Robert Honeywell, playwright, and Leah Bonvissuto, director, of “Mass”

Posted on April 26, 2013 by robby

"Mass" by Robert Honeywell, photos by Joe Kolbow Van Gogh. Gauguin. Duchamp.

Add to that list Pablo. Not Picasso. Just Pablo.

If that makes no sense to you, then you need to travel from New York to Vancouver to Shanghai along with Robert Honeywell‘s new musical Mass, as it follows the story of the troubled young artist Mary, her girlfriend Françoise (who becomes the aforementioned Pablo, an internationally-celebrated artist), and Mary’s art-dealer sister Kate, exploring the limits of art, commerce, love, and family.

Listen in as Robert and director Leah Bonvissuto discuss breaking the boundaries of art, the arc of study needed to write a musical about the art-world, and the struggle between different visions of what art can be — including the art of theatre.

“Art, love, & blood.”

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Vickie Ramirez, playwright, and Richard C. Aven, director, of “Smoke”

Posted on April 15, 2013 by robby

Since its inception five years ago, Mixed Phoenix Theatre Group has been making a name for itself as a company exploring the American identity through theatre, championing new plays from up-and-coming playwrights.

In the company’s first solo, fully-produced play (outside of Muzungu, their collaboration with my company, Co-Op Theatre East), MPTG has brought Vickie Ramirez‘s Smoke to the Studio Theater at Pershing Square Signature Center, directed by the company’s associate artistic director, Richard C. Aven.

As you’ll hear in the interview, the plot of Smoke doesn’t distill down easily into a sound-byte, but suffice it to say that the play is an exploration of who belongs where, and how, and why, told through a tale of family and community tensions (along with a bit of mysticism) on a Haundenosaunee Reservation in upstate New York. And as with any good play, there are no easy answers; only big, complicated questions to wrestle with.

Listen in as Vickie & Richard discuss creating an inclusive cultural piece, identity, and “mystical native stuff.” Continue reading →

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Lynn Rosen, playwright, and Shana Gold, director, of “Goldor $ Mythyka: A Hero is Born”

Posted on April 15, 2013 by robby

Goldor $ Mythyka: A Hero is Born

…who’d have thought that, even with this being the 58th (!) episode of Go See a Show! (seriously, I think this is the longest commitment I’ve ever made, except to my girlfriend), I’d have two episodes that touch on Dungeons & Dragons?

Ripped from the headlines (seriously), Goldor $ Mythyka: A Hero is Born is playwright Lynn Rosen‘s reimagined story of two young lovers who bond over D&D, rob an armored car, and subsequently inspire a cult-like following among the working-poor. The production, directed by Shana Gold, uses a wonderfully-Brechtian emcee narrator character to guide the audience through the tale, and is a super-fun piece of theatre.

Listen in as Lynn & Shana, with some guest shouts from Assistant Director Casey Cleverly (no stranger to the podcast!), discuss building a script from a truly true story, solving the unexpected problems of a new play, and playing D&D for research. Continue reading →

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Joseph Samuel Wright, playwright, and David Carl, composer, of “Rise”

Posted on April 10, 2013 by robby

Rise_logo We all know the maxim: “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

It’s the dangers of unchecked power & blind ambition that unites the two narratives of Roots & Wings Theatrical‘s new play Rise.

In one thread: an operatic telling of the story of Elagabalus, the boy emperor of Rome who overturned gods, prostituted himself in the temple, and demanded a sex change operation—following the ego-maniac emperor, his naive formerly-chaste Vestal Virgin lover, his scheming grandmother, and his ambitious mother willfully ignoring her son’s flagrant (and dangerous) disregard for prudence.

In the other: a modern drama of an ego-maniac porn star, his naive young lover, his scheming agent, and the ambitious young lady blind to whom she hurts on her rise to the top.

…starting to see where this is going?

If you’re curious to see (and hear) more, listen in to this episode of the podcast with Rise playwright Joseph Samuel Wright and composer David Carl as they discuss empire-level intrigue, big voices in small spaces, and rising vs. rising above. Continue reading →

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Blythe Duff and Andrew Scott-Ramsay of David Harrower’s “Good With People”

Posted on April 10, 2013 by robby

"Good With People" Many people try to avoid their hometown as much as possible. Maybe it doesn’t hold anything for you anymore; maybe it’s bad memories; or maybe it’s people you just don’t want to have to run into. For Evan, one of the two characters in David Harrower’s Good With People, it’s a combination of all three.

Set in Helensburgh, Scotland — once a thriving resort town, and now home to the British military’s nuclear defense program — Good With People depicts a chance encounter between Evan and Helen, the mother of one of his schoolmates, that forces them to face the personal and political histories they might both rather avoid.

