Your Custom Text Here
The first week of rehearsal for At The Table is coming to an end. Everyone was on hand Wednesday for presentations by the designers and the introduction of the technical crew.
I captured some of the moments of our first full get together. A few weeks ago, I also chatted with Fault Line Theatre co-founder and set designer Tristan Jeffers about what was going into designing this unique project.
Video by Good Baby Films
If you’re on our mailing list, then you’ve already heard the exciting news that Fault Line Theatre is now an officially recognized nonprofit organization with full 501(c)(3) status. Not only does this move open the company up to artistic grants and other sources of public funding, but it also means every single dollar donated to Fault Line Theatre by our patrons goes directly toward the work on stage. The expansion of Fault Line Theatre into this new and exciting territory also provides us with the opportunity to welcome new collaborators into the fold that will help us evolve and improve upon the work we’ve already done, which is why we’re thrilled to introduce our board of directors:
Beau Willimon - Creator, House of Cards; Playwright, Breathing Time
Bruce Geismar - Bear Stearns & Co; JP Morgan; UBS
Vivienne Benesch - Artistic Director, Chautauqua Theatre Co.
Craig Wesley Divino - Founder, Co-Artistic Director, Fault Line Theatre
Aaron Rossini - Founder, Co-Artistic Director, Fault Line Theatre
Karl Gregory - Actor; From White Plains collaborator
Many of these people have been our trusted advisors and collaborators for quite some time and we’re honored to formally continue working with them. Co-Artistic directors Aaron Rossini and Craig Wesley Divino are likely familiar names to supporters of the company. But who are these new faces?
Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be profiling the remaining four members of the board. We love them and can’t wait to start this amazing journey with them.
Image courtesy of Fiasco Theater
Fresh off of their success at Roundabout with Into the Woods (for which our artistic associate Michael Perlman assistant directed) our friends at Fiasco Theatre are bringing their The Two Gentlemen of Verona to Theatre for a New Audience. Act quickly though, the show is only performing for FOUR WEEKS! We’ll be there. Join us.
April 24 – May 24, 2015
Theatre for a New Audience - Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Place
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Crackling and quick-moving, The Two Gentlemen of Verona may well have been Shakespeare’s first play. A seemingly simple tale of shifting devotions among mismatched lovers, it helped launch the genre of rom-com. Yet its delightful madcap surface conceals undercurrents, as its putative hero proves a cad and a faithless friend.
Fiasco Theater’s zesty and streamlined six-actor Cymbeline was a highlight of TFANA’s 2011 season. In Two Gentlemen, which premiered at Folger Theatre, the company’s acute understanding of text, spare design and brilliantly versatile use of props, accessories, original music, and shifting accents combine to create a charming, nuanced and magical experience. Letters fall from the flies, rope-ladders materialize out of nowhere, and a handful of actors transform into outlaws, clowns, servants, and even a grumpy, ungrateful dog.
Aaron Rossini and Craig Wesley Divino in rehearsal.
At The Table is right around the corner, with rehearsals beginning and June in preparation for a month long run from June 13 to July 19 at the HERE Arts Center. You can even already purchase tickets!
But there is one last piece to this puzzle and we need your help!
We’ve launched an IndieGoGo campaign to help fund this show and make it as good as we know it can be. Preston Ciranni, president of NFM Group and a long-time supporter of Fault Line Theatre, will match all donations up to $5,000 so that we can meet our $10,000 goal. Donations to the campaign will go directly to renting the MainStage theater at the HERE Arts Center.
Please check out our IndieGoGo campaign and consider donating.
Graphic by Another Limited Rebellion
There’s only 10 days left to see Soldier X, the magnificent new show by our friends (and neighbors at ART/NY) at Ma-Yi Theatre Company. The play is being produced at HERE Arts Center, the future home of our next play At The Table! As if you needed more reasons to check out the work of this exciting theatre company, check out the poster to their first show of last season… Yup, that’s our co-artistic director Aaron Rossini!
