Tuesday, February 27, 2007

fall in love with THE SHALIMAR

Peanut butter and jelly. Posh and Becks. Our sexy show & speed dating...find your perfect match!

Hipster Speed Dating

March 17, 23, 24

This spring The Shalimar helps you find love on stage and off! Leave your laptops behind, and meet some hot singles in the wild. Watch our hit show stirring, have a few Brooklyn Brewery Beers (on us!) and then get to know the rest of the audience with our specially designed speed dating party. The next day you might NOT be going to brunch aloneā€¦

Click on date to buy tickets:

March 17th
March 23rd Gay Speed Dating (cause this ain't the middle ages)
March 24th

FOR $20 you get a show, 2 drinks, and a chance to meet YOUR SOULMATE!

Speed dating commences following stirring performances

The Interart Annex
500 West 52nd St. (@ 10 th Ave.), 2nd floor


www.shalimarproductions.org


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Monday, February 26, 2007

MONDAY NEWS

Here's a little something we're trying out. Please let us know what you think. But only if you like it. It'll go up and down throughout the day, as Joey and I systematically destroy it with our rudimentary Dreamweaver knowledge. So GO THERE NOW and enjoy it while it lasts.

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Sunday, February 25, 2007

cold hands, cold feet...

Last Monday was cold. Wind whipping, lips chapping, fingertips freezing, the whole deal. I took a trip downtown to pick up some keys. Then I took a trip to midtown to pick up Pat and husband. Got more keys. Then Pat and husband and I walked three avenues and ten streets in the blistering cold to the truck. The Cupcake Cafe truck, painted blue with a sloppy mural of animals all over it, is a little bigger than a UPS truck. It has no shocks. The doors don't really work. It leaks anti-freeze. I got into the driver's seat. My feet barely reach the pedals.

We spent the day moving stuff into our new chashama space, to make it more liveable. We rehearsed there once two weeks ago and it was so cold (due to space heaters being off all day and the near-zero weather outside) we decided we couldn't go back until we had curtains to close the room off and a chair or two to sit on.

So on Monday Pat and husband and I went to the chashama warehouse on 57th and 12th where we used to rehearse and loaded chairs, tables, and scrap wood into the truck. I had a major nostalgic experience in there. It's where we rehearsed Bad Girls Good Writers and the Photo Plays and did a few LA FEMME readings. We shared the space with Banana, Bag, and Bodice, one of our favorite companies. They had built their box set for The Sewers on one end of the space while we shifted around beds given to us by The Debate Society at the other end of the space. It was summer and things are always easier in the summer. We weren't saddled with the need to raise $40K to get to Edinburgh. We were going to have an easy time of it. We were creative and happy. It was hot out. I would sit in the entrance of the space, a driveway, and watch cars on the West Side Highway.

On Monday our fingers were freezing. We were sniffling. It was fucking cold. After the 57th Street stop we made our way into Harlem to pick up an air conditioner a guy from the Directors Lab list was giving away. I wanted to give it to Interart, but Josh was uptown, so we brought it to chashama instead. We unloaded everything there, at our space on 126th and Amsterdam, drove back to midtown, ate chicken fingers, went home, limbs frozen. I had a sore throat.

On Tuesday at 9am, I met the indefatigable Chris Illing inside the 145th St subway. We traveled to Long Island City together and found ourselves in Materials for the Arts. We loaded up on pieces of rug, big gray blanket-y pieces of material, and some windows that I couldn't let get away. Cabbed up to 126th and Amsterdam, dropped off these pieces, ate food, I was home drinking chamomile tea and praying for health by 2 in the afternoon.

At rehearsal that night Jen walked in sick as a dog. I kept my illness to myself, not wanting to call the rehearsal. Matt and Rachel hung the curtains, closing in the room, raising the temperature ten degrees. I popped tylenol when no one was looking. Jen sounded like a drag queen. The next night she asked to leave early and I made my displeasure clear. Matt is away for the next ten days out of a very necessary necessity and we didn't have the option of letting people go. Even if they were sick. Even if they could barely speak. Even if they were making the rest of us sick by being there.

