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I AM THEATRE: Khanisha Foster
The newest in TCG's I Am Theatre video Series is the awesome Khanisha Foster.
Announcing The Fifth Annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works by Mexican Women
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jenn Adams
Associate Artistic Director, Halcyon Theatre
773.413.0454
press@halcyontheatre.org
halcyontheatre.org
Halcyon Theatre Announces The Fifth Annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works by Mexican Women
CHICAGO, IL (May 16, 2011) Halcyon Theatre Announces the fifth annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works in translation by Mexican Women. The Alcyone Festival 2012 will be performed at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. From July 12 through August 12.
The Alcyone Festival 2012 will feature works (in English translation) by women in Mexico. There is a long and distinguished body of theatrical work in Mexico. Unfortunately, many of these works are rarely seen in Chicago. With this year's Alcyone Festival, Halcyon is presenting four plays in translation by some of Mexicos best playwrights.
Says Artistic Director Tony Adams, “ I was really inspired by some of the works the Henry Godinez and the Lark brought to the Goodman's last Latino Theatre Festival for readings, so for this years festival I wanted to continue that conversation and present full productions of some fantastic plays by Mexican Women. The fact that Henry will be directing with us is pretty amazing. Not just because he introduced me to some of the writers, but he is one of my favorite artists in the country, A large part of our work revolves around the idea of connection, and I'm also really excited to reconnect with another director in this years fest, Alex Gualino. Alex was one of the founding members of Steep theatre, where I was a longtime member, and I worked with him on my first show in Chicago.”
Performances will be Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, and Sundays at 2:30, in rotating rep, from July 12 through August 12, 2012. Tickets are $12-20, and are available through the Greenhouse Theater box office at greenhousetheater.org or at 773.404.7336. Festival passes are available for $75.
Members of the media are invited to attend any performance.
This year's festival features:
A Lover’s Dismantling: Fragments of a Scenic Discourse
by Elena Guiochins, translation by Andy Bragen
Directed by Alex Gualino
"There are only two kinds of thoughts: memories and imagination. This story of two couples finding, living, and losing love wanders whimsically through time, distance, dreams, and heartbreak. "
Freud Skating
by Sabina Berman, translation by Kirsten F. Nigro
Directed by Henry Godinez
"A dramatic rewriting of the famous case of Freud's "Dora."
Two Dead Guys and a Banjo: A Story of Mourning
by Mariana Hartasánchez, tranlation by Henry Guzmán
Directed by Ebony Joy
"When a magician's hand escapes and seduces a psychiatrist, two fathers return from the dead in a battle of rhetoric and illusion over the living. "
The Tip of the Iceberg
by Bea Carmina, translation by Caridad Svich
Directed by Annelise Moffit
"A couple on the skids, a woman having a nervous breakdown, a serial killer on the prowl and a girl holding onto a mewling cat make up the darkly, comic poetically ferocious world of The Tip of the Iceberg."
*exact lineup subject to change
About the Alcyone Festival:
Now in its fifth year, our annual Alcyone Festival celebrates female playwrights. Women writers are horribly represented on stages across America, so we created the Alcyone Festival to combat this directly, by celebrating the depth and breadth of women writing for the stage. To date the Alcyone Festival has presented 26 works by women, only two of which had previously been seen in Chicago.
For our first annual Alcyone Festival, in the summer of 2008, Halcyon Theatre produced the works of 10 early female playwrights spanning almost 1000 years in rotating repertory. These works have been seldom (and mostly never) seen on contemporary stages.
For the Alcyone Festival 2009 we decided to play with the notion that women only write small domestic dramas, picking a theme as far away from that as possible: terrorism, the cult of martyrdom and its effects upon the innocents. The Alcyone Festival 2009 featured six phenomenal writers from across the globe.
The Alcyone Festival 2010 celebrates the work of María Irene Fornés.
The theme for the Alcyone Festival 2011 was Remixed, creating new works by women based off of classical texts by women. We presented five new works using/adapting/sampling/re-envisioning . . . remixing classical plays written by women from Hrosvita (c. 935 to c. 1002) through 1800. The Alcyone Festival 2011 celebrated both new and (really) old writers and showed how the lineage of female playwrights over the past thousand years can inspire and inform contemporary audiences and artists.
