May | 2017 | Intimate Excellent

‘Building the Wall’ Opening Night lobby, New World Stages, NY

The ground-breaking journey of Robert Schenkkan’s new play, Building the Wall, achieved another milestone on Sunday, May 21, when it opened Off-Broadway at New World Stages in New York.

The powerful new political play dramatizing the dire tragic consequences of the Trump administration’s policy on immigration was launched March 18 at the Fountain Theatre in a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. The still-running Fountain production, directed by Michael Michetti and featuring Bo Foxworth and Judith Moreland, is earning rave reviews and sold-out houses. It has been extended to June 18th.

The just-opened NY production is directed by Ari Edelson, featuring James Badge Dale and Tamara Tunie.  Variety hails the play as “Riveting! It runs to July 9th.

Fountain Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs flew to New York for the Off-Broadway opening.  He was joined by Nan Barnett, Executive Director of the National New Play Network.  The lobby at New World Stages was packed with press, well-wishers and NY theatre and TV folk. Actor Bryan Cranston, who won the Tony Award for playing LBJ in Schenkkan’s  All the Way on Broadway and starred in the HBO movie, was there enjoying the evening.  The lobby buzzed with excitement in anticipation of seeing the new work. A cake and champagne reception toasted the event after the performance.

Stephen Sachs and Robert Schenkkan on Opening Night at New World Stages, NY.  

Building the Wall marks the second time a new play that premiered at the Fountain Theatre has opened Off-Broadway. The Fountain production of Exits and Entrances by Athol Fugard opened at Primary Stages in 2007.  Several new plays created and launched by the Fountain have been produced in theaters across the United States and throughout the world.

“It’s thrilling when a new play premieres at the Fountain and then becomes part of the canon of the American Theatre ,” says Sachs. “The Fountain continues to successfully add it’s voice to the national conversation on timely issues of our country.”

Building the Wall at the Fountain Theatre    

Posted in Fountain Theatre

The Fountain Theatre’s stunning encore production of Citizen: An American Lyric concluded its run as the centerpiece to Center Theatre Group’s Block Party Sunday night. After the final performance, the company gathered backstage with CTG and Fountain staff to toast their triumphant accomplishment. Take a look.  

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

Tagged actors, Block Party, Center Theatre Group, Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine, closing night, CTG, Fountain Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Stephen Sachs, toast

That Was The Week That Was was a satirical television show in the early 1960’s that brought focus to social and political issues of the day. The Fountain Theatre may look back on this current week, May 1 – May 7 in 2017, and brand it the same name. This week, in an unplanned juncture of synchronicity, the Fountain Theatre has two acclaimed productions running simultaneously in Los Angeles — one at its 78-seat Hollywood home on Fountain Avenue, the other at the 300-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City —  each dramatizing in mesmerizing fashion the urgent issues of race, injustice, and politics.

The Fountain’s National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of Building the Wall by Robert Schenkkan was a smash hit the moment it opened in March at the intimate Fountain Theatre, selling out weeks in advance.  Set in the near future, the powerful new drama unfolds as a man awaits sentencing in a federal prison for carrying out the orders of Trump’s national policy to round-up and detain immigrants by the millions.    

Meanwhile, across town at the mid-sized Kirk Douglas Theatre, the Fountain’s acclaimed and award-winning encore production of Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, adapted for the stage by Stephen Sachs, is galvanizing audiences. The centerpiece of Center Theatre Group‘s inaugural Block Party celebrating intimate theatre in Los Angles, Citizen is a searing, poetic riff on race in America based on the best-selling book.   

“To have these two important, meaningful productions running concurrently, one in an intimate theatre and the other in a mid-sized venue, is extraordinary,” says Fountain Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs. “It exemplifies who we are, what we do, and why we do it.”

Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Robert Schenkkan agrees. “Both Citizen and Building the Wall deal with the issue of race and the fundamental question of who is it we mean when we say, ‘We, the people,’” explains Schenkkan. “For more than twenty five years, the Fountain Theatre has been presenting exhilarating, necessary theater, wrestling with the most pressing social and political issues of the day.” 

