Language, Logs & Love

The first production of Soho’ Rep’s 2010-11 season, Orange, Hat & Grace, written by Gregory Moss and directed by Sarah Benson, was originally developed during the organization’s own Writer/Director lab. This world premiere is an excellent rendering of an original new play, and will make for an engaging evening for fans of experimental plays and those who are looking for an alternative to conventional realism. Set in a rural cabin in the woods, Orange, Hat & Grace describes the courtship of Orange by Hat, a younger man, and charts the progression of their relationship. Orange is haunted by Grace, the daughter she abandoned as an infant years earlier.

However, the life of the play does not lie in its plot or characters, but in the language that they speak and the world they construct from it on a moment by moment basis. The characters share and teach each other words as they build the relationships that bind them together. Hat’s favorite word, “hep,” acquires meaning as he “woos” Orange, who gradually becomes accustomed to it as she does to him. Orange teaches Hat the words for various types of trees and their leaves, and tries to teach him to stop using curse words. Eventually, Hat teaches new words to Grace, an activity that in itself generates conflict between him and Orange. The script’s wordplay and rhythms are mesmerizing, and the best way to enjoy the play is to focus on each new line as it emerges, as the characters do.

The only part of Moss’ script that doesn’t really work is the ending, which forces the question of the nature of Grace’s reality (“real” person, ghost, figment of imagination?) into stark focus. This question isn’t relevant in a world that associates itself into existence on a moment by moment basis, and feels like an attempt to impose closure on a work that would have been better left to evolve in a more unexpected direction.

Stephanie Roth Haberle is captivating as Orange, and her nuanced performance as this complex, contradictory character anchors the production. Mathew Maher is similarly excellent as Hat, presenting him as aggressive and vulnerable in turn. The lead characters’ intense need for each other is evident from their first meeting, and the high stakes the actors bring lend their verbal exchanges great energy, and often humor. Grace’s motivations are never clear, but Reyna de Courcy does a credible job portraying the damaged, spectral figure.

The set design, by Rachel Hauck, reads like an elaborate and minutely rendered joke that only becomes funnier as the show progresses. As the characters constantly announce their locations and actions and describe their surroundings, the script’s actual need for a high-budget set is nonexistant. “Whatchu doing? Orange asks in one early scene. “Break off a piece a wood,” Hat responds, as he does so. Or,“Chop chop chop. Wonder what I look like chopping wood,” Hat says later, swinging a highly realistic ax into an almost excessively detailed, large log. Yet, the audience is presented with Orange’s entire one-room cabin, featuring suitably weathered wooden furniture and even a cast-iron stove.

The props, designed by Michelle Davis, are in a vein similar to that of the set, and successful for the same reasons. The costumes, by David Hyman, are simple, yet effectively place the characters in a dreamlike version of pioneer days, complete with buttoned-up long undewear. Matt Frey’s lighting design includes bare bulbs that assist in conveying scene changes as well as atmosphere. Sarah Benson’s staging makes excellent use of the range of playing spaces and possibilities opened by the script and set.

Adventurous theatergoers will enjoy Orange, Hat & Grace, and the unusual opportunity of seeing such a polished production of such an offbeat and entertaining script.

Not Cool Enough for the Obies

After having covered the Obie Awards for the past three years, offoffonline has been denied a press pass to the 2010 event, to be held this Monday, May 17, at Webster Hall.

“The management of the Voice has chosen to deemphasize online coverage of this year’s awards,” explains press representative Gail Parenteau, “due to the large number of blogs that are currently discussing New York theater. If you really want to cover the event, you can buy a $25 ticket.”

This intriguing change of position raises a number of questions.

Is it possible that Village Voice Media, having already antagonized numerous members of its own news staff upon assuming management of the paper in January 2006, is now seeking to alienate journalists affiliated with other alternative publications?

An alternate explanation is that the Voice truly does feel threatened by the expansion of online arts coverage, and, rather than fortifying its own contributions, is seeking to weaken perceived competition.

It is no secret that the print media has been hard hit by the recession. On one hand, it’s hard to blame the Voice for attempting to raise obviously needed funds by selling the privilege of writing about its flagship annual event. On the other, it’s still incredibly tacky.


Addendum
After a second conversation with Ms. Parenteau, I have come to understand that her initial intentions were not to snub offoffonline or online media outlets as specifically as my article suggests. In fact, due to the scarcity of press passes for this year’s event, the suggestion to purchase tickets was made to other publications as well.

Facing the Storm

In her 1935 essay “Plays,” Gertrude Stein defines four categories of time that coincide in a theatrical performance: time for the audience members, time for the actors onstage, time inside the playwright’s head, and time taking place outside her “window,” in the world the playwright observes as she writes. Young Jean Lee’s Lear makes use of these four time frames and jarring shifts among them to probe key themes from Shakespeare’s play, such as filial love, mortality, loss, and justice, updated to the realities of 21st century American experience. Lear’s plot picks up at the point in the original story following Gloucester’s being blinded and sent out to join Lear in the raging storm. Regan (April Matthis), Goneril (Okwui Okpokwasili), Edgar (Paul Lazar) and Edmund (Pete Simpson) grapple with the emotional aftermath of rejecting and essentially murdering their respective fathers, as well as the more mundane challenges of living with their own imperfections and getting along with each other. Cordelia (Amelia Workman) eventually joins them, having abandoned her failing marriage with the King of France.

