Crashbox Scores with its Intimate but Powerful Production of The Liddy Plays

The subjectivity of sanity and the endurance of memory, and the ways in which both shape selfhood, are examined in Brooke Berman's The Liddy Plays. Last night, I had the pleasure of watching Crashbox Theater Company's production of The Liddy Plays at Manhattan's Access Theater. The 90-minute production was well-paced, finely acted, and an overall totally enjoyable show.

The Liddy Plays is a collection of four plays about the often-tempestuous Liddy and her calmness-obsessed brother Em, as they deal with the ripple effects of their emotionally unstable Mother's suicide. Crashbox's production is a treat to watch, filled with perfectly sparse movement and song and raw performances from the cast. The show explores that often fine line in mental health between subtly giving in and loudly breaking down. The lead actress Keilly McQuaill especially shines in her fantastic portrayal of Liddy's attempt at balancing popular notions of sensibility with her desire to be true to her personal emotionality.

cast members Keilly McQuaill & Tom Muccioli

I highly recommend going to see The Liddy Plays this week. For tickets and more information, please go here.

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PEN Festival Reading List

The 9th Annual PEN World Voices Festival wrapped last week and left me longing to learn more about many of its featured writers. The festival's focus was on works that possessed bravery--either in form or content. Some of the writers in attendance displayed a valiant political spirit while others showed boldness in their writing style. All the writers I was lucky enough to see proved to be courageous in their ability to openly share their thoughts and communicate their creativity to an audience.

There were so many wonderful speakers at this year's PEN festival and I'm excited to learn more about them and their literary works. Here's a short but punchy list of recommended readings from writers who attended the festival:

-Adania Shibli's Touch

-Joy Harjo's Crazy Brave

-Shahrnush Parsipur's Kissing the Sword

-Shane Bauer's Mother Jones article "Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons."

-Earl Lovelace's Is Just a Movie

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Putting the performance back in Performance Art

This is what an awesome live musical performance looks like:



People Get Ready is a Brooklyn-based group that's fusing mediums and bending genres with their musical movements. While their songs rock on their own, watching a clip of their live performance is what immediately turned me on to them.

If you live in New York, you can catch People Get Ready--along with the super awesome Solange--at the CBF festival this month!

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9th Annual PEN World Voices Festival

This year, for their 9th annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, PEN America will celebrate writers who have shown bravery in their work and personal lives. The festival will host a slew of lectures, workshops, and performances that will feature numerous political and talented writers such as Judith Butler, Joy Harjo, Naomi Wolf, Yusef Komunyakaa, Salman Rushdie, and this year's festival honoree US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The festival will take place throughout New York City from April 29th-May 5th. To all my fellow lit and politics nerds: I can't recommend hitting up this festival enough! A full schedule of events can be accessed here: http://worldvoices.pen.org/festival-event-calendar-page. While a few events are free, most require individual tickets so I recommend taking a look at the lineup now and purchasing tickets in advance.

If you sadly can't make this year's festival, make sure to check back here at ATFG for festival updates and coverage!

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Shakespeare Forum's Hamlet

The Shakespeare Forum presents their inaugural production Hamlet at the Theater for the New City.

Lead by co-founders and directors Sybille Bruun and Tyler Moss, The Shakespeare Forum offers a weekly open workshop that allows New York artists to share pieces they're working on or just watch their peers. It is an ever-growing community of artists offering each other support and constructive criticism. Private classes are also available and the Forum is also developing an outreach program to public schools in need of theater arts education.

Hamlet marks The Forum's first ever production and having personally attended several of their Tuesday meetings, I am extremely excited to watch this fine ensemble (many Forum regulars) take on one of Shakespeare's finest plays. For whom better to perform Shakespeare than those regularly engaging with his work?


Hamlet
Directed by: Sybille Bruun
Starring: Dan De Jesus, Pat Dwyer, Adam Goodman, Dylan Kammerer, Erin Keskeny, Tyler Moss, James Patrick Nelson, Andrus Nichols, Tom O'Keefe, Chris Seiler, Brian Smolin, Claire Warden

Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th St)

June 21-24, 26-30 at 7:30pm
June 23, 24, 30 & July 1 at 2pm

For more information and tickets, go here.

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Someone Who'll Watch Over Me @ Canal Park Playhouse

The TRUF and The Canal Park Playhouse present a new production of Frank McGuiness' Tony Award nominated play Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. The play involves three Westerners--an American, Irishman, and Englishman--imprisoned as hostages in Lebanon, whose constant seesaw between hope and fear are revealed in their conversations and storytelling.

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me captures the duality and reciprocity of both faith and communication; with each conversation had and story told, the characters grow to feel responsible for each other, while the audience is tied to them as the ultimate watchers of their tale. Directed by Justin Lauro, this intimate and well-paced production features Lauro, Timothy Riley, and Alex Teachey who all wonderfully capture the intensity of their characters' circumstances, while keeping the audience invested in their emotional turmoil and wondering about their futures.

