February | 2013 | Intimate Excellent
Adriana Maresma Fois
by Deborah Lawlor
We’re excited, here at the Fountain Theatre, to announce the return engagement of Adriana Maresma Fois (Dancer and show Director), and Flamenco Guitarist Juan Antonio Gomez to our Forever Flamenco series on Sunday, March 10th. Their thrilling concert is titled Ecos de Andalucia (“Echoes of Andalucia”).
Adriana Maresma Fois and Juan Antonio Gomez will be coming to us from Jerez de la Frontera, in Andalucia, Spain, via the Flamenco “hub” of Albuquerque, New Mexico – the two towns between which the couple divide their time. Adriana is a very elegant dancer, who yet surprises us with moments of great passion. Juan Antonio is a brilliant guitar soloist as well as an impeccable accompanist.
Joining them for this show is formidable singer (cantaor) Antonio de Jerez, and bailaores Mizuho Sato and Manuel Gutierrez, two of L.A.’s most impressive Flamenco dancers. Mizuho is known for her deep interpretation of the cantes (songs), as well as her assured technique. Manuel has taken L.A. by storm with his extraordinary footwork and fierce passion.
Deborah Lawlor is the Producing Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre and the creator/producer of Forever Flamenco.
Forever Flamenco March 10 (323) 663-1525 More
Posted in Arts, Dance, dancer, flamenco, Fountain Theatre, Music, performing arts, singer, Theater, theatre
Tagged Adriana Maresma Fois, Antonio de Jerez, Dance, Deborah Lawlor, Flamenco, flamenco dancing, flamenco guitar, flamenco music, Forever Flamenco, Fountain Theatre, guitar, Juan Antonio Gomez, Los Angeles, Manuel Gutierrez, Mizuho Sato, performing arts
Final Performance, Set Strike, Closing Party and Thai Food
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Posted in actors, Arts, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged closing party, Deborah Lawlor, Diarra Kilpatrick, Dorian Baucum, final performance, Fountain Theatre, Gilbert Glenn Brown, In The Red and Brown Water, Iona Morris, Justin Chu Cary, Kathleen Jaffe, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Maya Lynne Robinson, Miles Orion Feld, Misty Carlisle, new plays, Peggy Blow, performing arts, plays, playwriting, Shawna Voragen, Shirley Jo Finney, Simon Levy, Simone Missick, Stephen Marshall, Stephen Sachs, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Terri Roberts, theater, theatre, Theodore Perkins
Diarra Kilpatrick and cast in “In the Red and Brown Water”
The 8 nominations for the Fountain Theatre are:
PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR
In the Red and Brown Water, Fountain Theatre
ENSEMBLE
The Blue Iris, Fountain Theatre
LEADING FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Diarra Kilpatrick, In the Red and Brown Water
SUPPORTING FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Jacqueline Schultz, The Blue Iris
Jacqueline Schultz and Julanne Chidi Hill in “The Blue Iris”
ADAPTATION
Tarell Alvin McCraney, In the Red and Brown Water
COSTUME DESIGN
Naila Aladdin Sanders, In the Red and Brown Water
SOUND DESIGN
Peter Bayne, In the Red and Brown Water
Peter Bayne, The Blue Iris
Peter Bayne, composer, In the Red and Brown Water
Full List of Nominees
production photos by Ed Kreiger
The 34th annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards, celebrating the best work on LA’s intimate stages will be at the Avalon on April 8. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7:30 p.m.
Posted in actors, Arts, designers, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, Music, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged Athol Fugard, Avalon, awards, costume design, Diarra Kilpatrick, ensemble, Fountain Theatre, In The Red and Brown Water, Jacqueline Schultz, Julanne Chidi Hill, L.A. Weekly Theater Awards, LA Weekly, LEADING FEMALE PERFORMANCE, Los Angeles, Naila Aladdin-Sanders, performing arts, Peter Bayne, plays, Production of the Year, sound design, SUPPORTING FEMALE PERFORMANCE, Tarell Alvin McCraney, The Blue Iris, theater, theatre
Did You Know …
… In the Red and Brown Water cast member Iona Morris (on left, with Diarra Kilpatrick) is the daughter of Greg Morris, co-star of the iconic 1960’s TV series Mission: Impossible?
