From White Plains in BroadwayShowbiz.com

Check out the great review for From White Plains at BroadwayShowbiz.com!

From White Plains

By: ProfMiller @The Theater 

It takes a lot of skill and smart self-editing to be able to write a play that deals with serious social issues while simultaneously engaging an audience at the personal level. What you wind up with all too often is something that is pedantic and preachy, an editorial posing as a play. But when a playwright is able to find the right balance, the results can be breathtaking.

Two stellar examples are Tony Kushner’s “Angels In America,” and Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,” both of which were on soul-shaking display in recent revivals. Both plays dealt with the devastating topic of AIDS, and neither shied away from the medical details or the broader social and political issues involved; indeed both were quite passionate about them. But the playwrights’ greatest success was in bringing their stories to a human level by introducing us to characters we get to know and care about. The issues they face matter to us because the characters matter to us.

All this is by way of introduction to a new play, “From White Plains,” currently on view at the La Tea Theatre in the East Village, a work conceived and directed by Michael Perlman, who has been making a name for himself over the past few years as a performer (Outstanding Solo Show of 2006, New York Fringe Festival) and director.

“From White Plains,” a production of Fault Line Theatre, addresses the big social issue of bullying, especially of gay youth, by their peers. It raises questions of long-term consequences and culpability, male relationships (gay and straight), and even the power of social media to turn private matters into public ones.

The play opens on two long-time friends, both about 30 years of age, Ethan (Aaron Rossini) and John (Craig Wesley Divino). The pair is sitting on the sofa in Ethan’s apartment, drinking beers and casually watching the Academy Awards show on television. A filmmaker, Dennis (Karl Gregory), is being honored for a movie he has made about bullying. After a fumbling start to a seemingly unprepared speech, Dennis finds his voice. He speaks movingly of his friend Mitchell, who committed suicide after years of being bullied as a high school student in the New York suburbs of the title.

This is, of course, most appropriate for an Oscar speech before close to 40 million viewers. But Dennis has more to say. He wants to name names, and he identifies before the world the name of Mitchell’s chief tormentor.

And so, Ethan is outed. And nothing will ever be the same again.

Having set off this bomb, the play deals with the aftermath. Ethan loses his job, his girlfriend, and his best friend. Dennis, feeling empowered by his Oscar, uses social media to battle it out with Ethan. For his part, Ethan starts to fight back, but eventually he begins to do some soul-searching and attempts to apologize (although, of course, apologies under duress are always suspect.)

As in real life, things get complicated. Dennis’s new-found aggression turns on his boyfriend Greg (Jimmy King), whom Dennis badgers for not coming out to his parents, and John distances himself more and more from Ethan.

I have to say, it is quite possible to feel sympathetic towards Ethan, who is suddenly being held accountable for his actions from half a lifetime ago. Not that we want to let him off the hook, but we don’t know enough about Dennis’s friend Mitchell to be able to make a causal connection between the bullying and his suicide. It is not hard to understand how difficult a subject this is. You only have to consider the recent trial of the former Rutgers student who used a webcam to spy on his roommate in a sexual encounter with another man, and the suicide of that roommate after the video was posted.

Yet Ethan himself makes it challenging to feel too sorry for him. He still makes off-hand homophobic remarks, and confesses to John a long list of names of other individuals he bullied, starting in elementary school.

As the play moves towards a realistic ending, you have to admire Mr. Perlman and his co-creators from Fault Line Theatre. They make a real effort to allow everyone’s voice to be heard, so that everything is layered with complexity. I also like the way that the play shows the role of the Internet in the modern story of bullying, which can easily turn the tables from the old view of the bully as being the biggest and toughest kid in the room; YouTube and Facebook are equal opportunity outlets. The acting, too, is solid all around, and Mr. Rossini and Mr. Gregory make for a compelling pair of adversaries.

There was only one piece of the puzzle I wish had been brought up, and that is this: When all of this was going on, at a time when all of the individuals were still in school, where were the adults? Where were the teachers, the school administrators, the counselors, and the parents? I hold them as accountable as I do Ethan and others like him.

There really is a very recent movie called “Bully,” directed by filmmaker Lee Hirsch. Perhaps next year’s Oscars will find life imitating art.”

From White Plains in NYTheatre.com

From White Plains received an excellent review from Cory Conley today on NYTheatre.com!