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me is paired with the play Sarazad and The Monster-King, a retelling of the frame tale of Arabian Nights, which also deals with themes on the power of storytelling. Both can be seen at Canal Park Playhouse.




Someone Who'll Watch Over Me
Written by: Frank McGuinness
Directed by: Justin Lauro
Featuring: Justin Lauro, Timothy Riley, and Alex Teachey


Running now until July 20th
Wednesday-Saturday, 8PM

Canal Park Playhouse
508 Canal Street (between Greenwich and West St)

For tickets go here

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PEN World Voices Festival 2012: New Technology & Conventional Literature Strike a Balance

I had the total lit-nerdy thrill to attend some exciting events during the 8th annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. PEN American Center is the American chapter of International PEN, which is a literary and human rights organization that fights for the freedom of expression of writers all over the world. This year, PEN American Center's festival celebrated the ways in which literary expression expands across multiple artistic and technological mediums. The festival took place in various New York venues, from April 30th through May 6th, and included such authors as Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan, Tony Kushner, Marjane Satrapi, Brian Selznick, and Salman Rushdie (who served as the Festival Chair).

From Margaret Atwood arguing for the internet as a useful literary tool, to Jennifer Egan discussing how Power Point worked conceptually and structurally in her novel, the festival events I attended proved that literature is evolving with (and not being destroyed by) new technology. The festival also showcased writers like Marjane Satrapi and Brian Selznick who are breaking literary conventions with their genre-challenging and medium-crossing narratives.

Highlights from my experience at the festival, after the jump.

Margaret Atwood © George Whiteside

Thursday night, I kicked off the festival by attending a discussion with author Margaret Atwood and editor Amy Grace Loyd, at the New School, about how the internet is changing literature. While Atwood discussed her concern over how limited privacy and security are online, she also championed the web as a place for artistic and political communication and assembly. Furthermore, she argued that technological advancements in communication—like the internet—can coexist with conventional storytelling and even influence literature in plot and style. Proving Atwood’s point, Jennifer Egan discussed her use of Power Point in A Visit from the Goon Squad, also at the New School, on Friday. Egan initially found Power Point formally appealing but was able to make it function within her novel contextually. Using the “cold” aspect of Power Point in a section of her book where she felt the narrative to be sentimental, allowed her to strike a tonal balance. Both Egan and Atwood were as engaging and entertaining in person as their printed words. Atwood especially entertained with her playful dry, frank humor and her witty dynamic with Loyd. I was proud to raise my hand when Atwood asked her twitter followers to put up their hands!

Jennifer Egan © Pieter M. van Hattem

Another (but totally different) sense of pride came over me during the Marjane Satrapi event at the MoMA, also on Thursday night. As an Iranian-American, I love how Satrapi expresses her own cultural hybridity and embeds Iranian history in her art. I was ecstatic to see her speak before screening her new film Chicken with Plums (which I will review in full, in a near future post). Satrapi, in discussion with graphic artist and editor Francois Mouly, talked about her visual and literary work. She argued that the graphic novel was not a genre but its own unique medium where images can both replace and work with words to create “a really specific language.”

© Sony Pictures Classics

Brian Selznick is also an artist creating stylistically unique narratives with books like The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo was my favorite film last year and listening to Selznick on Saturday at the New School, in discussion with fellow writer David Levithan, was a beautiful way to wrap up my first PEN festival. Although he had been writing children’s literature up until it, he stated that he didn’t set out to create a children’s book with The Invention of Hugo Cabret. What began as a novella and a fascination with George Melies grew into a novel where illustrations work as “purely visually narrative work.” Influenced by both silent films and the late Maurice Sendak‘s wild rumpus pages in Where the Wild Things Are, Selznick wanted visuals (illustrated pages) to guide the plot forward, without having text constantly move the story along for readers. Although Selznick was weary of a film adaptation, he was pleased that John Logan’s script retained the importance of books. Selznick believes the film adaptation “inverted” his novel, which “celebrates movies but is about the importance of books” by “making a movie that celebrates books…but ultimately…(is) a movie about the importance of movies.” This thematic inversion was logical to him since it reflects the medium shift from book to film.

© Scholastic Inc.

Overall, the festival presented a hopeful stance about the future of literature, in the face of new technology. The discussions and events proved that literature was evolving with, and transitioning into, new mediums while still being able to retain the attention of readers with extended narratives within the more conventional medium of books.

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Morrison Hotel Gallery's Rolling Stones tribute

The Morrison Hotel Gallery, in association with GrandLife Hotels, will be exhibiting an expansive collection of portraits of The Rolling Stones, tributing their 50 years as a band. The exhibit and sale will feature photos of the iconic band as captured by a slew of talented photographers.
If you've never visited The Morrison Hotel, this show will be your perfect introduction to this awesome New York gallery dedicated to music photography.

