It's been Four Months

This poor blog is so neglected sometimes. I wonder if anyone even reads it anymore.

I had some musings over the course of the current show ("The Game of Love and Chance") as to the power theatre holds over us. I myself am currently going through some turbulent times, and figured that it would be incredibly difficult to be high energy, cheerful and charming for two, sometimes four hours a day. In the end, I found it incredibly therapeutic. 

During the 1930's, where the play was transposed to, one finds that despite the Great Depression, and all sorts of turbulent times are going on. However, in this world, there are little oases of peace (namely in the homes of the very wealthy, such as my character, Mister Orgon.) In these little pockets within the depression, one finds that people have completely escaped the dreads of the outside world. 

To that end, and in that spirit, I took "The Game of Love and Chance" as a two hour, sometimes four hour, break from my life. I willfully, and very gladly, put aside all my woes in order to immerse myself in this charming little world, and I have to say, it did wonders for my mental and emotional constitution. Simply using Theatre as a temporary escape allowed me to return to my tribulations with greater vigour than before. Sure, I was tired after each show, but emotionally I was recharged and ready to tackle another problem.

Part of it is the wonderful family element built up at First Stage. I could essentially turn to anyone in the cast and air my woes for a moment, as they, in turn, were more than welcome to do with me. To me, as it has been in the past, First Stage has provided an incredibly safe atmosphere for me to exist and create art. Times may be turbulent in and outside of the building, but at least my soul is put at ease; I'm surrounded by friends, in a familiar place. We may have our disputes, but I know in my heart that the disputes are not to tear us apart, but rather to strengthen our bonds and keep us together. 

I told Mark Krikstan upon the first day of rehearsal that: "...coming back here is like being welcomed home by an old friend." Those words haven't lost their meaning to me. Knowing that tomorrow is the last day of the current show, means that I will have to leave my friend behind again for awhile. I hope, in my heart, for a triumphant return, as I bring what I've learned from abroad back into its walls, and I hope that it, in return, will welcome me back once again.

How do you know you love something?

The question came up in my mind the other day: How do you know you love someone/something?

I suppose you go with this whole "Love is mysterious and unexplainable. Love is a many-splendoured thing...etc, etc. " But to me, that has never given me concrete enough evidence to the existence of love, especially because of how subjective it is. Love means different things to everyone, so it is naturally difficult to define.

However, I'm come to realize that for me, love becomes most evident when it's not present. I realize that I love something if I miss it. That goes for people too, of course. If I miss someone, that usually means I hold a high level of this mythical 'love' for them. 

This does, believe it or not, have a point:

I began rehearsals at another Theatre today, and all I realized for a little bit that I missed First Stage. I'm not saying that this new theatre is not wonderful, but it simply is not a place where my heart is. I miss First Stage, the people, the atmosphere, and even all the little dramas and problems. I can't explain why, but at the very least its now evident to me that I love this theatre and everything about it. If I cannot support it directly, then I will at the very least hold it and all its people very dearly in my heart and will hope for nothing but the best from now on.

I miss you all.

I love you all.

~Jon Jon 

Haven't seen one of these in awhile

Usually I just post in this thing to tell you, our loyal readers, about events that are going on. You've probably been getting a lot of stuff via the various means of communication regarding what's going on at our humble theatre, so I figured I'd step down from that capacity for a moment, and just tell you a little about myself. Why? Well, I'm mildly interesting.

Performance has always been something in my veins. I'm not a particularly spotlight-seeking-person, I just rather enjoy putting stuff out there for people to enjoy. I've sang, played violin, and when younger even forayed into Chinese Opera. Even now, when I can't find any place to let off my creative steam, I traipse into a smoky bar where I can sing Karaoke.

The problem for me is (and I know this sounds stupid, so bear with me), no matter what I had ever set out to do, I was always very good at. If not the best, I was quite close to it always. Tennis, Soccer, Figure Skating, Violin, Piano, Singing...you name it. I never enjoyed settling for mediocrity, so I always pushed to be good at what I did, and it usually took very little effort to get up to the top.

My journey into the acting world started a long, long time ago. It was my freshman year in High School, in French Class, where one Lauren Friedman had just come flouncing into the classroom. "There are auditions for this play called Pippin. It's a musical. Try outs are soon."

So I auditioned. Why the hell not? I got cast as chorus.

I had gotten a small part in a play, in a large collective of people where I was unknown. Finally, I had the opportunity to work my way up from the bottom. I wasn't starting at the top this time. It was a challenge now! Ever since that production of Pippin, I've been in love with theatre ever since.

It had been a few years since I'd done any sort of performing outside of Karaoke, but then First Stage came along, and it was like being reunited with a long-lost love.

