Recent Cutbacks’ “Fly, You Fools!”

Posted on April 7, 2016 by robby

The brilliant comedic team of Recent Cutbacks didn’t exist, at least not in name, when they were last on the podcast with their incredible Hold on to Your Butts.

But luckily for all of us, they’re back, and this time, instead of dinosaurs, they’re taking on elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards, eagles, and, of course, hobbits, with Fly, You Fools!

On the mic are the show’s producer Allyson Morgan, as well as returning guests, director Kristin McCarthy Parker and performers Nick Abeel and Kyle Schaefer; and now, added to the team are performer Matt Zambrano, and foley artist Blair Busbee, all of whom sat in for a chat about their wonderful new show.

Listen in as the Recent Cutbacks team discusses why they moved to The Fellowship of the Ring from Jurassic Park, dancey, movementy, mimey things, the danger of inciting a nerd riot, finding the sound of your show as it continues to change, and how to deal with prop mishaps in real time.

“…in the rehearsal process, we sort of found that the more epic the film was, the less props we needed. We could get away with more, with less…actually, we don’t need these hundred wigs, or these extra props, when we can tell the story just through physicality. Which I think is actually more joyful for the audience…” Continue reading →

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Andrew Schneider of “YOUARENOWHERE”

Posted on March 31, 2016 by robby

You might have heard of Andrew Schneider‘s YOUARENOWHERE if you listen to theatre podcasts that aren’t this one (thanks for the recommendation, Maxamoo!), because the Obie-award winning piece has been on the lips of anyone who’s seen it.

Rightfully so.

But if you have heard the title, I hope you haven’t heard much else, other than, “go see this.” Because that’s how I experienced it, and I must say, it made for an incredible theatrical experience. So that’s all I’m going to give you: go see this show.

…but first, listen in to this (spoiler-free!) episode, as Andrew and I discuss the performer/audience contract, regional theatre gigs, frames, frustration with the traditional infrastructure, and destroying expectations.

“…what I wanted to do was just communicate in a room with a person […] what I’m fascinated by is moments, and experience, and curating emotion without narrative. So we’re all experiencing the same thing at the same time…”

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Matt Herzfeld and Greg Carere of “The Improbable Fall, Rise & Fall Of John Law (Part 1)”

Posted on March 24, 2016 by robby

Visionary economist. Confidence man.

It’s likely that John Law blurred the line between the two better, or at least earlier, than anyone else.

The incredible true story of the exploits of this 18th Century genius/rapscallion proves fertile ground for playwright Matt Herzfeld‘s The Improbable Fall, Rise & Fall Of John Law (Part 1) currently being produced by The Dreamscape Theatre and running at IRT Theater.

Listen in as Matt, along with John Law himself, actor Greg Carere, discuss perception, mathematical purity, finding inspiration in Men of Wealth, morality in the grey, and how economics was, and remains, a confidence game.

“…John, to some degree, is a confidence man. And economics, to some degree, is a confidence game. The whole system works because people believe in it…and so perception is a part of that, because you have to sort of look the part…”
“…we get to sort of see the illusion that he creates, at every level…”
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Lauren Swan-Potras, Jon Riddleberger, and John Kurzynowski of “Rhinbecca, NY”

Posted on March 16, 2016 by robby

Dark yet humorous, absurd but vaguely political, Theatre Reconstruction Ensemble‘s Rhinbecca, NY occupies a strange place between the source material of the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the plays of Eugene Ionesco, letting the audience draw their own conclusions from the action onstage.

GSAS! correspondent Tara Gadomski took a trip out to The Brick in Brooklyn to check out a performance; listen in as she and director John Kurzynowski, who also conceived the piece, and two members of the ensemble who performed and created the show, Lauren Swan-Potras and Jon Riddleberger, discuss TRE’s mode for devising, theatrical moments as questions, the balance between source material and the entirely new, and “the strange middle ground between suspense and the absurd.”

“…what we mean by reconstruction is that we take classic and canonical works and theatricalities, and we play with it, and we say, what does that mean to us now, and how do we interact with that? So when we investigate Hitchcock…it’s our idea of what Hitchcock means. It’s staying true to that, and not trying to recreate something perfectly, but say, ‘this thing exists here, we exist over here, what’s that middle ground?’ And that’s the playing space that we inhabit when we’re creating work…”

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Patricia Lynn, Annie Branson, and Lauren Lubow of “Fen”

Posted on February 18, 2016 by robby

“…it’s become about women, and the role that we play in what we want, and what we do to go after it. What do we feel that we’re entitled to, what are our aspirations, and what are the obstacles getting in our way?”

