When I was growing up, I would watch every award show, every televised concert, everything that included music that I could get my parents to let me watch. And inevitably, when I would watch, I would end up with a huge lump in my throat and tears running down my cheeks. Because I could feel the music pounding in my chest. I could feel the emotion, and I would envision myself being the one up there.

I remember there was one night when I was babysitting, and after the kids went to bed I turned on TV. On PBS was a concert, and even though I didn’t recognize the artist I was transfixed. He was such an incredible story teller, and when they panned to the audience, the whole audience felt like I did sitting on that couch. They heard his words, and felt his voice, and it took them away to a time or place in their life and it was magic. It was James Taylor. That moment made me realize that that was what I wanted to accomplish with my life.

It still happens. Only now... there is always a wistfulness about it, because with everything that I have done and have been doing, music and singing have definitely taken a back burner. I’m not going to act like “oh I’ve been wasting my time blah blah blah” because clearly I NEVER stop working, trying, acting, directing, producing, trying to make a difference, trying to be a good wife, be a good mother, try not to become a huge blimp in the process... but still... what if...?

I think I experienced so much insecurity, and because of that I had some pitch problems when I would try to take risks, would feel scared to have a vision. Because of that, I thought maybe it wasn’t my path. With theatre, I never had that problem. Especially with directing, I have rarely had a problem with insecurity ;)

With acting, about 6 years ago, I started to get stage fright. It manifested itself in losing my lines. And when I got scared about losing my lines, it made me MORE insecure and I lost MORE lines... I gave up acting. For years. And then came Trickster. And after the first rehearsal, I never had stage fright, I never had insecurity; I found grounding, I found my voice.

What if...?

What if I gave myself permission to soar, permission to fail, permission to try? So that’s what I am going to do.

I’m going to work on 4 songs, and perform them at Ceyx Series in July. I’ve sung a million times, but I have never put myself out there and said, “Here I am and here’s my soul.” And until I do, it will always be... “What if?”

This video, called SOLIPSIST, was brought to my attention by a Facebook friend. It's a beautifully done short film. In general I just think it is so cool, but it hit home especially because we have been having a lot of conversations with Tony Jr. lately about The Big Bang, the Sun's solar flare, Earth, comets and asteroids, and of course the ever-favorite topic of his, death.  I wanted to share it, and also the "Making of" video the director, Andrew Huang, did for it...

ENJOY!

SOLIPSIST from Andrew Huang on Vimeo.

SOLIPSIST - Making Of from Andrew Huang on Vimeo.

As I was cleaning up from baking my bread tonight, my thought process was like one of those cartoons where the fairies jump from one stone in the water to another. It started with bricks.

I read in my bread book, Bread Alone (a fantastic Christmas present from my man), that you can use red house bricks to create your bread oven. SO I went out in the yard, got some, washed em, seasoned em by baking em a few times, and cooked on em. It’s cool.

As I was cleaning up from baking my bread tonight, I smelled the bread baking, empowered by the smell of a brick hearth. And I thought “When we get our own house, I would love a brick kitchen.” I imagined myself baking in it, covered in flour, smelling like bread. Then I realized that the kitchen in my mind was my great-grandmother’s actual kitchen, in the house that I have always wanted to live in.

Just then Tony walked in, because he wanted to read to me from an article that he was reading.

As I was cleaning up from baking my bread tonight, I smelled the bread baking, empowered by the smell of a brick hearth, and Tony read to me thoughts from Caridad Svich about Landscape Playwrights vs. Inside Playwrights, and Kushner saying about Maria Irene Fornes, “Every time I listen to Fornes, or read or see one of her plays, I feel this: she breathes, has always breathed, a finer, purer, sharper air.”

As I was cleaning up from baking my bread tonight, I was covered with flour and smelling my great-grandmother’s kitchen, and listening to my life/art partner talk about theatre, and the way it moves through space and time the way that atoms and stars move through space and time. It felt like the way artists in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s would sit in coffee shops smoking and talking about art, politics, the taste of a good wine. Only cigarettes were replaced with bread. A good trade.

