Production Poster, Eclectic Theater
APL’s 2014 pick for our New Year, New Play development Salon opens its fully produced run at Eclectic Theater later this month.
The production features Samantha Routh and Shane Regan, both of whom read in our Salon.
Congratulations to playwright Jim Moran!
L-R: Zhenya Lavy, Aimée Bruneau, and Lola Peters | Photo: Margaretta Campagna
Andrew Ross Litzky and Annie Paladino | Photo: Margaretta Campagna
Clockwise from back: Jose Amador, Aimée Bruneau, and Zachary Hewell | Photo: Margaretta Campagna
Valerie Curtis-Newton and Andrew Ross Litzky | Photo: Margaretta Campagna
Joseph Lavy and Annie Paladino | Photo: Margaretta Campagna
For our October 12 Sunday Salon reading of Howard Barker’s The Fence in it’s Thousandth Year, we filled the house with a fantastic group of artists and intellectuals who really dug in to investigate the play’s meaning, reverberations, and implications for performance today. We were fortunate to snag time with Valerie Curtis-Newton in what turned out to be a monumental week for her: winning The Stranger’s 2014 Genius Award for Theater and Crosscut’s 2014 Courage Award in Culture. And we owe special thanks to Andrew Ross Litzsky for saving the day when one of our originally scheduled reader fell ill.
The entire cast knocked this reading out of the park:
PHOTO, a Blind Adolescent – Zachary Hewell
ALGERIA, A Duchess – Aimée Bruneau
ISTORIA, Friend to Algeria – Valerie Curtis-Newton
DOORWAY, A Suitor – Joseph Lavy
LOU, A Young Woman – Annie Paladino
KIDNEY, A Servant – Andrew Ross Litzky
YOUTERUS, A Blind Thief – Jose Amador
CAMERA, A Blind Child – Margaretta Campagna
NARRATOR – Zhenya Lavy
We are beyond excited about our autumn Sunday Salon!
Every Salon presents a careful selection of artists and intellectuals to read a great play and dive into deep discussion, and our October 12 reading of The Fence in its Thousandth Year is no exception. You will want to be in the room with this incredibly talented and erudite group when we take on Howard Barker’s epic story of a blind boy on a quest to understand his true identity in a world of forced segregation, illegal immigration, and shifting sands of Truth:
The US-Mexico Border at Tijuana
PHOTO, a Blind Adolescent – Zachary Hewell
ALGERIA, A Duchess – Aimée Bruneau
ISTORIA, Friend to Algeria – Valerie Curtis-Newton
DOORWAY, A Suitor – Joseph Lavy
LOU, A Young Woman – Annie Paladino
KIDNEY, A Servant – Paul Budraitis
YOUTERUS, A Blind Thief – Jose Amador
CAMERA, A Blind Child – Margaretta Campagna
NARRATOR – Zhenya Lavy
Click here for more information.
Note: RSVP required — claim your spot now!
Do you have a script in the works (or on the shelf) that you would like to have considered for a reading with talented actors and feedback from an open, intelligent, supportive (if sometimes motley) collection of artists, intellectuals, and lovers of the arts? APL’s New Year New Play Salon in January might be your launch pad for something BIG!
Last year’s inaugural New Year New Play selection, FANGS by Jim Moran, has been picked up for full production by Eclectic Theatre this fall. We’re thrilled for Jim and pleased to have been part of his play’s development! | Photo: Zhenya Lavy
I started a discussion about devised theatre on APL’s Facebook group page, and it’s generated quite a bit of interest among artists and theatre scholars. The discussion was inspired by Kate Kremer’s August 28 opinion piece on Howlround — my opening remarks are as follows:
This discussion of so-called “Devised” theatre seems to me exceptionally myopic. First, if Devised Theatre arose as an attempt to break away from the hegemony of the Playwright, why interview 3 playwrights to the exclusion of other collaborative artists? Second, positioning Devising against Schechner’s nearly 50-year-old statement about directors violating vs respecting the text ignores nearly 2 generations of world theatre artists who have been “devising” (long before there was a pigeonhole for the work) without violating OR respecting The Text, but encountering text as a single, (sometimes) necessary element in the development of the performance event: For example, Eugenio Barba/Odin Teatret, Slowiak – Cuesta /New World Performance Lab, Raymond Bobgan, Gardzienice, APL, and countless others. I wonder if this “New Avant-garde” realizes they’re actually behind the times.
I could add Anne Bogart/SITI Company, NaCL, UMO, Wooster Group, Double Edge…
Join the conversation or just take a look at what’s been written — it’s a robust and thought-provoking read. (Facebook account required.)
Howard Barker
Howard Barker, who is perhaps APL’s favorite living playwright, has more than 100 works to his name — mostly produced by his company, The Wrestling School. On October 12, at our Sunday Salon, we will present what we believe to be the first public reading of his 2005 The Fence in its Thousandth Year: set in a world of forced segregation, illegal immigration, and shifting sands of Truth, it is an epic tale of power, deprivation, desire, and cultural conflict told through sometimes shocking imagery, dark humor, and arguably some of the richest poetic language in contemporary drama. Join us October 12 for this not-to-be missed exploration of Barker’s vanguard, timely work that must be heard. Learn more and RSVP…
Barker’s complex and poetic language demands as much concentration from the audience as any classical or Jacobean play, and The Fence owes much to both forms of drama.
