Alex Randrup, Samantha Clark, & Bonita Jackson of “Corey and Vanessa Present an All-Female Educational Touring Production of Of Mice and Men”

The Tank and FEAST present Corey and Vanessa Present an All-Female Educational Touring Production of Of Mice and Men, a collaboratively devised work directed by Alex Randrup, at The Tank NYCListen in as performers Bonita Jackson and Samantha Clark, along with director Alex Randrup, of Corey and Vanessa Present an All-Female Educational Touring Production of Of Mice and Men, discuss how they devised the show (“putting wonderful, badass, creative ladies in a room together”), making your collaborators laugh, getting out of the way or your collaborative process, and “power, performance, learning to trust your scene partner, and learning to trust yourself.”

“…is there a way that we could dig into the fields of feminism, and womanhood, and humanity today, and the things that we know best—which is creating a production—and dealing with it. Could we dig up some kind of tool, or weapon, that an audience member could take out with them to smash the patriarchy, or to fix the democracy, or to do something really active…”

Continue reading

Jamal Abdunnasir, Lauren Larocca, and Peregrine Teng Heard of “Sheila”

The Associates present SHEILAListen in as three of the five company members of The Associates—director Jamal Abdunnasir, and performers Lauren Larocca & Peregrine Teng Heard—discuss their new collectively-devised “waking nightmare” Sheila, exploring the intersection of the mundane with the grotesque, the role of improvisation in their process, how they work with non-Associate associates, and why the company likes to make things just a little bit scary.

“…I think what we’ve found out about ourselves is that we write almost as much as we create in the room, that we all find a lot of value in putting down proposals on paper. Jamal happens to work a lot in stage directions, and I happen to work a lot in action, and then there’s dialogue people…the important thing is for everyone to be able to jump into all these characters…”

Continue reading

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

Theater Reconstruction Ensemble presents Rhinbecca, NY at The BrickDark 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…”

Continue reading