We talked a little more, and the talk of theatre and playwriting intermingled with talk of Chaos Theory and how if gravity had been 1 fraction of an iota less or more, there would be no universe. The ridged structure of the cosmos allows for infinite possibilities. Like bread. There is a rigid structure. There is even an equation for what temperature to make the water that mixes with the yeast. But every loaf is unique, every loaf is alive. Every loaf stands on the brink of greatness or disaster. And there are so many ways to influence the outcome.

There is a really cool moment that happens to me sometimes when I direct a play. It is a moment of, “Wow. This is going to be something special!” It doesn’t always happen with a show, and shows can be great without getting that feeling, but when it happens it is a moment of magic. It happens to me also when I am kneading the dough for my bread. I can feel in the dough when it is going to be something special. The bread can be good without feeling that moment, but it means a more methodical, patient, moment-to-moment process to make sure you keep that bread on the side of greatness and not disaster.

As I was cleaning up from baking my bread tonight, I realized that like the yeast that ignites differently the moment it hits the cold-hot-tepid-spring-tap water, a story can be sparked from a picture, a smell, a town, a glance. Like the rigid idea we have of what a play is, so many of us think only of Wonder Bread when we think of a sandwich- mass-produced, always the same taste, stuck in the era of Donna Reed and Leave it to Beaver... But there are thousands of kinds of bread, with different flourishes, additions, flavors, histories. And even so, at the end of the day, all you really need is flour, water, yeast, and the ability to listen and be patient.

I have been so nervous all week. I didn’t realize it at the time- I was also sick, so I think that acted as a scapegoat for my feelings- but before yesterday, I don’t know if I had made eye contact with Tony Sr. in the last 7 days! Yesterday was our first get-together with our new Artists-in-Residence, following our first session of The Compass Lab. PLUS, Tony decided that for the first session of the lab we should present a monologue from “Cymbeline” just to show where each of us is at. It was a morning that could have Rocked or Fizzled in my mind, and I was nervous.

It Rocked. Not in that “OhmyGodthatwasalifechangingpivotalmoment” kind-of way, but in a “Icanreallyseethebeginningsofanamazingyearandfuture” kind-of way.

The Lab was a great beginning. Everyone was on the same page, it felt like, in terms of being nervous but excited. The... very COLD...air was filled with openness and anticipation of what was going to happen. There were Company Members, Artists-in-Residence, and Guest Artists. There were people who had a lot of experience with Shakespeare, and people who have never done a Shakespearean monologue before but were ready to go balls out to show where they were at. I learned so much.

Then we had lunch at our house for Halcyon Company and A-I-R’s. I got to serve my homemade bread, which is my new passion, and everyone shared food and thoughts and laughed at how many cupcakes Charlotte and Tony Jr. ate... and then we re-introduced ourselves since there were new people there, and I asked everyone to talk about where they want to go, what they love about theatre in the world, and why Halcyon is the place they felt drawn to to do it. I was nervous that the last part of the question was going to sound self-serving, but that wasn’t my intention. Not everyone was at the same interview session, and my hope was that the people who hadn’t met before today would get to know about each other what we had learned at their interviews. It was invigorating and exciting and made me feel even more humble and passionate about the way I hope Halcyon can change the world.

You may not see it for a bit- a lot of it will be internal while we get to know each other and learn and grow- but this is going to be an amazing year for Halcyon, and for me personally. I hope you will read about it through the Company Member and Artist-in-Residence blogs, and through coming to Ceyx Series events. And when we are ready... I think these artists, who I am so excited to be getting to know, are gonna knock your socks off!

Clint Belton in A Shroud for Lazarus

originally posted at the DCA Theater's blog on 10/11/11

When Coya Paz and Halcyon Theatre started working together to create The Americans a year and a half ago, I joined as Assistant Director because Coya works in a style that I have never done before and I wanted to learn more about it, and because she was going out of town and would need a director to take over when she left. I knew a little about what to expect, but not much.

It was a fascinating process- the first part of the rehearsal process was so focused on each of us and people outside of the rehearsal room that it didn’t feel like we were rehearsing for a play. “Everyone stand on one side of the room. Now, think of the room as a scale from 1 to 10. Now, stand on the scale in accordance to the questions I ask. #1- How American are you?”

