Rehearsal: What it means to you. (or Me rather)

So day in day out we have been rehearsing for the All Star Gala that is "Big Girls Club." I find myself caught in a parallel universe at rehearsals. This is because I am also documenting them with a video camera. I need to strike a balance. When behind the camera I feel disconnected from what is actually going on, I am an objective eye merely trying to capture the events in front of me. This is why recently I have cut back on the amount that I document in these rehearsals, a log of footage always seemed like a good idea in theory but the more and more I think about it, how many takes of a particular scene or event do I need? I feel that it is ultimately more beneficial for me to be actively involved in the production, otherwise I have no passion for it. Overall I think I am happy with the direction that this production is taking. I like to make sure that our themes and "bigger picture" ideas stay intact. I think one of my biggest strengths as an observer and an artist both is my ability to see projects in a larger sense. In other words, you can have a lot of little pieces but if they don't add up to anything then what's the point. I don't know of anyone who keeps boxes of miss matched puzzle pieces around and then charges people to see them. (Not saying people wouldn't pay to see it.)

CONFUSED

The Olympics play in the background and I think about our culture. Last night, during the NBC interview, Bush said that he is proud that America is participating in the Olympics this year. He is proud because sports represent peace. How come it takes sports to signify this when there is a war going on? It is signifying peace, which is good enough, right? Olympics signify. Sports signify. Is there something wrong with this? It is irritating, even though I can't seem to stop watching them. The athletes' talent is intoxicating. What they do amazes and excites me. For me, there is a tension here. Why can't art be as accessible? How come sports to our country enables peace, when art can do the same? Today I guess I just have questions. To our world and country athlete's are the hero's......."AND MICHAEL PHELPS SETS A WORLD RECORD!!!!"

Money

So, I spent all of my birthday money and more booking rehearsal spaces for Big Girls Club.

One of the many things that I've learned, even though it's kind of common sense, is that if you are young, come from no money and are thinking of starting a theatre company- you have to know how to budget yourself. I find myself spending the majority of the little extra cash I do manage to have on production costs, application fees and other theatre related things ( like going to see shows) rather than things like….clothes or food or fun stuff to do on the weekends. But I don't think those sacrifices really weigh you down if you are truly passionate about what you want to do...I still think good theater can come from no money. Do you?

Submission DVD's

Hey everybody, Chase here, I've been working a lot lately between designing the new big girls blog, and getting materials generated for submission forms. I am also in the process of updating the ETG reel to feature some footage from "Untitled", as well as the promo shots from Big Girls Club.

As of right now I'm working on putting together a DVD with selections of our work on it for a residency submission. This process is always difficult for me because I feel that when you cut up projects into 2 min. clips they really lose their appeal. Especially when it's sections of a play or sections of a video installation. Which 2 minutes do you single out? Do they even make any sense without any context? I mean, I personally know what's going on as I watch the selections, but the viewer surely doesn't have a clue. Which means that in the viewers mind, the work in is reduced to the lowest common denominator. Viewers ( including myself) usually just look for flashy things...something to grab their attention, instead of a well developed story. These are my grievances with submission DVD's.

Big Girls Blog

Hello everybody! Just thought I would let you all know that Leah has been contributing some wonderful blog entries over on the page for Big Girls Club (our upcoming production). Also be sure to check out and contribute to the Big Girls Photo Contest.

http://biggirlsblog.everywheretheatre.org

State of Terror

Everywhere Theatre Group Presents:

By Teddy Nicholas

Starring
Allie Summers, Michael Hosp, and Jeremy Lee

with Kristy Clement

Directed, Recorded, Edited and Scored by Davison Robie and Nickolas Hartgrove

Director’s Note:

Nick and I still haven't met Teddy. Leah first sent me the script for The State of Terror about five or six months ago. I originally read it with hopes to set it to music as an operetta, but the director for that project shot it down. It sat on my desktop for a while...

Then, Leah sent Nick and I some information on a radio program Jason Grote was/is putting together for WFMU. We had only three weeks until the deadline, and so in hopes of having a production schedule with some semblance of sanity, we needed to pick a pre-existing script.

State of Terror has a lot of sound already implied in it. If you listen to the text, there isn't too much that we have to come up with on our own. Balloons turn out to be very aurally expressive, and Amanda's monitored pulse provides a pulse for the entire scene. Most importantly, there is playful description of how terror sounds--we get a lot out of gurgling.