The horrific scourge of suicides by so many young victims of anti-gay bullying has all the elements of cracking drama: stakes as high as life and death, a multi-layered clash of societal values, a trove of compelling stories, and a moral clarity that few theatrical topics can touch. But even if you throw all those into a pot and stir them around, you’re unlikely to come up with something quite as extraordinary as From White Plains, the new play from Fault Line Theater.

This gripping and full-blooded drama, conceived and directed by Michael Perlman, is so full of insight about prejudice, empathy, and the limits of forgiveness that it ought to be required viewing for anyone touched by, or concerned about, this mournful epidemic. But actually, that’s not its greatest achievement. From White Plains also happens to be as skillfully written, performed, and produced a piece of theater as any you’re likely to see for a while.

The action starts with Dennis Sullivan, who wins an Academy Award for his film “White Plains,” about a gay teenager who takes his life after an unbearable load of bullying by classmates. In his acceptance speech, Dennis dedicates the film to his lost friend Mitchell, whose own suicide fifteen years ago inspired the story. He also drops the name of Mitchell’s most relentless high school tormentor, Ethan Rice. And it is the grown-up Ethan, watching from a couch while his name is held up as a symbol of intolerance in front of the entire world, who opens the play.

Startled and confused, Ethan decides to post a video on the internet, apologizing for his past conduct. Dennis responds with a video of his own, in which he pointedly declines to accept the apology and then heats up the rhetoric by referring to Ethan as a “person, for lack of a better word.” As the videos multiply, and tempers get hotter, personal troubles soon plague both men—for Ethan, a fallout with his best friend John and his offstage fiancée; for Dennis, strained relations with his boyfriend Greg.

I probably shouldn’t say much more about what happens on stage, especially given that the evening is packed with surprises. One of the many virtues of Perlman’s script is that it unfolds with edge-of-your-seat suspense, and that it does so without sacrificing plausibility. (The only scene that feels even somewhat contrived—a chance encounter on the subway—is probably unavoidable in a play with only four characters.) Your sympathies will shift several times, sometimes in the space of a single scene, and that’s not just because of the winding plot, but because everyone here is drawn in three dimensions. Perlman and his team have not prepared an angry, one-sided screed against bigotry in which good triumphs over bad. Their intention is not to condemn the ignorant or flatter the enlightened, but to probe the complex attitudes of its characters. And the results are not exactly predictable.

There’s a strong case to be made, for instance, that Dennis is the least appealing of the group, with his righteous indignation and refusal to contemplate the humanity of his opponents. “It is better now,” insists Greg, referring to the increased acceptance of homosexuality among teens. “It just is.” But Dennis will have none of it: his friend is dead, Ethan’s apologies are insincere, and in any case, if everything’s so great, why won’t Greg come out to his parents?

The same holds true for Ethan’s story. It’s not that we’re supposed to feel sorry for the man who bullied a defenseless kid into suicide. But as his suddenly-public life begins to crumble, and his relationships evaporate, you might start to wonder: how much retribution is enough?

Each member of the all-male ensemble inhabits his role with such completion that you may forget you’re watching a play, and think you’ve stumbled into the living rooms and bars where it takes place. (According to press notes, Perlman assembled the script in collaboration with the cast, who based it partly on their own histories.) If there’s a standout, it’s Jimmy King, who, as Greg, is blessed with the play’s most accessible part and executes it with sensitivity and grace, most visibly in a fine monologue about confronting a gang of black teenagers.

In the end, what makes From White Plains essential viewing is simple: they’ve taken it seriously. There are no fancy theater tricks here, no ironic distancing, no tidy resolutions to assure us everything will turn out all right. What’s left are human souls confronting a human problem, and it is the gift of theater that we get to watch it right in front of us.

View Original at NyTheatre.com

What A Director Does

AKA Relating to People

As I was watching Karl, Jimmy, and Michael put the second scene of From White Plains on its feet yesterday, I thought to myself, “Does a person who doesn’t work in the theatre really know what a director does?” If I wasn’t a theatre practitioner I think I would assume that a director’s primary responsibility is to tell people where to stand. While it’s true that a director is responsible to an extent for the composition of the stage pictures that the audience sees, that’s far from the whole story. 

My father is very successful in the business world. Over the course of many years he worked his way up from being an entry level engineer to running international corporations. I told him once that I could never do what he does, and to my surprise he disagreed. He said that I’m good with people and that what he does is a people business above anything else. Obviously there’s some specific technical knowledge required, but beyond that it’s about the ability to relate to people, and to use that ability to achieve the desired results. That’s exactly what a great director does.