Sometimes I feel the need to declare myself a poster child or mascot of First Stage, because I am, in fact, one of those upstart actors who has made First Stage his first stage. I've made my professional debut here, and hopefully (cross your fingers for me) this is the start of a wonderful career. I sit in the theatre, and I'm surrounded by people who are simply masters of their craft, and I cannot help but be inspired and awed by the goings on around me. It is indeed a magnificent place to be a part of, in any capacity.

As I explained to Jessica Lefkow, director of the current production Red Herring: "I walk in every day, and my pulse quickens, and I can barely keep my excitement at a manageable level. It may look like I'm tired or sleepy, but inside, I'm trembling with joy, almost ecstasy. And when I leave, I may have just had the worst rehearsal of my life, and nothing may have gone right; I leave with a smile (even if its just on the inside)."

Pig Farm week one!

The first week after a production opens is a strange beast. You get four days off to think about what you've done, to recuperate, to prepare to jump back in. There are a few things about this show that are pretty unique to my experience here at 1st Stage.

I'd be lying if I said that Pig Farm has been an easy show to produce. First of all in my mind is the unholy mess we make. After cleaning broken dishes in The Suicide and all that ungodly paper for The Violet Hour, I wasn't sure anything could shock me. Heck, in high school I cleaned eggs off a set after Cripple of Inishmaan. But no, this is 1st Stage. If we're making a mess, we're going to make the biggest mess you ever did see.
Those of you who've seen the show know all about the state of the stage at the end of the play. What you don't know is that shortly after you leave, we begin swarming across it with Clorox wipes and brooms and mops, collecting the detritus and trying to make the set back into a home. With Saturdays and Sundays, we have exactly 1.25 hours to do this between shows. And that doesn't even touch the mess we make backstage.

Second in my mind, though probably first in others, is the absurdity of the script. Every line in the show gets repeated at one point or another. One miss-step in dialogue can send us catapulting pages ahead in the script and cause cues to come late, early or not at all. This particular absurdity has caused us to institute "line-throughs" which are, as one might imagine, me sitting in a room with the actors as they say their lines and correcting them as they go. Of course, the magic of live theatre is that it is never the same twice. (Which, I suppose, is a way of saying that you should totally see the show again.)

Finally are the costumes. Cheryl and Andre have really outdone themselves this time. Every piece of clothing you see on stage has at least one duplicate piece in the dressing room, be it a dirty/clean set, a ripped/whole set, what have you. Tina has seven night gowns and six pairs of slippers to get her through one weekend. There are also three quick changes, which are strange in their own right. For those of you who aren't theatre people, a quick change is a complete costume change which takes place in under a minute and, in the case of this play, on a narrow platform 5' above the stage.
(The secret, if you're wondering, is having everything ready. A man can get into a mostly buttoned shirt, and do the last two buttons while someone ties his shoes. A woman get get out of a dress in 3 seconds, and into another one just as fast. I don't recommend trying it yourself, though. A second pair of hands is usually key.)

I suppose what I'm saying here is that these four days are a spectacular way to gain perspective on the show. It can be so hard, when one is in the middle of things, to keep the big picture in mind. I get caught in a line or a mess or a pair of pants, and forget to enjoy the adrenalin.

Thanks again to all of you who saw the show this past weekend, and I can't wait for the rest of you to come and play. Just remember to enjoy the rush.

Get Some 1st Stage!

In the spirit of fundraising we've created some 1st Stage merchandise. Please help support 1st Stage by buying yourself a 1st Stage t-Shirt, a Pig Farm BBQ Apron or any number of other goodies! All profits (over half the price!) go directly to 1st Stage! Check It Out.

Presenting The Cast of Pig Farm

Tom, the owner of the pig farm: Tucker Sparkman

Tucker is new to the DC area and is happy to be making his debut with 1st Stage. Tucker has appeared most recently in Stuff Happens (Donald Rumsfeld), The Visit (TV Anchorman),The Shakespeare Project (Hamlet), and the Huntington Theatre Company's production of Streamers  (PFC). While studying in London Tucker appeared in productions of The Man of Mode (Sir Fopling Flutter) and Hamlet (Claudius) at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Tucker is a 2008 graduate of Boston University's School of Theatre with a BFA in Acting.

Tina, his wife: Belen Pifel

Belen Pifel (Tina) is excited to make Pig Farm her debut performance with 1st Stage.  Previous theater credits include Hope in Anything Goes, Betty in Sure Thing, the Player in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Germaine in Picaso at the Lapin Agile, and Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew.  Previous film credits include Mrs. Max in MVP (2006 DC 48 Hour Film Project), an agent in Codeword Secret (2007 DC 48 Hour Film Project - Winner, Best Film), and Woman in XXX (Corry Chapman, Director).  Ms. Pifel has trained at the Studio Theatre Actor Conservatory in Washington, DC and is currently a vocalist for Kid Goat, an alt-country/roots rock band based in Washington, DC.  Belen would like to thank her wonderful friends and family for their love and support.

