Outtakes: Moe Angelos Unplugged on "Continuous City," Nov. 18-22 at BAM Next Wave Festival

In Continuous City, the techno-fabulous new show by the Builders Association, actor Moe Angelos portrays a nanny who vblogs hilarious personal stories about her daily life, while taking care of a young girl whose father is a globe-trotting businessman whom she misses terribly.


I have loved following Moe Angelos in both the Builders shows and the Five Lesbian Brothers. In fact, when the Builders and the U.K.-based motiroti presented Alladeen at the BAM Next Wave Festival some years back, Moe actually wrote an article for me about what it is like to be a performer in Builders shows. It was a terrific personal account, as sassy and downhome funny as Moe herself is.



While I was writing "Electronic Campfires," my American Theatre magazine cover story about the Builders Association for its December edition, I had an opportunity to interview Moe more about the Builders in general, rather than specifically about her own work in the show. At the time we spoke, Moe was in San Francisco where she was vblogged for the show's Yerba Buena for the Arts premiere. I had just seen the company's presentation at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, where Moe blogged about meeting a farmer who talked to her about corn.

Heres' a scrumptious bite of undiluted Moe Angelos corn:

RANDY GENER: Why have you remained working with the Builders all these years?
MOE ANGELOS: I enjoy the challenge of creating theater pieces while simultaneously exploring the process for creating those works. The Builders are making theatre and making methods and practices and in that one small corner of my life, I am an overachiever. Plus, the kind of theater that The Builders end up producing is very different from a more traditional, text-driven narrative. How to tell a story without literally "telling" it is pretty interesting territory.


RANDY: One feedback I have read or heard say the Builders shows are not critical enough or not dialectical enough as narratives. I remember a Times review of "Super Vision" that stated the themes in the show have been explored before in other genres (George Orwell was cited) and were not investigated deep enough. Is this a fair criticism? Is narrative a weakness in Builders shows?
MOE: Oh boy! The "weak narrative" argument surfaces. I would say that the work is trying to offer our audiences live, immersive theatricalized worlds which explore what it's like to live in our Digital Age, where issues like identity and boundaries and distance are in a state of flux. Story is the way audiences are used to entering into the world presented on stage and I'd say that Marianne is trying to open another entrance into those created worlds. Yes, others like Mr. Orwell have explored this territory, but I think Marianne's goal is to get at what it feels like to live in our current world, which is now not so Brave nor New (to steal from Huxley) rather than to warn of its pitfalls. That genie is out of the bottle at this point and living with the genie among us is what I'd say it's about.


RANDY: Can you share some thoughts about other Builders founders like Dan Dobson or Peter Flaherty?
MOE: Both these gents are fantastic collaborators who are willing to give their creative talents to the greater common good of show business above and beyond the various duties that call them incessantly. It is not always an easy business, as there is much trial and error involved and steely nerves are needed, for instance, to jettison something that you have just spent hours, if not days working on in service to the show's clarity. The many many iterations that constitute the Builders' process requires both flexibility and stamina over the long haul. The Ironman Triathletes of the process, they along with the video team (Ed, Josh, Austin), the tech director Neal and our lighting associate Laura go to heroic lengths to make the magic happen. I guess we are all on some level, a quirky bunch who derive some deep satisfaction from solving the artistic problems Marianne proposes in unconventional ways.

RANDY: In what ways has Marianne grown as a director?
MOE: I'd say that Marianne has not been that interested in telling stories in conventional ways and this can result in the "narrative deficit" discussions around the work (see above). I have to hand it to her that she has listened to those criticisms and I feel has really endeavored to use narrative in a more conventional way in this show. It is not always an easy fit for her, but she has tried to do it differently this time out by working with Harry as the writer, who is much more of a narrative-Builder, capital B and small b. The artistic scope of her vision has enlarged, and she is more ambitious about the stage pictures she wants to present, always going for greater richness and depth as her personal eye develops over time. She always wants to make a simpler show and it never turns out that way!



Continuous City
The Builders Association

Directed by Marianne Weems


Conceived by:
Marianne Weems, Director
Harry Sinclair, Writer
James Gibbs, Dramaturg
Sound Design and original music composition by Dan Dobson
Video Design by Peter Flaherty
Lighting by Jennifer Tipton
Set Design by James Gibbs, Stewart Laing, and Neal Wilkinson

BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St)
Nov 18—22 at 7:30pm
Tickets: $20, 30, 45, 55718.636.4100 or BAM.org

Shrek, a musical for green people of color

Funny thing about the Broadway Theatre (1681 Broadway @ 53rd St), where the new Shrek The Musical began preview performances Nov. 8. For a long time, it was Broadway's multicultural destination. If you got a musical with non-white people in it, mount it at the Broadway Theatre.

