espresso-refill

Return of Super Star

2011-11-29T22:47:00.000-08:00

“Always hoped that I'd be an apostle
Knew that I would make it if I tried
Then when we retire we can write the gospels
So they'll still talk about us when we've died”
The Apostles post Last Supper aka Passover

Des McAnuff's Stratford Shakespeare Festival production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” smolders at the La Jolla Playhouse. The 1970s pop opera concept album cum musical is a brooding tragedy that pay's off with a theatrical punch McAnuff is always sure to deliver.

Playhouse musicals aspire to Broadway ascension. “Superstar” is already blessed to open at the house of Neil Simon in March 2012. Modestly budgeted by current Broadway standards, the production is not slick and laminated and still proves highly theatrical even when compared to Tom O'Horgan's over produced original Broadway incarnation.

Originated at Canada's national theatre where the classical text is paramount and classical performance values (they provide ongoing company classes) are maintained. “Superstar's” story and detailed characters remain in the foreground with articulated non-verbal story telling giving rise to its vocal narrative.

In part resonant with the Arab Spring, we see Jesus's followers pop frenzy riding the robes of the his star status. A lesser local example are Terry Cole Whittikar followers chanting “prosperity is your divine right” at her Sunday matinee service.

The Stratfordians prove incandescent in rendering Jesus Christ's last seven days. I must be quick to note the Shakespeare Festival actors are triple-threats, so triple the wattage. The company's vocal richness and diversity careen's from aria-like wailing to opera buffo into traditional musical ballad and belt.

McAnuff's intelligent direction keeps the story grounded in pathos even with Bruce Dow's vaudevillian turn in “Herod's Song.” Dow brightens act two's downward trajectory with desperate self-preservation disguised in visceral mockery of the doomed Jesus. His Charleston is a dance of the dead. What could have been played for easy laughs, “Herod’s Song” continues the story's emotional complexity.

Paul Nolan's draped-in-white Jesus pulls us through his inevitable tests with premonitions mixed with vocal pyrotechnics. Chilina Kennedy as Mary Magdalen, a favorite J.C. Groupie, brings in a low-key but intense performance.

Josh Young's Judas Iscariot proves magnetic as Jesus's favorite boy and betrayer. The love triangle of JC/Mary/Judas is less than conspicuous. Young's conflicted Judas galvanizes the evening. His swarthy good looks and underplaying are ideal for the role as are his golden pipes. I wager that Mr. Young will be a shoo-in for best supporting actor nomination come next year's Tony Awards.

Des McAnuff and set designer Robert Brill's collaboration echo's his design for “Jersey Boys” with its battle ship grays and minimalist industrial motifs. Howell Binkley's emotional expressionistic lighting blends with Sean Niewenhuis's video design that aids in setting locations.

Paul Tazewell's costume design integrates circa 4 B.C desert garb with contemporary urban and military styles. Mr. Tazewell breaks away from the dominant grays and blues with amped-up glitz in the temple and court debauchery numbers that prove a visual relief. Lisa Shriver's choreography supports the narrative.

Reviewed November 23rd, 2011 matinee.

* * *
Surviving 17 years of Catholic schooling and still recovering, the production redefined my understanding of Jesus's final days.

* * *

Jesus Christ Superstar

A Stratford Shakespeare Festival production of a musical in two acts with lyrics by Tim Rice & music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Directed by Des McAnuff.

Jesus Christ - Paul Nolan
Judas Iscariot - Josh Young
Mary Magdalen - Chilina Kennedy
Pontius Pilate – Jeremy Kushnier
King Herod - Bruce Dow
Caiaphas - Marcus Nance
Annas - Aaron Walpole
Simon Zealotes - Lee Siegel
Peter - Mike Nadajewski

With: Mark Alfano, Mark Cassius, Ryan Gifford, Kyle Golemba, Stephen Patterson, Jason Sermonia, Julius Sermonia, Jonathan Winsby, Sandy Winsby, Mary Antonini, Jacqueline Burtney, Kaylee Harwood, Melissa O'Neill, Laurin Padolina, Katrina Reynolds, Dominique Roy.

Musical direction, Rick Fox; choreography, Lisa Shriver; sets, Robert Brill; costumes, Paul Tazewell; lighting, Howell Binkley; sound, Jim Neil; video, Sean Nieuwenhuis. 1 hr, 50 min.

November 18 - December 31, 2011
Weiss Theatre
(858) 550-1010
www.lajollaplayhouse.org

PHOTOGRAPHS:

Josh Young, Chilina Kennedy and Paul Nolan make up the cast of Des McAnuff's Jesus Christ Superstar. (Andrew Eccles)

Paul Nolan (center) as "Jesus Christ" and the cast. Photo by David Hou.

Bruce Dow (center) as "King Herod.” Photo by David Hou.

Josh Young as "Judas Iscariot" (front) and Paul Nolan as "Jesus Christ." Photo by David Hou.

Previously Engaged

2010-06-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

George Weinnberg-Harter is featured in Talent to aMuse's "Engaged," June 11-27 at Swedenborg Hall in San Diego. This little known one act by W.S. Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan) that premiered in 1877 is said to be an inspiration for Wilde's "The Important of Being Earnest."
For more information: www.talenttoamuse.com

Photos: George Weinnberg-Harter (O.P. Hadlock); original artwork.

Departure Delayed

2010-04-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

“Boeing Boeing” idled in the gate at the Old Globe theatre delayed for take-off. The 1960s French farce (more a comedy of manners) about a swinging American bachelor in Paris juggling three girlfriends roared through long runs in Paris and London and a moderate run in its New York engagement.

Clunky with exposition till forty minutes into Act 1, it is with the entrance of Stephanie Fieger, an Alitalia air hostess, that this biplane of a comedy starts to taxi toward the runway.

The evening finally moves down the tarmac with the entrance of Caralyn Kozlowski, Lufthansa hostess Gretchin, and “Boeing Boeing” takes flight. Ms. Kozlowski's voracious comic energy rattles boyfriend Bernard's plush towering bachelor pad. Her muscular chaos sets the play aloft with a delightfully maniacal lust for love, always playing against her driving sexual appetite.

Rob Breckenridge as Bernard appears to be in a different play, a sit-com perhaps. As his best friend, Robert, Joseph Urla, serves as the captain of the show's cockpit. Mr. Urla's eventual engagement in Ms. Kozlowski's dare devil diving approach to comedy finally pay's off in the long awaited for hilarity of Act 2.

As Bernard's maid, Berthe, Nancy Robinette's French dialect sounded more German than French and missed numerous comic opportunities. Liv Roth turns in a serviceable performance as the manipulative American sex kitten cum tigress.

Designed by Rob Howell and handsomely painted by Carole Payette, Mr. Howell's design offers up eight doors. The production never achieves the door slamming rhythm de rigueur to farce.

Mark Schneider recreated Britt director Matthew Warchus's original direction of the 2008 Broadway revival.

Photos:

Caralyn Kozlowski and Joseph Urla. Production photo: Craig Schwartz.

Caralyn Kozlowski

BOEING-BOEING
By Marc Camoletti and Beverley Cross
Directed by Mark Schneider

March 13 – April 18, 2010, Old Globe Theatre

Production overseen and originally directed by Matthew Warchus.

CREATIVE TEAM: Rob Howell (Scenic Design and Costume Design), Chris Rynne (Lighting Design), Paul Peterson (Sound Design), Simon Baker (Original Sound Design), Claire van Kampen (Original Music), Dan Rosokoff (Stage Manager) and Annette Yé (Assistant Stage Manager).

(619) 23-GLOBE [234-5623]

http://www.theoldglobe.org

Love's Labour's Lost in Santa Monica

2009-11-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

Dominic Dromgoole the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare company's recreation of London's Globe Theatre carries the rare features of success in things artistic, the pound at the box office and fund-raising. His production of "Love's Labour's Lost," a hit of the Globe's 2007 season, is one of Shakespeare's early romantic comedies set in France and plays at Santa Monica's Broad Stage November 19th -29th.

Considered by some a difficult play to produce with its "complex word games, literary parody and pedantic verbal jousting," Mr. Dromgoole's production is noted for its physical comedy, "full of brio" and "robust." In the following interview the director discusses aspects of the play's background, notes on-the-road and advice to first-time directors of the Bard's work.

Espresso-Refill: What was your first experience of Shakespeare in a professional setting?

Dominic Dromgoole: Lord, can't remember, have dim memories of Brook's "Dream" when I was about six years old, a very intense "Macbeth" in a small studio theatre, and a wonderful trip to Stratford with my mother.

ER: What were the greatest challenges working the recreation of the Globe theater?

DD: Getting as much of the detail right as possible, and most importantly getting the spirit right, a place where people meet and instantly get excited.

ER: Why is LLL of particular interest to our 2009 audience?

DD: Because it is fun, and fresh and human, and reminds us of the healing powers of merriment.

ER: What was LLL’s appeal the Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences? Do the royal court references present a challenge?

DD: It is the filthiest play ever written, rammed with puns, innuendos and sexual allusions so dirty that they make most modern comedy seem tame. It was a popular hit in its day, and that must have been the reason. The court references are fun and cheeky, but not really of much interest to anyone but academics, so it's not worth worrying them too much.

ER: Do you identify with any of oaths in LLL?

DD: No, they seem absurd to me now, as I'm sure they did to the audience then.

ER: How often is the company given notes while on tour?

DD: They just got a whole wodge yesterday. About once a week - each new venue throws up new thoughts.

ER: Do you see generational differences in actors skills or values? Habits?

DD: Younger actors find it easier to embrace the Globe ethos - lights up, direct address, robust playing - than older actors who still live more in the shadow of Victorian Shakespeare and that whole tradition.

ER: What are the most common mistakes actors make when approach acting Shakespeare?

DD: Forgetting the audience. Shakespeare wrote for an audience, and it is important for actors to remember that their moment, or line, or scene, or journey, is not about the effect it has on them, it is about the effect each has on the audience.

ER: One of Shakespeare’s early comedies and set in France, did you find relevant information that relates to Shakespeare’s French landlords the Mountjoys? Was it playable?

DD: Eminently playable, and full of joy. Charles Nicholls' new book, The Lodger, is full of good stuff abut the Mountjoy's. It is remarkable how many strong and vibrant French women there are in Shakespeare's early plays. He was clearly very impressed, and slightly intimidated by someone in that household.

ER: Did you explore the play’s anti-immigrant sentiments?

DD: I think Shakespeare started out with one idea of what Armado was going to be - a satirical portrait of a comical and silly Spaniard/foreigner - but then the moment Armado opened his mouth, something shifted, and he started writing something rich and complex and sophisticated, as he always did.

ER: Two of Shakespeare’s sonnets appear in play. Does the acuity of the sonnet’s verse contrast with the play’s prevalent verse style?

DD: They are funny, and slightly extraneous set-pieces, but actually rather than being acute, they both introduce moments of quite startling tenderness in quite a robust comic world.

ER: Do you see any similarities of the “little Achademe” illustrated in the play in today’s society?

DD: Not really. Madrassas maybe, but to set the play near one of those would skew the comedy rather heavily.

ER: What is your advice to directors on their first outing with Shakespeare?

DD: Read the play twenty times, try not to read about other productions, make the actors feel comfortable and playful, and, above all, treat it as a new play.

# # #

Photo: Mr. Dromgoole, © Sheila Burnett

"Love's Labour's Lost"
at
The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage

Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center
1310 - 11th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90403

310. 434. 3412

www.thebroadstage.com

Fun Tricks at Swedenborg

2009-10-02T23:58:00.001-07:00

Step on the Wild Side

2009-08-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

The “39 Steps,” currently at the La Jolla Playhouse, offers the fine Ridiculous Theatre styling of Hitchcock’s classic film of the same name. The difficult directing and acting style that didn’t work with the current Old Globe production of Charles Ludlam’s “The Mystery of Irma Vep” works splendidly in Maria Aitken’s restaging of her Tony Award winning production.

Each of the four actors in this excellent production is a facile comic ballet dancer in a buffo masquerade that squeezes Hitchcock’s chase movie to the stage with over 100 characters.

Catch it while you can before the show trots off to Seattle.

(l-r): Eric Hissom, Claire Brownell, Scott Parkinson and Ted Deasy

The 39 Steps
Directed by Maria Aitken

Adapted by Patrick Barlow
Based on an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon
Based on the book by John Buchan

Through September 13, 2009

With:
Claire Brownell
Ted Deasy
Eric Hissom
Scott Parkinson

Scenic/Costume Design: Peter McKintosh
Lighting Design: Kevin Adams
Sound Design: Mic Pool

http://www.lajollaplayhouse.org

A Year in the Life and Eliza-Speak

2009-08-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

Recently I finished reading "A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599" by James Shapiro. I find myself going back the WS for a sense of what is really important in life, his frequently ambiguous POV on the events in his plays and a sense of consolation.

Frequently disillusioned with the work I see on stage in my community, I find I need to look at a source of a life lived in art and mystery; Mr. Shapiro's book presents juicy cases of cause and effect scenarios that seek to explain WS, but we have few facts about him, rather, we rely on interpretation of circumstantial evidence. Contradictions in character/person, my character and in people are becoming more salient to me at this point in the understanding of my "chapter.” Mr. Shapiro writes in a page-turning style.

Also, I found a link to a conference on Shakes. Below is the link to a pod-cast on speaking Shakespeare that includes a speech sample of "original" Elizabethan speak.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/audio/more/will/?podcastItem=speakingfinal.mp3

Interview with James Shapiro: http://www.harpercollins.com/author/authorExtra.aspx?authorID=24301&isbn13=9780060088736&displayType=bookinterview

"Spamalot" director Mike Nichols was born in what country?

2009-08-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

Broadway San Diego’s next mega musical hits with “Spamalot” based on the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

In a preview video on the making of “Spamalot” the perturbed book writer and Python Eric Idle is seen leaving the show’s first day’s rehearsal saying, “I have to rewrite act two.” That task, set out by director Mike Nichols, proved to be the next daunting step to securing “Spamalot’s” success. The show earned Mr. Nichols his 18th Tony Award for direction and Mr. Idle two 2005 Tony nominations, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original score; he won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics.

Broadway San Diego’s Susan Chicoine distributes the most prolific media releases and “back grounders” I’ve had the pleasure to read. Following are section headings from “Spamalot:”

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life! Song Facts, SPAM FACTS from The National Tour (23 bullets worth!), Quotes from Women ~ Pythons Are A Girl’s Best Friend!, Monty Python and the Holy Grail Quote Quiz, The Movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail Trivia Quiz, Monty Python Trivia Quiz, Top Myths About Monty Python’s Spamalot and Drink Like a Knight and See Killer Rabbits!, a series of drink recipes named in “Spamalotiana.”

