Think commissioned plays are a thing of the Elizabethan past?
Nu Sass Productions’22 Boom! is concierge theater at its nimblest. Written by Miranda Rose Hall and directed by Renana Fox, this imaginative exercise is “an avalanche of manic, miniature plays” – 23, the magic number, each about three minutes long.
Eight energetic actors zig and zag through scenes, exchanging costumes and props trunk-style. It masquerades as improv but is actually a compilation of 22 previously speed-produced works, plus one very special premiere, for which Fringe patrons act as muses. At each Fringe performance, a different resident playwright sits in the lobby like a short-order cook, interviewing audience members. Near the end of the 70-minute show, a fresh-from-the-oven play is served “cold” – that is, a cold reading that’s pipin’-hot. (Appropriately, on opening night, the original play by Rebecca Dzida, titled “Thanks, Obama,” was about the oppressive heat and climate change.)
This is a must-see for anyone who rejoices in the collaborative process of theater. It showcases the lightning linguistic talents of Ms. Hall – whose paucity of prose ranges from farcical to profound – and her team of on-the-spot scribes. But it also teaches that a script often merely outlines ingredients and lights a fuse. It takes the alchemy of a receptive, interactive audience; committed actors; and a slick production team to add that secret sauce and turn on the gas. (On opening night, the stage crew’s improvisation skills were on fire overcoming sound and lighting problems.)
22 Boom! opens with the narrator/playwright (Tori Boutin) on a desperate mission to create art, but she needs a little help from her friends – perhaps special glasses – to interpret the world’s wonders. Each play is introduced with Boutin re-enacting the “audience submission” event as actors stand in for contributors. Boutin names the play then shadows the players as it unfolds, voicing those descriptive parenthetical directions in a script that actors follow. Most plays end happily and a bell rings, and we move on to the next gleeful round.
Leading a gifted cast is Ben Lauer, whose easy knack for character and comedy knocked the audience’s socks off. He morphed from a self-obsessed late-Middle Ages Italian aristocrat to punchy Mario of the Mario Brothers, a fussy toddler and a Nordic mystery detective, among other hits. In one hilarious scene, in play No. 14, about a young girl going to Europe, a “Greek” chorus representing different countries drown each other out in a melee of accents: Lauer lathers on a delightful brogue — and count on at least one Brexit gag.
Other “wow” factors: John Stange and Aubri O’Connor, both undisputed masters of their craft. The entire cast, though, is golden: Dannielle Hutchinson kills it as a psycho girlfriend, Mary Poppins and a “golden girl”; Darnell Eaton especially shines playing a Dalmatian (twice!); Lily Kerrigan delivers precious nuanced moments; and Cate Brewer, in Play No. 13, “What I Did With My Go Pass,” poignantly sums up the Point of It All.
Or maybe that happens in Play No. 8, “Lacrosse,” with the line: “This is incredible. This is theater!” Preach.
Running Time: 70 minutes, with no intermission.
22 Boom! plays through July 24, 2016, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts: Performance Space, 1250 New York Avenue NW in Washington, DC. For tickets, call the box office at call (866) 811-4111, or order them online.
5 Questions with 22 Boom! playwright Miranda Rose Hall by Angela Kay Pirko and Miranda Rose Hall
Angela:What was the inspiration for 22 Boom!
Miranda Rose Hall.
Miranda: It was a compilation of plays that I wrote on demand for patrons at Baltimore’s Center Stage. I was in residence there as the Hot Desk Playwright from 2013-2014, and I helped to launch a program called Wright Right Now. It was the collective brainchild of Center Stage’s dramaturg Gavin Witt and dramaturgy fellow Catheríne Rodríguez. Basically, a playwright sits in the lobby of the theatre — and we later expanded to sitting outside of food trucks, at street fairs, board meetings — and taking commissions from willing patrons. I set up a desk and a sign in the lobby of the theater — usually on a Thursday — and I’d call out, “plays on demand!” Some people were really enthusiastic and some were very skeptical. But I’d talk to the first 5-7 people who came to the desk, and ask them something like, “so what’s on your mind these days?” or they’d tell me directly what they’d like a play about, and I’d go off an write something while the show was going on. I capped myself at 2 pages. Plays were ready by intermission or the end of the show. I did this about 7 times over the course of the season. I wrote a lot of mini plays! And I took my favorites, and compiled them as 22 BOOM!
Any plays that particularly surprised you?
The whole thing really surprised me. I could never anticipate what people were going to ask for. I think one of the nicest thing s about this exercise is I would never have written any of these plays on my own. I certainly don’t think I would have started writing 2 page plays for fun. But it turned into this incredible writing prompt that injected my work with a quickness and a zeal that was lacking in my longer form. That has been essential to my work moving forward. And I found it in these power bursts of short plays. There were some topics people presented and I was like – oh God, what do I have to say about that? And some of those turned out to be my favorites. There was a banal commission about how bad the traffic in Baltimore was getting to the theatre — it really infuriated this one guy – and it turned into a play that I love. I also got a kick out of this guy who came up and said, “I have been trying for my entire marriage to convince my wife I love her more than I love the dogs.” That turned into a musical number. I also loved that so many people brought up reasons why they were going to the theatre. I think going to the theater was making people feel adventurous, which gives me a lot of faith.
