upcoming this month part 2

oh, also this:

The 4^th Annual New York One-Minute Play Festival

80+Plays. 40+ Playwrights. 30+Actors. 7 Directors. 1 Minute.

At the Astoria Performing Arts Center

Good Shepherd United Methodist

30-44 Crescent St (@30th Rd)

Astoria, NY, 11102

September 25^th & 26^th, 2010, 8:00 PM

Tickets are $18/ $12 Seniors & Students

for tickets and info visit: www.apacny.org

It’s theater boiled down to its essence. Sixty Seconds from lights up to lights down. The much-anticipated short-form theatre festival returns for it’s fourth year in partnership with the red-hot Astoria Performing Arts Center!  Curated by Dominic D’Andrea, the program will present over 80 plays all under sixty seconds by some of the most exciting emerging and established writers in the American Theatre.

The 2010 One-Minute Play Festival Playwrights Are:

David Simpatico, Daniel McCoy, Michael Golmaco, Meghan Sass, Josh Conkel, Matt Gunn Park, Corina Copp, Laurel Haines, Erica Saleh, Bekah Brunstetter, Janine Nabers, Alexis Clements, Eric Bland, Peter Gil-Sheraton, Jen Silverman, Mallery Avidon, Anna Moench, Eric Winick, Maya Macdonald, Paul Thureen & Hannah Bos, James Carter, Tanya Saracho, Micah Bucey, Tom X. Chao, Rose Martula, Andrea Ciannavei, Enrique Urueta, Ben Cikanek, Liz Duffy Adams, Michael Bradford, Robert Saietta, Tommy Smith, Alejandro Morales, Avi Glickstein, and more!

And Alumni Playwrights:

Matthew Paul Olmos, Michael John Garces, Adam Szymkowicz, Callie Kimball, Sibyl Kempson, Caridad Svich, Christine Evans, Clay McLeod Chapman, Anton Dudley, Qui Nguyen, & Saviana Stanescu.

Directed by:

Robert Ross Parker (Co-Artistic Director of the Obie Award winning Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company), Scott Ebersold (Co-Artistic Director, Packawallop Productions), Jordana Williams (Gideon Productions), Dominic D’Andrea (Festival Curator), Morgan Gould (Associate Director, Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company), Melanie Williams (Artistic Director, Red Fern Theatre Company), & Tom Wojtinik (Artistic Director of APAC.)

upcoming, this month

1.

Reading of Hearts Like Fists 
at Flux Theater Ensemble's Food:Soul


8pm
Judson Memorial Church

55 Washington Square Park (Corner of Thompson Street)

New York, NY

Food:Soul features good food, good company, and a fully staged reading of a play Flux is passionate about developing and sharing with you - all for free!

The Play: HEARTS LIKE FISTS by Adam Szymkowicz
The Director: Keith Powell
 

...Dinner is at 7:30pm and the stage reading starts at 8:00pm (play runs 90min)
If some of you are itching to share your culinary expertise,
food donations are welcome but NOT required.

HEARTS LIKE FISTS is a superhero noir comedy about the dangers of love.
Dr X is sneaking into people's apartments late at night and injecting lovers with a serum that stops their hearts. Lisa joins the Crimefighters, a group of crimefighting women, to stop him. Peter, a heart doctor, is trying to create an artificial heart that can be mass produced so no one will fear to sleep with their lovers again.

2.

Reading of Fat Cat Killers

at the New Group

FAT CAT KILLERS by Adam Szymkowicz
Directed by Luke Harlan
Featuring:
Greg Keller, Michael Puzzo, Jeff Biehl

A dark comedy about aspiration and recession.  After getting laid off, Michael and Steve decide to kidnap the CEO of the company who let them go.

Prior developmental readings at LAByrinth Theater, The Lark, MCC Theater, The Working Theater, Ars Nova Play Group.

Monday, September 20th
7:00pm
Studio Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street
Fourth Floor
RSVP to James at james at thenewgroup dot org

 

--

If you're wondering which one to go to, go to Flux.  We may be a little overbooked for the New Group.   If you can't attend either, worry not.  There are a lot more Szymkowicz happenings coming up.

I Interview Playwrights Part 256: Mark Harvey Levine

Mark Harvey Levine

Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA

Current Town: Pasadena, CA

Q: Tell me about "Cabfare For The Common Man"

A: It's kind of like my first "album". I took a bunch of ten minute plays that I had written, and picked out the very best. The last play has the same title as the whole collection -- I really did want it to be like a record album. Er, CD. I mean a collection of mp3s. Anyway, it's an evening of romantic comedies. Some are naturalistic, some more stylized. Not every play is about romance actually -- but they're all about love. It's getting produced in New York this month, by Sweet & Tart Productions. The artistic director is Brad Caswell. He's directed a lot of my plays before. Every time he directs my plays I win awards. And "Cabfare" is also opening this month at Madlab Theatre in Columbus, OH. They're an excellent company. I've been honored to have plays in their "Theatre Roulette" evenings for years. And I'm so glad they're doing the whole evening now. Theatre Unleashed, in Los Angeles, will be producing another evening of slightly different plays, called "La Vie En Route".