Rolling Stones: Celebrating 50 Years in Photography
May 4th-May 31st
For more information, visit the gallery's website here.

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Pipeline's The Ash Girl: a fairly luminous fairy tale

The Pipeline Theatre Company has been an ATFG favorite for a couple of years now and I've always been impressed with their versatility. Thursday night, they proved their chameleon character to me again during a preview of their new show The Ash Girl.

Director Jessika Doyel's The Ash Girl is a stirring adaptation of Timberlake Wertenbaker's play, which itself is a beautiful take on the Cinderella story. The play adds layers and weight to the conventional Cinderella plot with its personification of the Seven Deadly Sins (including Sadness as a loner, who is reluctant to be a group member but is an equally dangerous eighth villain), funny and wise animals that do more than help with chores, a less than wicked and more pathetically covetous stepfamily, and a prideful and homesick foreign Prince. The Sins fuel the actions of others, stirring up inner demons that the characters must fight off or end up giving into. Ashgirl, played with wonderful intricacy by Meagan Kensil, is a melancholic Cinderella-like young woman who, with the help of The Fairy in the Mirror, uses inner-strength and hope to fight off the eight literal and figurative demons as she finds solace in the company of an equally tormented Prince.

Despite the fantastical and mythical aspects of the play, Pipeline's adaptation of The Ash Girl has a subtle quality, helped in part by its low-key set and lighting design. With their productions of Felix & the Diligence and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Pipeline impressed by proving that they could utilize a large stage and orchestrate well with a large cast, but with The Ash Girl they decide to subdue the audience into awe. The audience is seated directly on the stage, in a three-fourths of an in-the-round setup with cast members entering and exiting from numerous doorways and ladders. And despite the relatively sizable cast, the show creates an intimate feel with its small stage, dark lighting, limited props, and mostly muted costumes. The eight villains slink in and out of the shadows setting a menacing and ominous tone for the audience. There is a chilling bareness at the beginning of the show that slowly creeps and crescendos into an overflowing turmoil of Ash Girl's inner-conflict as she longs for happiness but struggles to believe she can obtain it. The play eventually eases us into the inevitable warm, happy ending only after making us yearn for it and believe its possibility, just as Ashgirl resolves to believe for herself. Kensil's eyes vividly standout throughout the play as she portrays Ashgirl's sway between sorrow and hope. She captures a forlorn gaze and a look of longing with equal finesse. Teddy Rodger and Sam Chapin help cheer up Kensil's Ashgirl and do a lovely job of counterbalancing the show's haunting feel with their warm and funny performances as her animal friends Mouse and Otter, respectively.

Fueled by Wertenbaker's sophisticated text, the entire cast and crew do a wonderful job of creating an eerily ethereal yet engrossing show. The Ash Girl opens tonight and I urge you to go see it and get wrapped up in the dark but oddly tender fantasy.


THE ASH GIRL
Written by: Timberlake Wertenbaker
Directed by: Jessika Doyel
April 21–May 5, 2012
Wednesdays–Saturdays, 8PM
The Connelly Theater
220 E. 4th St. (between Avenues A & B)
Tickets: $18 for general admission, $13 for students (with a pay what you can show on Wednesday, April 25!)
For tickets and more information, go here.
Please also consider donating to their fundraising campaign here.

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PEN: A Festival of International Literature in New York City

Literary geeks of New York! The PEN Festival, which promotes international literature, will be held in our great city from April 30th through May 6th. Commemorating the 90th anniversary of the PEN American Center, the festival will have tons of excellent events featuring a diverse group of artists. The events include discussions, performances, and screenings, all celebrating contemporary works and topics in literature. Two events that stand out to me are: Opening Night—The Kronos Quartet: Exit Strategies, a collaborative performance exploring the relationship between music and literature; and a film screening and discussion with the multi-talented Marjane Satrapi, Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis and Poulet aux Prunes (Chicken with Plums).

You can find out more about the festival's events, ticketing information, and the PEN America Center here.

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Dear New Yorkers with ears: go to this show!

The phenomenal rock musician Damon Daunno will be performing this Monday night at Mercury Lounge in the LES. From his sweeping vocals to his great songwriting skills, everything about Daunno's music is fantastic. He regularly gets compared to Jeff Buckley--a comparison he's more than earned. Having had the pleasure of seeing him live a few times now, I highly recommend going to his upcoming show. At just $10 a ticket, it'll be a steal.

Damon Daunno
Mercury Lounge
Monday, March 12th
6:30pm
$10

His EP is also available for download on iTunes so get on that deal as well!

