This is Part II of McCarter’s look back at what some of the artists from 2007 are up to now. Click here for Part I.

Stick Fly
In just a few weeks, Stick Fly playwright Lydia R. Diamond will open her newest world premiere, Harriet Jacobs, at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. The play is based on the life of Harriet Jacobs, author of the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. This play, which opens February 8, is part of the Steppenwolf for Young Adults series. Lydia’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye has been receiving productions around the country, and was recently listed as one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s top ten theater events of 2007. The list also includes Argonautika, which recently ended its run at Berkeley Rep. Stick Fly was also recorded by L.A. Theatre Works, and will soon be available for ordering on their website.

Tartuffe
Tartuffe transferred to Yale Rep, in New Haven, Connecticut and ran through the month of December. it only just ended on December 22, so there hasn’t been all that much time for the various artists of the show to start new projects. The big news, however, is that actress Sally Wingert is slated to lead the cast of Wendy Wasserstein’s Third at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Many of our audience members will remember Sally for her utterly fabulous turn as Dorine, the saucy maid who sees through all of Tartuffe’s cons. Sally is one of the great stars of the Twin Cities, and The Guthrie is one of the finest theaters in the nation (and where McCarter’s Artistic Director Emily Mann did some of her earliest work). There’s a great video of Sally talking about Third here.

A Christmas Carol
Since closing McCarter’s production of A Christmas Carol, director Michael Unger has started his next venture, directing The Happy Time at Arlington Virginia’s Signature Theatre. The Happy Time is an unfortunately forgotten musical by Kander and Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret, Curtains, etc.). It originally starred Robert Goulet, and sadly its claim to fame is that it was the first Broadway musical to close having recorded a net loss of over a million dollar. Nevertheless, the score is quite tuneful, and Signature, a theater that has recently won great acclaim for its productions of Sondheim musicals, is producing it as part of a Kander and Ebb celebration. Unger is in excellent company; the other festival directors are Eric Schaeffer (Signature’s Artistic Director) and Frank Galati, two time Tony Award-winning director of musicals and classics, and an Associate Director at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. The Happy Time runs April 1-June 1, 2008.

Let us know what you think! Post a comment below by clicking on the “comments” link.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

The big news is in! We have a winner.

Kena N. Njoya is our first blog prize-winner! Kena has won 2 free tickets to Faith Prince’s late-nite cabaret concert for getting lots of correct answers on the Tartuffe Quiz. Although nobody got all 10 questions correct (they were kinda tough), Kena was the first reader to get 9 out of the 10 questions, and so won our first-ever blog contest.

Many thanks to all who entered the competition - it was great fun to read your submissions. If you want to see all the answers, you can read them here.

We hope you enjoyed the quiz. If you wanna see more quizzes, let us know by posting a comment below. I’m thinking about putting together a quiz for A Christmas Carol, maybe even before the show opens (for those of you who see it every year).

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre

It’s not too late to win free tickets to see Faith Prince’s late-nite cabaret concert. This is a blog-only contest, and all you have to is be the first person to answer all the questions in the Tartuffe Quiz! We’ve had a few entries yet, but nobody has (yet) gotten all 10 questions correct. And Faith Prince is mad cool. I would totally enter (and win) the contest, if I were eligible. Dude, it’s Faith Prince! From Broadway. And the movies. And the first (and only?) Broadway show my big brother ever saw! And that CD that I drove my father nuts with cause I listened to it over and over and over again… THAT Faith Prince!

So the salient point here, the one sentence synopsis, if you will, is that Faith Prince rocks the casbah. If you don’t believe me, ask YouTube. And then go take the Tartuffe quiz.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

Update- The quiz is now CLOSED. You missed it

Just what you’ve been waiting for–a chance to prove how attentive you were while watching Tartuffe, and to win a fabulous prize in the process! Answer the following 10 questions as best you can, and e-mail your answers to literary@mccarter.org. The first person to answer all 10 questions correctly (or the person who has answered the most questions correctly by November 15) will receive two free tickets to see Faith Prince’s late-nite cabaret concert on December 15th. See end of post for contest details and QUIZ ANSWERS.

