work-in-progress

Shalimar Productions is totally psyched to present a work-in-progress showing of

ALIENS

a new play by Saviana Stanescu
directed by Shoshona Currier

Tuesday, February 6
8pm
at THE LITTLE THEATER
at Laguardia Performing Arts Center

LaGuardia Community College/CUNY

31-10 Thomson Ave. Long Island City
(7 Train to 33rd St or E, V, R to Queens Plaza or check here for more directions)

ABSOLUTELY FREE! NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED!

Please join us for a few scenes of this new work and a discussion after.

featuring: Brandon Bales, Matt Bridges, Kim Gainer*, Christopher Illing*, Jen Taher*, Joey Williamson*
stage manager: Shani Murfin

ALIENS is a play about cross-cultural love and greencard-marriage that explores the subtle and complex sides of the immigrant experience, challenging and using the stereotypes about love and marriage in New York. Does a marriage with an American citizen solve every problem? Is a greencard a strong enough reason for a marriage? ALIENS is a story about the American dream and its everyday nightmare.

ALIENS is based on true stories of immigration explored collaboratively by Shalimar Productions and fictionalized by a playwright who is trying to understand her own story.

Made possible by a LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Space Residency

same bullshit, different day

It's been a long week of making theater for no money. I spent hours yesterday working on a proposal that I had to run to a theater that may or may not even accept the damn thing because it's late. We checked with them and they said they would take it late but then I didn't have time to work on it because I was in rehearsal, doing rewrites, buried in production stuff, dealing with every other element of running a fucking theater company, so I didn't have time to work on the proposal to get the free space at the prestigious theater, which we desparately fucking need, so the proposal has ended up REALLY late. But I busted my ass yesterday for 6 hours, writing writing writing, plus the subway ride and the dashing through streets of New York and then dashing back to the subway to get to another theater to do a walk through. I cancelled a meeting with a press rep and I didn't go running. It was exhausting. And it pissed me off.

Because we can't make theater without the hand outs. Without the grants and the residencies and the begging and the free labor from good friends and the artists who work way below their standards for us. I'm starting to feel like a street urchin. Or a slum lord. And in taking all that time to fill out applications, write narrative, compile bios, print copies of reviews, get more DVDs burned, when is there the time to make the work that we are asking for support for? I'm too busy compiling company data and writing cover letters that are basically fucking begging for support than to work on my craft (sorry to use the dumbass word) or just make my fucking plays better. Please think I'm good enough. Oh please like my work enough. All I can do is hope that my application stands out in a teeteringly tall pile of applications by other collaborative ensemble experimental edgy (insert dumbass downtown theater adjective of choice here) theater companies.

It's demeaning. I just want to make the plays.

After writing all day and rushing and running and kissing some ass and agreeing to things I didn't want to agree to because people are doing me favors and letting Camilo buy me dinner because I am BROKE and feeling guilty about it because he does all our graphic design work for practically free, I was almost ready to throw in the towel. There are days where it seems too hard. Like I'll never make a living at this on my terms. Like I'll have to go to grad school to get contacts or I'll have to become a director for hire and stop making my own work. But my friends who have done those things aren't making livings at it either. They struggle too. We're all just trying to make the work, make a living. Maybe be happy here and there. Or at least be ok with things. Maybe I should just work full time at Cupcake Cafe again. I KNOW I'm good at making coffee.

I did have one transcendent experience yesterday, when I watched The Real Housewives of Orange County for the first time ever. I think I maybe saw God.

Oh and it snowed. It was amazing. So perhaps things aren't so bad.

The Making of the Play

We're in "the room" right now, as it were, working on this new play about immigration and cross-cultural relationships. I mean, we're in a few rooms at the moment, since we're remounting stirring AND Joey and I are starting to rework LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%@ My Son. But most pressing for the next week is the immigration play, being written by the remarkable Saviana Stanescu...so we are generating lots of work in typical hippie collaborative style, trying desparately to avoid viewpoints, to add tools to the toolbox, to take a step away from the masses. Isaac talked me through some Joint Stock excercises a few weeks ago and we've been using some of those for development, as well as some other random planes, trains, and automobiles.

We conducted interviews a few days ago, with friends, loved ones, and partners...all people who are currently or have been involved in an international relationship (real or...phony). Here are some of my favorite things that have been blurted out...

"It's hard for me to have a relationship. I'm always gone."

"It's just married life. It's not that different."