Lear concludes with two much shorter segments, one consisting of a staged scene from Sesame Street in which Big Bird struggles to come to terms with Mr. Hooper’s death, and the other in which Simpson directly addresses the audience with a monologue about his (or Lee’s?) difficulty in relating to an aging parent. These free-associative juxtapositions emphasize the discomfort involved in facing the ideas the original Lear concerns.

The play is a deliberate challenge to decipher. The central conflict seems to lie between the currently popular dogma of positive thinking and the experience of a tragic reality of physical decay and psychological alienation. The characters alternate between reciting self-help mantras to cheer themselves up: “I am Cordelia and I am good and there are fine candy-spun things sweetening my dreams,” and relating revelations about how to conquer their circumstances: “I was in the storm looking for Dad, and at first I had negative thoughts but I just kept praying and soul-searching until I became almost euphoric with peace.” Whenever one of them starts to get depressed, the others jump in to chastise that one for not being optimistic enough, and urge them on towards future perfection. Edgar tells Edmund, “You have the raw material to become something great…One should whittle oneself down to one’s most worthy things and then unfurl them like petals in the sun.”

This discussion is timely, coming at a time when our country is grappling with two wars and an economic tragedy of epic proportions, even as figures such as Tony Robbins and Norman Vincent Peale continue urging us to look on the bright side. By the end of the initial Shakespeare section, it has become clear how logically and easily paralysis and self-absorption can result from this philosophy.

As an adaptation, Lear builds itself upon emotions, images, and language that were central to the original Lear, rather than plot and faithful characterization – those attending this production with hopes of seeing anything that is obviously similar to the Shakespeare version are sure to be confused and disappointed. The theatrical nature of the presentation is emphasized throughout. As is the case in a Stein play, the audience is alternately drawn into the scene onstage during dialogue portions and jolted out of it as the actors address the audience, and as the language references shift from the Shakespeare plot to the modern-day world we inhabit. Before the Sesame Street transition, Lazar challenges the audience to leave, even asking the stage manager by name to dim the lights to make it less embarassing for members to do so.

The script’s only possible flaw is that the Shakespearean portion seems to go on a bit longer than it ideally should, and starts to get tedious before the scene shifts. If five minutes or so of this material were cut, the production would most likely benefit.

The set design, by David Evans Morris, and costume design, by Roxana Ramseur, present the audience with an over-the-top opulence that interfaces well with the script and performances. The sides of the throne room are lined with dramatically flickering candles, a nice touch by lighting designer Raquel Davis. The sound design by Matt Tierney offers atmospheric storm sounds at appropriately dramatic moments, and somehow he manages to make the entire house vibrate as if shaken by nearby thunder.

The cast is uniformly stellar. The actors grapple successfully with Lee’s often challenging language and skillfully represent a wide range of emotions, from petulance to despair. The choice of black actresses for the sister roles not only allows these women a formidable opportunity to showcase their talents but also makes the production a more universal comment on modern American society.

It is delightful to see a unique, challenging script given the resources to live up to its potential. The sold-out run has already extended twice – get your tickets for the last week while you still can.

offoffonline Congratulates 2009 IT Awards Recipients

On Monday September 21, 2009, the IT Awards (New York Innovative Theatre Awards), together with host Julie Halston, announced the 2009 recipients at the Fifth Annual IT Awards Ceremony at New World Stages.

Highlights included Nilo Cruz's presentation of an Artistic Acheivement Award to Maria Irene Fornes and a screening of footage from a soon-to-be-released documentary about her life and work. Materials for the Arts received a Stewardship Award for their years of providing much-needed supplies to the Off-Off-Broadway theater community.

The Brick Theater, Inc. was awarded this year's Caffe Cino Fellowship Award. Jillian Zeman was presented with the first-ever Outstanding Stage Manager award for her work with Astoria Performing Arts Center's production of Ragtime.

A special shout-out goes to offoffonline Staff Writer Johnna Adams, whose play Angel Eaters was nominated for Outstanding Full-Length Script.

Congratulations to all those whose theatrical achievements and contributions were honored this year. We look forward to seeing more of your work.

For more information about the IT Awards and a complete list of winners, visit their official website www.nyitawards.com.

2009 Obies - Congratulations

The 54th Annual Village Voice OBIE Awards were presented on Monday, May 18, 2009 at a ceremony held at the newly landmarked Webster Hall in Manhattan.

Co-hosted by former OBIE winners Martha Plimpton and Daniel Breaker, the awards were presented by Anne Hathaway, Brian d'Arcy James, Gavin Creel, John Shea, Karen Olivo, Kate Mulgrew, Marc Kudisch and Nilaja Sun.