The Alcyone Festival 2012 will feature new works in translation by Mexican women.
About Halcyon:
Mission- We are fiercely committed to making the stage as diverse as the city of Chicago; presenting new voices from inadequately represented communities, as well as recasting classic works to showcase their contemporary relevance.
About- Halcyon Theatre was formed to connect people, transform our borders and ascend towards a more just union. We strive to make incredible theatre from stories around the world, to help show our world in new ways, and rediscover the individual beauty of people from our global community. Our artistic philosophy is driven by our continuing belief that at every point of human history where there has been an explosion of artistic creativity, it has happened when different cultures and traditions have intersected and informed each other. If every artist working with an organization looks and thinks the same, it is difficult for them to grow. A homogeneous group produces homogeneous art. Striving for artistic excellence with artists of varied cultural backgrounds and training is at the forefront of everything we do.
# # # # MEDIA ALERT * MEDIA ALERT * MEDIA ALERT * MEDIA ALERT
WHAT: Halcyon Theatre Announces The Fifth Annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works by Mexican Women.
WHERE: The Alcyone Festival 2012 will be performed at the Greenhouse Theatre Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
WHEN: The Alcyone Festival 2012 will play Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, and Sundays at 2:30, in rotating rep.
ADMISSION: $12-20 for single tickets. Festival Passes are available for $75.
BOX OFFICE: Tickets are available through the Greenhouse Theater box office at greenhousetheater.org or at 773.404.7336.
FEATURING:
A Lover’s Dismantling: Fragments of a Scenic Discourse
by Elena Guiochins, translation by Andy Bragen
Directed by Alex Gualino
"There are only two kinds of thoughts: memories and imagination. This story of two couples finding, living, and losing love wanders whimsically through time, distance, dreams, and heartbreak. "
Freud Skating
by Sabina Berman, translation by Kirsten F. Nigro
Directed by Henry Godinez
"A dramatic rewriting of the famous case of Freud's "Dora."
Two Dead Guys and a Banjo: A Story of Mourning
by Mariana Hartasánchez, translation by Henry Guzmán
Directed by Ebony Joy
"When a magician's hand escapes and seduces a psychiatrist, two fathers return from the dead in a battle of rhetoric and illusion over the living. "
The Tip of the Iceberg
by Bea Carmina, translation by Caridad Svich
Directed by Annelise Moffit
"A couple on the skids, a woman having a nervous breakdown, a serial killer on the prowl and a girl holding onto a mewling cat make up the darkly, comic poetically ferocious world of The Tip of the Iceberg."
*exact lineup subject to change
WEBSITE: halcyontheatre.org ; halcyontheatre.org/alcyone12
CONTACT: Jenn Adams
Associate Artistic Director, Halcyon Theatre
773.413.0454
press@halcyontheatre.org
halcyontheatre.org
Announcing The Fifth Annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works by Mexican Women
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jenn Adams
Associate Artistic Director, Halcyon Theatre
773.413.0454
press@halcyontheatre.org
halcyontheatre.org
Halcyon Theatre Announces The Fifth Annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works by Mexican Women
CHICAGO, IL (May 16, 2011) Halcyon Theatre Announces the fifth annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works in translation by Mexican Women. The Alcyone Festival 2012 will be performed at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. From July 12 through August 12.
The Alcyone Festival 2012 will feature works (in English translation) by women in Mexico. There is a long and distinguished body of theatrical work in Mexico. Unfortunately, many of these works are rarely seen in Chicago. With this year's Alcyone Festival, Halcyon is presenting four plays in translation by some of Mexicos best playwrights.
Says Artistic Director Tony Adams, “ I was really inspired by some of the works the Henry Godinez and the Lark brought to the Goodman's last Latino Theatre Festival for readings, so for this years festival I wanted to continue that conversation and present full productions of some fantastic plays by Mexican Women. The fact that Henry will be directing with us is pretty amazing. Not just because he introduced me to some of the writers, but he is one of my favorite artists in the country, A large part of our work revolves around the idea of connection, and I'm also really excited to reconnect with another director in this years fest, Alex Gualino. Alex was one of the founding members of Steep theatre, where I was a longtime member, and I worked with him on my first show in Chicago.”