Here is a quiz on Director Mike Nichols’s trivia.

1. Spamalot director Mike Nichols made his Broadway directing debut with what Neil Simon comedy?
Answer: “Barefoot in the Park” in 1963 starring Robert Redford & Elizabeth Ashley.
2. What was the first motion picture Spamalot director Mike Nichols directed?
Answer: “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1966 starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis.
3. How many Tony Awards, including the one he won for Best Director of Musical for Spamalot, has Mike Nichols won?
Answer: Mike Nichols has won more Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Play than any other individual. His five nods were for Barefoot in the Park (1964), Luv and The Odd Couple (1965), Plaza Suite (1968), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1972) and The Real Thing (1984). He has also won in other categories for directing the musical Monty Python’s Spamalot (2005) and producing Annie (1977) and The Real Thing (1984). That makes a total of eight Tony Awards.
4. What other Broadway musical did Spamalot director Mike Nichols stage?
Answer: “The Apple Tree” starring Alan Alda in 1966.
5. Spamalot director Mike Nichols was born in what country?
Answer: He was born Michael Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin, Germany.
6. Spamalot director Mike Nichols won an Academy Award for direction what film classic?
Answer: “The Graduate” in 1967.
7. Spamalot director Mike Nichols won Emmy Awards for what two made-for-TV films that originally aired on HBO?
Answer: “Wit” and “Angels in America.”
8. Name the famous comic actress/writer who Spamalot director Mike Nichols teamed up with for classic comedy sketches. Hint: She also wrote the screenplay for the Mike Nichols films, “The Birdcage” and “Primary Colors.”
Answer: Elaine May.

Photos:

Mike Nichols, photo credit: popularpersons.org

The Company

Merle Dandridge as "Lady Of The Lake"

Christopher Gurr as King Arthur and Company

Production Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

“Spamalot”

San Diego Civic Theatre
3rd and B Street
Downtown San Diego

September 8-13, 2009

Performance Times:
Tuesday and Wednesday at 7PM
Thursday at 7:30PM
Friday at 8PM
Saturday at 2PM & 8PM
Sunday at 1PM & 6PM

Tickets:
$18--$87

BroadwaySD.com

Herringbone at the La Jolla Playhouse

2009-08-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

HERRINGBONE, at times a red herring bone, is a dark musical theatre piece I would have expected to see in the La Jolla Playhouse’s Edge Series, rather, it’s a standard offering. This is a good thing. The BD Wong carried one actor show is the Playhouse’s first genuine noncommercial production in its current programming and is appealing in its challenge. Better if it had been originated in La Jolla; it is a package from New Jersey’s McCarter Theatre that retains its original artistic team.

Gothic in atmosphere with Brechtian informed qualities, sweated out by Mr. Wong under the deft direction of RSC alum Roger Reece, HERRINGBONE showcases the quirky, ironic and at times hauntingly lurid words and music by Ellen Fitzhugh and Skip Kennon respectively incorporated into Tom Cone’s reincarnation of his play by the same name.

The story follows a humble yet hopeful Depression era southern family, sporting its ideal little eight-year-old boy, George, a recent winner of a small town speech contest on American patriotism. Depression era entertainment highlighted child actors. George’s success leads his family to invest in acting lessons that lead to bedevilments and George’s possession by the spirit of a vengeful and lascivious vaudevillian midget hoofer, Lou, who taps the kid and family to profit and, well, you can guess the moral outcome. Eventually, the simple minded horny hotel clerk, Dot, feeds the vaudevillian’s domination of George, which tilts the story to a horrific sexual molestation as Lou satisfies his voracious carnal appetite.

HERRINGBONE trucks with the dark under belly aspects of the give and take of emotional-spiritual nature of acting and America’s ambitious Hollywood fame hungry obsessions at any cost. HERRINGBONE is about numerous topics that a second viewing would prove more satisfying.

Early in the evening, we sense George’s doom. Fame and power hunger drives the evening’s characters and with it the poltergeist’s sexual molestation that arrests George’s development and the result is lasting. The opening of the show presented us with George, head in hands, in a dimly lit drab canvass colored room and closes with the same image only what we assumed was a dressing room changes to the isolated feel of a padded cell.

The story takes on the slow cumulative rhythm of a bolero as the first act plods to populate itself with nine of the ten character’s Mr. Wong, best known for his Tony Award winning performance as M. BUTTERFLY and television roles, skillfully manifests. Act two ratchets up to psychological-spiritual terror and it seems the two and a half hour evening could lose one hour to the same results.

It is Mr. Wong’s diminutive athlete body and voice that must carry the show. This Mr. Wong does and it is an evening of endurance for actor and George alike. The show is a tap dance obstacle course of demanding pinhead character turns and fancy footwork. At times Mr. Wong is working too hard, which may change as HERRINGBONE’S run progresses.

Mr. Reece is a firm practitioner of theatre as communal creative process. Though HERRINGBONE’S titular character is born of deforming family dysfunction, the work is rendered from a vividly functional family of artists. Less serves more in Eugene Lee’s spare scenic design of black high-gloss concentric turntables, pivotal doorway set in dark obscurity framed by classic chaser lights.

Chorographer Darren Lee seamlessly blends a movement vocabulary and vaudeville dance into Mr. Rees’s staging giving Mr. Wong syntax of movement that keeps the ten character’s distinctive. Musical Director Dan Lipton, also at the piano, has trained Mr. Wong through the series of ditties and soliloquies, which at times bare a hint of stressful Kurt Weill-like strains. Mr. Wong’s baritone range proved the richest, yet, he tended to sing flat.

William Ivey Long’s striped pants, white shirt and vest serve as a basic skin for the chameleon demands and his two-toned tap shoes help us keep an eye on Mr. Wong’s telling character touches. Christopher Akerlind’s lighting design and Leon Rothenberg’s sound design deepen HARRINGBONE’S nightmare side-show atmosphere.

This is a tough show for the audience and performer. Mr. Reece and company demand the audience work to keep up with the show, a good risky choice.

The company uses an alienation technique of approach-repel in storytelling; the show progresses with our investment then is abruptly stopped by the narrator’s or BD Wong’s editorial comments on story or the evening’s performance. The derailing reminds us we are sitting in a theatre watching an actor attempting to conjure a story. Returning to the action is a challenge and requires re-attuning oneself to the show’s particulars in order to keep up with the story. We do resume relationship with the show due to Mr. Wong’s performance and our concern for George.

I remained a reluctant participant with the piece till well into act two when the story dynamics converge, making the last 20 mins of the show worth its taxing trip. Mr. Wong’s commitment to the role and tour de force performance in these remaining minutes in a paranoid schizophrenic auto-immune suffocation of George’s last shreds of innocence is hypnotic and horrific. We sit helpless witnesses to Lou’s last power grabs, mixing molestation with his Hollywood star ambitions, that crumble to his downfall and little George’s dive into insanity along with him.

For an edgy evening of theatre, HERRINGBONE is worth the workout.

Photos by Craig Schwartz.

# # #

Herringbone

Starring BD Wong

August 1 - August 30, 2009

Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre

book by TOM CONE
music by SKIP KENNON
lyrics by ELLEN FITZHUGH
directed by ROGER REES
based on the play by TOM CONE

La Jolla Playhouse Box Office
(858) 550-1010

www.lajollaplayhouse.org

Restoration

2009-07-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

Claudia Shear as "Giulia" (left) and Natalija Nogulich as "Beatrice" in La Jolla Playhouse's world-premiere production of RESTORATION, photo by Craig Schwartz.

La Jolla Playhouse presents the world premiere of Restoration, written by and starring award-winning playwright/actress Claudia Shear (Dirty Blonde, Blown Sideways Through Life). Natalija Nogulich whose Hedda rocked the Playhouse in 1987 returns in the multiple roles of Marciante/Beatrice/Nonna. The show plays through July 19, 2009.

(L-R) Claudia Shear as "Giulia," Kate Shindle as "Daphne," Natalija Nogulich as "Marciante" and Alan Mandell as "Professor Williams, photo by Craig Schwartz.

A Small Village for Big Bullies: Theatre Commentary

2009-06-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

“Lonesome West,” currently in its San Diego premiere during Triad Productions's temporary residence at the 10^th Ave Theatre, refers to the desolate village of Leenane on the Emerald Island’s west coast. The violence of familiarity’s contempt is the substance of Martin McDonagh’s return to the Leenane, a location for a trilogy of plays set in inconsolable detachment. The village community serves as a de facto way dysfunctional family.

Mr. McDonagh has boosted a career writing a trio of plays set over the course of a century in Leenane. The emotional and physical violence of the terrain and the village people serve this disturbing study of a rural community’s isolation governed by its own morality code. For example, dropping a sibling’s bag of crisps is tantamount to throwing down the gauntlet and prompts brother bashing. Murdering a parent is held as a reasonable solution to family conflict. The play’s violence may serve as a faint reminder to some audience’s familial boxing and wrestling.

We meet the Connor brothers as they return home from their father’s funeral: his death occurred under questionable circumstances. The plot unfolds involving the parish priest and the village tart-in-training. Played by Ryan Ross (Coleman) and Bobby Schiefer (Valene) the brothers go head to head with volatile unpredictability without a dusty finish. Both actors bring Leenane’s vocabulary of sociopath dispassionate violence and homicide to the story in a series of combats. The guys rip up the stage, yet never chew the scenery. Brendan Cavalier plays the perpetually frustrated and conflicted Father Welsh and Claire Kaplan as Girleen, the Brother’s object of obsession, balance the youngish cast with torrid portraits.

Director Adam Park’s grueling attention to detail gives “Lonesome West” a healthy ham-fisted punch of Irish linguistic-psychotic comedy that molds the characters in authenticity. The appropriately accurately wrought dialects are difficult to understand, but this works. Hard listening is required to keep up with the play, which pulls the audience further into the work.

Mr. McDonagh places his contemporary black comedy in a 19^th century (at least) cottage which supplies the image of Leenane’s stunted social progress. The cottage’s carbuncled lime washed walls also serve the brother’s fist fights and chair throwing by placing their action in relief. Better yet, this set’s stone walls do not have the look of crudely carved Styrofoam. Kris Kerr’s beautifully distressed cottage design is realistic, even down to its stained sooting for the gritty realism required for the production’s plausibility.

# # #

Fresh-faced Triad continues emerging on the San Diego theatre scene in noteworthy progression. To this end, attendance at the Monday “industry night-off” performance included; Theatre critics Charlene Baldridge, Jeff Smith, Marty Westlin; Compass Theatre’s Founder & Executive Director, Dale Morris; former Globe Education Director turned consultant Raul Moncada and Write Out Loud’s Executive Director and actor Walter Ritter. Whew!

Yep, get the buzz at Triad with your guard down and at Recession prices, too.

# # #

“Lonesome West”

By Martin McDonagh

Director, Adam Park

Triad Productions

10th Avenue Theatre

Downtown San Diego (between Broadway and E St.)

Opened Saturday June 6th, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Thursday-Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 5:00 p.m. through July 6th.
$15 General Admission $10 for Students and Military.

With Ryan Ross, Bobby Schiefer, Brendan Cavalier, and Clair Kaplan

http://www.triadprod.com/

Patrick Page Inteview by Thom Vegh

2009-06-12T00:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.theatermania.com/san-diego/news/06-2009/patrick-page-knows-cyrano_19511.html

"Bad Night" Premieres at Compass

2009-06-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

"Bad Night in a Men’s Room off Sunset Boulevard," per the Compass Theatre media release, "is a funny, gritty and moving exposé of characters struggling with issues of self-acceptance, authenticity and identity."

The yoke of Hollywood celebrity, gender dysphoria and our decade’s popular realization that the roles played by Mom and Dad were, in reality, tragically failed performances are some of the themes explored in "Bad Night," penned by elusive local playwright Ira Bateman-Gold.

JMarcus Newman helms this world premier commissioned by Compass to salute San Diego’s Gay Pride activities. I first met JMarcus when he went by the name of Nonnie Vishner. I cast Nonnie in the rough and tumble first production, "Lunch and Dessert," that sprung Diversionary Theatre into the San Diego Theatre scene, over 20 years ago. Nonnie turned in a strong reliable performance then and he has since continued to fortify San Diego’s small theatre scene over the years and served as a popular photographer for actors. He also wrote, directed and produced his play “MOMS in AMERICA.”

# # #

Espresso Refill: Why did you change your name?

JMarcus Newman: In about 1997 I decided to give it one more "good college try". In order to avoid rejections letters that read "Dear MS. Vishner we have CAREFULLY reviewed your resume."

ER: What is the play about?

JMN: “Bad Night” is a multi-layered exploration of personal truths. For those of us who do theatre, it asks the very daring question, "am I more honest on stage than I am in real life?" Bateman-Gold uses a play within a play construct to explore love and sexuality, familial dysfunction, gorilla and wartime murder, forgotten incest and how these factors influence how we live in the world.

ER: Which was the most difficult role to cast?

JMN: Jake. No, wait, that was pre-cast with the producer, Dale Morris. But that worked out very well because Dale turns in a wide-ranging and committed performance that fans of his will admire.

Each of the characters had his/her unique challenges in casting. There was of course the bottom line difficulty of finding actors who would be willing to appear nude on stage and make love to another man. I think, given the extremely small number of actors who auditioned for this play, that we have put together an incredible ensemble. I don't know whether it is due to this particular company, my approach to directing, or a combination of the two, but these actors have been so great in their exploration of their characters, the homework they have done and the truths on stage that they have committed to. Each of them has taken a giant leap forward in their growth as an actor.

ER: Yes, that is a given. What do you expect an actor to bring rehearsals; the homework that is the practical work, which gives dimension and enriches the character’s stage life in the overall scheme of the play?

JMN: Once an actor understands who the character is, then the only things he can bring to a line, using the actor's equipment of voice and body, is honesty. Respond to the line you've just heard in a way that makes you, the actor, feel as the character would.

ER: Was the playwright participating in the rehearsal process?

JMN: Yes. We got numerous changes. And we accepted them with good humor and professionalism and a great deal of good-natured grumbling.

ER: Opening night can be difficult. Watching a play I wrote or directed, I usually start off standing at the back of the house and slowly move to the street, even when audience is getting it, when the silences and laughs occur at the appropriate times. How do you handle opening nights?

JMN: If there is a seat available I will sit in it and watch. I'm too old to pace. If there are no empty seats, which would be a good thing. I will probably go home (I live nearby) and come back for the Opening Night reception and ask how it went.