Listen in as actors Blythe Duff and Andrew Scott-Ramsay discuss the growth and development of this two-hander, levels, dramaturgy, the relief that Americans laugh at the right bits, and commuting through Central Park to get to work. Continue reading →

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Anna Greenfield, playwright & actress, & Lee Sunday Evans, director, of “All Girls”

Posted on April 5, 2013 by robby

"All Girls," by Anna Greenfield Collaboration Town was last on the podcast with the crazy epic The Deepest Play Ever: The Catharsis of Pathos. This time around, their show All Girls brings things to a much more personal level to great effect with this lovely, personal piece about three young girls on the verge of entering high school.

It may be “all girls,” but of course all are invited. And as you’ll hear in the interview, playwright/actress Anna Greenfield and director Lee Sunday Evans want to be sure this show is accessible to all (and they succeeded).

Listen in as Anna & Leigh talk about sensitivity to voices, “struggling with the process of becoming,” writing something so you can act in it, and being honest. Continue reading →

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Kristin McCarthy Parker, director of “Bears”

Posted on March 30, 2013 by robby

Most of us theatre nerds are familiar with The Bard’s famous stage direction of “Exit, pursued by a bear.”

Mark Rigney’s new play presented by Sans A Productions at 59E59 might be the first where all the exits are actually done by bears.

In the appropriately-titled Bears, three of the titular creatures — two accustomed to life in captivity, and a third just recently brought in from the wild — negotiate a post-human-apocalyptic world where there are no more meals brought by a zookeeper. When wild Susie Bear coaxes young Timmy Bear and the intellectual Growl Bear from their cage into the wild, relationships are tested as they all figure out what it really means to be a bear.

Director Kristin McCarthy Parker sat down for a chat on the mic to talk about this imaginative, striking play; listen in as she discusses the id vs. the superego, how to pick things up like a bear, and leaving behind a legacy after the apocalypse.

“We have this route, and that route, and I’m somewhere in between, and I think that’s an o.k. thing, but I don’t really know where I’m going to end up…which is great…”

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Greg Kalleres, playwright of “Honky”

Posted on March 28, 2013 by robby

Honky is a play about relationships: about the relationships between five people, and about the relationships between who designs, buys, wears, covets, sells, and markets basketball shoes.

But hovering over—or rather, sitting squarely on top of—all of these relationships, is the issue of race.

It’s the kind of show that provokes wild, and/or uncomfortable, and/or silent laughter, at different times, from different people, for different reasons.

And while it doesn’t shy away from a difficult subject, Honky is hysterical, insightful, dramatic, and fun.

Listen to this episode of GSAS! to hear playwright Greg Kalleres discuss quiet audiences, brave actors, and advertising.

“You may fail, but you’ve certainly got the right to try.”

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Cynthia von Buhler and the cast of “Speakeasy Dollhouse”

Posted on March 20, 2013 by robby

A murdered businessman. Illegal booze. Accusations of infidelity. Political intrigue. Family secrets. Baked goods.

All ingredients for an evening in Speakeasy Dollhouse.

The brainchild of artist Cynthia von Buhler, Speakeasy Dollhouse is an immersive theatre experience that takes place in a Lower East Side speakeasy, where the events leading up to the unsolved murder of Frank Spano in 1935 — the victim was von Buhler’s actual grandfather — are recreated amongst, and with, the audience. Also recreated are a morgue, a Bronx bakery, and a swingin’ Prohibition-era speakeasy, complete with live music and burlesque dancers.

Listen in as Cynthia (and an ever-growing group of the cast) discuss time travel, directing an unwitting cast of several hundred, multiple endings, and exploring history through performance.

“Try the cannolis.”

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Matthew Kreiner, Megan Lee, and Lawrence Lesher, directors of EndTimes Bunker’s “Zombie March Madness”

Posted on March 14, 2013 by robby

I love doing this podcast as a way to meet new people, and see cool shows that I might not otherwise have found about. And, of course, to share with you, dear listeners, these gems of the off-off-Broadway world, and the thoughts of the brilliant artists behind them.

It’s also fun, however, to do a little shameless self-promotion for shows I’ve made with friends now and again, too. Good things these friends happen to be brilliant artists as well.

On this episode of Go See a Show!, an interview with my fellow artists at EndTimes Productions, talking about the EndTimes Bunker’s current production, Zombie March Madness: four new zombie-themed plays, playing now at the 133rd Street Arts Center. That’s some of my original scoring for The Last Days that you hear at the top of the episode; your humble narrator sound-designed that show, as well as the “magnum opus” Zombie Frat House Bash.

Listen in as directors Matthew Kreiner, Megan Lee, and Lawrence Lesher talk about zombie classics vs. classics with zombies, doing the Harlem Shake live (and in Harlem), zombies as allegory for our reality-television-obsessed world, and theatre that goes for the jugular. Literally.

“Tennessee Williams, Schmennessee Williams.” Continue reading →

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