NY Jewish cultural events in the coming weeks include singles events; an author talk; gallery show and meet the artist; a talk by a representative of Uganda's Abadayuda Jewish community; a musical theater work; and the Maccabi Film Festival (Jewish sports movies).
We saw talented performer Arthur Romeo take part in Sweet Baby J'ai's one act historical play Recipe for Hot Biscuits and Blues at the Stella Adler Theatre. The play was a part of the 2nd Annual 20% New Works Festival. It was a wonderful performance by the whole cast. Another performance piece that took part in the same evening was This Is War.
We were able to interview Arthur Romeo who was part of the ensemble briefly in Q&A fashion. He has also appeared in films such as Art School Confidential and Be Easy. Arthur's girlfriend, actress-performer Karina Rossy, was there in support(pictured)
Jelly Noose(JN)Q&A with Arthur Romeo:
1. JN: Tell us about your passion for acting/theatre/film(why)
-My passion for the theatre arts revolves around the idea that every single class of art, be it dance, music, graphic, or visual play an integral part in the process and that's amazing because I truly adore all of the arts .Theatre is great because its entertainment, life, and catharsis. You don't come out of a play without learning about something so in that way theatre helps the world go 'round.
2. JN:What is your favorite project that you've taken part in?
-My favorite project that I participated in was a film called Art School Confidential, it was great because I made a lot a great friends on that set and plus I got to work with John Malkovich for two weeks! He's one of my favorite actors.
3. JN:How did you like taking part in Hot Biscuits?
-Its was a wonderful experience! The cast and crew were brilliant, I was quite lucky to be in their ranks. I like that every project I work on I learn something new and can take it with me, in this case it was knowledge of the negro leagues of the 40's and 50's.
4. JN: Do you like musical theatre more or dramas?
-That's hard to say. I'd fashion to say I love all forms of theatre equally. I'm just in love with the spectacle.
5. JN: Of Film and Theatre which do you like more and why?
-Its kind of the same thing as the last answer, while both mediums are wildly different, they are still tightly bound by firm dramatic foundation, and I love both forms very dearly.
6. JN: What are your upcoming projects?
-Right now I have a few books that I'm working on, and as always I'm continuing to do the Hollywood shuffle hustle.
7. JN: What inspires you in your creative works?
-Everyday life, its tragedies, its eccentricities, it's glee, its depravity, its goes on and on.
8.JN: A link - a wep page to see any samples of your work.
-Sure, here's a link to some of my artwork. www.skipstone.deviantart.com/galleryHighlight:
We saw talented performer Arthur Romeo take part in Sweet Baby J'ai's... more
"The play, To enjoy the sweetness you must taste the bitterness, produced, written, directed and acted by Iraqis, is the first evening stage show in Baghdad since the war that toppled Saddam Hussein six and a half years ago.
Although it is a comedy, the title and story have an obvious and serious resonance for people who long for better times. The 1,000 seat theatre, built during the Iran-Iraq war and which in its heyday hosted sell-out foreign productions of Shakespeare and Chekhov, is, once again, full.
As nervous ushers handed out white plastic garden chairs to customers who had paid 10,000 dinars (£5.50) for seats only to be left standing, the significance of the night-time performance was not lost amid the hubbub.
"We used to go to the theatre and cinemas all the time before the war," says Elaf Mohammed, a 29-year-old civil engineer accompanied by her husband Usama and three-year-old daughter. "It is so good that we can do so again."
Until little more than a year ago, going to a restaurant, one of the few evening diversions available in Baghdad, would have been considered dangerous. Downtown neighbourhoods such as Karrada and Mansur would have been empty by 6pm. Now they are bustling.
"Life must go on," Elaf says, in a sentiment shared by Usama, whose face bears the scars of debris that struck him when a massive truck bomb killed dozens and wounded hundreds at Baghdad's foreign ministry just seven weeks ago.
"People used to be scared to go out at night," he says. "I feel happy this has changed. Baghdad is a big city and we need to enjoy culture."
While the Baghdad cinemas that once showed international and Arabic films remain closed, bar a few matinée screenings, it is a sign of progress, perhaps, that families have the option of going to the theatre in the evening.