Watching Michael work with Karl and Jimmy yesterday only reinforced what I’d learned in the conversation with my dad. Michael, like a good CEO, creates a space that allows his collaborators to excel and do their best work. He is caring, open, and generous with his actors and his demeanor infuses the rehearsal room with a spirit of collaboration that is necessary for success. Creating this collaborative environment removes ego from the process and places the play and storytelling at the center of everyone’s focus. 

Once this tone is set, the work becomes more technical. A good director must possess an intimate understanding of the play and be able to confidently discuss the major events in the text and how they relate to one another to form the structure of the piece and reveal characters’ relationships. Most daily conversations we have involve hundreds of tiny changes in tactics and intentions, split off into tangents, and contain many subconscious levels of understanding that we take for granted. Michael excels at breaking down the text of a play to illuminate these details. He communicates these discoveries in a clear and actable way that yields nuanced and emotionally truthful performances from his actors before they even get up from the table. When the actors do get on their feet, they now have a solid foundation to work from and are able to physicalize the play in a seemingly organic way because so much emphasis was placed on understanding the play at the table. Then if Michael doesn’t like what he sees, he just tells them where to stand. Seriously though, he’s a really good director.

Come see From White Plains and see what I mean.

On Politics, Equality, and Bullying

In The Six Days After Obama's Support of Same Sex Marriage and Romney's Boarding School Hijinx

If you haven’t been living in some secluded cave for the past few days, you’ve heard that President Obama has publicly voiced his support for same sex marriage and that Mitt Romney was involved in bullying “hijinks” at his Michigan boarding school. As a supporter of marriage equality, I’m encouraged that Mr. Obama chose to affirm what I believe should be everyone’s inherent right, to marry the person they love. As wonderful and important as the President’s announcement was, I am more intrigued by the events surrounding Mitt Romney’s high school years- and how they relate to the events of From White Plains. In the play Ethan Rice, portrayed by Aaron Rossini, is labeled as a high school bully and forced as an adult to confront the consequences of his behavior as a teenager. 

When I look at my own high school experience, I definitely picked on others more than I was picked on. My behavior wasn’t as extreme as Romney’s seems to have been, but for the sake of fitting in I made fun of kids and slung around my fair share of mean spirited jokes. Am I sorry that I may have hurt those kids’ feelings? Yes, absolutely. Do I regret the way I behaved? I don’t think that question is as easy to answer. When we’re in high school, we are far from becoming the people that we will be when we’re adults. We’re in a constant state of growth and change, and we do many things without giving thought to the consequences. Regrettable actions and mistakes are an important part of our growth as adolescents. Without them we cannot learn how to be better moving forward. 

The situation becomes more complicated when the severity of those mistakes increases. Where do we draw the line between immature adolescent behavior and actions that inflict real trauma? Romney refers to his actions as “hijinks,” and perhaps to him at the time they were. From the outside perspective as adults in 2012 it’s hard to seem them that way. 

 My opinion of who Obama and Romney are as people is shaped by my political beliefs and the way they are depicted by the media. Generally, I believe that Obama is a good person because we have similar political ideologies. Conversely, I think less of Romney because we disagree on religion, same sex marriage, and numerous other issues. However, the fact remains that I don’t actually know either of them, and their portrayal in the media is not the whole story.

In the world of From White Plains, Ethan Rice is judged by millions who don’t know the whole story. I’m inclined to say that’s not fair, but we have to make decisions and judgements based on the information we have at hand. I invite you to see the show and decide for yourselves.

From White Plains rehearsal, Day 2

When From White Plains has its first audience on May 31st I will have lived in New York City for almost a year and a half. In that time I have worked primarily with graduate school colleagues-but have also had the opportunity to work with some very talented individuals who come from a completely different background. As an artist it is important to understand that everyone has a unique process, and just because that process is different from your own does not mean it is “bad” or “wrong.”

