Readers (and hopefully playgoers as well) - We are well into the 2009 Inkubator Festival now, and here's the tally:
We've explored and showcased 15 new plays so far. We've assembled a team of actors, directors, dramaturges, designers and actors that numbers around 100. The F Word is completely rewritten and staged... and now we jump on the ladders to hang lights, get on our knees to paint the floor, and continue to collect a lot of plastic food (I hope that intrigues you.)
Michael Bigelow Dixon gave us a thorough tutorial on the art of dramaturgy, allowing class participates a own chance to write, rewrite, and engage in a lively discussion of how a dramaturg can help a playwright. (More on that in a later blog entry.)
And we staged a marvelous play by Susan Hoon Se Stanton...Cygnus... a play about the possibility of immaculate conception, the weight of sin, the bind that family can put us in, and the stories we need to make ourselves meaningful.
Susan was a delight to work with, and we love the revisions she made to the play.
Yep...we at The Inkwell have been busy. And we're looking forward to our final week at H Street Playhouse. We'll be sharing with you a fascinating play about sisterhood and race called Tether, opening the Inkubator Production of The F Word, and sharing with you excerpts from five more plays that experiment with language.
But let me stop and share some thoughts about one of particular Inkwell event.
On October 3rd, we showcased excerpts from five crazy (dare I say crack-tastic) new plays. I was not there for the final performance because of a nasty cold, but as supervising dramaturge, I prepared notes to introduce each of the pieces. Here are my notes... and some photographs to give a sense of what this terrific evening of theater was all about.
--------------------------------------------
This particular suite of plays are inspired by literature and history. One way to look at them is that they are continuing a conversation in one way or another, about marriage, family, home, lust and greed, the start and resolution of age old conflicts that affected generations.
The Owl Girl
by Monica Raymond
This is a story about conflict and resolution, perhaps the oldest, most fundamental story found in history. Let me quote the playwright in explaining the origins of this play:
Joze, a young man “in love with peace,” travels back to his old house, key in hand. When he unlocks the door, he unlocks the conflict that brews underneath the lives of these two families. Yet both families find themselves living side by side in this house, along with a dormant grapevine. Just as the vine begins to thrives, so Anja begins to grow and to reclaim a power given to her by her grandmother… the ability to turn into an owl.
Our readers loved this story that that reexamines war, peace, home, and family through humor, through complex and surprising interactions between deeply fascinating characters, through a dark, unsettling magic, and through a sparse aching poetry.
This excerpt is from the very end of the play, when both families have “settled” into the house.
Genesis
By Alexis Roblan
We are showcasing a play inspired by what may consider the original story, the original history. This is the story of Cain and his struggle to understand his own existence.
We all know the story, right? Maybe. Here Cain is deeply conflicted, wanting to please, wanting to find love and companionship, wanting to succeed, wanting knowledge and understanding. As you all know, his journey is one of murder, shame, and exile. This story continues past the death of Abel, as Cain finds Lilith, the original woman.
Here’s what one of our readers had to say about the play:
"One of the epicenters of this play is the question: are we children of biology (of genetics, of evolution, of our parents, of our experience) or are we more fundamentally children of the spirit - children of God? To even flirt with that question today is courageous; to place it at or near the center of your play is heroic."
This play is dark and perversely sexy and courageous. As any good telling of a myth, it brings us face to face with taboos and mysteries.
This excerpts presents several scenes from the play, from the beginning when Cain questions his mother Eve, to after the death of Abel, to the banishment of Cain and the moment he finds Lilith.
The Pillow Book
By Anna Moench
The original Pillow Book was written by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Empress Sadako in early 11th century of Japan. Sei Shonagon was the daughter of a renowned poet. The book is a compilation of lists, events at court, poetry, and opinions of contemporaries. It is considered one of the most important pieces of Japanese literature alongside the Tale of Genji.
Here’s a small excerpt from the book.
