Announcing the New Season

It's been a few weeks since my last blog post, I know. But the fact is, Parkville is over, the air-conditioning is fixed and the fire alarm hasn't gone off recently. If you walk into the theatre, there will be no actors chomping down A.C.P's and no lighting guys getting strangled with wire. You will see interns on their Macs, Hillary on the phone, and (if you're lucky) Tracy in a meeting. You will think the theatre is a dying place. You will, however, be dead wrong.

These few weeks of calm actually disguised a very crazy time for PoP's directors: finalizing the line-up for next season! They shoot frantic emails, text urgent messages, engage in loud phone conversations and sometimes even talk face-to-face! They get a new idea, whip out the calendar, and cradle their heads in their hands, realizing they cannot squeeze yet another event into the already packed season. But finally, (finally!) after a summer of waiting and Bated Breath, the new season has been decided. Here are the winners!

Mainstage Productions:

Side by Side by Sondheim, music by Stephen Sondheim, Julie Styne, Richard Rodgers and Mary Rodgers

Brighton Beach Memoirs, by Neil Simon

Art, by Yasmina Reza

The Scarlet Letter, based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Comedy of Errors, by Christopher Marlowe (just kidding, I'm just making sure you're paying attention)

Around the World in 80 Days, based on the novel by Jules Verne

A La Carte Series (a little more edgy):

Equus, by Peter Schaffer

Holiday Cabaret

You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, based on the comic strip "Peanuts"

Chicago (yes, the really famous Broadway musical)

Theatre for Young Audiences:

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, based on the book by Laura Joffe Numeroff

Homeroom, by Andrea Green and Selma Tolins Kaufman

I Think I Can, by Bruce Bowden, Barry Miller and Kathryn Schultz Miller

Full descriptions of the shows are available on Playhouse on Park's website, but I'll give you the scoop on a few things that the website won't tell you.

1. PoP's very own Sean Harris will play one of the three main roles in January's production of Art. It will be hilarious. You will come see it.

2. Not to brag or anything, but having Homeroom as part of the Young Audience series might not have happened if PoP had not hired a literary intern for the summer. In all

seriousness, though, seeing Homeroom on the roster is a testament to all the work I've been doing at PoP. Homeroom fell into our laps here at the Playhouse. I read it, visited the playwright's website, listened to the songs, and got an official copy and written reviews from the playwright herself. I talked with the artistic directors about it, had them read it, and next thing you know, we were calling up Andrea Green all the way in Philadelphia and talking with her about putting on her show. I have a feeling that Andrea is pretty thrilled - and so are we. We have found a great musical for middle and high school kids that touches on a lot of important issues and has a ton of really catchy music. It doesn't get much better than that. :)

3. Be on the lookout for staged readings and workshop productions of new work by Connecticut playwrights. Another product of my labors this summer, these low-key productions will run over a two-day period, with the purpose of introducing a new piece to the Connecticut theatre community. The playwrights we are featuring are really excited about their pieces, and my hope is that audiences can get over the fact that they "haven't heard of it before" and come out to see some great new work.

So that's the scoop from this literary blogger. Enjoy the next season!

Cleaners and Writers

Tuesday was one of the craziest days the Playhouse has ever seen. The interns and volunteers arrived in the morning to an email from the boss that looked something like this: CLEAN THE THEATRE!! So that's what we did. Floors were mopped, trashed was collected, carpets were vacuumed, bathrooms were restocked and plants were watered. The highlight occurred when Hillary and I returned from one of our multiple trips out to the dumpster and the lobby had sort of a funny smell to it. "It smells like cleaning stuff," Hillary said, and not having any other suggestions, I agreed.

Then Hillary had another revelation.

"Wait," she said, "I think the vacuum is in the trash pile." She was right. One of our trusty

vacuums was now sitting guiltily amidst the pile of black trash bags.

"That's it!" I said. "It's smells like broken vacuum!" As soon as David appeared from the storage room lugging another vacuum, our suspicions were confirmed. When asked about the dumpster-destined machine, David replied,

"Yeah, it started smoking a few minutes ago..." Tuesday, July 6, 2010 marked the first day I ever threw a vacuum into a dumpster.

But enough about the interns! Today I'm going to tell you all about Michael Bradford,

writer of The Parkville Project. I had so much fun interviewing Michael; he is

incredibly easy to talk to and offers up loads of information. But first, here's a little background on how he got into the theatre scene:

Originally from Kansas, Michael hitch-hiked around the country as a young man and then entered the navy, where he began writing poetry. While in the navy, he was lucky enough to see an August Wilson play - and from then on Michael knew he wanted to write plays. After serving in the navy, Michael went to UConn for his undergraduate degree and continued on to Brooklyn

College for his masters in playwriting. He received a fellowship at Manhattan Theatre Club, and then UConn hired him as Associate Professor of Theatre History, Dramatic Literature and Playwriting. He also serves as the Director of the Theatre Studies BA program.

