Category Archives: Uncategorized

Newsflash: Performance Dates Announced!

  By Joseph Lavy • September 2, 2018 - 9:00 AM

Mark your calendars! Performance dates are set for our current project, Jean Genet’s The Maids:

October 25 through November 24, 2018

The Maids – our second fully produced Studio Production – follows the model of APL’s acclaimed The Glas Nocturne (2015 – 2017) and features the talents of long-time Artistic Associates Emily Testa, Annie Paladino, and Junior Artistic Associate Catherine Lavy, in a new English translation by director Joseph Lavy.

As with The Glas Nocturne, audiences will be strictly limited to fewer than 15 per show and tickets will be by invitation only. Watch for details on how to request your invitation, coming soon!

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Summer 2018 Open Training Sessions!

  By Joseph Lavy • June 1, 2018 - 12:00 PM , , , , , , , , ,

We’re delighted to announce that during July and August APL is inviting performers interested in rigorous, practical work engaging essential elements of the performer’s craft to participate in our twice-weekly ensemble training. Performing artists with an openness to embodied exploration are welcome regardless of experience or discipline.

Interested? Sign up here: https://goo.gl/forms/rJR29Gg4L0hflpdu2 or keep reading to learn more!

Our training objective:Living Impulses shaped by Deliberate Form piloted by an Engaged Mind

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Joseph Lavy, Annie Paladino, Emily Jo Testa: Plastiques

 

When:  July 5 – August 16, 2018

Wednesdays – Voice (7:30 pm – 9:30 pm)

  • Listening
  • Impulse, Breath, Tone, Resonance, Shared Voice
  • Harmonic/Polyphonic/Overtone Singing

Thursdays – Body (7:30 pm – 9:30 pm)

  • The Basics: Awareness, Presence, Contact
  • Plasticity: The shape and flow of associations
  • Corporeality: Identifying, owning, and surpassing our personal limitations
  • The Tangible World: Deep play at the intersection of attention, action, and objects

 

 

 

Introductory Intensive: To accelerate participants’ experience we are also offering an 8 hour Introductory Intensive – June 30 & July 1 – during which we will provide a beginner-focused introduction to APL’s core principles, exercises, songs, and activities.

Participation in the Introductory Intensive is strongly encouraged but not required. Everyone is welcome on a drop in basis.

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APL corporeality training

 

Cost: Drop In Sessions: $20 per session or $25 per week if attending both voice and body training sessions (4 hours/week total)

Introductory Intensive: $80

Discounts:Participants in the Introductory Intensive will have a reduced drop-in fee of $10 per session/$20 per week.

We also offer discounts for paid-in-advance, multi-session commitments.  Situational sliding scale rates available

Sign Up: Interested? Click through to this simple form to let us know! https://goo.gl/forms/rJR29Gg4L0hflpdu2

Announcing 2018 New Year/New Play Selection!

  By Joseph Lavy • January 21, 2018 - 1:19 PM

2018 marks the fifth year of our New Year New Play Development Project. Each year we dedicate the first Sunday Salon to new work generated by local playwrights, and this year we are very happy to announce that we have selected, Choices People Make, by Jessica Andrewartha!

  • WHEN: February 11, 2018
  • WHERE: APL Downstairs Studio, Lake Forest Park, WA
  • SCHEDULE:
    4:00pm: Arrivals. Mingling and food/drinks.
    5:15-5:30pm: Reading begins, to be followed by discussion.
    10:00pm: End time is a best guess. Leave when you need to; we allow the discussion to run its course.

this is our 20th Salon in a quarterly series that began in March 2013. For Sunday Salons, APL casts actors not only from within the ensemble but also from the broader Puget Sound community to read new, classic and/or provocative plays we want to engage as thinking artists but aren’t likely to produce. Anyone interested in the play or its context can join us. Each Salon is a unique, dynamic assembly of artists, intellectuals, provocateurs, friends, and family. We read, drink, eat, and — with minimal moderation — let discussion go where it will.

The program is supported, in part, by a grant from 4Culture.

Choices 2018

THE PLAY: Dr. Rosamund Tamayo and her research partner Dr. Harold Cooper have created one of history’s greatest scientific breakthroughs. Her name is Athena. Now Dr. Roz and Athena are showing up at Roz’s mother’s door with a problem. It turns out that just because Athena and her body are bleeding edge technology doesn’t mean they’re not subject to the same questions women have been grappling with for centuries.