Words That Look Commonplace but that become impressive when written in Chinese Characters:
Strawberries
A dew-plant
A prickly water-lily
A walnut
A Doctor of Literature
A Provisional Senior Steward in the Office of the Emperor's Household
Red myrtle
Alexis uses the Pillow Book idea to dramatize a marriage and the struggle to come to terms with a pivotal decision… whether or not to have a child. She is wildly imaginative in exploring this relationship of John and Deb, taking them from their bedroom to the Serengeti. Fragments of poetry, scenes, and musings lead us into the depths of this marriage, exploring intimacy in a fascinating way, finding the moments when you know and think you know your partner.
Here’s a fragment in the play that takes us from John and Deb’s headspace to the airport to a moment in their marriage years ago to another marriage entirely.
The Missing Pieces
By Nick Zagone
We end this showcase in a modern history of family, inspired by memory and by Hugh Hefner. The play takes place right after the eruption of Mount Saint Helen in 1980. Ash is falling all over the planet, but no where is the ash so thick as in Portland Oregon. From the playwright: The Country is in a Recession. In the Northwest, a Depression. It’s Wet. It’s Dark. And it’s Quiet.
Timmy is 12 year-old boy from a broken home. His father is off philandering, his mother is at home steaming. He comes up with an inventive solution… journey to the Play Boy Mansion to find Hugh Hefner with the help of Lillian, a Playboy Playmate from 1963.
The Missing Pieces is a coming-of-age story with a unique spin in many ways. The language of each character has unique rhythm, especially the characters of Lillian and Timmy. And these are an unusual mix of characters... an overly Irish Mom, a Playmate, a guru, an Optimist...it's fun, stuff to see how these characters interact, and Nick does not disappoint in surprising us in their reactions and responses to one another. Lillian is worth the price of admission alone.
The landscape of a place covered in ash gives the play an interesting sense of apocalyptic proportion. At this point in the play, Timmy has brought Lillian home to meet mom. An argument ensues.
Clementine and the Cyber Ducks
By Krista Knight
This play is a thoroughly original mix of folk tale and history, taking us back and forth in time in California, from the Gold Rush Ear to the Dot-Com Boom.
We all know who Clementine is… she is
the heroine of the American folk song, Oh My Darlin’, Oh My Darlin’…
Clementine is caught between these two eras, in love with an enterprising young man in search
of capital to launch his Internet Search Engine, and living with her father, a Miner 49ner in search of gold, who imagines the death of his daughter over and over again. Clementine is egged on to commit fraud for love and money by three Cyber Ducks obsessed with making it rich.
The playwright calls this a vaudevillian Greek tragedy.
What can I say? Cyber Ducks? We loved the theatricality of this piece, the inventiveness of language (somewhere between then and today), the movement in time and space, the struggle between loyalty and greed, and the magic of ducks that can conjure an electrical charge.
The excerpt is from near the end of the play, when Clementine has embarked on a scheme to bilk money from lonely bachelors. Clementine’s sister has come to California, sensing that something is wrong. They both interact with the Cyberducks at the river, where Clementine is panning for gold… and any other kind of investment that might float along.
In the first photograph above, we see the back of Michael Bigelow Dixon's head as he speaks before an animated class on the art of new play dramaturgy.
In the second photograph, Adam Segaller performs for an excerpt from Genesis by Alexis Roblan.
In the third photograph, playwright Anna Moench, dramaturge Deb Sevigny, and director Randy Baker listen to comments from the audience after the showcase reading.
And finally, Regina Aquino performs for an excerpt from Krista Knight's Clementine and the Cyber Ducks.
We've explored and showcased 15 new plays so far. We've assembled a team of actors, directors, dramaturges, designers and actors that numbers around 100. The F Word is completely rewritten and staged... and now we jump on the ladders to hang lights, get on our knees to paint the floor, and continue to collect a lot of plastic food (I hope that intrigues you.)
