Ran Xia and Charlotte Arnoux of The Arctic Group’s FRIDGE Festival

The Arctic Group presents FRIDGE Fest 2017Listen in as Ran Xia and Charlotte Arnoux, co-Artistic Directors of The Arctic Group, presenting their Fridge Festival at IRT, discuss happy autocorrect errors, finding a fridge for your fridge festival, developing your climbing skills, the beauty of limitations, serendipitous curation, “figuring it out,” and what it means to “pick a snowflake out of an avalanche.”

“…it’s putting two different groups of people onto the same platform, so they can have a conversation…”
“…and just offering space to artists that we love, and ones that we have come to love…we wanted to create the theatre festival that we never had…”

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The Playwrights & Directors of “The Refugee Plays”

THE REFUGEE PLAYS in The Frigid Festival 2017Listen in as playwrights Charles Gershman (also the Artistic Director of the producing company, Snowy Owl), Callie KimballCarlos Castro, and Sean E. Cunningham, as well as directors Rachel Dart, Logan Reed, and Dan Dinero, discuss the influence of current events, tragedy in timeless stories, superficial logic, how the outside world seeps into the rehearsal room, ethical casting, how to unite a series of short plays, and what theatre is supposed to do in difficult times.

“…I don’t think any of us want to have to write plays about topics like these, but things are pretty bad right now, and so I think we all responded to the sort of global call to draw attention to an issue that we think is important right now…”

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Karim Muasher, Carrie Brown, Becca Bernard, and Melinda Jean Ferraraccio of “Dog Show”

Animal Engine presents Dog Show at FRIGID NEW YORKEveryone loves dogs.

And theatre-goers love a good farce.

So, why not do a show with dogs acting out a farce?

It may sound like a unique starting place—but you’d be surprised how many points of contact there are. Animal Engine is the company making those connections in their new, appropriately titled Dog Show, based on Sauce for the Goose by Georges Feydeau, and running as part of Frigid New York.

Come dressed as a dog, and your ticket’s just $10. Seriously.

Listen in as the team behind Animal Engine, director Karim Muasher & Carrie Brown, and their fabulous collaborators Becca Bernard and Melinda Jean Ferraraccio, discuss base instincts, refining a comedy, working from disparate source material, and, of course, dogs.

“The idea with farce is that the characters are all really led by their base instincts…sex, hunger, lust, all of those things…and that’s sort kind of like the dog brain, they don’t really stop to think, they just kinda go for it…that’s sort of the idea of using dogs…”

“We’re trying to find those meeting points…where do the dogs and the humans intersect in a way that’s funny and interesting…”

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FRIGID New York 2013

FRIGID New York 2013 A bit of a different podcast this time out: in this episode, GSAS! interviews artists from seven of the thirty — yes, 30 — plays that are part of this year’s FRIGID New York festival, presented by Horse Trade Theater Group.

It should be noted, FRIGID isn’t just another festival. The participants are chosen at random, so no silly politicking is involved; and, all participants keep 100% of the box office sales for their show. Try finding that kinda deal as a performer anywhere else in this town. Very cool format. Hats off to Horse Trade for making this happen every year since 2007.

Kicking off the marathon of mini-interviews is Erez Ziv, Executive Director of FRIGID and Managing Director of Horse Trade, followed by, in order:

— director Nikki DiLoreto & playwright/performer Antonia Lassar of The God Box
— co-director/producer/performer Bricken Sparacino of Sisters Grimm: Fables of the Stage
— director Christina Massie, performer Emily Tuckman, and performer Sarah Jacobs of Commencing
— playwright & performer Nikhil Tilwalli of A Panda Suit, Pythagorus, and Plenty of Puns
— playwright & performer Chris Harcum of Two Lovely Black Eyes
— playwright & performer Lucas Brooks of VGL 5′ 4″ Top
— playwright & performer D’yan Forest of My Pussy is Purrin’ Again Continue reading