Q: What else are you working on?

A: A bunch of different ten minute plays, two musicals and (gasp) maybe a full-length. I want to write a full-length, I really do. I just need to come up with an idea that I feel like I can sustain for an hour and a half. I feel like the cardinal sin of the playwright is to bore the audience.

Q: You are one of the modern masters of the short play. How many 10-15 min plays have you written and what is your current total number of productions?

A: Thanks! Not sure I'm quite at modern master yet, but I'm trying. I've got 40 ten minute plays, plus another dozen monologues and one-minute plays. I'm at 580 productions since the start of 1998!

Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A: In Junior High, we read a play adapted from a Mark Twain short story (The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg). This led me to reading all of Mark Twain's short stories, and then other great American short stories, like those of O. Henry and Ring Lardner. I think my love of short stories has led me to writing short plays.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: For short plays, definitely David Ives. For longer plays, I love Tom Stoppard and Alan Ayckbourn. And for musicals, Stephen Sondheim.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: I love when theater is...well, theatrical! When they don't try to mimic film or television but do things you can only do on stage. I love a clever low-budget device more than lots of overhead projections or expensive sets. Some of the best theater I've seen was done on a nearly bare stage. I like when theater can produce a magical image in your mind, or a lasting impression in your heart.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: Write. A lot. Try to write every day. (If you can get yourself to do this, let me know how). And read a lot of plays, and attend a lot of plays. Join a local theater company and help them out. Try to get your work read to you by actors. I've learned more by hearing my plays read out loud then by most playwriting classes.

Q: Plugs, please:

A: Upcoming productions:

Sep 2010: "CABFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN: An Evening Of Mark Harvey Levine Plays",
Sweet & Tart Productions, New York, NY
Sep 2010: "Surprise" and "The Prodigal Cow", Three Roses Players, Los Angeles, CA
Sep 2010: "Surprise", Minnesota Shorts Play Festival, Mankato, MN
Sep 2010: "Opening Line", Changing Scene Theatre Northwest, Bremerton, WA
Sep 2010: "Whatever I Want" (World Premiere), Claire Donaldson 8 in 48 Festival, Sioux Falls, SD
Sep 2010: "The Loose Ends" (World Premiere), Theatre Out, Santa Ana, CA
Sep 2010: "The Rental" (staged reading), Actors Anonymous, Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Sep 2010: "Drive-Thru" (staged reading), Words & Wine, New York, NY
Sep-Oct 2010: "LA VIE EN ROUTE: An Evening Of Mark Harvey Levine Plays", Theatre Unleashed, Los Angeles, CA
Sep-Oct 2010: "CABFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN: An Evening Of Mark Harvey Levine Plays",
Madlab Theatre, Columbus, OH

Oh, and of course there's my own website:
http://www.markharveylevine.com/

I Interview Playwrights Part 255: Lisa Soland

Lisa Soland

Hometown:  I grew up in a small town of only 350 people, but still knew the horses and the woods better than the individuals who lived there – Northern, Illinois.

Current Town:  Los Angeles.

Q:  What are you working on now?

A:  Last week the director Charles R. Miller and I cast an evening of works of mine entitled “MEET CUTE,” which is a collection of six short plays on the topic of “boy meets girl” in a unique and cute fashion, and then hopefully falling in love. It opens at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, Tennessee, October 15 and runs through October 24, 2010. Look for the publication with Samuel French, under the same title.

Also, I have just recently been invited to serve as one of seven playwrights-in-residence at the Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville. Mentored by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley (Doubt), my play The Family Farm will be part of the Tennessee Rep’s Ingram New Plays Festival next May.

Q:  What can a student in your playwriting class expect?