How did this exercise affect your writing?
I think it helped me tap into a kind of spunk and humor than I’ve been wanting to bring in more in my work. I had to make these without thinking too hard. I think the other work I was making at the time had a lot of over-thinking. But you can’t over-think when you write quickly. I think that speed can help a writer’s essence and intuition rise to the surface. It helped me bring a certain – I don’t know – Miranda –ness to my art. These little plays had a certain aspect of my spirit that my longer work wasn’t capturing at the time, and they helped me bridge that gap. The play I opened in New Haven recently is a full-length absurdist comedy called Antarctica! Which Is to Say, Nowhere, and I know I wouldn’t have been able to write that before this project.
Describe your playwriting aesthetic.
I really think it’s different for every play. I think I’m a writer who works in a couple of different forms. It really varies. There’s the absurdist comedy branch, the poetic drama branch, the unusual family branch, the irreverent musical branch. I think that these plays are their own form, because they’re only two pages. And in that sense, it’s unlike anything else that I write. But looking backwards, I can see the seeds of later plays coming through some of the humor and pacing of these shorter works.
When you go to the theatre, what do you hope to find in a play?
I really love being surprised. I love laughing and gasping and crying. I love feeling that whole range of entertainment. That delights me. Sometimes I cry in musicals just because they make me so happy. There are some plays when actors and performers just get the opportunity to be larger than life, or the story is just somehow enormous, and I think to myself, “you people are gods.” I love that kind of awe and scale. It’s terrific to be mesmerized by other people’s talent.
PERFORMING AT:
National Museum of Women in the Arts: Performance Space- 1250 New York Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC 20005
PERFORMANCE TIMES:
Thursday 7/14 at 6:00 PM Saturday 7/16 at 1:45 PM Sunday 7/17 at 12:15 PM Saturday 7/23 at 12:15 PM Sunday 7/24 at 1:45 PM
Hootenanny by Monique LaForce is a two-hander with an unsettling story up its sleeve. It’s a story about a man and a woman that incrementally builds nerve-fraying psychological tension from what seems the slightest, most innocuous of encounters.
Two actors, Chip and Samantha (capably acted by Doug Krehbel and Cate Brewer), meet in the nondescript green room of a theater where they play bit parts in a show within the play called Hootenanny.
Cate Brewer and Doug Krehbel. Photo by Lisa Alapick.
The off-stage “on-stage” show, which is going on at the same time, is a musical version of the Scottish play set improbably to bluegrass music. Chip plays the Thane of Cawdor and Samantha plays Lady Macbeth, and they have a wait on their hands between scenes. We hear bits of a banjo-accompanied witches’ song, the bouncy hook of which is “Trouble, trouble, trouble,” and I caught a chuckle-worthy reference to hand-washing as “OCD.” But notwithstanding the brief, very pleasant prerecorded original music composed and performed by Dead Men’s Hollow, the made-up Macmusical is so incidental to Chip and Samantha’s green-room encounter as to be almost random. Because the real drama turns not on Shakespeare or singing but on stalking, seduction, and surrender.
As the character of Chip was revealed, I was reminded of the old-time theater idiom “stage-door Johnny”—a man so enamored of a particular actress or showgirl that he waits relentlessly at the stage door in hopes of catching her attention and courting her. Chip is a variant: he’s a back-stage Johnny. Unbeknownst to Samantha, he became obsessed with her years ago when they happened to audition together, and ever since he has seen, and/or tried out for a part in, every single show she has been in. And now he has contrived the very chance he has always wanted: to be alone with Samantha at last.
Why Samantha doesn’t get the hell out of that green room once she knows of his stalker past, and why instead she seems not to mind his amorous attention, is a little hard to fathom. But as written Samantha is a bit of a naïf. She’s not a dumb blonde exactly but she’s certainly dim. From the get-go she doesn’t get a lot of Chip’s banter. He’s quicker-witted than she by a factor of about twelve (an unexpected character contrast for a play in the Women’s Voices Theater Festival).
Samantha is spending her off-stage time memorizing a scene for an audition for a role she hopes to get in a pilot. Chip, though stung to learn she’s thinking of leaving the show they’re in, offers to run lines with her. She agrees.
The scene they read is between Becka, a high-power attorney (the part would be a stretch for Samantha), and Nigel. As we hear it played, subtle parallels echo the inscrutable subtext going on between Samantha and Chris. More role-playing, initiated by Chip, ensues, including a contest coming up with pickup lines. She does okay (“Are you needing a map because you got lost in my eyes?”), but he’s a real pro (Chip after crossing the stage in front of her: “Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?”).
At a point in their often funny role-playing, Samantha admits to Chip that she cannot cry on cue. He suggests such tricks of the trade as rubbing onion near one’s eyes. He seems to have her best interests at heart. He seems to support her in her professional ambitions. But there comes a twist. And little does Samantha know in what part in what sexual script he has cast her.
