Samurai is done at Venus Theatre!
And it was awesome. A huge thanks to Deb, to the amazing cast, crew, and design-composition team. Check out the photos and the page here.
What beauty. What fun. What Samurai. Thank you all for your time, talent, and energy.
Here's to Many Things in Many Places.
Saw: Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro's Torched at TADA! October 11, 2014. Matches out like a wizard.
Saw: Caridad Svitch's Upon the Fragile Shore. At New Dramatists. October 16, 2014. Tell foreign stories.
Read: Amy Herzog's Willing. October 20th, 2014. Puns, ambiguity, and magical solutions.
Thanks to everyone who came out to see Marrow Edge's Writer Group Salon Series reading of Untameable! It was a great event, with amazing talent, energy, and a great old diamond heist romp.
The open reading was the third reading to celebrate the culmination of the Marrows Edge Writers Group.
Check out the Untameable Page for full event info.
A full week of reading and doing:
Staged Reading: Untameable. October 5, 2014. At Ria's. "No More Love."
Read: Annie Baker's Body Awareness. October 6, 2014. Play as Discussion.
Read: Matt Barbot's American Spectacle Piece. October 6, 2014. Hit all the points.
Read: Griselda Gambaro's Information for Foreigners. High tragedy as high drama.
This Week in Theatre:
Saw: We Are Samurai. September 26-28th. A drive down to Laurel, MD to see an indoor/outdoor/walk-around version of We Are Samurai, directed by the lovely Deborah Randall. AMAZING. What great work. Big post to follow.
Saw: A reading of Stefan Hartmann's Search Party. September 28th. Snakes eating tails.
Read: Nocturama. By Annie Baker. September 29th. Dance.
This Week in Theater:
Tango Nuevo at Triangulo. September 18th. Always good to dance.
Elijah Guo's Beatrice at Marrow's Edge Salon Series. September 21. Wrapping up MEWG.
Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation. September 22. Everyone relates to everyone.
The Cutthroat Series at The Flea. September 24. Light a match.
Highly Impractical Theatre's Three Sisters. September 25. "It's going to rain today."
Director Deborah Randall talks on We Are Samurai to Theatre Bloom:
Can you tell us a little bit about this production We Are Samurai?
Deb: There are two ways to really talk about it. One is the convention of the play which is that it takes place in five different locations at one time, sometimes simultaneously. So that’s really fascinating, that drew my interests. The other thing to look at is that it’s written by one of my youngest playwrights, she just turned 26. She studied under Erik Ehn and she sort of gives permission in this new way to experience theatre.
I feel like when we’re raised with libraries and Dewy Decimal systems for reading novels it’s very different from people of the younger generation who grew up with the internet, who were constantly exposed to information. I think that sort of wires the brain in a different way and it makes you look at things differently if you’re from the newer generation where everything is always happening all at once. That’s the rhythm and tempo of this play; somebody who is thinking of a lot of different things all at once.
It gives you a lot of permission to reinterpret the experience of theatre. For eight years I’ve been in this location, shutting the doors, just wanting to do the work. Sort of like Virginia Woolf, in a room of one’s own. So Daria (playwright Daria Marinelli) has sort of challenged me to fling the doors open and invite everybody in and tell them to leave their cell phones on and have them talk to my actors and break every rule that I’ve fought to maintain. I’m challenged by that.
How do you think this show in particular speaks to the mission statement of your company?
Deb: Like I said, the writer is so young and so brave. I feel like we’re giving her an opportunity that she might not otherwise have. Then we’re pulling in two extra women where before there were three and now there are five. The sexuality between the women is really empowering in a way. After the last production here, Light of Night, it was so dark and sexual in a scary way. For me it was these people in isolation desperately needing to make contact and that’s where the sensuality and sexuality was grounded in that show. But I think for these young women it’s empowering to them to stand in who they are in their sensuality and sexuality without being objectified. That this is just an extension of their expression; to me it’s almost like a moving painting. It’s something that’s really beautiful that flows through them.
Read the full article here.
Or go see the show! Tickets here.
This Week in Theater:
Read: Jason Grote's Maria/Stuart. September 11 w MERG. HepHepHep. Shapeshifters and Soda.
Read: Annie Baker's The Aliens. September 15. Having the important things happen offstage.
We are Samurai has opened at Venus Theater in Laurel, MD.
