Exploring a playwright’s responsibility to her community... By Kimberly Lew (Playwright/Blogger)
Race has been the talk of the theatre industry lately, from Stephen Adly Guirgis' statements on the ethnicity of his characters to a controversial casting choice of Oklahoma, and since the release of The Broadway League's most recent report (and the responses to it), the prevalence of minorities in the theater-- both on stage and in the audience-- is a hot button topic. As a minority in the theatre myself, these discussions have been very important, enlightening, and at times disheartening for me to follow. And in spite of the varying opinions, I am very glad these threads of conversation are being had at all.
The discussion of Asians and theatre in particular has come to the forefront lately, kicked off by a rousing panel organized by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) where a slew of industry professionals discussed the diminishing roles for Asian actors in the theater. When it comes to casting Asians in non-ethnic-specific parts or even providing roles for specifically for Asian performers, evidence has shown that the number of Asians on stage is dwindling. What the panel sought to explore is what areas of the theatre ecosystem need to change in order to improve the statistics, and as a playwright, I can't help but question my own role in giving opportunities to my community.
Is there satisfaction in being a one-hit wonder? By Kimberly Lew (Playwright/Blogger)
(Photo by Joan Marcus)
Wit, written by Margaret Edson, has always unquestionably been one of my favorite plays, but I have always been somewhat hesitant to call Edson one of my favorite playwrights. It's not because I don't like any of her other works-- it's just that there aren't necessarily other works to speak of.Wit, a Pulitzer-winning play, was Edson's first and only produced piece. Can you consider a playwright a personal favorite based on just one play?
What if that one play is an exceptional one? Having pored over the text and immersed myself in the HBO movie starring Emma Thompson, seeing the current production of Wit on Broadway was a revelation. And while I think the production is great, the thing I realized as I watched the show was that the play itself is as close to perfection as I know.
I don't say this lightly. Having read hundreds of plays in my life and career, very few match the precision, imagination, and human truth that Wit does. The very title alone is incredibly ambitious and yet a self-fulfilling prophecy -- every moment of the play is a product of wit: perfect timing, intelligence, humor, and humanity combined in a stringing of words. The woman makes John Donne's work seem accessible, for Chrissakes, and for that alone this play deserves a medal of honor.
But besides the piece itself, I think a lot about Edson. I wonder what it's like to write such a singularly meaningful piece and what it's like to leave it at that. If it were me, would I wonder if I had another amazing play in me? Would I feel like I didn't cash in on the opportunities that could have been in my future? Or is it possible to look at your own work objectively and know that I've achieved everything I needed to and truly move on?
In my own writing, when I step back and look at my work objectively, I know I haven't written my Wit yet-- which is not to mean that I will ever write something as great as Wit, but more that I have not yet written what I believe will be my best work. They say that one of the biggest secrets of being a writer is just that you have to keep writing, and I wholly believe that sentiment. But Margaret Edson also makes me wonder if there can come a time when one can feel comfortable putting the pen and paper aside-- if, perhaps, there can be peace in knowing you've achieved something great and letting it be.
KIMBERLY LEWis a playwright with two published one-act plays for high schools, as well as full-length Searching for Candi (co-written with Gabriella Miyares), which had its first production at Mt. Holyoke college in April 2011. Her latest play, Other People's Children, will have a reading on February 26th as a part of The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective's new works reading series. She also created/manages the Emerging Musical Theatre blog. www.kimberlylew.com EMAIL HER | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | OTHER POSTS BY THIS AUTHOR
PLAY CLUB (New York) Is having auditions to add new actors, directors and writers to their family! By Pam Quinn (Writer)
Auditions to add ACTORSto the email list will beFebruary 7thstarting at 8pm andFebruary 8th starting at 7pm at 36th Street Studios. Please email uaplayclub@gmail.com with your HEADSHOT and RESUME to sign up for an audition time slot and to receive sides for said audition. Read about the club below...