Director Catherine Aselford has done a good job of modulating the interplay of light and dark shadings in LaForce’s play. Both Krehbel and Brewer have very agreeable stage presences. The character of Chip, for instance, is written far creepier than Krehbel plays him. And Samantha as written is far more of an emotional doormat than Brewer plays her. Their artful underplaying turns out to be an asset, such that the play’s perturbing reverberations sneak up on us.
Running Time: 55 minutes, with no intermission.
Hootenanny played through October 10, 2015, at Guillotine Theatre performing at The National Museum of Women and the Arts and will have two more performances at The Receiving Vault at the Ivy Hill Cemetery – 2823 King Street, in Alexandria, VA. at 3 pm on October 17 and 18, 2015. Tickets are available online.
It’s hard to be in a love triangle where the girl is dead.
Cold as Death, Guillotine Theatre’s offering for this year’s Fringe, revolves around this concept. Rather than submit to the lust of the Tyrant (Nello DeBlasio), the Lady (Cate Brewer) chooses death as the only alternative, much to the chagrin to her lover and the former king, Govianus (Dane Petersen). Sounds like your run of the mill tragedy? No, let’s add some necrophilia to spice things up.
Adapted from a play by Thomas Middleton, Monique LaForce creates a tight group of characters all with complex agendas and intriguing development. Clarissa (Angela Kay Pirko, also playing The Lady’s Ghost) is a sensual and volatile creature who takes pleasure in the sex and violence that the Tyrant provides. Helvetius (Terence Aselford) attempts to trade his daughter to the Tyrant in order to advance in court. After almost being killed by Govianus, he stands up for truth and is imprisoned because of it.
Director Catherine Aselford, in setting this tale in modern day, reminds us of the ageless struggles of love and honor. Her choice in having a different actor play the Tyrant every night not only allows for a different take on the show for every performance, but is a testament to the shifting nature of politics.
DeBlasio as the Tyrant commanded the stage decked out in a huge red and black cape reminiscent of Henry VIII. Even though he had a script in hand, he rarely looked at it and was able to make the descent into lustful madness both chilling and mesmerizing. Brewer as the Lady is the pinnacle of both Elizabethan values and modern feminism. In refusing to give in to the demands of the Tyrant and taking her own life when her lover could not bring himself to, she proves that she is no weak romantic heroine. While the rest of the cast gives great performances, it is Pirko who stole the show as Clarissa. From the moment she stepped onstage, she delivered a nuanced and physically strong performance as she did everything in her power to carry out the Tyrant’s demands.
Guillotine Theatre does the Fringe a great service by bringing this obscure tale to life. It conveys even the most taboo of subjects to the audience in a way that makes them palatable. If you enjoy your plays with a darker side, you definitely don’t want to miss this one.
Running Time: 70 minutes with no intermission
Cold as Deathplays through July 25, 2015 at Gallaudet University: Eastman Studio Theatre, Florida Ave NE & 8th St NE, in Washington, D.C. Tickets may be purchased at the door or their Capital Fringe page.
“People ask me ‘where do you find these plays?’ says Catherine Aselford, Artistic Director of Guillotine Theatre, “and I always wonder why they don’t ask me ‘why do you find these plays?’ I can’t help it. I find myself irresistibly drawn to the image of a violated tomb.”
Although Catherine has directed eight Capital Fringe Festival plays including comedies Jack the Ticket Ripper, Ninja Motorcycle Babes, and BUSHWA, she has a soft spot for the dark, violent plays of the early 17th century.
This year, Guillotine Theatre’s Fringe entry is Cold As Death, an adaptation of a mysterious play written in 1611. The only surviving text is a handwritten script sent to King James’ censor. No one even knows the name of the original play. It’s generally called The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, because the censor’s license stated: “This second Mayden’s tragedy (for it hath no name inscribed) may with the reformations now be acted publikely.”
Joel: Is it tough bringing a 400-year-old play to Fringe?
Catherine Aselford. Photo courtesy of Hope Operas.
Catherine: Past FringeFests have been full of Shakespeare. Last year, I saw a great production of The Duchess of Malfi, my friends at Grain of Sand did a great Hamlet, and I even saw a crazy-fun riff on Doctor Faustus in 2009 – they served pretzels and beer. But Cold As Death isn’t actually a 400-year-old play. It’s an adaptation by Washington playwright Monique LaForce, who trimmed away the subplot and combined several characters to make the play darker and more action-packed. But 95% of the text is the original Middleton.”
Middleton? This play is mysterious, but you know who wrote it?
“Most experts believe The Second Maiden’s Tragedy is by Thomas Middleton. Middleton is best known for bloody tragedies known as revenge plays, especially The Changeling and Women Beware Women. We produced The Changeling in 1998. But Cold As Death isn’t truly a revenge play, even though 60% of the characters are corpses by the end. The main character kills the man who ruined his life, not out of revenge, but to prevent further evil. It’s a different motivation. We watch a gentle, ineffective man become Machiavellian and win back his throne. But hey, the gentle don’t get far in the world. Not then, not now.”