Performances will be Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, and Sundays at 2:30, in rotating rep, from July 12 through August 12, 2012. Tickets are $12-20, and are available through the Greenhouse Theater box office at greenhousetheater.org or at 773.404.7336. Festival passes are available for $75.
Members of the media are invited to attend any performance.
This year's festival features:
A Lover’s Dismantling: Fragments of a Scenic Discourse
by Elena Guiochins, translation by Andy Bragen
Directed by Alex Gualino
"There are only two kinds of thoughts: memories and imagination. This story of two couples finding, living, and losing love wanders whimsically through time, distance, dreams, and heartbreak. "
Freud Skating
by Sabina Berman, translation by Kirsten F. Nigro
Directed by Henry Godinez
"A dramatic rewriting of the famous case of Freud's "Dora."
Two Dead Guys and a Banjo: A Story of Mourning
by Mariana Hartasánchez, tranlation by Henry Guzmán
Directed by Ebony Joy
"When a magician's hand escapes and seduces a psychiatrist, two fathers return from the dead in a battle of rhetoric and illusion over the living. "
The Tip of the Iceberg
by Bea Carmina, translation by Caridad Svich
Directed by Annelise Moffit
"A couple on the skids, a woman having a nervous breakdown, a serial killer on the prowl and a girl holding onto a mewling cat make up the darkly, comic poetically ferocious world of The Tip of the Iceberg."
*exact lineup subject to change
About the Alcyone Festival:
Now in its fifth year, our annual Alcyone Festival celebrates female playwrights. Women writers are horribly represented on stages across America, so we created the Alcyone Festival to combat this directly, by celebrating the depth and breadth of women writing for the stage. To date the Alcyone Festival has presented 26 works by women, only two of which had previously been seen in Chicago.
For our first annual Alcyone Festival, in the summer of 2008, Halcyon Theatre produced the works of 10 early female playwrights spanning almost 1000 years in rotating repertory. These works have been seldom (and mostly never) seen on contemporary stages.
For the Alcyone Festival 2009 we decided to play with the notion that women only write small domestic dramas, picking a theme as far away from that as possible: terrorism, the cult of martyrdom and its effects upon the innocents. The Alcyone Festival 2009 featured six phenomenal writers from across the globe.
The Alcyone Festival 2010 celebrates the work of María Irene Fornés.
The theme for the Alcyone Festival 2011 was Remixed, creating new works by women based off of classical texts by women. We presented five new works using/adapting/sampling/re-envisioning . . . remixing classical plays written by women from Hrosvita (c. 935 to c. 1002) through 1800. The Alcyone Festival 2011 celebrated both new and (really) old writers and showed how the lineage of female playwrights over the past thousand years can inspire and inform contemporary audiences and artists.
The Alcyone Festival 2012 will feature new works in translation by Mexican women.
About Halcyon:
Mission- We are fiercely committed to making the stage as diverse as the city of Chicago; presenting new voices from inadequately represented communities, as well as recasting classic works to showcase their contemporary relevance.
About- Halcyon Theatre was formed to connect people, transform our borders and ascend towards a more just union. We strive to make incredible theatre from stories around the world, to help show our world in new ways, and rediscover the individual beauty of people from our global community. Our artistic philosophy is driven by our continuing belief that at every point of human history where there has been an explosion of artistic creativity, it has happened when different cultures and traditions have intersected and informed each other. If every artist working with an organization looks and thinks the same, it is difficult for them to grow. A homogeneous group produces homogeneous art. Striving for artistic excellence with artists of varied cultural backgrounds and training is at the forefront of everything we do.
# # # # MEDIA ALERT * MEDIA ALERT * MEDIA ALERT * MEDIA ALERT
WHAT: Halcyon Theatre Announces The Fifth Annual Alcyone Festival Featuring New Works by Mexican Women.
WHERE: The Alcyone Festival 2012 will be performed at the Greenhouse Theatre Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
WHEN: The Alcyone Festival 2012 will play Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, and Sundays at 2:30, in rotating rep.
