November 2022

An aspiring actress on the Fountain Theatre stage.

by Scott T. Barsotti

Most of us who make theatre have found ourselves, at one point or another, in a conversation about why we do what we do. No matter the reason for one’s passion for theatre, a sentiment that is common among theatre artists is that theatre is what they were born to do. Believe it or not, there’s now data to back this up. Researchers at Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation began studying theatre artists in 2011 in an attempt to understand how this group differs from the average population in terms of aptitude.

Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, named for its founder, is a Boston-based nonprofit that studies differences in human abilities. Generally speaking, an individual is considered to possess an aptitude if they show ability that meets or exceeds the 70th percentile in their age-norm group. Among Johnson O’Connor’s twenty-two standard aptitude tests, results show long-term relative stability, meaning a person who has a particular aptitude at age fifteen will still have that same aptitude at age fifty-five regardless of his or her education, experience, or acquired skill. The suggestion is that talent—or at least talent of certain types—is natural rather than created.

Where a skill is something that is developed over time, built up by practice and refined in the foundries of repetition, an aptitude is something present in our mental framework, something inextricable from our natural selves that allows us to complete a task or learn something more quickly and easily than our peers can. O’Connor discovered through his research that professionals who possess aptitude for their chosen field are markedly more satisfied in their work.

One way in which the Foundation broadens its research is to conduct career validation studies, in which a group of professionals in a specific field or job are tested to see if there are similarities in how they score on aptitude tests. This is where theatre artists come in.

Scott T. Barsotti

The Theatre Artist Study

I myself am a playwright. I had my first play produced professionally in 2003, and moved to Chicago to get my MFA and pursue a career in theatre. Like many artists, I’ve had to supplement my creative work with a stable job. I discovered Johnson O’Connor’s Chicago lab through a friend and found the company’s history and mission to be fascinating. The tests are standardized, so to give and interpret them one must simply learn how to give and interpret them. Once I completed my training, it didn’t take long for me to become curious about how my fellow theatre people might score on O’Connor’s tests. The Foundation had never researched theatre artists before, so my pitch for a new study was met with enthusiasm.

From 2011 to 2014, the Foundation collected data from theatre professionals—primarily Chicago-based artists—by having them complete an online survey about career goals and preferences, followed by the aptitude tests. Over one hundred and thirty participants ended up taking the full test battery. To qualify as a “professional,” for our purposes, a theatre artist was expected to be currently active in the field, as well as meet at least one other criterion, such as a degree in theatre arts or affiliation with a trade association/union. Acknowledging that many theatre artists wear multiple hats in the industry, a participating artist also had to self-identify his or her primary role in theatre. This was a forced choice and, for many, the most agonizing part of the testing. These categories were necessary so that we could not only see how theatre artists differ from the average person in a broader sense, but then also study how they differ from each other. Ultimately, we ended up with six groups: actors, directors, playwrights, designers, technicians (including stage managers, production managers, and technical directors), and then a sixth group which included all theatre professionals together in one sample.

Theatre and Divergent Thinking

One category of aptitudes that stands out for all theatre artists, regardless of primary role, were the abilities classified as divergent thinking. Briefly, divergent thinking refers to thought processes by which a person generates new ideas or considers many possible outcomes (as opposed to convergent thinking which follows logic and rules to arrive at a specific or correct solution). The Foundation administers two measures of divergent thinking, one called Ideaphoria (literally: flow of ideas) and another called Foresight.

Let’s start with Foresight, as it is the singular aptitude shared by all groups of theatre professionals we studied. Foresight is a name given to the talent for “seeing possibilities.” Those with an aptitude for Foresight may traditionally find outlets for it in entrepreneurial ventures, research and development, nonprofit work, and other areas that encourage a future-oriented approach to big picture questions and problems. High Foresight scorers are often viewed as dreamers, though they may think of themselves as visionaries, those people who are primarily concerned not with what’s happening today, but with what possibilities might exist or emerge down the road. Foresight is about creativity in concept.

Playwrights use Foresight in imagining characters, plot points, and themes. Directors use Foresight while exploring production and staging concepts in order to realize the world of the play, or in re-envisioning a classic text. Designers use Foresight in everything they do; theatre designers, like visual artists, have to take raw materials and imbue them with storytelling and expression. Actors use Foresight in testing various readings of a character, scene, or line, and in imagining backstory and situations outside the play that may inform their characters’ choices. And perhaps most interestingly are those in stage and production management, who also scored high in Foresight but for whom the ability likely factors in as less a creative ability per se, and more an ability to see a theatrical project as a long-term series of phases, problems, and competing deadlines.

The Foresight result was the most eye-popping, as theatre artists showed a mean score in the 74th percentile. In fact, over the Foundation’s 90-plus-year history, the theatre artist study is the first in which a specific career group tended to have Foresight over any other aptitude. For theatre professionals, the aptitude for seeing possibilities is a defining characteristic.

Foresight tends to influence people in other ways, as well. High Foresight scorers are more likely to be motivated by long-term challenging goals; in some cases that may be a more nebulous goal with no distinct end date (like, for example, mastering one’s artistic craft). High Foresight scorers also tend toward a dogged persistence in their endeavors; once they have a goal in mind it can be difficult to knock them off that path. Sound familiar?

As mentioned, the other divergent thinking aptitude measured by Johnson O’Connor is called Ideaphoria, the aptitude for idea flow. Ideaphoria is useful for generating content and maintaining a fluency in communication; it’s commonly seen among journalists, schoolteachers, salespeople, and professionals in typical “creative” fields like marketing and public relations. All groups of theatre artists registered above average scores in Ideaphoria, but the statistical spike was most notable among directors and playwrights. While not as prominent in the sample as Foresight, Ideaphoria makes sense as an ability shared by directors and playwrights, as they are the artists most frequently in the position to have to communicate, or even sell, their ideas.

The theatre artist sample did not show significant scoring trends in numerical aptitude, clerical ability, inductive reasoning, or fine motor dexterity. There were, however, significant trends in:

Analytical Reasoning

Theatre artists as a group scored significantly above the Foundation mean in a type of convergent thinking called Analytical Reasoning, which is the ability to arrange ideas and concepts into a logical sequence or system. Often seen among editors, computer programmers, and urban planners, Analytical Reasoning was found to be highest among the playwrights we tested. Carlos Murillo, a playwright and the head of playwriting for The Theatre School at DePaul University, had this to say about his high score: “In a sense, at least in the way I work and teach, convergent thinking can’t really happen without divergent thinking,” he says. “When you make an ideaphoric mess it requires analytical [reasoning] to make heads or tails of it and shape it into something that has coherence.”

Spatial Thinking

The aptitude for Structural Visualization (the ability to visualize objects and structures in three-dimensional space and rotate them mentally) is an aptitude we commonly associate with most types of engineering, physical sciences, and architecture. In this area, theatre designers as well as technicians scored high. Spatial aptitude seems like a more obvious fit for technical directors as well as scenic, costume, and lighting design, but sound designers in the group also fit the trend. In music, structural visualization tends to be higher among composers than among performing musicians; perhaps sound designers use the ability in building cues, planning how sound interacts with the action of the play, and in composing original music.

Visual Aptitudes

Designers and technicians scored similarly to each other in another way: they both scored high in Memory for Design (the ability to retain and recall two-dimensional images and patterns) and Observation (the ability to recognize small visual details and remember their positions). These abilities are generally useful in artistic and design fields, but also have applications in certain scientific and medical roles. Considering the amount of diagrams, plots, and plans that any designer or technician has to keep track of, these aptitudes surely make the job easier. (It will delight stage managers to know that among all of the groups, Observation was lowest among directors.) Additionally, designers were found to score high in a third visual aptitude: Color Discrimination, the ability to recognize very fine differences in color.

Auditory Aptitudes

The Foundation measures three auditory abilities that are generally considered to be “music aptitudes,” and the theatre artists tended toward higher auditory scores across the board; however, actors scored higher than the other groups on the tests of Tonal Memory (tonal sequences and melody) as well as Rhythm Memory (timing patterns and cadence). Tonal Memory would find some clear uses in musical theatre or other plays with songs, while Rhythm Memory can also aid a performer in dance, movement and fight choreography, and comedic timing. Additionally, auditory aptitudes may help actors during the process of memorization or in picking up a new dialect.

Personality and Work Approach

In the Johnson O’Connor test battery there is one solitary personality test, which takes the form of a Word Association exercise. An examinee is prompted with a series of words, and is asked to respond with the first word that comes to mind. Responses on this test help to categorize examinees into two broad groups: those with an “Objective” work approach, and those with a “Subjective” work approach. Those with an Objective approach tend to favor generalist roles in which they find success working through others (e.g., managers, executives), whereas those with a Subjective approach tend to prefer operating as a specialist and finding success through individual effort (e.g., surgeons, artists). Group contact and variety tend to be extremely important to Objective personalities; expertise and autonomy tend to be the desires of the Subjective scorers. Most people who are tested by the Foundation fall into one of these two broad categories, although there is a segment of the population that scores “Intermediate,” or right on the border. Intermediate scorers may find aspects of both approaches to be relatable and not need to strongly honor one over the other.

In all fields, the Foundation expects to see some professionals who score Objective, and some who score Subjective. How one scores can influence what type of role or function they might find fulfilling. One of the main curiosities going into the theatre artist study was the question of how they would score on this test—theatre is, after all, an intensely collaborative art form. On our online survey, theatre artists overwhelmingly favored “Collaborating with other artists” and “Sustained group contact and collective creativity” over “Developing artistic expertise” and “Achievements toward actualizing my aesthetic point of view,” respectively.

Accepting that, we anticipated more Objective scores from the theatre artists, in particular among groups like directors and stage managers, who must always find success by coordinating the efforts of other people. In fact, directors did trend toward somewhat more Objective scores, but not to the extent anticipated. Theatre artists in general scored much more Subjective than expected.

“It affirms the idea that none of us can go it alone; teamwork is essential,”

Dorothy Milne, Artistic Director of Chicago’s Lifeline Theatre, has some insight: “My own aptitudes are sharply demarcated between what comes effortlessly to me and what is near impossible,” she remarked, citing a common experience with aptitude testing. “It affirms the idea that none of us can go it alone; teamwork is essential,” Milne said. “I bring my area of expertise to every theatrical enterprise—but I also count on mining each team member’s areas of specialty.” When considering the production of a play, each artist has a unique role to fill. So while collaboration is vital to the successful creation of a piece of theatre, perhaps it is a specific type of collaboration—not group-work as we often think of it, but rather the sum total of like-minded experts.

Objective theatre artists were less likely than Subjective scorers to report that they were currently satisfied by their theatre careers. That could suggest that theatre as an industry does not provide as many fulfilling opportunities for generalists. Or it could be that Objective theatre artists need to be very careful about what kinds of projects they seek out; for example, it would stand to reason that Objective artists may find devised, large ensemble, or community-centric work to be more gratifying than other modes of playmaking.

Conclusions

So what does all of this mean? For one thing, it tells us that artists who gravitate toward certain specialties are often driven by more than just creative ambition and personal interest. In many cases, they may be following a path that’s more biological than it is deliberate. This is not to say that we are predestined to be one kind of artist and only that.

Take my aptitude pattern, for example: I score much more like a designer than I do like a playwright. Does this influence how I write plays? Without a doubt. When I write, I have a strong sense of how the play will look in motion; I like to invite bold design choices, often including physical hindrances and complicated mechanics in my plays, but I always have an idea of how these elements might be realistically achieved. I also like to layer and weave dialogue in a quasi-spatial way, almost like composing a song. Since I’m wired to think more visually and spatially, that seeks outlets in my approach to writing, and my awareness of this is extremely beneficial. I don’t have the Ideaphoria aptitude like many other playwrights, so the pages aren’t just going to flow out of me like water from a open hydrant; I don’t have an aptitude for Analytical Reasoning either, so it behooves me to be open to structural feedback from directors and dramaturges.

In theatre, our roles are often fluid and we have room to explore and discover as well as magnificently fail. Especially in university drama programs across the country, young artists have opportunities to challenge their perceptions of themselves and their abilities as they search for their theatrical niche. Murillo remarked that what he learned from his test results has helped him in his thinking, not only about his own writing, but also about how he structures his playwriting courses. “I have incorporated [Ideaphoria and Foresight] into my teaching vocabulary,” he said, “[I encourage my students] to say yes to all ideas good and bad, let free associations flow, embrace the multiple possible directions any given idea might lead you.”

The mission of Johnson O’Connor is to unlock human potential. It’s a lofty mission that is, in various ways, shared by many practitioners of the theatre. What does it mean to be human? How can we better understand ourselves? Our partners? Our fellow citizens? Why do we behave the way we do? What are the difficulties we face? There are myriad factors at play that make up who we are as people, as artists, and as a community. This study provides empirical evidence that while we are all individuals, there is a certain sameness among those of us who make theatre, common curious energies that seek to find expression in this most limitless of art forms. What do we do with those energies—indeed, those gifts?

We see possibilities. We make worlds.

Scott T. Barsotti is a playwright and performer originally from Pittsburgh, PA. This post originally appeared in Howlround. 

Actresses Amy Pietz, Victoria Platt, Suanne Spoke, and Sabina Zuniga Varela will combine their versatile talents to play the same lead character in a special reading of Natural Shocks, Lauren Gunderson’s funny and powerful new play on gun violence and gun control, at the Fountain Theatre on Friday, April 20th at 11:19am. Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs directs.

The timing is intentional: April 20 is the 19th anniversary of Columbine and the day of the National School Walkout, organized by the student activists in Parkland, Florida. The reading at the Fountain Theatre starts on April 20th at 11:19am, the date and exact time of the Columbine shooting.