Here are examples of shows that went up there in the past 10-20 years: Miss Saigon, in which mostly Filipino Americans and some British actors performed as Vietnamese in a helicopter-heavy show about the Vietnam War; Bombay Dreams, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical in the manner of Bollywood films; The Color Purple, in which an Alice Walker novel about slavery in the South was transformed into an Oprah-produced spectacular. Briefly, the Broadway theatre advertised another culturally themed show, Mambo Kings, based on the Oscar Hujelos novel, but which ultimately did not make it.

Now, the Broadway Theatre has moved on to another color of people: green people.

This special interest group presumably remains underserved, despite the existence of the musical Wicked, which won a Tony award for best musical for extolling the goodness in the hearts of green people.

Advertising itself with the banner "Bringing Ugly Back!," Shrek even opened a social network site called Shrekster to seal the deal.

Written by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori, the musical stars Brian d'Arcy James as Shrek, Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona, Christopher Sieber as Lord Farquaad, Daniel Breaker as Donkey and John Tartaglia as Pinocchio. It is an entirely new musical based on the story and characters from William Steig’s book Shrek!, as well as the DreamWorks Animation film Shrek. Jason Moore, who staged the Tony–winning best musical Avenue Q, is the director.

SHREK THE MUSICAL is DreamWorks Animation’s first venture in legitimate theater. The production was initiated when Sam Mendes, a big fan of the first Shrek film, suggested the idea of creating a musical to DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg around the time the second film was in production. The musical is being produced by DreamWorks Theatricals (Bill Damaschke, President) and Neal Street Productions, Ltd (principals Sam Mendes and Caro Newling).

TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets for SHREK THE MUSICAL are available by calling Telecharge.com at (212) 239-6200, (800) 432-7250 outside the NY metro area, online at Telecharge.com, or in person at The Broadway Theatre box office (1681 Broadway @ 53rd St). Group sales are available by contacting Telecharge Group Sales at 212-239-6262, or 800-432-7780.

To see interviews with the cast and creative team of SHREK THE MUSICAL click the link below: http://www.shrekthemusical.com/videos.html

Election Night: Obama Vs. McCain on Arts Policy

Since today's election will decide the successor of the National Endowment for the Arts, it remains an open question whether a bill currently in the House of Representatives will pass and give the NEA a $15.3-million increase for fiscal 2009. So which candidates support the arts?

Many artists have gotten behind Democratic candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama and his running mate from Delaware, Joe Biden.

The Obama for America National Arts Policy Committee, chaired by American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr. and Broadway producer Margo Lion, has advised Obama on his extensive arts platform, available at www.barackobama.com.

The site says Obama would offer support for increased funding for the NEA and for amending the Internal Revenue Service code to allow artists to take full deductions (at fair market value, rather than cost of materials) on works donated to a museum or nonprofit.

No matter how impressive-looking, Obama’s policy paper is only an official position. Based on his actual record, posted on Arts Action Fund (see www.artsactionfund.org/pdf/artsvote/Obamaarts1.pdf), the Illinois senator has a history of supporting chamber music events, public-school arts-enrichment programs, poetry workshops and student outreach—but there is no mention of his active support of theatrical institutions, individual theatre artists or the NEA.

What about Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain? A steadfast critic of earmarks, congressional funds directed to special programs, McCain has not helped to direct federal funds to arts organizations in Arizona. In a Chicago Tribune article, Robert Booker, head of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, said McCain “is not a positive supporter of the arts nationally or in Arizona.” Kevin Moore, managing director of Arizona Theatre Company, adds that McCain gave ATC “a small donation” in 1998.

On his campaign website, McCain does not spell out an official policy on the arts, arts funding or arts education. The only way to assess McCain’s position is to divine the tea leaves from the very few public remarks he’s given. McCain has opposed federal funding for the NEA on the basis of “the obscene and inappropriate projects this organization has supported with tax dollars.” Instead he favors “block grants of federal funds to the states for arts education and artistic endeavors pursued by state and local authorities, while assuring that federal tax dollars are not spent on obscene or offensive material.

This past October, McCain team, however, did issue an arts-related statement in a Salt Lake Tribune article. His team said: "John McCain believes that arts education can play a vital role fostering creativity and expression. He is a strong believer in empowering local school districts to establish priorities based on the needs of local schools and school districts. Schools receiving federal funds for education must be held accountable for providing a quality education in basic subjects critical to ensuring students are prepared to compete and succeed in the global economy. Where these local priorities allow, he believes investing in arts education can play a role in nurturing the creativity of expression so vital to the health of our cultural life and providing a means of creative expression for young people."