So, is there really necrophilia in this play?
No more than you’d find in Poe’s Annabel Lee. Well, maybe a little more. People were less repressed in the early 1600’s, but it’s not porn.
If it’s not a revenge play, and it’s not porn, what is it?
“It’s creepy. It’s about incredible stubbornness, madness and obsessive love. These are the qualities that make horror films, Gothic novels, and Jacobean tragedy fun!
Cold As Death features Terence Aselford and Cate Brewer, both of whom appeared in last year’s Guillotine Fringe show, Isis and Vesco Investigate the Curious Death of Dr. Freud, Nello DeBlasio, most recently seen in Brave Spirits’ Arden of Faversham, Dane Petersen, most recently seen in Pallas Theatre’s Major Barbara, and Angela Kay Pirko, who directed Lean and Hungry Theater’s Alice.
Cold As Death will be performed July 12, at 9:15; July 14, at 6:00; July 16, at 6:15; July 17, at 6:30; July 19, at 4:30; July 25, 8:30 at Eastman Studio Theatre– Gallaudet University – 800 Florida Avenue NE, WDC 20002.
Purchase tickets starting June 22, 2015 at the Capital Fringe’s website.
About Guillotine Theatre: We merrily push the idea that classics are visceral, larger-than-life, occasionally very bloody…and sometimes include really cool language. This is our ninth Fringe Fest, our fourth revenge play, and our second Middleton. #GuillotiNeTheat
About the Playwright: Monique LaForce’s plays include the critically-acclaimed Kenneth, What Is the Frequency? (co-written with Ian Allen), The Blizzard Comes (one of the five plays that comprised Guillotine Theatre’s 2011 Fringe Festival hit Belle Parricide), and last year’s Fringe Festival hit, Isis and Vesco Investigate the Curious Death of Dr. Freud. Monique is currently writing Hootenanny, a new work that Guillotine Theatre will co-produce with the National Museum of Women in the Arts, as part of the upcoming Women’s Voices Theatre Festival.
Longtime DC theater company Guillotine Theatre mounts a new play by Monique LaForce that is a crazy mash-up between Egyptian gods, the fathers of psychology, and the NYPD. This is a romance/cop-show/re-imagined myth that had the audience laughing out loud. They are definitely Fringe veterans – giving the audience water and fans before the show even starts.
Director Carl Brandt Long does a lot with a small space as the action spans the realms of the gods, Freud’s couch and the NYPD headquarters. The cast definitely makes the play. Cate Brewer (Isis) enters dressed in a shimmering cape a bullet proof vest and handcuffs. She is a goddess who is taking a break by fighting crime. She partners with a slick felon, Vesco (Sun King Davis) and their chemistry is fun. Her husband Osiris (Paolo Santayana) is working for the CIA with Maat (Michelle Hall-Norvell). Hall-Norvell belongs on a much bigger stage; she has a larger than life presence. He is working for them by trying to get cocaine from Dr. Freud (Terence Aselford) who is so hilarious – even when he’s just laying around as a dead body. Catherine Aselford and Katie Jeffries (Dr. Fleishel-Marrow and Shirley) round out the cast as a medical examiner and Jeffries every other role needed onstage, each one unique.
The language of the prologue sounds like Shakespeare and most of the rest of it rhymes in more modern language and it’s fun to revel in the English language with LaForce. I’d say the only downside is that it’s too short. By the end of the play the actors seemed to be running around and the end felt unfortunately rushed. LaForce set up a big story and it would have been great to see the whole thing play out, but for the time they had available, it was fun to visit with these crazy characters thrown together in a way I am sure has never been done before.
Isis and Vesco is innovative and fun theater.
Running Time: 75 minutes.
Isis and Vesco Investigate the Curious Death of Dr. Freud plays through July 26, 2014 at Redrum – 612 L Street in Washington, D.C. For performance times and to purchase tickets, visit their Capital Fringe page.
Mary Washington Drama Prof Finds New Challenge in Fringe Show
Cate Brewer, a lecturer in theatre at the University of Mary Washington, is spending her summer being treated like a goddess. At least when working on her current project — portraying Isis in the world premiere of Isis and Vesco Investigate the Curious Death of Dr. Freud, which will debut at the Capital Fringe Festival in July. Carl Brandt Long (who helmed last year’s Fringe hit Tell-Tale) is directing, with Sun King Davis as Vesco and Terence Aselford as Dr. Freud.
Sun King Davis (Vesco) and Cate Brewer (Isis). Photo by Suzanne Parisi.
In the play, the Ancient Egyptian goddess Isis joins the modern day NYPD. Isis is looking to learn a little something about vengeance. Her brother-in-law, Seth, has attacked and maimed her husband, and Isis feels it’s her duty to exact justice. But she’s not quite sure how to do that, and what better way to figure it all out than by helping out crime victims in the Big Apple? But she gets more than she bargained for when the FBI calls in a favor and Isis gets stuck babysitting rogue financier Robert Vesco (the Madoff of the 1970s). Vesco’s a cad and a lawbreaker. Isis is a law enforcement officer and a goddess. And, of course, opposites attract.
