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1100 Playwright Interviews
1100 Playwright Interviews A Sean Abley Rob Ackerman E.E. Adams Johnna Adams Liz Duffy Adams Tony Adams David Adjmi Keith Josef Adkins Nicc...
Mar 25, 2009
evolution of a one-man show
I wrote this one person (one dog actually) show called Bee Eater while I was at Juilliard. I thought it was 40 minutes long and I kept trying to write short 20 min or so one person shows to go before or after it. I wrote two of these and attempted another before scrapping it.
We put up Bee Eater for a couple of nights in Minneapolis and I can tell you it's actually 50 minutes long. (I had two 10 min pieces go on before it)
While rehearsing Bee Eater I came up with another idea-- a short one person piece to go after it played by the same actor and I think it's the right one this time. I finished writing it today. It'll still have to be tested but I think it brings out the things that people are glossing over in Bee Eater and hopefully does so in a cool way. I'll have to see.
I wrote Pretty Theft in '04 sometime and it's finally being done in nyc this April. Who know how long this play will take to go up. Could be next year, could be five years from now or ten. In any case I can add it to my list of my plays I want to see produced. That list is getting longer. And as I sit here, having just finished a new play all I can think of is that I better start another one soon.
Mar 20, 2009
notes about the play
I was asked to write playwright notes for Pretty Theft. Here they are--
In 2004, I took a class with Chuck Mee at the Flea. He was writing what would become Hotel Cassiopeia about the life of artist Joseph Cornell. Cornell is probably most famous for his boxes—dioramas created from collages of found objects. He lived his whole life in the house he grew up in and probably died a virgin. He also had many friendships with ballerinas and sometimes gave his art to them as gifts. In Chuck Mee’s class we were supposed to all write our own play about Joseph Cornell and in the spirit of Mee, we were all supposed to steal from one another. Every scene everyone brought in was on the table to potentially become part of our own pieces.
I did not end up writing a play about Joseph Cornell but instead wrote a play about an autistic guy named Joe who is obsessed with ballerinas and likes to collect things in a box. Likewise, I took my character of the Waitress from a café scene someone brought in where a character said “If you live in New York long enough you will eventually fall in love with a waitress” and I took my main character Allegra from an interview someone brought in of the dancer Allegra Kent.
Although I didn’t end up stealing scenes or dialogue, I instead wrote a play about stealing. I wanted to figure out why I was so opposed to taking lines from people’s scenes when that was what we were supposed to do. Ingrained in me still was the idea of theft as an unallowable taboo. So I wrote about it. I was interested in showing different versions of theft—the serious and less serious, emotional theft and physical theft and what theft means in America and to us as individuals. Why do some people compulsively steal? When something vital is taken from us, how does it affect us? That was the initial impulse to write this play. I also looked at Chuck Mee’s theatricality and tried to make my version of a Chuck Mee play. In Pretty Theft, ballerinas dance between scenes and wrenches fall from the ceiling. And above all, I wanted to make something beautiful, maybe terrible, hopefully funny but also emotionally resonant.
Half Price Tickets to Pretty Theft
Pretty Theft
in New York at the Access Theatre
1/2 price tickets
Use the code PICKPOCKET for
$9 tickets for the 1st week of performances (opening excluded) - this is a limited time offer -
so click here now to save!
Preview: Thurs, April 23rd, 8PM
Opening: Friday, April 24th, 8PM
Pretty Theft runs Thurs-Sat at 8PM
And Sun at 7PM
From April 23rd - May 17th
Patron's Night with Pre-show Reception Sat, May 2nd!
Cast
Allegra: Marnie Schulenburg
Suzy: Maria Portman Kelly*
Joe: Brian Pracht
Bobby: Zack Robidas
Marco: Todd D'Amour*
The Ballerinas:
Waitress, etc: Candice Holdorf*
Supervisor, etc: Cotton Wright* Psychiatrist, etc: Lynn Kenny
*Appear courtesy of Actors' Equity Association
Director: Angela Astle
Choreographer: Ashley Martinez
Scenic Design: Heather Cohn
Costume Design: Becky Kelly
Light Design: Andrew Fritsch
Sound Design: Kevin Fuller
Prop Design: Kelly O'Donnell
Stage Manager: Kate August
Flux's 2009/10 season begins with Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft, a play about ballerinas, boxes and the dangers of beauty. After losing her father, Allegra falls under the wing of bad girl Suzy, only to find an unexpected friendship with Joe, an autistic savant. When things between them take a violent turn, Allegra and Suzy escape cross country and befriend Marco, a mysterious thief who claims he cannot be caught.
Mar 16, 2009
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