A major difference between my Brown/Trinity colleagues and my NYC collaborators is that my NYC friends spend far less time at the table when they’re working on a play. As I sat in on FWP rehearsal this afternoon I was reminded how important good table work is to me and my process. Director Michael Perlman was working with Karl Gregory and Jimmy King on a scene in which their characters are having an argument. Many actors, myself included, tend to fall easily into the trap of raging and screaming when they come across an argument scene. We desperately want to show how much we care, and tapping into anger is often the easiest way to express that. Without good table work a scene becomes one dimensional and stagnates. If the play doesn’t happen at the table it will never happen on its feet. Michael, Jimmy, and Karl were doing excellent table work. They closely examined the text and found many subtle shifts in intention and motivation which made the scene dynamic and interesting. They were not two characters in a play yelling at one another, but two human beings trying make each another understand their respective points of view. I believe that the search for truthful acting is not in mumbling or adopting a “natural” physicality, but in mining the text for clues that key into who my character is, what he wants, and his relationship to the other characters in the play. Only after I’ve done clear and specific text work do I have a foundation upon which to create a believable character. I think the four actors in this play would agree with me. I’ll see you at the theatre.

Return of the Blog - Introducing From White Plains

Ladies and Gentleman the Rehearsal Blog is back! Rehearsals are underway for Fault Line’s next project, From White Plains, conceived and directed by Michael Perlman and starring Aaron Rossini, Karl Gregory, Craig Wesley Divino, and Jimmy King.

What strikes me about From White Plains is that its message extends beyond the treatment of LGBT individuals in America. It speaks to all of us, without regard to sex, creed, or sexual orientation and asks us to examine our own lives and the way we’ve chosen to treat other people and how they have treated us. Our actions have consequences, and in a world dominated by social media the power to reach millions with our thoughts and opinions is literally in the palm of our hands. We can be held accountable for every word we type or tweet on the internet. Because our comments have such a broad reach, are we obligated to hold ourselves to a higher standard? Must we take broader responsibility for the presence we establish in cyberspace? I don’t have the answers, but I’m excited that this play asks these questions. From White Plains forces us to look at who we’ve been, who we are, who we want to be, and how we chose to express that to the world. I look forward to seeing you at the theatre. 

The Journey of the Play

Megan Auster-Rosen, writer and star of From The Same Cloth, shares some words about the origins and inspirations for her powerful show opening this evening:

In 1970, my father boarded a plane to Sierra Leone for a two-year Peace Corps adventure that would change his life forever. He moved into a remote village, became fluent in Mende and made some of his deepest friendships. He returned to the United States intent on going back to Africa for good. Instead, he met my mother, started a family and the Sierra Leonean civil war broke out.

From the time my father returned from Africa he worked on a manuscript that chronicled his adventures. Every Thursday we knew not to bother him in his office, where he’d go through his old journals trying to detail his experience. At bedtime he would tell me stories of his adventures and life in Sierra Leone, and I would slip into my dreams and imagine myself walking barefoot along a red dirt road, carrying bowls on my head and speaking the native language.

Thirty years after my father’s Peace Corps experience, I took some time from school and traveled to West Africa. I went with the notion of reliving my father’s experience. But that didn’t happen. No matter how hard I tried to find the moments I was looking for, they always felt just out of reach. I called my father and begged him to join me in Africa to help me capture something meaningful. After he arrived, he quickly taught me that there is nothing too small to be part of an adventure. I had kept waiting for something incredible to happen, and he helped me realize that incredible moments were happening the whole time. Sitting next to him in the African savannah, I began to understand his point, but my time in Africa was coming to an end, and so was my time with my father.

While traveling from Northern Ghana to Accra, our plane crashed. I survived with more injuries than I could count, the most debilitating of which was the temporary paralysis in my left leg. My father, who was sitting next to me, was killed.

Since my father’s death, I’ve been trying to finish his book. I realized I could only tell his story through my own and that it must be told through theatre. The first staging of the play at the New York International Fringe Festival was a huge success, but when the run ended, the journey felt incomplete; there was more writing to do, more characters to explore, more story to reveal.

This incarnation of From the Same Cloth is my search for an ending, my attempt to find closure, my way of honoring the story closest to my heart through the language of theatre.

— Megan Auster-Rosen

Marvelous Megan Auster-Rosen

Writer of, and Actor in, From The Same Cloth

Megan Auster-Rosen  is a busy woman. She is currently pursuing her PhD in clinical psychology, seeing several patients a week as part of that program, volunteering for an after school program, and oh yes, writing and acting in Fault Line Theatre’s latest project, From the Same Cloth.

I’m marveled by her ability to deftly juggle all of her outside responsibilities and pour herself completely into From the Same Cloth. The photo below shows her portraying the Shaman, one of the many characters she plays in this show.