When I dabbled in painting during my high school and college years, I decided that once I signed the painting I could no longer work on it and would just have to accept it for what it was. Just before opening night of “Bad Night,” I have a few notes about a script change to give the actors tonight and a suggestion or two about costuming and make-up. Then I am signing off! It is theirs to enjoy and share with our audiences. But I have spies who will tell me whether they change things on their own, something paintings cannot do.

ES: Some new works remain "in process" during their run as a playwright and director continue work on the piece evolving with an audience. You have no plans to continue work on "Bad Night" with rewrites, structure and such?

JMN: To my knowledge there are no plans to continue rewriting "Bad Night" during the run.

# # #

Photos: JMarcus Newman; Eduardo Cao (left) Douglas Myers (right), courtesy of Compass Theatre

# # #

"Bad Night in a Men’s Room off Sunset Boulevard"
By Ira Bateman-Gold
Compass Theatre
June 5 - June 28, 2009 through Fri Sat 8pm, Sun 2pm
Penn and 6th Ave, San Diego
$18 - $15
619-688-9210
http://www.compasstheatre.com/bad_night_in_a_men.html

Night Calls & The Sudden, Unexpected Sweetness of the Orange

2009-06-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

I often think of Write Out Loud as the company that snags the San Diego's middle brow literati's attention despite the seduction of a sunny San Diego weekend afternoon. Some of the best shows in town find that task daunting. After a quiet, a devoted audience quietly enters Cygnet's

Rolando Theatre. A slightly yet charmingly flustered Veronica Murphy takes the stage for the precurtain speech (a sniggley tradition that appears to be a unique San Diego phenomenon). Ms. Murphy works the front of house, directs, performs and serves as dramaturge for Write Out Loud's, at times uncommon, readings. She is WOL's Artistic Director.

In 1986, I experienced a similar routine as an Artistic-Producing Director when we opened Diversionary Theatre at the notorious W.C.P.C. disco: assisting in setting-up scenery, giving actor notes, "cashing in" the box office, selling tickets, handling the press, house managing, giving the "go" for the curtain and such. We also had an actor that occasionally drank before the show and needed to check-up on his sobriety. Ms. Murphy's touch of frazzle is not unseemly; rather, it endears her audience.

Walter Ritter, Executive Director and Ms. Murphy update us on their company's program, "What in the World," a global quilt of disenfranchised voices and the company's enterprising expansion.

Note: Besides their producing association, Walter and Veronica are "life partners." They responded to questions in intermittent "dove tailed" style, subsequently, answers are designated by company name.

# # #

Espresso Refill: How did the for your upcoming program subject come about?

Write Out Loud: We wanted to include stories from diverse cultures and decided that putting them in one program would force us to do it. As it turns out, the voices are not as unfamiliar as we had expected.

ER: What led you to choose the particular voices for the pieces?

WOL: We knew from the minute we read the (Isabel) Allende piece ("The Little Heidelberg") from her collection ("The Stories of Eva Luna"). This particular story is also about a collection of displaced people in another part of the world.

I fell in love with Lara Vapnyar's stories about Russia and Jewish immigrants. Tess Link, who ran a similar program at Fairfield University, also introduced us to "Night Calls" by Lisa Fugard (daughter of South Africa playwright Athol Fugard) and was instrumental in Lisa agreeing to read for us.

The (Isaac Bashevis) Singer story is also about a collection of displaced people in another part of the world. There were so many other stories that we wanted to include, especially two from India, but they got bumped for various reasons, one being that we don't have an Indian reader in our pocket.

ER: So, it was imperative you cast a cultural native per each country's representative work?

WOL: We did not have an actor in-hand who had good command of an Indian dialect. I am also not certain that was the biggest issue that led to cutting the Indian stories. We also needed to keep the program under 2 hours.

ER: Is WOL expanding its programming?

WOL: In April we did a program for the Grossmont College Literary Arts Festival, they have invited us to return next year, an all Irish program in association with Ion Theatre, a reading of the play "Mary & Myra" for the League of Women's voters, "Poems from Guantanamo" for International Museum of Human Rights. a program for the Moonlight Cultural Foundation, a program about Nancy Drew at UCSD library.

ER: What is your process for choosing the readings?

WOL: We read and read and read. We have literary advisor's who suggest stories/authors and we turn to them when we are looking for a specific theme or idea. As I mentioned, we also have friends who suggest stories, themes, etc. The final decision is mine.

# # #

The line-up of stories is still in process for this Saturday's program. Letting go of possibilities for WOL is troublesome. And that is a good thing.

NORCO-S GET LIT

North County (NorCo) Vistites continue their singular literary foray with WOL's engagement at the Avo Playhouse on June 22 at the Recession price of free. Included is the story "The Sudden, Unexpected Sweetness of the Orange" by poet, arts writer and theatre critic Charlene Baldridge.

Ms. Baldridge's work is reprised for this Moonlight Cultural Foundation program. Out of the total 84 stories performed over two years, Baldridge's story is the only piece renewed for performance. "The story is set in San Diego and it's a beautiful story and the right length." More specifically, the story's Balboa Park elicits further interest.

Following is an excerpt from the curiously titled creativenonfiction inspired by the writer's encounters with a psychotic and ulcerous crack addict.

"The Sudden, Unexpected Sweetness of the Orange"

By Charlene Baldridge

All are homeless these days. We who are older search for purpose beyond procreation, beyond relationship, beyond love as we have known it. The common sight of people less fortunate affects all who feel deeply. Some are unable to turn away from hunger and need.

Robert is a tall black man who wears an afghan around his waist. He looks somehow noble, like a Masai warrior, even when he's standing outside the theater with a paper cup, begging passersby for money.

I've talked with him. That's how I know his name. He has soft brown eyes and an engaging smile. He wears his hair in dreadlocks. His feet are bare, dry and dusty.

# # #

Photos (top to bottom): Veronica Murphy, Artistic Director, WOL; Walter Ritter, Executive Director, WOL; Lisa Fugard, Writer; Charlene Baldridge, arts writer-poet

# # #

"What in the World"

June 6, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Cygnet Theatre/Rolando Stage 6663 El Cajon Blvd

Tickets: $12, $10 for Seniors & Students

Reservations 619-297-8953

writeoutloudsd@gmail.com

Write Out Loud at the Avo Playhouse

Wordswork's "Right Here, Right Now"

June 22, 2009, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets: Free

Avo Playhouse

303 Main St., Vista, CA

760-630-7650

Lisa Fugard information is available at http://lisafugard.com/

For more information on Ms. Baldridge go to http://sdtheatrescene.com/

For her poetry, http://newolderwoman.blogspot.com/

DOGUGAESHI

2009-05-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

Basil Twist is a primary force in the art of adult puppetry in America. His “Dogugaeshi” is the closest to a refined Performance Art – like work San Diegans will see this season.

He won the Obie Award in 1998 for “Symphonie Fantastique,” a piece performed with puppets submerged in water. The show played to sold-out houses and return engagements.

Mr. Twist takes the discipline’s style to several “next” levels with a joyful conglomeration of theatrical elements. For those of us who still mourn the demise of the Golden Age of Performance Art, this show is the closest performance work that produces a rich and unexpected theatricality.

"A gorgeous..cavorting..dance...it will come to you as far as you let it in" - The New York Times

"A hypnotic and hermetic spectacle" - Newsday

"Intimate and spectacular, a haunting abstract piece about lost traditions" - The New York Sun

Dogugaeshi by Basil Twist

La Jolla Playhouse June 10 – 14, 2009

General Admission: $30; Subscribers: $25

Original Shamisen Compositions written and performed by Yukimo Tanaka
Video Projection Design by Peter Flaherty
Lighting Design by Andrew Hill
Sound Design by Greg Duffin

858-550-1010
lajollaplayhouse.org

Who is that man in the sequins?

2009-05-27T10:41:00.000-07:00

“America is a very conservative country… Those founding Pilgrim fathers are still in charge. And so much of what is original or creative is a rebellion against that. But it is still dominated by conservative influence. Are there any people in your community who have two husbands?”
Dame Edna Everage
Gay & Lesbian Times, 2009

This statement serves as subtext to the subversive dynamic of Barry Humphries’s character Dame Edna Everage. The Lady has her plan. For the uninitiated, Dame Edna is hardly a drag queen. She drags us through political commentary and social tyranny when we become her “guests” for an evening. Edna Everage is a Melbourne housewife who aspired to super stardom, succeeded, and bestowed with the royal nod. Her royal self appears at the Civic Theatre in her “First Last Tour.”

In his native Australia during the 1950s, Mr. Humphries began perpetrating Dali-esque performance events or “guerrilla” theatre offensives in his native Australia. These unrelenting performance art strikes cut through the razor-wire protected status quo.
Barry Humphries shows no sign of lagging at age 75 as he plays the world-stage.

An account of Humphries’s charitable activities caught me off-guard at a posh financial institution’s holiday party in the 1980s. The husband of a colleague perked up when I mentioned Dame Edna. The native New Zealander beamed, “I remember him! He came to the gay bars with his act to raise money for children’s charities.” His wife admonished, “You never told me you went to gay bars!” Ah, Dame Edna’s subversion at work 25 years after the act.

His is a career of industrious cultural output. Mr. Humphries has authored 22 books (titles include “Dame Edna's Coffee Table Book: A guide to gracious living and the finer things of life by one of the first ladies of world theatre” to “Neglected Poems and Other Creatures”). He just finished the film of the picaresque novel “Moll Flanders” in the role of Madam Needham under Ken Russell’s direction. He performed Shakespeare and musical comedy in London’s West End. Film and television appearances number over 75 with the majority produced in Australia and the UK (he penned 64 of the productions with 90% of his characters in star roles). Mr. Humphries wrote the ”Barry McKenzie" comic strip for Britain’s “Private Eye” magazine. His teeming artistic endeavors spread to the canvas as an accomplished landscapist. Not shabby for a former alcoholic.

Barry Humphries has delightfully scathed audiences on two continents for five decades with his fun-house mirrored view of our lethal and benign foibles. Greater America appears ready to catch up with this court jester to the English speaking world with his sequined dress.

Barry Humphries as Dame Edna in Her
“First Last Tour”
Civic Theatre
June 2-7, 2009
http://broadwaysd.com/ednashow.php

A Grave Response

2009-05-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

Oppressed and profoundly discouraged from my past several months witnessing half-baked shallow acting found on San Diego stages, I sought out part of an interview I recalled with an actress of Olympian emotional vérité and bullet proof technique. She is an actress who possesses deep love and respect for the Theatre.

The following is an excerpt with Vanessa Redgrave from Jill Lawless's Associated Press interview conducted during Redgrave's appearance is Joan Didion's solo play "A Year of Magical Thinking." The play is Didion's response to witnessing her husband’s sudden death during her only daughter’s final stages of a fatal illness.

Redgrave sees herself as "a conduit" for Didion's words and maintains a commitment to the Theatre's primal origins.

# # #

"My goal is to, as a solo voice and as the shadow of the writer, be a sort of freeway for whoever comes to listen and watch, to get all that she's written," she (Redgrave) says.

"I am perhaps more like that tradition that was the only way of conveying a story or a poem for thousands of years -- I'm the speaker. There are different words for that in different countries, different cultures, but that's how stories and poems were conveyed -- whether it's Euripides' Hecuba or Joan Didion's magical thinking."

Redgrave likens Didion's writing to "photographs of the mind. Very complex and very simple at the same time."

Or, she says, like sitting in the doctor's office, "and he brings up on the screen what the computer imagists have found and have taken out in order to highlight the interior of a limb. And it'll turn around and you can see it: north, south, east, west, inside, outside.

"It's a kind of a miracle when you see it, at least that's how it strikes me. And I feel exactly the same about Joan's book."

(Photo: AP/Sang Tan)

Sisterly Love Bites

2009-05-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

Following on the heals of “Killer Joe,” San Diego has another taught potboiler, “Mauritius,” at Cygnet theatre. When two estranges sisters’ reunite to clean up their recently departed mother’s belongings, ownership of a valuable rediscovered stamp collection evolves into raging contention for the collection’s ownership. Set in an unnamed urban setting, the sisters’ fall in with a trio avaricious stamp lovers, rather, self-avowed philatelics, during their skirmishes for collection’s ownership; a mere two stamps capitalize at over two million dollars. The characters act out of a care-giver’s reward, philanthropy and serious stamp fetish. They stamp-out each other’s one-upsmanship in a steady rise from reasoned discussion to physically violent outbursts bordering on homicide. (Also satisfying is the production’s convincing fight choreography.)

This paper chase drives by at a sweeping two-hours with delicious tension thanks to playwright Theresa Rebeck ‘s sharp construction and Francis Gercke’s spot-on direction.

Like “Killer Joe,” “Mauritius” is enveloped in richly detailed acting. None of these actors need be director-proof in Mr. Gercke’s capable hands.

One might guess the collection’s fate early on, but it doesn’t matter. The production’s all-round exemplary work makes for a gratifying travel to journey’s end. (Would that other mixed contract companies strive to this production’s fastidious attention to their work.)

A percolating play, terrific acting, keen direction and design work make for a pretty darn good night out for the ticket price and gas cost. Parking is free.
Recommendations: date play, first time theatergoers, regular theatergoers

“Mauritius”
by Theresa Rebeck

Cast
Jessica John - Jackie Manny Fernandes - Sterling Sandy Campbell - MaryJohn DeCarlo - Dennis Jack Missett – Philip

Production TeamDirector: Francis Gercke, Set Designer: Sean Fanning, Lighting Designer: Eric Lotze, Sound Designer: Matt Lescault-Wood, Costume Designer: Jessica John, Properties: Bonnie L. Durben, Stage Manager: Nikki Hanzal

Performances through May 10, 2009
Wednesdays at 7:30pm
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pmSundays at 2pm and 7pm
Cygnet’s Rolando Stage located at 6663 El Cajon Blvd.
Tickets: $22 - $38.
Discounts are available for seniors, students and military.

http://cygnettheatre.com/

Ion ascends from the "Valley of Caster"

2009-04-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Finally, Claudio Reygoza and Glenn Paris will open the San
Diego premiere of Martin McDonagh's "The Cripple of
Inishmaan," with barely a moment for their company to catch
its collective breath amidst a move into a new performance
space.

The five-year-old ion prides itself with the largest number
of resident artists next to the venerable Old Globe. Claudio
and Glenn previously rallied their artists when, confounded
by City Code violations, the company vacated their freshly
constructed New World Stage facility in downtown mid-run of
"The Grapes of Wrath." Ironies persisted. That exodus led
ion to the Academy of Performing Arts nestled next to Murphy
Canyon. (Where's Grantville? many asked.) The company
persevered in APA's 79-seat theatre and put Grantville on
the map.