Tim, their farm hand: Charley Mann

Charley Mann (Tim) Credits include: Doorway Arts Ensemble (May 39^th – Page to Stage); Theater of the First Amendment First Light (Boxes, Death of the Fourth Estate); GMU Players (Giving a Troll a Green Card – Page to Stage, Shakespeare in Hollywood, Measure for Measure, Sweeney Todd, The Boys Next Door, Three Days of Rain, The Shape of Things, Trojan Women); Shakespeare in the Grove (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Two Gentlemen of Verona).  Charley is pursuing his BA in Theater at George Mason University.  He also teaches acting with Acting for Young People and Adults, Inc.  He is thrilled to be making his 1^st Stage debut.

Teddy, an agent of the Environmental Protection Agency: Lucas Beck

Lucas Beck (Teddy) NY Theater: The Cascade Falls (Bat Country), Trelawney of the 'Wells', Love's Labour's Lost (Hudson Warehouse), Seascape with Sharks and Dancer (Marksman), Idiot's Delight, Richard & Anne (Mirror Rep), Stop Kiss, Venus-Sensation-and the Pope (Wooden I.), The Statue (NYC Fringe), Others. Regional/Tour: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Stratford Arts), The Color of Justice (TheatreworksUSA), Romeo & Juliet (National). Thank you M& M.

Casting

We are still in the casting phase of Pig Farm, and intend to have the cast settled upon by the beginning of next week. It is a surprisingly involved process, both in terms of getting the word out to the actor community and hopefully a large turnout, as well as finding the right actors for the roles.

The latter of the two is an interesting issue, really, because of how incredibly subjective it is, but also because it isn’t something one tends to think about when seeing the show as a final product. Hopefully the production will be engaging and unified enough that it wouldn’t occur to an audience member to wonder about how the particular actors were chosen; it’s just a necessary fact that these are the people portraying the characters on stage. But there is such a plethora of factors that go to determine it—everything from chemistry between actors to hair and eye color—that the odds that it could have been some other combination of actors on stage (and therefore, a completely different show) are pretty great.

For anyone who’s curious, here’s how our process works:

Director (in this case, Mark) and casting director (in this case, me) sit down and talk about what the director is looking for in each of the roles. Depending on the director, this can be a very clear picture, a wide open question, or some combination of the two. Actors are then brought in both by open call announcements and by invitation, which is based on familiarity with the actor or the actor’s work. Or a hunch, or a recommendation.

Whatever the reason, the actors then prepare scenes from the play and are paired with other actors under consideration, or a designated reader, and perform them, sometimes several times. After this, the director and whoever else is present confer, decide who fits the roles best, and schedule callbacks, which is essentially a more intense version of the same process.

Once callbacks are completed, practical considerations like schedule availability, salary, and (in some cases) union status come into the discussion; the director et al makes the final decisions; and the casting director contacts all the actors to either offer them a role or graciously thank them for coming and ask that they come back for future auditions.


Seems fairly straightforward, right? It never is. There are so many actors of talent who come to these things that talent itself is the least relevant factor in making the decisions—it comes down to things like how well an actor physically fits the part, how they take direction, their particular chemistry with other actors. Things largely out of the actor’s control.

We’re nearly at the end of this one. Check back with us at the start of next week for an update.

Thank You!

Dear Friends and Family,

Jon Jon here again! I wished to thank you all for coming out to Bertucci's last Monday, the 15th. It was a pleasure to see such an excellent turnout! All in all, we raised $314 dollars for the theatre, meaning the restaurant did over $3000 in sales. That's about three times what we normally do on a Monday night.

Enthused by the prospect, Bertucci's would love to continue this partnership, and we can perhaps hold Dining for Dollars now at the close of each show!


So Once again thank you so much for your attendance! If you didn't make it out to this last one, well then never fear! This will most likely become a regular event.

Just a friendly reminder that the benefit concert is just around the corner! Here are the locations and times:

Sunday, January 4th

Auld Shebeen:
8pm Dave Hyland
9pm Birdlips
10pm 20/20 Vizion
11pm The Process

Firehouse Grille:
7:30pm Matthew Hall and Drew Taylor
8:30pm Redshift
9:30pm All Kinds of Deviant
10:30pm The Vicious Martinis

It should be $10 donation for one venue, and $15 donation for a pass to both venues! Hear some of the best local music that Northern Virginia is renowned for, mingle with your friends
and have a good night out on the town with some of the best bartenders Fairfax has to offer!
Both venues are 21+, and require an I.D to get in. Several members of First Stage will also be in attendance, so feel free to stop by and say hi. Also, tune in to DC101 during Whitney's Lunchbox and Local Lix to hear more!

