Satisfaction and Teasers

All weekend I have been working on a fundraising video that we are about to launch on United States Artists. It's proven to be a very fun project to work on -- more than the other three kickstarter videos we've made. I can only imagine this is true because this was the first time that we were all together to shoot the video and also because this project is proving to be much easier to talk about in general that our other projects. Fantastical environmental dream play based on an Ibsen text no one's ever heard of vs. museum security guards. There is a value to clarity. Watch this space for the video. In the meantime, please enjoy this tiny bit of us singing in our first showing.

Touring in the Eye of a Blizzard

In the grand tradition of amazing timing, we planned to bring our developing show Enlightenment on E Floor North to SPACE Gallery in Portland, ME. It was six months ago we devised this plan. At that time we had no way of knowing that the weekend we were planning, Feb 9 and 10, would be the worst blizzard in ten years in New England, the major path of the storm being everything between Providence, RI and Portland, ME. We left a night earlier than planned, thinking that that would be the worst of it. Little did we know that getting there wouldn't be the only problem. When you drive into the heart of a blizzard in order to perform a showing and teach a workshop, it turns out that people don't always feel safe about continuing with their scheduled programming. At this point the workshop is rescheduled to tomorrow morning, and we're not sure about tonight's showing. In any rate, we're warm in a pretty nice hotel, waiting to hear if we'll be able to do anything we'd planned on, doing our best to look at the bright side, and feeling dumb for not bringing swimsuits (because yes, there is an indoor hotel pool).

Here's us when we arrived Friday morning:

Look! A poster!

Beautiful lighting at the SPACE Gallery!

Our suits are hung!

The sign looks so good in SPACE's party lights!

Yeah!

Our lovely, fearless stage manager Becky, working out her sign moves.

And of course, here was us in the summer when we couldn't even imagine a blizzard.

How to Make a Play

As we sit on the night between one showing and another, I just wanted to share a visual cataloging of how we made Enlightenment on E Floor North so far. . . First we made this free-form open-jam list of what we wanted to be in our show:

Then as we actually improvised those phrases/words/ideas as images in the space over a couple weeks, we wrote notes about what we'd learned about the ideas:

After weeks of that, we started to accept that an audience was coming and so we needed to turn these explorations into something with an order and a little more structure; more concrete. We turned what we still liked into a list, using a shorthand to name the pieces that has organically occurred as we've continued to work on them (ie, "mess on a shiny surface" had been written on the first open jam piece of paper, we'd explored it as an image in the space, and now it becomes the name of a scene):

And then we put each of these "scenes" onto a notecard. We arranged and rearranged notecards into sequences that seemed like they could work -- never because of plot so much as rhythm, mood, feeling, and logistics. Then we tried those sequences and rearranged the cards into new sequences as needed, eventually landing on one long line of cards that essentially acts as a script:

Got Enlightenment?

As we move closer (3 days!) to our first public showing, it's easy to sometimes feel odd. We've been living with the idea of the material for over a year, generating seeds of material for a month, and now are actually starting to meet what the show is. . . or could actually concretely be. Seeing the imperfections in your partner as you get to know each other better can be shocking. "Oh. Is this what you're like?" In any rate, I was walking to work yesterday feeling all these uncomfortable feelings when I saw this bumper sticker. I thought, "I don't now, but I think I will eventually." At least in terms of the title of our show.

One Week Away. . . Baby Guards Being Born

It's wild to create something from nothing and then pretend you actually have something, when if you were being really honest you'd show people your pile of notes on napkins instead of taking reservations and setting up chairs and all. I feel that way, but then, you know, the people come and sit in their chairs and we muddle through what we have so far, defending it real hard. . . And we learn a ton about where to go next and (hopefully) even managed to entertain some folks a bit. Anyway, this time we are spending a lot of time learning about the people we are creating: Our individual security guards. Here's who's playing so far (ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE):

Dylan

Turner

Mike

Kamili had to leave before we could name him and find out more about his guard. . . But we'll get there.

Bummerz

Early this morning Kamili left for Philly and it turns out he's not coming back to PVD. He'd worked out a whole schedule with his part-time job at a library to travel back and forth between Providence and Philadelphia for the duration of the 5 week creation process. Last week when he went back, his boss decided that the schedule wasn't going to work and he wouldn't be able to perform in our showings in Providence and Portland, ME.

Needless to say, this is sad. Kamili has proven a vital performer and creator in this process. We will miss both his presence on stage and also his abilities as a creator and instigator of moments and scenes. However, it is not lost on us that we are making a play about work and Kamili can't play with us anymore because he has to work. We're going to try to incorporate his absence into the performance as much as we can, and look to the future when we keep creating in his home city. Also, it makes me want this show to become something that makes it possible for Kamili to actually be able to choose us over his job.

Anyway, here's all of us, our last night in Providence at Lili Marlene's.

Photo Shoots

We took some pre-production, more ephemeral, less "true" photos the other day with our good friend and photographer Flordelino Lagundino. Jed's got a serious thing for raw industrial abandoned spaces, and so he found this funny little space under 195 in Fox Point. We all got into our blazers and [khaki] pants and piled into the van. It was a beautiful day, but still chilly -- especially under the freeway. We should have the photos by Friday, but in the meantime, here's a snapshot of us piled into the van just post-shoot. Kamili looks like our driver, but he's actually still in a passenger seat.

Back in PVD!

It's always particularly special when all the members of Strange Attractor are actually together in one zip code. We spend so much more time away from each other than we do together. Last week we officially started in the studio on our next project, Enlightenment on E Floor North, in Providence. I really enjoy hosting the boys when they are in town, though I also can't help but be a bit jealous of their status as guest artists. What they lack in having the comforts of home by their side, they make for in total freedom from almost any responsibility. Of course, the best part of having everyone in Providence is that the showing gets to be in Providence. . . which means that my community gets to see what we're up to. . .

Aram's here too. . . He just was at the mall when this photo was taken. . .