“The Fountain Theatre has a long history of social and political activism,” explains Sachs. “Our celebrity reading of All the President’s Men at LA City Hall and our world premiere of Robert Schenkkan’s Building the Wall are recent examples. With Lauren’s play, I believe we need to add our voice,  as theatre artists and citizens, to the national outcry of young people across the country against gun violence and advocate for gun control in this country.”

Amy Pietz has appeared in over 300 episodes of television, most recently starring opposite Jason Alexander on Hit The Road.  She was a series regular on No Tomorrow, The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Aliens in America, Rodney, The Weber Show, Muscle and Caroline in the City (SAG Award Nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy).  She has had recurring or guest starring roles on: You’re The Worst, The Magicians, The Office, Trust Me, Maron, How To Get Away With Murder, Dexter, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and many others.  Film roles include those in The Year of Spectacular Men, Halfway, Prom, The Pact II, Autumn Leaves, Rudy, Jingle All the Way, Dysenchanted, Jell-Oh Lady, The Whole Ten Yards, and others. Her favorite theatre credits include: Stupid Fucking Bird at the Theatre @ Boston Court (Ovation Award, LA Drama Critics Circle Award), The Boswell Sisters at The Old Globe Theatre, Christmas In Naples at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Lobby Hero at the Odyssey Theatre (Ovation nominated), Fiorello and Company (Ovation Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical).  Currently producing a film on gun control called Bodyman, Amy is passionate about getting guns off of our streets.

Victoria Platt is currently in Antaeus Theatre Company’s production of Native Son. THEATRE: Jelly’s Last Jam (BROADWAY), Building the Wall and Roxy in Cyrano (Fountain Theatre), Venice (Public Theater & Kirk Douglas Theatre – Ovation Award Nom), Sammy (Old Globe), Pippin (Mark Taper Forum, Asphalt (Red Cat), Atlanta (Geffen).  Select TV/FILM: Major Crimes, Bones, The Mentalist, Castle, Criminal Minds and contract roles on both All My Children & Guiding Light; H4 (adaptation of Henry IV which she co-produced with Harry Lennix & Terrell Tilford) and as Josephine Baker in HBO’s Winchell. Upcoming film:  #Truth (Charles Murray dir.), The Gleaner (opp. Angus MacFadyen, Harry Lennix dir.), Interference,  Framed and CW’s Lucifer.

Suanne Spoke has an extensive career in theatre, television & film, appearing in the critically acclaimed film Whiplash and starring in the feature film Wild Prairie Rose,  winning multiple awards on the festival circuit. On television Suanne recurred on Switched at Birth, Famous in Love and has guest-starred on many others. She can currently be seen recurring on General Hospital. She has performed at numerous theatres and has won every major acting & producing award in Los Angeles including three-time recipient of the Ovation Award/Lead Performance by an Actress. She was most recently seen in the West Coast premiere of Athol Fugard’s Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek  at the Fountain Theatre. Suanne serves on the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts, teaching acting in the Graduate Film Directing program.

Sabina Zuniga Varela, a native New Mexican based in Los Angeles, is an artist, educator and organizer committed to the path of social justice, authentic representation and storytelling.  She is an award winning theatre actor with an MFA from the University of Southern. California. She also holds an MA in Special Education with a focus on twice-exceptional/gifted learning. She is currently a producing director for the LA based theatre company: By The Souls of Our Feet. Most recently she was seen on stage at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival & Portland Center Stage in the title role of Luis Alfaro’s Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles and was seen in Season 3, Episode 3 of ABC’s American Crime.

Based on Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” Natural Shocks is a classic Gunderson play: a 60-minute tour-de-force that bursts to life when we meet a woman waiting out an imminent tornado in her basement. She overflows with quirks, stories, and a final secret that puts the reality of domestic violence and guns in America in your very lap. The play is part confessional, part stand up, and part reckoning.

“The play is written as a solo play for one actress,” explains Sachs. “I have Lauren’s permission to have four actresses read the role, as one voice. Together, they are one woman — and all women. I think having the play read by four women adds diversity, theatricality and a stylized musicality that is worth exploring.”

“I wrote the story to continue to push the narrative away from the perpetrators of gun violence and toward the people whose lives are lost, shattered, and shadowed because of it. So many of these people are women. And there is such a tight connection between violence against women and gun violence,” insisted Gunderson.

Gunderson is right: the connection between domestic violence and gun violence is well documented. More than half of the mass shootings from 2009-2016 involved a partner or family member. Nearly half of American women who are murdered are killed by their intimate partners. American women are 16 times more likely to be killed by a gun than women in other developed nations. The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that the woman will be killed. In short, domestic violence and grievances against women are the “canary in the coalmine” for gun violence. Any effort to end gun violence must address domestic violence as well.

Lauren M. Gunderson is the most produced playwright in America of 2017, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award, the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, she is also a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s 3-Year Residency with Marin Theatre Company, and a commissioned playwright by Audible. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her work has been commissioned, produced and developed at companies across the US including South Cost Rep (Emilie, Silent Sky), The Kennedy Center (The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful And Her Dog!), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The O’Neill, The Denver Center, San Francisco Playhouse, Marin Theatre, Synchronicity, Berkeley Rep, Shotgun Players, TheatreWorks, Crowded Fire and more. She co-authored Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley with Margot Melcon, which was one of the most produced plays in America in 2017. Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You, Exit Pursued By A Bear, The Taming, and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists (The Revolutionists, The Book of Will, Silent Sky, Bauer, Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon was released from Two Lions / Amazon in May 2017.

Reserve Seats to Natural Shocks at Fountain Theatre. National website

The Spanish term for a heightened state of emotion and authenticity, “duende,” roughly translates to a single word, “soul.” It’s also the elusive ingredient at the heart of flamenco, the centuries-old art form whose Andalusian origins, while not completely known, are an exotic blend of Jewish, Arab, and Roma (also known as Gypsy) cultures. Commonly thought of as an art of suffering — and punctuated by fiery footwork, rhythmic hand clapping, and raspy-throated singing and guitar playing that can veer from sensuous to scorching — flamenco, when performed by true artists, not only has the power to exist in a profound and mystical place, but can be a transformational experience for an audience, as well.

Happily, amid the urban sprawl that is Southern California, there also happens to be a rather tight-knit community of flamencans that stretches from Los Angeles down through Orange County and into San Diego, with upcoming performances including the Melissa Cruz-directed “Forever Flamenco — Evocar” (L.A.’s Fountain Theatre, October 27); Lakshmi Basile (San Diego’s Café 21, the Gaslamp location, November 2); the Spanish superstar Farruquito (Segerstrom Center for the Arts, November 6; the Soraya in Northridge, November 9); and Ethan (Margolis) Sultry and friends (Fountain Theatre, November 24).

Deborah Culver.

That said, the indisputable Godmother of the L.A. flamenco scene is Deborah Culver, who co-founded the 78-seat Fountain Theatre in 1990 with Stephen Sachs, and has been presenting flamenco concerts under the banner, “Forever Flamenco,” ever since. Dubbed “the earth and fire of first-class flamenco” by the Los Angeles Times, the series has been weekly, biweekly, or monthly, with Culver estimating that they’ve produced in excess of 500 unique performances over the years.

Culver said she was drawn to the dance for a number of reasons, first and foremost, that it’s a “great art. It’s compelling, it’s mind-blowing, it’s gorgeous, and we have some very good practitioners here [in L.A.]. I danced it, too, of course, but really, I respect the pros.

“Throughout my time producing Forever Flamenco,” added Culver, “I have seen the community grow, mature, and exceed even my wildest expectations, and there are many dancers who are really pulling it off, who are really in tune with flamenco.”

The Fountain Theatre has also produced numerous flamenco concerts in conjunction with the Ford Amphitheatre, a bucolic, 1200-seat venue across the street from its much larger counterpart, the Hollywood Bowl. Olga Garay-English, executive director of the Ford Theatres since 2016, recently presented Olga Pericet, winner of Spain’s National Dance award in 2018.

Olga Garay-English

“The Fountain Theatre really needs to be praised for being a stalwart with not a huge financial undergirding — I think that they really deserve a lot of credit,” noted Garay-English, who added that under her Ford tenure, they have co-sponsored three concerts with the Fountain, including Pericet’s.

“I thought that flamenco really deserved a larger stage in the greater L.A. area,” she added, “so the first season I booked it in 2017, we actually commissioned a flamenco floor, which is more percussive. I also think that flamenco is an extraordinary art form that has really deep roots and yet it has become an international language, so to speak. You really see people taking up the form in very diverse cultures because it speaks to people.”

Garay-English agreed with Culver that the L.A. flamenco community is thriving and growing. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy — the more excellent flamenco that is available, the more people are interested in seeing the work. People are really thirsty for this caliber of flamenco.”

One performer who has been a fixture of the Fountain’s flamenco series is Los Angeles-based Briseyda Zárate. Born in Delano, California, and brought up by Mexican immigrants, she’s performed at the space for a decade and a half, either dancing with others or directing concerts at the venue with her troupe, Briseyda Zárate Ensemble.

Briseyda Zárate and ensemble | Credit: Sonia Ochoa

In addition to beginning her own series, Noche de Tablao, last January at L.A.’s Bootleg Theater, 44-year old Zárate, a flamencan with a feline presence and feet of fire, has also danced with L.A. Opera in productions that include The Barber of Seville and in last season’s zarzuela hit, El Gato Montés, as well as having choreographed for the company in operas such as Carmen. The dancer, who lives and works several months of the year in the cradle of flamenco, Sevilla, Spain, is nevertheless, wholeheartedly committed to L.A.’s flamenco community.

“It’s an art form that requires, obviously, community,” explained Zárate. “It also requires people who perform, audiences who go see the performers, students who want to learn, teachers who want to teach and not just steps, but the culture itself, through a way of life, a country, a specific part of Spain, though it’s all over the world. It’s about connecting at the very core of the art form — connecting in the moment to the singer, the guitarist, to yourself — and creating the magic that you give to the audience.

“Flamenco is also about the audience feeling something,” she continued. “Yes, flamenco can get really difficult technically, but at its core, it’s a very simple human thing, because it comes from such a deep historical place and a deep emotional place and the music, the dance, the song transmits that place and the artist, the “bailaora” — dancer — has to be able to transmit that. Not every artist does that. People who do it like a machine and depend solely on technique, in flamenco that will never fly. That will never suffice.”

To Zárate, duende is the spirit the dancer generates and is something akin to a ritual. “You’re creating it and it’s very special and not something that can be done by anybody. It takes obviously a lot of study, and technique is the gatekeeper to how you reach that sublime place. However, it’s just the gatekeeper — there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it in flamenco. You cannot base it solely on your technique or virtuosity. Maybe you can get away with that in other art forms, but not in flamenco.”

Someone known for possessing duende in spades is Farruquito, heir to one of the world’s most acclaimed Roma flamenco dynasties. Born in Sevilla in 1982 as Juan Manuel Fernández Montoya, Farruquito has been described by The New York Times’ Alastair Macaulay as “one of today’s superlative dance artists.” Carrying on the tradition of his grandfather, “El Farruco,” the electrifying performer first made an appearance on Broadway at age 5, and is bringing a pair of shows, “Farruquito Flamenco,” to the Southland.

No stranger to drama, Farruquito, a master of line, quicksilver footwork, and authoritative presence, was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident, eventually serving three years in a Spanish prison for the crime. Released in 2010, Farruquito came roaring back, continuing his life’s mission to share the purest form of flamenco on stages around the world.

Farruquito

As to the debate of flamenco being more a matter of nature or nurture, of bloodlines or experience, Farruquito wrote in an email that it is “a little of each. Theory without practice does not achieve much. And if we are looking at it as an art form, I think you have to go much deeper into that world. If you are lucky enough to be born in a family that can give you that experience in exposure, you have to work even harder to make something out of what you are given.”

Farruquito also shared his thoughts regarding duende, writing that it “means being accompanied by a certain magic that allows one to transmit something special, intimate, and ever-fleeting while performing. But for that duende to grace us with its presence, we must lure it in with passion, dedication, respect, humility, and everything else that it rightfully deserves.”

Ethan Margolis

Indeed, high-quality flamenco, whether strikingly presentational à la Farruquito or decidedly internal, thrives on immediacy and texture. It also requires top-notch musicians. With its distinct rhythms and outside influences also coming from Africa and the Middle East, there is a timelessness that exists at the heart of this music. Cleveland-born guitarist/composer/producer Ethan Margolis, 41, known as Ethan Sultry (Sir Sultry is his production company), moved to Spain to study the art of Roma flamenco guitar at 21, eventually moving to Los Angeles in 2010.

While in Spain, Sultry and dancer Cihtli Ocampo (now his wife), cofounded the erstwhile Arte y Pureza Flamenco Company (Art and Purity), an acclaimed troupe that toured Europe and the States for a number of years. Blending American and Spanish roots music into a jazz/flamenco hybrid, Sultry has created a style bursting with complex flamenco rhythms that stem from India — with some of the melodies having an Arabic character — while the dance form, he pointed out, is an expressive, improvisational one that was first shared by Roma families in their homes.

“People don’t realize that dance is not always at the root,” explained Sultry, “because in the Gypsy household, the flamenco dance form before it got on stage, was in someone’s house, at a party, around a campfire. It was very short, about 40 seconds long, then it was over. It was about the singing and the rhythm.