If you've any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to e-mail me at jjohnson@1ststagespringhill.org

I look forward to seeing you there!

First Stage: Dining for Dollars

Just a friendly reminder that Monday, December 15th is First Stages Dining for Dollars!

The fundraiser is to take place at Bertucci's Brick Oven Ristorante in Tyson's Corner, located at 1934 Old Gallows Road, Vienna, VA 22182. If you need directions, feel free to mapquest it, call the restaurant at (703)893.5200, or e-mail me at jjohnson@1ststagespringhill.org

What's your part in this? Well it's simple really: All you have to do is come and enjoy some lovely dinner. A portion of your pre-tax, pre-tip check will go to the theatre as a donation, so long as the check is opened between 4:30 and 9:30pm. So come enjoy a nice hot meal, or enjoy a cocktail lovingly crafted by your friendly neighborhood events coordinator/bartender. Mix with the cast, crew and production teams of First Stage, and maybe get to know us a little better if you don't already. We're always looking to make new friends! First Stage is soon to become the heartbeat for the arts in our community, and we'd like to welcome you into our family. So why not sit down and have dinner with us?

If you've never been to Bertucci's, it has a dining room with about thirty or so tables in the back, with another 10 or so up front. I'll be converting the bar tables into a nice little lounge so that you can mingle and hang out with us before and after your meal. I've taken the extra precaution of getting a good strong staff scheduled for the night, with our best servers available and a strong kitchen staff to make sure you'll want for nothing, and of course, I'll be working the bar. 

So once again, in friendly reminder, join us on December 15th at Bertucci's in Tyson's Corner. We look forward to seeing you there!

1st Stage Benefit Concert

Hey everyone,

Jon Jon here with a status update for the concert! I've finally booked all the bands, gotten the venues, and potentially have a couple sponsors for the event!

For anyone interested, here's the base information so far:

What: Benefit Concert. Proceeds will go towards First Stage

When: Sunday January 4th from 8pm until Midnight or later

Where: The Auld Shebeen Irish Pub and Restaurant and the Firehouse Grille in Old Town Fairfax

Performances:

Auld Shebeen:

Dave Hyland

Birdlips (For you fans of Marshall high school, this is Cliff Usher's Band)

20/20 Vizion

The Process

Firehouse Grille:

Matthew Hall (For you fans of Marshall High School, it's Matt Hall. 'nough said)

All Kinds of Deviant

The Vicious Martinis

Redshift

All of these bands are very good at what they do, and it's well worth the trip. Both venues are 21+ and smoking establishments. We're still working out the price for tickets, so bear with us on that one. But now you have the information, so don't forget to mark your calender for this event!

Also, a reminder that Monday, December 15th is First Stage's Dining for Dollars at Bertucci's in Tyson's Corner. Yours truly will be the bartender that night, and I've assembled a strong wait-staff for the night. I'll be converting a section of the restaurant into a bar lounge, so that you all are free to mingle and mix. There will also be a little table with First Stage's folks who will be accepting any donations as well as handing out flyers and the like.

Thank you all in advance for your attendance and participation.

Yours,

Jon Jon Johnson

jjohnson@1ststagespringhill.org

Oh What a Night!

Well, here we are 1/2 way through the run of The Violet Hour.

For those of you who've been out to see it, thank you. We'd love to hear what you think. I can tell you that my best friend Tim Treanor stills loves us, and audience have seemed to agree. If you haven't been out yet, I hope we see you in the next two weeks.

After the show ends, we have some exciting events lining up. The first is our Dining for Dollars night at Bertucci's Tysons Corner. (Facebook page! Invite your friends!) It's taking place on 12/15, between 4:30 and 9:30, a percentage of your pre-tax check will be given to the theatre. I know I'll be there, as will Peter, Lucas, Mark and David, and our very own JonJon Johnson will be the bartender.
If you need directions, you can get them
from google, or check the Bertucci's website.

On January 4, from 8 til midnight, we are also having a benefit concert at TWO locations in Fairfax - The Auld Shebeen and The Firehouse Grill. We're waiting to get the band line-up finalized on this one before we say any more, but save the date and whatnot.

If you have any ideas or want to collaborate with us on fundraisers in the near future, please give JonJon a shout - jjohnson@1ststagespringhill.org

See you at dinner!

Resilience

There is a particular kind of optimism that you tend to see in theater practitioners. It is a cheerful, steel-willed, almost reckless optimism that is best summed up by the recognizable phrase: “The show must go on!”