THE PLAYWRIGHT: Jessica Andrewartha is a Seattle based writer whose short plays have been produced in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and London. Her full length plays Enter Starlighter, and W.H.I.P. have both received staged readings at Theatre Battery, her play Where Do We Start? was read at Seattle Playwrights Circle, and her play Ready to Start was read at Southern Methodist University. Jessica is an alumnus of SMU and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

For more details, and to keep up with related news (such as casting), follow the event on our Facebook Group

We hope to see you there!

Watch footage from C+P’s premiere

  By Akropolis Performance Lab • December 21, 2017 - 2:43 PM

Excited about Crime + Punishment’s Seattle opening January 5? Us, too!

Want a sneak peek? Check out this great footage from last month’s world premiere!

Tickets are selling strong. Buy your tickets today!

Please also consider donating to our end-of-year giving campaign. Because we’re the lucky beneficiaries of a giving match challenge, every dollar you give will be stretched: donations received between now and December 31 will be matched 1.5:1, and donations received January 1-15 will be matched 1:1. Donate today!

Special thanks to Margaretta Campagna for her stellar camera and editing work!

Working as an APL Ensemble Actor

  By Joseph Lavy • November 22, 2017 - 4:50 AM

People regularly question me about what it’s like to be an Akropolis actor.  We talk about ourselves as an actor-centered, process-drive ensemble committed to long-form rehearsal, so what does that look like in practical terms? Aside from the value we place on physical and vocal training, how do we approach the creative process in the rehearsal studio, and what expectations do we have for our actors that differ from those of an actor engaged in the typical process of putting up a show in 4 or 5 weeks. As we near the opening of Crime + Punishment after more than 550 group rehearsal hours I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to share those expectations with you. I’d love to receive your responses and answer any questions.

Working as an APL Ensemble Actor

12.01.16 Devising Duklida 4

December 2016 rehearsal of Crime + Punishment (Joseph Lavy, Matt Sherrill, Tyler Polumsky, Emily Jo Testa, Annie Paladino)

Working as an APL ensemble actor means:

  1. Embracing APL’s signature aesthetic, which:
    1. asserts that the theatrical life of an APL production arises from the tension created between formal discipline and inter-personal immediacy
    2. demands levels of specificity and concepts of spontaneity which may at times seem at odds with dominant contemporary acting approaches
  2. Engaging each rehearsal as a generative artist, making propositions through prepared actions, etudes, improvisations for theatrical material from which the performance text will be created
  3. Recognizing that every proposition—however formal, realistic, or abstract—must be built on a foundation of impulses and points-of-contact with stimuli from external sources (living partners, objects, memories and associations projected outside of the self)
  4. Proposing performative material that is precise, repeatable and iterative
  5. Adapting one’s proposition to changing circumstances (montage with other actors, inclusion of music and/or text, addition of objects, changes of space) without abandoning or destroying the proposition’s originating stream-of-life
  6. Incorporating, retaining, and justifying adjustments made to the proposition in collaboration with the director and any acting partners
  7. Remaining receptive and sensitive to new meanings as they emerge, and embodying them in subsequent iterations
  8. Developing alternate propositions for a subject or scene when inspired or requested, rather than radically changing or abandoning an existing proposition without discussion or collaboration with the director and acting partners
  9. Elaborating with one’s artistic partners the overall performance text composed of acting scores with compound dramaturgical levels:
    1. The original truth, associations and details of the initial propositions
    2. Specificity of form and points-of-contact with acting partners
    3. A living give-and-take with acting partners, which respects and maintains the established physical structure
    4. Precise execution which ensures clear communication of intended information to the spectator
  10. Using one’s acting score as the means to provoke and respond to one’s acting partners and spectators, not simply as a form of choreography or an illustration of a text
  11. Respecting the established details of the final performance text as elaborated through the rehearsal process, and not introducing significant deviations from their score in a moment of on-stage inspiration or improvisation in performance conditions. Once a production is in performance, new propositions are first to be explored and validated in collaboration with the director and other actors under rehearsal conditions before being introduced before an audience

 

What a Great Audience!

  By Akropolis Performance Lab • July 30, 2017 - 10:51 AM
Take Me: Pulkheria Floating | Emily Jo Testa

Take Me: Pulkheria Floating | Emily Jo Testa

Wow — we had a full house at Friday’s rendering of 730 Steps! Two lucky people even got to experience our work from the middle of the action, with seats in the playing space! We’re so grateful to everyone who came out to support this important part of our development process.

