Every year, the Stage Directors and Choreographer's Foundation offers emerging stage directors the opportunity to observe master directors at work. I was lucky enough to be awarded an observership with Michael Halberstam at the Writer's Theater in Glencoe, IL. I spent the last weeks of August and the first weeks of September working on a wonderful production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Michael is a wonderful director and I was blessed to be observing such a wonderful cast and crew in action. Chicago is a wonderful theater mecca that I hadn't previously explored, so I was lucky enough to catch some work around town.
I wrote a blog post for the Writer's Theater website, titled Debunking Poetic Romance in THE REAL THING rehearsals, which you can read by clicking here.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Busy Summer!
This summer, I was lucky enough to attend two directing conferences, one of either coast. Lincoln Center Directors Lab here in NYC and Directors Lab West were both wonderful. I met directors from around the country and globe who work in a variety of different genres and niches of theater and performancee.
Click here for a description of the 2011 Lincoln Center Lab. We spent three weeks discussing and deconstructing August Strindberg's A Dream Play.
Click here to read a blog post on the LA Stage Times website on Director's Lab West by Lab production coordinator Doug Oliphant. If you scroll down, there's a picture of me under the sub-heading "Who The Hell Around?!"
After the labs, I returned to MCC's Youth Company as director. For a week, a talented teenage playwright gets to hear his or her play read for the first time and workshopped with a company of professional actors. This summer, I was fortunate enough to work on Renn Santiago's Come To Starr Street. Click here for some info about the festival and to see the rest of the line up.
Click here for a description of the 2011 Lincoln Center Lab. We spent three weeks discussing and deconstructing August Strindberg's A Dream Play.
Click here to read a blog post on the LA Stage Times website on Director's Lab West by Lab production coordinator Doug Oliphant. If you scroll down, there's a picture of me under the sub-heading "Who The Hell Around?!"
After the labs, I returned to MCC's Youth Company as director. For a week, a talented teenage playwright gets to hear his or her play read for the first time and workshopped with a company of professional actors. This summer, I was fortunate enough to work on Renn Santiago's Come To Starr Street. Click here for some info about the festival and to see the rest of the line up.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
18 Paintings Production Photos!
18 Paintings had a wonderful run at HERE Arts Center.
Missed it? Check out some production still below!
Missed it? Check out some production still below!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Making of 18 Paintings Part 3: Spring Artists Lodge!
18 Paintings recently got curated into the Spring Artists Lodge at HERE Arts Center and I'm psyched! The show runs May 4 - 7th and you can grab your tickets here.
We've also started a kickstarter to help raise funds for the show. Especially with a project of this nature, every little bit goes a long way! Also, some of the gift incentives include tickets, so if you want to support the show as well as see it, this would be the perfect way to do so! You can click here to access our project.
And last but certainly not least, I wanted to give you, my loyal blog readers, the first taste of the show. Above is the image from the postcard and below are storyboards I made of segments of the show. Enjoy and hope to see you at HERE Arts Center in May!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Theatrical Canvases: The Making of "18 Paintings" Part 2
I was so fortunate to be able to assemble a wonderful cast for the workshop from both the dance and theater worlds. Laurel Atwell, Megan Hanley, Cavin Moore, Peter Rothbard, Rachel Troy and Reed Whitney were all wonderful collaborators and schemers throughout the rehearsal process.
After a few weeks of rehearsals, I began thinking of a good framework for the piece. We decided the title should be ”18 Paintings“ to give the audience a suggestion into a way of receiving information from the visual-heavy segments we were creating. Imposing this structure on the piece opened up a lot of questions: What are the basic properties of a visual artwork and how can we translate those properties to the stage? In a theater space, what could be a canvas? Or paint?