Michael Bigelow Dixon gave us a thorough tutorial on the art of dramaturgy, allowing class participates a own chance to write, rewrite, and engage in a lively discussion of how a dramaturg can help a playwright. (More on that in a later blog entry.) And we staged a marvelous play by Susan Hoon Se Stanton...Cygnus... a play about the possibility of immaculate conception, the weight of sin, the bind that family can put us in, and the stories we need to make ourselves meaningful.
Susan was a delight to work with, and we love the revisions she made to the play.
Yep...we at The Inkwell have been busy. And we're looking forward to our final week at H Street Playhouse. We'll be sharing with you a fascinating play about sisterhood and race called Tether, opening the Inkubator Production of The F Word, and sharing with you excerpts from five more plays that experiment with language.
But let me stop and share some thoughts about one of particular Inkwell event.
On October 3rd, we showcased excerpts from five crazy (dare I say crack-tastic) new plays. I was not there for the final performance because of a nasty cold, but as supervising dramaturge, I prepared notes to introduce each of the pieces. Here are my notes... and some photographs to give a sense of what this terrific evening of theater was all about.
--------------------------------------------
This particular suite of plays are inspired by literature and history. One way to look at them is that they are continuing a conversation in one way or another, about marriage, family, home, lust and greed, the start and resolution of age old conflicts that affected generations.
The Owl Girl
by Monica Raymond
This is a story about conflict and resolution, perhaps the oldest, most fundamental story found in history. Let me quote the playwright in explaining the origins of this play:
“My original impetus for the play was a conversation with an Israeli man named Dovid Dolev who had come to the United States and was running Muslim-Jewish dialogue groups in Cambridge, Massachusettts. In the conversation, Dovid mentioned that there were Palestinians living in the West Bank who still had the keys to the houses their families had formerly occupied in Jerusalem. I was struck very strongly with that image of one house with two different keyholders.”For the most part, The Owl Girl takes place in a two-story, blue house in an unspecified place. One family — Rav and Ora and their two children, Stel and Capi — have recently moved into the house that was once owned by another family — Zol and Leedya, and their two children, Joze and Anja — displaced to a refugee camp. Both families carry with them the scars of conflict. Anja in particular has a peculiar affliction… she hasn’t grown for seven years.
Joze, a young man “in love with peace,” travels back to his old house, key in hand. When he unlocks the door, he unlocks the conflict that brews underneath the lives of these two families. Yet both families find themselves living side by side in this house, along with a dormant grapevine. Just as the vine begins to thrives, so Anja begins to grow and to reclaim a power given to her by her grandmother… the ability to turn into an owl.
Our readers loved this story that that reexamines war, peace, home, and family through humor, through complex and surprising interactions between deeply fascinating characters, through a dark, unsettling magic, and through a sparse aching poetry.
This excerpt is from the very end of the play, when both families have “settled” into the house.
Genesis
By Alexis Roblan
We are showcasing a play inspired by what may consider the original story, the original history. This is the story of Cain and his struggle to understand his own existence.
We all know the story, right? Maybe. Here Cain is deeply conflicted, wanting to please, wanting to find love and companionship, wanting to succeed, wanting knowledge and understanding. As you all know, his journey is one of murder, shame, and exile. This story continues past the death of Abel, as Cain finds Lilith, the original woman.
Here’s what one of our readers had to say about the play:
"One of the epicenters of this play is the question: are we children of biology (of genetics, of evolution, of our parents, of our experience) or are we more fundamentally children of the spirit - children of God? To even flirt with that question today is courageous; to place it at or near the center of your play is heroic."
This play is dark and perversely sexy and courageous. As any good telling of a myth, it brings us face to face with taboos and mysteries.
This excerpts presents several scenes from the play, from the beginning when Cain questions his mother Eve, to after the death of Abel, to the banishment of Cain and the moment he finds Lilith.
