a propos of nothing, F&F, travel

Oh…. (pause) Snap?

In preparing for the Menlo Park “House of Flying Daggers” housewarming, I have recreated the Oh snap! infographic on posterboard in our bathroom. I think I’m going to put it on my business cards.

Li Han, my freshman year Mirlo RA, just arrived from London (like Shiyan, she was forestalled at O’Hare) for the party.

Tomorrow begins a Pacific Northwest Odyssey: Zach and I are meeting Mia and Nelle in Walnut Creek, then driving to Ashland and seeing the Martha Graham Dance Company at the Britt Festival with Caitlin, then driving to Portland for a chorus workshop with Jessica Wallenfels, then to Seattle, where I’m (hopefully) meeting with Christopher Frizzelle of The Stranger, seeing my cousins, and hanging out with Sam Cheng of the infamous EBF year. And then back to the Bay on Sept 3rd.

So much for a non-theatrical vacation. But I’m really looking forward to the trip.

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theater

If You Ate Herring, You’d Smell Like Herring

Meredith, Shiyan and I saw a sold-out performance of SF company Traveling Jewish Theater‘s 2 x Malamud: The Jewbird & The Magic Barrel at the Mountain View Performing Arts Center last night. Malamud was done in the style of the Word For Word Performing Arts Company, with every line of the story dramatized and spoken. It was beautiful.

I love Malamud’s writing, but I loved the enlarged, stylized acting of the cast even more. It all made me proud to be a Jew in the theater world. The stories are problematic, allegorical. They don’t present political hyperbole. They’re simply stories of people, trying to live.

Saltzman, around the corner, chanted prayers for the dead.

TJT’s executive director was present, and she spent much of the intermission answering questions from audience members. It’s really great to see a full house, and to see them so engaged in the art.

Amazing how the Jewbird character evokes the stereotype so perfectly – migratory, traveling, at death’s door, raggedy, dirty, smelling of fish, educated but also slightly snobby – sick – kind, but something of a user. Not beautiful. But very, very proud.

Malamud closes this weekend.

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the chorus, theater

Portland WS Flier

If you’re in Portland and want to do some mad physical theater, exploring the principles of choral improvisation (and who doesn’t want to explore the principles of choral improvisation, anyway?) it’s not too late, folks: info below. RSVP by putting the magic “@” between jessicawallenfels and gmail.com.

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You’re invited to take part in a free workshop Many Hats Collaboration is offering to Portland’s theater community. We had a great past season and want to say thanks to everyone who helped make that possible – as well as those who are new to us – with a visiting artist opportunity.

WHO: You! And us: Many Hats Collaboration (http://www.manyhatscollaboration.com) and Dara Weinberg, a visiting director from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Los Angeles

WHAT: Ensemble Performance, Generative Creation, Physical Theater

WHERE: Performance Works NorthWest
4625 SE 67th Ave.
Portland, OR 97206
503.777.1907

WHEN: Tuesday, August 28, from 8pm-10pm

HOW: RSVP por favor. If you really want you can donate a couple of bucks to go toward space rental but other than that, its free.

WHAT AGAIN? AND WHO?
Jessica Wallenfels (dir. Rest Room, Break, Then Open; choreog. OSF’s Romeo and Juliet, Mutt) and Dara Weinberg (AD on this season’s OSF shows Tartuffe, Romeo and Juliet, see bio below) will be divvying up a couple of hours to experiment and share on ensemble movement and physical theater. This will be on-your-feet actor/mover type stuff in a no-pressure environment. You’ll be creating and working in a group, as well as bouncing off of varied directorial viewpoints, in this evening for novices through experts. Many Hats Collaborators Lava Alapai and Annalise Albright will be on hand and throwing into the mix.

Don’t forget to RSVP! See you the 28th.

Dara Weinberg is a director and choreographer who works with the free radical chorus, an experiment in improvised choral theater and creating choruses through imitation. Until recently LA-based, Dara directed The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, an improvised dance play based on William Blake’s poetry, at the Met Theatre Company. Other Los Angeles directing credits include A Vast Wreck and Brandohead at Theatre of NOTE. She assistant directed the premiere of My Wandering Boy (dir. Bill Rauch) at South Coast Rep. At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she assistant directed Romeo and Juliet (dir. Bill Rauch) and Tartuffe (dir. Peter Amster). Other credits include Human Bombing for the Berliner Compagnie as well as choreography for the West Bay Opera Company and Sacred Fools Theatre Company. She assistant directed The Stones (dir. Corey Madden) at the Kirk Douglas.