I also began to think a lot about what makes paintings particularly painterly. In the documentary Alice Neel, about the life of the late painter, Yale University’s Robert Storr speaks to this:
“The business about the difference between painting and photography becomes crucial in the sense that the photograph does capture somebody in a manner which freezes that person in an instant. Painting never freezes in quite that way—painting takes place over time. But the mere fact that painting is not a second arrested but is a relationship of seeing, and of the seer, and of the subject, means the painting contains duration of time. When you look at a painting you are seeing an extended moment, you are seeing time happen—not just time stop—which gives the photograph a somewhat more obviously morbid characteristic and painting a less morbid one.”
A painter, Store ultimately says, has to continue to look at the subject over a period of time while he or she is rendering the object on a canvas. Therefore, a painter experiences the subject in a state of constant change—the light might differ or the subject’s emotional state may change. I began to wonder how to incorporate these properties into this piece.
The weeks spent rehearsing culminated in a workshop on January 23, 2011, at INTAR where I am an artist in residence. Below are photos and clips!
Rachel Troy as The Angel
Megan Hanley, Peter Rothbard and Reed Whitney as the Trio of Businessmen
The cast of 18 Paintings
Wanna see clips from the showing? Click here to see a clip on our Vimeo page.
After a few weeks of rehearsals, I began thinking of a good framework for the piece. We decided the title should be ”18 Paintings“ to give the audience a suggestion into a way of receiving information from the visual-heavy segments we were creating. Imposing this structure on the piece opened up a lot of questions: What are the basic properties of a visual artwork and how can we translate those properties to the stage? In a theater space, what could be a canvas? Or paint?
I also began to think a lot about what makes paintings particularly painterly. In the documentary Alice Neel, about the life of the late painter, Yale University’s Robert Storr speaks to this:
“The business about the difference between painting and photography becomes crucial in the sense that the photograph does capture somebody in a manner which freezes that person in an instant. Painting never freezes in quite that way—painting takes place over time. But the mere fact that painting is not a second arrested but is a relationship of seeing, and of the seer, and of the subject, means the painting contains duration of time. When you look at a painting you are seeing an extended moment, you are seeing time happen—not just time stop—which gives the photograph a somewhat more obviously morbid characteristic and painting a less morbid one.”
A painter, Store ultimately says, has to continue to look at the subject over a period of time while he or she is rendering the object on a canvas. Therefore, a painter experiences the subject in a state of constant change—the light might differ or the subject’s emotional state may change. I began to wonder how to incorporate these properties into this piece.
The weeks spent rehearsing culminated in a workshop on January 23, 2011, at INTAR where I am an artist in residence. Below are photos and clips!
Rachel Troy as The Angel
Megan Hanley, Peter Rothbard and Reed Whitney as the Trio of Businessmen
The cast of 18 Paintings
Wanna see clips from the showing? Click here to see a clip on our Vimeo page.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
DON’T GIVE THE ANGELS HALO LICE: The creation of “18 Paintings” Part 1
Hello blogosphere! It's been a wonderful and hectic few months -- and it seems I've forgotten to post about it. I was extremely fortunate in October to be invited as a member of THE POUND, a new Emerging Artist Residency at INTAR. There, I've been building a piece called 18 Paintings. Keep checking back over the course of the next several weeks to see read more about the work.
When film was first being introduced to the public consciousness, early filmmakers had to ask themselves how their work could differ from the predominant form of entertainment -- theater. Companies such as the Lumiere brothers and the Edison company answered this challenge almost anthropologically -- by filming small bits of life. These early films could be intimate moments, such as William Heise’s May Irwin kiss or footage of theatrical performances such as Loie Fuller’s Danse Serpentine.
Today, with the accessibility of film and television, theater no longer occupies the same social space it once did. So, as theatermakers, it’s now our turn to ask what makes theater inherently theatrical. For the past several months, short delicious theatrical images and moments kept on popping into my head. I wanted to find a way to piece them together without having to create a narrative structure around them. My mind wandered back to those early films -- potent emotion moments that extremely captivating in the absence of narrative.