ADMISSION: $12-20 for single tickets. Festival Passes are available for $75.
BOX OFFICE: Tickets are available through the Greenhouse Theater box office at greenhousetheater.org or at 773.404.7336.
FEATURING:
A Lover’s Dismantling: Fragments of a Scenic Discourse
by Elena Guiochins, translation by Andy Bragen
Directed by Alex Gualino
"There are only two kinds of thoughts: memories and imagination. This story of two couples finding, living, and losing love wanders whimsically through time, distance, dreams, and heartbreak. "
Freud Skating
by Sabina Berman, translation by Kirsten F. Nigro
Directed by Henry Godinez
"A dramatic rewriting of the famous case of Freud's "Dora."
Two Dead Guys and a Banjo: A Story of Mourning
by Mariana Hartasánchez, translation by Henry Guzmán
Directed by Ebony Joy
"When a magician's hand escapes and seduces a psychiatrist, two fathers return from the dead in a battle of rhetoric and illusion over the living. "
The Tip of the Iceberg
by Bea Carmina, translation by Caridad Svich
Directed by Annelise Moffit
"A couple on the skids, a woman having a nervous breakdown, a serial killer on the prowl and a girl holding onto a mewling cat make up the darkly, comic poetically ferocious world of The Tip of the Iceberg."
*exact lineup subject to change
WEBSITE: halcyontheatre.org ; halcyontheatre.org/alcyone12
CONTACT: Jenn Adams
Associate Artistic Director, Halcyon Theatre
773.413.0454
press@halcyontheatre.org
halcyontheatre.org
Discrimination Gauntlet Thrown- by our 5-Year Old
The other night, we were watching The Voice, and Tony Jr and Charlotte got into a back-and-forth about who they wanted to win. “I want the girl to win.” “I want the boy to win.” Cute, right?
Then Tony Jr said, “That girl singer is a dirty dump truck.” And even though mostly it was just to goad his sister, it struck me that it was a moment of “Boys are better.”
I know we are going to hear a lot of that. I am sure pretty soon he will learn about cooties, and then he will spend years thinking that girls have them. He will tell Charlotte that girls have them, and then she will know what they are and she will know for years that boys have them. “But we still love you, Mommy and Daddy.”
Tony Jr said that he wanted Tony Lucca to win. So did I, actually, so I did a mental fist bump.
Tony Jr. continued, “Because he has curly hair like me, and his name is Tony, and he has light skin like me.”
“Um...” I said.
Tony Jr. added, “That other guy I don’t want to win, because he is bald, and he doesn’t have light skin like me, he has dark skin, and...”
I felt my heart fall into my knees. I looked at Tony Sr, and I could tell he was feeling the same way.
I was floored. I mean, I understand he’s five, but... I guess because we have so many friends from different places, and backgrounds, and countries, and cultures that are in our house and our lives, and they are people that he is closer to than either of his parent’s families in many ways, I just hoped that we would breeze right past this.
I think at first we both felt an urgency to “correct” things. But how do you do that without turning it into something that will loom in the mind of a 5 year old, making it turn into something even bigger for him because it was such a big deal for us? If we take his thumb out of his mouth he instinctively puts it right back in, laughing at (and more importantly, filing away) his ability to get our goat.
If a 5 year old likes something, if something is a Yes, that makes the other thing a No. If a 5 year old likes something, than he hates the other thing. Everything is about love and hate all the time. If Tony Sr or I take more than 2 minutes to go see his new cool dance move, than “Mommy and Daddy hate me.”
So for him, in that moment that had nothing to do with the other moments in his life, curly-haired, light-skinned Tony Lucca was awesome, and that meant that bald, dark-skinned Jermaine Paul was stupid and gross. And that girl, Juliette Simms, was a dirty dump truck.
Today, with time to process it, I could bring myself into his mind. Of course, he sees an adult man on tv that looks like him, and he thinks “He looks like me. I could be him when I grow up. That is cool.” Every time Tony Jr meets someone named Tony, or sees someone with reddish-brown curly hair, he feels an instant connection. Hell, I’ve done the same thing...