In the Red and Brown Water ends its acclaimed 5-month run at the Fountain Theatre this Sunday, Feb 24th. (323) 663-1525 More
Posted in actors, Arts, Drama, new plays, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged Diarra Kilpatrick, Fountain Theatre, Greg Morris, In The Red and Brown Water, Iona Morris, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Mission: Impossible, new plays, plays, theater, TV Series
Mac has Asperger’s. Iris is autistic. Jacqueline Schultz directs Jeanie Hackett,Virginia Newcomb and Dan Shaked in the West Coast premiere of a funny, touching and unconventional romance. On the Spectrum by Ken LaZebnik opens at The Fountain Theatre on March 16.
Quirky and unexpected, On the Spectrum is a love story with a difference. In LaZebnik’s award-winning play, an online e-chat blossoms into a heartfelt courtship between two exceptional young people with autism.
Schultz is an award-winning actress and a theater director at The Help Group’s Summit View School for students with learning differences. The Help Group is the largest and most innovative nonprofit of its kind in the U.S. serving children with autism, learning differences and other special needs. She was immediately drawn to the project.
“As with all great love stories, there are obstacles,” Schultz says. “Ken’s play is original, charming and moving.”
Many people on the autism spectrum take pride in their distinctive abilities and “atypical” ways of viewing the world. In On the Spectrum, Mac (Shaked), whose mother (Hackett) provided years of mainstreaming and therapy, passes as “typical.” He connects online with Iris (Newcomb), an activist who proudly champions her autism as a difference, not a disorder.
Dan Shaked and Virginia Newcomb
Winner of a 2012 Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award citation and a 2011 Edgerton Foundation New American Play award, On the Spectrum was commissioned by Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, where artistic director Jack Reuler directed the premiere as part of the Center of the Margins Festival. Ken LaZebnik has written two other plays about autism: Vestibular Sense, which also premiered at Mixed Blood, was honored with an award from the American Theatre Critic’s Association at the Humana Festival in Louisville; and Theory of Mind, commissioned for young audiences by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, has also been produced in Minnesota, Hawaii and Michigan, and was published by Dramatic Publishing.
Ken LaZebnik’s other plays include a new book for the musical Babes in Arms, Garland Wright’s last production at the Guthrie Theater; the comedy, Sink Eating, which premiered at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles; and an adaptation of The Odyssey which the off-off-Broadway ensemble DearKnows, where he was a founding member, toured for Lincoln Center Institute. Mixed Blood Theatre premiered his baseball play League of Nations, and commissioned and produced both Harlem Renaissance Revue and the one-man play Calvinisms. For film, LaZebnik wrote the screenplay for Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage, which starred Peter O’Toole and Marcia Gay Harden, and, together with Garrison Keillor, co-wrote director Robert Altman’s last film, A Prairie Home Companion. LaZebnik has a long history of writing for Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” radio show. For television, he has written series as varied as Providence, Star Trek: Enterprise, The Paula Poundstone Show and Jack’s Place, and he was a writer/producer on Touched by an Angel for eight years.
Jacqueline Schultz has worked as a theater director/educator with learning disabled students for over 12 years. As a professional actress, Schultz has been seen at the Fountain in the U.S. premiere of Athol Fugard’s The Blue Iris; the Ovation-winning After the Fall; The Road to Mecca; The Night of the Iguana; The Darker Face of the Earth; Fighting Over Beverley (L.A. Weekly Award); Duet for One (Ovation Award nomination, Best Actress); Ashes (Drama-Logue Award); The Golden Gate (Drama-Logue Award); and Orpheus Descending. She reprised her role from the Fountain’s Los Angeles premiere of Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives (Best Actress nomination, NAACP Theater Award) for the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Other theater credits include Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, To Kill a Mockingbird and Awake and Sing! at International City Theatre; the West Coast premiere of String of Pearls at both the Road Theatre Company and the Santa Barbara Theatre; the world premiere of Open Window at the Pasadena Playhouse; and Sorrows and Rejoicings at the Mark Taper Forum.