LA Stage Alliance Executive Director Steven Leigh Morris points out that this week is no anomaly. Morris notes, “That the Fountain Theatre has two productions running simultaneously — one at its home space in East Hollywood and the other at the Kirk Douglas Theatre as part of Center Theatre Group’s Block Party program — is a testament to the rigor and meticulous artistry that has been part of The Fountain tradition for twenty-seven years.”

By all accounts, this is an unforgettable week for the Fountain. We vow to continue our commitment to create, develop and produce meaningful new plays that bring to life urgent issues, week after week, for many years to come. 

Tickets/Info BUILDING THE WALL

Tickets/Info CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC

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

Tagged Block Party, Building the Wall, Center Theatre Group, Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Kirk Douglas Theatre, LA Stage Alliance, Los Angeles, National New Play Network, new play, Robert Schenkkan, Stephen Sachs, Steven Leigh Morris, That Was The Week That Was, world premiere

Lisa Pescia, Leith Burke, Bernard K. Addison, Monnae Michaell, Tony Maggio  in The Fountain Theatre production of “Citizen: An American Lyric” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

The journey of veteran director Shirley Jo Finney to the Kirk Douglas Theatre’s Block Party with The Fountain Theatre’s Citizen: An American Lyric began two and a half years ago, when Fountain co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs called to ask her if she had read Claudia Rankine’s New York Times bestseller Citizen. Or maybe it began in 1997, when Finney directed her first of eight works at the Fountain. Or perhaps decades earlier when, as a recent MFA graduate of UCLA, Finney participated in Center Theatre Group’s New Work Festival at the Mark Taper Forum. Or really long before that, when Finney grew up in a segregated neighborhood and attended all-white schools where she was the only person of color.

In 2015, Sachs told Finney he was considering adapting Citizen for the stage, and that she was the right director for the project. “I read it, and I went, ‘Oh, this is my life,’” said Finney, recognizing her own experiences of “walking through and navigating those torrential waters of mainstream America when you are a person of color or ‘other,’ and what you have to swallow in order to survive.”

Citizen premiered at the Fountain in August 2015; last summer, Finney directed it again at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, just one year after the city was devastated by a deadly assault that took the lives of nine African-Americans at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Every performance was followed by a discussion with the audience. “We felt it was necessary while that community was still healing and that wound was oozing,” said Finney.

There will also be Stage & Audience Talks after every performance at the Douglas, where Citizen is onstage April 28 – May 7, 2017. Citizen touched audiences deeply in Los Angeles in 2015, but much has changed since then—for the cast and crew and for the audience.

Shirley Jo Finney

“As human beings we’ve been living our lives…we all evolve,” said Finney of herself and the company. “At the same time, in those two years, there has been a transformation in the collective. I’m interested to see, now, how it’s going to land with our audiences. Because what was maybe specific to a tribe has now expanded…something has been awakened, because ‘the other,’ now, is everyone.” The election, said Finney, “fractured what our belief system is about being an American and being a citizen, and what that culpability and responsibility is.” She added, “Not only do you have to say, ‘What does it mean to be a citizen?’ But also, ‘What does it mean to be a human being?’”

The re-staging at the Douglas offers an opportunity for the show to make a bigger impact in other ways as well. “My designer is excited because we have the height now onstage that we didn’t have in the [Fountain]. Our projections are going to have the impact that we wanted to have,” said Finney.

“I think it’s a healing piece with a historical narrative, and we need it at this point in time,” she concluded. “When you look at what we need as human beings, the three things, if you cut everything away, are: we need to be seen, we need to feel nurtured, and we need to feel safe. Citizen, I think, makes us aware and opens that space for that healing to begin.”

Citizen: An American Lyric is now playing at the Kirk Douglas Theatre to May 7th.

Tickets/More Info 

This post originally appeared in CTG News & Blogs. 

Posted in African American, arts organizations, director, Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles, 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, Fountain Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Leith Burke, Lisa Pescia, Los Angeles, Monnae Michaell, performing arts, poetry, race, race in America, racism, Shirley Jo Finney, Simone Missick, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre, Tony Maggio