The pronouncement has become such a cliché that anyone who has so much as watched a sitcom knows it well. But even given that familiarity, it still sounds grandiose, doesn’t it? It conjures images of tireless vaudevillians with sleeve garters and boater hats, possessed by that 1930’s Mickey Rooney-esque “Hey gang!” type of attitude that Mark is fond of invoking.

Or maybe—and this is more what it is for me—it brings to mind a sort of British Shakespearean-actor kind of mentality. People talking like those dashing Great White Hunter archetype characters in old movies…you know the kind? The mustache, the monocle, the walking stick, spouting things like “Tally-ho, old boy! Into the breach! Damn and blast, I say, buck up and give them what for!”

And, “The show must go on!”

This all renders the whole thing pretty ridiculous, like all clichés, and archaic. Maybe we’ve discarded it in modern days in favor of different kinds of optimism. Whatever the case, here’s why I bring it up.

Working in the theater you find that you pick up bits of wisdom here and there—everything from “Maybe you should say your lines so that the audience can hear you” to “Disregard the obvious and show what’s underneath”. But for me, the one that was most surprising and the most reliably true was, believe it or not, “the show must go on!”

It’s real. Theater happens in spite of the most ridiculous, gut-wrenching odds. In fact, theater artists come to expect that to be the case more often than not, and will embrace and somehow enjoy the fact that their whole enterprise is hanging by a thread.

I’ve seen it myself. I directed an outdoor production of The Winter’s Tale in college and was informed by the producer that we would have to completely scrap the set, a large curtain which was opened and closed throughout the show. We realized this because, go figure, Chicago is windy and the weighted curtain would billow up and hit actors in the face. And we realized this 5 minutes before we were supposed to start the final dress rehearsal on the night before we opened. The actors were warming up for the final dress, a couple of audience members had settled down to watch, and all of a sudden we had to re-stage a couple of the most important moments of the show.

Somehow we did, and the show went up. And I came out of the experience ulcer-free. I don’t know which was more surprising.

The Suicide, our first and most recent production, is a case in point. Not as dire as my college show, certainly, but there were so many reasons throughout the process that the show might not have happened. We couldn’t initially track down the translator to get the rights. We had to recast two of the roles, two times each. Getting the theater itself finished in time for opening night was a race against time, and a few of us were there from the night before until 5 in the morning painting the walls and floor. Not to mention the shaky-at-best financial situation that all incipient theater companies find themselves in.

But it happened.

Now, it would be ungrateful and simply untrue to suggest that it was just those of us directly involved in the production of the show that made it happen. The support of many in the community—monetary contributions, labor, moral support, and just coming to the show—was nothing less than the foundation upon which we built the show and the theater at large. This must be emphasized, first because it’s an important fact, and second because as we navigate our way into our sophomore show, we will need that support possibly more than ever.

I’m not writing this specifically to request continued (and gratefully appreciated) support from you, the community. Mark does that more articulately and concisely than I could, below. I’m just marveling at the sheer resilience of theater in the face of what can sometimes be pretty sickening odds. It gives me reason to keep believing in it.

You know, as I write this, it occurs to me that “the show must go on” doesn’t quite capture the real spirit of it. If anything, it’s “the show will go on.” There isn’t really a choice. And given the sort of bleak and infertile environments that we’ve seen theater is able persist in, it makes me realize that with support from the most important party in this whole game, our audience, there is almost nothing we can’t do.

Tally-ho.

Invest!

I read recently that the original producers of Avenue Q were a pair of 20-somethings with not-a-whole-lot of money who—long before it hit Broadway--saw something they liked, believed in it, and decided to throw everything they had at a show with puppets. Their friends and family thought they were out of their minds and other, more “seasoned” producers scoffed at the folly of it all. The two neophytes thought otherwise and took the chance that they would get a big return on their money. Now, six years after the fact, the pair will be reaping big financial rewards from Avenue Q for the rest of their lives. Every seat filled in every theatre producing Avenue Q—and they’re everywhere around this planet—will add a few more bucks to their bank accounts. And, more importantly, every laugh and every smile in an Avenue Q audience will be, in part, produced by them.

1st Stage could use a few 20-somethings—or for that matter any-age-somethings—to believe and invest in us. We’re a non-profit so the return on the investment will never make you rich but we can guarantee it will make you proud and satisfied.

