cheeks wet.

If you were there, what do you remember? Read the full story

(What is Flux Sunday?)

After 3 weeks off for our 5th Annual Retreat (aka, Flux Sunday all day long), we returned to action with a high spirited Flux Sunday.

Playwrights: Johnna Adams (Nurture), Fengar Gael (The Spell Caster), August Schulenburg (Denny and Lila, The Refrigerator Hums)

Actors: Isaiah Tanenbaum, David Crommett, Alisha Spielmann, Richard Watson, Candice Holdorf, Nancy Franklin, Matthew Archambault, Tiffany Clementi

Highlights:
-David Crommett as Doug reading a litany of comforting, loving words in his near-oblivious effort to win over Cheryl in Johnna Adams' Nurture. It's been so exciting to watch him get more of this role every time!
-Finally getting to share Isaiah Tanenbaum's work on Marcus in Denny and Lila - we'd worked on it at the retreat, but ran out of time to share some of the scenes.
-Mary's super-theatrical mirror-maze scene in The Spell Caster - the carnies chasing each other through the distorting maze, and through Mayra's strange powers of perception - I'd love to see this scene on stage
-Nancy Franklin as the Italian conjurer of self, Louisa, in The Spell Caster - when she speaks as this character, we all look around and smile at how good she is in the role
-Our post Flux Sunday impromptu hang out w/Candice, Tiffany, Alisha, Heather and I...sometimes, you're not quite ready for Flux Sundays to be over (hence the incoming innovation of Speak Easy - more on that anon!)

If you were there, what highlights or discoveries did I miss? Read the full story

(What is Flux Sunday?)

Yup, I'm WAAAY behind in this and many other aspects of the blog. This is my good excuse. But I'm going to do my best to catch up, so hop in the Delorian with me and journey way back when to the early days of February, when the Olympics were just a looming dot on the horizon.

Playwrights: Zack Calhoon (Stolen), James Comtois (McTeague), Fengar Gael (The Gallerist), Kristen Palmer (Sacrifice), August Schulenburg (The Sea Concerto)

Directors: Rob Ackerman, ZC, Heather Cohn, AS

Actors: David Crommett, Anthony Wills Jr, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Nora Hummel, Ken Glickfeld, Matthew Archambault, Brian Pracht, Kelly O'Donnell, Richard Watson, Alisha Spielmann, Ingrid Nordstrom, Paula Roman, Catherine Porter, Travis York, Ryan Andes

A different time to accommodate the Super Bowl (1 to 4PM) allowed longtime invitees like Catherine Porter to finally attend! And though none of our highlights were nationally televised, they included:

-Paula Roman's sexy manipulation of Travis York as Petra (and Nick) in Zack's Stolen
-Rob Ackerman's hilariously frenzied direction of Kristen's Sacrifice, with Alisha and Isaiah channeling two idealistic teenagers staging the changing world with every bizarre prop we had in the room - ah, the soda can versus the water bottle!
-Nancy Franklin's heartrending breakdown in the very same play - a haunting read of a woman knowing something important is being lost but uncertain of what
-Ryan Andes' continued hilarity in the part of McTeague, as James' play turns merrily darker by the scene
-Speaking of those, how about when James' halting Arthur and Ryan's hopeful Bertram fell for each other in Mary's The Gallerist? This might have been my favorite moment ever, let alone this Sunday...
-David Crommett tearing up hurricane Jimmy's intrigues in The Sea Concerto - well hello, exit applause.

So, if any of your memories stretch back that far, Fluxers, what were your favorite moments from that Sunday, so long ago? Read the full story

(What is Flux Sunday?)

Playwrights: Johnna Adams (The Anguisher), James Comtois (McTeague), Mary Fengar Gael (The Gallerist), Kristen Palmer (Sacrifice), Adam Szymkowicz (My Base and Scurvy Heart)

Directors: Heather Cohn, MFG, August Schulenburg

Actors: Amy Fitts, Brian Pracht, Alisha Spielmann, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Richard Watson, Nancy Franklin, Paula Roman, Ryan Andes, Cotton Wright, Becky Kelly

And then, after two Flux Sundays that pushed the time limit of 3 hours, we somehow how fit our best Flux Sunday in some time into 2 hours (there was a last minute space issue). Woosh!

Part of it was the quality of material - all the plays were strong. Part of it was directors and actors making good choices quickly. And part of it was that weird alchemy that sometimes is kind enough to bubble up mysteriously from the work.