~The British Theatre Guide Review
We are thrilled to offer an exciting Workshop Series this Fall that will immerse performers into the physical and vocal practices developed and practiced by Artistic Directors Joseph and Zhenya Lavy through their 25-year investigation of performance craft.
APL’s physical training incorporates not only codified exercises but also carefully developed games to enhance performer embodiment and engagement. | Joseph Lavy – The Stick Game | Photo: Zhenya Lavy
Learn how to develop your physical and vocal self as an artist and to gain a broader vision for what that might mean. In line with our Central and Eastern European artistic heritage, we emphasize process over prescription. APL methodologies open up a new means for tapping into artistic potentiality and move the participant toward a single fundamental objective: Living Impulses shaped by Deliberate Form piloted by an Engaged Mind.
Take one or both. See our SPECIAL DISCOUNT OFFER when you register for both before Oct 15!
We are thrilled to add a special Sunday Salon to our regular, quarterly line-up and hope you will join us for this rare opportunity!
When Odin Teatret celebrates its 50th anniversary on June 22 with a one-time-only performance of CLEAR ENIGMA, Akropolis Performance Lab wants to “be there” — and we invite you to join us, too! The performance is being livestreamed. “It will take place after the conclusion of the Festuge, a week of festivities […] in which Odin Teatret, local associations, institutions, and individual citizens ally themselves to theatricalise their community, revitalise its ties and honour its differences.”
We highly value the work of Odin Teatret, with which we share artistic heritage and which has had meaningful impact upon our work, as well. More information.
Curtain Calls & Curtain Speeches, co-moderated by Zhenya Lavy & Annie Paladino.
Annie Paladino and Zhenya Lavy co-moderated a very lively Twitter chat today as part of the HowlRound.com peer-produced conversation series on Twitter at #newplay.
It never ceases to amaze what can be accomplished in 140-character bursts!
If you missed it, the transcript is archived on Storify. Check it out!
When Dara Weinberg introduced on Howlround her intention to develop A Polish Theatre Cookbook, APL Co-Artistic Director Zhenya Lavy took issue with what she views as a misguided project. Take a look at Weinberg’s original post for context. This is what Zhenya posted in response:
Perhaps well intentioned, but the central tenet of this project — “[…]how US artists can modify or adapt Polish techniques for their own kitchens” — strikes me as seriously misguided. To say nothing of the Orientalism underlying the endeavor, “Polish theatre” is not homogenous, and it’s not possible to create a recipe/check-list for making it. The initial ingredient list above includes “techniques” (more like a bag of tricks) of a dubious nature, as well as items pertaining to working conditions that are more likely idiosyncratic happenstance of a particular director or project development situation rather than properties of national practice or aesthetic. The decontextualization and oversimplification of the items listed via the cookbook metaphor spells a recipe for disaster — especially when put into the hands of people who don’t have a clue regarding context and/or are lacking the intellectual/artistic fortitude/background/sensitivity to employ the ingredients tastefully.
Remember what happened when an incomplete and oversimplified view of Stanislavski’s work made its way to America? (By the time the Moscow Art Theatre was brought to America, Stanislavki had already evolved his practice beyond a restrictive emphasis on psychology.) We got what has become the very limited, complacent, hegemonous banality so ubiquitous on American stages today. We did not get the quality of work/inquiry actually fetishized by those admirers of Stanislavski who sought to bring his techniques to America. We did not get the kind of work/inquiry more likely to be found today in places such as Central and Eastern Europe, where Stanislavski’s legacy-in-action accounts for a more holistic transmission of his teaching and theories and, perhaps most importantly, has fostered a spirit of continuous inquiry/research and a conviction that — more than just being a well-made story or an object for consumption — theatre art actually can DO something.
It is impossible to substitute for the social, political, religious, historical, and practical contexts in which Polish theatre practice has developed. It is impossible to replicate the cultural environment and rich artistic legacy into which Polish people are immersed from birth and within which their artistic development is shaped. It is a fallacy to suggest that someone can take ingredients x, y, z and create Polish theatre or anything approximating it.
This does not mean I think Weinberg should scrap the project completely. I would encourage Weinberg to focus on the portion that includes reporting from rehearsal rooms and interviewing directors … but to eliminate the cookbook component. Where there is an impulse to hold some “different” technique forward in a how-to fashion, instead consider exploring the systems (government and otherwise) which may have contributed to its development. Consider anything else, please, besides implying that there are quick tricks, simple steps, or even a coherent method for “cooking” theatre like they do in Poland.
Finally, I encourage Weinberg to consider being more mindful of language. Not every point of difference merits the label “technique.” Moreover, referring to techniques as “weird” both polarizes and others your subject.
Absent the prescriptive component, I believe Weinberg’s project has the possibility of making a positive contribution to our understanding of theatre in Poland today.
Weinberg did post a rebuttal. Somewhat better studied but still misguided….
Network of Ensemble Theatres
APL is the proud recipient of Sustained Support funding from 4Culture.
APL is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas.