Having used her line-item veto power to chop nearly a quarter-billion dollars from the state’s budget, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin—the Republican vice presidential candidate who has received nearly as much ink as the president-of-the-U.S. contenders—has not endeared herself to Juneau arts groups. “To my knowledge, Palin has not yet attended a show at Perseverance Theatre,” says its interim managing director, Merry Ellefson. “Sarah vetoed the Perseverance’s capital request that our legislators endorsed. It was for $25,000 for improving our dimmer system.”

Palin also vetoed this year a $100,000 funding request to assist with renovations for the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, a former National Guard armory that the city is converting into an arts center, confirmed Nancy DeCherney, the council’s leader.

October 27 is the busiest Monday of the fall...so far

What is it about Monday Oct. 27? It has got to be the busiest theatre day of the fall. Check out these invitations I received, all for the same evening:

1) Bill Irwin, Andre De Shields, Heather McCrae and cast members of the Broadway-bound Public Theater production of Hair are scheduled to appear in a 90-minute anniversary benefit for the Workshop Theatre. The party begins 5:45 pm at the Zipper Factory, 336 West 37th Street.

2) Chris Noth (of "Sex and the City Fame"), Bebe Neuwirth ("Cheers"), Anthony Rapp, Christian Hoff (Jersey Boys), Andrea McArdle and Bobbie Eakes rub elbows today in the residence of Ron Pubuda in Central Park South. Laughs, songs and surprises are promised in this "Salon: Six Degrees of Broadway Cares," an evening to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. 

3) Marylouise Burke leads a cast that includes Greg Keller, Alex Alioto, Cynthia Silver and Janne Emig in a reading of the Alex Plays by Sam Marks, described as a series of episodes chronicling the deterioration of a troubled young man. Though it's part of Partial Comfort Productions' Welcome Mat series, the reading takes place at Teatro Circulo, 64 East 4th Street.

4) Jordan Beck and Jonathan May are inviting industry people to see their musical Top 8 at the Kirk Theatre on Theatre Row today and tomorrow (Oct. 28). Eight strangers meet in cyberspace. Visit MySpace.com/Top8Musical to hear some songs and check out the developmental process.

5) As reported earlier, Jean Claude van Itallie's Tibetan Book of the Dead is getting a one-day only performance at the LaMaMa Annex Theater. The director is Kim Mancuso, with Court Dorsey, Kermit Dunkelberg and Susan Thompson in the cast. Show starts at 8 PM.

6) Playwrights Julia Jordan and Sarah Schulman are gathering a group of female playwrights at the New Dramatists on West 44th Street to discuss what to do with the under-representation of women playwrights in mainstream commercial and nonprofit theaters. It starts at 6 pm.

7) The Polish company Theatre of the Eighth Day presents a short excerpt from The Files and screenings of their past work at 6:30 PM at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center-Graduate Center, CUNY. The Files is a 2007 work based on actual secret police reports kept by the Communist state apparatus on the theatre activity of this company during the period from 1975 to 1983. 

Woven into the story are the private thoughts of the actors during the time these reports were written as well as excerpts from the performances to which the reports referred. Under the sponsorship of the Polish Cultural Institute, The Files is part of a festival of new Polish plays taking place at 59E59 Theaters through Nov. 9. In addition to The Files, the Play Company is producing a U.S. version of the Polish play Made in Poland. And the Immigrants' Theatre Project is presenting a double-bill of Sandbox and The First Time.

What's a conscientious theatre person to do?

LaMaMa E.T.C. Hosts "Tibetan Book of the Dead" Benefit, Oct. 27

Jean-Claude van Itallie needs your support. 

The legendary Off-Off-Broadway playwright wants to rebuild the ruins of his barn in Rowe, Mass., into a theatre and community center for retreats, healing and meditation. 

Once upon a time, the barn housed Shantigar Foundation, a nonprofit center, founded in 1977 and named by van Itallie’s Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Unfortunately, the cathedral-like barn burned down in 2000. 

Since then, workshops and performances have to be held in a big white tent, a wooden shed serving as office and dining space, and a large stone Buddha amidst the woodsy sanctuary’s old stone walls. “The barn is only temporarily invisible,” van Itallie says. 

The immediate need is to construct a commercial kitchen, eating space and bathrooms; the long-term plan is to build some 30 dwellings for visiting theatre artists.

To help raise funds for the barn’s reconstruction, Pilgrim Theatre, a Grotowski-trained troupe founded in Poland by Kim Mancuso and Kermit Dunkelberg, is reviving van Itallie’s 1983 stage adaptation of Tibetan Book of the Dead or How Not to Do It Again Oct. 27 at La MaMa E.T.C. Jun Maeda, La MaMa’s resident designer, has recreated the ethereal skull, built of saplings, which serve as scaffolding for the set. 

