The Cast & Director of “Once We Lived Here”

Posted on September 25, 2013 by robby

When last we saw Australian Made Entertainment, Artistic Directors Matthew and Kathleen Foster were onstage in the drama Speaking in Tongues.

This time around, Matthew is in the director’s chair, and Kathleen is showcasing her beautiful singing voice with the company’s new show, a musical imported from Melbourne. Set on a rural sheep station, Once We Lived Here is about a family is fighting for the future—of the family farm, of their personal lives, and of their shared history.

Listen in as Matt and Kathleen, along with actors Morgan Cowling, Adam Rennie, Sean Cleary, and Renee Claire Bergeron discuss family drama as universal story, singing in your own accent (and learning someone else’s), selling up, and the cultural conversation made possible by producing an Australian musical in New York City.

“Home is where you are.”

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

Posted on September 24, 2013 by robby

not just 3 new plays Jaclyn 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”

Posted on September 12, 2013 by robby

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 Ancowitz Doubt.

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”

Posted on September 7, 2013 by robby

The Dirty Blondes present "The Miracle Play" at The Secret Theatre The 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 →

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

Posted on September 1, 2013 by robby

"Fourteen Hundred and Sixty Sketches of Your Left Hand" by Duncan Pflaster, part of the 2013 UnFringed Festival at The Secret Theatre If 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 →

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James Rutherford and Elliot B. Quick, adaptors & directors of “The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway”

Posted on August 30, 2013 by robby

M-34 presents "The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway" at The Access Theater To drastically, drastically oversimplify his play—this what happens when an easy pun is chased down to the point where it becomes a complex theatrical statement.

If they all turn out like this, a strong case can be made that we should all chase such simple puns more often.

Listen in as the adaptors/directors of The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway, James Rutherford and Elliot B. Quick, discuss the complexity of Oscar Wilde’s puns, what it really means to be earnest, and how even when things work out just perfectly, there can still be hurt & pain.

“It did actually start from a pun — and then we started working on it, and were really shocked and appalled that it was really fruitful territory, and that these two writers actually have a great deal to say to one another…”

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Kristin McCarthy Parker, director of “kumrads won’t”

Posted on August 15, 2013 by robby

On this episode, the fabulous director Kristin McCarthy Parker returns to the podcast — and this time, I’m posting our interview in time for you to hear it and then see her show (unlike when I covered her show Bears).

Kristen, along with producer Nick Abeel, playwright Christina Michelle Watkins, & other committed artists, knew they wanted to see kumrads won’t in a real production — so they decided to produce it themselves, submitting it to the New York International Fringe Festival. Self-producing is something I’m all in favor of, but I also know it’s a daunting proposition. So of course one of my biggest questions for the interview were, “why would you do this to yourself?” And in a festival, nonetheless!

Must be a really special show to them. As you’ll hear in the interview, indeed it is.

Listen in as Kristin discusses how she came to fall in love with this play, the stuggles of being vulnerable, and what it means to be successful within your means.

“I found it really intriguing, and funny, and heartbreaking, and sad, but also just a really poignant look at a relationship between two people who are very different, and who we don’t normally envision having any sort of connection, but who are struggling to connect with each other nonetheless.”

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

Posted on August 2, 2013 by robby

Being 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”

Posted on August 2, 2013 by robby

Anonymous Ensemble present "I Land," part of the Ice Factory festival 2013 The 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”

Posted on July 26, 2013 by robby

The 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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