Courage for Playwrights and Other Stage Imaginers

Don't despair of the limitations of our medium.  Get some cane hoops.

Garner's 'The Galilean' available online

Pastor and playwright: Chapin Garner

BPT alum Chapin Garner’s Lenten play The Galilean recently became available online through Lillenas Drama (a division of Lillenas Publishing Company), which provides scripts and resources for churches and other religious institutions. Check it out here.

Chapin took the time to answer a few questions about this project for us, during what must be a seriously busy time of year for him…

You’re a religious playwright. I imagine there is quite a demand for plays in this niche.

Certain evangelical churches have theater arts ministries which look for plays to read and produce.  However, biblically-based plays are somewhat hard to come by.  I hope they find a niche somewhere.

Your day job (as pastor at United Church of Christ-Congregational in Norwell) must keep you incredibly busy! Where does playwriting fit into your life?

I am always writing on the side.  Writers, write – right?  It is amazing what a person can accomplish if you don’t watch too much TV.  I have had four plays published, and will have my fourth book published this fall, so writing is extensively woven into my vocation.   

Walking further...

Director Elaine Vaan Hogue

This past summer I had the good fortune to spend several days on Martha’s Vineyard with the playwright, Jon Lipsky. We spent many hours together pouring over his play, Walking the Volcano. I mostly listened and took notes—it was a joy and a gift to hear Jon speak about his play with his characteristic enthusiasm and passion. Jon lived the lives of his characters as he spoke about them. He took me on a journey of the play that I will never forget and one that I will always treasure.

As the actors and I entered the rehearsal process, we were all struck by the transparent humanity of the characters Jon so lovingly and painstakingly created. This vulnerability struck a deep chord in all of us—our hearts were opened and touched. I remember Jon saying that as we journey with the characters in Walking the Volcano, it becomes clear that it is very difficult to be tender in a world that is antagonistic toward tenderness. The couples in these plays engage in risk, combat, the chase, challenge—passions erupt, confrontations are inevitable, pacts are made, betrayal ensues, hearts are broken. In the end, a generosity of spirit triumphs, and the couple in Last Rites reconcile and truly, deeply forgive one another.

We invite you to join in the “dance” of each of these couples and “walk the volcano” with us. Thank you, Jon, for sharing your humanity—your fragility and your fierceness-- with us.

Elaine Vaan Hogue
Director, Walking the Volcano

Savick's 'Car Talk' to open this week

The Suffolk University Theatre Department will present the world premiere of Car Talk: The Musical!!! from March 31-April 3, 2011 at the Modern Theatre.

The new musical – inspired by the hit National Public Radio show of the same name and written and directed by Suffolk University Professor (and BPT alum and frequent director) Wesley Savick – will be the first production created for the new Modern Theatre.

Ray Magliozzi and Tom Magliozzi, co-hosts of NPR’s “Car Talk,” generously granted permission for Suffolk University to soup up their show with a musical engine. The brothers, AKA Click and Clack, first appeared on the Boston airwaves in 1977. Their radio call-in show, which offers automotive know-how with an air of hilarity, was picked up by NPR for a nationwide audience in 1987.

The play sends up classic Broadway songs about love and relationships, turning the romantic to the automotive and showing how the psychological and the mechanical intertwine, much in the way that the Car Boys do week after week on their NPR radio show.

...an entrance somewhere else

As we move into this first weekend of spring, it is important to note that those of us in the Boston area have the opportunity to celebrate the lives of two playwrights we lost this week in the best way possible -- by seeing productions of their work.

Jon Lipsky’s Living in Exile closes at Actors’ Shakespeare Project on Sunday, March 27. Click here for more information and tickets. [BPT's co-production (with the Boston Center for American Performance) of Lipsky's Walking the Volcano runs April 15-May 1.]

The Rimers of Eldritch, by Lanford Wilson, opened at Stoneham Theatre last night. Click here for tickets and additional information. Read Wilson’s obituary in The New York Times here.