Brewer was attracted to the role from the first time she read the script, “It’s rare to get to play a female character that has agency on her own, but is also juxtaposed against a male character that has a strong drive. Isis and Vesco have a bit of a ‘merry war’ going on from the start, each trying to best the other.” Brewer also gets to explore a variety of emotions, for the play touches on some deeper, universal themes — like love, duty, betrayal, and death. There is also an important duality for Brewer to balance, that of Isis as Goddess and that of Isis as earthly being. Brewer also likes that the script is grounded in fact, “every character is true to his or her actual reality, but then each is dropped into a completely different world from the one they are used to.”
Brewer also notes that the play “offers something for everyone: spies, a love story, comedy, scandal, and murder.” Says Brewer, “How can you go wrong with that?” Indeed, Isis and Vesco takes various genres (classical theater, spy thrillers, and the “will they, won’t they” police procedural) and characters from various time periods (Isis and Osiris from Ancient Egypt, Vesco from the 1970s, a Victorian era Dr. Freud, a medical examiner from present day New York City) and blends them together to challenge not only the elements of the genres, but the characters themselves.
Brewer points out that the play, while set in New York, is firmly grounded in DC. Brewer says, “Not only am I a DC native, but Catherine [Aselford, the play’s producer] was also born and raised here. The show is uniquely local for a uniquely local event.” Aselford founded DC-based Guillotine Theatre in 1986, when little classical theater was being produced in the area. As more theaters began exploring classical works, Guillotine expanded its mission to include new works based on historical figures and classical themes. The Company has produced retellings of Ubu Roi and The Three Musketeers and new works based on the lives of characters as diverse as Jack the Ripper and Beatrice Cenci. Says Aselford, “this play is a perfect fit for Guillotine as it has beautiful, elevated language and poetry, a fascinating mashup of genres, a compelling story, and intellectual whimsy, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously.”
The Redrum – 612 L St, NW, in Washington, DC 20001.
Saturday, July 12th @ 9:30 pm
Friday, July 18th @ 6 pm
Sunday, July 20th @ 1:30 pm
Thursday, July 24th @ 7:45 pm
Saturday, July 26th @ 4 pm
PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS HERE, OR CALL (866) 811-4111.
Cate Brewer interviews Liz Maestri on her play Fallbeil,which will be playing at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival .
Playwright Liz Maestri.
Cate: What peaked your interest in historical fiction as a genre?
Liz: I didn’t so much become interested in the genre as I became interested in Sophie Scholl and her extraordinary and horrific life story. At first I wanted to write a straight-laced, poetic biographical piece about her–almost like a theatrical eulogy–but I discovered that I wasn’t equipped for or interested in doing that. As the play took shape, I also realized that it really belongs to the character Else, Sophie’s modern-day counterpart. The love and friendship shared between these characters from two separate times in history are what drives the play for me, and that ended up pushing the form into something more abstract and playful.
Your two main characters are dealing with major conflict, the conflict in Nazi Germany vs. modern Germany and the on-going Middle East conflict, what led to the choice to juxtapose these worlds?
Sophie Scholl lived in a time and place of chaos; war seemed endless and the world seemed hopeless. I wanted to bring her back to life, so-to-speak, beyond her martyrdom as a real human being. At the same time, through writing Else, I was able to explore my own feelings of anxiety in the present day–as well as the guilt I feel for living so well and so freely in a world that is still consumed by endless war. There are wars that rage outside and around us whether we see them or not, as well as the invisible wars inside ourselves. This is, unfortunately, life on this planet no matter where and when you live/d. What is glorious about humanity is our ability to fight against darkness, to always strive to be better and braver. On a more technical note, two major influences forFallbeilwere the plays The Baltimore Waltz and I Am My Own Wife, both of which deal with very heavy subject matter while still existing in an elastic, somewhat magical world. The characters in Fallbeil are already trapped, and so I wanted them at the very least to be able to move freely within a universe of their own.
In commercial theatre we don’t see female protagonists as often as some of us would like. What are some of the benefits of writing about female protagonists?
Better, more numerous roles for female actors, and more diverse roles for an audience to connect to. Other than that, it’s just a play. I hope people see it that way, too, and not as some kind of siloed, special-interest piece of theater simply for its female protagonists. The sexist thought-process, much less when it comes to characters in a play, is ludicrous.
What was it about Sophie School that was the most appealing to you as a playwright?
So many things. Sophie exhibited just about everything I admire in people. She was smart, strong, contemplative, and diligent, and showed such an astounding bravery in the face of unspeakable terror.
You have been in the NYC and DC theatre scene for a while now. What major changes have you seen from a playwright’s perspective?
Social media and other free web and tech services, as well as the proliferation of blogs and public conversations, have dramatically changed the regional theater playing field. (The jury is still out on our overarching ivory tower system, though). Suddenly, your work, your opinions, and your personality are visible to anyone in the world. I have no idea where we’ll be in ten years as an industry, but it sure is an interesting time to be involved.
