Rob Hille, Jenna Panther, and Justin Yorio, Artistic Directors of Amios, on “Seven Deadly Shotz”

Amios presents Seven Deadly Shotz

As the producer of Go See a Show!, I’m going to take off my “objectivity” hat for this episode. I already do so in the interview, as you’ll hear, so why not go whole hog?

I’m happy to report that the “want to make theatre? then throw down and make some f*cking theatre” mentality is alive and well in this town. And Amios is at the front of that charge, in the best of ways.

Frankly, this episode is about what I thought downtown theatre was going to be when I arrived in New York. Amios is making theatre the way I want to make theatre (and often do make theatre, sometimes with them — but they just do it a lot more often), with the kind of people I love to make theatre with. Amios says, “we’re not going to wait for an opportunity—we’re going to make an opportunity.” And they do it as friends.

The greatest parts of it are, they consistently do it with a high level of quality, and always while having a heck of a lot of fun.

The company is kicking off their 5th season with the return of their monthly Shotz series (you may remember it from episode 13 of this very podcast). Shotz always works around a theme, and this month, it’s the 7 deadly sins; so naturally, the show on October 7 will be, Seven Deadly Shotz. Full disclosure: I’m directing the one on “greed.”

Listen in as Artistic Directors Rob Hille, Jenna Panther, and Justin Yorio discuss how you draw a crowd to your off-off-Broadway show (beer helps, they say — who’d have thought?), how to give your collaborators a sense of ownership, sin, and wanting to watch your artist friends “work out.”

“…people are like, ‘how do you guys do all this stuff?’…and the reason that we can do it is because of our badass team of folks…it is a collective, as opposed to a typical theatre company, and more, ‘everybody’s in the trenches together, making stuff happen.’ It’s more sustainable that way…”

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Jaclyn Backhaus, playwright, Andrew Neisler, director, and Ben Otto, actor, of “Shoot the Freak”

not just 3 new playsJaclyn Backhaus‘s new play, Shoot the Freak, is currently playing at Tom Noonan’s Paradise Factory on East 4th Street, as part of a unique theatrical event taking place through the month of September.

A triple-threat of playwrights including Backhaus,  Kevin Armento and Jerry Lieblich have joined forces & shared resources to turn the Paradise Factory into a curated artistic laboratory for a month, with full productions of new plays by each of them as the centerpiece(s). It’s called (not just) 3 New Plays, and it’s their attempt to build “an artistic ecosystem” — an exciting proposition.

And as you’ll hear in the interview, it’s a model that I (and Jaclyn) invite you to steal.

Listen in as Jaclyn, along with Shoot the Freak director Andrew Neisler and actor Ben Otto, discuss the freaks of New York, figuring out what a new play is actually about, peeling away layers of characters and Coney Island, what is lost to the ether, and how this pop-up theatre event is like calling Captain Planet.

“…recapture the magic…”

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Matthew Freeman, playwright, and Kyle Ancowitz, director of “Why We Left Brooklyn”

Theater Accident, in association with Blue Coyote Theater Group, present the world premiere of WHY WE LEFT BROOKLYN, written by Matthew Freeman and directed by Kyle AncowitzDoubt.

As someone in the theatre, it’s impossible not to get smacked in the face by doubt—about your career, your abilities, your life choices in general—every now and again. Maybe even daily.

The characters in Matthew Freeman‘s new play, Why We Left Brooklyn, are Brooklyn-ites wrestling with the choices they’ve made. And the choices they’ve made look a lot like the choices a lot of young artists living in New York City in 2013 have made, or are making, or are looking at making in the near future. So for a podcast devoted to looking at the off-off-Broadway landscape of the present, there was a lot of resonance felt by your humble producer while watching this show.

Listen in as Matthew & director Kyle Ancowitz discuss disappointment, growing up and getting a real job, hiding Matthew’s real address in the play, having a conversation with the theatrical community via a play, freshness, and reflecting your personal experience and the experience of your friends onstage.

“…this question about, how hard should we try, how long should we continue, how long should we continue the struggle, it gets asked of everybody in the play…”

“…you must believe in yourself. And that’s a tremendous effort, it’s a tremendous effort every day…”

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Ashley Jacobson, Clare Hammoor, Remy Bennett, and Hannah Wolfe of “The Miracle Play”

The Dirty Blondes present "The Miracle Play" at The Secret TheatreThe podcast returns to The Secret Theatre for the second episode in a row, this time for the new offering from young-ish company The Dirty Blondes.