Throughout the weeks, I changed. My opinions became stronger. My social consciousness grew. I had a deeper understanding of what it meant to be from this country as opposed to living in this country, to be in America as opposed to being American. My growing frustration at the way that color influences people’s prejudice grew (for example, who is getting to get arrested by immigration, the Hispanic girl who is working in the restaurant or the Irish girl working at the same restaurant?), but also I developed a frustration at the labels that were thrown about to describe Americans that were obviously aimed at the White middle class, because I am white middle class, and I am not who was being talked about. It gave me a need to look at even more of the whole picture than I already was. Fortunately, I was in exactly the right place to learn and express my point of view!

And my words were put in the show! How strange and fun it felt when I heard the actors saying lines that had come out of MY brain! I’m not a writer!

When The Americans was accepted as part of the DCA Theater Incubator Series, I couldn’t be a part of it because I was directing another show. I got to attend one rehearsal, that’s it… I was so excited to see not only how much more had been added, but how the existing parts had been fleshed out and enhanced, and selfishly I was proud to see my words had been kept in many places.

I didn’t get to see the staged reading at the DCA Studio Theater, but I did get to see it as an inaugural production at the Arts Center, Logan Square – Avondale. It wasn’t produced by Halcyon in any way, which was such a strange and bittersweet feeling… it was the first time Halcyon has been a part of creating something and then watched and supported as it went on to be produced without us. I felt pride in what Coya had created and our role in it, pride at what the actors had brought to it, and very grateful to DCA Theater for having a place where work like that can be grown.

The Americans had a profound effect on the way I think about our society and the way that art can be an influence and an instrument in social change. I am so glad that I got to watch it bloom, through its first staged reading, through the Incubator Series, and into a thought-provoking piece of theatre that puts a mirror up to our lives and our perceptions about who we are.

Written by E.M. Lewis. Find the original post here.

In the last year, I've had two opportunities to practice the art of adaptation.  They were my first tries, and I learned a lot as I went along.  The first thing I learned was that any adaptation is a sort of marriage of two minds -- and like any marriage, though it can be extremely rewarding, it ain't easy.

• I read the source material.
• I thought about the source material.
• I came up with half a dozen possible story scenarios, and then discussed them with the director and lead writer.
• For the three favorites, I came up with rough outlines.
• With the director, we chose one scenario to be my project.
• After discussions with the director and head writers, I refined the outline, changing some key features to make sure it fulfilled the needs of the over-all project.
• Upon turning in the refined outline, I was paid the first of two installments for my work on the project.
• I left for Oregon -- and began to write the script.
• There was angst and wrestling with the source material and some tearing out of hair.  But doesn't all writing feel this way sometimes?  There were also moments when it was fun and fantastic.  I liked the characters I'd created.
• I turned in my first draft.
• I took an hour's worth of notes on the first draft over the phone, scribbling as fast as I could.
• I struggled to figure out the notes, and how to implement them.
• I turned in the second draft.
• I took another hour's worth of notes on the second draft.  But I'd clearly been writing in the right direction, despite that seeming evidence to the contrary.
• I struggled to figure out the notes and implement them.
• I turned in my final draft.  (We were contracted for three.)
• I was paid the final check for my work.

Shotgun Harriet opens today at 2:30!

J. Nicole Brooks is an actor, playwright, director, blogger and demigod. In 2007 her debut play Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten (2007 Joseph Jefferson Award Nomination) was commissioned & produced by the Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago to critical acclaim. Other productions include Kamala, Masterclass (2007) for The Siddhartha Project commissioned & produced by Collaboraction Theatre, and Fedra Queen of Haiti (2009 Black Theatre Alliance Award) commissioned & produced by Lookingglass Theatre Company. She was recipient of the Black Theatre Alliance Award Best Actress 2010, LA Ovation Award Best Featured Actress 2008, and is a TCG Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship (Round 4). She is an ensemble member with Lookingglass Theatre and an associate with Collaboraction. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she acts, writes and tosses grenades at those who block her path. For more Tom Foolery visit www.doctaslick.blogspot.com

Caridad Svich is a playwright, translator, songwriter & editor of Cuban-Spanish-Argentine-Croatian descent. She was profiled in the July/August 2009 issue of American Theatre magazine. She’s received, among others, the 2009 Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, a Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Bunting fellowship, TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist Grant, short-listed three times for the PEN USA-West Award in Drama and is an entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latino Literature. She holds an MFA in Theatre-Playwriting from UCSD. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, contributing editor of TheatreForum, associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge/UK), affiliate artist of New Georges, and founder of NoPassport theatre alliance and press. She is currently at work on 4 new plays: A Little Story, In Your Arms, For Love (freely inspired by Euripides’ Alcestis) and stage adaptation of Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of the Butterflies, which is scheduled to premiere February 2011 in NYC.