“Play Club” consists of several artistic members residing in New York who will meet during the month to participate in a series of Play Club events that focus on performing, writing, directing and producing. Started by The Unknown Artists in the Spring of 2011, Play Club has hosted over 35 readings and has helped hone the cold reading skills of over 150 members. We’ve also given several writers the opportunity to hear their pieces out loud and receive feedback from their work. In the summer of 2011 we even opened up a Play Club branch on the West Coast. Play Club West has been very successful as well and we look forward to continued success with the club on both coasts.
We have a membership due of ONLY $10 a month (And that’s only if you choose to participate that particular month)
FOR ACTORS – Participating in “Play Club” will be beneficial in strengthening your cold reading skills, learning about a play you may not have heard of or know little about, being a part of the beginning stages of someone’s original work, flexing your instincts as an actor, and possibly being considered for a role in a future production of certain plays read during Play Club.
FOR WRITERS – You will be given an opportunity to hear your script out loud. We will provide you with skilled cold readers, a space and script copies of your work in addition to useful feedback.
FOR DIRECTORS – Play Club gives you the chance to flex your directing creativity whether it be a scene for the scene workshops or getting your hands on a full staged reading or production.
Daniel Kitson in It's Always Right Now Until It's Later at St. Ann's Warehouse.
In It's Always Right Now Until It's Later, the stage is empty save a chair, a small step ladder, and dozens of light bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Kitson runs from bulb to bulb as he tells the stories of William Rivington and Caroline Carpenter--one story from birth to death and the other backward, from death to birth. The characters' lives don't intertwine, however. The stories are just about two peoples' lives and the many moments that fill them. Kitson describes life as a deluge and these moments as drops in the ocean of that flood. He says that our brains fill in the gaps between these moments, but that there are, in fact, no real gaps in time.
Gob Squad's Kitchen, and the Andy Warhol films that inspire the piece, give us the gaps. Four members of the British-German group Gob Squad (the cast changes nightly, sometimes with the same actors playing different roles) attempt to reenact Warhol's 1965 film Kitchen, as well as parts of his movies Sleep, Eat, Kiss, and Screen Test, in which someone sleeps for eight hours, eats, engages in three-minute kisses, and sits for a long screen test, respectively. By the end of Gob Squad's delightful experiment, four members of the audience have taken the actors' places, and we are left with the hauntingly beautiful line: "In 100 years, people will look at this and say: 'That's why.'"
The combination of Daniel Kitson's tiny moments with Gob Squad's stretches of seemingly mundane routine equals the breath of human experience. Unfortunately, It's Always Right Now Until It's Later closes today, but you can still see Gob Squad's Kitchen at The Public Theater for one more week until February 5. You won't get the entire human experience, but you'll get a part that, as Gob Squad says, looks for "the hidden depths beneath the shiny surfaces of modern life."
Maybe not committing to being wheelchair bound a la My Left Foot Daniel Day-Lewis, but definitely going there in the mind. By Kimberly Lew (Playwright/Blogger)
My latest play revolves around a protagonist in college, and the more I’ve been trying to suss out character, the more I’ve been finding myself reliving my days at NYU. Suddenly I’m slipping back into my college-y ways, staying up late manically working to finish a project, eating ramen and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and drinking more coffee than water. Okay, okay, so maybe that’s just how I normally operate. But while college might not be that far behind me, there are a lot of feelings that memories of dorm rooms and English lectures conjure up. Reading my journal, remembering deep conversations at midnight over cheap wine and crazed anxieties about the future, I find myself transported back to a self-contained world where everything was a learning opportunity and the future felt so far away.
It’s a bit scary, I must admit, to get so close to my characters. And especially considering that this one suffers from insomnia and has a bit of a mental breakdown, going on this bender, even if just in my imagination, is not necessarily something I’m looking forward to. It can consume you if you let it get too close, which can be a beautiful thing when the cogs really align and the play sets into motion all on its own. But sometimes everything feels too intimate, too immediate, and it becomes hard to separate fiction from reality.