My world was a lot different before J-Lo taught people to embrace the curvy figure. I used to be thought of, all through elementary up through high school, as fat and gross because of my curves. J-Lo changed other people’s perception about what is beautiful, and while I always thought I was beautiful, I saw myself in her and instantly felt sexier. I even got the nickname J-Lo given to me at work (and J-Le, and later J-La when I got married...)
And it is true for all kids, I think. I loved the picture of President Obama letting a young boy rub his hair. Kids see a grown up that looks like them and that person becomes someone that they look up too, and that an african american boy can look at Obama and say "That could be me someday." Young African-Americans can look at him and see their future in him.
And yet, of course, it isn’t that easy. Because if we don’t use this opportunity- and I do think of it as an opportunity- to help him understand the complexity of it, if we don’t give him opportunities to think about the shallowness of that kind of thinking, then he will think that that is the RIGHT way of thinking...
So I could definitely use some help here. Parents out there- what do you say to your kids? How do you keep the dialogue open so that we are helping create a future where these thoughts don’t stay with our kids through their whole lives? One of the first things babies learn is how to recognize difference. So how do we keep this being a positive aspect of their growth that will be an instrument to see difference as a beautiful thing instead of as a tool for discrimination?
One of the first things I did was say, “You know who else has a different skin color than you? Mommy. And Daddy. And Charlotte. Look.” And we all put our arms up next to each other so we could see the difference. Right? Wrong? I have no idea, but I was thinking of that picture of the skin-colored crayons that came out on Facebook and the impression that it left on me. It seemed like something immediate that he could see and touch and feel.
This morning we watched an episode of Strawberry Shortcake where she tells her cat, Custard, that life would be “Berry, berry boring” if everyone had whiskers and a tail.
And we had serious conversations too, Tony Sr with him last night and me today on the way home from the store, about how it is not okay to not like someone because their skin is a different color of because they are a girl. But it is such a delicate thing to do, to give him the tools and knowledge without giving him a weapon to use as an instigator...
Everyone always talks about their surprise at how young kids are when they bring things up... and it is true. And if you don’t acknowledge it, I think it leaves an imprint that will stay when they are 15. And 35. And 60. And then, how do things ever get better?
So I could definitely use some help here. Parents out there- what do you say to your kids? How do you keep the dialogue open? So that these thoughts don’t stay with our kids through their whole lives? One of the first things babies learn is how to recognize difference. So how do we help our children use this positive aspect of their growth as an instrument to see difference as a beautiful thing, instead of allowing it to grow into (even unintentionally) as a tool for discrimination?
Things We Love: Raw Music International: Kisumu Mixtape
One of the things we decided to try as part of the Ceyx Series is to include more music as part of the breaks.
Last night's ceyx featured beats from Tony Bruno and at intermission we played cuts from this mixtape: "17 underground classics from Kisumu, Kenya, ranging from traditional guitar to blunted ass reggae to innovative hip hop."
Check it out.
Tlaloc’s 101 F*ck Yeah Plays
A couple of months ago, a blogger posted a list of 101 (supposedly) kick-ass plays.
I looked at the list and it absolutely bored me to death. That is to say, if a theater company had a 100-play season and these were the plays they had chosen, about half of them I would've just passed on. Some of the them were great. Many were not. Nearly all of them were written exclusively by dead, Anglo, male writers.
It is interesting to note that, at this moment, many regional and LORT theater's are announcing their season - and if you were to combine their selections, it would have resembled this list.
It may be too late to throw my hat it, but I created my own list. This list was created by the CORAJE (it's a Spanish word that really doesn't have an English equivalent) I was feeling about what people seem to believe is "kick-ass".
"Kick-ass" is a American term - and thusly, many of the plays here are and by American writers. But I also want to reclaim "Kick-ass" in the name of diversity, of feminism, and other underrepresented voices in the theater.
You will find that the many of the Greeks and Shakespeare are not on this list - however some remain and other plays are inspired by those works. It is my belief that contemporary works that allude to or are inspired by the classisc are often the best bridge to the original works. Because I'm professional director as well as an educator, this would be a list I would give a freshman in college and tell them, "This is a list of 101 plays you must read ... before you I hand you your degree".