Highlights included:
- Alisha Spielmann's spirited turn as the hyper intelligent teen Emmie in Kristen's Sacrifice
- James Comtois' creep-inducing turn as the scarred but hungry Henry in Johnna's The Anguisher
- Amy Fitts somehow completely believable channeling of a monkey in Mary's The Gallerists
- Nancy Franklin's adorably smitten Miss Baker in James' McTeague - when will she and Old Grannis get together, damn it?!?
- Adam's deliriously funny opening scene of his new pirate play, My Base and Scurvy Heart; which thankfully had Johnna as one of the fierce pirate lasses

Artists who attended, what were your favorite moments? 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

ALL CYLINDERS CLICKING

Every once in a while, Flux Sundays will have a lightening strike day. All the scripts are tight, the actors connect with the roles, and each scene passes some essential undroppable thing to the next. It doesn't happen often, but boy did it happen on January 11th, and with all of us seated, no less.

VOLLEYING
Rob Ackerman brought in more of his kinetic comedy, Volleygirls. It's always good to start the Sundays with this play, because the energy and shared laughter brings the whole group together and gets us breathing in rhythm. Matt Acrhambault continued his duel with Jason Pardine for the laurels of the role Coach, and Drew Valins returned after a long break with his passionate Russian referee.

STEPPING
We next read the first few scenes of a new play of mine, Stepping; a welcome diversion from me finishing the 60's play! Following a brother and sister with unusual powers stepping through alternate Harlems, I enjoyed especially Ken Glickfeld's Druncle and Gretchen Poulos' scrappy Saffire, the bewildered best friend trying to keep up with her new blood sister Bahiya. With 60's done, I hope to bring more of this play to our Sundays, as it is eager to be written.

LICKSPITTING
Johnna Adam's epic hexameter farce about a professional lickspittle, buttonholer and go between exiled to the Napoleonic court picked up some heat as their French female counterparts, a not so Simple French Boy, and Napoleon himself battle for supremacy of state and end rhyme. Highlights included our once Oberon Michael Davis crossing gender to play a very different Eglantine, Becky Kelly as the subversive haiku spouting French boy, and Brian Pracht's continued perfection as Peder Pars the Lickspittle.

WILLING
The zanies of Jeremy Basescu's The Will continued their power struggle for inheritance of an eccentric tycoon's fortune as Jane Taylor's Eleanor nearly seduced David Ian Lee's Richard into breaking his lawerly judgement. As always, Aaron Michael Zook's Victor was a hapless triumph. I won't soon forget watching him, even before his character entered, watching the action as Victor, with the hopeful simpleness that makes this character so much fun.

BOATING
We had more Rob Ackerman as he brought in an older plays of his, Loon Island Picnic. A family has returned to their unchanging summer haunt only to find they've changed more than they'd like to admit. Nancy Franklin's defiance against time as Phylis played beautifully off Richard Watson's cantankerous honesty; and Katie Hartke's Marcy was perhaps pleasantly suprised by some unusual admissions from her tongue tied cousin Ben.

SLAPPING
The gentle regret of Loon Island Picnic became a violent defense of older values in David Ian Lee's Long Sought, More Perfect. David Crommett's Rodney tried to reason some values of the 60's into Christina Shipp's mockingly post-PC Heather; as a battle for social right masked a deeper battle for inheritance. An almost unwitting act of violence sears the end of this scene, and send another battle for a will into high gear.

Six very different plays caught fire in one of our hotter Sundays in some time. Read the full story

ALL THE LITTLE BREAK THROUGHS
While much of the dialogue in the theatrosphere justly involves revolutionary change, it is often little incremental break throughs that give me the most pleasure. Flux Sunday regularly reveals such break throughs - the right actor, the right director, the right role - and some new unconsidered possibility opens up. The picture here is Brian Pracht from our 2007 retreat at Little Pond, working on his play The Misogynist. And at this last Flux Sunday, he gave a performance in Dog Show that revealed possibilities new to me - of Brian as a performer, of David Ian Lee as a writer, Jeremy Basescu as a director, and of that strange pride we sometimes have in our biggest mistakes.

CALLING CQ:
We began with Jeremy's new comedy, Calling CQ, about a President who is obsessed, perhaps justifiably, with an imminent Martian invasion. Highlights of this round table reading included Richard Watson's right wing reporter Storm and Jane Taylor's no nonsense paper editor Ruth.

BIRD HOUSE:
We then had the pleasure of returning to Kate Marks antic comedy Bird House. One thing we have learned about this wildly inventive play - if you think too much about it, the play sags; but if you just live absolutely in each individual moment, the audience will follow you down the strangest journeys. Returning to the play was reigning Bird House champion Nancy Franklin as Rita, with a comically committed performance by Felicia Hudson as the militant Myra. The best line reading of the day, however, belonged to Katherine Burger's "breakfast is so cruel and I never want to have it again".