The play's actors, most of them stars of local television shows, include Majid Yassin, a veteran performer who fled Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion ushered in bombings, kidnappings and sectarian murder that eviscerated society, but who has since returned.
"The hearts of Iraqis are full of hurt, you can see their pain from the outside. People have been used to crying," he says.
"My colleagues and I perform so that we can make them laugh again."
The play opened during Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that follows the holy month of Ramadan, and was the idea of producer Essam al-Abassi who, when not devising productions, sells mobile phones in the Iraqi capital.
Centred on two friends who quarrel when one falls in love with the other's sister, the plot contains an element of science fiction when a spaceship uplifts the men to Neptune, forcing them to put aside their differences.
The play is passionately patriotic and although it does not explicitly refer to the sectarian divide between Shia and Sunni, Abassi concedes that the gulf between Iraq's two dominant communities did inspire him.
"I am trying to send a message to the people that in the end there are no differences," he says.""The play, To enjoy the sweetness you must taste the bitterness, produced, written,... more
"World-famous composer Lord Lloyd-Webber has launched his latest musical, Love Never Dies - a sequel to the award-winning Phantom of the Opera.
Set on New York's Coney Island in 1907, 10 years after the Phantom fled Paris, it is co-written by Ben Elton and has taken more than two years to complete.
Ramin Karimloo, currently playing the Phantom in London, returns to the role opposite Broadway's Sierra Boggess.
The show is set to open at London's Adelphi Theatre on 9 March, 2010.
It is expected to open in New York in November next year.""World-famous composer Lord Lloyd-Webber has launched his latest musical, Love Never... more
Writers and Film Makers that have not heard about TriggerStreet.com really should take some time and check it out.
Membership is free and it is a great place to get input and constructive criticism on your writings.
You can post your:
Short Films
Screenplays
Short Stories
Plays
Book
Comics
About Triggerstreet
TriggerStreet.com was founded in 2002 by two time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey and producer Dana Brunetti as an interactive mechanism to discover and showcase emerging filmmaking and writing talent. With the legal--and attendant procedural--restrictions on outsiders in Hollywood, Spacey and Brunetti sought to democratize exposure, providing an avenue of communication between Hollywood and emerging talent everywhere, thereby working to overcome the barriers they so often encounter.
Responding to the enthusiasm and high quality of work produced by its burgeoning film community, TriggerStreet.com evolved as a social networking utility to provide an evolving platform for emerging artists in different media: the strength of the peer-based review system and the positive impact of the resultant constructive criticism catalyzed the addition of several new specialized communities. Beyond its Short Film and Screenplay sections, TriggerStreet.com now provides opportunity for feedback and exposure for Short Stories, Books, Plays, and—most recently—Comics. By nurturing an environment where users collectively strive for creative excellence by reaching out to others, TriggerStreet.com has grown with the mission of facilitating the kind of collaboration and communication necessary for success in the entertainment industries.
It is the belief of the founders that exposure to the film and publishing industries provides a strong potential career boost to those actively committed to creative excellence. But perhaps more importantly, TriggerStreet.com builds craft, talent, and careers by encouraging the kind of objective criticism and analytical skills which allow members to help each other.
Remember if you do join TriggerStreet and post your creative works that the more you review other artists material the more your submissions will be reviewed.
So check out TriggerStreet! I hope to see you there!!!Writers and Film Makers that have not heard about TriggerStreet.com really should take... more
Chris Jones writes, "...There's no question that the bar for length has lowered -- attention spans are shorter, minds are faster and theaters no longer have to worry that one-act shows will spark complaints.
In general, 90 minutes can please a lot of people. Technology has helped too. When I saw the Las Vegas "Phantom," which is about 90 minutes, I was amazed that it seemed to contain almost all the same material found in the three-hour "Phantom of the Opera." Even the director, Hal Prince, admitted to me that he didn't miss much that he'd cut, arguing that it was at least partly filler to cover scenic transitions that computers can now engineer more quickly.
But I still say theaters have to be held accountable for substance. There are shows that are too short, just as some playwrights can't cut to save their lives. And I won't even bring up Bob Zmuda's Tony Clifton show last year, from which I emerged, dazed, after about five hours. As it was still going strong.