Highlights included Anne Hathaway's presentation of the Lifetime Acheivement Award to Earle Hyman, and his touching, humorous acceptance speech, in which he detailed his early obsession with dramatic literature and the playwrights and actors who influenced his choice of profession. Ruined, Lynn Nottage's intense examination of rape in the Congo, was named Best New American Play. Several of the production's actors, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, and Russell Gebert Jones, also received performance awards. Stephen Sondheim, whose works have been more commonly seen on Broadway, was awarded a Music and Lyrics Obie for his Off-Broadway musical Road Show and accepted it in person.

The Obie Grants, cash prizes awarded to organizations, went to new Long Island City venue The Chocolate Factory, The Classical Theatre of Harlem and the Lark Play Development Center. HERE Arts Center received the Ross Wetzsteon Award.

A new feature of the ceremony this year was Creative Block, a separate event occuring simultaneously in a separate part of the venue and eventually merging with the Obie after-party, also held at Webster Hall. Tickets to this multidisciplinary arts event were available to the general public for purchase.

Congratulations to all those whose theatrical achievements and contributions were honored this year. We look forward to seeing more of your work.

For more information about the Obie Awards, visit the official website www.obies.villagevoice.com.

The Winners:

Lifetime Achievement Award
Earle Hyman

Best New American Play (includes a cash prize of $1000)
Ruined by Lynn Nottage (Manhattan Theater Club)

Performance
Francois Battiste, The Good Negro (Public Theater)
Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Ruined (Manhattan Theater Club)
Kevin T. Carroll, sustained excellence of performance
Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Ruined (Manhattan Theater Club)
Jonathan Groff, Prayer for My Enemy (Playwrights Horizons) and
The Singing Forest (Public Theater)
Birgit Huppuch, Telephone (Foundry Theatre)
Russell Gebert Jones, Ruined (Manhattan Theater Club)
Aaron Monaghan, The Cripple of Inishmaan (Atlantic Theater Co.)
Sahr Ngaujah, Fela! (37 Arts)
Lorenzo Pisoni, Humor Abuse (Manhattan Theater Club)
James Sugg, Chekhov Lizardbrain (Pig Iron Theatre Company)
John Douglas Thompson, Othello (Theatre for a New Audience)

Music and Lyrics
Stephen Sondheim, Road Show (Public Theater)

Directing
David Cromer, Our Town (Barrow Street Theatre)
Katie Mitchell, The Waves (National Theatre of Great Britain / Lincoln Center Great Performances <"New Visions Series")
Ken Rus Schmoll, Telephone (Foundry Theatre)

Design
Toni-Leslie James, sustained excellence of costume design (w/special reference to Wig Out, Vineyard Theatre)
David Korins, sustained excellence of set design (w/special reference to Why Torture Is Wrong... Public Theater)

Special Citations
Sarah Benson (director) and Louisa Thompson (set designer), Blasted (Soho Rep)
David Esbjornson (director) and Christian Camargo (actor), Hamlet (Theatre for a New Audience)

The Ross Wetzsteon Award (includes a cash prize of $2000)
HERE Arts Center

OBIE Grants ($10,000 divided equally among three theaters)
The Classical Theatre of Harlem
The Chocolate Factory
Lark Play Development Center

Artists at Work - and Play

Virginia Woolf’s one and only play, Freshwater, was written for and performed by her artist friends and family members in her sister Vanessa Bell’s London studio. The Women’s Project and SITI Company have joined forces to present its New York premiere, directed by Anne Bogart. The little-known script presents some real challenges, and the production does not quite rise to meet them. According to the program notes, the presenters’ goal is to bring the audience “delight during these uneasy times,” a perspective justified, in part, by Woolf’s own recollection of the original performance as an “unbuttoned, laughing evening.” Bogart’s direction emphasizes the play’s lightheartedness and wackiness at every opportunity. In her view, and apparently also the producers’, there is no hint of any darkness or purpose to its composition. However, while Freshwater is undeniably both less developed and lighter in tone than many of Woolf’s other works, this interpretation is overly simplified, and the production is the weaker for it.

For one thing, the text does have a clear point: it is about the ascension of the Modernist Bloomsbury Group over its, as of 1935, still considerably more established Romantic-era forebears. “Where shall we live?” the young ingenue Ellen Terry asks her strapping sailor lover. “In Bloomsbury,” he replies, where they will feast on bread and butter, sausages and kippers, and presumably have much better sex lives than Terry has had with her elderly husband. It also probes the conflict between artists’ need for creative introspection and their need for the companionship of other human beings, in order to both generate art and to experience personal happiness. Freshwater’s exploration of these two ideas can be related to those of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and Young Jean Lee’s The Appeal, neither of which could be accurately described as frivolous plays.

