Student playwrights participating in an in-class writing exericse with Will Power

I want to share with blog readers the wonderful in-class work produced by Youth Ink! student playwrights and guided by Guest Artist Will Power. As noted in a previous blog entry, Will first gave students 10 minutes to write about their neighborhoods; he asked them to describe their neighborhoods so that someone who had never been there could get a detailed sense of the essence of that specific setting. Next he asked students to think of one person in their neighborhood setting to describe; he indicated that it could be someone a student knew or someone they have simply observed. Then Will asked students to either 1) take their settings and characters and create a four line play that told a concentrated, complete story and included a description of the character and setting, a problem/obstacle, and a resolution AND IT ALL HAD TO RHYME!, or 2) to take their settings and characters and to speak from the perspective of the character about the neighborhood, themselves, and about the student playwright who imagined them.

To read New Brunswick High School Students’ work, click the link below!

(more…)

A Christmas Carol is a show of many traditions. The yearly “Secret Santa” and the annual lighting of the Chanukah candles are part of what brings the company together as an ensemble. But both of these pale in comparison to the day when all of the company unites around the one thing that really, truly and deeply connects them all.

Yes. It was “Silly Hat Day.”

As Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “Ours not to reason why.”

So there you have it. Stay tuned for pictures from “Wear your pajamas to rehearsal day.” I’m not kidding.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Peter and Jerry

I have been procrastinating writing this blog entry for a week, but now I guess it is over-due. Last Sunday, I went with McCarter Artistic Director Emily Mann and Producing Director Mara Isaacs to opening night of Edward Albee’s Peter and Jerry, at Second Stage, starring Bill Pullman, Johanna Day, and Dallas Roberts.

First of all, it was a totally star-studded event, which was a pretty new experience for me. I’d drop some names (Bill Irwin) but I understand that to be crude (Joan Rivers!). I had a great time at the play, and was surprised by how fresh The Zoo Story (which is Act II of Peter and Jerry) seemed to be for many of the audience members. Thus far, the reviews have been superb. The New York Times’s Ben Brantley declared that: “Edward Albee is a voice unparalleled in American theater for its surgical elegance in exploring the animal in humanity.”

Edward Albee. Photo by Sara Krulwich

All of this is part of this massive Albee-fest that we seem to be in the middle of, which seems to have prompted this really fun article in the New York Times (I think it paints a great picture of the man), complete with an audio slide show. As Albee turns 80 this year, we’re seeing not only the McCarter and Second Stage productions, but also significant Albee productions at Signature Theatre Company (Occupant) and at Cherry Lane Theatre (The American Dream and The Sandbox). So go have yourself an Albee-fest.

Please feel free to reply with a comment or question on this post by clicking on the “comments” text below.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

A very interesting thing has happened. A few days ago, I posted a video of Playwright Joshua Casteel discussing his experiences as an Abu Ghraib interrogator. Last night, I was looking at our blog statistics, and saw that the blog had suddenly gotten over 1,900 page-views in a single day. I couldn’t figure out what happened (besides the witty writing that normally populates these pages…). Turns out that the Joshua Casteel blog entry was picked up by Canadian blogger Darren Barefoot, who also posted it on Metafilter.com, a community blog. So welcome, new readers!

The Joshua Casteel event is finally public. He will be performing the lead role in his play Returns in a reading as part of a day of political theater and dialogue called “What’s Going On?” The event is at 3:30pm on Saturday, December 8, at 185 Nassau Street (Princeton University). Below, you’ll find another video of Joshua, and then you can click the link below to read full details about the event, which will feature the reading of returns Returns, as well as a panel discussion with Joshua Casteel, acclaimed director David Gothard, Princeton Professor Michael Cadden, McCarter Artistic Director Emily Mann, and ACLU President Nadine Strossen. This event is free, but reservations are highly recommended!

(more…)

Photographer: Kevin Berne

In a recent blog post, reader Jaime asked about McCarter’s “fit” in the theater world. Jaime asked a few questions, which I will answer in individual posts, including: “How does a transplanted co-production like Argonautika work?”

Well, Jaime, perfect timing! The Berkeley Rep/Shakespeare Theatre Company/McCarter co-production of Mary Zimmerman’s Argonautika just opened for the first leg of its journey (click here for one of the many encomiastic and ecstatic reviews). A co-production serves a few main purposes: 1) it allows what would otherwise be a local production to have a much broader impact; 2) it allows an artist to continue to develop their work over time (allowing them another chance to make adjustments with each production); 3) it can be a cost-saving measure, allowing each of the theaters to share common costs (like the set, costumes, rehearsal time and casting expenses); 4) it is a way for multiple theaters to each share their expertise (new play development, mounting musicals, building big sets, etc.).

Photographer: Kevin Berne

On this production of Argonautika, for example, casting directors from all three theaters worked with Director Mary Zimmerman on auditions in DC, NYC and California to cast the ensemble of actors that will perform at all three theaters, while McCarter Producing Director Mara Isaacs traveled with Zimmerman to each city for auditions, representing all three theaters and helping to form a unified company. Those actors then rehearsed for a full rehearsal process at Berkeley Rep (an expense that all three theaters shared), and then they will have just a few days of rehearsal prior to the performances at both The Shakespeare Theatre and McCarter (all three theaters will share those rehearsal expenses, too).