Jeanie Hackett
Jeanie Hackett (Elisabeth) has been seen on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire (Circle in the Square) and Ah, Wilderness (Roundabout); Off-Broadway in new plays at Soho Rep, the Promenade and the Clurman Theater; on L.A. stages in Arms and The Man, How the Other Half Loves, Present Laughter (Pasadena Playhouse); Old Times (South Coast Rep); The Vagina Monologues (Cannon); The Greeks (Odyssey); Phaedra(Getty Villa); The Seagull (Matrix); Kate Crackernuts (24th Street); Light, Pera Palas (Theatre @ Boston Court);Tonight at 8:30, The Autumn Garden (Antaeus); and in a variety of roles with L.A. Theatre Works. Regional: Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carre, leading roles in Richard III, Taming of the Shrew, A Winter’s Tale, Hamlet, Cyrano de Bergerac, Uncle Vanya and over a dozen plays at the Williamstown Theater Festival. Film: The Words (with Bradley Cooper and Dennis Quaid), Take Me Home Tonight (Topher Grace), King of California(Michael Douglas) and Post Grad (Michael O’Keefe and Carol Burnett.) TV: Lie to Me, Lincoln Heights, Medium, Criminal Minds, The “L” Word, Charmed, Judging Amy (recurring) and The West Wing, playing Queen Margaret from Shakespeare’s Henry VI. As artistic director of Antaeus from 2003-2011, Jeanie led the company to its multiple award-winning first full season, including the world premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Cousin Bette, for which she won the Backstage/Garland Award for direction. She is also a former artistic director of The Classical Theater Lab.
Dan Shaked and Virginia Newcomb
Virginia Newcomb (Iris) was last seen at the Fountain Theatre in the West Coast premiere of the rarely-seen Tennessee Williams play, A House Not Meant to Stand. She recently co-starred on stage in The Grapes of Wrath at Knightsbridge Theatre, Sweet Bird of Youth at the Marilyn Monroe Theatre and This Property is Condemned at the Globe Playhouse. She has appeared on TV’s The Office and CSI, and can be seen in the new comedy webseries Bandmates. Virginia stars in the lead role in The Boogeyman, a feature film based on Stephen King’s short story.
Dan Shaked (Mac) is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts drama program and studied at The Lee Strasberg Film/Theater Institute and London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. New York theater credits include Saviana Stanescu’s Waxing West at La MaMa (subsequent Europe tour), the First Irish Theater Festival (PS122), Snow Angel (directed by Lola Cohen) and Stone Cold Dead Serious (Clurman Theater). In Boston, he played the lead in Naomi Wallace’s The Fever Chart for UnderGround Railway Theater. Dan can be seen in the upcoming films The Broken, How To Follow Strangers and Jobs (opposite Ashton Kutcher); the TV movie Gilded Lilys with Blythe Danner; and he was a guest star on ABC’s Body of Proof. He played the lead role in the film Storm up the Sky, which was selected for the Tribeca Film Festival
Set design for On the Spectrum is by John Iacovelli; video design is by Jeffrey Elias Teeter; lighting design is by R. Christopher Stokes; sound design is by Peter Bayne; costume design is by Naila Aladdin Sanders; prop design is by Misty Carlisle; production stage manager is Corey Womack; assistant stage manager is Terri Roberts; and Simon Levy, Deborah Lawlor and Stephen Sachs produce.
Housed in a charming two-story complex, the Fountain is one of the most successful intimate theaters in Los Angeles, providing a nurturing, creative home for multi-ethnic theater and dance artists. The Fountain has won over 200 awards, and is the only intimate theater to win the Ovation Award for Best Production five times. Fountain projects have been seen across the U.S. and internationally. Highlights include In the Red and Brown Water, named “Best in Theater 2012” by the Los Angeles Times; Cyrano, an adaptation of the Rostand classic for hearing and deaf actors, by Stephen Sachs; a six-month run of Bakersfield Mist, also by Sachs, optioned for London and New York; the Off-Broadway run of the Fountain’s world premiere production of Athol Fugard’s Exits and Entrances; and the making of Sachs’ Sweet Nothing in My Ear into a TV movie. The Fountain has been honored with a Certificate of Appreciation from the Los Angeles City Council for “enhancing the cultural life of Los Angeles,” and has been named as the recipient of a special award for its “Excellent Season” in 2012 by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.