Cihtli Ocampo

“It transformed into what we see now as 10, 15, or 20 minutes of dance that evolved to be put on a stage and sell tickets,” added Sultry. “I try to feature the dance, because it’s incredible, but there’s so many dance-heavy productions. Last year we presented shows that featured songs from Gypsy inheritors and none of them were commercial artists. They spent 400 years developing this stuff and no one knows who they are. I’m trying to help people understand that flamenco is like a work-song culture — they’re singing their sorrows out and it’s not all about fast footwork.”

Which isn’t to say that Sultry is not a fan of the dance. On the contrary, his November concert at the Fountain, “Sonikete Blues: Woodshedding,” will feature dancer Ocampo, vocalist Emi Secrest, cajón (box drum) player Ramón Porrina, as well as his Ethan Sultry Group, including Lee Ritenour’s upright bassist Ben Shepherd, and keyboardist Mitch Forman, who played with Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz, to name a few.

“The Fountain is great for flamenco,” said Sultry, “and it’s because of people like Deborah. Other than the Fountain being an intimate venue, it’s the people allowing and pushing for flamenco to happen. They lose money but keep going. They allow artists to come in, do their thing and leave. I can’t imagine that the Fountain has financially benefited much from flamenco because it’s a labor of love. And it’s not,” adds the musician,” like every city has a Fountain Theatre.”

Sultry, who has a rather astonishing YouTube video that features him playing Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” flamenco style, with his body-painted wife slinking around the stage, her arms raised with filigreed fingers slicing the air, has his own idea — no surprise — of what he deems duende.

“What I believe to be spirit — duende — is that [Spanish playwright Federico García] Lorca, who was a Gypsy-rights activist, put it out there as a term and ever since it’s been used all the time. It’s that sense of arriving at a real connection with the art form with your spirit. When he used the word,” added Sultry, “he was living within Gypsy circles, and he wasn’t just talking about a dancer. He was writing about their beauty, their sorrows, that’s where it came from. I believe he lived it and felt it, and once you know that, it’s hard to buy it in another setting.

“And while all art forms have a version of duende,” Sultry continued, “it’s the term within flamenco about arriving at this blissful place of spiritual expression that you can only get to if the elements of the form are true.”

Expressing her true self through haughty glances, an arched back and thrilling turns, California-born Lakshmi “La Chimi” Basile, 37, built her career in Sevilla, and currently lives in San Diego. Over the years she has performed throughout Europe and, at one point, had a company, Luna Flamenco Dance Company. A regular performer at the Fountain for years — having directed shows there, as well — Basile also danced on a weekly basis at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant in San Diego’s Old Town district in 2017.

Now working on a project-to-project basis, Basile, who was born to an Argentinean/Paraguayan mother and an American father with Czech roots, also teaches flamenco and runs her own show at San Diego’s Café 21. While patrons might be eating and drinking during her performances, Basile said she’s had no problem with that.

“It requires a lot of stamina, but I present my show in a way that makes them pay attention. It just depends on how you attack it — and you can be mindful. That show ended up turning into a mini-showcase and I had regulars come to see me, so I was happy with how that turned out.”

But did Basile have flashes of duende during any of those performances? The dancer explained: “Duende, I believe is something you’re born with or you can stumble upon it at any given moment. It’s not something you work on like a step — duende doesn’t work that way. It either comes or doesn’t come, you can’t control it. Some people have duende moments a lot because they can transmit with a lot more ease than others.

“Even the people that have duende moments,” added Basile, “they can’t have it whenever they want. It’s more of a thing that comes, although I do believe some are born with it. There are also excellent performers who don’t have that magical moment. It’s almost like a spiritual thing — you have to channel energy in a different way than just being mental about the steps.”

More Info/Get Tickets

Tony Kushner

Tony Kushner can’t make a living writing for the stage. America’s most prominent playwright confessed in an interview published in Time Out New York earlier this year that Angels in America doesn’t pay the rent: “I make my living now as a screenwriter. Which I’m surprised and horrified to find myself saying, but I don’t think I can support myself as a playwright at this point. I don’t think anybody does.   I’m developing a series for HBO .”

Kushner is right. American playwrights — not even one of his stature — do not earn the bulk of their living writing plays. Many teach, while a growing number of younger ones write for series television.  The trend seems to be: new playwright attains notoriety and success writing plays, realizes he/she can’t make a living at it, jumps to movies and/or television to make real money. The well-meaning intent being that a big-bucks TV salary will financially support the writer, allowing him/her to keep writing plays. What often happens? They write fewer plays.  Some never return to the stage.

Some do.   Itamar Moses, for instance, writes for HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”, which isn’t stopping him from turning out stage plays (his latest effort, Completeness, just closed Off Broadway). Jon Robin Baitz had a devastating experience in Los Angeles  creating and writing the new ABC series, “Brothers and Sisters”. He left the TV show (or was fired, depending on who you ask). After a year of wound-healing and soul-searching, Baitz rediscovered that his true writing home — where he was happiest and where the work was most meaningful — was the theatre. He pulled from a drawer some old notes he had scribbled years before: an idea for a play. And wrote his best new play in years, Other Desert Cities (earning rave reviews at Lincoln Center, now transferring to Broadway).

Playwrights “going to Hollywood” is nothing new. It’s been an ongoing exodus since the 1940’s.  Even so, Kushner’s statement is jarring and disturbing.

“I don’t particularly want to do it,” says Kushner. ” I think that it’s a mistake to do it. So, yes, I’m very worried about it, because I think that a lot of talented playwrights wound up producing much less than they should have, and progressing less surely than ought to have, because they’ve spent a certain amount of their creative life doodling around in Hollywood. I think it’s had a baleful impact. Some writers’ work has just been destroyed by it. ”

“Having said all that, I’m deeply trying to make money in Hollywood, like every other idiot in the world.”

Theresa Rebeck

Playwright Keith Huff, who wrote the recent Broadway hit A Steady Rain, now writes for  the AMC show “Mad Men.” Seven of the nine people writing for HBO’s “Big Love” are playwrights. David Mamet created “The Unit” for CBS, and widely produced playwright Theresa Rebeck has written for TV since the 1990s while remaining prolific as a playwright. Marsha Norman, Adam Rapp, Craig Wright, Eric Overmyer, Aaron Sorkin, Robert Schenkkan, Suzan Lori Parks, Marlene Myer, John Belluso, David Rambo, Alan Ball, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Jeffrey Sweet, Richard Greenberg … the list goes on and on.

“Theater is now viewed as a way of getting a staff writing job on TV,” says Warren Leight, the show runner and developer of “Lights Out” who won a 1999 Tony Award for the jazz-inspired play Side Man. “For a lot of guys now, it’s a means to an end. And the end is, ‘How do I make a living as a writer?’”

No one can begrudge playwrights for going where the money is. They need to make a living like everyone else.  And the money is good in TV. Playwrights  can earn more in two weeks of work on a TV show than they will with a commission for a play which may take them years to write.

The question is: what important new plays are not being written for the American Theatre because a playwright is writing for television?

The deeper question is: what does it say about our culture?

Posted in Fountain Theatre, new plays, playwright, theatre

Tagged Boardwalk Empire, David Mamet, HBO, Itamar Moses, Jon Robin Baitz, Mad Men, plays, playwriting, Theresa Rebeck, Tony Kushner

She grew up in East L.A., a Chicana with fiery passion and intense musical talent. Eighteen years ago she moved to Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, to study Flamenco. Today, her critically acclaimed performances have graced the stages of prominent venues throughout the world, including the Hollywood Bowl and the John Anson Ford Theatre in Los Angeles, The Joyce Theater and Lincoln Center in New York, Festival de Beaucaire in France, and the Teatro Villamarta in Spain as part of the prestigious Festival Flamenco de Jerez.  She was honored in 2002 by the City of Jerez for her relentless dedication to the artistry of the region.

She is internationally acclaimed performer Maria Bermudez, also known as “La Cha Cha”.

This weekend, you can experience the thrilling  “La Cha Cha” in a rare L.A. appearance, Maria Bermudez & Friends, October 30, 2011 at Barnsdall’s Gallery Theatre. Friends joining her on stage  include one of her Spanish company members, “palmero” (hand-clapper) Luis de la Tota, and some of the very best U.S.-based flamenco artists including dancer Manual de la Cruz; singers Kina Mendez and José Cortes; guitarists Adam del Monte, Kai Nazero and famed bassist Reggie Hamilton; and celebrated percussionist Joey Heredia. This performance is a Special Flamenco Event.

Maria has been an important part of the Fountain’s Flamenco Family from the very beginning. After performing many years at the Fountain and in Fountain concerts at the 1200-seat John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, Maria moved to Jerez (Spain’s “City of Flamenco”)  to deepen her study and master her artistry. There she formed her own company, Sonidos Gitanos, touring worldwide as lead dancer and artistic director.

She formed Chicana Gypsy Project in 2007, drawing on her rich Mexican-American heritage and immersion in Gypsy culture. Combining her jazz-flavored voice with her earthy, sensuous Flamenco dancing, Maria creates a thrilling new art experience uniquely her own.    She is married to El Pele, of the group Navajita Plateao (Gypsy Rock).

Maria began studying flamenco dance after the untimely death of her beloved and talented brother, Alfonso Bermudez. The unique and compelling story of how this beautiful, talented Chicana from Los Angeles moved to Spain many years ago and developed from a hungry young flamenco dancer from East L.A.  into a world-renowned flamenco sensation accepted by the Gypsy community in Jerez inspired an award-winning documentary film “Streets of Flamenco”.

One of the top Flamenco artists in the world today, and a dear friend of the Fountain for twenty years. Once you see Maria burn up the stage, you remember it forever. Ole!

Maria Bermudez & Friends,  Sunday Oct 30 at 8pm, at The Gallery Theatre at Barnsdall Park. (323) 663-1525   Get Tickets Now

Posted in flamenco, Fountain Theatre

Tagged Adam del Monte, Barnsdall Art Park, Flamenco, Fountain Theatre, Gallery Theatre, Hollywood Bowl, Jerez, Maria Bermudez, Reggie Hamilton, Spain

I love the Fountain Theatre and am glad to be a supporter. First class! –Bernadine Bednarz (Oct 20)

Jenny O’Hara signs an autograph after a performance.

We saw it and enjoyed it a great deal, and have recommended it to friends. – Valerie Fields (Oct 20)

This is truly a wonderful production and I hope it continues and travels throughout the state and country. In my many years as a theatre- goer, I have rarely enjoyed a performance more than the presentation of Bakersfield Mist. It inspires me to attend more of Fountain’s productions from my base in OC. Thank you thank you, thank you! – Leah Vasquez, Laguna Beach (Oct 20)

We saw the play on Saturday, and all four of us thought it was OUTSTANDING! Actually, we were not surprised, because ALL of your productions are outstanding. Keep up the good work. – Dorothy and Jules Burg (Oct 20)

The show is truly delightful and thought-provoking. Jenny gives a powerhouse performance! – Kevin High (Oct 20)

Kudos to all at the Fountain continuing to perform in excellence. We are proud members and will continue to be. Love to all, Dominic and Armida Rubino (Oct 20)

Thank you! Thank you! My sister and I really enjoyed Bakersfield Mist! What a great play, good writing and excellent acting by two great performers. We really enjoyed it. I can see why it has been extended again and again. – Karen Hougaard (Oct 9)

We really enjoyed the show. Acting was excellent and the detailed set amazing. I will tell my friends and urge them to go. We went on the advice of our daughter. – Val Fields (Oct 3)

My wife and I attended last Thursday nites performance. We both rate it a 10 from all standpoints, including acting, stage design, and of course the superb writing. Congrats to all. You are ready for Broadway, but the Fountain will do for us, as the productions are always first rate and the cost of gas is much cheaper than airline tickets to the Big Apple. Thanks for a wonderful evening! – Stephen Dem (Sept 27)

Last night when I went to see “Jolson at the Winter Garden” [at the El Portal in North Hollywood]. About ten minutes to curtain, these two ladies were just raving about Bakersfield Mist. They were seated right behind me and they kept going on and on about the show with everyone in the aisle, including a couple of women seated in my aisle. They were going so far as telling people (strangers!) how to get to the Fountain and the whole husband and wife angle. It was really sweet. Talk about word of mouth! They were still prattling on about Bakersfield Mist as the house lights went down. You got all of LA talking!! – Michelle (Sept 23)

Prof. Richard Walter, UCLA

Sachs is a freakin’ genius!!! The performances were absolutely stupendous! Brilliant set and tech work. I’m putting out the information to all our students at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and TV. I’m also going to recommend it to the several hundred students in my screenwriting fundamentals course. – Prof. Richard Walter (Sept 26)

We want to hear from you! Send us an email: [email protected]

Bakersfield Mist now playing to Dec 18. (323) 663-1525     Order Tickets Online

Theater students from Campbell Hall High School on the set of “Bakersfield Mist”

At last night’s performance of Bakersfield Mist, art expert Lionel Percy was not the only visitor to Maude Gutman’s bizarre and colorful trailer park home. Maude also welcomed 20 theater students from Campbell Hall High School who attended the performance and enjoyed a Q&A Talk Back with the cast immediately following.

The Campbell Hall students are in rehearsal themselves, preparing their upcoming school production of Brecht’s Good Person of Szechuan, directed by drama teacher Josh Adell. The students finished their after-school rehearsal on campus last night at 7pm in North Hollywood then climbed into a small bus and dashed over to Hollywood to catch the 8pm curtain at the Fountain.

A conversation between the cast and the audience.

After the performance, actors Jenny O’Hara and Nick Ullett were joined on stage by writer/director Stephen Sachs for an informal Q&A discussion with the Campbell Hall students and the general audience. The theater students asked the artists many questions about acting, playwriting, how the play was developed, how an actor prepares for a role, and sought advice on starting their own careers in the professional theatre. It was a fun and lively chat, filled with laughter and words of good advice.