There are some personal tastes reflected in this initial list. You will not find Six Characters nor No Exit on this list - because I can't stand them personally. And you will not find any Restoration plays here - no one has been able to convince me they're any good, and I've never seen a good production of them ... yet.
So here is my list. It's a list every artistic director, literary office, actors, directors, dramaturgs and educators should know about. Or, like I said earlier, its a list I would give to the prospective theater student as they begin their journey.
And when they graduate - I am going to hand them the next 101 plays and say, "Go to."
Any theatres that might be reading, these are also plays you should be looking at.
Tlaloc’s 101 F*ck Yeah Plays
1. Accidental Death of an Anarchist
2. Alchemy of Desire/Dead Man’s Blues
3. American Buffalo
4. Angels in America, Part I
5. Arcadia
6. The Beauty Queen of Leenane
7. The Blacks
8. Blasted
9. Blood Knot
10. Blood Wedding
11. blu
12. The Brothers Size
13. Buried Child
14. The Chairs
15. The Cherry Orchard
16. Cloud Tectonics
17. The Colored Museum
18. The Conduct of Life
19. The Cripple of Inishmann
20. Death & The Maiden
21. Death of a Salesman
22. The Devils (Egloff)
23. A Doll’s House
24. The Dumb Waiter
25. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
26. Electricidad
27. The Emperor Jones
28. Endgame
29. The Exonerated
30. F.O.B.
31. Fires in the Mirror
32. Fool for Love
33. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide…
34. Fuente Ovejuna
35. Funnyhouse of a Negro
36. The Good Person of Szechuan
37. The Great White Hope
38. Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
39. “The Hairy Ape”
40. Happy Days
41. Hedda Gabler
42. Heroes & Saints
43. The House of Bernarda Alba
44. The Homecoming
45. Insurrection: Holding History
46. Jesus Hopped the “A” Train
47. Joe Turner’s Come & Gone
48. Kaspar (Handke)
49. King Hedley II
50. Kiss of the Spider Woman (Puig)
51. Krapp’s Last Tape
52. A Lie of the Mind
53. Life is a Dream
54. Look Back in Anger
55. Loot
56. Lorca in a Green Dress
57. M. Butterfly
58. Mad Forest
59. Marat/Sade
60. The Marriage of Figaro (Beaumarchais)
61. “Master Harold”…and the Boys
62. The Misanthrope
63. Miss Julie
64. Mother Courage and Her Children
65. Mud
66. Oedipus El Rey
67. Playboy of the Western World
68. Porcelain (Yew)
69. Pygmalion
70. A Raisin In The Sun
71. The Rover
72. Ruined
73. Santos & Santos
74. Saturday Night, Sunday Morning
75. The Servant of Two Masters
76. Short Eyes
77. Six Degrees of Separation
78. Skin (Iizuka)
79. Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven
80. Spring Awakening
81. Statements After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act
82. Still Life
83. Streamers
84. A Streetcar Named Desire
85. That Pretty, Pretty; or The Rape Play
86. Through the Leaves
87. Topdog/Underdog
88. Translations
89. Trial by Water (Nguyen)
90. The Trickster of Seville (Molina)
91. Trifles
92. Trouble In Mind
93. Under Milkwood
94. The Visit
95. Waiting for Godot
96. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
97. Woyzeck
98. Yankee Dawg You Die
99. Yellowman
100. The Zoo Story
101. Zoot Suit
EXTRA CREDIT
Bengal Tiger in a Bagdad Zoo
Blue/Orange
Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue
Equivocation
Exit, Pursued By A Bear
Force Continuum
Kita y Fernanda
Last of the Suns
Or,
Vilna’s Got A Golem
Things We Love: Crave You - TapTronic Remix
"TapTronic is a progressive fusion of Irish dance and electronic music."
(via Kottke.org)
Things We Love: RvD2
This one's from Derrick.
Summer Day Camp 2012
Halcyon Theatre is excited to offer the first session of our youth summer theatre camp! Kids will have 3 classes a day (drama, music, dance) a day, culminating in a free showcase for the families.
Ages 4-12
Monday, June 18- Saturday, June 30 (no Sundays)
9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Saturday, June 30, would be a longer day, with a showcase that night for families)
$350 per person, or $500 for a family.