I have never been more aware of our economic instability as a company than I am now. I feel our weakness as a structure, I feel us affected by the elements. Our space is too cold to rehearse in! But we can't go anywhere with heat because we can't afford more than this. I never understood the truth of suffering for your art (a bullshit phrase, but I can feel it a little now) until I stopped working for a paycheck in an effort to better serve the company I am building. We are getting ready to take a huge show overseas for a month. It is a great show and it will get great response. It's a show that could have a life for a long time. It's a show that audiences told us over and over that they fucking loved. We have $184 in the bank account right now. It's winter and we're looking for ways to stay warm in our rehearsal space. Will we use that scrap wood to make rehearsal furniture or will we just burn it for warmth?

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Sunday, February 18, 2007

MONDAY NEWS

Hot off the presses...

We have a new assistant producer coming on. His name is Matthew and we're really excited. It's always amazing to get more people involved. Last year we had Megan and she set a great precedent...we're so busy right now, with 3 productions in the next six months (dear lord), it's great to get new people in the room. People who aren't exhausted. Other new people we love are Brandon Bales (who was in the workshop of Aliens and is playing Ryan in the upcoming stirring production), Rachel Plotkin (playing Laura in stirring), and Shani Colleen Murfin who stage managed Aliens. NEW PEOPLE RULE.

The intern search rages on.

Hilly Hicks Jr. has signed on to write a play for The Minstrel Show. Now the writers involved are Tommy Smith, Michael John Garces, Sharyn Rothstein, Josh Liveright, and Hilly. We are almost ready to go!

Rebecca Brooksher, occasional Shalimar actress (Humidity of Fish reading, 2006) and writer (Preface, 2001), and longtime friend and supporter started previews for her Lincoln Center show this week. Joey and I went to the invited dress. I know better now than to write anything about a show before it officially opens, but I will say that we all support Boo and send her our love.

And Jesse Hooker (Hippolytus in LA FEMME) goes into previews for his off-Broadway show next week. I can't wait to see it. For...ahem...big reasons.

And in other celebrity news, Britney brings sexy back. It's like a car crash. Can't. Look. Away.


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Thursday, February 15, 2007

aging artfully...

My first intern just got his first intern. Does this mean I'm getting old?

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

A Tribute

Today Joey turned 23. I would like to celebrate this special day, this marker of his journey into manhood, with a pictoral walk down memory lane. Unfortunately these pictures only date back about two years. Joey and I weren't friends when we first met. I had more refined taste...

Birthday facts about Joey:

He is 23 years old.
He drinks his calories.
He loves Canadian Idol.





He is 23 years old.
He will verbally abuse you into staying out late.



He is a better actor than dancer (and he is a pretty fine dancer).
He can learn to play an instrument in two weeks.
He is 23 years old.


He is selfless in a sneaky way.
He has an incredibly creative mind, a true artist, in the black turtleneck, bad poetry way.




He is 23 years old.



He is unforgiving. For five minutes.






He is 23 years old.


He adds color and snark and camp and challenge and trust to my life.

He is 23 years old.



Happy Birthday Joey.

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Seeking 2 Productions Interns

NYC based theater company Shalimar Productions seeks 2 Productions Interns for 2007 season to work closely with Artistic Director Shoshona Currier. Please send resume and letter of interest to shoni@shalimarproductions.org.

Seeking an individual who has an interest in theater administration, producing, or directing. This is a truly hands-on internship designed to give young theater artists the opportunity to learn about the day-to-day work of a small theater company. Past Shalimar interns have gone on to act, direct, and tour internationally with the company.

Internship Requirements:
March 2007-July 2007

10 hours/wk of administrative work in Upper Manhattan office.
Duties Include: development research (grants, festivals, sponsorship,
etc...), organizational work (filing, copying, etc...), assisting in
seasonal mailings, helping to schedule readings, rehearsals,
performances, and workshops.