Actors Nick Ullett and Jenny O’Hara discuss the play.

Campbell Hall students with the “Bakersfield” cast

When it was all over, the students gathered on stage with the cast for a final photo together. Then off they went, scampering back onto the bus for the drive back into the Valley. Reflecting on the wonderful night at the theatre they just enjoyed, and looking eagerly ahead to their own next rehearsal.

Susan Merson and director Bob Jaffe

The birth of something new. The start of a new journey. Summoning the joy and courage to declare to another human being:  This is who I am. This is where I’ve been. The path ahead is uncertain. But join me as I take the next ecstatic step forward. The joyful noise of a soul opened and exposed. A heart shared. These affirmations swirl throughout Susan Merson’s new solo play, and illuminated the Opening Night of the World Premiere last night at the Fountain.

When They Go, And You Do Not is a funny and moving solo journey about love, loss and starting over. In the play, Wendy rediscovers the elements of living that pull her toward her new beginning after recovering from the death of her husband. Giving up old habits, letting go of what was, accepting new lovers and a new beginning, she finds the richness in her loss and the ways in which we all make it to the next step.

Last night at the World Premiere Opening, the tzotchke-laden trailer home set for Bakersfield Mist was masked by black flats and curtains to create a simple neutral environment for When They Go. The funny and touching one-hour solo play is performed by Merson herself.

The project furthers the Fountain’s mission to support the creation, development and presentation of new work. The guest production at the Fountain is presented in association with New York Theatre Intensives.

When They Go And You Do Not is FREE to all Fountain Members ($15 to the general public). Fountain Members in attendance last night included Candace Anderson, Donald Broder, Leslie Carlson, Pam Ford, Andre DeToledo, Ashken Evrard, Marc McVey, Lois Miller, Debbie and Ashley Posner, Leno Sislin, Susan Spira, and Kathy Weiss.  Fountain Membership Maven Diana Gibson was in the lobby greeting and trading quips with members as they arrived.

Many thanks to Fountain tech Director Scott Tuomey, Stage Manager Terri Roberts, and Box Office attendant Paige Potter for helping to make the night a success.

When They Go And You Do Not runs Mon-Wed, Oct 10 – 12, 17 – 19, 8pm. Call (323) 663-1525.

On today’s New York Times Theater Blog, critic Charles Isherwood makes an honest admission and asks an interesting question:  Should a critic stop reviewing the work of a playwright he obviously doesn’t “get” or ever respond favorably to? What do you think?

For One Critic, It’s a Rapp

by Charles Isherwood, New York Times, Oct 7, 2011

Adam Rapp won’t have me to kick around anymore.

Oops. I think I got that backwards. I mean I won’t have Adam Rapp to kick around anymore.

A scene from Adam Rapp’s play “Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling.”

Fear not, admirers of this almost absurdly prolific playwright. I don’t mean to suggest that Mr. Rapp is heading off to Hollywood for good, hanging up his hat as a theater man. (In addition to writing and directing for the theater, Mr. Rapp publishes young-adult novels, has written for the HBO series “In Treatment” and has written and directed two films, “Winter Passing” and “Blackbird.”) Given his superhuman output, he’ll probably have a new play in production by next month.

What I mean is I think it’s high time I stopped reviewing his plays. I suspect Mr. Rapp would heartily endorse this idea.

After all, reading my view that his latest, “Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling,” was “an empty farrago” probably didn’t make Mr. Rapp’s day. But I bet that he didn’t rush to the New York Times Web site during the opening-night party, or indeed read my review at all. By this point Mr. Rapp surely knows where I stand on his work, which is to say (perhaps from his point of view) jumping up and down on it.

Oh, not really. My assessments of Mr. Rapp’s plays have been honest and, I hope, clear-headed and persuasively argued, if rarely enthusiastic. I have been writing about Mr. Rapp’s grim, often violent dramas and tar-shellacked comedies for more than a decade, beginning with his 2001 play “Nocturne” at New York Theater Workshop, about which I had many positive things to say in the pages of Variety, where I then worked. I also wrote a mostly favorable notice of his 2006 play “Red Light Winter,” a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and had some good words for “The Metal Children” from last year.

But for the most part my reviews of his work have come with serious reservations. Even in my fairly upbeat assessment of “Red Light Winter” I noted that the play, which I still consider the best of his I’ve seen, “comes trimmed in a disappointing array of contrivance and cliché.”

And about a lot of Mr. Rapp’s writing I have nothing but reservations. “Kindness,” from 2008, I called “arid and devoid of emotional authenticity.” The opening line from my notice for “Essential Self-Defense,” from the year before: “If you are not interested in human behavior, why write plays?” Ouch. But that comment does reflect a consistent strain in my responses to his writing.

Contrary to popular myth, drama critics don’t salivate at the chance to savage a playwright’s work. It’s still less appealing to continue doing so, year in and year out. Who wants to be cast as the playground bully who won’t leave the poor kid alone? I have passed on reviewing a couple of Mr. Rapp’s plays during my tenure at The Times. Caryn James called “American Sligo” “keenly observed and wonderfully acted and directed (by the playwright).” His new play, like many of his works, provoked wildly diverse responses from critics, ranging from unqualified enthusiasm to unbridled dismay (mine).

But aside from that hope-springing-eternal thing, I have felt I should keep reviewing Mr. Rapp’s work because he is produced at some of New York’s most prestigious nonprofit Off Broadway companies and often attracts significant acting talent. His work has been presented at Playwrights Horizons, one of the most important incubators of new work. Billy Crudup starred in “Metal Children” at the Vineyard Theater last year. “Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling” has been produced by the Atlantic Theater Company, under the direction of its leader, Neil Pepe. The terrific cast includes Christine Lahti and Reed Birney.

For similar reasons, however, one could argue – and one is! — that perhaps it’s time to allow Mr. Rapp’s writing to be assessed by a critic who responds more naturally or sympathetically to his aesthetic. Criticism is, after all, a subjective form of writing. There is no right answer. And since the artistic staff at some of the city’s major theaters – and a deep roster of acting talent – obviously appreciates something in Mr. Rapp’s writing that I continually do not, perhaps it would be in everyone’s best interests to let another writer weigh in on Mr. Rapp’s future work. The Times is fortunate enough to have a pretty deep roster of critics.

Obviously a critic would not want to recuse him or herself from writing about any and all artists whose work he or she doesn’t care for. It would hardly be feasible, to begin with. And most writers write some good plays and some less good ones. Heaven knows even America’s most celebrated playwrights – Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill and Edward Albee – have written some plays I never particularly want to see again.

But Mr. Rapp’s stupendously fertile output – and the by-now obvious discordance between our ideas of what constitutes a compelling work of theater – make him a singular case. After all, “Dreams of Flying” is the fifth play by Mr. Rapp I’ve reviewed this year alone, if you include “The Hallway Trilogy” as three. Aside from a few patches in one of those plays, I wasn’t impressed by any of them, and the prospect of five more next year – unlikely but not out of the question – frankly leaves me contemplating abandoning my vocation to open a yogurt shop in Long Island City. (No offense meant: I’ve become quite taken with the place recently. The Tournesol bistro is a delight.)

I’ve come to the conclusion I’ve rapped Mr. Rapp’s knuckles enough for a lifetime. I’d like to hand the ruler to someone else next time.

My editor hasn’t agreed yet. But what do you think?

Actress/writer Susan Merson is a survivor, and a believer that life should be celebrated. Her one-woman play, When They Go, And You Do Not is a funny and moving solo journey about love, loss and starting over.

In the play, Wendy rediscovers the elements of living that pull her toward her new beginning after recovering from the death of her husband. Giving up old habits, letting go of what was, accepting new lovers and a new beginning, she finds the richness in her loss and the ways in which we all make it to the next step.

Susan Merson is a film, TV and stage actress. She has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, in regional theatres, on television and in major motion pictures. She has written and performed eight solo pieces around the country, and has written a book outlining how to create and develop a solo play.

“I have always performed my own work,” she explains. “It seems to be the job I have on the planet. The words come to me and over the years I have come to realize that they come not just for me but through me. So I share the work. A mirror.”

While developing this new piece, looking into that mirror must have been painful, at times. And required a brutal honesty and courageous sense of humor. In the play, Wendy’s journey of walking-through-loss mirrors the one recently experienced by Susan herself.

“I have been a solo performer for many years. This is my ninth piece. But only the second that is based on my own life experience. And ‘based on’ is the most important aspect. The reason to tell this story is the universal theme that it demonstrates. Rather than a visitation of the dead. Heavens forfend!”

“We all go through loss in life. Lots of folk have horrendous stories. Mine is no worse than many others. But I am telling this story about life and the richness that life keeps offering, no matter what our circumstance.”

“What Wendy discovers in this piece is the balance between life and death, between loss and gain, and the sustenance of humor and friendship. Hopefully folk will see themselves and their own strengths in the piece, begin to understand the resource and richness of their lives and can celebrate the everyday in every way! Laughter is part of the journey, sometimes found in the strangest places. It’s all part of the game.”

When They Go, And You Do Not is a guest production at the Fountain, presented Mon-Wed, Oct 10-12, 17-19. Call (323) 663-1525 or click here for more info.

Posted in Fountain Theatre

Actor Nick Ullett is earning rave reviews as the snooty art expert Lionel Percy in the critically acclaimed Fountain hit, Bakersfield Mist. His performance hailed as a tour de force. Who could imagine that, within the same actor, lives not only the hilariously thoughtful, gentle, sophisticated, highly intelligent and erudite Lionel Percy but also Big Alan, a ruthless, menacing, unethical, sinister mobster? Find out when you see Geezas, the soon-to-be-released movie featuring Nick Ullett.

Nick Ullett as Big Alan in “Geezas”

“Geezas is a British gangster movie,” explains Nick.  “I play the head of the family. Big Alan. I send my son, Dodger, to Los Angeles to retrieve his baby sister and the cash she ran away with. Things don’t go as planned, putting Dodger and his new crew (Eddie, a hipster bookie and Jones, an underground boxer) in the sights of Latino gangbangers and West Hollywood’s Gay Mafia.”

The notorious character Nick plays? He dryly describes him: “Big Alan is a family man who has no scruples when it comes to business.”

Nick as art expert Lionel Percy in “Bakersfield Mist”

“This was a wonderful experience of working with young actors and directors (yes there are two of them) who decided that they wanted to make a movie and DID IT. I can’t begin to tell you how much fun it was.”

Speaking of fun — if you haven’t yet seen Nick and his wife (and co-star) Jenny O’Hara in the smash hit comedy/drama Bakersfield Mist   you’re in luck! The funny and thought-provoking new play about art has been extended (3rd time) to December 18th. For tickets call (323) 663-1525 or click here.

By France-Luce Benson

No trick or treating this year? The Fountain’s got you covered. Please be sure to bring your kids and grandkids to this week’s show, where our guest – Lynne Streeter Childress – will perform work from her show for young people.

I met Lynne Streeter Childress many moons ago in Miami, FL when I booked my first professional acting gig. We were part of a company that toured plays for young audiences about issues like domestic violence and homelessness. While the subjects are grim, the plays were full of hope and the creative process was full of light. The latter, largely due to Lynne’s exuberance and delightful sense of humor. Decades later, Lynne has her own company, producing plays for young audiences that address issues like tolerance and empathy. I spoke to Lynne about the origins of her company (Building Better People Productions), and what it’s like to balance her creative life with motherhood in the time of Covid.

What was the genesis of Building Better People Productions?
I had always wanted to do my own stuff, and I knew that it would be for young audiences, and I knew that it was going to be something about building people up. Over the years I would start, and then put things on a shelf because I was working for other people, which actually was great, because I was gaining not only a paycheck, but support, and the chance to grow. In 2015, lots of things started to come together, good and bad, that kinda pushed me forward. I lost my brother in law, which was the 4^th in a series of family losses. I had also started writing a piece about empathy that I planned to produce on my own somehow, and when the opportunity to perform part of it for a festival didn’t work out, that seemed like an open door to just do the thing for real. I was in the place to just move forward.

How will future productions address the moment we are in as a Nation? How do you tackle such complicated conversations?
It’s made me want to continue to not run away from addressing hurt. Most of the shows that we have done have hard moments, where people are bullied, and lose family members, and have anxiety, and are treated bad because of differences. There is always a moment in rehearsal where I think “Is this too much?” And no, it’s not. Kids are smart. And I think that we insult them when we DON’T tackle things they are going through or that are going on around them. There has to be something between hitting them over the head and completely ignoring where we are with the isolation of COVID, and the sadness of where we are racially. I owe it to my kid, and all kids, to figure out how to do that respectfully. One more thing: we have always had a pretty diverse group of people that we work with, but I am committed to truly seeking out more people. I also want to do a show that is about a little black girl loving life. I needed to see more of that when I was a little kid, and now I want to do that. For little black girls and for everyone, to normalize that little black girls can just have joy.

You say that the adaptation of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” you performed in is your most favorite show you’ve ever done. Why? What made it so special?
It was my first Equity show (although I am not a part of the union now currently), and I participated in a development reading of it, I was part of the original cast of the show, and in the first tour. I am on the cover of the script as a koala! It is the show that made me feel like I was really doing this, and I got to be at the Kennedy Center every day, which is the most beautiful space. I got to see something come off of the page, see it worked in the room with the playwright and composer in rehearsals. And it took me around the country, getting paid to perform and travel. It helped make me. Also, I think that I may have named my son after that show. It was years later, and the name Alexander came to me as a front runner, and I didn’t know why. It just felt right. When my son was a baby I was at a party for a friend, who had directed that first production of “Alexander”, and Judith Viorst,the writer of the show, was there, and I had not seen her in a while. She asked what my son’s name was; when I said “Alexander”, everyone started laughing. And I said, “WAIT! Did I name him for the show?” And maybe I did. It was in there somewhere.