I will admit one bias: in favor of intermissions. Nothing is more deadly than a boring, two-hour, one-act show. Nothing is more delightful than the crisp two- (or even three-) act, allowing for conversation, refreshment and pondering in the middle."Chris Jones writes, "...There's no question that the bar for length has lowered --... more
"A-I-D-A. Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. Attention - Do I have you attention? Interest - Are you interested? I know you are, because it's fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks. Decision - Have you made your decision, for Christ? And Action. A-I-D-A."
AND they're mounting it in Chicago! Dreams do come true...
"Following in the recent footsteps of Green Day and Duncan Sheik, singer Regina Spektor is making the transition from rock star to stage artist in the new musical production "Beauty," which is expected to open in 2011.
The Russian-born Spektor, whose latest alt-rock album "Far" was released earlier this year, currently is writing the music for the show, collaborating with playwright Tina Landau, whose one-act play "Beauty" provides the inspiration for the production.
Stuart Oken, who is one of the producers, told Culture Monster that there will likely be between 10 to 15 original songs in the musical.
"Regina's kind of fresh voice is elusive. There are plenty of theater composers, but we wanted a pop rock flavor -- though it's really hard to call Regina that," said Oken on the phone from his office in Chicago.
"She's a complete musician who is classically trained. She is surprising at every turn."
"Beauty," which is loosely based on the "Sleeping Beauty" tale, is a musical that takes place in two different time periods. The first half hews closely to Landau's original play, which is set 1,000 years in the past. The second part of the musical brings us closer to the present day, according to Oken.
He declined to elaborate anymore on the plot or to discuss casting.
Producers are aiming to bring the musical to Broadway near the end of the 2011-12 season. They are also planning a tryout run at a major regional theater, most likely in 2011.
The book for the musical is being written by Landau, with lyrics by Michael Korie. (Landau is currently directing the Broadway run of "Superior Donuts" by Tracy Letts.)
The one-act "Beauty" had its world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2003, according to a company spokeswoman.
Elephant Eye Theatrical, which is based in Chicago, is producing the musical version of the play."AND they're mounting it in Chicago! Dreams do come true...
"Following in the recent... more
"The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has cancelled plans to stage a new production of The Tempest at the Luminato festival of the arts in Toronto next June.
The plan called for the play - starring Christopher Plummer as Prospero - to preview in Stratford, Ont., through next May, then officially open in Toronto for a limited run during Luminato before returning to Stratford for the remainder of the season. The two festivals would have shared a production credit.
Stratford hoped that in reaching out to Toronto audiences, the festival might encourage more theatregoers to make the drive to the small Ontario city.
But Stratford's general director Antoni Cimolino said in an interview Thursday that while the idea had been under discussion for months and investigated thoroughly, the costs associated with its execution would have been prohibitive.
"We'd have had to have sold every last ticket [in Toronto]," he said, "and even then that would not have been sufficient to break even. The mathematics simply did not work."
Cimolino declined to say just how great the shortfall would have been, but it's believed to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Instead, Stratford will mount The Tempest, one of Shakespeare's later plays, on its own at the Festival Theatre.
Although cash-rich Luminato would likely have been able to help underwrite some of the company's production costs, including Plummer's star salary, significant additional expenses would have been incurred, Cimolino noted."
--I've seen "The Tempest" mounted with 50 oil drums, a big crepe paper lighting fixture, a blanket, a bottle, a couple wooden planks, and a big stick. It was probably the best Shakespeare production I've ever seen. How much money do you really need?"The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has cancelled plans to stage a new production of... more
"Seated around a large table during the first week of rehearsal for "The Night Is a Child," director Sheldon Epps guides his actors' investigation of a scene between an American woman and the hotel owner she encounters in Brazil. He asks them about the differences between Boston and Brazil, the grayness versus the color, and the contrasts that these first scenes must embody.
With a cast led by JoBeth Williams, Charles Randolph-Wright's "The Night is a Child" opens Friday in its West Coast premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse, where Epps is artistic director. The play revolves around the experience of Williams' Bostonian, and that of her family, in the wake of a Columbine-style killing spree by one of her sons.