On the Spectrum opens on Saturday, March 16, with performances Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays @ 8 pm andSundays @ 2 pm through April 28. Preview performances take place March 9-15 on the same schedule. Tickets are$34 (reserved seating), except previews which are $15. On Thursdays and Fridays only, seniors over 65 and students with ID are $25. The Fountain Theatre is located at 5060 Fountain Avenue (at Normandie) in Los Angeles. Secure, on-site parking is available for $5. The Fountain Theatre is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. For reservations and information, call 323-663-1525 or go to www.FountainTheatre.com.
production photos by Ed Krieger
Posted in actors, Arts, Aspergers, Autism, designers, director, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, The Train Driver, Theater
Tagged ., A Prairie Home Companion, Actors Theater of Louisville Humana Festival, Ashton Kutcher, Asperger’s, autism, autistic, Corey Womack, Cyrano, Dan Shaked, Deborah Lawlor, Edgerton Foundation New American Play award, Fountain Theatre, Garrison Keillor, Guthrie Theatre, In The Red and Brown Water, Jack Reuler, Jacqueline Schultz, Jeanie Hackett, Jeffrey Teeter, John Iacovelli, Ken LaZebnik, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, love story, Minneapolis, Misty Carlisle, Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Naila Aladdin-Sanders, neurotypical, new plays, On the Spectrum, performing arts, Peter Bayne, plays, playwriting, romance, romantic comedy, Simon Levy, Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, Stephen King, Stephen Sachs, Summit View School, Terri Roberts, The Help Group, The Odyssey, theater, theatre, Touched by an Angel, Virginia Newcomb, West Coast Premiere
Troy Kotsur and Paul Raci in a scene from “Cyrano”.
Cast members from our acclaimed co-production of Cyrano were asked to perform a scene from the play at a Deaf West fundraising event honoring Ed Waterstreet last Saturday at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. A co-production between Fountain Theatre and Deaf West Theatre, Cyrano ran for four sold-out months at the Fountain and has been honored with four Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award nominations for Best Production, Best Director, Best Lead Actor and Best Writing.
The funny and charming ‘balcony scene’ from Cyrano was performed by cast members Troy Kotsur, Paul Raci and Erinn Anova. The gala evening also included remarks by actresses Marlee Matlin and Deanne Bray, former Mark Taper Forum Artistic Director Gordon Davidson, Broadway director Jeff Calhoun, and Fountain Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs.
Enjoy Some Photos!
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Posted in actors, Arts, Deaf, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged 2012 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, Cyrano, Cyrano de Bergerac, Daniel Durant, deaf, deaf actor, deaf theatre, Deaf West Theatre, Deanne Bray, Ed Waterstreet, Erinn Anova, Fountain Theatre, Gordon Davidson, Jeff Calhoun, Joseph Sargent, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Los Angeles, Marlee Matlin, National Theatre of the Deaf, new plays, Paul Raci, performing arts, plays, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, Switched at Birth, theater, theatre, Troy Kotsur, world premiere
by Bryce Pinkham
Bryce Pinkham
If you’re anything like me, you probably found yourself down at the theatre in college in large part because you wanted nothing to do with the business school. You felt drawn to expressing yourself creatively in an environment that allowed for, even praised, your uniqueness, your eccentricities and your lack of desire to do high-level math. If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t fully comprehend business terms like “overhead” and “distribution outlet.”
If you’re anything like me, you went to graduate school because you wanted to be able to do anything onstage, you wanted to stretch and challenge yourself not only as a performer but as an artist. If you’re anything like me, you probably left graduate school feeling like you could do anything and that “the business” didn’t know what was about to hit it.