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Holiday Gift Guide: Music, Book & Theater Edition

It's the giving season again! And if you're a procrastinator like me, then you're still trying to get your holiday gift shopping list together. So let me help you expedite that process! Here are my top gift recommendations for the art lovers in your lives:

Music:

Florence + The Machine's Ceremonials

Florence Welch is a rock-pop machine and Ceremonials is one of my favorite albums of the year. While lacking the raw, punk-like energy of the bands first album, Lungs, the new album is a more polished and whole achievement. All the songs sound connected and they flow to form a broodingly beautiful album that still makes you want to dance and sing along with at the top of your lungs. It's my wonderfully odd dark, upbeat soundtrack to the upcoming winter season. I couldn't recommend it to you more--buy it as a gift for yourself and your moody loved ones!

Books:

The New York Times Magazine Photographs

Aperture and The New York Times Magazine present this awesome photo book that surveys the photography published by the magazine over the years. The New York Times Magazine Photographs is this holiday season's ultimate coffee table book.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

From the Pulitzer Prize winning author who gave us Virgin Suicides and Middlesex comes a new novel about Madeleine--a 1980s college student deconstructing 19th Century English novels with marriages at the center of their plots. She finds herself examining not only fictional marriage plots but also modern love and relationships. As an English major, this is the book I bought as a holiday gift for myself to read over my winter break. But if it's anything like Eugenides' previous novels, I suspect that it'll be popular with a diverse range of readers.

Theater Tickets:

Tickets to live shows make for the best gifts; you're giving entertainment and helping to create singular memories. So this year, consider giving the gift of theater! Already seen Sleep No More (a few times)? Looking for another off-Broadway gem? Go see New York Theatre Workshop's production of Once, a musical based on the film of the same name. This insanely popular show has been recently extended to January 15th. Get your tickets before they sellout!

Once
Based on the Film Written & Directed by: John Carney
Directed by: John Tiffany
Book by: Enda Walsh
Lyrics by: Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová
Movement by: Steven Hoggett
Featuring: David Abeles, Claire Candela, Will Connolly, Elizabeth A. Davis, Steve Kazee, David Patrick Kelly, Cristin Milioti, Anne L. Nathan, Lucas Papaelias, Andy Taylor, Erikka Walsh, Paul Whitty, J. Michael Zygo

For tickets, performance schedule, and more info, go here.

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Exit Carolyn at The Drilling Company Theatre

Sans A Productions and the Drilling Company Theatre present Exit Carolyn, a new play about loss and grief.

Lorna and Julie, lifelong best friends and current roommates, are coping with the death of their mutual best friend Carolyn in extremely opposing ways. Lorna masks her sadness by overworking and obsessively multitasking, while Julie wallows in hers by wasting her time away getting high (and a little fat) on the couch. Lorna fools herself into believing she's ready to move on from Carolyn's death, as Julie feels she's too paralyzed to do anything because of it.

As the play's plot unfolds, we discover that Carolyn was the middle, conjoining member of their group, and that Lorna and Julie both individually loved and depended on her charisma and strength. Without her they must reexamine their lives and decide who they are outside of their broken threesome (and if they even want to stay friends with each other). They must decide if they want to merely fill her void or truly deal with their grief and learn to live with themselves in Carolyn's absence. In the midst of Lorna and Julie's grief and dilemma, we're introduced to Carolyn's brother Matthew who is dealing with the immensity of his sadness. Matthew brings up some insightful questions as to the authority of grief; he wonders if it's appropriate for a brother to be so sad at the loss of a sister or if only parents and female loved ones (like Lorna and Julie) have the right to be as upset as he is.

Exit Carolyn captures the strange and chaotic layers of grief, while still managing to be a comical and warm show. The one outsider character, Avery, played by the freshly expressive Lauren Blumenfeld, offers some quirky lightheartedness. Laura Ramadei wonderfully embodies Julie's simultaneously funny and tragic slobbish couch-ridden state. For a play dealing with such a heavy theme, Exit Carolyn does a solid job of striking a believable balance of drama and comedy.

Exit Carolyn
Written by: Jennie Berman Eng
Directed by: Adam Knight
Featuring: Lauren Blumenfeld, Jake Loewenthal, Anna O’Donoghue, and Laura Ramadei

The Drilling Company Theatre for New Plays
236 West 78th St. (between Broadway & Amsterdam)
New York, NY 10026

Performance Schedule:
December 8-11 at 8pm
December 15-17 at 8pm

For tickets, go here.
And for a limited time, catch Thursday performances for just $10 (enter discount code: Danish)!

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Lesser America's Too Much Too Soon

Presented by the young but already acclaimed theater company, Lesser America, and co-produced by Red Elevator Productions, Too Much Too Soon is a collection of short plays by a group of fresh, emerging playwrights.

A sequel to last years Too Little Too Late (which earned three New York Innovative Theater Award nominations), Too Much Too Soon promises to be an excitingly diverse event. Having loved the intense play Squealer, I'm eager to catch another Lesser America show. Too Much Too Soon opened last night and has a limited release at the Theater for the New City so make sure to catch it while you can!

