Lascivious Something, Paris Syndrome, In the Works: Experimentation and Play

11 06 2010

What a crazy week. So crazy.

It started off well enough with a weekend of really good theater. You’ve got to see Paris Syndrome at HERE.

It’s a movement meditation on Paris Syndrome, the psychological phenomena afflicting Japanese women who go to Paris and whose romantic perceptions of the place are dashed. It’s surprising and indescribably delightful.

Lascivious Something was the sexiest thing I have seen in a very long time, so I was sorry to see it at closing, so I couldn’t make everyone I know go see it. It’s some of the strongest, textured performances I’ve seen in awhile too. It makes me remember what to reach for, what to cultivate and build with the actors I work with.

2g’s In the Works: Experimentation and Play has been going on this week too. Rehana’s Lonely Leela was a wonderful madcap Alice in Wonderland trip into the internet…with puppets. And Nandita pulled together her charming Lyme Park despite her director having to jump in at the last minute when one of the actors got sick. We’ve got three more to go, and it should be fun.

New Vic had its final meeting of the year yesterday, and the thing that became clear is what a truly incredible community of artists they have. And it is just that–a true, true ensemble. It is what is so difficult to create in theater, because we often flit from project to project. But I realized this:

-We all need a creative home.
-When you are encouraged to take risks and the bar is raised high, you will exceed everyone’s expectations.
-We must remember to play. Theater is play.


Comments : Leave a Comment »

Categories : Uncategorized

It’s May. How did that happen?

21 05 2010

I’m not really sure.  Barrelling through 13 and my Sugar House workshop and holding down all my jobs, I guess.

I blinked and here we are.

June is calling.  I taught my last classroom workshop yesterdayat PS3 with Michael Wiggins.   About the Butterfly Garden.  To kindergarteners and 1st graders.  Can’t think of a better way to go out.  I hadn’t realized that was the last thing I had booked until I taught it and then was like, “Damn.  I guess that’s it.”  I’m a little sad.  They remind me of what is most beautiful about this theater thing that we do.  That it is about play and imagination.

I will have to remember that as I continue to slave over the current play and dream about the new one.  I am chomping at the bit to get started on the new thing, but I know that I have to be patient, and I can’t race ahead like I usually do, because that will certainly make a mess.  There’s a lot of research to be done first.  Patience.  Trying to learn patience.

There are 5 readings to plan for 2g and a big rewrite to sink my teeth into and my fellowship at Teacher & Writers to finish out, but first, so I have enough gas to get through this next stretch, I think I have to go off the grid for two days.  Like off.  No 100 emails, no phone calls, no text messages, just…silence.

I have never done this before, and I am not sure I will be wholly successful, but I have to try.  So I can recharge the battery and have enough left.  T-minus 4 hours and twenty minutes to “off.”  I’m excited.


Comments : Leave a Comment »

Categories : teaching artist, the city, theater

Rescue Me, A Cool Dip on the Barren Saharan Crick and 13

9 04 2010

Why haven’t you been blogging, Carla? I have been learning how to make a theater company run.  Grants?  Rehearsal schedules?  Booking space?  Talking to artists?  Finding designers?  Holy.  Cow.  I already had five jobs.  Now I have a sixth that is actually a 6th,7th, 8th, 9th and 10th.  But it is exciting.  So exciting. I’m working on my first program for 2g–it’s called 13: Instant Vaudeville. You should really come see it.  There will be clowns and puppets and a dude with a guitar.  And an improv and a couple of new songs and a couple of new plays and a lot of surprises like spontaneous interpretations of Ed Lin’s “Snakes Can’t Run” and special guest Kelly Tsai.  Full lineup will be out soon.  But 35 artists in total have donated their time and talent to collaborate on feats of wonder and magic. Please come.  And tickets are selling out fast. But, you should also really see Rescue Me which will surprise and delight. David Greenspan, as our trickster goddess storyteller marvels as Artemis and Julian Barnett breaks the heart as Orestes and Jennifer Ikeda is one tough chick.  And there’s Paco Tolson.  And if Paco’s in it, it’s gonna be good.

And of course, there’s  a Cool Dip on the Barren Saharan Crick.

Kia has woven some wondrous things, I think.  And Will Harper mesmerizes as the man with water running through his fingers.

In other news, I was a guest in Michael Wiggins’ Dramatic Activities in the HS Classroom class at NYU on Monday.  It was kind of a brilliant exercise in that he got his class into groups and had guest TAs join them and then together we tried to plan a residency.  I wish someone had done this with me 10 years ago!  It did confirm for me the beauty of the Lincoln Center Institute planning methodology which has been so useful to me and which I peppered in along the way in our group planning.  It really does work, get everyone on the same page, and it’s wildly efficient. But, it was a case again, where I got to learn from colleagues and future colleagues, while at play.  I felt lucky to be learning.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , ,
Categories : teaching, teaching artist, theater

Getting to the Good Stuff: The Myopia, Lear & Goodbye Cruel World

5 02 2010

There seems to be an embarrassment of riches out there right now.  I got a chance to see Plays and The Myopia from the wonderful folks at the Foundry.  I would describe it, except that you have to see David Greenspan work his magic.  Plays is an essay on reading plays by Gertrude Stein, which Greenspan goes to riff on in The Myopia.  When David Cote called him a “one man cabinet of wonders, ” he wasn’t kidding.  This slight man, with nothing but a chair and bottle of water takes you on an epic, sweeping journey.

The, you should really run to see Goodbye, Cruel World before it closes this weekend.  Robert Ross Parker adaptation of Erdman’s The Suicide dazzles and delights as he orchestrates a cyclone of serious fun with Cindy Cheung, Will Harper and Paco Tolson as  Semyon Semyonovich, the man who tries to kill himself.  See Zinoman’s thoughts on it here.

And then there is Young Jean Lee’s Lear.

And here is an interview with her that illuminates her process/inspiration for the play:

I haven’t been as moved by a piece of theater in some time and I admire the ambitious nature of her storytelling.   About 2/3 of the way through, the ceiling became the floor.  Run to see it.  It’s sold out, but there are wait list tickets, I believe.

In a week, I got to witness three pretty inspiring shows, all radically different.

Now, you might be asking yourself, “Carla’s a teaching artist.  She’s a playwright.  How does she have money for theater tickets.”  In these hard economic times, I appreciate that so many theatermakers are going to great lengths to get people like us in the doors.  I got Lear through the Soho Rep 99cent Sundays deal.   Goodbye, Cruel World had a half-price matinee ticket.  And Melanie Joseph at the Foundry put out the work to people in theater that she was going to offer the Plays/The Myopia double bill for $20 to folks who bought tickets for the first week in advance.  Now, the question is, how can Off-Broadway and Broadway houses take a cue from their downtown counterparts and get young folks, artists, and people who most desperately need to see theater, in the doors.

Knock knock.  Who’s listening?


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , ,
Categories : the city, theater

Franny and Zooey

29 01 2010

Some books are special.  Some you find exactly when you need to find them.

I found Franny and Zooey after I graduated from high school, during the interminably long summer before I went off to college, far away in New York.

It made me realize, perhaps, that I needed to be fiercely curious, in fact I needed to be in pursuit of curiosities instead of wallowing in the uncomfortable world I had known.

Jesse Kornbluth on Franny and Zooey.

Share


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: ,
Categories : art, reading

« Previous Entries