The day after the benefit, on Oct. 28, the newspaper Soul of the American Actor and City University of New York’s Martin E. Segal Theatre-Graduate Center have put together a free, daylong event, “The Theatre of Jean-Claude van Itallie,” featuring screenings and readings of van Itallie’s major works. At this event, I will be moderating a 2 PM panel discussion on America Hurrah and The Serpent.  It is free and open to the public.

THE PROGRAM

Presented by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center, CUNY in collaboration with Ronald Rand and The Soul of the American Actor.

THE THEATRE OF JEAN-CLAUDE VAN ITALLIE is a daylong event that features Jean-Claude Van Itallie, Preston Dyar, Wayne Maugans, Angelica Torn, Bill Coco, Lil Malinich, Ron Faber, Cynthia Harris, Joanna Rotté, Kermit Dunkleberg, Rae C. Wright, Judith Malina, Peter Goldfarb, Rosemary Quinn, Barbara Vann, Tina Shepard, Randy Gener, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Evangeline Morphos, Alex Gildzen, Mark Hall Amitin, Ruth Maleczech, Lisa Shubert, Court Dorsey, Susan Thompson, Kim Mancuso, Lois Walden, Steve Gorn, David Lewis, Didi Goldenhar, Jake Robards, Angelica Torn, Laila Robins, Grant Kertchick, Brian Murray, Lauren Bond, Alex Glizden and Lorraine Grosslight.

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 28, 2008, 2:00 pm + 6:30 pm
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Proshanksy Auditorium, 365 Fifth Ave. at 34th St.
For More Information Click HERE.

2:00 pm 

Readings: 

War, The Hunter and the Bird, 

America Hurrah (excerpts from Interview and Motel) and The Serpent

3:00 pm 

Panel Discussion 

on America Hurrah and The Serpent, 

moderated by Randy Gener

3:45 pm 

Readings:
Bag Lady, Struck Dumb (Video excerpt with Joseph Chaikin), The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Mila, a new musical

4:30 pm 

Panel Discussion on "The Art of Collaboration": Tibetan Book of the Dead and Mila, moderated by Lois Walden

6:30 pm 

Readings: 

Excerpts from translations of 

Anton Chekhov’s plays by Jean-Claude van Itallie: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard

War, Sex, and Dreams (Video with Jean-Claude Van Itallie); Light

7:30 pm 

A Dialogue with Bill Coco and Jean-Claude Van Itallie
Reception and book signing to follow

Jean-Claude van Itallie was born in Brussels in 1936, emigrated to America with his family in 1940, graduated Harvard in 1958, and was a central force in the explosive New York off-Broadway theater movement of the sixties. 

His acclaimed America Hurrah, considered the watershed anti-Viet Nam war play, received numerous awards. He was one of the original playwrights at Ellen Stewart's LaMama, and for Joe Chaikin's Open Theater he wrote the ensemble play The Serpent. 

Van Itallie's more than thirty plays include War, Bag Lady, Almost Like Being, The Traveler, Struck Dumb and Ancient Boys. His translations of Chekhov (Chekhov, the Major Plays, Applause Books) have been widely produced in major theaters across America. 

A student of Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa since 1968, van Itallie wrote the play Tibetan Book of the Dead (premiered at LaMama, NYC 1983), published as The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Reading Aloud (North Atlantic). As an actor-writer in Guys Dreamin (Boston Center for the Arts; LaMama, 1997), van Itallie was well reviewed in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times for his one man show, War, Sex, and Dreams (Highways, Santa Monica; LaMama, 1999). 

In 2002 he received the New England Theater Conference's Special Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Theatre. His play Light (a love triangle between Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and Emilie du Chatelet) premiered in Pasadena at Theatre at Boston Court, 2004 and received several LA Critics awards. Retitled Lumieres, it is to be produced in Paris. In 2006 van Itallie's play Fear Itself, Secrets of the White House opened at Theater for the New City in New York.

Van Itallie has taught playwriting and performance at Princeton, NYU, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Columbia, Middlebury, University of Colorado, as well as “Writing on Your Feet” and “Healing Power of Theater” workshops at Naropa, Esalen, Omega, New York Open Center, Shantigar, and many other places. He's the author of the playwriting text, The Playwright's Workbook (Applause Books). Van Itallie has transformed the farm in Western Massachusetts where he lives into Shantigar Foundation for theater, meditation, and healing (Shantigar.org).

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC), The Graduate Center, CUNY, is a non-profit center for theatre, dance, and film affiliated with CUNY's Ph.D. Program in Theatre. Originally founded in 1979 as the Center for Advanced Studies in Theatre Arts (CASTA), it was renamed in March of 1999 in recognition of one of New York City's outstanding leaders of the arts. The Center's primary focus is to bridge the gap between the academic and professional performing arts communities by providing an open environment for the development of educational, community-driven, and professional projects in the performing arts.