Too Much Too Soon
Directed by: Stephen Brackett and Portia Krieger
Featuring work written by: Nikole Beckwith, Dean Imperial, Nick Jones, Melissa Ross, Emily Schwend, and Ken Urban
Staring: Daniel Abeles, Liesel Allen Yeager, Craig Jorczak, Nate Miller, Anna O'Donoghue, and Laura Ramadei

Performance Schedule:
October 2 at 3pm
October 6-8th at 8pm
October 9th at 3pm

Theater for the New City
155 1st Avenue (between 9th & 10th Streets)
New York, NY

$15 general, $10 students

For more information and tickets, go here.

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Pipeline's Maritime Merriment

Over the weekend, Pipeline Theatre Company premiered their new play Felix & the Diligence . It's an absurdly silly and fun show written by Colby Day and directed by Daniel Johnsen. Set on the Atlantic Ocean, against the backdrop of World War II, the play features a slew of ridiculous and comical characters thrown together under the guise of "high stakes cod fishing."

More about this seafaring show, after the jump!


I went into the play knowing very little about it and left pleased and smiling. I'll steer away from any detailed plot description, with the hope that you'll have a similar experience. Part Shakespeare, part Disney, all absurdly funny and crude, Felix & the Diligence takes the audience on a nautical adventure, narrated by an old blind sailor named Henley (a crew member on the Diligence). And of course, Henley is played by a young woman with perfect-vision. In addition to cross dressing and secret identities, the show includes singing, sword fighting, sea monsters, sailor mouthes, Nazis, and even Amelia freakin' Earhart, all on a perfectly constructed ship deck of a stage.



Set designer Andy Yanni does a great job creating a superb stage for the actors to use. Felix & the Diligence is definitely an ensemble piece, with every actor succeeding in bringing to life the detailed nuances and idiosyncrasies of writer Colby Day's crazy characters. While all the actors give solid performances in this tightly-acted and well-paced play, Nicole Spiezio was particularly hilarious as Henley. In a masochistic way, I totally loved her constant cursing at the audience! And kudos to Meagan Kensil for stepping in for Alastair Falk and being such a charming Captain Chapman (yeah, I fell for the understudy bit, and you will too despite this telling review).

Overall, Felix & the Diligence is just a fun, comically chaotic play on an awesomely designed stage. I've come to expect a good theater-going experience from the folks at Pipeline and I'm happy to say that they've delivered again. If you haven't seen one of their shows, Felix & the Diligence is a fine place to start.

Felix & The Diligence, Or A Play About Fisherman in the 1940's
Written by Colby Day
Directed by Daniel Johnsen
Produced by Burton T. Frey Jr.

Featuring: Willy Appelman, Samuel Chapin, Fernando Contreras, Glenn Apollo Hergenhahn, Nathaniel Katzman, Meagan Kensil, Katelyn Manfre, Brad Mielke, Benj Mirman, Edward Raube-Wilson, Arielle Siegel, Allison Smith, Nicole Spiezio, and Mike Steinmetz

Performance Schedule:
September 27, 28, 28, 30 at 8pm
September 25 at 3pm
October 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 at 8pm
October 1, 7, 8 at 10:30pm
 
Connelly Theater
220 E 4th Street (between Ave A & B)
New York, NY

$20 general, $15 for students (code STU15)
For tickets, please click here.

 

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cARTel's Everybody Nose Working Actors in NY

Fearful of clowns? Or just plain annoyed by them? Me too. But I think it's time we stopped being so prejudice against such a misunderstood group (because they're not all John Wayne Gacy, Jr.). That's why this Friday night I'm seeing Everybody Nose Working Actors in NY, a show about a group of clowns trying to make it big in New York City.

cARTel, a LA based theatre company, is premiering their clown troupe in New York this Friday and Saturday. The show is an extension of the troupe's clown workshop, where actors create and develop their own miming clown persona. Set against the backdrop of a Broadway audition, this weekend's show will feature some brand new New York clowns. So come join me as we work together to get over our unnecessary fear and annoyance, by seeing cARTel's Everybody Nose Working Actors in NY.

Everybody Nose Working Actors in NY
September 16th & 17th, 9 PM
Yoga Agora
33-02 Broadway
2nd Floor
Queens, NY 11106
$7 presale, $10 at the door
(very limited seating, buy your tickets in advance)

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Fringe Encore!

The New York City Fringe Festival's Encore Series starts today and runs through the 26th. During this time, you can catch a selection of some of the best shows from the Festival, including the winner of the FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award The More Loving One.

The More Loving One was one of the five ATFG recommended shows and we're thrilled that this amazing production received the Festival's top honor this year! A fantastically written and acted show, The More Loving One is a dark comedy about two relationships that are thrown off kilter after a scandalous sex trail. An honest, intimate, and moving portrayal of the difficulties of love and committed relationships, the play explores how just one argument can bring a slew of hidden thoughts and feelings to the surface.