Because this piece was going to be so rooted in the visual, I began to think a lot about how visual information can be delivered in a theatrical setting. How does the way people look at visual art differ from the way they watch performance? Can you relate to a static image the way you relate to a character in a narrative? What kind of imagery provokes emotion?
The kind of events I was dreaming up always included a set of iconography that sprung from Medieval paintings -- I was specifically enamored with several tapestries and tryptichs that hung in the Metropolitan’s Medieval Art Wing, such as this. These images not only include an set of iconography that evoked emotion but also were dramatic in the way they were laid out.
Madonna and Child with Angels
1420
Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano
I kept wondering how this set of imagery could be transposed today. Friends recommended the Banksy movie, Exit Through The Gift Shop about street artists (which I, in turn, highly recommend). I was drawn to the work of the artist Space Invader, whose pixelated like critters looked like something out of a computer game.
Work by Parisian street artist Space Invader
Armed with this research, I started to bring in performers. Check back in a few days to find out how the piece started to evolve!
When film was first being introduced to the public consciousness, early filmmakers had to ask themselves how their work could differ from the predominant form of entertainment -- theater. Companies such as the Lumiere brothers and the Edison company answered this challenge almost anthropologically -- by filming small bits of life. These early films could be intimate moments, such as William Heise’s May Irwin kiss or footage of theatrical performances such as Loie Fuller’s Danse Serpentine.
Today, with the accessibility of film and television, theater no longer occupies the same social space it once did. So, as theatermakers, it’s now our turn to ask what makes theater inherently theatrical. For the past several months, short delicious theatrical images and moments kept on popping into my head. I wanted to find a way to piece them together without having to create a narrative structure around them. My mind wandered back to those early films -- potent emotion moments that extremely captivating in the absence of narrative.
Because this piece was going to be so rooted in the visual, I began to think a lot about how visual information can be delivered in a theatrical setting. How does the way people look at visual art differ from the way they watch performance? Can you relate to a static image the way you relate to a character in a narrative? What kind of imagery provokes emotion?
The kind of events I was dreaming up always included a set of iconography that sprung from Medieval paintings -- I was specifically enamored with several tapestries and tryptichs that hung in the Metropolitan’s Medieval Art Wing, such as this. These images not only include an set of iconography that evoked emotion but also were dramatic in the way they were laid out.
Madonna and Child with Angels
1420
Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano
I kept wondering how this set of imagery could be transposed today. Friends recommended the Banksy movie, Exit Through The Gift Shop about street artists (which I, in turn, highly recommend). I was drawn to the work of the artist Space Invader, whose pixelated like critters looked like something out of a computer game.
Work by Parisian street artist Space Invader
Armed with this research, I started to bring in performers. Check back in a few days to find out how the piece started to evolve!
Friday, May 7, 2010
Cynthia Hopkin's The Truth : A Tragedy @ SoHo Rep
These past couple of weeks, I've been back at walkerspace, the theatre I managed for the Fringe Festival several years ago. But this time, I've been assisting DJ Mendel who's directing the latest show by Cynthia Hopkins. Known for her multimedia spectales The Accidental Nostalgia Trilogy at St. Ann's Warehouse, this show is a much more intimate evening -- an investigation into her relationship with her father who is dying of Parkinson's disease. The show opened May 6th and runs until the end of the month. Stop by and check it out! Here's the information:
THE TRUTH: A TRAGEDY
written & performed by Cynthia Hopkins
directed by D.J. Mendel
U.S. Premiere
Starts May 6
Cynthia Hopkins, writer, composer and performer of the acclaimed "Accidental Trilogy" at St. Ann's Warehouse, brings her singular style to Soho Rep for her new show, THE TRUTH: A TRAGEDY. With song, dance, and text, she weaves real and fictional narratives and leads us into an engrossing and funny multi-faceted world--literally transforming the theater into a living museum of oddities and artifacts from one man's life nearing its end.
Design: Jeff Sugg
Choreography: Faye Driscoll
Public Relations: Sam Rudy Media Relations
Graphic Design: An Art Service
www.sohorep.org
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