We’ve built a theatre--and by “we” I mean all those who contributed their time, talent, money, wisdom and encouragement to this project. This has been no small accomplishment. Peter, David and Lucas produced a video recently--found elsewhere on this website--as an update on the construction of our space. When I first watched it, I thought, as the first few minutes of David in a spotlight rolled by, “Okay, that David…he’s pretty charming, but what else is new?” Then, with a crescendo of Philip Glass music, a shot of the theatre exploded—big word but appropriate—on the screen. Have you ever looked at something you’ve had a part in creating but felt, “Wow, where did that come from?” It’s the new parent feeling after the first look of a newborn. Labor aside, I’m not sure how it happened, but it did. And it’s amazing.

Well, “we” want to—need to, have to—share a little of that “wow.” For you see, the glory of it all is sitting on some very wobbly financial legs. We’ve got the place up and running and our first show, The Suicide, under our belts (with some pretty strong critical acclaim, I might add: “That a brand-spanking new Washington theatre would inaugurate itself with this wonderful, hilarious, completely unknown Russian play, and would do it as well as 1st Stage has done, is bracing, profoundly satisfying news for those who love theatre.” (dctheatrescene.com)). But now the really hard part is ahead…keeping it going.

As of now, our two biggest sources of income have been from our “Theatre-by-the-Square-Foot” campaign (about $18K) and our ticket sales to the first show ($15K: We started off fairly strong the first weekend (friends and family), took a suicidal (pardon the pun) dip the second weekend, built back up to about 50% capacity the third (word-of-mouth kicked in), and actually sold out two of the performances in our last weekend. So we emerged feeling pretty good about the size of future audiences but were still chastened by our actual ticket sales--about half of what we hoped for.) If you’ve ever taken a look at the back pages of a theatre’s program you’ve noticed that the biggest financial gifts are corporate and foundation sponsorships. Now that we’ve actually produced a show, we’ve begun applying for their assistance. Until their help arrives, we nee to depend on our local community, i.e., you.

So back to my story of the Avenue Q investors: The two 20-somethings apparently sat on a couch in the ground-floor, NYC, studio apartment of the show’s lyricist one hot day, listened to 60 minutes of songs played on an electronic keyboard and sung by two not-so-fine voices, walked out the door without saying anything, took a walk around the block, came back, and said, “We’re in!”

And now my segue to you: After finally finding the darn theatre on Spring Hill Road, walking through the doors and being stunned by the wild color scheme, sitting in the most comfortable theatre seat on the east coast, watching a huge cast in a “wonderful, hilarious, completely unknown Russian play,” why not walk around the block, come back, and say, “We’re in!” And just think, no puppets!

Throw your money into another square foot or two of 1st Stage. We need you. You’ll reap benefits for years. And it will certainly produce a better return than the stock market. Even now, I can hear the music of “I Want to Be a Producer” welling up in the background.

The End of the Beginning

Dearest Friends, we know it's been very quiet on our ends. We hope you all made it to The Suicide and had just as much fun as we did. I don't think I can put into words what the past month has been like. In my last post, I said that creation was a conversation, and it bolstered a community. I believe these words more than ever, after seeing people pour into our theatre and fill our seats. People we knew from before, people just discovering us, and my personal new best friend, Tim Treanor from DC Theatre Scene.

We're just climbing out to be able to jump right back into The Violet Hour. (And yes, that "we" is intentional, Mark, peter, Lucas, David and I will all be involved again, and we hope many of you will be too.)

There isn't much else I can think to say, but a large thank you to all of you who came out and saw us - we couldn't have done it without you.

Let there be Light(s)!

This baby is sitting on a shipping pallet in Detroit. It's a 24 ch dimmer rack (which, for the uninitiated, does exactly what it's name suggests -- offers variable intensity for 24 independent channels of stage lighting). It will be coming into our Spring Hill location sometime next week.

We were lucky enough to find a top-notch supplier, Tom, at his Dimmerrack.com.
Tom is a former lighting designer/technician who was sick of ordering expensive units from major corporations, units that never offered the customization he required. So, what did he do? He started his own company, selling personalized dimmer-rack systems over the internet.

When I call Tom to talk about the system (yes he takes orders personally) you can here the bustle of activity from employees and machines on the shop-floor from which he works. He tells me his business is booming (all without advertising, corporate bloat, or mark-ups) and that he can't expand shop-space and payrolls fast enough.

As it is, Dimmerrack.com is one of the few businesses in down-and-out Detroit that's employing more and more skilled-laborers each year. It's a real triumph of American ingenuity, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the internet's ability to bring customers to the suppliers who truly deserve them.

If it wasn't for people like Tom, 1st Stage would be THOUSANDS of dollars poorer, a handful of Detroit's unemployed manufacturers would be TENS-OF-THOUSANDS of dollars poorer, and we all would loose the Art that so many more can now make at a much-reduced cost... ...and all that art is probably PRICELESS.

This is a real hope-inspiring bright-spot in these somewhat darker economic times. And I am proud to share it with all of you.