2009-2010 world premieres: stage adaptation of Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits at Repertorio Espanol/NY (winner of 7 HOLA Awards including Outstanding Achievment in Playwriting, and 3 Premios ACE) under Jose Zayas’ direction; it will receive regional premieres at Denver Theatre Center in Denver/CO and Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis/MN in fall 2010, and is published in TheatreForum No. 35 journal. Instructions for Breathing at Passage Theatre/NJ under Daniella Topol’s direction, and Wreckage at Crowded Fire Theatre/CA. Mid-west premiere of 12 Ophelias at TrapDoor Theatre/IL, and developmental premiere of new play commission from Mark Wing-Davey and NYU’s Graduate Acting Program entitled Rift at Tisch School of the Arts December 2009 under Seret Scott’s direction. Her translation of Alfredo Hinojosa’s Deserts was featured in the Goodman Theatre’s 2010 Latino Theatre Festival, and her translation of Angels Aymar’s Solavaya was featured in the 2010 Prelude Festival/Spotlight Catalonia at Martin E Segal Theatre Center/CUNY Graduate Center. Spanish-language premieres abroad: The House of the Spirits at Teatro Mori Parque Arauco in Santiago, Chile; Iphigenia…a rave fable at Teatro Mexico in Quito, Ecuador, and Any Place But Here in Havana, Cuba.

Other recent work and key career credits: adaptation/translation of Lope de Vega’s comedy The Labyrinth of Desire at Miracle Theatre/OR; 12 Ophelias in a site-responsive Woodshed Collective production at McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn; The Tropic of X at ARTheater-Cologne (Germany); Thrush at Salvage Vanguard Theatre/TX; US adaptation of the Serbian dark comedy Huddersfield as a TUTA production at Victory Gardens Theatre/IL, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable) at 7 Stages/GA, and Son of Semele/CA; translation of Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba at Pearl Theatre/NY; multimedia collaboration The Booth Variations at 59 East 59th Street Theatre/NY and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man’s Blues at Cincinnati Playhouse (Rosenthal New Play Prize) under Lisa Peterson’s direction, Any Place But Here at Theater for the New City/NY under Maria Irene Fornes’ direction, Fugitive Pieces at Kitchen Dog Theater/TX, and Salvage Vanguard Theatre/TX. Additional Awards/Residencies: Whitfield Cook Award, National Latino Playwriting Award, NEA/TCG Residency at Mark Taper Forum Theatre,

International: Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; Royal Court Theatre, Actors Touring Company/UK at the Euripides’ Festival in Monodendri, Greece. She’s taught at Yale School of Drama, Bard College, Bennington College, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, UCSD, University of Rochester, and more. Archives: University of Miami Cuban/Latino Digital Archive/FL, and the Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute, Ohio State University. Her works may be accessed at the Latina Literature and Women’s Drama collections of www.alexanderstreetpress.com.
                             

** You can also visit the original post on Ellen's website.

• If you're in Chicago, please come and see the festival!  Tickets are available here.
• If you produce plays, and are curious about our adventures in adaptation, ask us for a copy of our work.  I'm sure all of us playwrights would be glad to talk with you about future productions of these plays that started at the Alcyone Festival.  E-mail Tony for our contact information, or feel free to contact us directly.
• If you want to help Halcyon Theater to produce work by women playwrights, click here to make a donation.  Every cent will go to making this festival happen -- and letting women's voices be heard.  You have the power to tip the scale.  YOU can make a difference.

**Next up, in Ellen's Alcyone 2011 Blog Post, Part II:  Wrestling with our Forebears -- The Art of Adaptation! followed by Part III:  STRONG VOICE -- Faith, Heroes and Boldness