Then the heat of the Christian Right fueled "Yes on
Proposition 8" (the anti-same-sex marriage initiative). The
proposition passed.

Ion discovered APA's property owner, Terrence Caster,
dedicated an over $680k plus donation to the "Yes on Prop 8"
efforts in his belief's that "God reveals the value of each
person through the work of his son, Jesus."

A married same-sex couple, Raygoza and Paris decamped APA in
a conflict of moral consciousness. Ion's exodus from the
"Valley of Caster" led to the oasis of the San Diego Rep's
Lyceum Space. In cognate, the couple's commitment to their
values proved a fortuitous (ad)venture. The company has an
ideal location, a larger more and comfortable house, and a
theatre equipped to industry standards.

In dark rooms, rather than in moneyed salvos from Church
against State, Dionysian devotees continue their rituals
around the flame of magic.

With a keen eye on McDonough's period European play, the
team sustained focus on crafting its version of "Inishmaan,"
as director Glenn Paris reveals in this Q & A via the Internet.

* * *

Espresso: What has the mood been like with the company since
moving?

Glenn Paris: The mood is strong, powerful and perseverant.
There has been a tremendous outpouring of support from both
the theatre community and LGBTQ community. People are proud
that we took a stand, and I think it ties current and new
friends closer to us as we share a love of theatre and a
perspective of advocacy for necessary changes in California
and the nation.

E: What was your immediate, initial response to "Inishmaan?"
Did you see or read it?

Photo: Rich Carrillo and Jason Connors (courtesy ion theatre)

GP: Claudio was aware of the play, having worked on the
production at the Geffen. As we determined this year's
season, he gave it to me and encouraged me to read it. I
immediately fell in love with it, and was impressed by how
strong and how funny a piece emerged from such a young
writer. I had seen "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" on Broadway
and later did a reading with the great Irish actress, Anna
Manahan who played the mother in "Leenane." Claudio and I
deepened our love affair with McDonagh the playwright when
we saw "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" on Broadway a few years
ago. I have a poster for the production hanging in my office
at the Playhouse!

E: "Inishmaan" takes place on a small-unfrequented Irish
island circa 1934. How have you explored the location and
time period with your actors?

GP: With the help of our dramaturge, AC Harvey (who was
Special Advisor to the Ibsen series) we have thoroughly
explored the period, typography and climate of the Aran
islands, and the rich given circumstances that establish the
play's situations. Led by AC and me, actors have discussed
and agreed upon a timeline and past and present off stage
events.

E: The character of Kate Osborn, Billy's (the crippled
orphan's) adoptive aunt, talks to stones. Do you treat this
character's behavior as mental illness or a spiritual
practice?

Photo: Dana Hooley and D'Ann Paton (courtesy ion theatre)

GP: Kate is rather dotty, and talking to stones both ties
her to the earth and helps her with her inner confusion in
the wake of Billy's absence. She is a very nervous woman, as
much as she represses her strife. Talking to stones is a way
for her to try to ground herself in reality. She is the more
erudite and sensitive of the two sisters; Eileen is the more
practical of the too, though she satiates her own anxiety by
munching on sweets. Kate and Eileen are Billy's "pretend"
aunties. They are very tied to him, may even exist for him,
or at least he gives them a reason for living (each other is
not enough) and what they perceive to be their time with him
helps alleviate their potential loneliness and isolation.

E: In terms of theatrical space, how has working in the
Lyceum affected your work on the piece?

GP: We are thrilled to be working in a larger venue and hope
the play is popular with audiences. It should be a tonic in
these ever-increasingly tough times - once again, I think of
"Inishmaan" as a very funny play. Working in a new space
always has its particular challenges and the REP Space's new
configuration is not different. ion has a strong track
record of adapting to new environments and conditions, so we
are confident that we'll meet the challenges effectively.

# # #

The Cripple of Inishmaan
By Martin McDonagh

ion theatre at
Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza
Pay-what-you-can preview Friday, April 24 at 8pm
Saturday, April 25 opening
Runs through Sunday May 10
Wednesday through Sunday, with matinees on
Saturdays (4pm) and Sundays (2pm)
Lyceum Theatre box office: (619) 544-1000
http://iontheatre.com/ or http://sdrep.org/

The Stage, Screen and Television Actors' Conference (in San Diego!)

2009-04-17T00:10:00.000-07:00

Last year I attended the inaugural Actors’ Conference. The afternoon turned up several incisive presentations, coaching sessions and lectures.
Photo: Marcia Ross

As a kid, Marcia Ross, V.P. of Casting for Disney Theatrical Film, rode the commuter trains alone into Manhattan to see Broadway shows. I identified with her practice in adventure, only I took the Greyhound bus from Cleveland to the half price ticket booth in Times Square. She started a Show Business career in New York as a stage manager. Ross eloquently expressed her love of the Theatre, for actors and the meaningfulness to get actors jobs.

After various epiphanal anecdotes from her career as a casting director, Ms Ross boiled down casting categories to: a) great actors, b) serviceable actors and c) types. Sobering stuff, huh?

Listening to the pros (you’ll recognize the names of keynote speakers from opening film credits) give the “411” on Show Business (and the business of show is emphasized) will make you run out and get your 8x10s or decide to get that certificate in Culinary Arts you’ve been considering.

The two days are invaluable for any actor, student or professional, especially the student. Actors in training will get the rare inside look at the practicalities of Show Business procedures, etiquette, rules and traditions, plus there are golden opportunities to make your contacts.

This year’s Keynote Speakers are:

Mary Jo Slater C.S.A., New York & Hollywood, "Reality and Practicality"
Gary Zuckerbrod C.S.A., President Casting Society of America – Hollywood, "Being a Professional Actor"
Justin Huff C.S.A., Telsey + Company Casting, New York "Preparation, Reality & Love"

The presenters include:

Frank Catalano, Professor of Theatre Arts, University Of Southern California
Justin Huff, Casting Director, Telsey + Co. Casting
Troy Magino, Director & Choreographer
“The True Story of Commercials – What you need really need to know about the Commercial Business"
Terry Ross, Owner/Director, Acting Professionally
Elana Dvorak, “What Does a Manager Do,” and “How to Find the Right Manager for You"

Locals include:

Robert Smyth, Producing Artistic Director, Lamb's Players Theatre
Nanci Washburn, President and Founder, Artist Management Agency
Sam Woodhouse, Artistic Director, San Diego Repertory Theatre
Stephen Elton, Casting Director, North Coast Repertory
Candis Paule, Casting Director, Stu Segall Productions

Actors, save yourself countless months of frustration and check this out.

# # #

The main stuff:

Saturday April 25, 2009 & Sunday, April 26, 2009, Location: San Diego State University Extended Studies Center

http://www.actorsconferences.com/info.htm

Jack's Words

2009-04-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

JACK O’BRIEN, San Diego’s lion-hearted Artistic Director Emeritus of the Old Globe Theatre, recently appeared in a Youtube interview promoting his latest Broadway work, “Impressionism.”

His discourse is classic Jack; a master director as much as he’s a producer, a publicist and kin to P.T. Barnum. The section where he tells us of seducing Joan Allen into taking the lead role is a keen example of his slightly devilish manipulation of actors.

Though “Impressionism” met with unanimously mixed reviews (Marsha Mason's work prevailed), stay tuned for his upcoming production of "Catch Me If You Can" (based on the film) and Weber’s sequel to “Phantom,” “Love Never Dies.” Impressions can be left behind; they only serve to fuel Jack’s next foray to the Rialto.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2n8e8L78uI

Commentary: Rocky Times, “The Cradle Will Rock" at Stone Soup Theatre

2009-04-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

The masthead reads "Steeltown U.S.A." The banner headlines warn us of troop deployments, stock market plunge, bomb explosions, union strikes, soaring unemployment numbers, vanquishing Arts funding and bank disinvestment. This towering sepia toned newsprint serves as the backdrop for "The Cradle Will Rock," the latest production of Stone Soup Theatre, a 1930s polemic opera that threw a rock through Big Businesses glassined window.

Although the "Living Newspaper," a weekly dramatization of newspaper accounts of Depression era hardships, was a notable theatre event, "Cradle" remains the emblematic agit-prop theatre piece of the period. The echo of "Cradle Will Rock's" socio-political upheaval of the 1930s resonates with today's Fraud Barons' perpetration of our current financial and ethics crisis.

In its National Theatre Project premiere the show proved too hot a piece for the sponsoring Works Progress Administration (WPA) that canceled its opening night and the actors' union forbade the actors to perform. The result was a spontaneous mid-town Manhattan parade of audience and actors to a vacant theatre where the actors sang from the house. The opera's composer, Marc Blitzstein, played the score on a beat-up piano on stage.

The show is an ideal choice to mirror today's high economic frauds and their rippling effects on Americans' sense of diminished trust in economic institutions. The opera's driving pro-union theme reflects the push for today's Employment Free Act bill pending in congress. (The bill gives workers the right to unionize as soon as a majority of employees in a workplace sign cards stating they want a union.)

Playing out as a courtroom sideshow, allegorical figures of the status quo plead their cases on indictments of alleged collusion, power brokering, perjury and union smashing. Sensorial sanction on the Arts via private and corporate donors also takes the stand: the Big Guys were aware of Art's power punches.

Stone Soup was widely hailed for its production of Larson's "tick, tick... BOOM." The company, though it is well intentioned, underestimated the demanding tasks of a period work and the Blitzenstein score. Director Lindsey Duoos Gearhart renders facile work.

Gearhart's production's sole attempt to update the opera is with Rocky DeHaro's mix of period and contemporary costumes and misses the mark. The design is executed without precision and the effect is a look of wrinkled indecision. The acting doesn't evoke period context, rather, the director settles for cutout characters. Mr. Blitzstein created three dimensional, albeit, stylized characters.

Even so, there were a few spasms of entertainment. Standout work prevailed thanks to Bryan Curtiss White as the hypocritical Reverend Salvation and newcomer Sarah Michelle Cuc. Ms. Cuc exhibited a trained voice and sparkling vivacity as Mrs. Mister. She then countered as the stoic Ella, an uncompensated widow of her spouse killed in a manufacturing accident. (Her next stop is Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts for its upcoming stock season. Santa Maria's gain is San Diego's loss.)

The evening's yeoman was Billy Thompson in double duty as the courtroom clerk and pianist. Christopher T. Miller gave a forceful singing attack as the agitating Larry Foreman, the 11th hour role of the union organizer.

Stone Soup's production represents a kind of growing pain in the theatre's development, and that is not a bad thing. Sensing a company's balance in reach and grasp is a good thing.

The company's next production is Strindberg's "Miss Julie." This play should prove a more manageable project, especially with the translation by local Strindberg expert Dr. Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey. "Miss Julie" opens August 9th with Stone Soup's Artistic Director, the formidable Rebecca Johansen, in the title role under Robert Dahey's direction.

Photo: Sarah Michelle Cuc and Bryan Curtiss White
(courtesy, Stone Soup Theater)

"The Cradle Will Rock"
10th Avenue Theater
930 10th Ave. Downtown San Diego, , cross street is Broadway
Performances are Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m
Tickets: 619-287-3065
Tickets: $25 available online only
All Other Tickets: Pay-What-You-Can
www.stonesouptheatre.net

Stratford version 2.0

2009-04-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival is in rehearsals for a 14-play season of playwrights ranging from The Bard to Ben Johnson to Chekhov to Plautus by way of Stephen Sondheim. The Ontario fest is the most ambitions repertory theatre company in North America employing a company numbering over 116 actors supported by a staff of 121. The company is helmed by multiple Tony Award(R) winner Des McAnuff, Artistic Director Emeritus of the San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse, one of my favorite directors (along with Lee Breuer of Mabou Mines).

While attending the Festival during my teens, an imperative sense of consistent acting style in period plays with rich character work was instilled in me. The creation of characters in Festival productions is daring character work compared to the range of persona I see on our regional American stages. The acting in this company always made for exciting hours of engagement in the dark and goaded my determination to continue my actor training.
If you love the classics and a good musical consider attending the Stratford Festival. It's the closest thing you'll find to the U.K. brand of production for half the price. Better yet, the City of Stratford has built and gardened the likes of the original Stratford around the Festival theatres.

The line up
Macbeth
West Side Story Cyrano de Bergerac
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Importance of Being Earnest
Julius Caesar
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Three Sisters
Bartholomew Fair
Ever Yours, Oscar
Phèdre
The Trespassers
Rice Boy
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"Killer Joe" Makes a Stab at Compass

2009-04-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

Commentary

Photo: Joe Baker and Amanda Cooley Davis in Compass Theatre's "Killer Joe." (Courtesy of retrobang.com)

Compass Theatre, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of "Back Water Blues," is alight with "Killer Joe" in a walloping production under the direction of Ms. Lisa Berger. Producer Dale Morris followed his best instincts in choosing Ms. Berger as director. She has conspired with a creative team and actors to produce one of the most satisfying evenings of theatre currently available in San Diego.

One of Tracey Letts' ("August: Osage County") early plays, the story evolves around what Dr. Phil would easily award for best Texas Trailer Park Family in Dysfunction. As with most dramas set in incubator-like environments, "Killer Joe" explodes as the Smith family "shark" for life insurance rewards. This is a distinctly American play infused with many of the American family's institutionalized insanities such as talk to family member but stare at television when disaster hits.

There is an element of inevitability in "Killer Joe." This is not a case of second guessing the plot wherein one's viewing experience is self-defused, nor is it a viewing hobbled in anticipation of events, rather, the Compass production unfolds with a sense of the characters' destiny.

Don Pugh, Amanda Cooley Davis, Mike Sears, Judy Bauerlein-Mitchell and Joe Baker all turn in engrossing, at times, hypnotic performances.

Such performances are a rarity in smaller San Diego theatres (even some mid-size companies). The typical case in such theatres is a production in which one or two capable performances smother in the rest of an acting company's mediocrity. Berger and her actors have bear-hugged these desperate humans with violence, humor and grit.

Personally, of particular note is the young emerging actor Joe Baker. Mr. Baker appears in the role of Chris, a 20-something pot-smoking get-rich-easy kid frantically struggling to get quick cash to make good on a deal gone wrong. Having worked with Mr. Baker in a playwright-director association last year, I was taken by his ability "grow" a role with his earnestness to learn. In the nurturing hands of director Berger, they have created a vivid portrait of hoodwinked ambition dropping dead in the starting gates. A recent graduate from UCSD in engineering, it appears he has left Auto-Cad behind. One should keep an eye Mr. Baker as he drafts a promising career that is determinately not on autopilot.