The work is called The Miracle Play, and it’s…well, it’s hard to say what it is, as you’ll surmise when you hear me try to do this interview. It’s a dense, challenging piece of theatre — and that’s not meant as a negative. My head was swimming after seeing it, so easing into an interview about it proved more difficult than I would have guessed.

Like the play, though, I think the discussion got to an interesting place.

So take a listen as playwright Ashley Jacobson, director Clare Hammoor, and actors Remy Bennett and Hannah Wolfe, discuss faith, the sound of plastic, writing a play during Hurricane Sandy, un-natural movement, and what it means (and looks like) to exist underwater. Continue reading

Playwright Duncan Pflaster and the cast of “Fourteen Hundred and Sixty Sketches of Your Left Hand”

"Fourteen Hundred and Sixty Sketches of Your Left Hand" by Duncan Pflaster, part of the 2013 UnFringed Festival at The Secret TheatreIf you’ve spent some time around the off-off-Broadway scene, chances are you’ve run into Duncan Pflaster — maybe you saw one of his shows, or read one of his reviews.

Or, maybe you didn’t even know you were standing next to him. In my experience, dude’s always at a show.

His new play, Fourteen Hundred and Sixty Sketches of Your Left Hand, is a modern riff on the friendship between Van Gogh and Gauguin (a theme this season, perhaps?), and features strange incentives to treat brain disorders, art, sex, deception, and, sadly, violence — all stemming from a lovely bromance between two artist pals on retreat in the desert.

Listen in as Duncan, along with the cast of Roberto Alexander, W. Derek Jorden, Neysa Lozano, and Emilio Paul Tirado, discuss getting naked onstage, the playwright as director, characters retreating into their own fantasies, and how to use Cards Against Humanity to kickstart your rehearsal process.

And there’s the sound of the 7 train. What up, Queens? Continue reading

Nora McNally, Ben Diserens, Rachel B. Joyce, Sean Patrick Monahan, & Patrick Dooley of “Beckett in Benghazi”

Less Than Rent presents "Beckett in Benghazi" by Ben DiserensBeing drawn to the classics, Less Than Rent has taken to integrating the work of the masters into their creations; as associate producer Sean Patrick Monahan notes in this interview, it’s like how painters try to imitate the iconic works of their predecessors to understand the process. By digging in and trying to understand what came before, we can come to appreciate the genius that preceded our work — and, possibly, see where it fits into our current cultural landscape.

In the company’s new show, Beckett in Benghazi, a young troupe of actors about to stage Samuel Beckett’s Endgame changes the show’s concept just days before opening in an attempt to integrate — or, perhaps, capitalize on — the major news of the day: the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Sean is joined on the mic by LTR’s Executive Director Nora McNally, Beckett in Benghazi‘s playwright Ben Diserens, and actors from the show Rachel B. Joyce and Patrick Dooley — listen in as they discuss world events becoming buzz-words, asking questions, and the cyclical nature of life, Beckett, and this play — as well as what sort of work a play can do.

“‘I can’t go on, I’ll go on.’ Exactly.”

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Liz Davito, Lucy Smith, Eamonn Farrell, & Jessica Weinstein of “I Land”

Anonymous Ensemble present "I Land," part of the Ice Factory festival 2013The Ice Factory festival of new works at The New Ohio comes to a close with Anonymous Ensemble‘s I Land, and while all the works have been creative & adventurous, this, in my humble opinion, might be the most innovative.

Because when you sit in this show, you’re co-creating the show with Anonymous. Despite their name, you, as an audience member, are not anonymous in this production; you help to write it, in a very real way. I’ll stop there, I don’t want to give too much away…but I think it helps to know at least that much about the show before listening to this episode.

On the mic are the performers: Liz Davito, Lucy Smith, Eamonn Farrell, and Jessica Weinstein. I’m going to let them carry this episode from here. To say any more here would take away from the experience you get when you walk into a performance of I Land, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do that.

Listen in as Liz, Lucy, Jessica & Eamonn discuss extraordinary stories, the fine line between “playing with” and “mocking,” theatre as an event, and what happens when the last element you add to your show is a script.

“I felt like I existed. And it was so fantastic.”