Caryl Churchill’s Fen follows the lives/stories/desires of several women working in the drained marshland of Fenland, England—and for the artists at Red Garnet Theater Company, it’s about that quote above, an exploration that continues now in 2016, despite the play being written over 30 years ago.

GSAS! corespondent Tara Gadomski takes you underground at IATI Theater’s Black Box for a conversation with director Patricia Lynn, associate producer/actor Annie Branson, and Red Garnet Artistic Director Lauren Lubow; listen in as they discuss why Fen now, finding performance opportunities for your company members, how to get the rights to a play by a notable living playwright, UK pop references of the ’80s, getting creative to prop your show, and why it’s so important to just be cool when you’re in this industry.

“…the imbalance that you have between men and women in this industry is huge. And I think there are so many women out there that have so much to say, and we haven’t heard it. And I think that the idea of light, which I found so fitting that Patty found that theme throughout this play, is, where can we shine the light, and what can we uncover and unearth..?”

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Margi Sharp Douglas, Rachel Murdy, Peter Szep, Joan Jubett, and Cynthia Croot of “The Millay Sisters”

Posted on January 27, 2016 by robby

If you’ve ever wandered around Greenwich Village, you might have noticed a very tiny house at 75 1/2 Bedford Street, built on a former alley (it’s Manhattan, so if there’s land to be built on, someone’s going to try it). Stop and take a look at the facade, and you’ll notice a vermillion plaque, commemorating that this was once the home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.

If she’s unfamiliar to you, you’re in the fortunate position of getting to explore her work for the first time. And a great place to start would be The Millay Sisters, a cabaret/performance/play about Vincent (as she liked to be called) and her life, currently running at Gowanus Loft in Brooklyn.

GSAS! correspondent Tara Gadomski is back on the mic! Listen in as she and The Millay Sisters co-creators and performers Margi Sharp-Douglas & Rachel Murdy, musical director/musician Peter Szep, and co-directors Joan Jubett and Cynthia Croot discuss their process of development, light and dark, dramaturgy in Maine, giving your audience the opportunity to sing, and the importance of a bar at your show.

“…people are going to hear this, and think, ‘oh, it’s some sort of biopic;’ and there are a lot of facts in it. But really it’s about the emotional truth of what’s going on with her. When you see the show, you feel like you’ve met the person, not just sort of received facts from on high, and a lot of the music sets this sort of emotional world against which the poetry is then put…”

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Catrina McHugh, Cheryl Dixon, Laura Lindow, and Jessica Johnson of “Key Change”

Posted on January 15, 2016 by robby

Key Change comes to New York’s 4th Street Theatre from Northern England, after a long and interesting journey. It was created by the Newcastle-based theatre company, Open Clasp, in a collaboration with women in Her Majesty’s Prison Low Newton.

It started as a theatre devising workshop with the prisoners, then, as a show developed, it toured to male prisons in the UK. The company then took Key Change to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this past summer, where it won the prestigious Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award. The prize: a fully-funded production of Key Change in New York City.

Listen in as writer Catrina McHugh, director Laura Lindow, and actors Cheryl Dixon and Jessica Johnson discuss collaboratively creating composite characters, touring their show to prisons, working with the restrictions of their performance venues, how an environment can intimidate, keeping connections open, and building trusting relationships.

“It just felt like those voices had been flown over the razor wire, and had escaped…”

(Producer’s note: as you listen to this episode, you’ll probably realize that the dulcet, sometimes-confused, yet pleasing and sonorous baritone voice that usually does the interviewing has been replaced by someone who sounds like she knows what she’s doing. That’s because she does, for while I’m away on an out-of-town gig, radio-host, writer, actor, and fellow podcaster Tara Gadomski is more-than-ably taking over interviewing duties. Big thanks to her for keeping GSAS! going while I’m out.) Continue reading →

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Trish Harnetiaux, Katherine Brook, and Jess Barbagallo of “How to Get Into Buildings”

Posted on December 16, 2015 by robby

Convention halls, brunch, fish all over the highway, shoot-outs—they all come together in New Georges’ world premiere of How to Get Into Buildings, currently playing at The Brick.