A:  I run a playwright workshop entitled The All Original Workshop. I teach both live workshops in Los Angeles and Eastern Tennessee, and online one-on-one through Ichat and Skype. I work uniquely with each student, regardless of where they are in the process, and what it is they want to achieve. Many of my students have been produced all over the country as well as being published by Samuel French, Eldridge Publishing, Smith & Kraus, JAC Publishing and others. When you work with me, you can expect professionalism, excellence and progress. Check out the website at www.PlaywrightWorkshop.com.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  I was born sixth out of seven children and I remember thinking when I was very young, that God must have had a reason to place me sixth and that this reason would serve me somehow in what it was I was going to do with my life. I decided that I was supposed to watch and learn from them, both in their successes and in their mistakes; to watch their behavior, so as to save time and heartache with regard to the decisions I would be making in my own life.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  I think theatre is fine just the way it is. I think as artists, we are meant to strive and work hard and strain to see what is true and real about life. I think great work comes out of this struggling, and as much as we all wish we could make a living more easily at what it is we love to do, that very struggle is molding us into humble, compassionate, hard working playwrights, who have enough of a tiny seed of doubt within us to question even our own inner life. And that doubt is good.

Of course there are things to try to change, there always will be in all places and in all professions, but overall, I think it’s important for people to deal fairly with each other and to follow through on what they say they are going go do. If one is not worth their word, they’re not worth much.

Q:  Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A:  Charles Nelson Reilly. Period. He was my mentor as I worked my way up through the theatre as an actress and he inspired me to eventually become a playwright. A bunch of us Florida people participated in his advance acting class on Wednesdays from 10 am to 2 pm at Chandler Studio in Studio City. Charles loved playwrights and spoke with such admiration of them to us actors, that six of us in his acting class became writers – myself, John D’Aquino, Cynthia Faria, Mark Fauser, Brent Briscoe and Kendall Hailey. Charles called us The Faculty Actor/Playwright Company. He wrote this, “The Wednesday class has amazed me. I’ve only had two other actors who wrote and that was in the late 50’s and early 60’s…they were Lily Tomlin and Robert Ludlum but I don’t know what happened to them. Readers?” He was always, always dropping seeds of hope and success into your mind, sometimes without you even knowing it.

Also, Burt Reynolds, who started The Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theatre in Jupiter, Florida so his friends in Hollywood would have a safe and fun place to recover and play parts they might not normally get to play due to their type-casted lives in the Hollywood film industry.  That same theatre also became home for many of us “up and comers;” a place for us to learn and grow alongside his famous friends. Burt continues to care about turning around and lending a hand to those who are coming up behind him. He did that for me and I will never forget it.

And I have to mention William Luce, my Jelly Bean. I met him when cast in his play “Luce Women,” playing the role of Zelda Fitzgerald with Charles Nelson Reilly directing. Bill has remained a significant role model for the playwright I have strived to become and more importantly, he has continued to be my friend. He is brilliantly talented and a very good man.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Any kind, anywhere, at any level.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Make sure you love it and then…make sure you do it. No matter what, no matter who or what is in your path trying to oppose you. You won’t make it and you won’t make it good, if you have no opposers. So bless them and continue to work hard and do what’s right.

I Interview Playwrights Part 254: Sigrid Gilmer

Sigrid Gilmer

Hometown:  Pittsburg, California.

Current Town:  Pasadena, California

Q:  Tell me about your show with Cornerstone.

A:  It’s All Bueno was written for Cornerstone’s 7th Summer Institute that was stationed in Pacoima, California. The Institute is a program where theatre makers, social activist and students come, hang out, learn the Cornerstone methodology and help make a play. Based on Candide, It’s All Bueno was inspired by the two diametrically opposed ideas that I kept running into when I was gathering stories in Pacoima. On one side I would hear that Pacoima is dangerous, violent and full of poverty. On the other I would hear that Pacoima is a great place to live and filled with folks who are active in the community and participate in organizations that enriched the neighborhood. The story of the play is about a family, who has abandoned the Pacoima and because of the fears both real and imagined they have locked themselves and their two daughters behind the iron gate of their home. When their house is erroneously foreclosed the family sets off on a mad-cap adventure through Pacoima and comes to terms with the community they have forsaken. The play is a broad farce with lots of slapstick, chases and dance numbers (Yay! Ken Roht). There are dueling car washes, a gang of clowns, a street vendor with magic elotes. It was 90 minutes of goofy and silly, performed by the community members and Institute participants in the beautiful Project Youth Green community garden at Jessup Park. It was a great show and theatre making experience. The level of commitment, bravery and generosity of the community members-many who had never performed before-was amazing. In four weeks, these folks along with Institute participants and under the innovative and brilliant direction of Julliette Carrillo embraced the spirit of the play and created a beautiful show more rollicking, joyous and heart opening than I could have ever envisioned.

Q:  What else are you up to?

A:  I am beginning a new play called Frilly. Filled with Girl Group tunes, the story takes place at the turn of the 20th century and is about how a minister’s wife and daughter’s sexual awakenings leads to the invention of the ice cream sundae. I see ladies in big Sunday hats and high-necked dresses with cinched waists crooning the Chantels or the Bobbettes. It’s fresh. As in new, I am just tinkering with characters and research, which I love and fresh as in super awesome.