“Every exit is an entrance somewhere else.”

                                         --Tom Stoppard

Plays and Playwrights of BTM XIII

Announcing the Plays and Playwrights of Boston Theater Marathon XIII

Doll Hospital by Jeanne Beckwith

Pentagon Mashed Potatoes by Cliff Blake

Rox-N, Miss Thang by Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich

Mad-Hatter’s Tea Party by Robert Brustein

Mirror Touch by Michael Burgan

Late, Lamented by Lynne Cullen

The Curator by Jennifer Diamond

Boy-Man by Diane Di Ianni

The Fudgicle Thief by Bill Doncaster

Procession by William Donnelly

Wasted Kisses by Thomas G. Dunn

Park ‘N’ Ride by Michael Ennis

A Ballad for Peggy by Stephen Faria

Oops by James C. Ferguson

Escape to Wonderland by Patrick Gabridge

Game On by Gary Garrison

Our Part to Change Things by Susan Goodell

Big Squirrel Lick by Gregory Hischak

10 Years After Paradise by Israel Horovitz

The Mouse by Colleen Hughes

Every Seven Seconds by Dan Hunter

Beep…Doot by Aaron Kagan & Seth Soulstein

Slugger by Terrence Kidd

M. Riverside by John J King

Little Boys by Margaret Lagerstedt

Crickets by Emily Kaye Lazzaro

Trust Fall by Steve Lewis

Stuck by Christopher Lockheardt

Downward Facing Dog by Melinda Lopez

Squirrelly by James McLindon

Teddy Ballgame by Caitlin Mitchell

Casting Amanda by Jack Neary

Share This World by Ronan Noone

Cat in a Box by Julian Olf

The Resurrections by Catherine M. O’Neill

Birdbaths, “Twilight”, and Other Sundry Topics by Rick Park

Backfire by Leslie Powell

Those Still Living by April Ranger

Open House by Theresa Rebeck

Camberwell House by Amelia Roper

Uncommon Ground by John R. Sarrouf

Bible Study by Daniel Sauermilch

There’s an App for That! by Richard Schotter

A Handy Man by March Schrader

Rogue River, Oregon by Phil Schroeder

Perfect Strangers by Peter Snoad

Welcome to the Hate Store by Jan Velco Soolman

Ms. Connections by Erin Striff

One More to Go in Beantown by Debbie Wiess

A Tall Order by Sheri Wilner

Celebrate World Theatre Day 2011

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), which serves as the US Center of the International Theatre Institute (ITI-US), invites all theatres, individual artists, institutions and audiences to celebrate the 49th annual World Theatre Day on March 27, 2011. 

Created in 1961, World Theatre Day, is celebrated annually on March 27 by ITI Centers around the world and the international theatre community. Each year, a renowned theatre artist of world stature is invited to craft an International Message to mark the global occasion. This year, ITI Worldwide, headquartered in Paris, asked artist, academic and humanitarian Jessica A. Kaahwa, from Uganda, to write the international message.  In addition, TCG/ITI-US, invited Tony Award-winning actor and global citizen Jeffrey Wright to issue a US message.

Kaahwa and Wright's statements will be translated into more than 20 languages and distributed to tens of thousands of audiences around the world prior to performances.

TCG/ITI-US dedicates its World Theatre Day celebrations to the full life and inspiring legacy of Ellen Stewart, founding artistic director of the La MaMa Experimental Theatre, who passed away this year. Stewart, considered as a mother, goddess and true arts advocate, was a vital part of the international theatre community and delivered the World Theatre Day International Message in 1975.

Read about ways to celebrate

How to Walk the Volcano

The title "Walking the Volcano" comes from a moment in the script where the characters are talking about taking risks in life. They speak of the time where they actually hiked around the mouth of an active volcano. This experience in and of itself was harrowing, but more importantly, it is the idea of living ones life in a manner where risk and courage is a necessity, that comes to the fore. Always living in the present. Experiencing the highs and the lows that accompany such. It is not coincidental that from what I know of Jon Lipsky, he lived his life in much the same way. Always pushing the possibilities of life for all around him. Nothing was too daunting to Jon.