Key characters in this play are a white woman and her family. The director happens to be black, as does the playwright. Should it matter?
If the answer seems simple, recent dialogue in the theater community suggests otherwise. What Epps has created in this Pasadena rehearsal room is largely the exception. A theater that facilitates artists of any race or ethnicity working on plays about characters of any race or ethnicity is far from the norm.
In fact, since spring, when a revival of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" opened on Broadway, the American theater has been engaged in a racially charged discussion of who should direct what. Should white artists direct plays that are black in authorship and subject? And by extension, should black -- and Latino, Asian, mixed-race and other -- directors be hired to stage plays written by white authors? Such are the questions being posed.
"I don't think there is a simple and satisfactory answer," says black playwright Lynn Nottage, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Ruined." "This conversation is part of our cultural growing pains, and it's one of the many steps in the road to defining our creative and cultural identity."
The controversy was ignited when Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher was tapped to helm the Wilson revival. Wilson, who died in 2005, had insisted that only black directors stage his work. But his widow, Constanza Romero, approved the choice of Sher, who is white. This production marked the first time a Wilson play had been directed by a white director on Broadway. And black artists have voiced concern about the precedent.
"The conversation around 'Joe Turner' has been a catalyst," says Laura Penn, executive director of the Society of Directors and Choreographers, a union for theater artists. "Yes, there was conversation about it as an aesthetic choice, but the conversation among our members quickly moved to access and opportunity."""Seated around a large table during the first week of rehearsal for "The Night Is a... more
"Harry M. Bagdasian hopes memories are long and attics full among theater folk in Washington and beyond. He's on the hunt for scripts of plays that premiered in the 1970s and '80s at the long-defunct New Playwrights' Theatre in Washington, which, as a determined 23-year-old, he co-founded.
He remembers thinking, " 'Wow. No one's doing new plays in Washington, the capital of our country. Why don't we have a theater here working with American playwrights?' We only had about two cents, but we started anyway."
New Playwrights' presented new work on a shoestring from 1972 to 1988, for most of that time in what is now the Church Street Theater. Bagdasian left the company in 1984 "kind of burned out," he says. On his Web site (http://www.hbagdasian.com) he writes, "I left NPT in the incapable hands of a Board of Trustees that eventually let the place go bankrupt."
Some of the scripts he's seeking are: "And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson" by James Leonard Jr.; "Rats," a musical spoof of "Cats," by Tim Grundmann; "Canticle" by Michael Champagne and William Penn, based on Dante's "Inferno"; and a 45-minute musical "Hamlet!," which featured a very young J. Fred Shiffman, now a busy Washington actor.
Perusal of Bagdasian's Web site shows youthful shots of such soon-to-be Washington theater luminaries as Molly Smith, artistic director of Arena Stage, and Fred Strother, another busy actor. Stage and film actress Marcia Gay Harden worked there, as did Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, and James C. Nicola, artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop. (Lloyd Rose, who was chief drama critic at The Washington Post, was New Playwrights' dramaturge.) A play by Washington-based writer Ernest Joselovitz, "Hagar's Children," was picked up by the Public Theater's Joe Papp and produced off-Broadway in 1977.
Aside from nostalgia, Bagdasian has other reasons to create a formal archive of his New Playwrights' treasures. "Being the eternal optimist, I would like to see some of this material rediscovered and revisited by this new generation of producers and artistic directors, because there's a lot of fun material. There's a lot of engaging drama that did not get published and is worth rediscovery," he says.""Harry M. Bagdasian hopes memories are long and attics full among theater folk in... more
"Arena Stage has received a $1.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create the American Voices New Play Institute, an initiative to help further new play development within American theater.
The new org will become a focal point of Arena's renovated facility, slated to open next year. D.C. playwright Karen Zacarias ("The Book Club Play") will be the first resident playwright under the new program.
The institute will become a center for research and development of practices, programs and processes for new play development, Arena said. It will build on previous initiatives by the company under a.d. Molly Smith to emphasize American works, including the hosting of the National Endowment for the Arts' New Play Development Program.
Smith said the new play initiative will begin operation with a suite of interrelated programs, including playwright residencies, new-works producing fellowships and annual aud enrichment seminars.