When Michael McKeon's set design hit my eyes, I could practically smell the interior of the Smith family's trailer. And yes, there was a lot of trash ensconced in and around the mobile hovel's crevices. Such is the authenticity and detail in McKeon's design as with Lisa Burgess' costume designs. The costumes have the rarely seen "lived in" look, as if authored by the characters. Five minutes into act you can smell the characters.

Catch this show before the Compass cleans its stage for its next production.

"Killer Joe"

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 4 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; through April 5

Where: Compass Theatre, 3704 Sixth Ave., San Diego

Tickets: $20-23

Phone: (619) 688-9210

Acting fixes better than sugar fixes

2009-03-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

Rachael VanWormer & Jesse Allen Moore

The “Sugar Syndrome” as produced by Moxie Theatre wafts through a series of difficult scenes emblematic of our addictive society and along the way renders a portrait of two terrified and hopeful addicts who cling to each other for mutual support and the ever necessary hope despite the unlikelihood of their association. Written by the promising Lucy Prebble at age twenty-two and premiered at London’s Royal Court theatre, champion of seminal idiomatic playwrights, the production attempts to grab us by the throat and not let go till its welcomed untidy ending.

A glib look at the “The Sugar Syndrome” might be termed “Mental Illness on Parade.” Conversely, the show illustrates desperate survival from mental illness in a series of scenes of tense taboo human machinations to reclaim one’s sanity.

The seventeen-year-old female Dani, who also manages a bit of O.C.D., meets Tim, a young forty-ish played the dependable Sean Cox in an Internet chat room. Their titillating key-stroked conversation leads to a public meeting. Tim anticipates meeting an eleven year-old-boy, the object of his obsession. During their tense meeting, the surprisingly articulate and emotionally intelligent Dani parlays proof of their common ground as dangerously obsessed people desiring reprieve. So begins Dani and Tim’s camaraderie in their plight for survival with the guide posts for the evening’s course of events.

Dani’s chat-room-plucked twenty-two (age of consent in the U.K is 16) going on fourteen-year-old wanna-be boyfriend Lewis and “middle-age challenged” mum in the discovery stages of betrayal and pre-divorce spasms orbit Dani. Lewis and mum add fodder for her well worn angst and unrelenting plight for understanding. Jesse Allan Moore’s fumbling virgin and knight-in-disheveled-clothes is an honest comic portrayal of rudderless naïve youth. Terri Park’s mum hovers in frustration and lands in a bit too much self-pity. Even so, Dani needs to pull her out of some narcissistic quicksand to fulfill Prebble’s ersatz heroine-in-training (or is Dani a budding codependent, too?).

The evening satisfies with some terrific performances. Rachael VanWormer leads the ensemble as the kinetic Dani, our heroine, a teen recovering from bulimia who is smart enough to score an early seat in college classes. A lead in an ensemble may sound odd but there is generous give and take in the show’s playing and even though this is Dani’s story. Ms VanWormer gives Dani the canny sensibilities and a touch of inherent brilliance frequently found in survivors from self-destruction.

Vividly transcending the puerile stroke of the play’s initial sex event in the first ten minutes of Act I (Dani gives Lewis a hand-job five minutes after meeting him) is a (can’t resist) hard task. The playwright gives the opportunity to take the transcendent odyssey but Ms Thorn and her actors hesitated. Nevertheless, her production is a taut ensemble piece. It would have been have witnessed a production go to “the edge” where it could hang out and pluck the weeds of insanity for its two hours. What we get is a production with unfortunately upset characters governed by guarded optimism. Thorn’s costume designer’s palette doesn’t help with its set design’s color coordinated efforts. Amy Chini’s technoscape set design in industrial gray with silver trends works best in its forms that evoke various naturalistic environments. The supportive sound design supplied by Rachel Le Vine does a terrific job of setting a contemporary Brit tone and the play’s pace at the top of the evening, but fades in the second act as do the actor’s British dialects of unspecified origin. Mia Bane Jacobs designed the moody lights with the parsimonious amount of lighting instruments available.

What would have been relishing is a paralyzing voyeuristic experience. Viewing the seemingly unbearable human horror and spiritual messiness that addiction demands without warning of people active in and in recovery from its substance, be it food or flesh, makes for good theatrical events. The “that which does not kill me makes me stronger” element is lightly touched upon at play’s end. Bulimia and pedophilia are symptoms of deeper events. Exploration of these origins could have added more dimensions to the play, its characters and certainly more for actors’ performances.

The fact that “The Sugar Syndrome” shows up in a west coast premiere as good as this one on our “play it safe” stages is an ideal opportunity for San Diegan’s to jump into a seat and fasten their seat belts. Moxie’s reliably high acting standards are on display and this alone is a reason to see the show.

As for the meaning of the “sugar syndrome,” you get three guesses (sugar “fixes” were popular in World War II). See you on the candy aisle.

Side note: Moxie is in the running for this year’s company in the rent-free “Theatre in Residence Program” at the La Jolla Playhouse. The company has my vote. A rent free, better equipped venue and higher profile could give this vital little company a benevolent surge for artistic and administrative growth and added surety of stability for the next couple of seasons. Let’s hope the Moxie folk need to fasten their seat belts.

“The Sugar Syndrome” through March 8th.

moxietheatre.com

Box Office: 858-598-7260

DJ Gray

2009-01-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

DJ Gray recently returned to UCSD to assist with the west coast premiere of the Broadway musical “Xanadu” at the La Jolla Playhouse. DJ serves as the musical’s Associate Choreographer, but you won’t find her name in the alum lists of the university’s dance or theatre department: she studied Visual Arts. (She received an MFA in Acting from the University of Irvine. )

Ms Gray recently choreographed the “Steven Colbert Christmas Special,” served as the Associate Choreographer with the Tony Award winning, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” plus numerous regional theatre productions from the repertory of American musical theatre.

In a recent email interview, she revealed how the show approached its 1980s dance style and the importance of a kitty toy.

How did you become part of the “Xanadu” creative team?

I have assisted (choreographer) Dan Knechtges for 6 years in various projects. The first big break, being Tony award winning "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

What is the "language of collaboration" during the creative process?

Dan and I spent many hours in pre-production, looking at the story of each song, and researching the movement vocabulary we were to use. We looked at the story of the muses, and considered the history of how muses were represented in dance. We used (modern dance pioneers) Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and George Balanchine as a base of movement. Then, we researched Solid Gold on Youtube, as the model of 1980's movement, and fused the varied dance forms together.

What is the most challenging aspect of choreographing the show?

Since this is (the) first time we re-created the show, it was a thrill to improve on the original ideas. One interesting challenge was the orientation of the space... On Broadway the oval stage was created on an angle, jetting out into the audience. Everything was asymmetrical. In this new space, the oval is parallel with the audience. The space demanded the choreography to become symmetrical, and forced us to make choreographic changes (to) make sense of this new space.

How did an undergraduate degree in Visual Arts and a graduate degree in Acting lead to your job as an assistant choreographer on a Broadway show?

“Let's add to that question. I was a swimmer for most of my young life. I “swam” all the way through college. I was a four year All American (athlete) for UCSD.

The answer: All of these areas of focus fed into each other. The discipline of swimming gave me the focus of how to train my mind and body. This is an ever important skill for anyone who is envisions a career in theater. But who knew at this point of my life, that I was going to be involved with a Broadway career?????

I fell in love with dance in college. It was a form of self expression I found liberating. Finding dance began my journey of defining who I was, and I was invested in my passion for story telling.

At the time, UC San Diego had no dance department. We danced in the gym. The course was considered part of the PE department... But what credits did I need from PE? I was a swimmer for the University. Nonetheless... I danced, and danced, and danced. And swam. And (trained) in Visual Arts.

Visual Arts/Media helped further my technique in story telling. Visual Arts helped me think "outside the box"... funny when you think of visual arts being viewed in a box... It stretched my ideas of structure, pattern, subject and point of view. Editing my video/films/animation has a lot to do with timing and intuition. This element, I found in dance. Aha.

Full circle. At least one full circle. The next natural progression for me was to further my passion for performing. I knew I loved dance, and especially, musical theater. So I began a Master's course in Acting from UC Irvine. As an actress, one strives to be well versed in every field of theater... acting, singing and dancing. Eventually, I found myself in a choreography class. With this, I combined everything I had accumulated in my years of self-discovery. I thought I had it all in this class. I had a point of view outside of the box, I knew how to talk to the dancers as actors and I knew I could be the example of how I wanted the steps to look like...

But what I was missing was the steps... I could give you steps with an interesting story... but they were steps I had gained from my short 4 years of learning movement vocabulary. So, I didn't have it all. Not yet.

So, I did what most people do when they receive an acting degree. They begin their career in theater. So, I stayed in California for 4 more years, and gathered as much experience in as many roles that I could. I was lucky to land a job choreographing for the High School I went to. I had at least 23 steps in my vocabulary, so I knew I would be ok with choreographing for the kids.

I then branched out into teaching for College. This challenged my vocabulary, but I was gaining all the while, being involved in performing in local musical theater productions. The glory of being in these productions was working with Broadway choreographers. Everything fed into each other. Once again, I say full circle.

I then moved to New York, with dreams of making it to Broadway. My first roommate was a choreographer (Dan Knechtges ). He too started out the same way I did, with Broadway dreams. But he quickly altered into choreography, when he found himself teaching, and choreographing for theater groups and colleges in the New York area. I shared with him my video art footage, and the material choreographed for high school and college groups. He asked me to assist him in a few things around town. Most significant was Princeton College. It was as close to a new musical, and a creator's dream that you could ask for. I had no experience with new musicals. I only knew of what was written in the past. I didn't know you could ask for a musical tap dance break, with ragtime feeling that moves into a swing that moves into a kick-line finale. Thus begins the adventure with my roommate Dan Knechtges. I was locked into the adventure of storytelling and creating dance music, and most importantly, establishing a movement vocabulary that combined Dan's history with mine. Dan got the call to do his first Broadway musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” Who does he ask to assist? The swimmer. Me. I didn't see this as my career. I assisted Dan, while I still pursued my own desires of being ON Broadway. I did. The swimmer made it to being on a replacement contract for “The Producers” for 4 months. After that, Dan asked me to assist him (on)a workshop show of “Xanadu.” It eventually went to Broadway.

Ever since “Xanadu,” I have been following the path of choreography. It's all very full circle. Kind of like every stroke, you take in a swimming pool.”

What projects are you developing?

I am teaching at Pomona College this year. I enjoy inspiring future artists. I also find that teaching in this kind of environment allows me to stretch myself as a choreographer.

# # #

You can see samples of Ms Gray's work at:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dj-gray-choreographer/179975037

Leepin' Lizzards! It's Annie.

2008-12-30T22:43:00.000-08:00

(above) Cheryl Hoffmann and J. Michael Zygo. Photo: Phil Martin

The so called “Great Depression” visits San Diego in an all singing and dancing production of “Annie” in Broadway San Diego’s ongoing season presentation of musicals at the Civic Theater.

If you haven’t seen “Annie” and get a kick out wonderfully hokey choreography in the old hoofer tradition, Peter Gennero’s work is forever danceable.

With musical numbers restaged by his daughter, Liza Gennaro, the show is a colorful story and full of tunes you will hum on your way out. If for only the virtue of song and dance, this show is worth an evening with ever, some might say overly, optimistic little orphan Annie, borne out of Harold Gray’s news paper comic strip.

Billed as the “30th Anniversary Tour,” the show’s lyricist and original director, Martin Charnin, returns to stage the show anew (Mike Nichols was brought in to “doctor” the original Broadway production) with music by Charles Strouse and a libretto by Thomas Meehan.

Mr. Meehan’s librettos for the stage include “The Producers,” “Hairspray,” “Young Frankenstein,” among others, and has been a collaborator with Mel Brooks on several of his screen plays. Meehan is a contributing writer to the New Yorker magazine.

The orphan girls sing “It's the Hand-Knock Life” in the show’s first production number as they scrub the floor of their orphanage run by the abusive alcoholic Miss Hannigan, always a wildly hilarious turn for a skilled comic actress and one of the most sure-fire comic characters in modern musical theatre. A pre-New Deal Hooverville also scores a scene and musical number, too.

In case the kids in the show or the audience need a reference for the kind of desperation people were in during the Depression all they need do is look Third Avenue and “C” Street as the exit the Civic Theater. There they will see rows of the sleepless homeless on the concrete sidewalks. Art imitates life so easily these days. It is a hard knock life for them.

Sushi: Still fresh after 28 years

2008-12-15T17:36:00.000-08:00

Sushi
Still fresh after 28 years

Sitting at the bottom ledge of the Icon building at Island and 11th Ave. in downtown San Diego, Sushi reopened November 8th with its own "home" space in the prophetic remains of the rein-Carnation Building. For the uninformed, the old Carnation bottling plant, long abandoned, became a beehive for artists' spaces in the 1990s and the better part of the building then claimed by downtown real estate developers for condos.

For over two decades, those "in the know" not to attend Sushi's work was intellectual and cultural decomposition.

Lynn Schuette, Sushi's founder, returned to serve at San Diego's premiere performance art organization as Executive Director to bring the institution from its amorphous semi-dormant state into its concrete setting and return to an eclectic season of programming.

Upon entering Sushi's performance space cement dust greets my nostrils and the sight of poured and cement brick room surrounded by lighting trusses ensconce the square dance floor as does chairs upon which a headset awaited each of us. A loft for the technical center and office quarters unobtrusively overlooks the 50' by 51' performance space that gives lighting designers approximately 14' height throw distance.

Jordan Fuch's "Thicket" consecrated our city's only center devoted to urban arts.

A modern dance composition, lights reveal "Thicket's" dancers in various poses of repose in autumnal colored costumes with a contemporary casual pant and t-shirt design detailed with semi-forms of flora. Nature has come to our urban setting. The figure's pelvic gestures gently reckon their awakening.

The headsets supply "Thicket's" soundscore. We also hear sound of the dancer's real-time movement on the floor and their accelerating breath. Nature's murmurs in various rhythms as growing sonic of white noise reaches crescendo mixed with real-time breathing continues. The white noise resembles the sound of the "universal static electrical storm" or jet engines our ears are accustomed to hearing and contrast the natural acoustics of the outdoors: apocalyptic notions intrude the room.

I find myself free to let my hard to focus concentration flutter about the performance space from dancer to dancer that move in asymmetrical and random patterns. Synchronous elements are not features in the work and this proves a relief to me. Fuch's dance movements facilitate a body's mechanics. The theme continues in the dancer's lifts with no attempt to appear effortless, rather, they work functionally with each other.