So, in the spirit of Walking the Volcano, I too am trying to approach this piece with courage and risk. To start off with, I am designing the lights (first time since my 1st year of Grad school). I have no pragmatic way of approaching this. Just some visuals in my head. I have been messing around with "photometrics" and "dimmer patches"...what ever those are...and looking through small books of multicolored gels as I try to make an educated guess as to what will actually work. The professional theatre maker in me is scared to death...the artist is chomping at the bit...we will see what comes of it. One thing is for certain...it will be an experience.

What I consider to be my second lap around the mouth of the Volcano is the idea of the set being an installation more than a set. That while the set is to serve the stories of the play, it is also an artistic impression of the stories that it is helping to tell. In order to fully explore this idea, I will be working with a sculptor, Ashley Teamer BFA '13, from the school of visual arts as well as theatre students Sam Pagnotta BFA '11 and Kamilla Kurmanbekova MFA '12. We will be working with TD Marc Olivere in a very non-traditional way that has Marc already yelling at me...(which is normal when we work together)...This should prove to be an experience as well. And even though I know there are far easier ways of doing theatre, this feels right. It is was Jon would have wanted to do. So, lets walk this volcano and hope we don't get burned. Miss you Jon.

Jon Savage

Scenic and Lighting Designer, Walking the Volcano

Jon Lipsky 1944-2011

Jon Lipsky, April 12, 1944-March 19, 2011

As a playwright and director, Jon Lipsky's work appeared at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New Plays, the American Repertory Theater, and other regional theaters. He was playwright-in-residence at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, TheaterWorks/Boston and Associate Artistic Director at the Vineyard Playhouse on Martha’s Vineyard. 

His work includes: Living In Exile – a Retelling of the Iliad, The Survivor: a Cambodian Odyssey, and Maggie’s Riff, an adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s Maggie Cassidy. 

In 2007 he won the Boston Critic’s Eliot Norton Award for Best Direction in a small company. His award-winning collaboration with jazz musician Stan Strickland, Coming Up For Air, was presented in 2008 at the Underground Railway Theater in Cambridge and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In the fall of 2008, he published a book about a theater of dreams called Dreaming Together (Larson Publications). 



Jon's full-length dream plays include Dreaming With an AIDS Patient and The Wild Place. An interconnected progression of short plays, Walking the Volcano premiered at the Vineyard Playhouse in 2008. Living in Exile was revived in 2010 at the Under The Radar Festival in New York's La Mama and in a separate production at the Actors’ Shakespeare Projects' Festival of plays this month. Jon was Professor of Acting and Playwriting at Boston University’s School of Theater.

Read more here

Fight the funk *with* the funk

All the right elements: Earth, Wind & Fire

But you really didn’t think it would be possible for me to write about music without actually posting some music, right? (People who know me know better than that.)

As an addendum to the previous post, I think it is *certainly* worthy to note here that it is possible to fight the funk with the funk. Years ago, when I was at the Kennedy Center’s playwriting intensive, playwright Caleen Sinnette Jennings spent time with us, leading writing exercises and talking about “writer stuff”: Taking risks, how discomfort can lead to discovery, being careful not to judge our work too early in the process, etc. She also talked to us a little bit about writer’s block, and about writing as a whole body experience (one suggestion was to take a break from typing and write freehand instead). She was great.

My favorite piece of advice, though – and I wrote it down – was: “Remember, if all else fails, there’s nothing that Earth, Wind & Fire can’t cure.” 

And then we all danced to ‘September’ a la the Soul Train line. As long as I live, I will never, ever hear that song without remembering that day.

More than words/Give up the funk

I was in a funk the other week.