If you’re a professional actor and you’re anything like me, you’re probably figuring out how to pay your rent, your loans and remain connected to the joy you once felt offstage left.
I take a stab at self-revelation: “I view my acting career as my own start-up business. It’s something I ‘go to work’ to do. Every day, I attempt to promote, expand and grow Bryce Pinkham, Inc.”
In theory, and aside from the terribly uninventive name, it sounds smart: I am building my own business and that business is “me.” I know I’m not the first actor to attempt to use this model; in fact, I’m sure I stole it from somebody else. And yet, as I’m describing this approach out loud, it seems somewhat absurd: How can I claim to run a business when I don’t know the first thing about business? I’ve never even taken a business class. While college roommates were throwing around words like “capitalization” and “accrued interest,” I was geeking out about iambic pentameter and Uta Hagen.
One of the handicaps actors who train in the theatre face is that we enter “the market” believing we can do anything. It’s not our fault; it’s part of our training. But from a business standpoint, “I do everything” might not be the wisest approach. Imagine an entrepreneur who goes to school to be a computer programmer and then shows up at his first tech fair selling iPhone apps (software), a new smartphone (hardware) and cases (accessories). Not only is this entrepreneur going to lose valuable time and energy running back and forth among three different booths at the fair, he is going to confuse potential costumers as to what his brand actually sells.
Imagine a different programmer showing up with just his best product: an iPhone app to compete with Apple Maps. He happens to program apps particularly well and he’s found a demand in the market (I mean, have you tried using the new Apple Maps?). His app sells like hotcakes. After selling apps for five years, he goes on to sell things no one would necessarily expect from him: phones, accessories, games, a whole search engine—he’s the Marlon Brando of the geek elite, but only because he started small.
I know comparing actors to computer programmers is more than a stretch, but the point that Marcia DeBonis has helped me realize is that an entrepreneur does not try to conquer the market all at once by saying he can do everything. Initially, he seeks to enter the market in any way possible. Marcia believes it’s the same for young actors: It may be true that we do many things really well, but at first, maybe we should just focus on what we have that will sell, and conversely, what we have that won’t.
“Don’t give them any more reasons to say no to you,” Marcia beseeches. “If you have bad legs, don’t come into an audition wearing a miniskirt just because miniskirts are in style.” She explains that many actors, in their desire to say “yes” to everything, end up misrepresenting themselves: “If you’re a character actress, don’t describe yourself as a young Meg Ryan. Don’t say, ‘Yes, I’m funny,’ unless you mean it; it’s really easy to find out that you’re not.” These warnings may be tough to swallow after three or more years of teachers encouraging a young actor to stretch himself, to say “yes” to every opportunity and challenge, but they are business lessons that may be crucial for survival. By the end of my interview with Marcia, one thing is abundantly clear: Too many young actors are entering our field without sufficient focus.
But there’s the rub: Maybe one reason business is so hard for actors is because we do take everything personally. We’re supposed to: We train our brains to take imaginary circumstances personally. So how can we be expected not to take the same approach to every interaction in our real lives? In fact, our “business” is so closely tied to who we are and what we look like, it’s almost impossible not to have our feelings hurt when someone doesn’t want to buy our product. We’re artists because we didn’t want to be salesmen.
It’s hard to improvise with strangers at commercial auditions when we trained in ensembles to perform the words of Shakespeare and Chekhov for hundreds of live audience members. It’s hard to pick up the phone and complain to an agent we worked so hard to get, or to turn down an acting job because it doesn’t pay more than unemployment. It’s hard to shamelessly promote ourselves on Twitter and Facebook when our acting idols are monuments to humility. It’s easier for us to dream about the future than it is for us to get down to the nitty-gritty of the present.
But at the end of the day, we are the only ones responsible for the success of our business. It’s not up to a casting director or an agent or a director. It’s not all luck—it’s business, and whether it feels good or not, it’s how entrepreneurs survive.