Thank you Tom.

Hoaxes, Propagana and Conversation

For those of you who saw me listed on the side of the blog and were wondering, I am the Stage Manager for The Suicide and Mark and Peter thought I may have something to say. It's a little bit of a break from the norm of this blog, but I want to start with how I got here.


My personal journey into theatre is a bit of a strange one. At the age of ten, I became a historical reenactor at Claude Moore Colonial Farm in Langley, Virginia. I spent 5 years there, pretending it was 1774 while I wore a costume, picked hornworms off of tobacco and got progressively more leathery feet. My mother still talks of my first week there, when she picked me up, filthy and exhausted and I blurted from under my white linen cap, "You know what I like about the farm? It's an elaborate hoax."

I left the farm and tried my hand a bushel of other artistic endeavors; cello, singing, tap and ballet, pottery and creative writing. But I always came back to theatre in the end.

When I went to college in 2003, it was with starry eyes and the aspiration of becoming a professional Stage Manager. I was pretty sure I was somehow going to win a Tony for it. Don't ask me how.

I did a lot of theatre in my college career. But somewhere, I lost the drive to keep going. It was too hard. The hours were too long. I had a thousand excuses for why it wouldn't work, for why I was unfit to Stage Manage even crazy people screaming in the park.

So when Mark approached me to do this, you'd think I, knowing all I know, would have hidden under something until the scary went away. I won't lie, I was excited. But the fear came upon me and shook me by the shoulders. You'll fail, it told me. And then what?

And yet, when I approached a friend of mine, Esta, she knew exactly what I had to hear. "Feel the fear," she wrote, "and do it anyway."

This has become my mantra in the past few weeks. Every time I feel overwhelmed or confused or anything of that nature, I just remind myself that I can feel this fear, and I can do it anyway.

First Stage is one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of. I am terrified and elated, worried and calm, frustrated and excited. I am learning, more than I ever did in college, that this is what is right for me. And in the end, it all comes back to a dirty little girl in the passenger seat of her mother's car and her precocious "elaborate hoax."

None of us are prepared for what this show will bring us - we can't be. The more I see of the performances our cast is bringing out, the more I realize that we are subversive and subtle. Every conversation with Mark or Peter or David or Lucas leads me down a new side road of this odd, creative labyrinth. And in the end, if it is an elaborate hoax, if it is scary, if it is done, than it must be right.

There is no reason not to create this art. I've read philosophers who spend volumes trying to define man's need to create. But I want to challenge the idea that it needs a reason. Why, with all that there is in the world, should we not make something wonderful?


I was looking for Soviet Propaganda a while back when I came across a video produced in America in 1948 called "Make Mine Freedom." You can watch it below:


This video stirs so much in me. The blatant fear mongering, the subtle racism and the obvious stereotypes are one of the most wonderful examples I can think of for why we must create. We have something to say, something we need to get out, and once we do, there is someone who must disagree with us. Creation is a conversation, it is a community act. And that, I think is why First Stage is so important. A community like Fairfax County must be in communication. We must be collectively creating. We must find the lies and bring forth truth through creating art. The greatest compliment, I think, would be for there to be a second professional theatre in Fairfax County.

So I'd like to end this with a challenge to all of you; go and find something that makes you angry or sad, and use it to converse. It can be as old as Titian's paintings, or as new as the Olympic opening ceremonies. I ask you to dissent, to argue and to create. Then come back here, and tell me about it.

Continuing our series of internet-found odd but inspired performance...

I give you BEARDYMAN!

Construction

Update:

1st Stage is proud to announce that it almost has a working toilet. This and other developments have enthralled all of our employees. As of now, our space (I think we need to start calling it "the theater") is on target for a September Grand Opening!

Here are some artsy stills of our dedicated construction team:

Street Theater

Prankster/artist, Mark Jenkins, in Washington DC:







And Then in Barcelona:

Renderings

Nat Krause, who made us this model:

Has also put together a spectacular virtual model.

It can be seen on the "Our Space" page.

Enjoy!

More Видео!

New videos are up. These are part of a series of status updates regarding our construction.

Enjoy!

Only about 6,200 remaining!

Donations now seem to be running smoothly. You can pick square feet, buy them, and put your picture on them! Go on, mark some territory.
Click the button at left.

If, however, you have a slower Internet connection or an older computer, I would recommend using the simple donation option. Here you can specify the number of squares desired. We can randomly place your purchase or you can email us a location (go crazy counting coordinates: 42,123, or just tell us a general location: "center stage"... "the actor's shower stall"). Email to questions@1ststagespringhill.org
Simple donation can also be reached through the button above.

Видео!

Lauren Friedman is our brand new stage manager. She brought this important video to my attention. So, I thought I'd bring it to you.