George Clinton, in his BPT hat

And I’m not talking about funk in a George Clinton sense or a James Brown kind of way. I am not making a sly reference to Earth, Wind & Fire. What I am talking about is a good old-fashioned, old-school bad mood. But more than just a mood, really – moods can change like the wind. This was lasting. And when it’s lasting, a dark mood such as this one can be officially classified as a funk. I had the funk. Who (or what) gave it to me?

I tried to blame it on a lot of things, like the Oscars (not enough interesting fashion missteps, super-predictable winners, boring acceptance speeches, and James Franco…ugh. My crush on him = SO over). I tried to blame it on the weather, but that didn’t work very well because we seemed to actually be through the worst of it. I also tried to pin it on the color of the wall in my study, the position of the moon, my neighbor’s cat, my other neighbor giving me the evil eye, the combined negative energy of all the scorpios on the planet, the fact that our house is located on the north side of the street... You know what I’m saying.

The truth was that I wasn’t writing well. And that’s because in order to write well, one must be able to actually…write.

Derek Walcott on St. Lucia, Poetry, Rap, Race, September 11th, Caliban and more.

Carve out an hour to hear Boston Playwrights' Theatre's founder in conversation at U of T.    It's worth it, writers!

Auditions

Boston Playwrights' Theatre plays host to a number of auditions every year--the annual StageSource auditions being the largest. Every June actors from around the country pack into the hallways of BPT to showcase their talents in front of Boston producers.

But the the feeling is palpable as you enter the hallway in the smallest of auditions as well.  Even two actors running their sides leaves a tension in the air you can't miss on your way to the printer.


While the energy of the offices at the theatre are definitely on edge during auditions,  we understand ... and sometimes we work from home.   It crosses my mind that I'm seeing these people at one of the most nerve-racking moments of their lives. A moment they may have spent hundreds of hours preparing.   I can appreciate that.  Sure,  hair product, cologne and perfume fill the hall with smells not unlike a Turkish bazaar, and the bathroom -- if you can stand in line long enough --  looks like the whale tank at SeaWorld, but this is the process, this is how we do what we do.

Plus, the kind individuals at StageSource usually bring us bagels...hint, hint.

How being a playwright feels (sometimes)

Last week for 'Ti-Jean' -- don't miss it!

Answer the call: Get yourself to Ti-Jean!

Ti-Jean & His Brothers wraps up its successful run this week, but it’s not too late to get in on some really great post-show events in Central Square’s ‘Talk in the Box’ series:

March 10^th: Haitian Art

Carey Dardompre, teacher, storyteller and curator, will discuss the Haitian Art Exhibition in Central Square’s lobby.

March 11^th: Post-show conversation

With Lawrence Breiner, Professor of English and African Studies at Boston University, and Kate Snodgrass, Artistic Director, Boston Playwrights' Theatre.

March 12th 7-7:40: Saturday Celebration, Poetry about Haiti & Haitian Theater

Jean-Dany Joachim, Cambridge Poet Populist, will be joined by jazz musicians to perform his poetic spoken word response to the devastating earthquake one year ago. 

March 13^th: Post-show Conversation

With Margaret Rose Vendryes, professor at York College and the Graduate Center of City University of New York, about both the play and the Haitian Art exhibit in the Central Square lobby.

Read more about these events here

Buy tickets

Read The Phoenix’s Ti-Jean review, which also includes kind words about John Kuntz’s The Hotel Nepenthe!  :)

Molly Smith Metzler's 'Elemeno Pea' premieres at Humana tonight

Tonight, Molly Smith Metzler's play Elemeno Pea opens in its world premiere run at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New Plays. But even in the middle of the intense schedule of final preparations for the production, Molly found time to answer a few questions for us.

Molly Smith Metzler

I always enjoy hearing the “story behind the story.” What inspired Elemeno Pea? 