Q:  Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A:  I was a latch key kid, so I spent the majority of my afternoons and summers home alone with the TV. When my favorite shows were over I would be so bummed that I would create extensions of the episodes I had just watched. I‘d make up new story lines and characters, embellish minor ones, give main ones different traits, take the show to a new location. I would perform these pieces-I played all the roles-for my dog Fluffy in the proscenium of arch of our living room. My favorite shows were Fame and Little House on the Prairie. Fame was the best because I would add dance numbers.

Q:  If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A:  A living wage for playwrights.

Q:  What kind of theater excites you?

A:  Theatre with balls and brains.

Theatre that challenges assumptions about structure and storytelling.

Theatre by and about people whose stories don’t get told.

Theatre that titillates & entertains.

Theatre with a sense of history and humor.

Theatre that is socially and politically aware.

Theatre that is messy, filled with music, fearless and kicks ass.

Q:  What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A:  Write. Write. Write.

Persistence is the key.

Trust your own tastes and proclivities.

Don’t listen to anyone. No one really knows what’s going on. Especially me.

Write. Write. Write.

Q:  Plugs, please:

A:  Brian Bauman. His plays are fearless, poetic ruthless beauties. If you are in NYC track him down!

In LA, Sibyl O’Malley is creating hysterical, intelligent and biting plays with tender centers.

In Austin, Alana Libertad Macias’ Zero Libertad! Revolutionary. Ritual. Fierce beats.

I Interview Playwrights Part 253: Anthony Weigh

Anthony Weigh

Hometown: Brisbane, Australia.

Current Town: New York.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: New commissions for The National Theatre, the Sydney Theatre Company, the Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre. Hopefully they won't all end up as one big really awful play.

Q: What was it like being in residence at the National?

A: Absolutely terrific. I was writer in residence at the NT for a year. I learnt a huge amount. Part of the position requires that you sit on the associates panel which aides and advises on repertoire etc. Wonderful to see how such a huge and important company operates from the insides.

But, the best bit was, I had my own office there for a year. Provided me the physical and psychological space to work. I will never work from home again!

Q: How would you characterise English theater?

A: Well, for a start, they spell it differently.

Secondly, English theater can tend to be preoccupied by a kind of politically topical social realism. John Osbourne casts a long shadow in England. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are rare. Churchill is NOT the norm. Quite a lot of plays set in living rooms on housing estates about two young lads smoking drugs, while one of their sisters comes of age, and another of their sisters struggles with obesity, and an uncle who's a bit of a paedo, a father trying in vain to get a job and/or come out of the closet, and a Mother who's battling the bottle and attempting to save the planet from global warming while breeding fighting dogs.

Also, the staged landscape is often benign. It's not for nothing that Pinters' plays happen in kitchens and living rooms and attics. The English natural environment is soft, toothless. There is nothing dangerous about place in England as there can be in Scotland or Russia or Canada or Australia. This is reflected in the writing. As a result you will almost always encounter a sofa in a room somewhere in an English play. One of the best English plays of the last few years was Jez Butterworths' Jerusalem and that was remarkable because he took the sofa and put it outside! Still a sofa though.

Having said all that, the English have a wonderful ear for the unsaid. Drama as a kind of dance of longing and unfulfilled hopes. The excruciating pain of the fumbled encounter. The badly handled joke. The silently cooling cup of tea placed on the kitchen table. The half remembered slight that led to the death of a child. No one does that better.

Finally, the nature of the funding structure there means that if you've written a half decent play it'll get on somewhere. That's pretty amazing.

Q: Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person.

A: I told my next door neighbour that if he didn't let me kiss him he'd get pregnant. He agreed and to my knowledge has not fallen pregnant.

Q: If you could change one thing about theater, what would it be?

A: Attendance would guarantee you had a lot of really great sex? Would certainly boost box office.

Q: Who are or were your theatrical heroes?

A: Christoph Martaler, John Adams, Erik Ehn, Ontroerend Goed, Caryl Churchill, David Harrower, Bertolt Brecht, Kleist, Chekov.

Q: What kind of theater excites you?

A: Sadly, most theatre. I'm a slut to it. Even the bad stuff.

Q: What advice do you have for playwrights just starting out?

A: Think about keeping that MFA thesis play in the bottom drawer.

Do not allow anyone to have input into your work until they have agreed to produce it.
A reading is not a production.

Ask yourself; "What is theatre?", then "Is this thing I've written theatre?", then "Why does this have to be performed by bodies in space to other bodies in space?"

Q: Plugs, please:

A:
http://www.faber.co.uk/work/like-fishbone/9780571269754/
http://www.faber.co.uk/work/2000-feet-away/9780571242610/