This is not to say that I am assuming my characters full-time. But I have found that sometimes to properly inhabit them, I have to take on their obsessions. Reading tabloids and gossip blogs and talking celebrity news became a part of my daily routine as I worked on my latest play, Other People’s Children, about a movie star and his wife. I observed enough pick-up artist activity and read enough on the subject (even lurked on some very sketchy forums) for my ten-minute, Playing the Game. Life even imitated art when I wrote a scene for my web series, Shelf Life, and my sister and I had an interaction that practically mirrored what I had written a few months earlier. It’s not enough to research a character-- to have any authenticity, you have to be able to empathize with them, and I’ve found that sometimes you just have to live a part of them to get there.
So, I am wading in college waters for a little while. And while this may entail some restless nights, pondering what I want to be when I grow up, and possibly making some bad decisions, I take comfort knowing that it’s all in the name of playwriting. Though... if you catch me talking to myself about T.S. Eliot at 3 am... I might be in a little too deep.
KIMBERLY LEWis a playwright with two published one-act plays for high schools, as well as full-length Searching for Candi (co-written with Gabriella Miyares), which had its first production at Mt. Holyoke college in April 2011. She is currently working on her new play, Other People's Children, about an aspiring actress hired as a nanny for a movie star and his wife. She also created/manages the Emerging Musical Theatre blog. www.kimberlylew.com EMAIL HER | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | OTHER POSTS BY THIS AUTHOR
Finding theatre inspiration in modern artist Maurizio Cattelan’s Guggenheim retrospective. By Kimberly Lew (Playwright/Blogger)
This past weekend, I finally saw the Maurizio Cattelan’s All exhibit at the Guggenheim after weeks of being intrigued and taunted by pictures on the subway of a puppet-like figure hanging on a coat rack by his suit jacket.
The exhibit is pretty incredible. In what is supposed to be a retrospective of this modern (and notorious prankster/provocateur) artist from Padua, all of Cattelan’s work is strung from the ceiling, falling in a complex mobile-esque design down the center of the Guggenheim’s circular architecture. As you work your way up every level, new discoveries are made, from a squirrel laying face-down on a kitchen table to two cops suspended upside down. Without plaques or even being able to get close to the pieces, there was always a pervading awareness that the artist was keeping the audience at arm’s length. It was less of a retrospective and more of a literal collection of Cattelan’s artistic endeavors in one space.
The thing that struck me most about this exhibit was how it highlighted the importance of context. Like it or not, modern art is very conceptual. Duchamp’s The Fountain, for example, is not about the urinal itself, but about the question of whether or not a urinal has a place in an art exhibition or being deemed as ‘art.’ Now, as reproduction urinals appear at major museums around the world, it feels like these works are more of a stand-in for the original work than art in and of itself.
What Cattelan does brilliantly, I think, is recontextualize his own works. Yes, everything from an older woman sitting in a fridge to a pope pinned down by a meteorite are there, but their presence isn’t made to help you understand them in their original context. Instead, they are just part of the greater dizzying display, sacrificing meaning so that the exhibit itself becomes one big art piece.
Thinking about context makes me realize what an important role it plays in the theatre. Though a first major production can be inventive and history-making, if a script is strong and worthy of standing the test of time, subsequent productions should be more than merely chasing after the original performance. What can context add to a show-- whether it’s the space, the dynamics of the cast, the sets, or even just the social climate in which the production is staged? And as playwrights, how can we play with context and convention to create something unexpected and make the most of such a temporal art form? I’m eager to experiment and find out for myself-- even if that means surprising my roommate with a bunch of my possessions hanging from the ceiling in our living room.