DOG SHOW:
We continued through the second half of the second scene of Dog Show, where husband and wife team Candice and Frank are seducing, encouraging and/or destroying Frank's high school buddy, Edward. This scene featured the aforementioned Brian's reveal that he may have raped a girl in college; and the nuances of disgust, denial, power and pride ran beautifully through his subtle performance.

DEAR CHINA:
As a welcome appetizer to the upcoming Imagination Compact, Joe Mathers staged Rob Ackerman's riff on Quince, Dear China. This hilarious and tender portrayal of 3 techies building a window display for a hardware store is lit up by the characters' shared love of stories; and Ken Glickfeld found the touching human heart as Quince, a playwright who gets a little embarrassed by how much he loves writing plays.

TEXAS TOAST:
Andrew and Claire's marriage has been falling under increasing distress due to dislocation, childlessness, but above all, Andrew's indiscretion with a prostitute in Thailand. The secret of that indiscretion is gleefully revealed by Sally, the wife of Andrew's boss. Spurned as a friend by the high-minded Claire, Sally's revenge plunges their marriage into literal darkness. Kate's delicate direction and Kelly O'Donnell's gleeful Saly were among the highlights of this dark patch in this beautiful play.

Only one more Sunday before we break for Midsummer! Read the full story

PLAYING WITH POWER
Flux Sundays has been growing steadily, and we have now had to change our invitation structure so that new folks come for three sessions only - giving us a chance to know them, and vice versa - with the potential of future revisits after all on the waiting list have had a chance. However, those invited before this strange set of rules was put in place still have permanent invitations; and that is very happy news in the case of Kate Marks, a director/playwright who did both (and even acted!) in her Flux Sunday debut. (The picture to your left is an image from her production of The Odyssey at LookingGlass - can you spy a different Flux Sunday regular?)

THE DOG SHOW: POWER WITH A VIEW
All our plays this particular Sunday dealt above all with power, and that was especially true with David Ian Lee's post-Sleeper play, The Dog Show. I played Edward (the guy with the power) and Jason Paradine played Frank (the one, allegedly, without it), and Cotton Wright, a powerhouse herself, directed. Having had too many family members who took too much pleasure from the power they held over others, it was an uncomfortable if familiar skin I slipped into, torturing Jason's character by 'helping' him seek revenge on a common enemy. We were all buzzing about what will come next, as David laid just enough mysterious land mines down in this first scene that we're all wondering who will be blown to the moon.

A WONDERFUL WIFE: POWER LOST AND REGAINED
Jeremy Basescu's A Wonderful Wife reached its shattering climax. Angela, the 'visitor' who took broke apart June and Carl's marriage, has found a shared love of beauty and female power with June even as she is (or was) Carl's lover. Her power over them both is pulled out from under her by sketches drawn by June and Carl's son, Max. Max has tracked down Angela's daughter and drawn her nude - drawn her so beautifully that Angela's poisonous hold is broken, and husband and wife enjoy a blissful, if brief, reunion. Candice Holdorf's stunned reaction to being dethroned was one of the finest performances of a stage direction I've ever seen at a Flux Sunday. Both Rob Ackermen and Anja Braanstorm captured the beauty and fear of having their blinders finally ripped painfully off. And Isaiah Tanenbaum continued his excellent direction of Jeremy's work.

BIRD HOUSE: POWER AS A GAME
The first scene of Kate Mark's play Bird House was a zany yang to the gin yin of David's Dog Show. The birds in question are Lousiy and Syl, two roommates and friends bound to each other to fill the boredom of their days with silly songs and kukcoo bird watching. Almost like a Godot staged by Jim Henson, the characters try to entertain themselves in a darkly whimsical world where murmurs of war and death darken their play. Though fun was had by all, particularly capturing the earnest craziness of the play was Nancy Franklin's Louisy.

TEXAS TOAST: SEXY POWER
Kate directed this lovely set of scenes from Katherine Burger's play that I am currently obsessed with, and in these scenes, sex and power have a messy hook up. Andrew, our East Coast liberal mild mannered expert on Asia, falls under the spell of his boss, the Texas-sized social Darwinist, Bo. On their trip to Thailand, Bo slips a teenage prostitute into Andrew's room; and while Andrew at first attempts to get the girl out, the scene deepens as the complexity of both their needs are revealed. Claire, Andrew's wife, is obsessed with having a child; and Andrew cannot seem to give it to her; and as a result, their sex has become clinical. Feeling lonely and powerless, Andrew makes a mistake he cannot soon forget. In contrast to that difficult marriage, Bo and his ferociously Christian former cheer-leader of a wife Sally, attract with the vitality of their love even as the cruelty of their opinions repel.

In sum, a powerful Sunday. 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