More often than not, McCarter’s co-productions start at McCarter and travel to another theater (recently: Miss Witherspoon went to Playwrights Horizons, Gem of the Ocean went to American Conservatory Theatre, A Midsummer Night’s Dream went to Paper Mill Playhouse, Translations and Radio Golf went to Broadway, Mrs. Packard went to The Kennedy Center and Tartuffe is about to begin its run at Yale Rep). Occasionally, we bring in plays that began somewhere else, such as Lookingglass Alice, Secret in the Wings, and Argonautika. It is really wonderful to know that when we create a thrilling piece of theater at McCarter, it continues to live on and grow in subsequent productions.

Please feel free to reply with a comment or question on this post by clicking on the “comments” text below.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre. Left Photo: (l to r) Eros (Ronete Levenson) and Aphrodite (Tessa Klein) in the West Coast premiere of Argonautika, at Berkeley Rep. Right Photo: The cast of Argonautika, at Berkeley Rep.

Although you may not be able to see this at first glance, our Informational Systems programmers have been going nuts on the back-end of the blog (sounds dirty, doesn’t it?). They have totally re-vamped the “Comments” section, so you can now comment on our blog without the arduous login process (which I can only assume was what was preventing us from having hordes of comments on an hourly basis). They tell me that there will be loads more spam posts this way, but I’m willing to delete a few viagra ads in exchange from hearing your lovely voices on our blog.

Here’s how to do it. Click on the title of the entry you would like to comment on (for instance, click on “Comment Free For All” to post a comment on this entry). Scroll down till you see the comment field. Give your name (or make one up), and your e-mail address (which only I will see), and write your comment. See how easy that is?

So do it. Post a comment. I dare you. I double-dog dare you. With ice cream on the top. We want this blog to be a fiesty and raucous free-for-all, where you audience members can have a real dialogue with us and with each other. So let’s get with it, people. This conversation has been totally one-sided, lately…

Here are some things you might comment about in this post:

• How easy it is to post a comment
• What kind of things you’d like to hear about on the blog
• Which artists you’d like to hear more from on the blog
• Why you think the blog is a big old waste of time
• How cool Adam Immerwahr is for spending so much time blogging
• How inappropriate it is that Adam Immerwahr made that “back-end” joke on the blog
• Or anything else you’d like.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

This weekend I got to observe a part of the “Fezziwig Dance Weekend” in A Christmas Carol rehearsals. As always, it was loads of fun. Especially for me. Since I didn’t have to dance. That wouldn’t have been so fun for me. Because the actors were dancing for 15 hours this weekend. As you know, us producers are very fragile, and our delicate bodies aren’t built for such strenuous physical exertion.

Anyway, the dancing looked great. Each year, the Choreography Supervisor re-stages Rob Ashford’s original choreography. Each dancer learns a specific “dance track,” so that dancer A has the same positioning throughout the dance as dancer A did last year. Same for dancer B, obviously… In order to keep things straight, each dance track has a name, which the dancers wear on stickers on their shirts. My favorite names are “Ginger,” “Muffin the Baker,” and, of course, “Alice the Cook.”

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre

Michael Unger [the Director] and I have collaborated on A Christmas Carol together for a looooonnnnng time [10 years]. We have this rehearsal process thing down to a bit of a science. Michael lets me figure out the structure and logistics of the rehearsal days and he basically arrives and directs whatever I put in front of him. Works great.

So here we are in a room full of new company members. We figured scene work would move slower this year. At the end of the Wednesday rehearsal day, Michael and I turn to each other…”What is going on!!! They are landing everything so quickly!” - as we were holding onto the arms of our chairs…we can’t believe the rehearsal process is moving along too quickly…for US!

So here is a look at a typical weekday rehearsal:

(more…)

This is a video of Joshua Casteel, who served eight years in the US Army, including seven months as an interrogator and Arabic linguist in the Iraq War. Joshua was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector and he is now a dual-MFA candidate at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program. On June 19th 2006, Joshua appeared alongside Vaclav Havel, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, and Jeremy Irons on the stage of the Royal Court Theatre for Human Rights Watch’s Cries From the Heart performing a monologue from his play Returns, which premiered at Iowa February 15th-18th 2007 and then at Columbia College in Chicago February 19th 2007. January 1st 2008 The Essay Press will release a book of Joshua’s war letters entitled Letters From Abu Ghraib; he is also writing a memoir entitled No Graven Image.In early December, McCarter will be presenting a public reading of Joshua’s auto-biographical play, Returns, as part of a Political Theatre Event with Princeton University. More details soon, but I thought you’d enjoy this sneak peak.

See also:

• Playwright-in-Residence Will Power

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Ned Noyes

In acting class once, while working on the character of “Louis” in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, (who leaves his lover shortly after learning he’s been diagnosed with AIDS), a director said to me, “It’s very easy for an audience to side against Louis. It’s very easy to shame him, to distance ourselves from him, to think, ‘I could never do that!’ But it is up to you to remind us (the audience) that in truth, we’re all terrified to admit we see some facet of ourselves in him. That his behavior, though loathsome, is understandable and (gasp!) perhaps recognizable.” I was reminded of this exchange, and of Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge tonight.

Picture this: I’m in my lovely, comfortable artist apartment, learning lines and lyrics in preparation for our weekend of musical staging, and my concentration is broken by what sounds, at first, like an army of underfed, feral cats preparing their long-awaited siege on Palmer Square. As it happens, a merry, ragtag crew of undergrads have decided to rehearse their a capella concert outdoors. At 11 o’clock. On a Wednesday night. Right below my window. Cute! Well… for a bit. I try to focus as they gamely harmonize their way through a bizarrely syncopated “Proud Mary”, I hold my breath and chuckle as they jam out to a peppy take on Radiohead’s “Creep”, but by the time they’re jivin’ to a beat-box version of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge”, the cuteness quotient is dwindling. Rapidly. So, I open my window.

(more…)