Not inclined to observe nature below my shin, I am not predisposed to the dance’s content. Nor am I overly familiar with the vocabulary of contemporary dance.

I will walk away from the work with my own subtle personal impressions without obligation to delineate all that I take-in; rather, report what I can herein, which is meager. Coming up with tidy answers is not necessarily the artist’s mandate nor an observer has well met expectation. The personal and private experience is always stimulated in Sushi’s programming: that I can rely upon.

My mind is more concerned with the space’s architecture, scent, the feel of sitting in an open cool concrete space in which sweating supple bodies move in abstract patterns with sensual embraces and confrontations. The pressure of ‘the literal’ is not hovering over my head in this performance experience.

The space has theatrical potential for epic staging. It is ideal for staging Brecht’s works; moreover, Sushi’s new cavern is suited to present the works of companies like Antenna Theater. Antenna erected and staged an interactive performance installation “Etiquette of the Undercaste” that led “visitors through a maze of thirteen rooms where they experience poverty and powerlessness first hand. Upon entering the installation, the visitor ‘dies’ and is ‘reborn’ into a life characterized from birth by a succession of ever-worsening circumstances, ultimately leading to homelessness.”

Sledgehammer Theatre would be a likely rental for the space had it still a robust attack on its work. Maybe we’ll see them conquering this space in the season’s to come.

No matter who or what groups of artists inhabit Sushi, it will take superior efforts and a large production budget to optimize the space’s potential.

Reprieve is my keyword for the evening's work.

# # #

In attendance was Mr. Larry Oviatt, a 28 year supporter of Sushi, who worked on The Campaign for Sushi Committee dedicated to the institution's reinstallation. Now on the Art Department faculty at Cal-State Northridge, Mr. Oviatt no longer lives in San Diego. Also on the inaugural Board of Directors for Diversionary Theatre, I have never seen an individual consistently dedicated to alternative arts organization prosperity, certainly not in San Diego.

# # #

"Thicket," closed.
Dancers: Toby Billowitz, Jordan Fuchs, Carolyn Hall, Storme Sundberg; Choreography, Jordan Fuchs with dancers; Music and Sound Design, Andy Russ; Costumes Design, Joy Havens; Lighting Design, uncredited.

sushiart.org

Sushi Performance and Visual Art
PO BOX 152761
San Diego, California 92115
619. 235. 8466
619. 235. 8552 fax
info@sushiart.org

Compass Theatre’s Directions to San Diego's Gay Love Canal

2008-11-06T23:42:00.000-08:00

"Backwater Blues"
Compass Theatre’s directions to San Diego's Gay Love Canal

To theatre critic friend as the house lights came up for intermission, "I want to leave. Do you want to leave?"

"No. I can't do that," she whispers.

Five people line up Compass Theatre’s one bathroom. I jog across 6th Ave to the yogurt store and ask permission to use their rest room: given. The exercise felt great and prepared me for more punishment. The actors perpetrate Act Two of "Backwater Blues." The show cease and desists an hour plus later. I sit in the theatre dumbfounded attempting to find words to describe what I just witnessed.

The parking lot:
I exhale, "I was going to leave at intermission."
"So was I," husband of critic says with eyebrows up.
Encouraged, I continue, "We could have left together."
"That would have been creepy. The writer was standing right there." critic wife advised.
I affirm, "My time is valuable. It's an honest thing to do.” To husband, "At least I would have spent an hour getting to know you better rather than allowing myself held hostage by a bad show."

Other parking lot discussion: critics humorously deciding if "Backwater Blues" was the worst musical they had seen or their new worst musical of record. I join them.

Who can blame them?

# # #

Derivative situations with one dimensional characters; carbon copied musical compositions that spring on us in matter of seconds with a new story topic and consistent off-pitch singing fill the two hours plus of amateurish play making and humiliation for the six unwitting (or unconscious) actors. When emotion finally instigated itself in performance, the actors were held back by canned music.

"Backwater Blues" is the premiere musical in Compass Theatre's QPlays series that opened October 29th. By the way, "Q" is not for quality, rather for Queer and in the case of "Backwater Blues," the term queer must be applied in the 19th Century use. The series of QPlays offerings of "Hairdresser on Fire" and "Backwater Blues" does nothing to edify the Queer experience of this century. These works and the Compass Theatre’s production values only mock and degrade gay-themed works it feebly attempts to illuminate.

Mr. Tower, career corporate worker now retired, is an industrious writer and devoted community theatre worker with numerous community theatre awards to his credit. He has a lot of material in the "pipeline.” Considering he and Compass Theatre producer Dale Morris are old friends, we're bound to be subjected to more pabulum

Brian Redfern’s unskillfully painted set design set the tone for the evening. Opening with a long corny recorded pre-curtain speech, "Backwater" only runs downhill from there.

A quartet of touring Broadway musical actors' bus has broken down in Toad Lake, located somewhere between Mayberry, USA and the Republic of Hee-Haw in Tower's reworked musical previously presented by Bob Korbett. Our evening's hosts are a company of somewhat Rubenseque (save blithesome Shaun Tuazon) gay men of stock characters: Stalwart Leader, Queeny Lead Singer, Nasty Fag and "Straight" But Leaning New Guy.

Here are some examples of "Backwater's" stage events: The "Nasty Fag" character, Rock, is reported stealing in Toad Lake and the Lesbian (I hope) sheriff comes to the gay men's rented apartment to investigate. Grace Delaney as the sheriff had trouble pronouncing the name of the town she represents several times in the opening scene. She broadly scratched her head when asking investigative questions. Numerous times. If we doubted whom the character was she sported a toy aluminum star pinned on to her jean shirt she wore with only one shirt-tail tucked into her trousers. Ms. Delaney did not sing on pitch, but we learn that in Act Two during her solo number.

(L to R) Trevor Bowles, Anthony Simone and Shaun Tauzin appear in “Backwater Blues” Photo: Compass Theatre

Another example: We see the suspect actor, Rock (Anthony Simone), stealing the company's electric piano straight out of the apartment door. Please note there is no motivation provided for neither this behavior, nor any of the other thefts this character perpetrates that grows in value to the tens of thousands of dollars. In the next scene the Queeny Solo Singer enters the empty stage alone, pauses, has a brief thought and looks about the room (Is he looking for the missing piano?). He doesn't notice anything unusual, gives his shoulders a Betty Davis shrug and continues.

In Act Two after a charge of Grand Theft Auto from a fellow company member, Rock is finally confronted about his bizarre series of thefts. After a dramatic pause, Rock utters, "I only wanted to get a start." This answer is sentimentally accepted without question by the other characters. I noted Mr. Anthony Simone did not sing on pitch in his solo number. Also, Rock is the only bad guy in the show and the only African American actor in the company.

Where is the reality? Plausibility? How about the common sense Dyonysius gave a freshman creative writing student. Someone please tell me. I stayed for Act Two to my regret out of politeness. I should have quietly left for my integrity and more valuable us of time.

Keeping their nostril above Toad Lake’s toxic waters was Andy Collin’s with a trained vocal quality and choreographer Alisa Williams. Ms Williams’ story telling within the musical numbers made sense of things and gave the show a palatable corny reference. Afloat was Shaun Tuazon. He sang on-pitch and naturally fulfilled his character as a male version of the classic stereotype of the Ruby Keeler kid from Hicksville bursting with energy and talent to break into show business. His presence occasionally surfaces as the only non-toxic radiant matter of sincerity and honesty in “Backwater Blues.”

# # #

Regarding the frequent off-pitch singing in this production: why did not the company seek to remedy this? Why cast a deficient sing in the first place? If a company casts a singer with a pitch problem, a musical director’s skills and vocal coaching can support the actor and work to remedy the defect. The quality of the product is at stake. Obviously, Compass did not care about quality in producing “Backwater Blues.”

Were "Backwater's" creators' rendering a work modeled after favorite musical memories or a pastiche or applying faulty perceived musical formulas from past successful musicals or a serious attempt to write a book musical? My guess is Tower and Newcomer gave it all four shots. What they ended up for a book was stapling cardboard copies of today's assimilated gay male features onto 1940s stock movie characters and the old “let’s put on a show” plot. I’ll leave musical considerations alone.

The challenge is, I believe, for artists is to stand fearless before the blank page (or canvass) with pen (or brush) in hand and bravely inspired with one's cumulative conscious and unconscious attack a target with guidance of crystalline aesthetic intent. Intent can change during the process. The fury and indifference of process frustrate especially when recalcitrant. One can even realize the purpose for attacking was veiled for another design: but the process and results must hold aesthetic value. In either event, originality, at least in form, is what our stages demand not sloppy and lazy repackaging of narrow minded perceptions of yesterday's Western commercial excrement. One must also have organic talent.

Co-writer David M. Newcomer's program bio reads: "One of the things the David has hoped to accomplish with "Backwater Blues" is to get away from gay stereotypes, and portray gay men as real people with real lives and loves." We should note Mr. Newcomer studied music and drama at the Royal Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Lake Wales, Florida. Compass Theatre website also lists the same credit for Mr. Newcomer at this writing. Irresistibly curious about a Royal Conservatory of Performing Arts in Lake Wales, Florida, I "Googled" the institution without success. That’s another story.

Another small venue in town growing in popularity is the Swedenborgian Church Hall that now has a playwright in residence, Mr. Kevin Six. Mr. Tower is Compass Theatre's Playwright in Residence as appointed by producer Dale Morris.

These gentlemen are serious.

What is the standard for such an appointment? For example, in context for playwrights grant applications the term holds great esteem and deemed a sign of outstanding artistic and commercial accomplishments in professional theatres.

When an audience of lemmings pays money and fall into their seats for two hours of a fiasco like "Backwater Blues,” it is actors who suffer knowingly or not. Driven by the desire to tend ego, build a resume or get away from the boyfriend, what-ever, the actors bear the brunt of this “car wreck.” Witnessing actors working for chicken feed or nothing, using their clothes for costumes, their talents and goodwill, grossly misdirected to fill the Compass stage with this musical tripe is not a polite pleasure. The actors pay the theatre bills and it’s Producer.

# # #

But wait: there is hope for 2009. Mr. Ruff Yeager, a former Chicagoan like Mamet, is directing Mamet's "American Buffalo" next year at Compass. He's cast Walter Murray and Matt Scott in this three-character Boléro set in a Chicago junk shop. Ruff’s work has a history commitment to quality not only with existing plays but also with original work.

Backwater Blues
Through November 26
Cast: Trevor Bowles, Andy Collins, Grace Delaney, Tom Doyle, Anthony Simone, Shaun Tauzin Book and Lyrics, Michael Thomas Tower and David M. Newcomer; Music, Michael Thomas Tower; Director, Lindsey Duoos Gearheart; Choreographer, Alisa Williams; Musical Director, Rick Shaffer; Set Design, Brian Redfern; Costume and Prop Design, Deborah Duoos; Stage Manager, Marissa Vaughn; Wardrobe and Prop Supervision, Anna Mc Millan.

compasstheatre.com

Everything Will Be Different

2008-10-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

“Everything Will be Different” by Mark Schultz is a psychological study of a teenage girl and the events that precede her suicide. We know this from the evening’s onset. The victim of covert incest by her recently widowed father, Charlotte struggles to find her sanity in a world he is savagely distorts. She seeks to order her world in attempts at sexually pleasing men (failed) in order to gain physical beauty, attention, acceptance and, hopefully, love or at least a bit of comfort. Fantasy is her most effective narcotic.

Lynx founder Al Germani directed the show with taut signature ensemble. Mr. Germani, a professionally trained dancer and actor who then also pursued a career in psychotherapy is in league with Mr. Schultz’s artistic sensibilities.

Singling out a particular performance might be unfair to his dutiful ensemble company, a cast ranging in ages from the teens into their 50s. However, in the central character of Charlotte, Michelle Procopio’s portrait of her endures and manifests a hundred shades of emotion to reveal the child-woman valiantly fighting for her identify to the psychological battering by her alcoholic father and her own, now distorted, psyche.

Walter Ritter as Charlotte’s guidance counselor provides a voice of reason in the story and does so without didacticism nor condescension. Even when the actor threatened with Charlotte’s fantasized pornographic “documentation” of his “seduction” of her manages the character’s career-tumbling and jail-threatening prospect without stridency nor bombast. He, at wit’s end, negotiates a logical surrender of the items from the psychotic Charlotte. Easily a role for over kill, his Gary Smith becomes a four dimensional, well-intentioned and wise counselor pushed to the edge of life and livelihood suicide if he doesn’t stop the volatile Charlotte.

Franklin is Charlotte’s cohort and a genuinely well adjusted kid in an ever changing environment of social pressures. Kevin Koppman-Gue’s fresh-faced moment-to-moment undemanding friendship with Charlotte lays victim to her gossip of him as a supposed gay. He is not. Her gossip leads to his face battering by their group’s “alpha male,” Freddie (a likely toxic narcissist careless dropped from his mother’s womb). Joshua Manley’s bellicose presence as Freddie has a disturbing teen authenticity; you might still hear the echo of his skate board in the parking lot after he enters the scene if listening careful enough.

In semi-comatose alcoholic stupor, Harry waits for daughter Charlotte’s return under Bill Kehayias’ dutifully understated performance. Occasionally lifting himself out his armchair to accost Charlotte, Kehayias plays him so damaged and stymied with fear of his daughter’s abandonment there is no flicker of hope in his heart of darkness the light of which is woefully insufficient for himself let alone his self-mutilated daughter.

Psychological conflicts are elegantly rendered to create audience response. One can see the dynamics of Charlotte’s entangled mind. You feel helpless as she uses her only weapon, the violence of gossip, to get what she thinks will satisfy her: the opportunity to perform a sex act on a male adolescent friend. There is no predication for shock value in this play.

The design style for “Everything Will be Different” is minimal and aptly provides focus on the human figure. Germani, also the show’s designer and videographer, employs oversized video projection of characters above the performance space, which dominate Charlotte’s endeavors.

A colleague tells me Mr. Germani is a taxing director with which to work. The same is said about Des McAnuff. In San Diego, evoking potent work from actors with day jobs is daunting proposition. To cast, secure and sustain a working relationship with actors in this economic situation requires unique skills. It appears to me actors who successfully work with Mr. Germani have done so with a residue of substantial respect for him and became more seasoned artists for the wear.

High standards demand high risk when creating psycho-social contemporary drama especially in order to affect today’s nescient commercial image-drubbed audience member.

Likewise, if such audience members exit Lynx angry at the work they are pointing their finger in the wrong direction. Rather, they have the opportunity to discuss why they are upset. Therein are more substance of the theatre-going experience and the lasting pay-off of the evening’s investment.