In addition, the institute will host national new work showcases, new play development symposia and establish a "wisdom bank" -- an Internet-based clearinghouse of information and multimedia relevant to the infrastructure required to develop and produce new plays.
The NEA project is led by Arena associate a.d. David Dower, who with Smith will guide the institute in partnership with Georgetown U.'s theater department.
Smith said the one-year producing fellowships will expand the scope of Arena's current fellowship program to immerse budding artistic producers in the practices of creating, resourcing and managing new play development. They will be designed with help from execs at New York City's Foundry Theater.
Arena's $100 million-plus Mead Center for American Theater is slated to open in fall 2010. It will house Arena's two existing performance spaces, the Fichandler and the Kreeger, plus a new 200-seat black box space called the Kogod Cradle.""Arena Stage has received a $1.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to... more
"Why do we go to theatre? For lots of reasons; but one of them is obviously to see star actors in great plays. Which explains the figures recently released by the Society of London Theatre, showing that attendances at straight plays in the first half of 2009 are up by 19% on the previous year. No big surprise there when you look at what's been on offer: Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Waiting for Godot, Jude Law in Hamlet, Ken Stott in A View from the Bridge, Helen Mirren in Phèdre. To that we can now add Rachel Weisz in A Streetcar Named Desire, which is causing a box office stampede at the Donmar.
But what can we learn from all this? Mark Lawson recently argued that it showed the economic crisis was making managements more conservative and that there was a flight from the new and the risky. Now Mark is a good man with whom I normally agree, but here I beg to differ. First, I don't think there's anything reactionary about audiences craving to see Shakespeare, Racine, Beckett, Miller and Williams. Secondly, in the short time since Mark wrote his piece two new plays have appeared, which shows there is a comparable appetite for living writers. Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, running close to three-and-a-half hours, has been packing out the Royal Court. Meanwhile, Lucy Prebble's Enron has been raising a storm in Chichester, which I guarantee will be repeated when it moves to the Court in September.
But what do Jerusalem and Enron have in common? One, after all, is a lament for the decline of rural England. The other is a sharp analysis of the corporate crisis. What unites the two plays, apart from their epic scale and superlative productions, is that both are built around phenomenal star parts and performances.
Audiences are hungry for new plays that deal with big issues and provide fat lead roles. I am not anti-ensemble, and I always hesitate to tell dramatists what to do. But history proves that the plays that endure are those that provide rich gifts for actors. That's why John Osborne's The Entertainer – coming to Manchester's Royal Exchange this autumn – is never out of the repertory. Or why Pinter's plays, with Jonathan Pryce doing The Caretaker in Liverpool in October, are ceaselessly revived. Or why Peter Shaffer's Amadeus will never die.""Why do we go to theatre? For lots of reasons; but one of them is obviously to see... more
"Doctor Johnny Long has a PHD, only not of the seven-years'-study-and-thesis variety. Long is a porn star, and his "PHD" stands for "pretty huge dick". Yes, it's pretty basic stuff, but that's kind of the level in Porn: The Musical, part-funded by Cameron Mackintosh, and one of many fringe shows on the subject of sex and all things related.
Sex is always a hot ticket here: with more than 2,000 shows vying for audiences's attention, a poster featuring naked buttocks and the word "porn" is naturally going to get at least a double-take. But this year's recession-hit fringe is more sex-crazed than ever. The Chippendales are on at the Gilded Balloon; Jane Austen's Guide to Pornography is at the Zoo Southside; porn star Ben Dover is billing himself "innocent till proven filthy" at the Underbelly; and Ashley Hames, sometime reporter for cable TV sex show Sin Cities, is at the Pleasance Courtyard telling some disturbing tales about his adventures with "sexual astronauts".
For some, this glut of sex-related shows points to increasing commercialism. Richard Demarco, the veteran theatre promoter and one of the festival's founders, has worried that: "If it's not careful, the fringe will soon be associated with Las Vegas." But audiences don't seem to mind – there have been queues around the block for the Chippendales, Porn: The Musical and Ashley Hames, whose show opens with a sickening clip showing Hames having his scrotum nailed to a board by a Parisian dominatrix, and moves on to alcohol enemas apparently delivered for fun.