Come have fun with us!!!
Register here
Things We Love: Katzenjammer performs "God's Great Duststorm" Live
Fin shared this one.
Things We Love: Hong Yi (aka Red)'s Coffee Painting
Find out more about her on her website, and see more of her work (including other materials) at her portfolio site.
(via Core77)
Things We Love: Old & New - A Project of Biblical Proportions
Contemporary Graphic Design, based on stories from the Bible.
(Proceeds from Old & New print sales will be donated to Blood:Water Mission to provide safe drinking water for the village of Lwala, Kenya.)
Check out the full project here.
(via abduzeedo.com)
One Hundred and Twenty Seconds
This was origionally posted at 2amtheatre.com.
A lot has been said about the Guthrie’s season announcement, and probably a lot more will be. I want to focus on one part of it. But first, I want to say that while I don’t disagree with most of the criticism the Guthrie has worked hard over the last decade or so to foster –I’ve yet to hear anyone I’ve known from Minnesota stand up for Dowling—it should be clearly stated that the Guthrie is not alone.
That was on my mind as I read the transcript from this All Things Considered interview with Guthrie Artistic Director Joe Dowling.
There’s a lot in Dowling’s interview that can be dissected but this paragraph in particular, struck me as patently absurd.
But I think diversity is a very big issue and I’m not certain that we’re all addressing it in a sort of responsible way. The question that’s risen specifically in regards to our season has been about women directors (Tom Crann: and playwrights). Let me address the playwrights first. We’re largely a classics theater – that’s what we do and I may be reading the wrong books but I find it difficult to see – because of social history in the 17th, 18th, 19th and indeed early 20th century – which are termed ‘classic plays’ – women playwrights emerged who would be able to fill large theaters.>
Now that’s changing and it’s changed quite dramatically in the last couple of years and there are now a lot more valuable women playwrights…”
It’s telling that Dowling responds to questions of diversity by primarily focusing on women, or that he doesn’t mention, the name of the “second of the Tarell Alvin pieces.” Or the playwright’s last name. (The Brothers Size and McCraney, respectively.) Even so, his argument about lacking plays, the idea that he can’t find any classic plays by women is ludicrous; there are centuries worth of great plays by men and women from across the globe.
There is no way any argument could be made that a classical theatre can’t find plays to broaden their season beyond exclusively white men–other than he didn’t bother to try.
I stopped and thought about it for a couple minutes. Two. I set a timer for one-hundred twenty seconds. I was curious to see if I could come up with a possible twelve play season, without consulting google or my bookshelf. Here’s what I came up with:
1. Of Śakuntalā… Kālidāsa
2. Dog in the Manger – Lope de Vega
3. Autumn in Han Palace – Ma Zhiyuan
4. De Monfort – Johanna Baillie
5. Las Hijas de Las Flores – Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda
6. Georgia Douglas Johnson’s one-act cycle
7. A Bold Stroke for a Wife – Susanna Centlivre
8. Rachel- Angela W. Grimke
9. A Solid Home – Elena Garro
10. Wine in the Wilderness – Alice Childress
11. Sacrifice – Rabindranath Tagore
12. Emperor of the Moon – Aphra Behn
Now, upon greater reflection, I very well might change some of these plays in a hypothetical season. I don’t expect everyone to know the plays I do. In addition to curating our annual Alcyone Festival, I admittedly have a very different reading list than most. However, I do expect anyone who runs a theatre to have a broad knowledge of classic works. And while salaries are often irrelevant to these types of conversation, I can’t help but mention that Joe Dowling is extraordinarily well compensated for running the Guthrie. At that level of stature and compensation, I do expect a broader knowledge than a general audience, or even most of the field. But that’s not the point.
The point is, I spent one-hundred twenty seconds and came up with twelve plays, none of which are by white dudes. (Okay, maybe one, depending on how you view de Vega.) Surely over the course of season planning Dowling could find one, if he tried. And if he’s not trying, why is he running a classical theatre?
Weight Loss Challenge: Week 5
Just one more week to go in my Weight Loss Challenge. How am I doing? Have I made my 15 pound goal? Did I get the pledges I needed to be able to donate $20 of my own? Read my other blog to find out.
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