One local female theatre critic became enraged at the piece. Great! Personally, I guess some transference was at work and unresolved issues of rejection were hit for that observer: I know some of mine were irritated.

“Everything Will be Different” encourages me in believing small San Diego theatre companies are capable of producing works of integrity. I hope the folks at ION Theatre catch this work. They may become inspired to carry over the quality and values in consummate ensemble acting to their company.

“Everything Will be Different”

Through November 23^rd, 2008

Cast: Michelle Procopio, Bill Kehayias, Walter Ritter, Kevin Koppman-Gue, Joshua Manlely; (on video) Ailicia Randolph and Joan Westmoreland; Playwright: Mark Schultz; Director: Al Germani with set, light and media design by Mr. Germani.

Phone: (619) 889-3190

Tuesday at 9pm, tix $10; Friday, Saturday, Sunday at 8 pm, tix $20 - $15

Note: no performances on Halloween (10/31) and Election Night (11/4)

Lynx Performance
Theatre Space
2653 Ariane Drive
San Diego, CA 92117-3422

lynxperformance.com

2008-10-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

Match Flame of the Vanities

The original "The Elephant Man" proved to be a hit in every sense of the theatrical term including advertising, staging and casting. The show stacked up seven Tony(tm) nominations, including the title role for Philip Anglim. The Tony(tm) winners for "The Elephant Man" include Carole Shelly (Best Actress), Jack Hofsiss (Director) and Best Play (Bernard Pomerance and producers). Word on the street at that time was Philip Anglim's the show was a vanity.
New York theatre "buzz" in the 70s was rabid with schadenfreude. A sign of the times? "Avenue Q's" 2004 Tony Award(tm) winning score sports a song titled "schadenfreude," so take it as you will.

Seema Sueko as Anna in Mo'olelo Performing Arts' "Night Sky."

It's tough to see those couched around you lauded for a show you carried on stage and off. Whether a blow or a balm, Mr. Anglim chose a terrific play, a role fit to his talent and skills and the right director with the right take on the show that capitalized on his abilities. The actor purchased the North American rights to the show. In the end, he limped all the way to the bank.
Today we have Seema Sueko's Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company's production of "Night Sky" by Susan Yankowitz. The show inaugurated the La Jolla Playhouse's Resident Theatre Company Program with parsimonious amounts of ingenuity and recessionary size vacancies of risk. For Ms. Sueko, who plays the lead, it is not a well-chosen vehicle.

Considering the significance of the opportunity and commitment in context of the La Jolla Playhouse's ongoing contribution in the American Theatre dynamic and Mo'olelo's aspiration to produce "edgy" work one would think Artistic Director Seema Sueko would hit the ground with an audacious choice and start running. The Playhouse program rewards the most vibrant of "homeless" theatre companies in San Diego. What went wrong? Is it Mo'elelo or is it San Diego?

Artistic Director Seema Sueko chose the play and cast herself in the lead role of Anna, instructor of astronomy. Ms Sueko's performance as a Type A Prof proved pat with a narrow emotional spectrum and lacked spontaneity. Her performance appeared choreographed. With a character obsessed with control, it would have been savory to see Anna's vulnerability in earnest and elevated into the spiritual especially given this play’s "movie-of-the-week" tone.

Support
I left Mo'olelo with a sense the Ms Sueko led her company through a project with the deliberateness of someone who kept her pants up with a belt and suspenders. Not that one should drop their pants. For example, Siobhan Sullivan's direction lacked imagination taking a conventional mid-west regional theatre approach to interpreting the work. Ms Sullivan's passion for the material was not evident.

"Night Sky”’s supporting cast turned in dutiful performances, but there is no telling what the actors were truly capable of in their role in this loosely explored production. The play is hardly an enthralling study of the aphasic experience. The show demanded fully realized performances with touch-and-go ensemble work to carry the evening.

The show's set design held more promise. David F. Weiner's architectural rendering of brain forms used a series of successive horizontal lines and levels, not unlike the "slices" of an MRI. But Mr. Weiner's choice of black for the unit set repeats design's age-old practice of using the color black to allow a unit set's flexibility with multiple scene locations. C'mon folks, let’s get a little bit wild or at least show a little moxie. Why not flip the color pallet and play with a clinical white? Throw the old forms behind.

Jeannie Galiotos' costume designs were serviceable. The show's light designer (Jason Bieger) gives away his potentially most stunning design element of the evening, a starlight curtain, as soon as the audience enters the room. (Today starlight curtains appear to be standard lighting fixtures in theatres the way strobe lights are found in discos.) The lighting design is another element of leaden obviousness eagerly served up in Ms. Sueko's show.

Who's producing whom?
The company lists among its Creative Team biography's Thomas Baker, PhD. Is he responsible for the project's tepid results? His biography identified him as the Executive Director of the San Diego Brain Injury Foundation, a Mo'olelo board member and as having produced an instructional video. What qualifies him as a theatrical producer? (If Dr. Baker is an "Executive Producer" in the sense one's name is listed in monetary contribution categories why pass him off as creative staff?)

###

It should be noted that the company emphasizes its Green approach as evidenced by two pages of "puff piece" program notes written by its intern and a recent award for their efforts. Mo'elelo produces exemplary artwork; email blasts, newsletter updates and weekly updates of exactly how many seats are available for a particular performance. Ms Sueko personally answers new requests for inclusion to their email list.

The audience needs Mo'olelo's emphasis on the work. "Night Sky" is disappointing for the rich potential the company possesses. The program bio's list enough fodder for a "blow the roof off" experience. The company has the potential to reach out and change hearts and minds of paying audiences, new and typical alike. I believe this is Mo'olelo's desire.

In my theatre circles, if we refer at all, we refer to a failed show as a "flop" or a "dog," and add one or two supporting words to justify our opinion and leave it at that.
Nevertheless, questions of how and why a project doesn't work provide interesting discussion and reinvigorate one's artistic values even if the discussion occurs in a closet.
I know from experience that actors are not driven by charity to establish a theatre company. An actor must produce work of merit (or married to the owner of Seagram's). It takes more than performance skill to create the critical mass of workers and volunteers required and Ms Sueko proves this point to be true: Seema is a terrific producer.

At least a sliver of monomania ignites a theatre company's creation as Charles Ludlam informed us in his play "Stage Blood." If any actor-manager from the past fifty years could demonstrate, sovereignty can produce inspired work it was Mr. Ludlam (he, too, wore a dress) and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company. Congratulations, Charles, for sublime work on the page, stage and revealing this plot point.

“Night Sky.” Closed.
Cast: Seema Sueko, Tom Andrew, Bibi Valderrama, Justin Snavely, Nicole Gabriella Scipione, Brian Mackey. Director: Siobhan Sullivan, Stage Manager: Tareena Devona Wimbish, Scenic Design: David F. Weiner, Lighting Design: Jason Bieber, Sound Design: Paul Peterson, Costume Design: Jeannie Marie Galioto.

“Dying is Easy”

The most effervescent intermission chats I’ve had so far this year was in the company of actors Walter Murray and Gail West. Gail reminded us of Charles Ludlam’s platitude about playing comedy: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” (Spoken with the substance of overwhelming defiance and indignation with surgical steel-like articulators and rich textured tone. Try it sometime: it’s refreshing.)

Ms. Gail West

Ludlam and company guided their work by such platitudes with Obie Award winning results. Thanks for the reminder Gail. Gail and I played opposite each other as husband and wife actors, Mr. and Mrs. Carlton Stone, Sr., in Ludlam’s “Stage Blood” when Diversionary Theatre performed in the now named Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre.

The show was an artistic hit. The San Diego Reader (Jonathan Saville) called it the best show in town. I was expecting a flop.

As the Artistic Producing Director of a fledgling gay theatre company in 1988 San Diego it took fighting City Hall to rent the space. Once there, we had to fight Marie Hitchcock’s attempt to get us thrown out of the space based on her moral standards. (I even threw a puppet in the show to appease her! Not really.) More details on this show down another time.

Walter and Gail recently appeared in "Caliban’s Island" at Talent to aMuse Theatre Company.

October 2004’s most unconvincing performance award goes to…

OJ Simpson upon hearing guilty verdicts for 12 counts of armed robbery read aloud in a Las Vegas courtroom. OJ wasn’t up for a Vegas caliber performance that day. I witnessed a weary older man feigning empty responses of incredulity. When a celebrity drops from star treatment of a “Dream Team” in LA to playing a virtual solo in a room off the “strip” it’s gotta be a tough act to pull-off.

Punch me, please!

If you threw a great punch and could fly across a room when it was returned and you hung with a bunch of buddies who got into the same, what might you do?

Some chicks found a remedy and could have taugh the Blues Brothers a few things. Babes With Blades in Chicago is a company of stunt actresses have been performing together for over nine years. Check out their most recent offerings.

Sorry -- I didn't mean to call you women chicks.

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/theater/64291/land-of-the-free
More at http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/theater/15106/an-affair-of-honor

Young enough to play “But soft…”

And naive enough to do it anyway. I guess I wanted to give the Romeo speech a go as I knew I’d never play him. Now at age 52, I was right right on that call.

Estelle Parsons was playing “Miss Margarita’s Way” on tour at the Boston University Theater and while there held a master acting class in one of the empty dressing rooms.

“Who wants to do a monologue?” she rasped.

Immune to silence, I usually went first when this question was asked and so I gave it a go. It was a shy Romeo, amazed that he was amazed at the beauty he was experiencing and the overwhelming rush of getting turned-on by it. Looking back, I identified with his fascination and awe at the beauty of another young creature in the night. I was doing poppers as a kid and maybe that was my unwitting sense memory reference. In those training days we “used anything” that “got us there.”

I didn’t know what I was doing with the character except giving myself over to the language with full facility and honesty.

“Terrific!” was the word that Ms. Parsons uttered and then explained what I was doing to my realization.

Ms. Parsons is 80 and knocking out eight performances a week as the leonine mom, Violet Weston, in “August: Osage County” and enjoying rave reviews.

Get more insight on one of our country’s great actresses in Smith Galtney’s Broadway.com interview.

http://www.broadway.com/buzz/buzz_listing_w_photo.aspx?type_id=18

Preening is not the beginning nor end unto itself. You gotta check-out this guy’s stuff.
http://www.avltheatre.com/forte/2008/06/theatretube_taylor_mac.html

Okay, let’s lose Tiny Tim!
What list would omit Dickens' “A Christmas Carol?” Consider the list your “middle of the road” meat and potatoes for regional theatre fare.

http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/ATtopten.cfm

Shakes, Mold and Off-Stage Wars: “Troilus and Cressida”

2008-09-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

Danny DiVito, actor turned director, performed as a company member in a NYC basement theatre that ran its electricity off of a hot subway rail (every time a subway went by the lights flashed and the theatre rumbled). I refrain from commenting on San Diego’s Starlight Bowl similarities. Suffice it to say that during DiVito’s performances did not stop for the subway.

Though it is not subterranean, Compass Theatre reminds me of the basement theatres in which I performed in NYC during the early 1970s.

Occasionally the project of a company’s faithful, this type of house’s lobby is coffin-sized and transformed into an abstract of theatre splendor with the de rigueur 8 by 10s of the actors. Sometimes holiday lights are used to frame pictures, or aluminum foil is a design motif.

Upon entering the playing space the scent of mold greets the nostrils. The stage’s ceiling is home to a variety of pipes and is high enough for an actor to wave his arms dramatically without hitting a light instrument. We get to choose where we’ll sit for the evening from 49 beat-up seats loosely screwed to uneven wooden platforms.

Paradoxically, Compass Theatre – formerly 6th @ Penn - and its brethren are essential to the Theatre’s growth.

Such is the home of Shakes’ “Troilus and Cressida,” Thurs through Fri till Oct 5th. Director Welton Jones, for Union-Tribune Theatre Critic, directed the show for steady pace. He and fine Theatre Generalist George Weinberg-Harter collaborated as dramaturges to cut “Troilus” for clarity in plot and to our 2008 attention abilities. The result is a two-hour evening.

PLOT
The setting for the story is the long running Trojan War. Troilus, a brother of Paris, falls in love with Cressida. She loves him, too, but plays hard to get. The plot covers the heroes from Greek mythology including Ulysses, Achilles and Ajax and their plans to try to end the war. The themes cover betrayal and jealousy. In theory, rape, pillage, sodomy, maiming, beheading and looting is the war life of the populace. San Diegans rest assured the obscenities transpire off-stage.

EXECUTION
Mr. Jones keeps the action moving, rather description and discussion of the off stage events and war strategies at a more than steady. The speaking and playing of the text comes up short even with the cuts. Worse, the sensual war battered setting of “Troilus” is essentially absent for actors and audience.

EPHEMERAL
This is a company of wildly divergent acting styles and skills best brought together by the costume design and color palette. Watching “Troilus” is like watching work attempted in a gym: the results are incremental and personal. The evening is enjoyed neither for its whole nor a sum of its parts: it is savored for its moments.

Mr. Jones performed transformational work with some San Diego’s small theatre’s frequently seen actors. Though sustained select moments in various scenes, Jones elicited deliberately understated passion and focused readings from stalwarts Ed Eigner, Gerard Maxwell and the prevailing George Weinberg-Harter. I relished these moments. Experiencing them enabled the taxing evening worth while for they signaled a sea change in the work of actors normally chosen to hand-in work as a “type” or pawn their schtick by directors unable - or worse - unwilling to guide them into new living characters.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
The greatest miscalculation of attack on this so called “problem play” is action. If we observed the characters inextricably enmeshed with the toils of war and its attendant madness (in both maintaining and suppressing sanity), filth (say, cleaning bandages), starvation (fighting for food) and individuals’ struggle for survival (cruelty against one other) would have given Shakespeare’s characters a context in which to develop a sense of reality. A director could have realized comic opportunities from such circumstances as well. For the better part of the evening we observed characters speaking and moving in senseless stage crossings: madness unto itself. Surprising also is that Mr. Jones, a widely traveled, well read and seasoned theatre writer did not recognize this absence of reality-based action.

THE 15
The fifteen minutes of highlights included:
• Padarus’ (Weinberg-Harter) amusing provocation of the slow Troilus (Michael Zlotnik) to bed valley mall voiced Cressida (Brenna Foley).
• Weinberg-Harter’s song renditions (also of his composition) pricked us with comic relief.
• Laura Kaplan as Cassandra almost shook the balls off the men in this role -- she should have. Maybe she’ll try an entrance while pulling out her hair and screaming. It’s worked for Diana Rigg. An actress needs her own metaphoric set of balls to make this character work against a set of testosterone driven pissing contestants.
• Shelley Williams’ costume designs shot the best stab at setting the period and tone for the show, proved economically convertible and her palette enriched the evening’s experience.
• Ed Eigner’s performances as the Prologue, Menelaus and Priam, though not greatly varied, proved royalty in substance.
• Gerard Maxwell’s Act 2 monologue.
• Christian Lopez’s set design with its midget periaktoi and mix of painted murals and architectural pieces.