The score also sort of wrote itself-- and is inherit in the script by proxy of a simple chance operation. Dr. Ramsey, when recalling a childhood memory, names off some colors: red, green, blue, yellow, and purple. Now, you see, there are twelve colors in the color wheel. There are also twelve notes in most Western music, which are sometimes arranged around a circle in a similar manner as the color wheel both chromatically and as a circle of fifths. When these two circles of notes are placed over the color wheel, red, green, and yellow yield the same note, and blue and purple are both off by one half step. The resulting sequence, C, F#, G# and A, E, Bb and B provides the musical tone of the entire play. The score is performed by Nick on both vibraphone and glockenspiel.

So, yeah. It's our first directorial outing, and we learned a lot from the experience. Special thanks to our cast for being so great to work with, especially Kristy who provided us with some extra emergency 'body sounds.'

Go check it out, and we hope you enjoy.

For myself and Nick Hartgrove,
Davison Robie

Playwright’s Note:

I wrote The State of Terror a few months back when my mother had a heart attack and was in the hospital for a few days. I remember I was sitting in the Emergency Room corridor near the Nurses’ Station, in some state of shock, watching as the chaos unfolded before me. It wasn’t just that my mother was undergoing some kind of treatment unknown to me, or that I didn’t know how serious everything was yet (a doctor wouldn’t even talk to me for what seemed like forever). But that there was all of these other people there with their own personal tragedies unfolding around me and it all seemed to be blending together in my mind like a strange montage of family members gathered around beds, ambulance men and women wheeling in new patients on gurneys, doctors buzzing back and forth while nurses chase after them with clipboards. It was a weird sort of hell. It was a hospital.

I had spent about eight hours waiting in this corridor and a peculiar sensation of childhood dread and fear started to overcome me. Anyone who knows me knows that I have an irrational fear of balloons, always had it since birth, I believe. And as it happened, just nearby were these get-well balloons floating in the air just above someone’s bed—or maybe the Nurse’s Station had it, I don’t really remember very well—and a strange panic seized me. All I wanted to do was run as far away as possible until everything went away and then I could just collapse into a deep sleep. But I was waiting for my mom to get better. And this panic sort of went away and when I finally got home, I wrote State of Terror.

I’m really grateful that Leah sent Dace the script. I had no idea what Dace would do with it, and when I finally heard the outcome (the day of Untitled’s performance at Dixon Place), I was so impressed and thrilled by it that I played it as the pre-show for Untitled. My mom, who was in the audience, heard it for the first time and she immediately knew where it came from.

Thanks to Dace, Nick, Allie, Michael, Jeremy and Kristy for turning a few odd words into something thrilling.

Teddy Nicholas

Thank you!

We had our first and last showing of Untitled-a Play, last night at Dixon Place. I was thrilled to see that so many young theatre-goers had come to see us- being that at most downtown shows I've been to lately, the main audience demographic have been thirties and up. ETG hopes to kill that cliché and help show the arts community that our generation still cares about and loves seeing and making theatre. Yesterday was a great start! I was definitely a nervous wreck backstage before the show, but the overall performance went smoothly with no major mishaps. I always love how an audience's energy changes a play and obliterates expectations. The audience last night seemed quiet in comparison to Teddy's random outbursts of laughter during rehearsals. The pseudo silence kind of wierded Tos and I out but to the audience's credit, this play is actually totally weird. We all found everyone's reactions truly helpful and exciting. Teddy facilitated a post show discussion which was fantastic because, being a young group with no name or fame or money or reputation, people are always quick to give advice without typically refraining from giving honest criticism. And criticism, without a doubt, is the most helpful and crucial when you are in development of a show. My only regret is that we didn't pass out an ETG mailing list sign up sheet!!!!!! ARRRRRRRGH!!!! WHY?????!!!!!!!!!!!! So, if you happen to have seen the show last night and want to be involved with ETG's inception by joining our community, please contact me at Leah@everywheretheatre.org and I'll add you right in! Thank you so much to all who made it last night ( and thank you to Dixon Place, who we are in love with) we truly appreciate your support and feedback. If you have anything you want to say about the show, please drop us a line at info@everywheretheatre.org or please visit our message board. Oh…after the show, a friend of mine asked me, "You guys did ALL this work just for one performance?" Of course we did! We put 110% in to every opportunity we can get and hopefully, Untitled-a Play will get another chance. We'll keep you posted.


Tos and I backstage before the show!!! NERVES!


Post-show Teddy and ETG actor Katie Hannigan!


Sound Designer Brendan Byrne relaxing post-show...


Untitled cast and crew at Dixon Place: (from left- Chase Voorhees,
Leah Winkler, writer/director Teddy Nicholas, Tos Sasitorn, Brendan Byrne)