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Sanaz Ghajarrahimi, Ben Hobbs, and Vincent Van Santvoord of “Red Wednesday”

Built for Collapse 1-Red Wednesday-pThe Ice Factory festival continues, and Go See a Show! continues to follow the new work showcased at The New Ohio with this week’s production, Red Wednesday, by the Brooklyn collective Built for Collapse.

The Artistic Directors of Built for Collapse — Sanaz Ghajarrahimi, who directed the show, Ben Hobbs, who choreographed, and Vincent Van Santvoord, who is acting in the show — joined me after the first public presentation of Red Wednesday, which is still in development. Described by Sanaz as a “multimedia ballad about revolution, past, present, and future,” Red Wednesday grew from Sanaz’s personal connection to the overthrow of the Iranian shah in the 1970s, and starts to dig into the connections between family and politics, and past and present history.

Listen in as Sanaz, Vincent, and Ben discuss searching for structure, revolution & theatre’s role in it, creating movement from images, and personalizing politics by mixing world history with being a 20-something in 2013.

“A political family drama about the politics of family.”

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Mac Rogers, Rebecca Comtois, and Sean Williams of “Ligature Marks”

"Game Play" festival at The Brick TheaterMac Rogers is a playwright I seemed to keep missing — for example, I got back into town just late enough to miss the last performance of Advance Man, for which I had a ticket, and I was completely out of town for the entire run of Frankenstein Upstairs. And yet, I kept hearing great things about his work.

Turns out those things were dead on. Now I’m even more disappointed I missed those previous two shows.

His latest play, which he also stars in, is Ligature Marks, a noir story embedded in a domestic drama with an MMORPG backdrop. It’s not as confusing as I just made it sound. And it’s well-worth your 75 minutes in the theater.

Mac and his co-star Rebecca Comtois, along with Gideon Productions producer Sean Williams, sat down with me after a performance last weekend over a beer in the Alligator Lounge for a long conversation that covered a whole lot of super-interesting ground — and, included a beautifully-worded segment about why and how one can become an effective producer. Essential listening for those of you who want to make your own work.

Listen in as Mac, Rebecca, and Sean discuss playing damaged people onstage, stage names vs. who we actually are, why one shouldn’t hate on what other people like (even if it’s the Twilight series), how to talk down playwrights & directors when they’re freaking out, and creating theatre (and podcasts) as part of the long-term cultural conversation.

“…as a producer…your whole life is storytelling. Your whole life is inventing narratives, your whole life is acting, your whole life is playing characters, so I think for people who don’t like producing, but do like to act and do like to write, I think it’s possible that they’re looking at producing the wrong way…”

(seriously, one of the coolest pieces of advice we’ve gotten on the podcast) Continue reading

Catya McMullen, Kate Middleton, and Scott Klopfenstein of “Rubber Ducks and Sunsets”

"Rubber Ducks and Sunsets," by Catya McMullen, directed by Kate Middleton, presented by Ground Up ProductionsRegular listeners might have noticed that Go See a Show! was on a short hiatus until a couple weeks ago, as I was out playing trumpet & more in a regional show.

And as a trumpet player, and rock music nerd, I was stoked to see that Scott Klopfenstein, former trumpet player for Reel Big Fish, was composing original music for Ground UP Productions’ Rubber Ducks and Sunsets, running now at The Gene Frankel Theater. So naturally (or selfishly, rather) I had to check this show out, if only to geek out about my love of this guy’s old band.

Turns out I got to catch a great show, too.

Thankfully, I don’t think I gushed to the point of embarrassment—and it turns out the compositions figured prominently into the show, and helped guide the narrative in a beautiful way.

But the show’s a lot more than some nice music, as you can feel (and hear) in my interview with Scott, along with playwright Catya McMullen and director Kate Middleton.

You’ll hear lots of references to “concerts” and a “lullaby,” and while it might sound really cryptic if you haven’t seen the show, I don’t think I’m giving too much away to say that, yes, there is indeed a lullaby written by one of the characters, and concerts seen throughout the show—and both are lovely inventions discovered through the collaboration of the Ground UP artists.

Listen in as Catya, Kate, and Scott discuss leaving space in your script for other artists to fill, giving yourself a title as a way to make it true, why you’d throw out 92% of a script, and the magic of theatre, deadlines, and Vermont.

“A play about people that had grown up too fast…but also had incredible light…and also were really smart but unaware of the level of their emotional incapacity their journey through the grief together…about the way that friends become family…

“With jokes.”

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