Remember, if you’ve made it far enough that you consider acting your profession, you probably have a natural sense of purpose and the backbone to shoulder more than the average José. If your skin crawls at the idea of trying to sell anything, let alone yourself, try approaching the challenge as you would approach a role. As former talent agent Phil Carlson suggested to me, think about it as “the acting you have to do in order to get to do any acting.”
It may seem unnatural at first, but after some practice, you’ll make people believe it’s real. After all, though you probably weren’t calling it “entrepreneurship” back then, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been hustling your product ever since you stumbled onto that first homemade stage—you know, the one with the raggedy old sheets you pinned up for curtains and the priority seating for stuffed animals—and bellowed with the confidence of a seasoned veteran, “Hey, guys! Look at me!”
Bryce Pinkham is an actor and contributing editor to The Actors Center Journal.
Posted in actors, Arts, Drama, Fountain Theatre, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre
Tagged acting, actor, actors, Apple, Bryce Pinkham, business, business plan, Chekhov, Creativity, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Fountain Theatre, iphone, Los Angeles, Marcia DeBonis, market, Marlon Brando, Meg Ryan, opportunity, performing arts, Phil Carlson, plays, professional actor, Shakespeare, show business, theater, theatre, Twitter, Uta Hagen
Forever Flamenco Sunday, Feb 10th (323) 663-1525 More
Posted in Dance, dancer, flamenco, Fountain Theatre, Music, performing arts, singer, Theater, theatre
Tagged Andalucia, Carlos Hernandez, Dance, dancing, David de los Santos, Deborah Lawlor, Ethan Margolis, Flamenco, flamenco dancing, flamenco guitar, flamenco music, Forever Flamenco, Fountain Theatre, La Chimi, Lakshmi Basile, Los Angeles, music, performing arts, Pilar Moreno, Romance Andaluz, singing, song, theater, theatre
“In the Red and Brown Water”
by Natalie Mislang Mann
Kinetic energy charged with emotion. That describes Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Los Angeles premiere of In the Red and Brown Water presented by The Fountain Theatre. The location of this acclaimed, vibrant, nonprofit performance space in a humble Los Angeles neighborhood foreshadows the economic reality of the play’s kaleidoscopic mix of characters traversing the stage. In this context, McCraney’s play represents a microcosm of shattered dreams and unrealized potential within the larger world.
Treading In the Brown and Red Water, the audience descends into the protagonist’s depths. Set in an impoverished section of the fictional San Pere, Louisiana, Diarra Kilpatrick’s Oya is a passionate runner who abandons a college track scholarship to take care of her dying mother, Mama Mojo, played by Peggy A. Blow. In the process of losing her dreams, she escapes into a fiery relationship with Gilbert Glenn Brown’s Shango and relinquishes the one man, Ogun, who declares his heartfelt love. As Ogun, Dorian Christian Baucum exudes an honest, inner-strength that contrasts with Shango’s impulsive personality.
Diarra Kilpatrick and Gilbert Glenn Brown in “In the Red and Brown Water”
On a superficial level, the plot reads formulaic: Tragedy hits girl. Girl turns to wrong man. Girl finds herself alone. However, McCraney’s vision is anything but banal. The onstage interactions between Oya and the characters with Yoruba deity names evoke the transcendental belief that spirits interact with humans in the everyday world. Through Oya’s relationships, the audience begins to explore not just socio-economic realities, but the human desire to survive. Simultaneously visceral and intellectual, this “circular” ode to human spirit emerges then concludes in similar yet distinct ways.
Peeling away In the Red and Brown Water’s stratum is akin to unraveling textual and historical layers of a Sorrow Song. Within this context, McCraney’s drama illustrates civil rights activist W.E.B Du Bois’ analysis of slave songs as “the music of unhappy people, of the children of disappointment [which] tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wonderings and hidden ways.” Through the allusion to Yoruba deities, McCraney echoes aspects of African American culture that used to remain hidden. His knowledge of Yoruba Diaspora adds to the dialogue of African American art.