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directing, interviews

The Accidental Director

I did my last scheduled Crossover Interview today, with Ben Cameron. It was one of the best. He, like Tony Taccone, only became a director when it was thrust upon him. He drove across the country for a stage management job and showed up to find out he was directing – and writing – the show in question, a Cole Porter cabaret revue. I’ve heard of last-minute, but this is ridiculous. This is not a profession for people who need stability in their lives.

Here’s a great quote from it:
“Early on, I didn’t perceive that intellectual fulfillment and a true connection to your values are not the same thing.”

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directing, Germany, the chorus

Erfroren

I dreamed last night that someone was asking me about the chorus being still and I was saying “Yes, of course, erfroren (frozen), they can become that as well..” but the fact is, it’s been awhile since I’ve worked with those concepts. Gestaffelt (staggered) seems to emerge as easily as not…but frozen is tough.  The work does tend to encourage a kind of lassitude of constant movement. Finding stillness is a good key.

Sometimes your dreams tell you exactly what you should be focusing on.

I made the German actors do all kinds of choral improv / imitation exercises but without the freedom of being able to unleash it over the whole piece, it was boring to them. Also, since Helma (who was mostly who they imitated) was blocked so exactly herself, they were imitating something totally fixed.

The chorus work is only truly generative if both the imitated and the imitators are free to follow their impulses.

Trying to remember those terms I had:

zusammen (together)

gestaffelt (staggered)

erfroren (frozen)

And there was one for the mini-choruses, the monsters – Paare – Gruppen – I don’t remember.

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directing, the chorus

Chorus WS in Portland

I’ll be doing a workshop in Portland with the director and choreographer Jessica Wallenfels. We talked last night about how to integrate our different methods of choral work.

We have a group of 12-15 people, mostly unknown to us, showing up on Tuesday the 28th for this.

I’m going to start with my basic exercises: imitation with me controlling who the leader is, imitation with a shifting leader but only one at a time, and then imitation with the leader freely shifting.

Then Jessica’s going to attempt to incorporate a scene into it, and we’ll let the rest of the actors do my choral improv stuff as a response to the text of that scene – using the text as the backdrop instead of the music. Since they’ll all have learned the same scene, they can join in the text as easily as anything else.

I’m very excited about this – it’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been saying I’d do for years, but never have. I’m hoping this can lead to more workshops elsewhere.

Jessica’s work is really on the cutting edge of narrative choreography. She did a site-specific piece in a restroom recently, called RESTROOM, for PCS‘s JAW/West Festival, about women and drugs.

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interviews

Lisa Loomer

I just interviewed the playwright Lisa Loomer for the Crossover Project. It was great, as I imagined. I didn’t know that she’d started out as an actress and comedian in New York. Another artist who began in acting. The ones who haven’t have been the exceptions. I guess, strictly speaking, I began in acting too – but I am amazed by how many of these playwrights and directors didn’t just start out, but worked professionally as actors for years first.

We had a nice side discussion about playwrights’ methods of structuring their work days. I told her that Octavio Solis had said he could only work on one play at a time, optimally.

Lisa said she was the same way – but apparently she was doing some interviews herself in LA at one point, and she talked to Jose Rivera, and he told her that he wrote film on Mondays and Fridays and theater on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Lisa is the last but one of this round. Ben Cameron is Friday.

Here’s an interview with Lisa from the Living Out era.

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interviews, quotes, writing

Give Room and Foote It, Girls

The NY Times has a great long article on the prolific writer Horton Foote, still getting plays and screenplays produced at the age of 91.
(Via ArtsJournal.)

I still think the best naturalistic directing I’ve ever done was of that scene from his play Courtship, with student actors, for the Summer Workshop at Harvard-Westlake. With the lovely Lauren Schaffel, who was in the Mr. Show episode “Sad Songs are Nature’s Onions!”

Foote on the writing life(style) and the lack of proper habillements:

“I’m so glad that Hallie and Devon don’t mind when I write all night. When I’m working, I’m not lonely. I was always this way. When we first went to New Hampshire, I’d start writing right out of bed, in my pajamas, and then I’d get so excited I’d never get dressed. Daisy would bring friends home after school, and I’d be in my pajamas, and she’d say to her mother: ‘Daddy’s got to get dressed. They think he’s an alcoholic.’ ”

And on the untimeliness of death:

Foote spent two years developing a script of his 1979 play “The Widow Claire” with Robert Altman. Just as the money was raised, the director died. “I was so impressed with Altman,” he said. “I feel a little cheated.”

CurtainUp also has an overview of Foote’s career here.

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