KIMBERLY LEWis a playwright with two published one-act plays for high schools, as well as full-length Searching for Candi (co-written with Gabriella Miyares), which had its first production at Mt. Holyoke college in April 2011. She is currently working on her new play, Other People's Children, about an aspiring actress hired as a nanny for a movie star and his wife. She also created/manages the Emerging Musical Theatre blog. www.kimberlylew.com EMAIL HER | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | OTHER POSTS BY THIS AUTHOR
Lottery vs. line. A case against the lottery rush ticket system. By Shoshana Greenberg (lyricist/bookwriter)
The last time I waited for rush tickets, I got up very early. I stood in line for two hours. I brought reading material, but I didn't need it. I chatted with a guy from Australia directly behind me. He was impressed that I knew the Australian children's movie, Dot and the Kangaroo. When the box office opened, I purchased my ticket to Chicago and headed to work (I had made plans to come in slightly late). I spent two hours in that line, and for other shows I've spent more. I don't consider that time wasted--I wanted to see the show affordably, I put in the time, and I got my ticket.
I will not, however, waste my time with lotteries. Lotteries don't care who I am, how much I love theater, and how this might be my only way to afford this show. I have the same chance of winning as a passer-by who thinks, "Look, a show! I don't know what it is, but I'll put my name in and just see what happens." I've tried lotteries a handful of times but have never won. I stopped trying because I realized that the result could be the same every night. Everyone is given the same chance, but not the same opportunity.
The Book of Mormon lottery
As of last month, four Broadway shows have lotteries for rush tickets: The Book of Mormon, Godspell, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and Wicked. Lotteries can help manage large crowds and, depending on preferences and scheduling, may at times be a better option for some people. Would it be possible, then, for these shows to offer both a rush line and the lottery system? That way those who do not want to waste time with lotteries can almost guarantee (depending on availability) their tickets with an early wake-up call, while those who want to forgo the line can stop by the lottery.
Theaters and producers should use rush tickets to reward people who really want to see their shows. Lotteries can't guarantee that everyone who wants to will have the chance. Purchasing rush tickets should be possible for everyone, not just those whose names are drawn by the hand of fate.
Shoshana's favorite shows in NYC theater this year and the companies that made them possible. By Shoshana Greenberg (lyricist/bookwriter)
1. Ars Nova Yes, I had my own show there this fall as part of ANT Fest, but that's not the only reason I'm including Ars Nova in my top ten. I was also fortunate to see other great ANT Fest shows and acts (1 Night Only: A Hanukah Jamboree and their ANT Fest opening show complete with stand-up, music, and a burlesque act), and The Lapsburgh Layover, a kooky detour through the fictional Lapsburgh's intimate (and dangerous) airport. I was also told I should not have missed Bekah Brunstetter's play Be a Good Little Widow in the spring.
The Shaggs: The Philosophy of the World at Playwrights Horizons (with NYTW)
3. Trusty Sidekick A new company for young people and families, Trusty Sidekick has presented two promising new works this year, and they have exciting plans for 2012. They did a workshop presentation in May of The Little One and the Sea of Letters, a story about immigration that made beautiful use of puppetry and the Henry Street Settlement space and history. In June, they presented a memorable outdoor performance installation on Governors Island (part of the Figment Festival): a Lord of the Flies-inspired flash mob featuring 12 boys, titled BEAST.
All things theatre that inspired, informed, and reinvented in 2011. By Kimberly Lew (Playwright/Blogger)
Probably one of the biggest transitions I’ve made this past year was leaving my job working in theatre publishing to pursue a longtime passion of traditional publishing, helping do research for a consultancy and writing articles about the industry. Aside from missing my work with great writers and plays, along with my coworkers, one of my biggest fears with changing jobs was moving away from the theatre community. No longer being immersed in plays 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, I was nervous that I would lose touch with what was going on in the industry.
All the worry quickly faded, however, when I realized all the opportunities I had to still engage with some of my favorite theatre companies, get news on industry, and become acquainted with exciting new work. There have been a lot of things over the past year that have kept my passion and relationship with theatre alive, so I thought I would share 10 of those things (in no particular order):