"Around Thanksgiving we called up Mom. Drove to Vegas."

"What I actually did was help a felon get his citizenship."

"Correspondence was fierce."

"I can't work here. My life has come to a screeching halt."

"I don't regret that. I belive in marriage."

"I don't care about marriage."

"If it doesn't work out we'll get divorced. No big deal."

"We are something that exists on land, not just on the water."

"Christmas was hard. I miss you guys."

"She works at Starbucks. She's got a masters. We're waiting to get her papers."

"I know why tigers eat their young."

"I'm in New York because of you."

"Am I going to father a child for the price of a greencard? Is that the cost of being with you?"

"You're saying it's worth it, but you're not the one doing it."

Dude, I Saw Her First

Check out the Times Review below. Sound familiar? I do believe The Shalimar did this play this summer. We called it LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son....need proof? Compare our photos (the next four) with their photo...leopard print dress anyone? Anyone?







GREEK TRAGEDY WEARS A NEW, BRASH MASK

By Jonathan Kalb

Published: January 24, 2007

Sophocles’ “Women of Trachis” is packed with sex, gore, desperation and verbal beauty. If it isn’t staged very often, one reason is that the plot hinges on a twist that is hard to swallow today. Why would Deianira, Heracles’ adoring and sensible wife, believe that such a glaringly suspicious character — a centaur that Heracles shot for trying to rape her — would then want to help the couple stay together by giving Deianira a magical love potion?

Hilary McHone

Debargo Sanyal and Heidi Schreck, front, and behind, from left, Jodi Lin, Birgit Huppuch and Rebecca Lingafelter, in “Women of Trachis.”

Readers’ Opinions

Forum: Theater

In Kate E. Ryan’s delightful and perceptive contemporary adaptation, directed by Alice Reagan and produced by Target Margin Theater as part of its Hellenic Laboratory series, obliviousness becomes the play’s central theme, elevated to a kind of hubris. Deianira, played with fabulously distracted lucidity by Heidi Schreck, is a desperate housewife-cum-celebrity-spouse in a sleek, leopard-print dress, who literally itches with longing for her roving-eyed, absentee husband.

The chorus consists of three dreamy, immature young women (Birgit Huppuch, Jodi Lin and Rebecca Lingafelter) in pink dresses and flower bracelets, who drink Diet Coke out of a plastic cooler and react to the increasingly serious situation with twittering, trivialities and bromides. It’s never quite clear why such a smart, worldly queen would surround herself with such airheads, but that problem fades away in the end because the point apparently is that obtuseness, whatever its source, is fatal, particularly to women.

Ms. Ryan is far from the first playwright to update a Greek play with pop songs, casual modern speech and references to things like Xanax and computer games. There’s a special psychological alertness and pungency to this mélange, though, that Ms. Reagan shrewdly strengthens in her superbly cast and infectiously energetic one-hour production.

The two roles deliciously played by Debargo Sanyal — the royal son Hyllus, as a snooty teenager in a golf shirt and hiking boots, and the royal gofer Lichas, as a snide celebrity assistant in white glasses and shoes — are reason enough to see the show.

My one dramaturgical quibble is with the reductive portrayal, in the final scene, of Heracles (Todd d’Amour) dying when the supposed love potion turns out to be poison. Portraying him merely as a bad daddy and a serial adulterer with a secret taste for genital mutilation reads as a cheap shot beside all Ms. Ryan’s other whimsically acute decisions. Luckily, the swipe is fleeting, and never completely drains the ending of its hard-earned gravity.

“Women of Trachis” continues through Feb. 3 at the Ohio Theater, 66 Wooster Street, SoHo; (212) 352-3101.

Bad Bad Girls...

And in a further excercise to empty out iPhoto, here are pictures from Bad Girls Good Writers by Sibyl Kempson, which played at the $ellout Festival at the Brick this past June.


Sarah Murphy playing the narrator















Sam Desz, Gabriel Grilli, and Jennifer Gordon Thomas















Sam and Jennifer












with Sarah Elliott

Rolls Andre and Matt Bridges rock out while Gabriel, Jennifer, Sam, and Sarah Murphy eat pretzels.

Gabriel, Sam, and Jennifer.










The whole cast sings Van Halen

time is of the essence...

We received a space grant from the Laguardia Performing Arts Center for the play we are workshopping with Saviana Stanescu. Basically they give us 40 hours or so of space in their theater and we show whatever we have piddled out in that time.