Minimum attendance of 3 rehearsals/wk.
Duties include: Assisting the director and stage manager in rehearsal, attending production meetings,assisting the dramaturge with research, taking rehearsal notes,
occasionally running rehearsals and/or warm-ups, actively
participating in the creation of the plays.

Participation in Shalimar Fundraisers
Duties include: Attending planning meetings, working on various fundraising committees, working at the events.

THE SHALIMAR SEASON

stirring
March 15-25
at The Interart Annex
Back by popular demand, stirring takes us inside the lives of seven lonely hipsters as they navigate their desperate fantasies and grim realities all from the safety of their laptops.
"Riveting...provocative, hip, and beautifully put together." - Three Weeks
"Highly stylish...perceptive about a generation." - The Guardian

The Minstrel Show
June dates TBA
at The Interart Annex
A controversial new take on our ever popular annual ten-minute play festival. It's "us vs. them" as writers confront stereotypes with ruthless candor and wit. Our modern interpretation of this old but not entirely forgotten form.
With new plays by Michael John Garces, Tommy Smith, Sharyn Rothstein, and Sibyl Kempson.

LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%# My Son
July dates TBA in New York
August dates TBA at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival
Take a ringside seat at this Phaedra adaptation. Sexual tension runs high, there's a boxing match to the death, the paparazzi are swarming, nobody is telling the truth. Using found text, live music, frenetic dance, and many wigs, experimental theater company Shalimar Productions entrenches themselves in America's celebrity obsession in the midst of a war. Flash photography is encouraged.

ALIENS
by Saviana Stanescu
Fall 2007/Winter 2008 dates TBA

ALIENS is a play about cross-cultural love and greencard-marriage that explores the immigrant experience in New York. Does a marriage with an American citizen solve every problem? Is a greencard a strong enough reason for a marriage? Based on true stories of immigration explored collaboratively by Shalimar Productions and fictionalized by a playwright who is trying to understand her own story, ALIENS is a story about the American dream and its everyday nightmare.


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Monday, February 12, 2007

MONDAY NEWS

Here is some fun stuff that's new and exciting.

We received a grant from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for Aliens, this new play about immigration that we are creating with Saviana Stanescu.

We are signing on to work with SCAMP at this year's Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. These ladies are definitely rockstars. They always represent amazing shows and we are so excited to be working with them.

Joey and Gary and I went to Victor Villar-Hauser's bar last night and I got pretty drunk. Off a beer and a half. And we hung out with Victor for a while. He's friendly and has an accent and that's pretty much all it takes for me...thanks for the drinks Victor!

We have decided to take on two production interns. I will post the ad in a few days and please forward it around!

And the biggest news of all. A few days late, I know, but please let's all bow our heads and say a little prayer for an amazing icon of camp. Good-bye Anna Nicole.


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Thursday, February 08, 2007

The Journey

After the showing on Tuesday night we got a little drunk. We had beer for the audience, but since the whole audience was students, we drank the beer. Husband had had a whisky event that night and brought us a bottle, but we had no cups so we swigged it from the bottle like the fucking hobos that we are.

Then at 11pm we decided to journey towards Rudys. Me, Husband, Joey, Gary, Matt, Chris, Brandon, Shani, Kim, Jen, and Ben. Here's what happened.

We waited at the 33rd St 7 Station in Queens (ever heard of it? I thought not...). It was less than ten degrees.

The train came. At the next stop, Queensboro Plaza, we lost Shani. She lives in Astoria.

Two stops later, at 45th St, we lost Jen and Ben. They took the G to Williamsburg. Because they are hipster scum.





Then, between stations, the 7 Train stopped for about 20 minutes. At first we didn't notice. We were drunk and Brandon was showing off his amphibian prowess by hanging off subway poles. Then we got a little worried that we would be trapped on this subway car forever, just us and all the people who were pissed off that they had to share a car with noisy drunk pole-flipping assholes.



The train finally made it into Grand Central. Chris jumped off saying he had to pee and he would meet us at Rudys. People piled on the train. We sat politely. Finally someone turned to us and said, "this train is going back to Flushing."