Both shows carry warnings and are recommended for over-18s only, but the explicit content has proved too much for some. An entire row got up and left Hames's show after 10 minutes, while others chose to quit Porn: The Musical shortly after the first lewd (if semi-obscured) coupling of Doctor Long and Sanddy "with a double D". Audience members Harry and Ruth, both students, told me they'd had enough of sexual excess on the fringe: "If I hear one more joke about penises," Ruth said, "I may just explode."""Doctor Johnny Long has a PHD, only not of the seven-years'-study-and-thesis variety.... more
"In a small Kansas town that inspired some of William Inge’s most melancholy characters, about two dozen never-before-performed plays are poised to become the found treasures of his collected works. These plays were not hidden in the proverbial cedar chest in a dusty farmhouse but languishing in a college library in obscurity and solitude, like a tragic Inge heroine.
One of them, “The Killing,” is part of the Summer Shorts festival at 59E59 Theaters in Manhattan. This story about a man so terrified of committing suicide that he asks another man to kill him has parallels to Inge’s life. He killed himself in 1973 after struggling for years with depression and alcoholism.
Pain permeates most of Inge’s work. His major plays, “Come Back, Little Sheba,” “Picnic,” “Bus Stop” and “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,” portray rural Americans struggling with sexual repression (he was gay), alcoholism, small-town gossip and religiosity.
These issues haunted Inge most of his adult life, said Peter Ellenstein, artistic director of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kan., Inge’s hometown. Inge, who won the Pulitzer Prize for “Picnic” in 1953 and an Academy Award for writing the 1961 film “Splendor in the Grass,” sought approval from townsfolk who often scorned him for being a homosexual.
“The Killing,” which runs through Aug. 27, is the second rediscovered Inge play to receive its world premiere in New York this year. The Flea Theater in SoHo staged a reading of the three-act “Off the Main Road” on May 11 with Sigourney Weaver, Jay O. Sanders and Frances Sternhagen. The Flea is considering staging a full production of it or another unperformed play by Inge this fall.
These two works are among about 25 — an exact count is still being determined, since some of the plays may be incomplete — stored in the library at Independence Community College, which houses a collection of Inge’s writings, as well as artwork he collected. The plays have been available for researchers to read on site but, in order to preserve them, were not to be copied or checked out of the library. It was a case of manuscripts hiding in plain sight.""In a small Kansas town that inspired some of William Inge’s most melancholy... more
"The creators of “The Laramie Project,” the acclaimed play about the 1998 murder of a 21-year-old gay man, Matthew Shepard, are finishing work on an 80-minute epilogue to the original work that will be given its debut simultaneously at dozens of theaters across the United States on Oct. 12, the 11th anniversary of Mr. Shepard’s death.
Moisés Kaufman, the playwright and director who, with his Tectonic Theater Project company, wrote and produced the first “Laramie Project,” said the epilogue would explore the impact of the Shepard killing on the residents of Laramie, Wyo., where it occurred. The dialogue will be drawn from interviews with dozens of people there, some of whom were involved in the crime, including Aaron McKinney, who was convicted of murdering Mr. Shepard and who gave an interview to the Tectonic artists.
Tectonic’s goal is to recruit 100 regional theaters, universities and other arts organizations to hold staged readings of the work, which is called “The Laramie Project — 10 Years Later.” More than 40 theaters have committed to the readings, including Arena Stage in Washington, Seattle Repertory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. The Tectonic company will hold its performance in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center.
“We’re also taking advantage of contemporary technology so that at the New York performance we’ll be connected to the other productions across the nation via the Internet,” Mr. Kaufman said. “We’re giving each production a video recorder so that they can document the event, and we’ll be answering questions live from across the country,” after the performances on Oct. 12, a Monday.
Mr. Kaufman and his epilogue co-writers — Stephen Belber, Leigh Fondakowski, Andy Paris and Greg Pierotti — returned to Laramie last fall to reinterview several townspeople who originally gave accounts to Tectonic in 1998 about Mr. Shepard, Mr. McKinney and the events preceding and following the murder. Those accounts were threaded together verbatim to create “The Laramie Project,” which has had several thousand productions since it opened Off Broadway in 2000.