In spite of all their efforts, not one of the artist characters in this play succeeds in creating anything from the beginning to the end of the play. Tennyson does nothing but read and reread poems he has already written; his one attempt at new composition is foiled. Watts is confounded by his picture’s central symbol, and Cameron’s photographs are ruined by Terry’s departure, a strong-willed donkey and other factors. In spite of the fact that these artists are supposed to be each other’s closest friends, they are incapable of listening to each other, much less assisting in solving each other’s various crises. The text is full of images of stasis and entrapment. The portrait of Terry is to be of her about to be crushed by a giant foot. The Camerons want to leave for India, but cannot until their coffins arrive – while this was a true incident in the real Camerons’ lives, its inclusion and ongoing repetition is eerie.

The acting style and staging are highly active and physicalized, as is typically the case in a Bogart/SITI production. There are moments when this direction works with the play, in the first act, particularly, when the whirling movements grind to a halt, and the characters stare at each other, grasping for an idea of what to do next, how to move forward with their lives. However, the energy of Freshwater lies primarily in its language, which is lush with imagery and wordplay that are consistently underexplored. If Bogart and her cast had paid as much attention to developing the spoken text as they did to the developing the piece’s physical vocabulary, it would be a much stronger production.

As it is, the actors are absorbed in their mission of presenting the play as if it is the lightest of all possible fictions. Frequently, their efforts are irritating. There are no developed stakes in this world to animate them. The role of teenage Ellen Terry is curiously miscast with a clearly much older actress. While Kelly Maurer does an admirable job of acting suitably girlish, she is a distracting choice. In case any viewers have missed the point that Freshwater is fun, they are hit over the head with anachronistic and wholly inappropriate punk rock music at the play’s conclusion.

On the other hand, the production’s visual design elements do an effective job of transposing a play conceived for an amateur home performance to an Off-Broadway environment. The quilted pastel curtain is a charming touch, and the costumes and wigs convey both the Victorian setting and the play’s inherent oddity. The stage is always well-lit and the lighting assists in creating an outdoor setting for the brief seaside scene.

Fans of Freshwater or Woolf’s other work may want to attend for the purpose of seeing a live performance of this rarely produced play. Fans of experimental theater or language-oriented plays are best off looking elsewhere.

Angel Eaters Among Us

In an era when most theater companies choose to produce works by new writers that are one act – no, wait, ten minutes – wait – in length, substantial props go to Flux Theatre Ensemble for producing all three of Johnna Adams’ full-length plays in her new Angel Eaters Trilogy, not only in the same season, but at the same time. Adams, in turn, deserves credit for daring to compose on such a massive scope - the three plays are diversely inspired by the Oresteia, Christopher Smart’s “Jubilate Agno,” the Christian mythic system, and bird-watching lore. The risks that company and playwright have taken, for the most part, pay off. The Angel Eater curse originates with a family of Native American shamans who ritually eat off the dead bodies of humans and animals in order to reanimate them. When a daughter of the family is captured in conjunction with the Trail of Tears, converts to Christianity and marries an Oklahoma farmer, the curse lies dormant for a generation, only to reawaken in Joann (Marnie Schulenburg), a mentally slow girl growing up during the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Angel Eaters, the first of the three plays, tells her story.

Joann’s life is stark - her father has died, her unwed sister Nola (Tiffany Clementi) is pregnant, and her mother (Catherine Michele Porter) allows the local doctor (Ken Glickfeld) to molest her in exchange for the pittance that keeps the family alive. When a dark angel (Cotton Wright) speaks to Joann, claiming that a God who fails to correct the evil in the world is irresponsible and must be overthrown, Joann struggles to understand whether her growing power is good or evil, and whether she should challenge God’s authority by bringing her father back.

As Joann, Schulenburg is mesmerizing, and all of the acting in this installment is excellent. Director Jessi D. Hill takes full advantage of the staging opportunities afforded by the space and spearheads a unified, compelling production. The atmosphere is moody and strikes just the right balance between realism, fantasy and horror. The issues it probes, such as love, grief, fate, desperation, sibling rivalry, and the battle between good and evil, are deep and universal. All of the human characters in Angel Eaters, except Joann, are flawed, yet sympathetic, and watching Joann succumb to her fate is heartbreaking.

Rattlers skips ahead to the 1970s and chronicles an eventful day in the life of Osley (Jason Paradine), Joann’s now-grown nephew. His former girlfriend Ernelle’s (Amy Lynn Stewart) sister Kate has been brutally murdered, and Ernelle is determined to force an unwilling Osley to resurrect her at any cost. Kate’s mother Mattie (Jane Lincoln Taylor) directs her vengeful efforts in different direction while two men (Matthew Crosby and Richard B. Watson) who loved Kate at different periods of her life reveal themselves as suspects in her murder.

If anything, Rattlers is an even stronger piecer than its prequel. With the mood and the curse’s history already established, Rattlers is free to open in the midst of high action. The potency of loss and the destructive potential of love are explored in triplicate and unwind towards a climax as dramatic as that of <Angel Eaters. Once again, the cast is strong, with Paradine and Watson offering particularly brilliant performances and director Jerry Ruiz sculpting a nuanced and cohesive drama.