Oh the space residency. A blessing and a curse really. A blessing because it makes you make work. A curse because it makes you make work. On a time-line.

Because what is the ideal? The ideal is that we have our own space. Something we can rehearse in and perform in and have an office in. Something a bit convertible. Edgy but with comfortable seating. Working toilet. Heat in the winter. Sprung floors would be nice, but we have fared well on concrete before...And with the space we have money. Not a lot of money but enough to get us all in the room at the same time without too much fight. Just something to make acting more worthwhile than catering, which of course it is, but there is the necessary evil of paying rent. So...

So in this fantasy we have all the time and space in the world. So we can create plays on our time, at our leisure, when inspiration strikes, we are there. We had a whisper of that this summer thanks to the Women's Interart Annex. We had 24 hour access to that space for a month at a VERY low price. During the day I would pop in to write. The actors would come a few hours before rehearsal to warm up. We could leave our growing collection of musical instruments there. And at 11pm when rehearsal was over but Joey and I were just getting inspired, we would blast the sound system and stay until 3am, creating the musical numbers for the show. It was freeing to be able to work at our own pace.

This space grant is great because it lights a fire under our asses. We have 3 other shows coming up in the next 8 months, a remount, a ten-minute play extravaganza, and a re-workshopped re-created re-mount that will go overseas. Starting a new play from scratch was getting continually pushed to the back burner. But then we got this grant. And we had three weeks to organize ourselves, do our research, make a schedule, and get our asses out to Queens so we could make some fucking theater.

But it's still hard. The space is great, but there is no money involved and we are still renting some space in Manhattan to rehearse so we are putting money out there. The space is great but it is in Queens, so rehearsing on weeknights is all but futile with everyone commuting from their temp jobs. Basically your will to live DISAPPEARS somewhere on the 7 Train. The space is great, but we have to provide our own audience, which is challenging already. Work in a scenic ride on the 7 and you've got yourself a problem.

But again, the space is GREAT. It's a 220 seat black box/proscenium. It is incredible to be able to rehearse on a stage. Somehow that always makes everything better. Everything looks like a show when it is on a stage. And the fact that we have it for free is so...luxurious. When we are there it is amazing to get caught up in making work. To be able to break for lunch and not worry about losing money on a $20/hr rehearsal room. It is heart-breaking that these are the factors that go into making theater, but this is the reality for a small theater company with no trust funds. We keep ourselves ready and available for when someone calls and says, "Want something for free?" And when they make that call, we make theater.

A Thousand Words

I've finally sorted through the photos from this summer's show A Thousand Words: Short Plays on Photography. Here are my favorites.

From For Art by Nastaran Ahmadi:

From Please Send Pic by Sharyn Rothstein
From Pathetique by Alex Dinelaris
From Over Exposed by Michael Garces
From Rednecks With Fish by Charles Forbes
From Les Carabiniers by Kirk Lynn



all photos by Israeli Reichman

An American girl, an Australian girl, and a Polish woman walk into a sauna...

Setting: The locker room at Crunch.
Time: Last night. 7pm.

When the following symbol is used ---- it signifies silence on the part of the speaker, combined with a look that means I have no idea what you are talking about, you American fool.
____________________________________________________________________

After a particularly rough hip-hop class on a particularly cold day, Shoni decides to step into the sauna at Crunch. She towels up and walks into the brightly lit wooden box. Just as she relaxes on the top bench, for maximum heat, a girl walks in.

Girl: There's something wrong with this. The heat is actually going down, not up.
Shoni: Fuck.


Shoni and Girl step out of the sauna and fiddle with the buttons until the temperature begins to rise. They step back into the sauna and lay down on adjescent benches. Shoni closes her eyes. Girl begins to breath deeply. Silence. Silence. Then.

Girl: Have you ever used the pool here? The Crunch pool?
Shoni: Yeah. It's small.

Silence. Silence. Then.

Girl: (In an unmistakeably Australian accent) Are the spinning classes here any good?
Shoni: They're ok.

Shoni thinks to herself, SERIOUSLY? Will this stranger talk to me the entire time I'm in here? Then she remembers her New Years resolution, shich was to have more joy. And this girl might be fun and nice and interesting and good to know. Sometimes it's good to know Australians. So.

Me: What are you doing here in the states?
Australian Girl: I came to study. I'm an actress.
Me: Ah! Where did you study?

