Category Archives: Directors

Nolan Kennedy, Scarlet Maressa Rivera, & Welland H. Scripps of “Gifts”

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Letter of Marque presents Gifts, written and directed by Nolan KennedyRemember O. Henry’s lovely tale The Gift of the Magi, about the poor young couple at Christmastime, who each sacrifice their most precious possession to buy something special for the other’s most precious possession, so in the end they’re both left with a nice accessory for something they no longer have?

Letter of Marque‘s Nolan Kennedy decided to follow that couple, here played by his fellow LOM co-founders Scarlet Maressa Rivera and Welland H. Scripps, into the future, from year to year, as their relationship grows and changes, exploring the meaning of giving, receiving, and what they each really want.

And you can see this lovely, theatrical holiday gem for free, because it’s Letter of Marque, and that’s how they do.

Listen in as Nolan, Scarlet & Welland discuss how & why they built upon O. Henry’s classic, how & why live music and theatrical snow-fall was brought in to the show, and how & why they don’t charge admission.

“The capitalization of theatre minimizes the importance of theatre, not only in history, but in what its potential is now. It severely reduces the potential of how theatre can change…”

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Brian Gillespie, David Andrew Laws, Jane May, Robin Rightmyer, and Amanda Tudor of “Twelve Nights”

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Pull Together Productions presents Twelve Nights, written by Sean Graney and directed by Brian GillespieIn case the title, coupled with the poster art to the left, doesn’t make it obvious enough, Twelve Nights is Sean Graney’s adaptation of Twelfth Night; or, What You Will, set in the 1980s.

Gimmick? If you’re cynical, I suppose. Awesome? Indisputably, hell yeah.

I say that, and personally, I kinda hate ’80s nostalgia. This show, and production, just makes it irresistibly fun.

All the essential ingredients are there: bright polo shirts, mix-tapes on cassettes, brilliant Peter Gabriel and Say Anything and Bill & Ted and Poison references, the whole nine. And the whole story is told by only four actors rollicking thru it at full-tilt. And, as if that weren’t enough, there’s the goofing on the twelve nights of Christmas, very apropos for a show running the first couple weeks of December.

If you want some fun theatrical holiday cheer, but without all the, y’know, holiday-malarky, check this show out. Pull Together Productions is killin’ this one, y’all.

Listen in as director & Pull Together Artistic Director Brian Gillespie, along with the full cast of David Andrew Laws, Jane May, Robin Rightmyer, and Amanda Tudor discuss the benefits of forgetting, putting ’80s pop culture onto Shakespeare, joke science, She’s the Man, and acknowledging where we are and what we’re doing—even when it goes a little askew.

“…to see the audience having fun with you…they’re just so on our side from the very beginning, it’s so good to see that…'”

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Kristin Skye Hoffmann, Greg Carere, and Samantha Cooper of “Dead Special Crabs”

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Wide Eyed Productions presents Dead Special CrabsMaine to Florida is a long way to drive in a tan Toyota Corolla.

And who knows what kind of people you might run into along the way—like light-worshipping cultists, overly-emotional poets, highway-trotting serial killers, hunch-less detectives, Edgar Allen Poe impersonators…

All these strange characters (and more) come together in the gloriously weird and funny Dead Special Crabs, written by Dan Kitrosser and directed by Wide Eyed Productions‘ Artistic Director Kristin Skye Hoffmann, who joined me for an interview after a preview performance of the show.

Listen in as Kristin, along with actors Samantha Cooper (June) and Greg Carere (Virgil), discuss writing like jazz, crying in hysterical laughter through rehearsals, working with everyone’s comedic strengths, and why produce this crazy play at this crazy time in U.S. history.

“‘…it has a bit of sentiment, in a way that doesn’t make me want to barf, which I am always excited about…’

‘…also, cults…'”

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TALKBACK: Astoria Performing Arts Center’s “In the Bones”

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Astoria Performing Arts Center presents In the Bones by Cody DaigleHow are we transformed by the death of a loved one? And, what is left behind?

Those questions seem to be at the heart of Cody Daigle‘s play In the Bones, in which a family navigates the aftermath of a young man’s suicide. Through four scenes, and flashbacks presented through his own cell-phone-shot home videos, Luke’s lover, his sister, his mother, his aunt, and his friend struggle with their responses to the abrupt end of his life after two tours of Afghanistan.

It just so happens that I was at a performance of the play featuring a talkback with the playwright, director, and the entire cast, moderated by APAC’s Executive Director Erin Moore — and because everything was covered that I would have asked in a more traditional GSAS! interview, instead of making everyone repeat themselves, here’s that talkback, in full.

Listen in as the cast & crew of In the Bones discuss inspiration from Spanish Civil War poetry, grief, and struggling with larger world issues in the context of a family story.

“I’m actually a very happy person…”

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Josh Luxenberg, Jon Levin, Erik Lochtefeld, and Eric Wright of “Powerhouse”

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Sinking Ship Productions presents PowerhouseChances are, you’re like me—you won’t immediately recognize the name Raymond Scott, but once you realize who he was, you also realize you’ve had his music stuck in your head at some point in time. Maybe even many points in time.

Director Jon Levin was once on the same page as you & I, casually humming Scott’s iconic melody from Powerhouse, when a friend introduced him to the story of this music pioneer. From there, he and playwright Josh Luxenberg, along with their collaborators in Sinking Ship Ensemble, began to devise this vibrant, imaginative piece of theatre, named for that very composition.