What major changes would you like to see in the future?
A new, diverse, forward-thinking generation of leadership.
Without revealing too much – are there any surprises audiences should anticipate at the fringe production of Fallbeil?
Other than the parade of elephants, aqua ballet, and pyrotechnics?
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the show?
If you’re not familiar with them already, get to know Field Trip Theatre. Just do it. They are an incredibly sharp group of people, and I’m really excited to see what the future holds for them, both individually and as a group.
Beyond Fringe, where would you like to take Fallbeil?
I’m game for anything. I’m a huge design/tech nerd, so I’d love to someday be able to see the play realized in a space with all kinds of fancy-pants technical capabilities. I can’t help it, I love spectacle so much.
What’s next for Liz Maestri?
Argh! You’ve caught me on a day in which I can’t announce upcoming projects yet. Follow me on Twitter (@lizmaestri) or at my website to check out upcoming gigs.
PERFORMANCES
July 12th at 10:00PM July 14th at 10:30PM July 19th at 8:15PM July 24th at 10:15PM July 27th at 7:45PM
At Mountain – at Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church – 900 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC.
METRO: Mt. Vernon Sq. 7th St. (Green/Yellow); Gallery Place/Chinatown (Red, Green/Yellow).
On Friday, March 15, 2013 I had the pleasure of watching a reading of the new musical Everything I Doby John Becker. The play is based on a contemporary adaptation of Shaw’s Man and Super Man. The show will be produced for The Capital Fringe Festival this summer. Here are some questions I asked Hunter Styles, Artistic Director of Artists’ Bloc.
Hunter Styles. Photo by Graeme Shaw/GBS Photography.
Cate: In your mission statement for Artists’ Bloc you state: “It’s time for performing artists to unite in support of one another. It’s time to use our art to create positive change in our community. It’s time to stop being a disparate group working next to each other and become a unit working with each other.” Would you talk about this goal and how you accomplish it in workshops like these?
Hunter: Artists’ Bloc provides a number of services that are pretty unique on this arts scene, but it’s equally important that we work in tandem with the other organizations and resources in town. So that’s why we emphasize working with each other. I see that as a rallying cry. When we founded Artists’ Bloc in 2008 we dedicated ourselves specifically to new work, happening in its very early stages, specifically by DC-area artists. We put our focus on creating opportunities for informed, constructive peer-to-peer feedback. We exist to help the project find its early legs, and to empower the artists who are making it to ask themselves some fundamental questions about why and how they’re making what they’re making. With these events, plus a bunch of happy hour and networking events every year, we do our part to help knit the arts community together. I think the DC arts region shows a firm belief in the power of individuals, small companies, young artists, new projects, mentorship, experimentation… It’s just a matter of getting people in the same room.
How do you select the plays that receive workshops?
My personal taste has no real impact on selecting the projects we decide to workshop. What matters most is that the creator of the work — whether that’s a solo performer, a playwright, a dancer, a designer, etc — has clear goals and active questions about their work that they’re really looking to work through. Those are the artists who benefit the most from the feedback process. They have to be precise in the questions they ask. That way, the responses they get from our dramaturgs, artists, and audiences will pay back with equal precision.
Everything I Do contemporizes Shaw’s text and tells the story through music. In your eyes what is the responsibility to the original work when creating a project like this?
Honestly, I wouldn’t say there’s any particular responsibility. Or rather, that responsibility depends completely on the goals of the artist. If you want to do an adaptation of Shakespeare set in outer space, and that idea gets you passionate and curious, go for it. Not every creative idea rings true for every audience member, but navigating how audiences will feel about your show is not the first order of business. Getting your idea to stand up in the first place in the way you imagine it should takes play, and time, and care. Shaw is difficult text. It’s dense in ways, and the language is heightened… People certainly don’t do musicals based on Shaw plays very often. But John Becker sees a way of capturing some of the themes and emotions of the show through music, and that root confidence he has in the concept is well worth our support through the early forming stages, regardless of the shape it ends up taking.
In feedback sessions for Artists’ Bloc Workshops, you are very adept at guiding the audience comments and supporting your playwrights while allowing participants to share critical feedback. Would you talk a bit about how you find that balance?
Artists’ Bloc uses a method of critique based in part on Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. When we do a feedback session we break it up into a few sections that help us keep the creating artist empowered and the audience engaged. Typically we start by having the audience share what they thought worked, what were strong, memorable moments, things like that. Then we give the artist an opportunity to ask questions of the audience, which can help focus feedback toward specific aspects of the showing that the artist wants to talk about. Then comes an opportunity for the audience to ask the artist questions. Finally, since we have some trust built up by this point, we give the audience the chance to share more specific, critical thoughts with the artist. During this, the artist is still the one steering, and they can talk as much or as little about specific aspects of the show as they want. In essence, we want to think of the feedback session as an educational opportunity for the audience. The more they learn why an artist is making particular choices, the better informed they’ll be and the more thought they’ll put into their responses.
What is the process from here? How much involvement in the process do you have after the workshops?