And thus begins a rather lengthy conversation on the arts in Australia versus America. The Cate Blanchett Hedda Gabler comes up. Australian dance comes up. Shoni mentions Japanese dance she plans to see this weekend. More harmless artistic chatter. Then.

Shoni: Why leave Australia?
Australian Girl: There's just no culture there. Because it's so far away. The stuff that comes there, it's like Madonna, and tickets are like $200. Just the things there are to do and see in America, in New York. It's really. But you have to be so ruthless, such a survivor.
Shoni: As an immigrant?
Australian Girl: No, as an American.

An American girl walks in. She is clearly horrified that the two naked girls in the sauna are chatting away. She sits on a low bench and stretches her feet out in front of her. She glances quickly at Shoni and the Australian girl looking vaguely nervous.

Shoni: What do you mean?
Australian Girl: Just not having insurance is so scary. You know to come from a country with a health system and then when I got here, I mean I have a green card now, but the first time I got sick, it was before I had insurance, and I went to the doctor and it was, like, $500. And I was like, you're kidding, that's my savings, and the doctor was like, yup, that's what it costs. And I realized I had to be careful, I had to be aware of my health. I mean it's ridiculous. How does a single mother or something like that, how do people afford it?
Shoni: They don't get sick.

A well-preserved Polish woman in her 50s enters. She is wearing just a thong. She stands right in front of the stones, fanning the hot air up into her face.

Australian Girl: And appearances here are more important. It's way dressier than Australia.
Shoni: No way! We're the slobbiest country in the world!
Australian Girl: Australia is like really casual.
Polish Woman: (with thick Polish accent). Maybe you think that but no. When I move here, I live in Brighton Beach now, this is Russian neighborhood. When I move here, very sloppy, yes. But now, thirteen years later, very dressy.
Australian Girl: It's all about shoes. And bags.
Polish Woman: And getting nails done and hair done.

The silent American girl wiggles her perfectly manicured toenails. Her make-up is perfect. She appears to not be sweating. The Polish woman sits on the corner of the box the stones are in.

Australian Girl: It's totally different here. Adjusting to the culture is hard. Living hand to mouth, like being a cocktail waitress when I was in school, it's different.
Shoni: I wish I had had my tape recorder. I am doing a play about immigration and we're interviewing immigrants. This would have been great to record.

An Asian woman walks in naked. She lays down on the lower bench, her head next to the American girl's ass. The American girl sits very still.

Australian Girl: What is your play about?
Shoni: Well, immigration and love. Like green card marriages.
Australian Girl: Oh! I'm one of those. I mean, not really, it was a REAL marriage, but you know.
Polish Woman: YOU are doing play about immigrants? You are American! What do you know about immigrants?


Every fiber of Shoni's being shudders with fear of being an utter fraud and making a huge mistake.

Shoni: Well my husband is an immigrant. He's Scottish.
Polish Woman: What do you know about it.
Shoni: Well we have a Romanian playwright writing the play.
Polish Woman: ---
Shoni: She's really good.
Polish Woman: It is like this guy Borat. He knows nothing about it. He make fun of these immigrants and makes money off of them and laughs at them and he knows nothing about it.

Oh fuck, Shoni thinks to herself, are you really bringing up Borat?

Polish Woman: Why does he not make this film in Britain? No he makes it in poor country and pays them five dollars a day, seven dollars a day.
Australian Girl: I know, he's awful, it's not funny.

The Asian Woman begins rubbing her temples, aggressively.

Polish Woman: I mean, I have not seen it, but what I read about it, he makes fun of these people, and pays them nothing. They think oh, I want to make movie, but it will be so expensive in England, so let's go to different country and pay nothing. And he makes fun of them.
Shoni: Well, I think he's really making fun of Americans. And there are elements of the comedy that's really subversive, more so than, say, Employee of the Month or something, which is really just an example of Americans being willing to settle for something completely sub-par and facile and laugh at it anyway.
Polish Woman: ----

Silence. Silence. Then.

Australian Girl: Wow. We've been in here 40 minutes. Are you hot?
Shoni: Yeah, I'm pretty hot.
Australian Girl: I'm going to get out.
Shoni: Can I get your email? I'd love to interview you for our play.
Australian Girl: Sure!

Shoni and Australian Girl leave the sauna, followed by Polish Woman. Shoni gets Australian Girl's email and leaves the gym, with the Polish Woman's words echoeing in her ears.