8 Little Antichrists shifts to a smouldering Los Angeles 2028. Osley’s grandchildren Melanie (Rebecca McHugh) and Jeremy (Zack Robidas), assisted by a sextet of cloned second cousins, battle demons and their dystopian environment to avert apocalypse and save the world from an octet of newborn antichrists.

In this final episode, the fantastical elements of the Eater curse and the Christian theology previously introduced mix with a variety of science fiction tropes – genetic engineering gone wrong, Big Brother technology eroding privacy, malevolent corporations obstructing justice - as well as film noir, detective stories, Californian culture references, and a cariacatured Disneyland. Combined with numerous new characters and a continuously twisting plot, it is a bit too much to yield a coherent presentation. Four characters – the two female angels and the two Disney prisoners – serve no useful function and are frequently irritating – it is a huge relief when they disappear from the scene. At times the script bogs down in exposition; at other times it glosses over information that is critical to following the complex plot and understanding the workings of unfamiliar technology.

While the script poses undeniable challenges, Kelly O’Donnell’s direction does little to overcome them or to take advantage of the text’s equally undeniable strengths, such as its humor, whimsy and at least a few strong, relatable characters. The pacing is wildly inappropriate – it would have helped greatly to slow down or physically highlight important moments of plot development and to speed through or shift attention away from the nonessential ensemble segments. The wide stage and multiple playing areas the theater offers are not as well utilized here as in the two previous plays, and the blocking is often clumsy. The acting style is incoherent and many moments that could have been either sincere or humourous are rendered cheesy and gag-worthy.

That said, by the time viewers have experienced the first two productions, they will want to find out what happens next and be willing to put up with some nonsense to find out. Candice Holdorf does an admirable job playing not just one but six different clone roles, and August Schulenburg plays Ezekiel with energy and expressiveness. The play’s greatest failing is that it explodes in too many different directions, but a play that goes out this way is still much more interesting to watch than one that never offers any interest in the first place.

Perhaps the most successful aspect of the tri-production is the coherent world that Adams and her collaborators create. Even the characters who never appear onstage are convincingly real, and it is difficult not to care about their fate and the ultimate outcome of this family’s struggles. One of the great pleasures of the fantasy and science fiction genres is the “rules” that these stories develop to govern their otherworldy elements, and the satisfaction of guessing how the protagonists will ultimately manipulate their powers to save the day. It is fascinating to watch the Angel Eaters fall into and climb out of the same traps generation after generation, and ultimately resolve their curse. This particular satisfaction is only possible with a longer, muli-chapterered dramatic structure like the Trilogy’s.

All three plays benefit from surprisingly sophisticated design elements. Lighting designer Jennifer Rathbone ensures that the action is always well-lit and the supernatural elements are strikingly highlighted. Asa Wember’s sound design, consisting of Southern hymns and folk music layered with spooky special effects, is nuanced and enhances the plays’ creepy, fatalistic mood, although some of the choices in the final play, such as the cue associated with the body of God, are distractingly inappropropriate. The main structure of Caleb Levengood’s set remains the same throughout the trilogy, and the broken-down wooden walls and boards are very convincing as farm and ranch buildings in Oklahoma, if less suited for a futuristic LA. Smaller elements such as furniture and props change from play to play, and 8 Little Antichrists makes good use of several television monitors that help to make the transition to the future. The costumes, designed by Emily DeAngelis, are uniformly excellent – the dresses the two sisters wear in Angel Eaters are particularly remarkable in their period suitability and the way that they move with and emphasize the actresses’ gestures and actions. The challenge of numerous actors sprouting horns onstage is admirably met.

Adams and Flux Theatre have created a compelling series with an ambitious vision that will hopefully serve as a model for other brave artists and production companies. Get yourself to the theater for the first two episodes and, if you find yourself hooked, stick around for the third.

Prelude Advances

In the October 2005 issue of American Theatre, Jeffrey Jones published an article entitled "Thinking About Writing About Thinking About New Plays." In his article, Jones makes the point that museums, through audioguides, catalogues and other contextualizing efforts, have generally been successful in turning the public on to modern art. Theaters, in contrast, have made less progress in developing and disseminating a common vocabulary for emerging forms of playwriting and performance, a fact that Jones feels has contributed to difficulties in expanding the market and audience for this type of work.

This year, the curators of Prelude '08 decided to tackle this challenge. By restructuring the five-year-old festival and organizing it around a central theme, Andy Horwitz, Geoffrey Scott and Frank Hentschker produced a festival that not only showcased a cross-section of New York's downtown talent but also generated lively critical discussion about contemporary performance.

The central theme they chose is "Between the Black Box and the White Cube: Performance, Place & Context." The various performances were organized into one of six "exhibits:" Performance Art, Interactive Art, Compositional Performance, Media Performance, New Theatre, and New Plays. At the end of each track, participating artists joined a moderator for a panel discussion in which they conversed and responded to questions about the entire afternoon of work. The conference also featured panels of experts discussing relevant topics such as New York real estate's impact on theater art, touring, and the role of dramaturgy, and a Saturday spotlight session focusing on the work of boundary-pushing Polish playwrights.