In writing the new work Mr. Kaufman and his colleagues said they would reflect the range of views currently held by Laramie residents and others about whether Mr. Shepard’s murder was a hate crime by two homophobic men (Mr. McKinney and his accomplice, Russell Henderson) or the result of a botched attempt by the two men to rob Mr. Shepard.
Mr. Kaufman declined to reveal details of the interview with Mr. McKinney, who, like Mr. Henderson, is now serving two consecutive life sentences. The two men lured Mr. Shepard from a Laramie bar on the night of Oct. 6, 1998; Mr. Shepard was ultimately tied to a fence, pistol-whipped and left to die.
“As always, what we found defied expectations,” Mr. Kaufman said. “It’s a fallacy to try to define Laramie the way one would describe an individual. There are 27,000 people in Laramie. There are at least 27,000 Laramies.”
“But one of the things that was very clear from the start is the question of how does one measure change,” he continued. “Is it in the number of public monuments that have been erected? Is it in the number of laws that have been passed? Is it in the number of people whose views have been changed?”""The creators of “The Laramie Project,” the acclaimed play about the 1998 murder... more
"A new stage musical about the San Fernando Valley's porn industry is currently in the development phase. The production is a partnership between New York's experimental group the Civilians and L.A.'s Center Theatre Group.
The still-untitled show "will explore the real-life stories of the people who work in California’s pornography industry," according to CTG. There is no opening date yet for the musical, which is being developed under CTG's New Play Production Program.
Using their interview-based approach to theater, the Civilians have begun speaking to industry insiders, including porn stars, producers, directors, technical crew and distributors. The music for the show is being written by Michael Friedman, with a book by Bess Wohl. The Civilians, headed by artistic director Steve Cosson (pictured above), recently appeared at the Kirk Douglas Theatre last year in "This Beautiful City."
The Civilians have launched a blog and are posting on twitter (@stevecosson and @pornmusical) as they make their way across the Valley. Here's a PG-rated excerpt from the blog:
"So I’ve learned recently that a lot of porn people are on twitter. I’ve mostly learned exciting things like when people are going to the gym and what they’re having for lunch and mostly it seems that porn stars are eating better than I do. But then again they are on camera naked a lot, and I’m not. Good inspiration to eat some leafy green vegetables."""A new stage musical about the San Fernando Valley's porn industry is currently in the... more
Andrew Haydon writes, "Is it possible to watch a play in a language that you don't speak or understand, and still enjoy it?
Earlier in the year I was lucky enough to catch Thomas Ostermeier's production of Hamlet in Berlin. I've been a huge fan of Ostermeier since I saw his stark, spare Hedda Gabler at the Barbican early last year. I also figured that I probably know Hamlet well enough to get by. And so it proved. As long as you know the German for "To be or not to be" ("Sein oder nichtsein" as it goes), it's not hard to follow the action, recognise the characters, and hear (through half-remembered German lessons) some familiar snatches of dialogue.
As such, it was entirely possible to appreciate Marius von Meyenberg's pared down translation and to admire Ostermeier's mud-drenched minimalist staging.
In many ways, not having to worry about the precise nuances of language can free us up to enjoy the visual and emotional spectacles that theatre makes available to us. Be it avant garde experiment or big traditional epic stuff – directed in either a straightforward or hugely interpretative way – watching without access to the words feels like a hugely liberating experience. For all we venerate the written word, there are far more languages at play in the theatre than we normally give credit for."Andrew Haydon writes, "Is it possible to watch a play in a language that you don't... more
"After a four-year absence from the United States, Shakespeare’s Globe is returning in the fall to stage “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at seven universities and a college-town theater over three months, with the hope of providing an authentically Elizabethan theatrical experience to American audiences.
The Globe brought “Twelfth Night” in 2003 and “Measure for Measure” in 2005, which enjoyed a sold-out run at St. Ann’s Warehouse. (“Twelfth Night” did not come to New York.) “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” an early Shakespeare comedy about strong-willed young nobles matching wits and falling in love despite themselves, will conclude its run in December at Pace University, in Lower Manhattan.
Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of the Globe, said he had waited to do another tour of the United States until he had found his feet at the theater, which he took over from the actor Mark Rylance in 2005.
“I wanted to establish a sense of confidence and authority and a sense of style,” Mr. Dromgoole said in his office at the Globe here. “I wanted to lay a good foundation before we went to America again, and now we’re hoping to make it a regular thing.”
Since the Globe cannot reconfigure American university theaters to resemble its space here, Mr. Dromgoole said he planned to make small adjustments. The lights will remain on in the theater, to try to mimic the outdoor feel of the Globe, and characters will talk directly to audience members (or look at them as they talk to other characters) in the spirit of “the democratic shared space and the talk-back quality that was a part of Shakespeare’s original Globe productions,” he said.
“We want to make sure that just because we’ll be in more traditional theater spaces, we don’t fall back into conventional theater practices,” he added. “It’s very easy to turn down the lights and have a recording of crickets chirping to create atmosphere. We don’t want that.”
Michelle Terry, who played the Princess of France in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” in the original Globe production in 2007 and will again on tour, said, “At the Globe, if a character asks a question onstage, there’s a chance that someone in the audience will answer back.”
She added: “There’s also a moment in the play when the Princess of France is sitting out among the audience, away from the stage. At one performance I could feel someone pulling the strings on my corset. I turned and the person said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but your corset has become undone and I was doing it up.’ And I just said, ‘O.K., cheers, carry on.’ ”
Mr. Dromgoole said he believed “Love’s Labour’s Lost” would be an especially good fit for university audiences because it explores the sexual politics between a group of young men — Ferdinand, the king of Navarre, and his nobles — and the women with whom they spar and fall in love, a group led by the Princess of France.
“It’s the only Shakespeare play with a real girl gang who take control of the proceedings,” he said. “It has a youthful, zesty, sexy energy to it. But it can also be the single most irritating play in the canon, with these kids being witty with each other. You sometimes want to roll up your program and go onto the stage and beat them with it. So we’re excited to see how American audiences react.”""After a four-year absence from the United States, Shakespeare’s Globe is returning... more
"The Magic Theatre is giving up one of its two performance spaces at Fort Mason Center. The theater, still finding its fiscal footing after nearly closing its doors mid-season, is also preparing to announce the hiring of its new managing director and Artistic Director Loretta Greco's newly finalized next season.
But word that the Magic is leaving its Sam Shepard Theatre - half of the floor it has occupied for four decades - eclipsed its other news in the theater community. By the end of the week, a Fort Mason spokesperson said, a number of other companies had inquired about "temporary and possibly permanent use of that space."
"It's both an artistic decision and a fiscal one," Greco said from Los Angeles, where she was working with playwright Luis Alfaro on "Oedipus El Ray," which will premiere at the Magic in February.
Even before she was hired early last year, she said, she'd raised the question of whether the Magic needed two theaters for a six-play season. With only four plays in the 2009-10 season, it was time to take a step that "decreases our rent immensely." Renting out the space, she added, "was not enough for us to break even on it."
The 170-seat, proscenium-stage Shepard has some historic significance. Though it wasn't named for the Magic's former playwright-in-residence until a decade ago, it was where some of his most famous plays - "True West," "Fool for Love," "Buried Child" - had premiered. Greco, who said the company will retain the theater's name for future use, prefers the three-sided thrust format of the Magic's Northside Theatre.
"The magic space is that thrust," she said. "The experience should be unique, really singular, and there aren't a lot of those three-sided theaters in this town."
The thrust is also perfect for next season, she added, which will open in October with John Kolvenbach's poignant comedy "Goldfish." One addition to the season is that "Goldfish" will play in repertory with the world premiere of its sequel, "Mrs. Whitney," which picks up the story of the first play's protagonist's cynical mother five years later.
Another world premiere, Lydia Stryk's "An Accident," will close the season. "Terminus" by Mark O'Rowe ("Howie the Rookie") had to be postponed to fall 2010, Greco said, due to funding problems with its Abbey Theatre tour.""The Magic Theatre is giving up one of its two performance spaces at Fort Mason... more