Michael Zlotnik received terrific notices for his work with New Village Arts in Odet’s “Awake and Sing.” He is not a “personality actor.” This was my first exposure to his work. Intelligent, diverse in choice, physically possessing in his characters and vocally flexible are some of the skills this young actor already can count among his skills. A word to hungry young actors: this guy has London training. He is the type of actor directors’ value in the canyon (not for long) of casting between community theatre and “Class A” Regional Theatre. Lucky are those directors that engage this thespian’s time upon the stage.

Palin and Performing Arts (non-partisan, Wasilla, Alaska)

2008-09-18T21:19:00.001-07:00

Valley Performing Arts is Sarah Palin's hometown chief live theatre. The VPA's 2008-2009 theatre season is listed and photos from past seasons can also be viewed at Valley Performing Arts.

* * *

Please Note: I received permission from the photographer to post a production shot from the Valley Performing Art's go at "Run for Your Wife." When the photographer construed political influence in the nature of the above posting he withdrew his permission and redefined the rights of ownership to Valley Performing Arts. Valley Performing Arts' response to my request to post the photo from "Run" met with the following response:

Tom,

VPA is a non profit, non partisan group. As such, we do not endorse any candidate nor do we want to imply the entertainment style or preferences of a candidate. If you want to link to our web site and show the theater group in Wasilla which happens to be the home town of one of the candidates this year that is acceptable. But our preference then is to let your readers look at our present lineup and go back through the seasons and photos as they desire. As there are many plays that could be chosen and there is much spinning that can be done with any selection, we prefer the complete neutral position by not promoting any play.

Regards

Kevin

(Kevin O'Connor
General Manager)

Channel 10 Theater Nominations

2008-09-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

San Diego’s local ABC affiliate, Channel 10, announced the nominees in the category for Best Theater. The nominees include New Village Arts, Cygnet Theatre Company, San Diego Civic Theatre, Lambs Players, North Coast Rep, LaJolla Playhouse, The old Globe; even the Broadway Theatre in Vista received a nomination. The question is: Which company didn’t receive a nomination for Best Theatre? http://kgtv.cityvoter.com/contests/10news-com-s-a-list/1997/arts-and-entertainment/theater

Writing at Catholic Community Services

2008-09-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

You don’t have to be Catholic to get the services and I don’t show them my scars for extra attention. It’s around 9:50 a.m. and I’m waiting for the food dispensary program to open while working on “La Belle et La Bête: 2008 (A Vulgar French Fairy Tail).” This is a cabaret piece for five actors; a titch raunchy and always fast moving and joy writing. Blue Lips has informed it along with the late Ethel Eichelberger’s combustion style humor.

Southern California structures cheat on roofs compliments of the mollifying temperature so writing in the morning sun while for my can goods is pretty darn good for this September morning.

Then a 30-something hipster signs-up on The List posted on the gate. After circling the courtyard he sits next to me. I forgot to sign-in and remedy that immediately.

“You no sign up? Ha-ha-ha.”
I don’t take the Hipster’s invitation.
I want to keep writing ‘cause I’m hot on the scene where Beauty’s sisters, Pathalogia and Toxilia, slam him for cleaning the house and breaking their drug pipes.
“Yes. I forgot about that.”
I look in his eyes. He asks me where the bathroom is. “I don’t know.”

He continues speaking and for some reason I continue listening.
“You the only guy writing here. You wake up, you do something.”
“I’m glad I got up and got here in time.”
“I write too. Empire in New York.”
“Yes.”
“Here – you read this letter. You read.”
His name is Bui and the letter is printed on formal letterhead from an Empire State Building address.

He speaks. I listen.
“You see what I’m saying? You see what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” I assure.
I continue to listen.
“You see the fire I’m breathing?”
“Yes.”

La Bête patiently waits in the foyer.

Ensemble Lamb's Players

2008-09-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

George you are correct. Lamb's Players was neglected in my survey. I will followup with the company and obtain a better sense of their company dynamic/cohesion and post-back.

What's in a title? and Post Facto

2008-09-14T23:51:00.000-07:00

What’s in a title?

Like today’s parent filling the family’s SUV – watching the dollars roll by – the sweat rolled onto the trusty Panasonic dual-cassette answering machine in that “mother-in-law” apartment as I recorded the box office message, take after take. An unrelenting Santa Ana stymied the city and burnished tempers. Recording the message was one of some 15 tasks to accomplish before tech rehearsal that evening in preparation to open Philip Real’s “Lunch and Dessert” comedy duet.

That 10’ by 12’ studio on North Ave. cost $335 (now $780) per month to rent and housed my foam mattress-on-the-floor-style living a refrigerator with half-dozen eggs, some beer and tofu with brown rice. Outside, flats for the show were drying and stage props gathered dust and neighbor complaints until they were loaded into West Coast Production Company, arguably the most popular gay disco in town, where its dance floor became our stage.

My other duties included finding rehearsal space, writing legally binding contracts, directing the two one acts, selling ads for the program, working as publicist, planning the next production and fighting for its next venue, placing media ads, setting up the box office and working with Greg Stevens, a dynamic emerging set designer I had recently met in a support group. The mandate: manifest the best work possible and pay off the contracts. Surplus monies, if any, after expenses -“office space” not included- would go toward the purchase of a Mac Plus, then the state-of-the-art computer for desktop publishing and word processing. I did not pay myself a salary or a stipend, I was “temping” at General Atomics. The project: premier production of Diversionary Theatre. The title for these plumber to host duties: Artistic Producing Director.

San Diego theatre holds some curious names and titles these days.

The first moniker that caught my eye was “debut” for actors’ first performance at the Old Globe, San Diego’s flagship theatre. In 1984 I found this title self-important. I have since changed my mind, having observed the Globe’s work over 15 seasons. I now understand value in an Old Globe “debut.” It means privilege. Production values at the Globe are consistently high in choice of playwrights, directors, lyricists and composers (dead and living) and designers. There is new work on the Globe’s stages every season. As one New York-based actor said, “…the Globe is Broadway West, without the mess.”

The Globe uses a Resident Artist title to recognize and reward artists of distinction. The Resident Artist’s body of work is prominently represented at that institution. The artists’ biographical profiles clearly reveal the title is earned by consistent excellence in work not only at the Globe, but nationally and internationally and in TV and Film. San Diego residency played a factor in some designations.

The La Jolla Playhouse uses no such designation with actors though I regularly note returning actors in their productions. Increasingly, San Diego-based actors appear in their productions. The bottom line is type, skill and talent in their casting policy at LPH. More long-term relationships with playwrights are found at the Playhouse.

The “haute pelican” recognizes its former Artistic Director Des McAnuff as Director Emeritus, and the Old Globe its Jack O’Brien as Artistic Director Emeritus. These are appropriate and dignified titles, but hardly designations that characterize their leonine producing and artistic accomplishments. These Dyonysian titans forged and established a successful show business model that put to rest the industry’s conflict of “Apple versus Orange” (it really meant “not invented here”). Des and Jack’s work contributed significantly to the change in the standard American Regional Theatre season to include a musical and/or new musical, a developmental play program and university actor training affiliation.

The number of “foot noted” titles for actors and designers in our city’s theatres is growing and begs the question: What is the theatre’s motivation in designating the title?
Small young companies that dub an actor with such titles are suspect of aggrandizing an actor -- after all we are discussing the Theatre and actors. Acting jobs exist in an ever-changing environment of hiring demands. An opportunity to mollify a potential employee is a smart move.
For example, artist titles per three popular theatres and their years of operation
are: Identifying actors with training and/or professional experience combined with similar artistic values provide ideal motivations to consider an actor for special designation, especially if the title includes guaranteed periods of employment opportunities with above standard salary. If these factors dominate decision-making the titles are well given.

Companies awarding artistic titles for general work rather than artistic work are, well, not artistically motivated. This is a “bait and switch” transaction potentially harmful to the recipient.

Ensemble

In successful ensembles there is a shared technique at a similar skill level. The European tradition in ensemble companies includes continued company classes and eating together at the company canteen. Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival, though not titled an ensemble, holds company classes and characterizes itself with an ensemble sensibility.

One of the main features of the ensemble is the group’s artistic cohesion surpasses per- show casting, to seasonal casting. An “as cast for season” demonstrates thoughtful consideration of the artist and company’s desires and needs.

A San Diego company that approaches this model is New Village Arts. This company appears to possess an interdependent artistic standard. NVA artists are encouraged to stretch into other Theatre disciplines such as design, playwriting and directing. Little wonder NVA produced a successful production of “Golden Boy,” originally produced by the Group Theatre, a noted ensemble theatre company of the 1930s.

However, with NVA’s recent resignation of co-founder Francis Gerke, will the company maintain its artistic equilibrium? Another season will tell.

A Standard

This past year of theatre-going throughout the county revealed a disappointing level in acting quality in our smaller houses: mediocrity at epidemic levels. The fact that an actor is an Equity member doesn’t provide immunity. The San Diego theatre companies filling the void between community theatres and Class A Regional Theatres and Union touring companies vary wildly in terms of quality of casting and acting skills within a production. An audience’s willingness to disbelieve extends only as far as good acting suspends it. Then again, if one is hungry, a full tummy feels comforting whether it’s full of hamburger or tofu.

Whatever the title, local actors must be supervised to produce their best work on a persistent basis: not good enough work. Good enough work is self-satisfying for the company and serves the audience McTheatre.

NEXT TIME…

• Acting: the step from community theatre standards to professional quality work. Does an actor make the transition with a leap, baby steps or a hitch-kick?

• The “casting pool”

• And the benefits of a titled actor in San Diego.

Webies

• Musical Lovers check out “The 10 Worst Musicals Of All” at www.telegraph.co.uk

• Find an international theatre directory at www.curtainrising.com

• You’ve seen him in “Brazil,” “Time Bandits” and “Topsy-Turvy,” checkout his theatre_broadbent.org

Post Facto, yet worth noting.
(items that missed the hard copy)

Twained Out Loud

Sitting silently reading your book, you sip your custom coffee drink hand-crafted by an underpaid barista. You gently pool about in dialog with your author’s character or facts; now its time to give a voice to that consciousness.

“Write Out Loud” is San Diego’s copy-n-paste of “Selected Shorts,” the long running Public Radio International program presented at New York’s Symphony Space. The program plays, appropriately, at the Cygnet Theatre’s Rolando space. Kudos to Walter Ritter and Veronica Murphy, WOL’s Executive and Artistic Directors, respectively, for pushing San Diego’s literary consciousness up a notch.

The upcoming August 23rd matinee opens WOL’s second season with “Ever the Twain Shall Meet”, an afternoon of--guess who? Mr. Twain’s career rendered voluminous tomes and continues to be in discovery. Recently revealed is “Is He Dead?”, which ran a successful Broadway run to audience and critics’ delight. Twain’s work is hard to resist for the over-40 crowd. Those 30-ish might find the work a good prep for 40. Good conversation is always in need of wit and tart.

WOL also serves yummy cookies and kick-ass coffee at their interval. A matinee to take your date to? Consider “Ever the Twain Shall Meet” as worthwhile conversation.

Reservations 619-297-8953

New Village Art Challenge: Willy Step Away from that Espresso

Imagine William Shakespeare challenged to spin all his plays to an audience in one evening. Could he do it? We'll never know.

Three actors take on the challenge in “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” at New Village Arts in Carlsbad. Though NVA's “Sailor's Song” hit the occasional off-key notes, “The Complete Works” is a good bet. Why? 'Cause this is a troupe of actors San Diego North County esteems as their (our) own from their very first play reading. NVA's Shakes offerings have been sure shots for lazy summer nights.

Worth the drive? Nestled in Carlsbad’s quaint So Cal stucco and awning style with numerous cafes and bistros and just the right temperature breeze to waft you to the theatre. Okay, I'm sounding like a press release, but this was my experience when recently visiting NVA. Plus, Joshua Everett Johnson, the actor one keeps an eye on for the next best character creation, fools along with Adam Brick and Tim Parker. Maybe Johnson has 20 or 30 delights to offer up with this show?

www.NewVillageArts.org

Meandering thoughts before and during a play.

2008-09-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

I can tell by the set it's going to be a long night.
What? Act one done already?
She always does that.
Wow, he tried something new!
What would John Lahr say?
No dramaturge listed in the program.
Okay, so a woman plays the Gentleman Caller: What’s the payoff?
The original production blew me away. Is this the same play?
Plastic wasn’t yet invented.
How would Des stage this?
Why did the Artistic Diector's father greet me at the door?
Stop gesturing.
Here comes the bend in the plot.
He’s phoning it in.
A full page Director's note in the program.
Take the chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
That hem is pinned.
Actors wearing black against a black set. Again.
Hmmm, new toupe.
Now sparks will fly.
React-react. React. React.
Attention ladies and gentlemen: the actor is on auto-pilot.
Lovely set considering the company’s small budget.
React-react. React.
S-p-o-n-t-i-n-e-i-t-y.
Stop gesturing.
Stop gesturing.

2008-08-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

The Espresso is a monthly publication, however, I am in San Diego theatres on a weekly basis. With Espresso-Refill the publication "replenishes" our reader's interest with commentary news and information on San Diego's quality in crafting a living art form in its theatres.
It is a given that theatre's and its workers are deemed with task of transforming their audience. The Espresso finds this challenge especially important as the Theatre searches to draw new audiences (and their monies) away from a potential audience's comfortable chosen electronic dominated environments.
The interest of Dyo's Graffiti is identifying and sharing observations of stage works that surpass the current strife of mediocrity seen on local stages. Exploring with a "shop talk" POV Dyo's keen interest is to corroborate quality one-of-a-kind rich shared experience for an audience and its theatre workers.

Newcomers
Lofty words? No. For the uninitiated this means; when a paying member of an audience leaves a theatre her or his mind heart and spirit should have been altered in some way, you are the arbiter of these results.
You may find yourself stunned and somewhat unfocused once the houselights come up. You may not speak to your theatre companion for a while as you continue to process the work you’re “returning from” and that’s okay.
These results resonate after hearing the traffic report the next morning. Images from the previous evening haunt pleasantly or otherwise, a word or phrase “sticks” in your ear causing you to reconsider its meaning and meaning in context of your experience. There is always that hoped for “Leaving the theatre humming a tune” from the musical that just brought down its curtain. This, too, happens.

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