The Pillow Book
By Anna Moench
The original Pillow Book was written by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Empress Sadako in early 11th century of Japan. Sei Shonagon was the daughter of a renowned poet. The book is a compilation of lists, events at court, poetry, and opinions of contemporaries. It is considered one of the most important pieces of Japanese literature alongside the Tale of Genji.
Here’s a small excerpt from the book.
Words That Look Commonplace but that become impressive when written in Chinese Characters:Strawberries
A dew-plant
A prickly water-lily
A walnut
A Doctor of Literature
A Provisional Senior Steward in the Office of the Emperor's Household
Red myrtle
Alexis uses the Pillow Book idea to dramatize a marriage and the struggle to come to terms with a pivotal decision… whether or not to have a child. She is wildly imaginative in exploring this relationship of John and Deb, taking them from their bedroom to the Serengeti. Fragments of poetry, scenes, and musings lead us into the depths of this marriage, exploring intimacy in a fascinating way, finding the moments when you know and think you know your partner.
Here’s a fragment in the play that takes us from John and Deb’s headspace to the airport to a moment in their marriage years ago to another marriage entirely.
The Missing Pieces
By Nick Zagone
We end this showcase in a modern history of family, inspired by memory and by Hugh Hefner. The play takes place right after the eruption of Mount Saint Helen in 1980. Ash is falling all over the planet, but no where is the ash so thick as in Portland Oregon. From the playwright: The Country is in a Recession. In the Northwest, a Depression. It’s Wet. It’s Dark. And it’s Quiet.
Timmy is 12 year-old boy from a broken home. His father is off philandering, his mother is at home steaming. He comes up with an inventive solution… journey to the Play Boy Mansion to find Hugh Hefner with the help of Lillian, a Playboy Playmate from 1963.
The Missing Pieces is a coming-of-age story with a unique spin in many ways. The language of each character has unique rhythm, especially the characters of Lillian and Timmy. And these are an unusual mix of characters... an overly Irish Mom, a Playmate, a guru, an Optimist...it's fun, stuff to see how these characters interact, and Nick does not disappoint in surprising us in their reactions and responses to one another. Lillian is worth the price of admission alone.
The landscape of a place covered in ash gives the play an interesting sense of apocalyptic proportion. At this point in the play, Timmy has brought Lillian home to meet mom. An argument ensues.
Clementine and the Cyber Ducks
By Krista Knight
This play is a thoroughly original mix of folk tale and history, taking us back and forth in time in California, from the Gold Rush Ear to the Dot-Com Boom.
We all know who Clementine is… she is
the heroine of the American folk song, Oh My Darlin’, Oh My Darlin’…
Clementine is caught between these two eras, in love with an enterprising young man in search
of capital to launch his Internet Search Engine, and living with her father, a Miner 49ner in search of gold, who imagines the death of his daughter over and over again. Clementine is egged on to commit fraud for love and money by three Cyber Ducks obsessed with making it rich.
The playwright calls this a vaudevillian Greek tragedy.
What can I say? Cyber Ducks? We loved the theatricality of this piece, the inventiveness of language (somewhere between then and today), the movement in time and space, the struggle between loyalty and greed, and the magic of ducks that can conjure an electrical charge.
The excerpt is from near the end of the play, when Clementine has embarked on a scheme to bilk money from lonely bachelors. Clementine’s sister has come to California, sensing that something is wrong. They both interact with the Cyberducks at the river, where Clementine is panning for gold… and any other kind of investment that might float along.
In the first photograph above, we see the back of Michael Bigelow Dixon's head as he speaks before an animated class on the art of new play dramaturgy.
In the second photograph, Adam Segaller performs for an excerpt from Genesis by Alexis Roblan.
In the third photograph, playwright Anna Moench, dramaturge Deb Sevigny, and director Randy Baker listen to comments from the audience after the showcase reading.
And finally, Regina Aquino performs for an excerpt from Krista Knight's Clementine and the Cyber Ducks.
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