We ran out of the train, cursing, and made our way to the shuttle platform. The shuttle. Dumbest train ever. When we got there, we found the Atlantic City shuttle, stopped quietly in the station. We pounded on the doors, hoping to be let in, but instead a regular train came and we got on that. During the hubub, we lost Matt. But just as the doors of the shuttle were closing, Chris reappeared.


At Times Square we took the long walk underground to 8th Ave. Brandon began ripping down posters (the guy is wierd. he really is). When some MTA employees tried to apprehend him, a drunken Kim told them that he had tourettes (which he actually may) and couldn't help it. The MTA employees became concerned. Brandon started hitting himself and we all walked away.

In the big 8th Ave hallway, under Port Authority, Brandon began whimpering about going home. It was close to midnight at this point. I managed to get him in a headlock and run him down to the 44th Street exit of the station. When we got there he pried himself free, gave me a hug, and ran to the A Train like his froggy life depended on it.

Then Husband came up behind me and said we had lost Chris to the A Train too. He had yelled BYE and ran away.


And so arriving at Rudys were myself, Husband, Joey, Gary, and Kim. Pathetic. The second we stepped into Rudys Husband began feeling nauseous. Maybe it was the smell of hotdogs, or sour beer, or despair (or the fact that he hasn't felt totally well since returning from Denver) but he had to leave. So I took him home.

When I left, Kim, Gary, and Joey were ordering a pitcher and settling into a booth. I am sure they closed the place down with Prince songs, pitchers of Pabst, and the pride of being the last three standing.

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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Alien Invasion

The showing last night went really well...to our surprise. (We were a little nervous about the work...) Three ESL teachers brought their classes so we ended up with an audience of 75 international students. They were a very live audience, amped up, really interested in the subject matter, for obvious reasons.




In the talk back a Colombian girl spoke up about what a different life you live in America, that in your home country you may live in a big apartment with a great career and here you will have a tiny apartment and a menial job.



A Sudanese man thought it was important to work on a plot about credit cards for immigrants, how they don't understand the rules of credit when they first arrive. Then between student loans and buying overpriced junk and not really understanding it all, they end up in unmanageable debt.


One Albanian woman insisted that we should not present immigrants as depressed and having no options. She was worried that we were painting these characters in a hopeless light.She wanted to make sure the four characters would have more joy and optimism in the second half of the play




Overwhelmingly though the audience really enjoyed it. They paid attention and they laughed and someone in the front row took a picture with his phone of Kim in her stripper outfit. I'm sure she's already all over the internet and YOU CAN'T BUY THAT PUBLICITY.



I took these pictures, so they are shit, but they'll give an idea of what we're making. Photos of the epic journey to Rudys to follow soon. Stay tuned...



And it's a good thing those classes were there. Otherwise we would had an audience of seven. So I must shout out to Allison, Gwen, Marcy, May, Ben, Gary, and Serge for making the trip in the freezing weather. Gold star. All the rest of you...shame.


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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

too thirty on toos day

Husband and I are too broke to leave the house so we are spending the day on our asses on the futon. He's reading OK! I'm reading Gawker. We're eating butterscotch pie. It's a pretty high-brow day.

I'm heading to Queens soon for the showing of ALIENS the big front-burner project this month. If you can brave the cold and the questionable 7 Train please join us. All the gliterrati will be there. And there will be Brooklyn Brewery beer. Per always.

And if you're too lazy to travel for theater, don't worry, we won't judge you. I'll post some pictures tomorrow that you can peruse from the comfort of your couch. Expect brilliance. Or at least the efforts of theater artists who got up the energy to leave the house.

I had a great Edinburgh meeting yesterday. Things are looking up for that leg of the tour. And we have a bunch of grant applications swimming around as well as some residency possibilities. 2007 will be big big big baby!

Oh and I think we're going to this party tonight at Jesse Hooker's after the show. I'm sure everyone is welcome...

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