Helene did most of the interviews for The Parkville Project, but it was Michael actually wrote the script. An aspiring playwright myself, I asked about Michael's writing process. How did her turen all of those interviews into just one family's story?

Michael had many questions to consider while writing. "How much drama can I add to real people's stories? How much can I manipulate?" Michael made a distinction between the "truth" of the play and a whether or not the story is "true." The "macro-story" (the overarching themes of immigration and separated families) has a lot of fact in it, while the the "micro-story" about Amalia and her family is not factual but very truthful. His goal was to weave many lives together into a larger story about the history of Parkville. "Writing this play was very different from any other play I've ever written," Michael said.

The script itself is highly unique. The play went through at least seven significantly

different drafts, with the script constantly undergoing revisions. Michael and Helene settled on an untraditional plot structure, with no obvious peripeteia (the literary term for the turning point or reversal of fortune). The structure alludes back to the works of Sophocles and Euripedes in ancient Greece, with the cast often acting as a chorus and individuals periodically stepping out to tell their stories.

When I asked how he got the idea for the specific stories of Amalia, Argulio and Eduardo, Michael responded that he had taught an acting workshop in Guemaras, Portugal, the town where Amalia's parents met. One of his students brought in a typewriter that he said had been dropped from the sky in Cuba...and the story began.

So although the craziness has died down since Tuesday, Playhouse on Park is still the place to be. We are expecting a sell-out tonight for our opening and we hope that word will get out about this locally relevant, highly powerful piece of theatre. Enjoy!

A pivotal moment between Eduardo and Amalia in The Parkville Project

Welcome to Parkville

They're singing. That's the first thing the actors do at rehearsal. For their "warmup song," the stage manager sounds a percussion soundtrack from his computer and one actor leads the rest in a responsive Spanish work song. It takes a few bars to make sure everyone is in the same key, but once they get there, it sounds cohesive and the harmonies beautifully blend together.

So of course I'm wondering why the actors have spontaneously broken into song. With my history as an acting student, I just assume it's a vocal warm-up they've worked on. So I was surprised when I heard the song again a little while later as part of the show. As impecunious citizens labored under the blazing sun, their song poured out over the hot, Cuban fields, bringing their culture directly to the stage.

Music is just one of the unique elements of the upcoming Parkville Project. Movement sequences and animal puppets also add style to the performance, in addition to flying typewriters and unconventional staging techniques. This show is something else.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to sit down with the director and the writer of the show: Helene Kvale and Michael Bradford. Both work at UConn and head the Bated Breath Theatre Company, the group presenting Parkville here at the Playhouse. During my interviews, I got to hear all about Helene and Michael, as well as their inspirations and processes for creating the show. Here's some of what they had to say:

A word with Helene Kvale...

This European director is tall, refined and elegant. Born in Norway and raised in England, she was introduced to theatre at a young age in the dramatic hotbed of London. She began the Bated Breath Theatre Company a little over two years ago, a group whose goal is to bring a slightly different flavor of theatre to this part of the world. So, speaking of this part of the world...

How did you get the idea for this project?

After a visit to Real Art Ways, Helene was fascinated by the warehouses and architecture of the area. She knew there were stories attached to these buildings and she wanted to find them.

The building that inspired Helene

To unearth the stories, Helene conducted numerous interviews with the people of Parkville. When I asked her what kind of people she interviewed, she said she talked to a lot of seniors at the senior center, people on the street, business owners, politicians, and policemen. She conducted most of her interviews in Spanish and chose not to record them. Helene explained to me that she didn't want to intimidate, because many of these people are illegal immigrants themselves.

Were there any specific interviews that stood out?

Helene highlighted her interview with Norbert, a man born in 1917 who she found at the senior center. He lived in Parkville all his life. She was also especially moved by her interviews with two young men from El Salvador whom she spoke with at a literary volunteer agency. They had been separated from their families a few years ago and were doing their best to learn English.

How much were you involved involved in the writing process?

Overall, the writing of Parkville was a very collaborative process. Helene was very instrumental in deciding on the focus and structure of the piece, as well as the dramaturgical aspects. She worked closely with Michael Bradford, who created the actual dialogue and scenes.

What is the main point you want to get across with The Parkville Project?

Helene said she jumped into this project without the desire for it to go in any particular direction. She called the process "organic," letting it take her wherever it wanted to. Immigration is a fascinating issue, she said, and she found herself focusing on the idea of the government preventing people from moving when that is really their only option. She also wants to showcase the resiliency of a community and echoes of stories over the decades. But most importantly, she said, "it all comes down to family." This is a local story and the main point is to engage the audience. She's not trying to make a political statement, she's just trying to raise some questions and make people realize that immigration issues are present right here, right down the street.

Next post: A conversation with writer Michael Bradford!