(Hint: Take a look at the Character Profiles and Who’s Who page in our Education Resource Guide to refresh your memory of the different characters in the play.)

1. The character oh-so-skillfully portrayed by Gingy the dog is named:
a) Chloe
b) Flipote
c) Fifi
d) Mathilde

2. Which of the following characters does not at some point in the play hide and eavesdrop on a conversation between several other characters?
a) Elmire
b) Orgon
c) Damis
d) Dorine

3. What is Orgon finally driven to do in response to Dorine’s meddling in his conversation with Mariane about wedding Tartuffe?
a) He strikes Dorine.
b) He goes for a walk to soothe his nerves.
c) He banishes Dorine from the household.
d) He makes Tartuffe his only son and heir.

(more…)

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

Over the course of the last week I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many Tartuffe audience members both informally and at post-show discussions. Here are a few of the great questions that they have asked about this production of Tartuffe, and here are some of the answers that the actors and I have given. If you have more questions, feel free to e-mail them to me and I will post them–along with their answers–on the blog.

Q: I loved being able to see the actors’ faces up close thanks to Alex Eaton’s video work and the large projection screens on the set—but I wonder what that is like for the actors. How does having the camera in the room affect the actors’ performances?

A: We often think of the art of acting as being divided in two: acting for the stage and acting for the screen. Because the smallest facial expressions and gestures are visible in a close-up camera shot, acting styles for film and television tend to be more subtle and understated than stage acting. Because an actor’s expressions and emotions as performed on stage must reach the farthest reaches of the orchestra and the highest points of the balcony, acting for the stage tends to be more heightened—louder and larger. The actors in Tartuffe act for the stage. Regardless of the presence of the camera and projection screens, they work to make their voices heard and their emotions felt by each and every one of the 1000+ audience members in the Matthews Theater. In order to live truthfully within the world that Daniel Fish has created, however, the actors must acknowledge and accept the presence of the camera. They are aware that certain shots have been set, or that they will be seen from certain angles on the projection screens, but still have the ability to move freely in the acting space. Video artist Alex Eaton must consistently adjust her performance based on the subtle ways in which the actors’ trajectories change with each show—and thus the truthfulness and ephemeral nature of the theater event are maintained.

(more…)

Photo by T. Charles Erickson

I popped in to the post-show discussion after last night’s performance of Tartuffe, at which a small crowd of audience members stuck around to ask questions of the actors about various aspects of the performance process. Here is Alison Cote (Production Stage Manager)’s summary of the discussion, straight from her performance report:

“We had a really wonderful post show discussion. Only 43 patrons were able to stay but they were a very smart group with insights and interesting questions. The discussion first focused on the convention of using video in the show [how it developed over time; what moments translated well on video; how does it affect the actors onstage etc]. The discussion then moved on to the topic of the rhyming text [how the actors approach it and how it translates to the audience], and then moved to an analysis about the use of both period and contemporary costumes. Marisol moderated and Zach, Michael, Sally, Daniel T., Andy and Alex participated.”

What I enjoyed (this is Elizabeth again) was that the discussion transcended a mere Q&A session, as actors and audience members engaged in back-and-forth conversation about what they got out of Daniel’s choices with regard to set, video, and costumes. We heard several different interpretations of the function of the mixed periods in the costumes: serving to distinguish the family from the “outsiders,” indicating which of the characters are still trapped in a world of pretension and posing and which have broken free, or highlighting the intrusion of this play’s themes and situations into our modern political circumstances. I think that’s one of the strengths of Daniel Fish’s creative vision–the way it allows such a myriad of different, equally fascinating interpretations of any single element in the production.

See also:

• Tartuffe Previews
• Tartuffe Quotes
• Audience/Artist Conversations
• Discussing Stick Fly
  

Posted by Elizabeth Edwards, Literary Intern at McCarter Theatre.

Tartuffe opening night went really well. It was fantastic. Fabulous. Wonderful. Extraordinary.

