Chaos, and Other Worldly Possessions takes place on a stalled G train at 4 a.m. If you aren't lucky enough to use the G line, here's a little back story for you from Bedford&Bowery.com.
Last night's reading of The Black Triangle by Lavinia Roberts and Yes And! by Kristen Felicetti for Chaos Under Construction went really well. The audience was beautiful, insightful and engaged in the process. They asked good questions and gave great feedback. Everyone gained.
On Friday we are reading Teeth by Jonathan Alexandratos and Babydada by Katie Fabel. Come lend your voices, your insight and your love to the process of creating new plays. When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26, at TheaterLab, 355-357 W 36th St., 3rd floor, NYC (between 8th and 9th avenues, closer to 9th Ave.) Manny Igrejas shared this play with us at a reading several months ago and now it is growing up and moving on to The Midtown International Theatre Festival, where it is getting three performances this week.
Here's how Manny describes what's going on in Margarita and Max: Margarita is having a rough time. She’s unemployed, broke and newly unattached. She’s on her way to catch a bus to New York City to interview for a menial job she probably won’t get. She could use a miracle. A strong spring breeze blows one of those ubiquitous black plastic bags into her path…and into her life. This is no ordinary bag and this is no ordinary day. The Deets Margarita and Max, a new play by Manuel Igrejas Starring Kim McKean and Craig Fox. Directed by David Hilder A Co-Production with the Midtown International Theatre Festival Margarita and Max by Manuel Igrejas July 23 @ 7:30, July 27 @ 6:00, July 28 New York International Theatre Festival For tix: 866-811-4111 or www.midtownfestival.org At the Dorothy Strelsin Theater, 312 West 36th St. Part of the benefit of having a network of people is that you don't need to be everywhere or read everything to find the important bits.
In the last two days, we had a couple of prime examples of this fact. Jonathan Alexandratos, one of our playwrights for Chaos Under Construction, pointed us to a blog on the power and importance of chaos by theater director and Viewpoints co-creator Anne Bogart. Here's what she says about chaos. "We all have our boundaries and our limits of tolerance. But in order to be engaged in the artistic process, which is a form of action in the world, it is necessary to allow some degree of chaos and error into the process and into one’s perception. Can you tease out the limits of what is tolerable? Can you allow chance into the process? Can you back off controlling everything?" We believe you can and must do these things. Jump in. Hang on. Twist and whirl in "the limits of what is tolerable." Otherwise, your work is clinical, sterile and beige. The other example was from an old director friend, Marty Kushner, who, over a couple of beers and some pretty good jazz on the juke box at Jimmy's Corner, shared a poem by Marge Piercy called "To be of use." It dives right in with a beautiful statement of why we at Truant do the projects we do. Here are the first lines. The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. The people who join us in projects time and again are these very people. They see theater as their work and they jump in head first. They rehearse in dingy spaces and perform in tiny black boxes and don't get nearly enough glory or money for their efforts. But they do it anyway and they do it over and over again. They do it because it is who they are. We do what we do because it is who they are -- the people we love best; the ones in the untilled theater fields, moving things forward and breaking sod. We at Truant are grateful that we have the chance to help them plow and play, "natives of that element." We wish everyone the same opportunities - to play in the chaos and surround themselves with people who harness themselves to tasks bigger than themselves - but it is a rare thing in the cubicle world and we understand that we are truly blessed. Thank you, fellow truants. Check out the most recent batch of bios here. Consider tossing 10 tax-deductible dollars at their efforts here. Be part of our information network and share with us something you've read here, or in the comments below. Previews of the Chaos Under Construction poster designs! So many talented artists, you guys, we have to sit down just thinking about it.
Poster designs? Hell yes. We are all about collaboration and so we reached out to visual artists. They, fortunately, reached back. We gave each of them the script of a show and asked them to pour their creative energy into a visual representation of what was going on. We will be offering the posters as gifts for your financial support of our Rocket Hub campaign -- signed, unsigned, one, the whole group, with tickets to the show, just because. We can't begin to tell you just how pleased and thankful we are to have all these amazing people - artists, actors, directors and playwrights - joining together to create a month's worth of theater. Welcome to Chaos Under Construction: Truant 2.0 -- bigger, bolder, better We are starting to gear up for September's production of Chaos Under Construction, which means doing simple things like gathering up bios and headshots and making schedules.
Holy crap! There are so many people contributing to this project -- almost two dozen actors, five directors, five playwrights, visual artists ... the list is long. And, these people are all really, really good. It makes our collective head spin. You can start meeting them here. Truant Arts just signed a contract with Access Theater in downtown New York City to put up several new pieces of theater from Sept. 19-Oct. 14.
The work is being created as a collaboration between two dozen actors, five directors and five playwrights who gathered three months ago to explore ideas and search for theatrical meaning in four random words. Four one-acts and one full-length piece are being born of the process. We are so excited to be able to help midwife these plays and we look forward to sharing them with you in a couple of months. Find out more about Chaos Under Construction here. |