Buy your tickets to this excellent show here.

What:
The More Loving One

When:
Sunday, September 11th @ 7:30pm
Wednesday, September 14th @ 9:00pm
Tuesday, September 20th @ 8:00pm
Thursday, September 22nd @ 9:30pm
Monday, September 26th @ 8:00pm

Where:
The SoHo Playhouse
15 Vandam Street
New York, NY 10013

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May 21st - Judgement Day: An Original Play Premiering this September

Recently, I was able to score an interview with the young, but already well-experienced local playwright and director, Josh Young. His play May 21st - Judgement Day opens for a three-show run September 1st at the Kraine Theater in the East Village. As Young describes, the play is story of a girl named Valentine who lives in an underground bunker. Valentine has been trapped in the bunker for 13 years by the sexual abusive James, who keeps her hidden there under the pretense that the world ended on May 21st, 2011 and that he's protecting her from the Holy War raging above on Earth. But Valentine is not completely alone. She has created two conflicting, spiritual personalities that may either keep her trapped in desolation or guide her in breaking free of her solitude and imprisonment.



Read more about Josh Young and his post-apocalyptic, psychological thriller, after the jump!



Before producing his own works, Josh Young worked with numerous different companies and theaters. A graduate of NYU'S Tisch School of the Arts in Theater and Cinema Studies, Young began freelancing right after college, working as a lighting technician, designer, and technical director. He has worked for the Chen Dance Center, The Fringe Festival, and designed in theaters such as The Kraine and Red Room Theater, LaMaMA ETC, and The Cherry Lane. He was also a film technician at Technicolor Creative Services before he landed his current job position as the Theater Technician at the Guggenheim Museum. ATFG is delighted and so thankful that Young took the time to answer our questions, illuminating us on the process of creating and producing an original theatrical piece.


ATFG: What motivated you to write this play? What were your inspirations?

Young: I originally wrote this play in 2005 as a one-woman dance and movement piece for a friend. The plot was the same as now but without the May 21st caveat. Both in 2005 and then when I re-wrote it, this year, I was in the same place; depressed. I was depressed at what I saw in human interaction both in my own life and what I saw from the people in the world around me. This year, partially because May 21st is my birthday, I became fascinated by how abusive and dangerous American Christian Fundamentalism can be. So I wanted to write and revisit a story that illustrated how other philosophies, such as Samurai ethos from Japan and Zen Buddhism, have created ways for people to rise above internal and external strife and conflict. As for the play, it is about rising above the deadly mob mentality that we see in modern day Christian Fundamentalism along with illustrating that everyone has the strength to rise above their awful circumstances and emerge a stronger person because of it. Especially if those circumstances were child abuse, no matter the environment.

ATFG: How do you decide if a piece you've written is worthy of being produced? Are you your own worst critic?

Young: Goodness, yes, I am very critical of myself. Over the years I have worked in the film and theater worlds in New York and I see a lot of vanity shows, or shows that go up because people just have the time and resources. For me, I wrote this show in 2005 and sat on it because it never quite clicked. It was very close to my heart, but it wasn't something that was needing to be told. Then when the May 21st/Judgement Day stuff started happening, it just clicked. After re-writing it, I believed deeply it was a good piece, and others who read it re-enforced that thought. So I started putting the pieces together to put it up. But it was something that involved me feeling strongly about the premise and purpose while bringing enough people on board so that they take ownership of the show and make it their own.

ATFG: Do you prefer directing your own written work or having others direct your plays?

Young: For these kinds of shows I definitely do. But the writing and directing are interlinked. I don't even consider the two acts separate. The last show I did that was like this was The Wolf From Recovery, Ohio and that was in 2008. I have worked as a designer and technician over the years so when I conceive a piece it is usually written so that the design and direction are part of the writing from the inception. The thing I like to do is give ownership to the other people involved. The play necessitates a collaborative piece. The actors have strong voices in the aesthetics, and have dual roles such as the dramaturgist. Then someone like my Stage Manager is essentially an assistant director or co-director. I would feel bad if anything I ever wrote became a vanity piece, something just for myself, so I try hard to bring everyone together and have them own the piece, as much as me, during the process.

ATFG: What was the casting process like? And tell us a bit about your cast and crew.