Listen in as Jon & Josh, joined by actors Erik Lochtefeld, who portrays Scott, & Eric Wright, one of the puppet-geniuses behind Puppet Kitchen (who provide, you might have surmised, puppets for the show), discuss faith in the post-atomic future, the difference between what you set out to do and what actually happens, and discovering your play in front of an audience.

“There’s something really compelling to me about the idea of something trying to do one thing, very specifically, and being undermined by a bunch of cartoons.”

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Tyler Grimes, Victoria Flores, Christian Daly, and Chloé Malaisé of “Stripped”

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Distilled Theatre Company presents Stripped by Tyler GrimesBaseball. War. Strippers.

Distilled Theatre Company‘s resident playwright Tyler Grimes locates the cross-points of these disparate elements of Americana in his new play Stripped, presented by Distilled & directed by Victoria Flores.

Listen in as Tyler, Victoria, Christian, and Chloé discuss trauma, naming characters after the narrator’s favorite cartoon, language, and telling stories about the time we’re in now. And yes, there are a few baseball metaphors.

“Baseball is this metaphor for having to own up to things. When the spotlight is on you, it’s on you. More than any other sport, it’s the team sport where the individual can really change something, really affect something.”

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RadioTheatre’s 6th Annual “H. P. Lovecraft Festival” — Part I

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RadioTheatre presents the 6th Annual H. P. Lovecraft FestivalRadioTheatre was last on the podcast with their H. P. Lovecraft festival in 2012—and being a fan of the master’s fiction, the producer of GSAS! just had to get back to The Kraine to hear more of Dan Bianchi & Company’s adaptations of his classic stories.

After the first night of the festival, featuring The Moon Bog and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, I sat down with Bianchi again, as well as the three actors giving voice to the terror that evening—Frank Zilinyi, R.Patrick Alberty, and Joshua Nicholson.

Listen in as Dan, Frank, Patrick, Joshua & I discuss “Lovecraft” vs. “love craft” in the minds of unsuspecting patrons, performing at the new Lovecraft-themed bar (seriously, this is a thing), not looking at who you’re playing to, and how live radio drama differs from more “traditional” theatre.

…and yep, that “Part I” in the title means that there’ll be more aural cosmic horror discussed on the podcast soon!

“It’s more like a band, I always say…it’s kind of like doing sets in a band.”

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Kimball B. Allen & Emma Hassett of “Be Happy Be Mormon”

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Kimball B. Allen's Be Happy Be MormonIt’s time once again for the world’s largest solo theatre festival, United Solo (the last time GSAS! was there was in 2011, for the first iteration of Sylvia Milo’s The Other Mozart!).

This time out, the podcast takes in a very different, very personal show, brought to New York’s off-off-Broadway from Seattle—Be Happy Be Mormon, written and performed by Kimball B. Allen & directed by Emma Hassett. Kimball grew up gay & Mormon in rural Idaho—and given that combination, his life didn’t exactly go according to the plan his parents had in mind for him. A letter his mother wrote to him while he was still a baby provides the spark for this auto-biographical exploration through Kimball’s childhood, to his coming out.

Listen in as Kimball & Emma discuss the boxes that others set up for us check (and what happens when you don’t check off any of them), the changes a director can pull out of a solo performer, dinner-table collaboration, and how you travel across the country to present your solo piece (hint: minimal props).

“I just got to sort of hear the stories, and say, ‘hey, what about this, or what about that?’…it was a great collaboration.”
“Yeah, we can’t wait for the next one!”

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The Cast & Director of “The Drunken City”

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Battalion Theatre presents The Drunken CityNew on the scene Battalion Theatre presents their second production, where a night of excessive partying and drunken carousing with handsome strangers leads to unavoidable confrontations with the realities of the relationships between a young bachelorette and her circle of friends—Adam Bock’s The Drunken City. It’s a premise that could easily devolve into cliche, but wisely starts at cliche before delving into the humanity underneath.

Listen in as director Emma Johnson, and actors Christine Spang, Conrad LeBron, Dan Gonon, Elena Kritter, Gadi Rubin, and Kullan Sinclair Edberg, discuss starting your theatre company at CraftBar, how your interviewer looks like Rocket Raccoon, love & magic, and taking a cold hard look at your own relationships. Oh, and there’s an on-air selfie.

“The play is a comedy on the surface, but for me it’s a tragedy, it’s about the lies that we call truths in the battle against loneliness…those lies, when called truths, build up and become the foundations upon which we build our lives…”

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Ari Laura Kreith, J. Stephen Brantley, & Jerreme Rodriguez of “I Like To Be Here…”

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I Like To Be Here: Jackson Heights Revisited, or, This Is A MangoTheatre 167‘s I Like To Be Here: Jackson Heights Revisited, or, This Is A Mango is part four of a trilogy—yes, you read that right—looking at one of the most diverse neighborhoods not just in New York, but in the world. Through inter-connected stories taking place over one night, the play weaves a tapestry of this unique community and its residents.

Director Ari Laura Kreith, playwright J. Stephen Brantley, and actor Jerreme Rodriguez join me on the mic to explain how one play about Ari’s neighborhood turned into four; listen in as they discuss what happens when you write a role that your director decides only you can play, getting inspiration from your neighborhood, and Ari & J. Stephen share their choices for best Indian restaurants (and Indian sweets) in Jackson Heights.

“…about the connections between really different cultures and communities, and what they have in common…with the Jackson Heights trilogy, it’s about all of these different cultures coming together in one place…that’s Queens, right?”

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