Okay, okay. Technically, I didn’t actually go to opening. I needed some R&R after the long day of A Christmas Carol casting, so I went home and took a nap, and came back for the party. I did see the performance the night before, however. And according to Simon Saltzman’s review in CurtainUp, the opening night show went really well. And I believe him.

But I did come back for the party, which was a great celebration. One of the neat things about McCarter opening nights is that many former (and hopefully future) McCarter artists come to the show. Wandering around the room, I spotted composer Polly Pen (The Night Governess), playwright Theresa Rebeck (The Bells), and actress Kathryn Meisle (Mrs. Packard). It was a great celebration. I caught a quick and sorta blurry (hey, it was a party) photo of some of Tartuffe’s cast members celebrating the night. In the center of the photo are Nick Westrate (”Damis”) and Michelle Beck (”Marianne”). On their right is Alexandra Eaton, Tartuffe’s video designer. The gentleman on the left is one of our enthusiastic audience members, the actor Billy Carter.

See also:

• Opening Night Party
• Tartuffe Opening Night

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Photo by T Charles Erickson

Tonight is opening night for Tartuffe! I hope to see some of our blog readers in the audience (I may snap a few blog photos at the opening night party, so if you see me and wanna be famous, let me know!). I’m actually posting this entry from a rehearsal studio in NYC where we are auditioning the Adult Ensemble of A Christmas Carol, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that I’ll make it back to Princeton in time for the opening. Just in case it is tight, I’m wearing my suit to auditions.

Break a leg, actors (and special good wishes to embedded blogger Nick Westrate)!

See also:

• Opening Night Party
• Tartuffe First Rehearsal
• The Dog Blog

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre. Photo: Michelle Beck in McCarter Theatre’s production of Tartuffe.

Photo by T Charles Erickson

Previews for Tartuffe began last Sunday. Tomorrow is opening night. Time flies when you are having fun (or, in my case, when you are in NYC all week).

In a short meeting following one of our tech rehearsals, one of our designers said about Tartuffe director Daniel Fish: “Daniel learns more from tech than any other director I know.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and it definitely seems to be the case (and also matches what Nick Westrate said on the blog about teching with Daniel Fish). Through tech, previews, and the rehearsals that precede each preview performance, Daniel is continually honing, adjusting, and experimenting. Changes go in one day and might be removed, or changed again, the next day. What is incredibly inspiring about it is that there is never a sense of: “this is right - this is perfect,” but rather, “Let’s try this. And we’ll see if it works. And then we’ll see if we can’t find something better.”

It has also been really fascinating to see how Daniel’s production embodies all of the different concepts that he described prior to rehearsals in interviews, audience/artist conversations, and at the McCarter brown bag lunch. I’d be very interested to hear from you, our audience, about the ways in which you discovered those original concepts manifesting in the production itself. Post a comment to share.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre. Photo: Michelle Beck, Sally Wingert and Michael Rudko in McCarter Theatre’s Production of Tartuffe.

Photo by T Charles Erickson

A couple weeks ago, right as the Tartuffe program was headed to the printer’s, I ran in to Daniel Fish at Small World (this is what I love about working in Princeton!). He’d found a great quote in a book that he was hoping we might still be able to stick in to the program. It was too late for the program, but I promised him we could use it for the lobby display. At the time, having only seen the model of the set, I thought it was in interesting quote that told us something about the historical period in which the play was written. Tuesday night, when I saw the preview and the fully realized design and staging, I realized just how appropriate the quote is– it really goes to the core of this staging of this production.

In case you miss it in the lobby, here it is:

“Like a house within the house, the bed was one of two focal points in the home, along with a fireplace. A space most often closed off by curtains, it was not only a refuge for sleeping and resting, but also a stronghold against cold in these poorly heated, draughty rooms. It was also a refuge for marital intimacy within these interiors where overcrowding and lack of privacy in single rooms were the lot of many families. In an age when each individual’s life began and ended surrounded by loved ones, the bed was the site of births and deaths. Having witnessed both joyful and painful events in the household, it takes us to the heart of the family’s private life.”

–Annik Pardailhé-Galabrun, The Birth of Intimacy: Privacy and Domestic Life in Early Modern Paris

(more…)