Young: I got very lucky with casting. First, I got a stage manager on board, Alex Gerdtz, who is studying at NYU. I wanted to bring in someone who I didn't know as my right hand person so that I wouldn't surround myself with "yes" people. Honestly, she was great from the get-go because she clearly didn't want to approach the show as a paint by numbers stage manager and wanted to be a part of the creative process. Next, I brought on a friend, Patience Baach, from the Guggenheim, as a promotion and fundraising person (and to co-collaborate with Alex and I). She doesn't have a theater background so I enjoyed the fact that she could look at the show from an outsider's perspective. The casting just grew out of how chemistry and interactions looked. James Tison was cast first as the male in the play. He was the only person I knew ahead of time that was right for the role and who I asked directly to be involved. Then we cast the others: first was Elitza Daskalova, who just came in and read perfectly for Hastur; then came Adriana DeGirolami who I was delighted to see read for me. I was already friends with Adri but had never worked with her so when she came in and read the whole crew just kind of knew she was perfect for Mary Anne. We had trouble casting Valentine; many talented actresses read for her but none quite could transform between naive girl to empowered and imposing woman. At the time, our costume woman, Natalia, kind of offhandedly asked to read for Valentine and when she did it just clicked with what we were looking for and the group that was already cast. Each piece fell in line with the piece before it. So I have to be grateful for the gift of being surrounded by such passionate and interested folks coming forward at the right time.

ATFG: What has the production process been like for you so far?

Young: Intense. This is a show that is physically demanding, emotionally intense, and heavily designed. The production work started off very chaotic and nerve-racking but has simmered down a bit. All of my strengths are technical and aesthetic. I know how to draft a plot, edit a video, direct actors, but had virtually no idea how to promote and fundraise. My last show was something I was incredibly proud of and it had a fair turn out, but only because of word of mouth. So for the first month and a half of this show I tried to learn about, organize, and focus on promotion and fundraising as much as possible. I have already learned more than I could have hoped. As for the directing process, it is really rewarding and wonderful. Again, my strengths are in framing a piece, so I am really delighted with the work the actors and crew are doing to make the show be what it should be. But it is intense. The show has dance, martial arts, blood effects, and the list goes on...



ATFG: What's been the most difficult aspect of producing this show and what's been the most rewarding?

Young: The most difficult is promotion and fundraising. For all I know, we will have sold out houses or mild houses, but in my heart I know people should be hungry to see what we are creating. I am just flummoxed by the pathways I have to navigate to simultaneously get the word of this show out there but to do it in an encouraging way. At the end of the day, I won't care so long as people see it because it has some really wonderful things happening in it. The most rewarding is seeing those things happen. Two days ago, our actress Adri discovered a character revelation. It was a moment that brought a dynamic to her character and to the greater piece that was intoxicating. That is just one small part of the larger whole, so if that little sliver alone is so enticing, seeing the greater work come together is sublime. So the creative process of the show is the most rewarding by far.

ATFG: Is the stress level of this show any higher than past ones you've worked on, due to the heavy nature of the piece?

Young: No. I think the stress is high for me for pragmatic purposes, as in, just the assembly of the whole piece. Certainly I know the actors have had challenges because they were worried about the heavy nature, but I think we keep the show in the right place in our collective process. I have worked on some pretty high stress shows...I remember being stressed during Isabella Rossellini's Brand Upon The Brain at the Village East Theater, or more recently working on Watermill with Robert Wilson at the Guggenheim...but nothing will ever compete with something that you are invested in balls to bone; something that your voice is heard in from the inception.

ATFG: Are you excited or relieved when a show finally goes up or do you miss the production or rehearsal process? Is it a bittersweet transition?

Young: Not bittersweet, but I certainly miss it. One of my goals with this project is to gain enough momentum to continue working on things closer to my heart and work less as a technician or freelance designer. Just dealing with the quotidian architecture of life, I wasn't able to put a show up since 2008. I don't want to wait that long in the future. My dream is to let this show be the impulse to continually work on theater and film projects that I can be 100% invested in at a creative level.

ATFG: What's coming up next for you? Can you tell us about any future projects in the works?

Young: Hopefully, if everything works out with this show, I can keep the momentum going and move right into other projects. I am writing a few things, but I would love to do two big pieces I already have written. I have written a show I am tentatively calling "Straight Outta Wompton." It's a dark comedy based, again, on things I have experienced first hand but filtered through the lens of shows like The Maury Povich Show or that Jersey show people watch. The other project will be a short movie called "Vanilla" which would be my attempt at exploring the darker sides of the issue of polyamory.


Thanks again to Josh Young for being such an honest and insightful interviewee! Don't miss his fascinating play May 21st - Judgement Day.

May 21st - Judgement Day
The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th St.)
Thursday September 1st through Saturday September 3rd, 8pm
$15 in advance, $18 at the door

Buy your tickets in advance here

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Fringe Festival Fun

New Yorkers! It's that time of year again--where you go watch cheap, independent theater (aka when your Facebook event page blows up with invites from your actor/director/writer friends' shows). It's time for The New York International Fringe Festival . There are so many shows happening in the course of the festival's two-week span and I'm here to help you sift through them with my recommendations. Based on plays that include talented artists (whom I've had the pleasure of watching in previous shows) and plays that just sound awesome, I've compiled a list of highly recommend shows for you to go watch. So go out and support these small theater companies!