Well, to tell you about Elemeno Pea, let me back up and first tell you how I discovered playwriting, because they’re related. During my final semester of undergrad at SUNY Geneseo, I signed up for an Intro to Playwriting class with Dr. Terry Browne. At the time, I had applied to PhD programs in Comp Lit; I was a super nerdy English major who had never even taken creative writing. But then this one playwriting elective changed everything! I fell madly in love with playwriting, and in the final hour of college (May of my senior year!), I decided to do a 180 and completely switch gears. As my college friends were going off to serious careers and jobs, I actually pulled out of the PhD program I’d committed to and decided to pursue writing instead. (Looking back, this must’ve horrified my Mom—but you’d never had known! She was so supportive!) Anyhow, I had read somewhere that Eugene O’Neill wrote Long Day’s Journey from his ocean house in Connecticut, so I thought “Yeah! I’ll move to Martha’s Vineyard—by the ocean—and write my own Long Day’s Journey!” 

Kuntz's 'Nepenthe' extended

John Kuntz, Georgia Lyman, Daniel Berger-Jones, and Marianna Bassham

The run of John Kuntz's The Hotel Nepenthe, part of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project's Winter Festival, has been extended another week.

Thursday, March 10, 7:30 p.m. curtain
Friday, March 11 7:30 p.m. curtain
Saturday, March 12 8:00 p.m. curtain
Sunday, March 13 7:00 p.m. curtain

See the great production photos on Kuntzie's blog!

Read The Globe's review!

Go see the show!

Tickets: 866-811-4111, www.actorsshakespeareproject.org

Monsterpiece Theater: 'Waiting for Elmo'

Play by Girard to be featured in SWAN Day Mini-Marathon

Alum Deirdre Girard's 10-minute play ‘Defensive Wounds’ will be featured in this Saturday’s SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day March Madness Mini-Marathon, right here at BPT. The celebration will include staged readings of new short work (plays, monologues and poems) by 18 Boston-area women.

March 5, 2:00-6:00 p.m.

Suggested donation is $5.

Proceeds will go to The Fund for Women Artists

Email for additional info and reservations

Deirdre Girard

Tell us a little about ‘Defensive Wounds.’

I’m so excited it was chosen because it is a brand new ten-minute play about psychological abuse—so pretty creepy and not the usual comedy ten minute festivals tend to favor. Catherine Colby is one of the finest young actors on the North Shore and she will be working opposite Tony Moschetto who is a popular Boston Comedian. For Tony, this is especially meaningful because he is often cast in comic roles only, and for me it is meaningful because I’m a supporter of the Women’s Crisis Center here in Newburyport that offers support to abused women and children.

How did you become involved with the SWAN Day event?

I received an e-mail that was sent to several greater Boston area female playwrights asking for a submission for consideration. I had just participated in a festival in Newton at Turtle Lane that was run by one of the Swan Day organizers, Regina Ramsey, so I assume that’s how I got on the list.

The Other BPT Employees

Just thought I'd give a quick shout out to all the people that make Boston Playwrights' Theatre run so smoothly. I'm not talking about Kate or Jake or Marc, I'm talking about the work-study students, interns, graduate students and alumni that help us run everything from paying actors to folding programs to writing parts of THIS VERY BLOG!

As you may or may not know Boston Playwrights' Theatre is part of Boston University and as such reaps the benefit of having student employees. Without the work-study program the box office would not run, no one would get paid and I think Jake would probably spiral into a paperwork-induced manic state.

The interns are another bunch altogether. They don't even get paid! They are the individuals responsible for the yearly donor party, fundraising letters and copying about a thousand scripts a semester. I once made an intern deliver posters to every Indian restaurant in Cambridge—I have no shame.

Finally, our alumni and graduate students. Not only are these individuals some of the most talented playwrights I've ever met, but they take classes, work the box office, props, stage running, and like I mentioned before a few of our more outstanding graduates even help write this blog. They are multitasking mega-people.

So, here's to you people. Boston Playwrights' Theatre would not be able to run without you. Our thanks and continued gratitude.