For much of the conference, two theaters were in use: the Elebash auditorium and the more intimate Segal Theatre. The spaces in between, including the lobbies and hallways, were put to good use showcasing surprising performances by WaxFactory and Raul Vincent Enriquez. Informative and plentiful signage assisted attendees in following the two-track program and planning their festival experience.

The annual Prelude event originated as a complement to the international programming at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, housed in the CUNY Graduate Center complex. Frank Hentschker, Director of Programs, decided to develop an annual showcase for the work of New York City artists. The initial incarnation featured programming selected by lottery. The second and third editions were co-curated by Hentschker and Sarah Benson, who is now Artistic Director of Soho Rep. Prelude has always served as a valuable opportunity to sample the work of a wide variety of up-and-coming artists working in downtown theater in a single weekend. Previous festivals featured highlights of the upcoming theater season, with each individual reading or workshop performance followed by an artist talkback session.

In 2007, the Prelude co-curatorship passed to Scott and Horwitz. "The plan was always to rotate the curatorship every two years, to allow for fresh perspectives," says Hentschker. For the first time, the conference included an international spotlight, on Japanese performance and playwriting.

Strategic meetings for Prelude 2008 began soon after the 2007 event. The curators decided, based on feedback from previous conferences, to group similar performances and to hold an artistic conversation with all the artists in the group at the end of the set. They decided to overturn a previous Prelude rule that artists and companies that had presented at previous years' events could not be invited to present again. The goal was to show how these groups' work has changed over the years that Prelude has been operating, and to allow the audience to compare newer ensembles with those who have been working for longer periods of time.

Once these decisions was made, Scott and Horwitz reached out to their advisory board for suggestions of potential participants, and began to plan the program. "We also kept talking about what we had been seeing in the past year," explains Scott. "As an artist, I work primarily in the visual art world, and Andy has a lot of connections there too. We kept seeing plays in museums, and discussing the characteristics of museums, theaters, and other performance spaces, how they impacted the art and the audience's experience." Horwitz and Scott share an interest in the work of Tino Segal, a visual artist who creates interactive performance pieces designed to be staged in museums. "We kept asking each other, why do people understand art concepts at museums, but theaters feel they can't present work that is difficult, that people won"t tolerate it?," Horwitz explains. "And why is the museum setting so much more profitable than the theater?"

As the theme emerged, the curators decided to involve a dramaturg, Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, in helping them to further shape the program. "We share an interest in enhancing the role of the dramaturg in this country," Scott said, of himself and Horwitz. "Instead of merely discussing what dramaturgs do, we wanted to show what they can add to a conversation, as more active collaborators."

All of the organizers are pleased with the event. "The brilliant audience played a major role in the success of the event - we had people fly in from Canada, Mexico, Vienna," Hentschker said. "A lot of participating artists and outside artists attended the sessions and contributed strong creative energy. It was a truly special atmosphere."

In upcoming months, discussions and preparations for Prelude 2009 will begin. The curators plan to keep the exhibit format they employed this year, with themes for each day of the conference, and multi-artist panels following several series of related performances. They hope to include a third international spotlight, and repeat the popular opening and closing night parties. Prelude 2008 was the first theater festival in the world that was entirely online in Second Life. The curators hope to continue to work with emerging communications technology and to explore its potential for enhancing dialogue about the theater arts.

Part museum gallery, part academic conference, part festival showcase, Prelude '08�s hybrid model has proven to be a successful medium for intelligently discussing the hybrid theatrical forms that it seeks to highlight. Hopefully, as New York theater artists continue to experiment with their creative work, the Prelude curators and other innovative presenters will continue to build a vocabulary of terms and formats to use in contextualizing and expanding the audience for this cutting-edge work.

For more information, check out the official Prelude website www.preludenyc.org.

Fable in a Factory

13P was founded in 2003 with the intention of enabling each of its member playwrights to see a full production of one of their plays, produced in accordance with their own creative vision for the piece, within a ten-year period of time. Crawl, Fade to White is 13P’s seventh production, the midpoint of the organization’s endeavor, and writer Sheila Callaghan has taken full advantage of her opportunity at the helm. Crawl, Fade to White is a tale of love, relationships, and loss with mythic overtones. Single mother Louise (Carla Harting), struggling to pay for daughter April’s (Jocelyn Kuritsky) college tuition, sells an antique lamp that is her only remaining connection to April’s father, Niko (Shawtane Monroe Bowen), and her own estranged extended family. In the meantime, April and her boyfriend Nolan (Matthew roi Berger) have dropped out of school after burning down a student dorm. They are intercepted by Louise while attempting to break into her house to steal the lamp.