YOU ARE AMERICAN. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IMMIGRATION?

YOU'RE The One That I Want

The show is brilliant. It's so good it's bad and then it transcends that and comes back around to being good again. And then it exceeds even that and becomes fabulous.

The new Grease reality show is overwhelming. Watching a casting process on TV is so humbling and exhilirating. Yes, I get that most of reality TV is staged and obviously manipulated by editors and producers, but I believe that Grease: You're The One That I Want is pure. These wide-eyed actresses who worked double shifts all week at the Applebees in Tulsa so they could buy a bus ticket to New York, ride their hopes and dreams all the way here just to stand on stage in front of some Broadway heavy weights and belt out Hopelessly Devoted to You while batting huge doe eyes, well honestly they break my heart. They speak to the 15 year old theater geek in me who knows every word to Les Mis and who was sure that one day she would play Kim in Miss Saigon (no matter that Kim is a Vietnamese refugee and I'm a Jew from New England, TRUE TALENT HAS NO LIMITS). If this reality TV show had been on in 1996, I would have been on my knees in front of the TV, wearing my Cats t-shirt, holding my Rent double cassette set, worshipping at the shrine of David Ian, literally pawing the TV hoping to crawl inside.

But what wows me the most, in the here and now, sitting in some shitty cafe with free wi-fi in Hells Kitchen, looking forward to rehearsal in Queens tonight where we will continue to cobble together a new play and try our damnedest to change the world (hold for irony. hold...), is the touchingly human quality of the casting committee on this reality show. They are trying their damnedest to make watchable TV. They are trying to be as ruthless as those talent-free American Idol judges with their cutting words and obnoxious jokes. But they just can't do it. Before the Idol phenomenon, Paula Abdul had never had to sit in front of some kid singing their heart out and tell them, "I'm sorry, you're just not right for this." She's never worked with that singer, trying to coax something new and ultimately useable out of them. She doesn't understand the heartache of that poor kid, the work that has gone into these 16 bars, and the thousands of dollars thrown away on conservatory training. So now, in one of those three seats of power, she has no problem giggling at the tone-deaf, mocking over-zealous warblers, and telling the occasional mentally challenged kid who squeaks out Pussy Cat Dolls, hoping to become a star, that they are fucking awful. She can do all that because she's never really had to do all that.

But Kathleen Marshall has. And it shows. Auditions are brutal for everyone. Sure, actors are putting themselves out there, hopeful that they are the one that we want, but the casting committee is hopeful too. All we want is for you to be wonderful. Please. Stop my search right here by being brilliant. Maybe the next person who walks in this door was born for this role. Maybe they're remarkable. And when they're not, we will do whatever we can do to make them better. Maybe they take direction well. Maybe they're a shape-shifter and can morph into what we want. Maybe they can change.

Of course they can't. They're it or they're not. Sometimes we're sure they're it, they prove they're not, but we were so sure, really so absolutely certain they were it, that we ignore all warnings and hire them anyway, forcing them to become the it that we so clearly see in our minds.

Then they get fired after a week of rehearsal.

But in my case all this means is they don't get to perform a two-week showcase in yet another shitshow of an off-off Broadway theater. It leaks. There's exposed wire. It still has the nubby stained rug on the floor from when it was an OFFICE. It gives you asbestos poisoning.

On You're The One That I Want, Kathleen (and David Ian and writer guy) have to get it right. There is no firing. America will choose the leads in their 10 million dollar revival. And they are scared shitless. So between fear of directing freaky newbies in their Broadway debut and being genuinely good human beings who understand the pain of auditions, they are kindly telling every auditioner, "Thanks." "Thank you." "Thanks but you're not quite right for this. Keep trying though!" It is humanity at its finest. It is a true generosity of spirit as these three theater artists maintain their integrity and let hopefuls from Tulsa down gently.

A warm and fuzzy feeling washes over me. A feeling that even when they sell-out and turn to a TV show to sell tickets to their perhaps purposeless Broadway revival of a show so many times revived that we need to just slap a do-not-recesutate sticker on it and move the fuck on, at the end of the day theater people will always be the most human. Maybe it's the low salary. Maybe it's the fear of rejection. Maybe it's the self conscious nature of getting up in front of real people and showing real feelings, but it's part of the reason I keep on keepin' on. The goodness of the people and the need to keep making the work, asbestos poisoning or not.