There are very specific vocal and physical techniques required to play multiple characters effectively.  It’s necessary for each character to possess a distinct voice and physicality and that the change from one to another happen swiftly as an actor breathes in to speak the next line. Shifting focal points is also important because it allows the audience to understand who is speaking to whom. Megan is executing these techniques wonderfully. It has been a pleasure to watch her performance grow and change throughout the course of the rehearsal process. I’m excited for you to see it on opening weekend.

Click here for tickets.

Exploring Sierra Leone

The Respective Journeys of Ken and Megan Through "From The Same Cloth"

Tonight’s blog will examine the respective African journey’s of Ken and Megan through Fault Line’s latest project, From the Same Cloth. When Ken received his Peace Corps posting he was stationed in Segbwema, a major agricultural and trading center in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. As you can see from the map below, Segbwema is located northeast of the Provincial capital of Kenema in the southeastern portion of the country. The Mendes are the dominant ethnic group in this region, but Ken found that due to the commercial nature of Segbwema, its inhabitants primarily spoke English and Creole, the common market language between the surrounding tribes. Ken wanted to completely immerse himself in the Mende language and culture, so he moved to the tiny village of Pendembu Djegbla, where they spoke only Mende. Unfortunately, Pendembu Djegbla is so small that it doesn’t appear on our map, and according to Megan, is so small that it mostly likely never appeared on any map. Although a few modern towns in Sierra Leone bear the name Pendembu, we assume that Ken’s village was located somewhere in the outskirts of Segbwema.

Megan’s journey began in Teshie, a town just east of the Ghanian capital of Accra. This region is inhabited by the Ga people. A fascinating Ga custom is the construction of “fantasy coffins” when a loved one passes away. These untraditional coffins are constructed to reflect the personality of the deceased and serve as a vehicle to mourn their death and celebrate their journey to the afterlife. Some examples of these coffins can be found here.

Megan felt the need to escape the anglican lifestyle she was living in Teshie and headed northwest to the village of Ekumfi Atakwa in search of a more immersive African experience. As we learn from the play, she met similar dissatisfaction in her new destination.

Once Ken joined Megan, they first traveled to Ada, a small city in southeastern Ghana at the mouth of the Volta River. Ada was once a major trading hub when the Volta was used to transport goods, but now it is primarily a popular tourist destination known for its beaches and water sports. Ken and Megan then flew to Tamale in northern Ghana and spent time in Mole National Park. Although not directly indicated on the map, Mole National Park is the region west of Tamale that surrounds the Mole River. Western Africa isn’t famous for its wildlife like the southern portion of the continent, but Mole National Park is a rare exception. It is Ghana’s largest wildlife reserve and home to a resident population of 800 elephants.

It is imperative to note that the landscape of Western Africa changed dramatically in the years between Ken’s Peace Corps assignment in the 1970s and Megan’s trip in the early 2000s. Sierra Leone was ravaged by a civil war that tore families apart, left over 50,000 dead, and wiped out many villages, including Pendembu Djegbla. Many charitable organizations throughout the world have dedicated themselves to providing aid to Sierra Leone, and the links below offer some insight to the type of work being done:

OneVillage Partners

Street Child of Sierra Leone

Megan is also involved with the Theatre Arts Against Political Violence program, which is part of the International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University. Theatre Arts Against Political Violence is “a community arts project using theatrical performance to provide a public space for testimony, witnessing, and conversation.” More information about the program can be found here.

From The Same Cloth, The Movie?

I love the movies. Many of my first memories are of going to see movies with my Dad on the weekends. It’s a tradition that we maintained throughout the time I lived at home and was the reason I first fell in love with acting. I was reminded at rehearsal this weekend of one of my favorite differences between theatre and film. There’s a moment in From the Same Cloth when Ken and Megan endure a long and arduous trek to a beautiful waterfall. I pictured in my head that the film version of the scene might look like something out of Congo or The Mission. At that moment, however, I realized what was happening in the room was far more compelling than the stock footage running through my brain. Jacques and Megan were bounding throughout the rehearsal space, jumping over furniture and one another to create the journey right in front of me. Creating the space in this way invites the audience to use their imaginations to fill in the blanks and invites them to participate in the theatrical event. I don’t need to see a treacherous trail or a gorgeous waterfall on stage because there are two very talented actors making me believe that they are there. I know they will make you believe the same.