ATFG First Ever Fringe Guide (after the jump):





No Fault: A Tale About the Big D in the Big Apple



Who:

A Carnival Girls production

Written by: Christie Perfetti

Directed by: Bryn Boice

Featuing: Charmaine Broad, Christopher Catalano, Stephanie Anne Ervin, Rich Fromm, Laura Killeen, Melanie Ryan, Galit Sperling, Matilda Szydagis



Where:

Kraine Theater

85 East 4th Street



When:

Saturday, 8/13 @ 3:30pm

Friday, 8/19 @ 7pm

Monday, 8/22 @ 7pm

Wednesday, 8/24 @ 7pm

Saturday, 8/27 @ 1:45pm





The More Loving One



Who:

Unincorporated Theater

Written by: Cory Conley

Directed by: Craig Baldwin

Featuring: David Beck, Jimmy Davis, Preston Martin, Adriana DeGirolami



Where:

The First Floor Theatre @ LA MAMA

74A East 4th St



When:

Wednesday, 8/17 @ 5:45pm

Saturday, 8/20 @ 7:30pm

Sunday, 8/21 @ 4:00pm

Monday, 8/22 @ 8:00pm

Sunday, 8/28 @ 12:00pm





This One Time In Last Chance!



Who:

Attic Theater Company

Directed by: Laura Braza

Written by: Sam Gooley

Featuring: Rob Bradford, Bill Griffin, Joshua Everett Johnson, Marcus Denard Johnson



Where:

Teatro LATEA at the CSV Cultural Center

107 Suffolk Street



When:

Saturday, 8/13 @ 7pm

Sunday, 8/14 @ 5:30pm

Sunday, 8/21 @ 12pm

Wednesday, 8/24 @ 6pm

Thursday, 8/25 @ 4:15pm





Hard Travelin' with Woody



Who:

Rooster Productions

Based on the Music and Lyrics of Woody Guthrie

Written and Performed by: Randy Noojin



Where:

The Flamboyan Theatre at the CSV Cultural Center

107 Suffolk Street



When:

Saturday, 8/13 @ 12pm

Wednesday, 8/17 @ 9:30pm

Saturday, 8/20 @ 5pm

Monday, 8/22 @ 3:45pm

Thursday, 8/25 @ 7pm





Romeo & Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending



Who:

Impressionable Players

Based on the play by Wililam Shakespeare

Directed by: Ann Fraistat

Written by: Ann Fraistat and Shawn Fraistat

Featuring: Kyra Corradin, James Waters, Katie Jeffries



Where:

Teatro SEA at the CSV Cultural and Educational Center

107 Suffolk Street



When:

Saturday, 8/13 @ 12pm

Thursday, 8/18 @ 7:30pm

Saturday, 8/20 @ 2:15pm

Sunday, 8/21 @ 2:30pm

Friday, 8/26 @ 4:15pm





Courtney and Kathleen: A Riot Act



Who:

In Extremis Theater Company

Written and Directed by: Liz Thaler



Where:

The First Floor Theatre @ La MaMa

74 A East 4th Street



When:

Saturday, 8/13 @ 10pm

Wednesday, 8/17 @ 2:00pm

Friday, 8/19 @ 6:15pm

Sunday, 8/21 @ 2:15pm

Monday, 8/22 @ 4:15pm

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500 Days of Summer Singing 'Sploge

It wasn't a premeditated form of demonstrating my love for 500 Days of Summer that led to seeing Joseph Gordon Levitt live on stage on Monday and Zooey Deschanel live on stage less than a week later, but I do love 500 Days of Summer and it did happen, so judge me as you will.

For those of you who don't obsessively study my tweets (i.e. all of you), Monday, August 30th, I attended night #2 of HitRecord.Org's Summer in the City, wherein Joseph Gordon Levitt did a bunch of artsy stuff I barely remember cause I drank five flutes of prosecco first. Oops. Luckily, I managed to film the entire show for posterity. Not so luckily, the video was taken by a DRUNK PERSON (me) so it's all shaky and filled with juvenile giggles. Sigh/fail. But I do remember this: He was adorbz, the show was awesomely fun, and JGL definitely called out our friend Pete for being awesome, as they worked together in Sundance.

Then, Sunday Sept 5th, I went to the LA Times Celebration of Food and Wine which closed with an amazing concert from She & Him. Like, amazing. I love them. I know most of everyone doesn't love them cause lots of people no like Zooey Deschanel, but like, I LOVE this band. And man, the guys in this crowd, were OBSESSED with Zooey. To quite the hilarious degree. Have some video featuring some of these crazies that may be going online soon.

Anyhoo, below are some videos from the events. Some are good, some are drunk, some are cell phoney, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless. 500 Days of Summer Singing SPLODE!!!

She & Him - Wouldn't it be Nice

Joseph Gordon Levitt accompanying an animation live

She & Him - Roll Over Beethoven (Cell phone camera)

Joseph Gordon Levitt - "La Valse à Mille Temps"- good close ups, but also, drunk

If you feel like tripping out...

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