And if that doesn't make you thirst for the warm theatrical embrace of Marxist Entertainments ... maybe these fine gentlemen will:

Donations

Some of you have expressed a desire to make a donation to 1st Stage. Many of you have vainly clicked on the donation foot on the home page only to be disappointed with a plain text page that says: "Web donation will be available soon." To all of you, I'm sorry. Until we were sure of our time-table and location we refrained from taking the offerings of the generous masses.

All that changes this Friday.

Update: Thanks to some issues with paypal (that are now rapidly being resolved) the donation site may not be up till Saturday.

On Friday we will be unveiling our Theater by the Square Foot campaign. Clicking on the foot will take you to a very exciting web donation application that Alex Withrow and myself have poured all our tech know-how into (read: Alex's Tech know-how, and my exuberant strings of computer-confusion induced profanity).

So, if you'd like to make a donation or would like to see the progress of our fundraiser. Stop by the website this weekend!

Socially Networked

We have a facebook page. Have a facebook account? Become a fan of 1st Stage, today. And then, invite your friends.

Opening Credits

In just about every artistic conversation we've had over the past year the word "immersive" has bubbled up from the collective depths of our networked right-hemispheres. Good art is (to my mind) an assault on the senses. The artist takes his inspiration (sensory stimulus real or imagined) and then finds a medium through which to pass that sensory stimulus into an audience. To immerse them.

That's why I'm most excited about how new technology can bring to the theater the kind of sensory bombardment we've come to expect from imax films, pixar animations, and big-screen TVs with home theater sound-systems.

I want to score our performances with images, as well as music. Using digital projection we will provide rich, vivid images that (without distracting from the action) put people deep into the world of the play.

Visually, this style artistic endeavor is already well represented by what might seem an unlikely source: HBO original series opening credit sequences. Each one prepares the viewer for the action to come with evocative colors, objects and scenes. They aren't explicitly storytelling ("A three hour tour..."), most aren't even literal; instead, they fill the audience, perhaps without their knowledge, with an heightened awareness of the world they are entering.

I've embedded a bunch of my favorites (episode after episode, I never get sick of seeing these):

First, of course, is...



Even more in this vein of immersion is...



More scenic...



More symbolic (with heart-starting music)...



With somewhat overzealous application of digital editing techniques...



And with a more seductive application of the same techniques...



The rich visual imagery and the emotionally charged musical scoring effectively and insidiously transport the viewer to a new setting, filled with all the details and emotional undercurrents necessary for impending drama.

All of them are beautiful, simple, and effective works of art in their own right. They inspire me constantly to bring a similar ethic to the stage.

The Silver LCD Screen

As you may have noticed, we now have a jobs page (for employment opportunities) and a video page.

The video page will hold all of our video updates (only the most recent 4 stay on the home page). It will also have higher resolution versions of some of our clips. (Like the demolition video)

Note:If you are a content provider (TV station, news website, etc.) you can download these high res clips to use in video reports.

DEMOLITION

Video of us doing demolition is on the HOME PAGE!
It was as fun as it looked (plus a whole lot of not-fun/pain).

Photo: Kelly Williams

Words, Words, Words

This is the "Wordle" for our first play, The Suicide. A Wordle is an image made on this site from any amount of text you provide. I provided the entire script (hence the majority of the wordle words being names). Thank you to my friend Kelly Williams for showing me this wonderful wordlefull thing!

You can also do it for a blog's xml feed.
Here's Stages! We seem to be a real positive-thinking kind of place, and oh the number of dreams!

What it is to perform

I came across something just now that I'd vaguely heard of years ago. A woman, Jill Bolte Taylor, was a neuroscientist, self-described intellectual, and a very logical and linear person. One morning she woke up and was changed.

This is her story:


That last slide of her presentation is a stained-glass brain. She makes them by hand. After her stroke, she was deluged with creative energy and an intense desire to express herself in non-traditional ways (for a scientist).

Her Bio at the TED pages says:
"From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the 'Singin' Scientist.'"

'Singin' is right! I've seen only a handful of one-man shows that come close to the emotional truth, showmanship, and beautiful communication of this speech. Her transformation seems to have given her that most divine and rare of performer's gifts: the ability to loose sight of oneself and offer up every ounce of personal energy to the audience.

Her message of "Right Brain Nirvana" is immensely instructive to anyone engaged in the live performance arts. If performers and observers can sit in a space and truly breath, think, feel, and exist together (forget where our molecules give way to the universe's molecules) there is a serendipitous moment in time when artistic endeavor can cross the realms of science and the spirit. It can help us understand what it is to be. What it means to exist, and how we can live together in peace.

I wonder if she's ever thought about writing a play...