The lamp’s new owners, the quirky, agoraphobic couple Dan (Matthew Lewis) and Fran (Black-Eyed Susan), plan a yard sale to finally rid themselves of mementos of their long-deceased twin children. April and Nolan invade their home, hoping to take back the lamp, and the elderly couple attempt to adopt them. The intermingling of the two households sets off a chain reaction of revelations, confessions and vengeance which climax in an ending that no one expects.

A plot summary, however, does not do justice to the full experience of this play, as much of the meaning arises from the language the characters speak and the images presented onstage. Director Paul Willis does an excellent job grounding the characters in the emotion of each moment while allowing the larger metaphors to operate freely. The acting choices are specific and effective.

The show’s venue, the Ideal Glass Gallery, has never been used to present a play before. In fact, in order to stage Crawl, Fade to White here, 13P had to construct the entire lighting grid from scratch. Their efforts, however, pay off. The cavernous space features irregular walls, exposed brick chimneys, and a pair of spacious balconys with ladders leading to the main floor and staircases leading to the roof. One of the balconies, with its ladder and staircase, is used to great effect as a secondary playing area for the scenes from Louise’s teenage romance with Niko. The industrial architecture and sheer volume of space in which the action is suspended contribute to the feeling of distance between the various characters and their floating sense of loss.

Additional elements of the ambitious set, desiged by Anna Kiraly, include spinning platforms with partial walls and windows that represent the two houses. The light, sound and costume design are all effective and contribute to the show’s coherent visual style.

13P’s Crawl, Fade to White is a superior production of an innovative script. It is unusual enough to interest the veteran theatergoer, accessible to the casual viewer, and not to be missed.

offoffonline Congratulates 2008 IT Award Winners

On Monday, September 22, 2008, the IT Awards (New York Innovative Theatre Awards) announced the 2008 recipients at the Fourth Annual IT Awards Ceremony held at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Energetic host Lisa Kron kept the audience in laughter and high spirits throughout the evening. Blue Man Group performed an opening number and some additional segments.

Highlights included the presentation of the 2008 Artistic Achievement Award to Judith Malina by Olympia Dukakis, the presentation of the 2008 Stewardship Award to Martin and Rochelle Denton by Kirk Wood Bromley, and the presentation of the 2008 Caffe Cino Fellowship Award to Boomerang Theatre Company by Leonard Jacobs and Akia.

Nested inside in the attendees' swag bags were full-size, hard plastic white frisbees. At first, audience members regarded these merely as pleasant keepsakes. However, during his introduction of the Outstanding Ensemble award, presenter Michael Dahlen asked the audience to form a temporary "ensemble" of their own by hurling these frisbees towards the stage en masse. After a pregnant pause, it became clear that he was not kidding, and 300-plus discs sailed through the air, striking the co-presenter squarely in the forehead, yet not, surprisingly, causing any lasting damage to either people or expensive equipment.

The event closed with a moving speech delivered by Edward Albee in conjunction with the presentation of the Outstanding Production of a Play award. He spoke about the original Off-Off-Broadway theaters, the great plays that he saw produced there 50 years ago, and the impact that the movement has had on his own life and artistic work. Finally, he concludes, "There are two theaters in the United States: the commercial theater, and the theater that matters. Tonight, we celebrate the theater that matters."

offoffonline congratulates the award recipients and nominees for their fine artistic work and the event's organizers for their valued support of the Off-Off-Broadway community.

More information about the IT Awards is available on their official website, www.nyitawards.com.

IT Awards Nominations Announced

At 8 pm July 21, 2008, the IT Awards (New York Innovative Theatre Awards) announced its 2008 Award Nominees at an event held at "Our Lady of Pompeii" located at 25 Carmine Street in the West Village. The 2008 Nominees were selected from an adjudication pool of over 3,000 artists. Nominees include 127 individual artists, 47 different productions and 40 theater companies.

In spite of the oppressive July weather, the nomination party was well-attended by nominees, their collaborators and other supporters of Off-Off-Broadway theater.

The 2008 IT Awards Ceremony will take place the evening of September 22, 2008. It was announced at the nomination party that the award ceremony will be opened with a performance by Blue Man Group.

A complete list of the IT Award Nominees can be viewed at the official IT Awards website, www.nyitawards.com, along with a description of the Awards' adjudication process. offoffonline congratulates this year's nominees and looks forward to further honoring their achievements in September.

Obies!

The 53rd Annual Village Voice Obie Awards were presented the evening of May 19, 2008 at Webster Hall, and yes, offoffonline was there.

This year's ceremony marks the return of the Obies to Webster Hall after their sojourn to the NYU Skirball Center. Attendees manifested enthusiasm concerning this change, and Webster Hall, with its flickering red fire lanterns, ornate molding and sometimes-scary relief sculptures, does seem like a particularly appropriate venue for an Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theater event.

Co-hosts for the evening were Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp. Presenters included Jonathan Groff, Priscilla Lopez, Marisa Tomei, Bradley Whitford, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Julie White. Attendees enjoyed a rousing performance of two songs by the Passing Strange ensemble, leading some to dance along by their seats or even in the aisles.