That really depends on the workshop. Sometimes a workshop happens a few months before the piece is being fully produced, in which case it’s easy to keep tabs on the artist’s next steps. Sometimes artists decide to table their work on a project for a while. Either way, we do our best to stay on their radar, and keep them on our radar, and offer brainstorming, resources, follow-up opportunities to do read-throughs and workshops… whatever is most helpful to that particular artist and their thinking about what’s next.
Like most of us, you balance a career in theatre by wearing several different hats. Can you take a moment to explain that balance in reference to the goals of Artists’ Bloc?
It’s true that I have a number of jobs in the theatre. I’m on staff at Signature Theatre. I write reviews for DC Theatre Scene and have been doing some pieces for American Theatre magazine. I’m also a playwright and I frequently direct as well. So, there’s all that. But there’s also a lot that I don’t know, or have very little experience in, and that’s part of what makes the breadth and diversity of Artists’ Bloc programming so fun as well. Artists’ Bloc has a need for experienced artists, dramaturgs, performers, and directors, in the private workshop sessions as well as the public ones, but a fresh set of eyes during public feedback — not just from those who don’t already know the project, but sometimes from those who aren’t regular theatergoers — is incredibly helpful. If we have a rich base of artists for a given event, and then we also make the effort to bring new faces into the room, then we get to have it both ways.
How much involvement do you have directly with re-writes and suggestions for the final Fringe production of Everything I Do?
Well, our spring work on Everything I Do culminated in the March workshop showing. But as a friend and colleague of John Becker, and of director Michael Kelly, the conversation will continue. They’re affiliated with Artists’ Bloc now and it would be great to keep that connection alive. I’ll offer what help I can — we’ve already had one meeting together post-workshop to sync up and get their thoughts on how it went — but in terms of Fringe, this project is very much theirs to bring to fruition.
Artists’ Bloc event in January 2012 with Hunter Styles. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.
John Becker did a lovely job of balancing Shaw’s concepts with more contemporary language and music. As a writer yourself, are you better able to guide your playwrights through this process?
As with a lot of vocations, sometimes it seems that the more you learn the less you know. I think over time, writing several plays and reading hundreds, I’m always struck by how personal the process is. Not just the style of the writing, but the lifestyle and the activity of writing… it really differs from person to person. Sure, I have certain concrete thoughts and rules that I keep about clarity of story, character development, plot structure etc., which I’m usually willing to offering during a workshop (or, often, afterward). But there are a million ways to tell a story, and I do my best to help give artists room to breathe while they work things out.
Can you take a moment to tell us about the Fringe Production? Is there anything audiences should look for in this piece?
Some acquaintance, even a passing one, with the Shaw play Man and Supermanwill probably be helpful. It won’t be required reading beforehand, but the more you know going in the more you’ll get out of it. I’m sure John and Michael have numerous tricks up their sleeves that I’m not even aware of yet. I can only recommend you go to have fun and to hear a classic play get a fresh treatment.
Is there anything else that you would like to tell us here about Artists’ Bloc or Everything I Do?
Anyone who hasn’t checked out the scene at Capital Fringeduring that festival’s three-week run in July is really missing out. It’s become a hotbed for great summer fun, and it’s grown a lot even in the last few years. If we’re talking about getting a variety of different kinds of creative people together, even without agenda, there is really no place in DC like the Baldacchino Gypsy Tent Bar, which the festival operates at Fringe HQ throughout the month. As someone who loves meeting new people, running into old friends, and bouncing ideas off each other, there’s no place I’d rather be in July.
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Cate Brewer speaks with Matthew R. Wilson, who is nominated for The Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical for Faction of Fools Theatre Company’sA Commedia Christmas Carol, based on the novel by Charles Dickens.
Left to Right: Paul Reisman and Toby Mulford in ‘A Commedia Christmas Carol.’ Photo by Second Glance Photography.
Cate: In your acceptance speech for the 2012 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company, you mentioned how surprised you were that your concept for a Commedia dell’Arte company took off with such force. As you find yourself nominated for the 2013 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical, what are your thoughts?
Matt: I love the fact that we took a 500-year-old theatre form and applied it to a 200-year-old novel in order to create a brand new play. The paradox is beautiful, but what we are learning through Faction of Fools is that many of the old ideas are still great ideas. If we want to look for theatre that does something new—not the same proscenium naturalism that we’ve seen for the last two centuries—then we can take some inspiration from the kind of theatre that inspired people back in the Renaissance BEFORE the 4th wall was constructed and art was asked to slavishly imitate life at its most mundane.
Cate: In your mission statement, you talk about preserving the Renaissance style of Commedia, how do you accomplish that goal as a company and still find ways to keep the style fresh for yourselves and your audience?
We are not making museum pieces. We are exploring why Commedia changed the world and how it still speaks to us as human beings and artists. Commedia has always been about a strong collaboration between artists and a direct link with the audience. Our artists and our audiences are postmodern people, and, therefore, so is our Commedia!
When adapting a traditional story like A Christmas Carol for Faction of Fools, is there a certain process that you follow? How much liberty do you take in this process? How much of the work is improvised vs. scripted?
Each process is different. For A Commedia Christmas Carol I began with the novel and also with the opportunities and challenges created by working at Gallaudet. I knew that we wanted non-verbal forms of storytelling to be prominent, but I also knew that we also wanted wordplay. The different ghost vignettes gave an opportunity for different types of storytelling throughout. I knew that we wanted to respect Dickens’ characters as well as the Commedia archetypes and see how they could inform each other. And from there we all started to play. The work of the designers helped to sculpt the playground, and then the work of the actors kept finding new invention and fun. But for this project it was important to do justice to the novel through a script that could innovate with respect. Some places I borrowed directly from Dickens. Elsewhere I wrote my own Dickensian style. And some places are surprising contemporary intrusions.
Your company is now in residence at Gallaudet University. Can you talk a bit about that relationship and what it has meant for the company?
Matthew R. Wilson. Photo by ClintonBPhotography.
We have a great partnership with Gallaudet. Our residency there means training and internship opportunities (both performance and technical) for the excellent students in their theatre department. And it is exciting to see how many people who might not otherwise visit Gallaudet are coming and witnessing how important the school is to the neighborhood and the District. For us, the resources and technical support from the staff and faculty have allowed Faction to take our work to the next level design – and production-wise. But most excitingly, it has forced us all—students & professionals, hearing & deaf—to reconsider how we communicate and how we make art. Commedia thrived in the Renaissance because it could play across Europe to cross-cultural audiences and surmount linguistic barriers. We are finding the same thing with English & ASL and Hearing & Deaf culture in our partnership with Gallaudet.
What sparked your interest in Commedia? How are you able to use your love of the form to excite and educate an audience that might not be very familiar with Commedia?
I started doing Commedia just to acquire more tools for my acting tool box. I only wanted the physical training and comic sensibility. But I found a theatre style that is vibrant and beautiful and has really shaped my whole outlook on life and art.
In performance, it always looks like your actors are truly living in the moment and having fun! Are there different steps involved to accomplish this in a more stylized form like Commedia?
Part of the beautiful but deadly balance in Commedia is the balance between disciplined precision and chaotic improvisation. You have to live in the form a little bit before you can see it as freeing rather than constricting. Once you can rely on the structure, then you can play, and anything is possible. But it takes actors a long time and hours of sweat and frustration to arrive at that point.
It seems that Commedia dell’Arte involves so much physicality that your company relies on each other as an ensemble to a greater degree than some productions. How do you build ensemble within your company?
Ensemble requires training together and playing together and working together. I am touched by how many people who work with Faction of Fools will show up to hang lights or usher for a show that they are not appearing in. We want to keep training more and more in the future to really build a common vocabulary and skill set. Also, in addition to our mainstage shows, we have been able to participate in things like Fringe, Atlas INTERSECTIONS, community festivals, and our annual Commedia dell’Arte Day to build low-cost, low-tech ensemble shows that really are created and generated entirely by the performers involved. There is no better training that getting out there in front of an audience!
In the past year you have been working more with other area companies both in the capacity of director and actor. You also teach in the area. Can you talk a bit about how you are able to balance the myriad roles you play in DC theatre?
I worked with a Laban instructor who always used to say, “A change is as good as a rest.” For me that is absolutely true. I thrive on the variety of getting to act, direct, teach, and choreograph. A lot of irons in the fire lets me eke out a living, and, for me, each job is like a break for the other jobs. Teaching inspires me and keeps me searching in my own work. And I’ve been lucky to get to work with other companies recently—like No Rules (where I am appearing in Black Comedy) or Constellation (with whom I just did Taking Steps) or Hub (for whom I am directing this summer’s Act a Lady). It’s stimulating to see how other companies work, and it is liberating to have someone else handle the admin and producing tasks for a change!
Left to Right: Michael Sprouse, Jessica Willoughby, Marianna Devenow, Joel David Santner, Julie Garner and Sandra Mae Frank in ‘A Commedia Christmas Carol.’ Photo by Second Glance Photography.
As Faction of Fools continues to get more acclaim, do what do you see for the company? What is your next step?
We’ve had some pretty significant staff changes recently, including my wife stepping down as Managing Director after 3.5 years of service for the company. So I think now we are really trying to figure out what our long-term plans are rather than just racing from show to show. This spring’s The Lady Becomes Him, devised & directed by Toby Mulford, will be our first major production that I have not been a part of. It’s exciting to see the company starting to walk on its own legs. And of course we are already planning for next season!
Is there anything else that you would like to tell the audience about Faction of Fools?
Come see Plays on the American Mask at the Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival on Feb 23 & 25 and The Lady Becomes Him back in residency at Gallaudet in April-May.
Congratulations to all of the nominees and to all of the artists who comprise the Washington theatre scene. We will all look forward to discovering who the winners are at the Helen Hayes Awards Ceremony on April 8, 2013 at The Warner Theatre.
BEST OF THE 2016 CAPITAL FRINGE!