We were especially touched by the number of people who hung out with us well past 1:00 AM chatting not only about what they’d just seen but about their lives and things going on in the world in general.

Special thanks to Milena Hranac for her help getting us ready for the event and for running lights!

It was a wonderful evening. You have given us much to think about as we shape 730 Steps’ final form for performance.

If you attended and upon further reflection have new thoughts to share, feel free to send us an email. We welcome all of your feedback.

Watch this site for announcements about performance dates!

This project is sponsored, in part, by a grant from 4Culture.

The Glas Nocturne is Sold Out! But don’t despair…

  By Akropolis Performance Lab • June 1, 2015 - 5:30 PM
"There’s something wrong with my brain. Too bad or too good, I don’t know. Certainly not what it ought to be." ~ Dr. Glas (Joseph Lavy) | Photo: Joe Patrick Kane

“There’s something wrong with my brain. Too bad or too good, I don’t know. Certainly not what it ought to be.” ~ Dr. Glas (Joseph Lavy) | Photo: Joe Patrick Kane

… we are keeping it in repertory!

Expect to see announcements about periodic new performance offerings of this “intimate… resonant… dangerously riveting” work starting this fall.

If you weren’t able to get a seat for our world-premiere run of The Glas Nocturne, which ends June 7 after playing to full houses with an extension, there are two ways you still can see the piece:

  1. Sign up for our waitlist. We’ll send you a notification the next time we schedule a date to offer a performance.
  2. Pull together a group of ten and request a private showing. We’ll work with you to schedule a mutually agreeable date!

Just click on the Request Invitation button here or use the form on the production page. REQUEST INVITATION BUTTON

Meet Doctor Glas

  By Akropolis Performance Lab • May 15, 2015 - 1:38 PM
APL Co-Artistic Director Joseph Lavy is Dr. Glas | Photo: Joe Patrick Kane

“He sits motionless, looking out over the water, smoking a very long, slender cigar. A most handsome man.” | APL Co-Artistic Director Joseph Lavy is Dr. Glas | Photo: Joe Patrick Kane

“He sits motionless, looking out over the water, smoking a very long, slender cigar. A most handsome man.” |

The Glas Nocturne opens today!

A breathtaking  journey. Pure, simple, uncompromising artistry.

We are so proud of this piece and hope all our friends who can will come out to see it.

All performances are offered as PWYC donation.

Request an invitation here.

Join the conversation:

Akropolis Daily Nocturne

  By Akropolis Performance Lab • March 30, 2015 - 5:03 PM
Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888) | Vincent van Gogh

Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888) | Vincent van Gogh

A nocturne a day — that’s our promise to you now through opening of The Glas Nocturne.

Get your daily dose of the night!

Follow Akropolis Daily Nocturne on Storify or #AkropolisDailyNocturne on Facebook and Twitter.

We’d love to hear what you think of these varied and evocative pieces!

And watch here for details about how to request your invitation to The Glas Nocturne.

Corpus Christi?

  By Joseph Lavy • December 11, 2014 - 11:23 AM , , , , , , , ,

In 2002, APL was about to begin rehearsals on an original adaptation of Pinocchio when the US–exploiting the wake of 9/11– opportunistically decided to wage war on Iraq based on dubious evidence of WMDs. We were unanimously and vehemently opposed to the action, and agreed APL needed to respond artistically, so we tabled the Pinocchio project and picked up Jeanne, The Maid.
Our intent was not to make a 1:1 equivalency between Joan of Arc and modern-day jihadists (Although, they are both religious extremists/zealots fighting wars in the name of God). We were driven mainly by the impulse to interrogate and illustrate the capacity of a corrupt religio-political power structure to manufacture evidence in order to support their desired outcomes and, through immoral & coercive means, actualize their predetermined objectives. And to demonstrate the social complicity of the people who sit there and let it happen, or accept that Ends justify Means.
When we finished rehearsals and were ready to open in 2003, alt-media just began to break the stories of American atrocities in Abu Ghraib prison. Most of the country was in denial that the USA would do anything like that, still pumped up on jingoistic nationalism. If it happened at all, it had to be merely by a few rogue actors. America was certainly on the Moral High Ground.
We were chastised in the Seattle Stranger for “Politics with a Sledgehammer,” even though we never once used a literal reference to Bush/Chaney/Rumsfeld. Now, 11 years later the American Government’s unscrupulous use of torture (ends justifying means) is back in the spotlight.

And our question remains: “Is this the body of Christ?”