Working with the structure of an “exploded view,” playwright Trish Harnetiaux has built a dark, playful, at times absurd love-story, directed by Katherine Brook and featuring Jess Barbagallo as Ethan Cambabert.

Listen in as Trish, Katherine, and Jess discuss inspiration from installation art, slippage, dialogue in the rehearsal room, and how “dark rom-com” needs to be its own genre.

“Do you know what an exploded view is?…all these parts are going to come together and form a thing, but the really cool thing is the diagram that you see that shows you each tiny bit. This play is like all those tiny bits that form a larger picture…”

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DeLisa M. White, Heather E. Cunningham, Ryan Pater, and Rebecca Gray Davis of “Good Boys and True”

Posted on December 9, 2015 by robby

Retro Productions is back with another revival of a 20th Century play, directly in line with their mission “to broaden our own understanding of the world we live in.” Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Good Boys and True may be set in 1988, but the issues of class, privilege, sexuality, and violence feel uncomfortably current.

Listen in as director DeLisa M. White and Producing Artistic Director of Retro Productions and actor Heather E. Cunningham, as well as fellow actors Ryan Pater and Rebecca Gray Davis, discuss high school flashbacks, the importance of punctuation, laughter from struck nerves, what happens when your mom’s in the audience, pulling from personal experience, and how this “retro” play resonates into the past, our present, and, sadly, probably into the future.

“One of the lines in the play is, ‘Everything is broken.’ That’s what happens…when you hear that headline in the news, the tentacles and roots of that problem expand far beyond what you see in the news, or even in the situation if you’re in it…”

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Lizzie Vieh, Aleisha Force, Russell Jonas, and Donny Repsher of “Barrier Islands”

Posted on December 2, 2015 by robby

“Do your own work.”

As one of the guests on this episode notes, that’s a common suggestion to independent theatre practitioners—and the thought of it can exhaust even the most ambitious of artists.

But sometimes, you discover that the people immediately around you—classmates, coworkers, colleagues—can come together to make something awesome.

As you’ll hear in this episode, that impulse to make something brought together the collaborators of Barrier Islands, a brilliant play written by Lizzie Vieh, directed by Zi Alikhan, produced by Donny Repsher, and beautifully acted by Aleisha Force and Russell Jonas. Inspired by true crime, Barrier Islands appears at first to be a crime procedural or whodunnit, that as it unfolds actually becomes an exploration into various modes of violence against women.

Listen in as Lizzie, Aleisha, Russell, and Donny discuss the parts of ourselves that we’re hiding, dialogue that just rolls off the tongue, finding distinct characters, imposing deadlines, disovering collaborators at your day-job, and how having one more beer might make you a producer.

“…the style of restaurant in which we work has a style of service that makes us depend on one another quite frequently, so I knew that I could trust her as a person. And then I went to see her as a playwright, and you put those two things together, and you go, ‘oh!’…”
“She can write a play, and she will get that ketchup to my table.”
“She will! She won’t forget that ketchup, and she can write a play. Winner, winner.”

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The off-off-Broadway podcast

Category Archives: Actors

Recent Cutbacks’ “Fly, You Fools!”

Andrew Schneider of “YOUARENOWHERE”

Matt Herzfeld and Greg Carere of “The Improbable Fall, Rise & Fall Of John Law (Part 1)”

Lauren Swan-Potras, Jon Riddleberger, and John Kurzynowski of “Rhinbecca, NY”

Patricia Lynn, Annie Branson, and Lauren Lubow of “Fen”

Margi Sharp Douglas, Rachel Murdy, Peter Szep, Joan Jubett, and Cynthia Croot of “The Millay Sisters”

Catrina McHugh, Cheryl Dixon, Laura Lindow, and Jessica Johnson of “Key Change”

Trish Harnetiaux, Katherine Brook, and Jess Barbagallo of “How to Get Into Buildings”

DeLisa M. White, Heather E. Cunningham, Ryan Pater, and Rebecca Gray Davis of “Good Boys and True”

Lizzie Vieh, Aleisha Force, Russell Jonas, and Donny Repsher of “Barrier Islands”