March 24 – April 19, 2015
HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Avenue
New York, NY 10013
SOLDIER X follows a young African American social worker who becomes professionally compromised when she falls for a returning veteran that’s romantically entangled with his fallen friend’s Muslim sister. The play tallies the emotional scars inflicted on our young men and women returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. How exactly do you rejoin a society that remains as conflicted about its wars as it is with issues of race and gender?
Photo by Lois Tema
Our very own From White Plains has taken on quite the life of its own! It was not only published by Dramatist Play Service a few months ago, but has enjoyed a successful run in theatres across the country. Right now, if you find yourself in the Bay Area in the next couple weeks you can catch the latest production at the New Conservatory Theatre Center!
March 20 – April 26, 2015
New Conservatory Theatre Center
25 Van Ness Avenue at Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
The sweetest revenge never ends.
When a young director receives international acclaim for a film based on his experience of bullying in high school, he uses his Oscar speech to out the real-life bully from his past. The lives of these two men become quickly tangled in the public eye as they see if revenge is really so sweet.
Tomorrow from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM casting begins for our production of At The Table with Equity Principal Auditions. We love EPAs because it’s always an opportunity to meet new actors and hear the text from a variety of perspectives. Co-Artistic directors, Aaron Rossini and Craig Wesley Divino will both be in the room. More information including location and specific times can be found on the Actors’ Equity website.
Come play!
Ben Mehl and Claire Karpen
Today we focused on refining Act II. In an ideal world, a second act shouldn’t just be a continuation of Act I. Some sort of change needs to occur. How is Act I different from Act II? Why separate the two?
Therefore, the discussion today focused primarily on how to escalate the plot. How can we take what we’ve done in Act I and either go deeper or turn it on its head?
Director/writer Michael Perlman said something today that stuck with me about the nature of successful collaboration. He mentioned that everyone must trust that everyone else in the room is the best person to do their job. If this baseline is present, then no one’s ego is hurt by comments or suggestions. There is safety to say anything, ask any question, and raise any concern because it is all in service of the story. Michael guides the discussions, but outside of that, every voice is equal and every voice is respected.
Our friend Annie Worden (Doctor Faustus) has designed the puppetry for the upcoming show Manifest Destiny from Francis Black Projects being presented at IRT Theater. The show is directed by world famous clown performer and instructor Aitor Bassauri of the UK physical theatre company Spymonkey. It’s shaping up to be an amazing display of physical comedy. We can’t wait!
March 5 – March 21, 2015
IRT Theater
154 Christopher Street #3B (between Greenwich St. & Washington St.)
New York, NY 10014
Have you ever wanted to be a better person? Or perhaps more kind and honest? Sensitive, courageous and creative? Or are you ashamed of what your life has become and want more meaning? Lucas Caleb Rooney and Zack Fine – actors, artists and humanitarians – wanted those things once too, and so they went out and found the answers. They’re going to share the answers with you. So don’t wait any longer. Come grab fate by the balls. No guts no glory. No retreat no surrender. No Carpe no Diem.
*Appear courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
Aaron Rossini in rehearsal
This afternoon actors and designers congregated for the third day workshopping Michael Perlman’s At The Table.
Today we started by working through new pages generated from last week’s rehearsal. We’re now beginning to get a clear sense of who these characters are and what they might want from each other. Much like our process with From White Plains, the task now is to generate a multitude of character/story trajectories and determine which tells the clearest and most truthful story. This stage is perhaps the most exciting to me; the play begins to take nearly infinite different forms. The characters are presented with infinite paths and it is our job to sift through the possible options to distill the story to its essence. With such a large cast, however, we’re finding the difficulty is in making sure all the characters have specific and necessary relationships to each other. Nothing should be extraneous.
That’s all for February rehearsals. We next gather on this coming Tuesday, which somehow is already in March!