Peggy Blow as Mama Moja
While prominent art historians, such as Robert Ferris Thompson, have examined the spiritual and practical aspects of West African culture brought to the Americas through the slave trade, In the Red and Brown Water pushes beyond enumerating bodies of work which focus on elevating African American folk art from obscurity to cultural center. McCraney indirectly asks: Why stop there? He bridges the aesthetic, spiritual and socio-political gap that encompasses not just race, gender, class and sexual identity, but – most importantly – the psychological self, the whole self affected by poverty onset by institutionalized human bondage.
During the ensemble’s performance, parallels between In the Red and Brown Water and choreographer Alvin Ailey’s Revelations arise. Known for drawing on the emotional and spiritual experience of African Americans rooted within a rich musical tradition, Ailey, who McCraney cites as one of his influences, connected the past to the present. Traces of Ailey’s influence emerge as drumbeats pulsate through the heart of the play, interweaving through spiritual scores and contemporary beats. The connection between past and present compounds in an agonizing scene. In the midst of electronic house music, Oya breaks down. Tapping into her primal emotions, she ruptures into African dance, which emphasizes the beauty of African American culture ingrained within the realities of personal struggle.
Shirley Jo Finney’s discerning direction coalesces the multidisciplinary facets of Peter Bayne’s talents as composer/sound designer and Ameenah Kaplan’s choreography to evoke the presence of Yoruba culture within a contemporary play. Although Frederica Nascimento’s minimalist set appears stark, she places attention on every detail: From what resembles a divination bowl sitting under the porch to the assorted water vessels on stage. Even the plastic water bottle turned percussion instrument summons the spirit of San Pere. In the Red and Brown Water conjures ancestral spirit as literal, figurative and mystical dreams appear.
Natalie Mislang Mann has a Master of Arts in Humanities from San Francisco State University and writes for Playwriting in the City.
In the Red and Brown Water Must End Feb 24th (323) 663-1525 More
Posted in actors, Arts, designers, director, Drama, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged African American, Alvin Ailey, Ameenah Kaplan, Black History Month, culture, Diarra Kilpatrick, diaspora, Dorian Baucum, Fountain Theatre, Frederica Nascimento, Gilbert Glenn Brown, In The Red and Brown Water, Iona Morris, Justin Chu Cary, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Premiere, Maya Lynne Robinson, Natalie Mislang Mann, new plays, Peggy A. Blow, performing arts, Peter Bayne, plays, playwriting, Playwriting in the City, Revelations, Robert Ferris Thompson, San Francisco State University, Shirley Jo Finney, Simone Missick, Sorrow Song, Stephen Marshall, Tarell Alvin McCraney, theater, theatre, Theodore Perkins, W.E.B. Du Bois, West African, Yoruba
The cast of “On the Spectrum” at the Fountain.
First rehearsals are always a time for nervous energy and eager excitement. Spirits were particularly high at our first rehearsal yesterday for our upcoming West Coast Premiere of On the Spectrum by Ken LaZebnik, directed by Jacqueline Schultz. Awarded a 2012 Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award citation and granted a 2011 Edgerton Foundation New American Play award, On the Spectrum is a funny and touching love story between a young man with Asperger’s and a young woman with autism. Previews begin March 9th and it opens March 16th.
The company gathered upstairs in the cozy cafe at the Fountain. The actors met for the first time and filled out their paperwork. Producer Simon Levy welcomed the team, director Jacqueline Schultz spoke about the production, and playwright Ken LaZebnik shared his thoughts about the play. Scripts were then opened and the play was read aloud for the first time by the actors. They were marvelous. The energy in the room ignited with a vibrant and heartwarming glow as it immediately became clear that this was going to be a wonderful journey together.
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On the Spectrum March 16 – April 28 (323) 663-1525 More
Posted in actors, Arts, director, Fountain Theatre, new plays, performing arts, plays, playwright, Theater, theatre
Tagged Asperger’s, autism, autistic, Dan Shaked, Deborah Lawlor, Fountain Theatre, Jacqueline Schultz, Jeanie Hackett, Ken LaZebnik, Los Angeles, love story, new plays, On the Spectrum, performing arts, plays, playwriting, Rehearsal, Simon Levy, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, Virginia Newcomb, West Coast Premiere