Here's what the critics are saying:
The experience is incredible; unlike anything you will experience this season anywhere in Washington. -Amanda Gunther, Theatre Bloom
If it sounds like an Ionesco SUSHI roll stuffed with Kafka and sprinkled with patchouli oil, you’re in the ballpark. The chaos of We Are Samuraiis belied by the tight, well-rehearsed performances of the cast. Director Deborah Randall extracts sincere feelings of love, jealousy, rage, and grief from underneath the stylized staging. - Michael Poandl, DC Metro Theatre Arts
Between moving among the scenes and the inquisitiveness that the mystery requires, We Are Samurai is not for audience members who want to be ensconced in darkness and enveloped by the play's plot. This play is for gamers, choose-your-own-adventure enthusiasts, and people who never stopped poking things with a stick when they were children. -Alan Katz, Broadway World
But there are fractals of meaning scattered throughout. An eye for an eye and whatnot. How flimsy justifications can provoke rash, unusual actions. INDEED, the meaning loops back around on the experience itself—how a person’s choice of what to witness actually shapes the play she sees. -Jennifer Clements,
If you're anywhere near Laurel, DC friends, I'm looking at you! Go check it out!
You can buy your tickets here.
August 20th: Read Map of Virtue By Erin Courtney. Forward and backwards through the vices.
August 22nd: Read Melancholy Play by Sarah Ruhl. Almonds.
August 24th: Closed Read of The Wolves, First Draft. Huge Thanks to Rachel and Matthew! Nothing like hearing strange phrasings and a play slowly being built.
September 7th: Read PreppySexyTall by Brett Epstein. How much of who we've date is a ghost of who we dated before? And any play that has all descriptors of past Boys- I'm pumped.
Theater can be spectacular, moving, immersive, awe inspiring, and full out mind blowing. But theater needs money. (As you know.)
Venus Theater, one of the oldest women's theaters in the country, is doing We are Samurai in ways I find truly amazing, thrilling, and exciting. And then need a bit of money. The actors are amazing. (I've never laughed so hard hearing my work.) The director, Deborah Randall, is genius. This show is going to rock. But it needs YOU.
Anything you can give, I thank you.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/venus50
Photo courtesy of Adam S. Lowe. His amazing We are Samurai gallery can be found here.
An Active Week:
Saw: Urban Youth Theater's Final Show at Abron Arts Center. Developed by Jing Xu and her amazing students. August 14, 2014. Always jump from Mozarts 5th to Pharell's Happy.
Saw: Daredevil. By Gary Winter. At the Brick. August 14, 2014. Making Mountains from Men.
Partcipated in: Mindful Writing at the Noguchi Museum, Hosted by Mission to Ditmars. August 17, 2014. "This isn't a Noguchi, it's a rock formation."
Saw: Asi van los fantasmas de México. By Matthew Paul Olmos. Directed by Estefanía Fadul. August 17, 2014. Making headless men.
A Full Week:
Saw: Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater. August 6, 2014. Bravery and 10-year olds singing their heart out.
Read: Angels in America with MERG. August 7, 2014. Crunchy leaves of a fall-like death.
Saw: #Serials at The Flea. August 7, 2014. The satisfying-ness of anime and comic book style stories.
Read: Infallibility by Matt Barbot. August 10, 2014. Plant the trick early.
Read: We're Gonna Die by Young Jean Lee. August 10, 2014. Make it a song.
Saw: Magic Kingdom by Cory Conley. August 10, 2014. Truth from the mouths of babes.
Here's to disney, honest story-telling, true singing, short format, and plays from childhood.
Took the long drive down to Laurel, MD to meet with Deborah Randall, Artistic Director and Director of We Are Samurai at Venus Theater. Great dinner and chatting, amazing first read-through, fun with photobooth and some great movement work to top it off. Amazing actors. I was laughing so hard I was crying. I can't wait to see the final product in September!
If you're anywhere near anything in Maryland, come check it out!
Tickets here.
A totally full cultural week:
Heard: Singles in Agriculture, by Abby Rosebrock. MERG Salon Series. July 28th, 2014. The power of song.
Read: The Zero Hero, by Madeline George. In 13P. Tuesday, July 29th. Nazis on the 7 train.
Saw: Snowpiercer. In theaters. July 30, 2014. Grit and unmitigated violence.
Saw: i wrote on yur wall and now i regret it, by Ming Peiffer. July 31, 2014.
Here's to: the power of song and unrelentingly trying, Nazis on the 7 train, grit and matches, and the internets.
At Second Stage Theater.
July 26, 2014.
The first time in forever I've seen a play w Playbill Cover. And in which I remember the magic which is Realism.
Read God of Carnage with MERG.
Great people, reading. Moral of the story: Don't have kids. Or, we become our kids? (So, don't have kids.)
At HERE Arts Center. By Theatre Reconstruction Ensemble.
Great movement. Great line: "My love for him is the stone on which the moors rest." And Little Women in Boston Accents.
Read Matt Barbot's Dust You Are at Marrow's Edge's first Salon Series.
Adam, Eve, and the First Woman. Love investigating origin stories. Great play and very exciting feedback. Can't wait to see the next incarnation.
Read: Julia Jarcho's American Treasure.
"A middle sized human skin has 2 billion 15 million holes in it. The aim is not to make too many more."