Build Better People Productions

You have a twin sister who also writes? Did you grow up writing together? Will you or have you ever collaborated?
My sister is amazing. AMAZING. She has been a journalist for 27 years, and has won awards, and wrote a memoir that came out earlier this year called “Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like ‘Journey’ in the Title”, about losing her husband. We used to make up stories as little kids, and actually blogged together about our experiences in our 40s for a while. I produced and perform in a holiday play that she wrote, The Gift of the Mad Guy, about generosity, that Building Better People has performed yearly since 2016. I love saying her words, and I love sending her royalty checks.

Did becoming a Mom change you as an artist? If so, how?
Yep. It’s made me want to make a world that he sees as lovely and that sees him as lovely. The third part of “We Got It” was inspired by the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, and I was pregnant when Trayvon was murdered, and I felt the weight of how some people did not value the lives of young black men, and did not see their deaths as tragedies. That wrecked me for their parents, and I was about to BE a parent of a young black man, and me yelling on Facebook, while cathartic, wasn’t going to be enough. What I knew how to do was create. So, I wrote. My son has also inspired shows that I have written or that we have performed, that are things I want him to hear, like about keeping his imagination, and knowing his worth.

How will you make Halloween special for an 8-year-old in the middle of a Pandemic?Our plan is to have my sister and nephew and mom over (they are in our Covid circle), and we will wear costumes and eat candy. That’s a good plan. Family and sugar.

What’s been keeping you sane?
God, and the idea that if we are in this place, then there has to be a way to work in it. If we are still here, when other people aren’t, there is something to do in it, even if that’s just to be grateful for being here. I have also learned a lot of grace for others because we are all struggling.

What gives you hope?
That people are still creating and finding ways to be light for themselves, and then for other people. Seeing creative output gives me LIFE.

MORE INFO

Posted in actors, African American, artist, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged Building Better People Productions, France-Luce Benson, Lynne Street Childress, playwright, Saturday Matinees, theater, theatre, theatre for youth, young people

Are you ready to vote on November 3rd? Do you have plans to vote early? The Fountain Theatre seeks to activate people on the urgency of voting by launching Raise Your Voice – Vote!, a guerrilla style, immersive theater event set to take place this weekend at locations throughout the City of Los Angeles. Watch the live-stream every hour on the hour beginning at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 24 and Sunday, Oct. 25 at www.FountainTheatre.com

Raise Your Voice – Vote! aims to build momentum and awareness about the upcoming election while bringing theater for the people to the people. A five-member acting ensemble will present a series of pop up performances in six public spaces, each representative of L.A.’s cultural landscape. Each performance will feature America’s most iconic speeches about voting rights, plus dance and song. Volunteers will be stationed at every location to offer assistance with voter registration and voter education.

Each of the performances will be live-streamed and will also be augmented by a series of surprise appearances, posts and performances on the Fountain Theatre’s social media pages in support of voter awareness.

MORE INFO

Posted in actors, Arts, arts organizations, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, stage, Theater, theatre

Tagged Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, Raise Your Voice, Raise Your Voice: Vote, theater, theatre, vote

By France-Luce Benson

This Saturday we are joined by playwright, director, and Founding Artistic Director of The Farm Theatre, Padraic Lillis. Founded in 2013, The Farm Theatre develops early career artists with limited support systems through workshops, productions, and mentoring. The Farm Theatre’s name is inspired by baseball’s “farm system” to develop new talent. Similarly, Lillis has devoted himself to developing new voices in theatre, as well as mentoring young artists through his work as an educator, and with his own work. His award-winning solo show Hope You Get To Eleven or What Are We Going to do About Sally, about suicide awareness, has been performed at high schools and colleges around the country – and he’ll share an excerpt with us this Saturday. Here, Lillis talks about the timeliness of that play, his love for the Yankees, and hopes for the future of theatre.

How did the Farm Theater come to be?

I am a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York, NY and led the education program for a decade. It became clear that the artists and young companies that succeeded were those that had on going contact with mentors and had a community of peer support.  When I had an impulse to start my own company, I recognized that my passion was not in developing and producing plays but that it was developing artists. 

What seeds are you planting for the spring?

I’m developing a lot of new work and mentoring playwrights – and I’m investing in their work. I believe the work that we begin to write and fully develop will be ready to share publicly in the spring. Regardless of the form public productions will take in the spring – we will have a lot of new voices ready to share the stories.

You describe yourself as a life-long Yankee fan; Do you have a favorite memory watching the Yankees? 

I grew up in Upstate New York. Fairport, a suburb of Rochester. I became a Yankee fan probably because of the great history of the team and our cable tv in the 70’s included channel 11 where I could watch the Yankees play every night. A favorite memory of watching Yankees – I have a lot, but one that stands out…and I talk about in my solo show, is game 5 of the 2001 World Series. Top of the 8th inning – and the Yankees are in the field – and the crowd starts chanting “Paul O’Neill, Paul O’Neill” – he’s in right field. He’s retiring after this year. This is his last game at the stadium and the crowd needed to let him know how much they appreciated and valued him. What makes it even more beautiful is that the Yankees were losing. They were about to lose the World Series…but the fans needed to tell Paul O’Neill how much he meant to them. I love that moment.

Do you feel your solo show Hope You Get to Eleven, or What are we going to do about Sally?, about suicide awareness, has significant relevance right now? 

Right now, isolation is a major challenge. Our entire industry is shut down and each of us are being forced to reimagine how we create and share our work. It is incredibly difficult to reimagine your entire identity and how engage with the world. People need to know that they are not alone, that they are not the only ones experiencing difficulty, that need help – and that it is okay not to be perfect or to not know —- how to navigate this change. We’re all figuring it out. 

Do you work with any suicide prevention organizations?

When I present this show for a public audience, I make it a point to raise funds and awareness for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. When I perform the show at high schools and colleges I do it in collaboration with the school counselors – and make sure that each performance has a post-show discussion. For days after each performance I hear audience members share their personal relationship with the issue. I believe the most valuable thing the show does is that it facilitates open dialogue about a disease that preys on secrecy. 

How have you cared for yourself during this time?

I take a walk in nature every day. It gets me out of my apartment, away from my computer, and gives me a chance to appreciate the simplicity of life.

What’s been keeping you sane?

The daily walk. And baseball.

What brings you hope?

This. The fact that your theater has found a way to stay engaged with your community. The plays that people are writing. Zoom readings, audio plays, live streaming…all of the ways that people are finding to create and share their work. I think we can all agree that not all of the forms are completely satisfying – but that fact that we are continuing to create and to share the work is incredibly hopeful. 

France-Luce Benson is a playwright and Community Engagement Coordinator for the Fountain Theatre.

Posted in Fountain Theatre

Tagged director, Fountain Theatre, France-Luce Benson, LAByrinth Theater Company, Los Angeles, Padraic Lillis, playwright, playwrights, The Farm Theatre, theater, theatre

Actors in rehearsal for Raise Your Voice.

The Fountain Theatre is readying Raise Your Voice – Vote!, a guerrilla style, immersive theater event set to take place over the course of two days at six locations throughout the City of Los Angeles. Watch the live-stream every hour on the hour beginning at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 24 and Sunday, Oct. 25 at www.FountainTheatre.com.

Conceived by acclaimed playwright and Fountain Theatre community engagement coordinator France-Luce Benson and co-directed by Benson and Lily Ockwell, Raise Your Voice – Vote!aims to build momentum and awareness about the upcoming election while bringing theater for the people to the people. The five-member acting ensemble (Victor Anthony, Jessica Emmanuel, Wonjung Kim, Theo Perkins and Rayne J. Raney) will present a series of pop up performances in six public spaces, each representative of L.A.’s cultural landscape. Each performance will feature America’s most iconic speeches about voting rights, plus dance and song. Volunteers will be stationed at every location to offer assistance with voter registration and voter education.

“We want to create an event that is inspirational, but never didactic,” explains Benson. “The performers will be in conversation with each other and with the people around them, blending in, respecting and embracing whichever community we’re in.”

Each of the performances will be live-streamed and will also be augmented by a series of surprise appearances, posts and performances on the Fountain Theatre’s social media pages in support of voter awareness.

Send Us Your Selfie on Voting

Want to engage in the Fountain’s newest project? We want you to upload a short selfie video (2 mins or less) of yourself expressing how important it is to vote. Nothing fancy. Can literally be taken on a smartphone. Just speak from your heart. Be passionate. What does voting mean to you? Why does voting matter? Do you have a personal story about voting? These video selfies will air at the top of each hour, from 10am to 6pm, on all Fountain social platforms and website.

Important: 

• You (we) cannot endorse a specific candidate.
• Do not mention Trump or Biden by name.
• Shoot your selfie horizontal, not vertical.   

The purpose of the event is to use theatre as a trigger to activate the public to vote, to emphasize the responsibility of voting, to remind each other of the price some have paid to vote, to express the urgency to participate in this election and in our democracy.

Raise Your Voice – Vote! is produced by Stephen Sachs and Simon Levy for the Fountain Theatre. James Bennett is live-stream editor, and Terri Roberts is volunteer coordinator. The event is underwritten by Miles and Joni Benickes, Diana Buckhantz, Karen Kondazian, Maggi Phillips, Susan Stockel, Dorothy Wolpert, and Don and Suzanne Zachary. Event partners include volunteer organizations The Social Ripple Effect and Big Sunday.

For more information, to find out how you can volunteer and to live-stream Raise Your Voice –Vote! on Oct. 24 and Oct. 25, go to www.fountaintheatre.com.

Posted in Arts, arts organizations, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Livestream, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, Online, performing arts, plays, Social justice, Theater, theatre

Tagged Diana Buckhantz, Don Zachary, Dorothy Wolpert, Fountain Theatre, France-Luce Benson, immersive, James Bennett, Jessica Emmanuel, Karen Kondazian, Lily Ockwell, livestream, Los Angeles, Maggi Phillips, Miles Benickes, Raise Your Voice, Rayne J. Raney, Simon Levy, Social Ripple Effect, Stephen Sachs, Susan Stockel, Terri Roberts, Theo Perkins, Victor Anthony, Wonjung Kim

By Terri Roberts

Did you see it? Were you part of the excitement? Thursday, October 1^st, was Opening Night of the first weekend of Together LA: A Virtual Theatre Festival, a three-week long celebration of new works presented by Alternative Theatre Los Angeles (ATLA) in association with L.A. Stage Alliance. The second weekend of performances has begun, and continues tonight and Saturday at 7pm. The final batch of shows is next weekend, October 15-17, at 7pm. The entire festival can be viewed on Twitch.

Each evening of the online festival is a 90-minute stretch of original 10-minute plays, all penned specifically for the digital stage by playwrights representing 34 of the 64 local intimate theatre companies – including the Fountain – that make up ATLA. The Fountain’s entry into the festival, Talking Peace, was written by Community Engagement Coordinator France-Luce Benson, who also happens to be an accomplished playwright. Talking Peace is a wittily observant take on today’s hot-button issues that is set during a virtual Zoom get-together. In it, a healing circle comes undone when an outsider finds her way in, forcing the five women to deconstruct what it means to be Black, BIPOC and bound by sisterhood.

Talking Peace was part of last week’s Opening Night schedule. You can re-watch it – and catch all other performances to date — at www.twitch.tv/togetherlafestival. To make reservations for tonight, and any of the remaining nights, visit www.togetherlafestival.com. Tickets are free, but reservations are required.

ATLA was born five months ago out of the need felt by local theatres to stay connected during the pandemic, offer strength and support to each other, and make positive steps forward in the midst of uncertainty in order to keep hope, art and theatre alive.

And so, LA’s intimate theatre community turned out en masse last Thursday to celebrate the launch of this digital effort together. New plays! Old friends! The forum was virtual, but the energy jumped right off the screen. The pre-show chat box overflowed with cries of “So excited!” and “Break legs everybody!” scattered in-between all the shout-outs and virtual drink orders and jokes about easy parking. The wild exhilaration was further pumped up with a lava flow of exuberant emojis: clapping hands, party poppers, hugs, and a full-range rainbow of colored and decorated hearts. It didn’t seem to matter that the theatre lovers gathered there were not sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the same house. After months of isolation and darkened physical stages, they were sitting spirit-to-spirit and heart-to-heart in the same space, ready and willing to enjoy a virtual stage experience, and reveling in each others’ company. This community knows how to adapt!

“We are here to celebrate the vibrant and diverse intimate theatre scene of greater Los Angeles,” explained host Amy Hill at the top of the show. “Los Angeles theatre has always been on the forefront of innovation, and tonight we bring that to the digital stage…we are showcasing what intimate theatre does best – bringing people together. Telling important stories and creating a place to connect and heal through art.”

The three-week long event is also doubling as a fundraiser for Color of Change, a progressive nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization in the United States that uses online resources to strengthen the political voice of African Americans. By the end of yesterday’s block of shows, $3,680 had been raised toward an ultimate goal of $5,000. Could it be that a new goal will need to be set before the weekend is out? The LA theatre community is nothing if not enthusiastic and generous in their support of friends in need.

The same exuberance on display Opening Night has continued every night since then. So come on in – gather with us tonight and Saturday, and next weekend as well to cheer on all these new short plays, reconnect with the theatres and artists you love, raise some money for a good cause, and help keep the indomitable LA intimate theatre spirit riding high! A digital program will be yours for the asking, and someone will be by shortly to take your virtual drink order. You don’t even have to worry about parking or arriving late and not getting in. There’s always enough room, and plenty of fun to be had.

Together LA: A Virtual Theatre Festival is presented by Alternative Theatre L.A. in association with the L.A. Stage Alliance. In addition to the Fountain Theatre, participating companies include 24th Street Theatre, Actors Co-op, Ammunition Theatre Company, Celebration Theatre, Chance Theater, Coin and Ghost, Company of Angels, Echo Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, IAMA Theatre Company, Impro Theatre, Independent Shakespeare Company, Interact Theatre Company, Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble, Macha Theatre, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Open Fist Theatre Company, Ophelia’s Jump Productions, Pacific Resident Theatre, Playwrights Arena, Rogue Machine Theatre, Sacred Fools Theater Company, Sierra Madre Playhouse, Skylight Theatre Company, The 6th Act, The Group Rep Theatre, The Inkwell Theater, The New American Theatre, , The Road Theatre Company, The Victory Theatre Center, Theatre of NOTE, Theatre West and Whitefire Theatre. For more information about the festival and for a schedule of shows, please visit www.togetherlafestival.com

Terri Roberts is a freelance writer and the Coordinator of Fountain Friends, the Fountain Theatre’s new volunteer program. She also manages the Fountain Theatre Café.

Posted in Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, social media, stage, Theater, theatre

Tagged Alternative Theatre Los Angeles, Color of Change, France-Luce Benson, LA Stage Alliance, LA: A Virtual Theatre festival, Talking Peace, Terri Roberts, theater, theatre, Together LA

The study of theater has always been a slightly odd fit with higher education. Theater’s departmental needs are so different from the norm: Where other programs require smart classrooms, desks, and Wi-Fi, we seek vast, empty spaces with sprung wood floors and natural light. The inner life of a chemistry major should not affect the outcome of an assignment; for theater majors, the inner life is the assignment.

The craft of acting involves human behavior. Constantin Stanislavsky, the father of American acting style, was a Russian actor who became frustrated with the inconsistencies of his own work. He sought to define a “system” for creating believable behavior on stage, which involved an in-depth study of a character’s motivations and circumstances.

Some of the precepts of Stanislavsky’s technique for embodying life on stage include fierce concentration and the ability to focus one’s attention at will, significant mind/body reciprocity, a developed and practiced imagination, and the exploration and study of the outside world (other people, other art forms, literature, and one’s own life experiences). Acquiring those skills could be an antidote for college students who are said to be lacking empathy, isolated and narcissistic, distracted and jaded.

Theater (slow, communal, physical) may be the cure for what ails us in the digital world. Social psychologists, neurologists, and doctors tell us that cellphone use (in the way our students do it, more than eight hours a day) is altering modes of attention, reducing eye contact, hurting necks and hands, and changing our brains and sleep cycles. Apparently nothing feels as good as the dopamine rush that floods our brains every time the phone “pings.” We are all of us, to a degree, nomophobic (the term coined to describe the anxiety that results from being without one’s phone).

A colleague tells a story about assigning a scene from a 1970s play in which one character waits on a park bench for some time. The actor was unable to conceive of any kind of “waiting” that did not involve having a cellphone to mitigate the boredom. She simply did not know what to do.

Our students (and this will very likely increase in the next couple of years, as the first cohort of 21st-century children goes to college) are unfamiliar with the experience of being alone with their thoughts or of following their thoughts, unimpeded, wherever they might travel. Solving a STEM equation is important, but discoveries in the sciences will occur only when people know how to be alone with their thoughts. Who is teaching that?

In acting classes, students grapple with the effects of technology on their brains, bodies, and social selves. Cellphones must be turned off and put away. The goal is to disconnect with technology and to connect with one another and themselves. Students struggle to maintain eye contact; they work to develop a psycho/physical connection for what they think, feel and do; they concentrate for longer and longer periods of time. They read plays; they memorize text; they learn to follow their impulses to create movement, gesture, intimacy, community. If this scene were unfolding in a movie in which computers were threatening to destroy humanity, you’d be cheering for the theater majors to save us.

A colleague recently despaired because her students no longer understood the action “to flirt.” Accustomed to soliciting one another via text, and more used to hookups than dates, this verb was no longer a touchstone for college students, and “flirting” did not elicit any specific physical or emotional behaviors (sustained eye contact, light touch, smiling, playfulness) from the actors. When asked to flirt, they went straight to simulated sex. There was no in-between. Bottom line: Even though technology has become what we do all day, it isn’t human behavior.

From 2011 to 2014, the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation worked with theater artists in Chicago through an online survey and a battery of aptitude tests to determine whether there are innate skills shared among theater workers. The aptitude called “foresight,” which is the talent to envision many possible outcomes or possibilities, was present in all theater workers (playwrights, directors, designers, actors). When actors try out various line readings or interpretations of a scene, when they improvise or create backstory, they are using foresight.

But foresight would be impossible without empathy. The actor’s ability to envision multiple outcomes or motivations in a play must be based on the character’s circumstances, not the actor’s. That requires a kind of stepping into another person’s shoes that social scientists say is dwindling among college-age students.

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy Loman in “Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.”

When he played the role of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Philip Seymour Hoffman explained that his preparation each night included sitting for at least a half-hour at the cramped kitchen table onstage, experiencing his shabby surroundings, sipping coffee, and allowing his imagination to wander as Willy’s would have. Our student on the park bench would have had trouble with that.

Algorithms recommend music based on what we’re already listening to, books similar to others we’ve read, and “friends” from among people we already know. As a result, we are less frequently confronted by the other, the unknown, the different. Stanislavsky’s technique requires a thorough study of a character’s situation — whether geographic location or state of physical health — and asks that actors explore the effects of those circumstances on their own selves. In a semester, a college actor will play multiple characters, stretching to inhabit another psyche, another intellect, another body. It’s a veritable empathy boot camp.

Businesses have long recognized that elements of actor training can be used to develop creativity, improve communication, and resolve conflicts. Many corporate consultants have bachelor’s degrees in acting and make a good living teaching improvisation, role play, and collaborative problem-solving to M.B.A.s. Yet universities with theater departments have failed to recognize that they have this resource in their own backyards.

Whatever your feelings about the legitimacy of theater as a college major, or its eventual earnings potential, there are important struggles and discoveries happening in the acting classroom. As technology and machines consume more and more of life, perhaps theater can help us remember what it means to act like a human.

Tracey Moore is an associate professor of theater in the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. This post appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Center Theatre Group‘s Block Party continues with the opening of The Fountain Theatre production of “Citizen: An American Lyric” this Sunday, April 30 at 6:30 p.m. at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Based on a book of poetry by Claudia Rankine, adapted for the stage by Fountain Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs and directed by Shirley Jo Finney, “Citizen: An American Lyric” will begin previews tonight April 28 and continue for 11 performances only through May 7, 2017.

Block Party highlights some of the remarkable work being done in other, more intimate theatres throughout Los Angeles by fully producing three previously staged productions. The three productions receive the full support of Center Theatre Group and its staff in order to fund, stage and market each production. Block Party began with the Coeurage Theatre production of “Failure: A Love Story” April 14 through 23 and will continue with The Echo Theater Company’s production of “Dry Land” running May 12 through 21.

“Citizen: An American Lyric” fuses poetry, prose, movement, music and the video image in a provocative stage adaptation of Claudia Rankine’s internationally acclaimed book of poetry about everyday acts of racism in America. Of Rankine’s “Citizen,” The New Yorker wrote that it was “brilliant… [and] explores the kinds of injustice that thrive when the illusion of justice is perfected.” The New York Times wrote that “Rankine brilliantly pushes poetry’s forms to disarm readers and circumvent our carefully constructed defense mechanisms against the hint of possibly being racist ourselves.”

The cast of “Citizen: An American Lyric” includes Bernard K. Addison, Leith Burke, Tony Maggio, Monnae Michaell, Simone Missick and Lisa Pescia. Scenic and projection design is by Yee Eun Nam, costume design is by Naila Aladdin-Sanders, lighting design is by Pablo Santiago and original music and sound design is by Peter Bayne. Anastasia Coon is the movement director and Shawna Voragen is the production stage manager.

Audiences are also invited to engage in discussion with the “Citizen” cast and company following each performance during moderated Stage Talks. There will be no Stage Talk held on opening night.

Posted in Acting, actors, African American, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, poetry, race, racism, Theater, theatre

Tagged Bernard K. Addison, Block Party, Center Theatre Group, Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine, Leith Burke, Lisa Pescia, Monnae Michaell, poetry, race, racism, Shirley Jo Finney, Simone Missick, stage adaptation, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, Tony Maggio

Week one of rehearsal started Tuesday for our upcoming remount of Citizen: An American Lyric, the centerpiece of Center Theatre Group’s Block Party at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Originally created and produced in 2015 at the Fountain Theatre, last week was a happy reunion for original cast members, designers , production crew and director Shirley Jo Finney.  

Citizen: An American Lyric is a searing and poetic riff on race in America written by Claudia Rankine, adapted for the stage by Stephen Sachs. The cast features Bernard K. Addison, Leith Burke, Tony Maggio, Monnae Michael, Simone Missick, and Lisa Pescia. 

The company met in the rehearsal room at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and immediately got to work. Day one began with a table reading of the script. As the week progressed, the actors were soon up on their feet pacing through the blocking. Citizen opens at the Kirk Douglas Theatre for a limited run April 30 – May 7.   

More Info/Get Tickets

Posted in actors, arts organizations, director, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, racism, theatre

Tagged actors, Bernard K. Addison, Block Party, Center Theatre Group, Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine, director, Fountain Theatre, Leith Burke, Lisa Pescia, Los Angeles, Monnae Michael, Rehearsal, Shirley Jo Finney, Simone Missick, Stephen Sachs, Tony Maggio

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Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre

Tagged actor, Bo Foxworth, Building the Wall, Fountain Theatre, Judith Moreland, Los Angeles, Michael Michetti, new play, Robert Schenkkan, theater, theatre, world premiere

Robert Schenkkan’s powerful new political thriller Building the Wall, now playing to sold-out houses at the Fountain Theatre, will open Off-Broadway at New World Stages for a limited run May 12 to July 9th.  The New York production will feature Tamara Tunie (“Law & Order: SVU”) and James Badge Dale (“13 hours”, “The Departed”),  directed by Ari Edelson.

“We are thrilled Robert’s play will increase the national conversation on these issues by making its New York debut, ” says Fountain Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs. “I am very proud that the Fountain Theatre has lead the charge by launching the world premiere of this urgent new play.” 

The Fountain Theatre opened the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of Building the Wall on March 18, directed by Michael Michetti and starring Bo Foxworth and Judith Moreland. The production has earned rave reviews and is still playing to sold-out houses. The current run continues to May 21. 

Judith Moreland and Bo Foxworth in “Building the Wall”, Fountain Theatre

“This announcement comes from the core of our artistic mission at the Fountain,” says Sachs. “We are dedicated to developing and producing new plays that are later seen in theaters across the country and around the world.” Examples include Athol Fugard’s Exits and Entrances, which premiered at the Fountain and opened Off-Broadway at Primary Stages, Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, and Sachs’ own Bakersfield Mist, now being produced worldwide after a 3-month run on London’s West End.

Building the Wall at Fountain Theatre

Posted in arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged Ari Edelson, Athol Fugard, Bakersfield Mist, Bo Foxworth, Building the Wall, Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine, Exits and Entrances, Fountain Theatre, James Badge Dale, Judith Moreland, London, Los Angeles, Michael Michetti, National New Play Network, new play, New York, Off-Broadway, Primary Stages, Robert Schenkkan, Rolling World Premiere, Stephen Sachs, Tamara Tunie, theater, theatre, West End, world premiere

Lawrence Stallings, Pablo Castelblanco, Richard Azurdia, Peter Pasco

It was announced today that the Fountain Theatre has been nominated for seven Stage Raw Theatre Awards for two productions in the 2016 season. Our Los Angeles premiere of My Manana Comes by Elizabeth Irwin and the world premiere of Stephen Sachs’ Dream Catcher were acknowledged with the following nominations:

• Leading Male Performance – Lawrence Stallings, MY MAÑANA COMES 
• Supporting Male Performance – Peter Pasco, MY MAÑANA COMES
• Playwriting  – Elizabeth Irwin, MY MANANA COMES
• Two Person Performance – Elizabeth Frances & Brian Tichnell, DREAM CATCHER
• Lighting Design – Jennifer Edwards, MY MAÑANA COMES 
• Set Design – Michael Navarro, MY MAÑANA COMES 
• Production Design – Dillon Nelson,  MY MAÑANA COMES

 Full list of nominees.

Elizabeth Frances and Brian Tichnell in Dream Catcher. 

The Third Annual Stage Raw Theater Awards are May 15 at Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, Downtown. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7:30 p.m. 

Tickets: General Admission $25, VIP reception (post-show) $100. VIP Includes: Hosted bar, passed food, trial membership to Stage Raw “Insiders Club” More Info

Posted in actors, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Native American, new plays, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Brian Tichnell, Dillon Nelson, Dream Catcher, Elizabeth Frances, Elizabeth Irwin, Fountain Theatre, Jennifer Edwards, Lawrence Stallings, Los Angeles, Michael Navarro, My Manana Comes, Peter Pasco, playwright, set design, Stage Raw, Stage Raw Los Angeles Theater Awards, Stephen Sachs

Shirley Jo Finney

The Fountain Theatre is proud to announce that the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), has selected Director Shirley Jo Finney as SDCF’s 2017 Denham Fellow for her production of Runaway Home by Jeremy J. Kamps. Runaway Home made its world premiere at The Fountain Theatre and runs to November 5th. 

The Denham Fellowship was established by Mary Orr Denham in 2006 with a bequest to SDCF in honor of her late husband, Reginald H. F. Denham. It is an annual cash award given to women directors to further develop their directing skills, and supports a particular proposed project. Past recipients include May Adrales, Tea Alagic, Rachel Alderman, Kathleen Amshoff, Jessi D. Hill, Joanie Schultz, Bridget Leak, Hannah Ryan, and Diane Rodriguez.

“I love this place because it does important work, ” Finney stated about the Fountain Theatre and Runaway Home. “I love when a piece of work is being presented and the audience can’t get out of their seats. Because they have not experienced a play. They have experienced a life.”

Denham Fellow Shirley Jo Finney is an award-winning international director and actress. She has worn her director’s hat in some of the most respected regional theater houses across the country including: The McCarter Theater, The Pasadena Playhouse, The Goodman Theater, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Fountain Theater, LA Theater Works, Crossroads Theater Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival, Sundance Theater Workshop, Mark Taper Forum, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the State Theater in Pretoria, South Africa. Ms. Finney has received many prestigious awards over the years for her special talent and eye for storytelling and for creating exciting ensembles. Her awards include the L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award, The Los Angeles Drama Critics Award, LA Weekly Award, The NAACP Award, and the Santa Barbara Independent Award for her directing work. Finney helmed the acclaimed international all South African Opera entitled Winnie, based on the life of political icon Winnie Mandela. Most recently, Ms. Finney directed and developed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Citizen: An American Lyric by the award-winning PENN poet, Claudia Rankin. Other recent works include Facing Our Truth, The Trayvon Martin Project at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, the Lark Play Development Center’s rolling world premiere of the road weeps, the well runs dry by Marcus Gardley at the Los Angeles Theater Center, and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Brother/Sister Plays.

“Shirley Jo has been a cherished member of our Fountain Family for many years,” says Stephen Sachs, Co-Artistic Director. “We are thrilled and proud that the SDC Foundation has honored her excellence.”

Runaway Home now playing to Nov 5th.

Posted in artist, Arts, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, new plays, performing arts, Theater, theatre

Tagged Denham Fellowship, director, Fountain Theatre, Jeremy J. Kamps, Los Angeles, Runaway Home, SDC, SDCF, Shirley Jo Finney, Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Stephen Sachs

Actors Gilbert Glenn Brown and Matthew Hancock.

Our thrilling Los Angeles Premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney‘s The Brothers Size is now officially launched with rehearsals underway. The first table reading of this beautifully powerful play took place last week at the Fountain and everyone in the company — actors, designers and production team members — were blown away and deeply moved. It promises to be another unforgettable Fountain production, opening in June.

Award-winning director Shirley Jo Finney returns to direct The Brothers Size, the second play in McCraney’s Trilogy, following our acclaimed and award-winning In the Red and Brown Water. The Brothers Size is a hot-blooded, music-filled drama from one of the country’s most exciting new voices. After a homecoming in the bayous of Louisiana, the Size brothers, Ogun and Oshoosi, try to start fresh. This haunting, funny, and heartbreaking tour de force probes sexuality, coming of age, and the bonds of family as the brothers struggle to discover identity and to unearth a new sense of freedom.

The Los Angeles Premiere at the Fountain theatre stars Gilbert Glenn Brown, Matthew Hancock  and Theo Perkins.

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Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, designers, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Ameenah Kaplan, Deborah Lawlor, Fountain Theatre, Gilbert Glenn Brown, In The Red and Brown Water, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Lucy Pollak, Matthew Hancock, performing arts, plays, playwriting, Shirley Jo Finney, Simon Levy, Tarell Alvin McCraney, The Brothers Size, theater, theatre, Theodore Perkins

Akiva Potok with the cast from ‘My Is Asher Lev’

We were so pleased and honored to welcome a special guest to a recent performance of our critically acclaimed production of My Name Is Asher Lev at the Fountain. Akiva Potok, son of the novel’s author Chaim Potok,  attended the play, engaged the audience in a post-show discussion following the performance, and celebrated his birthday with the Asher Lev company upstairs in the cafe. It was another unforgettable night at the Fountain.

Akiva Potok is a filmmaker living in Beverly Hills.  After seeing the Fountain production of the stage adaptation of his father’s novel, Akiva commented to director Stephen Sachs: “Indeed it was a wonderful night. Your production of the play cuts deeply into the emotions of that family; I was very moved. The Q&A after was very rewarding and great fun for me. And thank you for letting me celebrate my birthday with your cast and crew.”

The Fountain’s LA premiere of My Name Is Asher Lev, starring Jason Karasev, Anna Khaja and Joel Polis,  has earned wide critical acclaim including being highlighted as Critic’s Choice in the Los Angeles Times. The run has been extended to May 18th.  

Enjoy These Snapshots with Akiva Potok & Company

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My Name Is Asher Lev Now – May 18th (323) 663-1525  MORE 

Posted in Acting, actors, Arts, arts organizations, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged actors, Akiva Potok, Anna Khaja, Chaim Potok, Critic’s Choice, Deborah Lawlor, Fountain Theatre, Jason Karasev, Joel Polis, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Los Angeles Times, My Name Is Asher Lev, new plays, novel, performing arts, plays, Simon Levy, stage adaptation, Stephen Sachs

Our Los Angeles Premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In the Red and Brown Water officially opened Saturday, October 20th. A full house, a dazzling performance, followed by a catered reception upstairs in the cafe. The cast, company and audience members enjoyed the wine and delicious food served at the post-show party, including (because of the Louisiana setting of the play) a huge tray of homemade creole jambalaya.

Enjoy the photos!

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Posted in actors, Arts, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged African American, Brenda Lee Eager, Diarra Kilpatrick, Dorian Baucum, Erinn Anova, Fountain Theatre, Gilbert Glenn Brown, In The Red and Brown Water, Iona Morris, Justin Chu Cary, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Maya Lynne Robinson, new plays, opening night, Peggy Blow, plays, Shirley Jo Finney, Simone Missick, Stephen Marshall, Stephen Sachs, Tarell Alvin McCraney, theater, Theodore Perkins

Michael Elyanow

by Michael Elyanow

We hear it a lot about playwriting—that there’s no money in it. Whether or not that’s actually true, I had the opportunity to talk about this issue recently when I met with a young playwright, a senior at Northwestern University’s Creative Writing for the Media Program, who wanted to pick my brain about how I’ve managed to make it as a career playwright.

But first: let’s try and define make it.  I, like a lot of playwrights, struggle. I struggle to write, and to write well. I struggle to get productions, workshops, grants, commissions, and more. Like hundreds of other playwrights, I spend days putting together applications to get into conferences, festivals, and residencies. And, like hundreds of other playwrights, I receive many more rejection letters than congratulatory calls.

Second: let’s define career. If you mean a reliable paycheck—nope (see above). If you mean health benefits or financial security—not a chance. If you mean a profession that steadily moves forward, increasing in stature and scope and visibility… possibly… depends… could happen one day. As writers, so much is out of our control.

In 2010, New York magazine ran a brief piece on Bruce Norris (and his then-new play Clybourne Park) that’s always haunted me. To this day, I remember it vividly thanks to the number $19,000. This was how much Mr. Norris said he earned the year before. Earned. All year. This, from an acclaimed and brilliant writer, who’s had plays produced across the world. To me, this announcement was not only a brave thing to declare publicly, it was a revelation. After Todd London and Ben Pesner’s incredibly insightful Outrageous Fortune, David Dower’s years of field study… there it was again, in bold print. In New York magazine. A monetary truth exposed.

It is indeed the rare playwright who gets to announce playwriting as a job, a real-life, full-time gig.

And I know this, I do. I knew it going into this field. And still, when this Northwestern student sincerely asked me “Is it worth it?” I found myself nostalgic for the days when I used to immediately answer that question with an unqualified, urgent, booming Yes. But these days, with a kid and a husband and responsibilities and more, my answer has grown in complexity. And, especially with young playwrights, I want to share open and honestly about where I am today with this notion of worth—of value.

Half of the time, and especially in a country where The Arts (and arts programs) are in a constant struggle for survival, my belief that the value of art trumps the value of cash remains unshaken. But then, the other half of the time, when the mail comes in and my school loans are due or my son needs a filling that isn’t covered by insurance…well, that’s where things get complicated. At what cost are we choosing to live the lives of playwrights? Or artists?

“Is playwriting worth it?”  My answer to this student was: financially? For where I am today, right now? No. But… in almost every other aspect: yes. Playwriting is worth it. But why? With the amount of energy I spend on writing, the time away from my family, the funds I shell out to attend readings and workshops in other states with no guarantee of production, no guarantee that if I do get a production another one’s coming along, what is the value of playwriting? Or better yet, what can’t I put a price on?

“The Children” (2012, Theatre@Boston Court)

For me, it turns out the answer is collaboration. Or more specifically: a collaboration that works. The experience that I had working with director Jessica Kubzansky and dramaturg Emilie Beck on The Children couldn’t be measured in dollar signs. I was fortunate enough to work with two artists who attacked the play with great care and sensitivity, who asked incisive questions, who challenged my every line but never lost sight of the origins of the play’s beating heart. When collaboration works, you leap together. You dig together. You forgive together. When collaboration works, you learn to become a better artist, communicator, listener, leader, and follower.

How many other professions make this kind of deeply personal exchange possible? Where the work includes sharing who you are and why you are? And how do you place a value on that? Can you put a price on that conversation? That dialogue? That sharing of your core identity in pursuit of a common purpose and goal?

Collaborators build something together. We hear the phrase “the theater community” used often. And that’s what this collaboration built for me. A community. A home—for myself, for my play, for ideas and emotions and a mission. These are all things I greatly value—it’s what I hold dear.

Here’s what I want to say about the money part: wherever we go, we pay for the privilege of community. Governments have taxes. Clubs have fees. Religious organizations have tithes. It’s not exactly analogous, but maybe playwriting is like Social Security. It’s something you will always pay into because it provides you a social safety net. You contribute—with money and time and sacrifice—to a community of artists who shore you up, challenge your evolution, and provide you a place in the world. In this instance, the word value can literally mean a bargain.

Michael Elyanow  is a playwright. The Children was produced in 2012 at The Theatre @ Boston Court.  A Lasting Mark, commissioned by Hartford Stage, was part of Manhattan Theatre Club’s 2011 7@7 Reading Series. The Idiot Box, published by Samuel French, was produced at Open Fist and Naked Eye theatres. Ten-minute plays Banging Ann Coulter and Game/Over were Humana Festival finalists. Michael is currently writing a play commission for the Carleton College Department of Theatre & Dance.

This essay first appeared on HowlRound.

Posted in actors, Arts, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged Bruce Norris, Clybourne Park, collaboration, dramaturg, Emilie Beck, Fountain Theatre, Jessica Kubzansky, Los Angeles, Michael Elyanow, new play, Outrageous Fortune, performing arts, plays, playwriting, starving artist, The Children, theater, Theatre@Boston Court, Todd London, value

Previews began last week for our LA Premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In the Red and Brown Water. The production officially opens this Saturday, October 20th.

Enjoy a few snapshots from our first preview last Saturday, Oct 13th:

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Posted in actors, Arts, director, Drama, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged Adolphus Ward, Deborah Lawlor, First Preview, Fountain Theatre, Gilbert Glenn Brown, In The Red and Brown Water, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Maya Lynne Robinson, new plays, plays, Shirley Jo Finney, Stephen Marshall, Tarrell Alvin McCraney, theater

Diarra Kilpatrick

I was born and raised in Detroit, MI.  My mom was always really dedicated to nurturing the artist in me as I was growing up.   She put me in every arts or literature program she could find and I thrived in them, so there was no way I was gonna grow up and become an accountant.   And thank God for that.  And my dad has the best sense of humor of anyone in the whole world. So if my mom gave me the gift of art, my dad gave me the gift of laughter.

How would you describe Oya, the character you play in In the Red and Brown Water?

“The Interlopers” at Bootleg Theater.

At this point in the process its a little hard to delineate where she ends and I begin honestly.  She’s a track star, so she’s alot faster than I am, that’s for sure.  My track and cross country coach from high school would probably chuckle if she saw this play because aside from the horizontally challenged members of the team, I was the worst one.  And I had the longest legs.  But  I went to this painfully conservative college prep school  and the rule was everyone had to  play a sport.  And if you were on scholarship you had to play TWO sports.  I thought that was completely racist because nearly all the scholarship kids were black.  So I think the angry little militant in me didn’t want to excel in sports cause as a black girl on scholarship was expected to.  I was like whatever, somebody point me towards the stage please.   But I regret it now.  I’ve grown up and found that I actually do like to run.  I probably could have been better if I had applied myself.  So I’m getting a chance to feel what that might have been like through Oya.

What themes in the play resonate for you?

The play for me is about Oya’s growth.  She has a hell of a time getting over the hump, from one version of herself to the next.   She’s special and she knows she’s special so there’s quite a bit of frustration that comes in when she has such a difficult time asserting herself in the world.

The language of the play

Yes the language of the piece is poetic. Black folks speak in poems to me anyway.  McCraney definitely highlights the lyricism in the black vernacular.  It informs me as an actress. I know exactly who these people are by the way they speak.  There’s no vagueness in there.  I know who they are.

How does mythology weave its way through the story?

My favorite thing about the piece is the presence of the mythology throughout.  These characters are black and poor and living in the projects.  Seems like the makings of a sad sack 90s movie that we’ve all seen before.  But by reminding us that at the very center, at the core of these characters,  is the spirit of a god or goddess, it somehow more fully reveals their humanity.  The playwright is showing these characters so much respect in that way.  It somehow manages to both elevate the piece and pull us closer to it.

Diarra Kilpatrick (Oya) and Gilbert Glenn Brown (Shango) from ‘In the Red and Brown Water’.

This is your first project at the Fountain. Are you having a good time?

I’m really enjoying working with Shirley Jo and the whole cast.  There’s a closeness that happened pretty organically.  I’m excited to get to rehearsal everyday.  This is the only ensemble I’ve been in  where people balk about taking a day off.  Everyone is very excited by the work.  And everyone is bringing so much of themselves to their performances.

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Posted in actors, Arts, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged actor, actress, African American, Detroit, Gilbert Glenn Brown, In The Red and Brown Water, mythology, Oya, poetic language, Shirley Jo Finney, Tarell Alvin McCraney

by Charlzetta Driver

Theater should remind us of our own lives. Remember the story that we see is how we can transform, change, and evolve. ~Shirley Jo Finney

Shirley Jo Finney

Promoting In the Red and Brown Water at the Fountain Theatre, the riveting play written by award-winning African American playwright, Tarell Alvin Mc Craney would be simple enough. Well known for his acclaimed trilogy The Brother/Sister Plays, the first play of this set In the Red and Brown Water has already been well received in each of it’s venues since the first premiere. Further, Tarell’s talents are highly sought as he is considered by many theatrical leaders as the best young writer around.

However, once combining the desired works of this proven playwright with the style and perspective of director, the eloquent, Shirley Jo Finney, anticipation and excitement of experiencing this enticing play reaches boiling point!

Less than two weeks before the Los Angeles premiere of In the Red and Brown Water at the Fountain Theatre,  in an exclusive interview I had the unique opportunity to experience first hand the reasons Shirley Jo is an award winning actress and director. Within less than an hour, I was virtually moved through the history of theater, Africans in America, church, and the modern day classroom. Her passion and expertise is palpable in conversation as she effortlessly creates visions of slaves on the plantation, Sunday afternoons singing and dancing for their masters. As the folk watched from their porches, thoroughly absorbed and entertained, they were often oblivious to the sarcasm that shadowed the mimicry of their chattel’s exceptional performances.

Fast forwarding some years, I virtually viewed the descendants of the old masters in black face erroneously mimicking Black people. I traveled under her spell to the Black community of theater where portrayals in the history of African American churches were common. Shirley Jo instantly broke into character invoking the “Call and Response” style of the good reverend after which she explained:

That’s the call and response. It’s what I like to call “edu-ma-tainment,” creating ritual, engaging in the stories of, like the bible. Living, laughing, and dying – as a ritual.

Tarell McCraney

I asked Shirley Jo some specific questions about Tarell’s style of writing, here are some of those questions and answers:

Me: Is Tarell’s style like Tyler Perry’s?

Shirley Jo: No. Two different styles. If you want to co-explore, go see the works of August Wilson and Suzy-Lori Parks that show African Americans incarcerated by the institution of slavery. He (Tarell) incorporates those elements which makes the difference.

Me: Okay. Spike Lee said some negative things to say about Tyler Perry’s portrayal of African Americans. What is your opinion on this subject?

Shirley Jo: The beauty is the diversity! Everybody has a market and a point of view. Tyler makes what’s called “cottage films.” No judgement. I love that about where we are. We are no longer stuck in Blaxploitation, allow everyone their voice regardless if you like that person or not, we have a choice.

Me: Shirley Jo, what do you believe the theater’s job is?

Shirley Jo: Theater should remind us of our own lives. Remember the story that we see is how we can transform, change, and evolve.

Tarell Alvin McCraney does just that in In the Red and Brown Water. The main character Oya, struggles to maintain her dreams. She runs track and sees it as her way of breaking free from the impoverished community she grew up in. After losing her mother she encounters a number of obstacles and sacrifices her dream. Oya means goddess of wind. Red represents our life blood, life force or passion. Brown represents the environment as the plays setting is in Louisiana. Water represents cleansing or new beginnings.

Entering adulthood just after the Civil Rights Movement shifted in to high gear, Shirley Jo had already experienced a lifetime of firsts. First integrated neighborhood, first Black student in the school, and she was the first African American student in the MFA program for Theater at UCLA. Shirley Jo was in the midst of an amazing acting career when she first delved into the role of director. Best known for her portrayal of Wilma in “Wilma” the true story of one of America’s greatest Olympic athletes; her resume includes many well known works including several episodes of “Moesha” and “Remember Me?”

Just prior to preparation for In the Red and Brown Water, Shirley Jo returned from Africa where she’d just completed “Winne The Opera,” the operatic story of Winnie Mandela.

Video: Winnie – The Opera

In The Red and Brown Water  Oct 20 – Dec 16 (323) 663-1525  More 

Charlzetta Driver is a freelance writer for Examiner.com

Posted in actors, Arts, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, playwright, theatre

Tagged African American, August Wilson, call and response, director, Fountain Theatre, In The Red and Brown Water, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Moesha, new plays, plays, playwriting, Remember Me?, ritual, Shirley Jo Finney, Spike Lee, Suzan Lori Parks, Tarell Alvin McCraney, The Brother/Sister Plays, theater, Tyler Perry, Wilma Rudolph, Winnie Mandela, Winnie:The Opera

Victoria and I have been residents of Los Feliz for more than 25 years. We love theatre and we fell in love with The Fountain Theatre the first time we saw a play there about ten years ago. We immediately became subscribers even though we subscribe to other theatres in the greater Los Angeles area. We are continually impressed by the originality and quality of the plays at the Fountain, as well as the intimate environment. As such, The Fountain is a great place to see the plays of great writers like August Wilson and Athol Fugard; and we have seen them all, – Gem of the Ocean, The Train Driver, Coming Home, Exits and Entrances, and the most recent classic, The Blue Iris. We will be remiss if we do not mention the professionalism and friendliness of The Fountain staff. They have always been gracious in accommodating us since our business requires frequent travel out of town. 

– Dr. and Mrs. Ejike Mdefo

Posted in actors, Arts, Drama, Fountain Theatre, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre

Tagged Athol Fugard, August Wilson, Coming Home, Ejike Mdefo, Exits and Entrances, Fountain Family, Fountain Theatre, Gem of the Ocean, Los Angeles, Los Feliz, memmer, new plays, plays, subscribe, subscriber, The Blue Iris, The Train Driver, theater, Victoria Mdefo

Athol Fugard at the Fountain Theatre, Sept 2012

by Chris Thurman

The last time I met Athol Fugard, he was following a technical rehearsal of The Bird Watchers – his thirty-fourth play. Sitting in the auditorium of the Cape Town theatre that carries his name, Fugard leaned over and told me in an almost-conspiratorial whisper: “I’m working on something new.” The playwright’s eyes sparkled as he showed me a typescript of The Blue Iris. That script is now a performed reality (the US Premiere just concluded its run at the Fountain Theatre on September 16th).

Athol Fugard, who is based in San Diego, has returned to South Africa to take up a three-month residency in Stellenbosch and – you guessed it – he’s working on something new.

This time, we’re talking on the phone, but that same excitement is discernible in Fugard’s voice as he describes his “first attempt at Afrikaans theatre”. This may be surprising to many; after all, the work of this self-designated “half-English, half-Afrikaans bastard” (he grew up in a bilingual household) is peppered with Afrikaans phrases, characters and settings. His play texts have also been translated into Afrikaans, most recently The Captain’s Tiger/Die Kaptein se Tier by Antjie Krog. But Fugard himself has never penned an exclusively Afrikaans play, and he’s clearly eager to take up the challenge.

What is it, I wonder, that drives this restless creativity? What is the imperative that keeps an 80-year-old writing “compulsively”? In the past, Fugard has emphasised the feeling of both obligation and delight that accompanies his discovery or invention of characters and their stories: “Everything I have written is an attempt to share their secrets.” But watching The Blue Iris, I thought I discerned a darker (perhaps even desperate) impulse behind the author’s prolificacy.

Fugard outside the Fountain Theatre, Sept 2012.

The play is a different kind of “first”. Fugard’s work bears evidence of a range of influences, from Beckett to Camus – but, he tells me, “Before Blue Iris I had never written a play directly in response to a particular piece of writing.” The writer in question is Thomas Hardy, who is best known as a novelist but who turned away from fiction towards the end of his career and produced a series of poems that Fugard considers “among the finest in the English language”. Hardy wrote them after the death of his wife, Emma, from whom he had become estranged (he subsequently married his secretary): they express grief, regret and longing for an irrecoverable past, ultimately paying tribute to the relationship.

The Blue Iris is, in turn, a tribute to Hardy’s poems – an encomium in which that curious love triangle takes on a South African incarnation, in the Karoo landscape so closely associated with Fugard. We find Robert Hannay and his sometime housekeeper, Rieta Plaasman, camping outside the ruins of a farmhouse that Robert had built for his young English bride, Sally. It stood for decades until, one night, it was consumed by fire after a lightning strike. Sally died shortly afterwards, but her spirit haunts the place; Rieta has stayed with Robert during his unsuccessful attempt to recover items lost in the fire, hoping to exorcise Sally’s ghost.

Morlan Higgins and Julanne Chidi Hill in “The Blue Iris” (Fountain, 2012)

In the opening dialogue, Robert admits to Rieta that his recuperative efforts remind him of an old story about “some arme ou skepsel who, as punishment for something bad, is made to push a big rock all the way up to the top of a koppie. But just when he gets there, he slips, the rock rolls back down the hill, and he has to start all over again. And so it goes, on and on…” This is, of course, the tale of Sisyphus, who was condemned by the gods to an eternity of futile labor – a likely comparison, particularly given the prevalence of ancient Greek myth in Fugard’s oeuvre.

Jacqueline Schultz and Julanne Chidi Hill in “The Blue Iris” (Fountain Theatre, 2012)

Yet the allusion is given a different resonance as, during the course of the play, we learn that Sally was a talented artist. She spent years painting the flowers of the Karoo, partly out of a wish to locate herself within a landscape to which she felt foreign and partly to reconcile with Robert, from whom she had grown distant as the strain of farming under conditions of drought took its toll. The blue iris – the ‘bloutulp’, Moraea polystachya – was her first subject: a beautiful but poisonous plant, surviving the harshest conditions but deadly to animals. The painting was the centrepiece of her collection, but we hear Sally’s ghost shriek, at the climax of the action, “I didn’t get it right!”

I put it to Fugard: does this aspect of The Blue Iris reflect his own frustration as an artist? Is the relentless desire to create new plays, to write new stories, a Sisyphean curse? “That’s a fair interpretation,” he replies. “When I look back on my earlier stuff, there is always a sense of ‘If only I’d known then what I know now…’ And yes, I think I am more critical of my own work than anyone else.”

He notes that, along with The Captain’s Tiger (1997) and The Bird Watchers (2011), Master Harold … and the Boys (1982) makes up a trio of “portraits of the writer – from arrogant little schoolboy to adolescent ambition and finally a playwright wrestling with the material of his own life. They all have the same concern: what does it mean to be a writer?”

Fugard at the Fountain Theatre

I ask Fugard what he makes of the other ways in which his plays have been grouped together. Some critics have noted, for instance, that The Blue Iris continues a pattern established in Valley Song (1996), Sorrows and Rejoicings (2001) and Victory (2007), in which much of the dramatic tension stems from the age and race of the main protagonists: an older white man and a younger coloured woman.

“Any writer,” Fugard concurs, “has only a handful of themes. You don’t invent a theme every time you write a play.” We talk about the conscious echoes in Blue Iris of earlier plays, such as Boesman and Lena (1969) – the trope of homelessness is underscored when Rieta complains, “We are living out here like people in one of those plakker kampe outside PE” – and A Lesson From Aloes (1978), in which a character affirms that studying Karoo flora “makes me feel that little bit more at home in my world”.

Indeed, Fugard takes the idea of “categorising” his plays even further. “Look at Blood Knot (1961), Boesman and Lena and Hello and Goodbye (1965), which together examine the primary relationships in a family: between siblings, between spouses, between children and parents. I didn’t set out consciously to do that, but it happened.” And, of course, there is Fugard’s “sustained romance with the opposite sex – in my work, I mean. Blood Knot is the only one of my plays in which the dominant, most powerful presence is not a central female character.”

This is certainly true of Boesman and Lena, which has been ‘updated’ by director James Ngcobo for a current staging at the Baxter Theatre. Fugard says he’d like to go and watch the show “with a disguise on”, just to see how it has been revised. “My plays are like my children – they must make their own way in the world.”

Chris Thurman is Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg (South Africa); a freelance arts journalist, academic and editor. 

Posted in actors, Arts, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, poem, poetry, Theater, theatre

Tagged A Lesson from Aloes, Afrikaans, Athol Fugard, Baxter Theatre, Beckett, Blood Knot, Boesman and Lena, Camus, Cape Town, Chris Thurman, Emma, Fountain Theatre, Greek myth, Hello and Goodbye, Jacqueline Schultz, James Ngcobo, Julanne Chidi Hill, Karoo, Los Angeles, Master Harold and the Boys, Morlan Higgins, new plays, plays, playwriting, San Diego, Sisyphus, Sorrows and Rejoicings, South Africa, Stellenbosch, The Bird Watchers, The Blue Iris, The Captain’s Tiger, theater, Thomas Hardy, United States Premiere, Valley Song, Victory, Witwatersrand University