For the first time, this year's Obies have been webcast, and the complete ceremony can be viewed at www.villagevoice.com/obies.

Congratulations to all those whose achievements were honored this year. We look forward to seeing more of your work.

The Winners:

Playwriting
Horton Foote, Dividing The Estate
David Henry Hwang, Yellow Face

Direction
Krzysztof Warlikowski, Krum
David Cromer, Adding Machine

Performance
LisaGay Hamilton, The Ohio State Murders
Kate Mulgrew, Iphigenia 2.0
Francis Jue, Yellow Face
Rebecca Wisocky, Amazons and Their Men
Joel Hatch, Adding Machine
Heidi Schreck, Drum Of The Waves Of Horikawa
Veanne Cox, Sustained Excellence of Performance
Sean McNall, Sustained Excellence of Performance
Ensemble, Passing Strange:(De'Adre Aziza, Daniel Breaker, Eisa Davis, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Stew)

Design
Takeshi Kata, Set - Keith Parham, Lighting Design, Adding Machine
Peter Ksander, Scenic Design, Untitled Mars (This Title May Change)
Ben Katchor, Drawings; John Findlay & Jeff Sugg, Set & Projection; Russell H. Champa, Lighting Design, The Slug Bearers Of Kayrol Island
Jane Greenwood; Sustained Excellence of Costume Design
David Zinn; Sustained Excellence of Costume and Set Design

Special Citations
Nature Theater of Oklahoma, No Dice
David Greenspan, The Argument
Best New Theater Piece: $1,000 Stew, Heidi Rodewald, Annie Dorsen, Passing Strange

The Ross Wetzsteon Award $2,000
Cherry Lane Theatre Mentor Project

Lifetime Achievement Award
Adrienne Kennedy

Obie Grants
Keen Company $5,000
Theater of a Two-Headed Calf $5,000

Lost in Bucharest

What does it mean to come of age in a country where the past weighs heavily on the present, making the future a perpetually surprising concept? Bucharest Calling attempts, without directly discussing Romanian history, to provide the audience with a sense of what it is like to be a young person living in Bucharest today and wrestling with the legacies of the country's communist past. The city's atmosphere is invoked not only through the actors' performances but also by projected images of indoor and outdoor spaces in Bucharest, music, sound effects, and film.

Five characters—a clubber girl, a prostitute, her pimp, a radio show host, and an illegal car racer—chase dreams they find difficult to define, and more difficult to realize. Their lives intertwine in increasingly complex ways, and as the plot progresses, each in turn encourages and frustrates the desires of the other characters. Even for an American who has never visited Romania or any part of Eastern Europe, their situations and decisions are convincing and inspire empathy.

The five actors—Laurentiu Banescu, Katia Pascarlu, Daniel Popa, Isabela Neamtu, and Cosmin Selesi—give intense, nuanced performances. Peca Stefan's script has been well translated from Romanian into English and is honest, poetic, and fierce. Ana Margineanu has done an excellent job coordinating both the actors' work and the piece's design elements into a coherent production. At times, particularly in the middle, the pacing seems a little slow, but this relatively minor flaw may even out in subsequent performances.

The major design feature is the projection of hand-painted, animation-like images onto a screen located behind the stage platform. The images provide easy transitions between scenes and locations and assist in evoking Bucharest. The music, often ostensibly a component of Alex's radio show, is catchy and adds much to the strong sense of atmosphere. Through the device of the radio show, this production features one of the most inventive pre-show announcement segments this viewer has seen.

A fully realized staging of an innovative play, Bucharest Calling is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys quality Off-Off-Broadway theater.

Note: This production is part of the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival.

The Devil Takes Hollywood

Everybody wants to be a star. But is fame worth selling your soul for—literally? Lost in Hollywoodland, or the Slugwoman from Uranus tells the tale of Dex Webster, an aspiring film director who sells his soul to the devil, incarnated as a film producer, in exchange for certain fame and success. His lofty hopes are dimmed, however, by the reality that the giant bug movies he directs are campy schlock whose story lines are stolen from an insect-phobic's diary. While the theme of Hollywood devouring innocent artists is hardly original, the twist of the devil being an actual producer is a new extreme, and Hollywoodland runs with it as far as possible.

The book and lyrics are witty and full of surprising wordplay and entertaining references to popular movies and plays. The upbeat score is fluid and keeps the mood light. The show sets out to remake the traditional Faust story in a manner that is both shamelessly silly and pokes quite a bit of gentle fun at Hollywood and L.A. culture. And just when you think things can't get any zanier, there is an entire song about chicken croquettes.

The cast members possess energy and good voices and generally do credit to the show's composition. Standout performances are given by Molly Alvarez, who deftly manages Daphne's transition from frumpy home economist to sexpot star, and Tamara Zook, who brings a strong stage presence, quirky facial expressions, and perfect comic timing to her role as longtime diva Carlotta.

An effectively diverting experience, Lost in Hollywoodland makes for an entertaining night out, as well as a winning choice to see with visiting relatives.

Note: This production is part of the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival.