letter at year’s end from erik ehn

Posted May 8, 2009 | No Comments | Print This Post

Dear All:

A moment to connect on all that’s going on in the school in the closing days of the term. In CalArts fashion, what might otherwise be an occasion for nostalgia is a report on all that’s unfolding and on the way.

More information about what’s pointed at below can be found at www.theatercalarts.com; an official season launch will take place when we return in September.

And there will be an All-School meeting to talk about this information at the Year End Picnic on the front lawn adjacent to the Mod Bridge immediately following All-School clean-up Tuesday, May 12th at 2:00 pm

Year End Picnic
+ All School Meeting Tuesday, May 12th at 2:00 pm

There are a number of projects taking place at the end of the semester that deserve our collective focus; they add life to the school, and expand our relationships with the world around us.

Medea is in rehearsal; Lenka Udovicki directing. This is a promising partnership with UCLA Live – generally a presenting organization, now exploring models of producing. Annette Benning plays the title role, and a group of CalArts students are working with Lenka to develop a vocabulary for the chorus. Some of this company will be able to move on to the public phase of the project. The courage and imagination of our actors is recognized by the field, and the opportunity to work closely with artists we admire on deep and sustained readings of classical material adds value to our community.

This from Travis: “The BBC approached Center for New Performance to collaborate on the production of two radio plays based on the Enron scandal: Power Play and Willful Blindness. Written by Margaret Heffernan and directed by Sara Davies, the BBC team arrived last Sunday, recorded this past week, and are now on their way back to England. The BBC was thrilled with the experience and have begun to develop other radio play ideas for production together with the CNP. The plays will be broadcast in Great Britain with a possible re-broadcast on NPR here in the States. The CNP team consisted of 9 current students, 3 alumni, 1 faculty member (our own Mary Lou Rosato!) and 1 outside artist (the inimitable John Fleck).”

A note on CNP casting policy: Sometimes there will be open auditions, other times participation will be by invitation. The needs of a specific undertaking may be quite specific, and a determination is made as to the most appropriate pool. A more open process in some cases would be administratively cumbersome and artistically unwarranted. While the narrowness of the door is bound to be frustrating, a more pacific option would be to restrict participation to alumni; however that restricts pedagogy. Some processes are open, some are closed, and the range of forms allows the school a wide variety of relationships and adaptive producing strategies.

In development, in preparation for next season: an adaptation of Piedra De Sol (Sun Stone) – a defining poem by Octavio Paz – is in its earliest phases of adaptation in preparation for performance as a project of Teatro CalArts – a bilingual (Spanish/English) theater company within the school . Marissa Chibas, on a visit to Mexico, formed a fast and promising artistic relationship with the highly regarded Mexican director Maria Morett. I invite you to read the poem; the adaptation offers the best sorts of challenges. The source is rich in duende!

A look forward to New Works, the idea of a New Works Fringe, and the season ahead, reveals a great wave of options for our community across all métiers.

New Works titles here (and schedule and more info here):

Making Myth Vicki Grise

Pure Grit Stephen Klems, Chase Woolner

Grass Project A. Samantha Beckhart, Deborah Asiimwe, Charlie Hubbard, Maurico Lomelin, Natalie Lim, Emily Mendelsohn

My Penis Andre Thompson

CadillacsCongnacCondoms Johnny Jones, Peter Jenson

I Like it to Be a Play Every Afternoon Sarah Merkel, Jenny Greer, Mireya Lucio, Brian Tichnell, Caitlyn Conlin, Christian Gibbs, Sam Breen

Wingstroke Yelena Zhelezov, Zoe Moore

Dada Suicides Lily Whitsitt

Window Gone Broken Amy Tofte, Rachel Levy, Mary Hamrick, Tudor Munteanu, Christian Gibbs, Cristina Frias

You Box Only Glory Chelsea Didier

The New Works Fringe – I want to make introduction of this concept here; this is something we need to develop. There is at our school a core of productions (selected and produced by the students of the New Works committee), with centrality in terms of resources (space priority, access to our tiny budget). But we encourage all work with will behind it to find its way forward. Given that the school is such a small and complex ecosystem, I think we need to acknowledge the bounty of work taking place outside the official New Works, developing policies that help this work thrive in a cooperative environment. This evolution (the rise of the Fringe) is in keeping with a review of the structure of the end of the semester in general.

Just as Interim needs to be integrated wholly with learning – with our sense of the curriculum – so does the New Works period. These open spaces are not random, but have distinctive characters that need to be assessed and appreciated for the ways they enhance teaching and learning. In a snapshot: Interim is a period for enhanced research and New Works is an opportunity for presentation and performance (the shows, portfolio review).

The 09-10 Season includes evolutions of Piedra de Sol, projects from the writers and directors, and Actor’s Workshop Productions (which, along with amplifying performance opportunities, welcomes BFA designer energies).

We’re drawing a thread through the year by highlighting the work of Adrienne Kennedy. The purposes are manifold. By underscoring the work of one artist we are drawn to consider the year as a whole – our themes, principles, avowals, ambitions. Her plays are armature for the encompassing mission. And Kennedy in particular is chosen as a shepherd of our sensibilities because she is: one of the great living American writers; underexplored by the academy; a pioneer in the fusion of the personal and political (the materials of her family history and her dream-life are sacrifices to build a theater on which to stage a consideration of socially constructed identities and collective consciousness); and because she is at last (and still) contemporary – it seems we are just now catching up to her dramaturgical inventions.

A list [current information]:

Hellzapoppin Adapted and dir. by Bob Cucuzza (MFA 2 Director)

Funny House of a Negro/The Owl Speaks By Adrienne Kennedy, dir. Carl Hancock Rux

Piedra De Sol (Sunstone) By Octavio Paz, dir. Maria Morett (Teatro CalArts)

Adam and Eve By Mikhail Bulgakov, dir. Lily Whitsitt (MFA 3 Director)

The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant By Rainer Werner Fassbinder, dir. Zoe Moore (MFA 2 Director)

Sun By Adrienne Kennedy, dir DanRae Wilson (Puppetry)

Last Year at Marienbad By Alain Robbe-Grillet/Alain Resnais, dir. Yelena Zhelezov (Puppetry)

Kenwood Wilderness By Peter Jensen (MFA 3 Writer)

Farm Noir By Amy Tofte (MFA 2 Writer)

Henry V By W. Shakespeare, dir. Mary Lou Rosato (Actors’ Workshop Production)

June and Jean in Concert By Adrienne Kennedy (Guest Director, Actors’ Workshop Production)

Waiting For Lefty by Clifford Odets, dir. Gina Belafonte (Actors’ Workshop Production)

The CalArts Noir Series (A Film/Theater work) Dir. by Marissa Chibas, Lew Klahr (Actors’ Worshop Production)

Fall Film School Collab. MFA 2 Directors one acts; after they’re presented – transferred to film

Storytellers (CNP Developing)Conceived and dir. Robert Cantarella

Romeo and Juliet (Developing)Adapted from Shakespeare in collaboration with Franco Dragone (see below)

Brewsie and Willie (CNP Developing) By Gertrude Stein, dir. Travis Preston. In collaboration with Poor Dog Group (an alum-driven, LA based ensemble)

We’ll be collaborating with other schools on the Opera again. The Coffeehouse (which has done so much to reach out across the Institute) will be back again in full force.

Students are encouraged to apply to the REDCAT Studio and NOW series; REDCAT, like CNP, is a vital aspect of the Institute’s relationship to the wider world.

Guests: We will continue to reach out (worldwide!) to an expanding family of artists, confirming conversations that are well begun, and meeting new people we are hopeful of involving in our community over time. The array is substantial; several we can confirm:

The Belarus Free Theater. They presented Generation Jeans at Arts in the One World two years ago; they’re coming back for two weeks in the fall to present new work and to develop a piece with students.

Aiste Ptakauskaite. A Lithuanian director dramaturge who was in residence here last year, returning to work on/stage a translation of a play by contemporary dramatist Nikolay Rudkovsky: Everything just as You Wanted It (Inflation of Feelings).

Through our colleagues at REDCAT, Claudio Kuri, the director of Mexico City-based Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes, will return in the fall semester to work in residency with students. And the Wooster Group will begin a series of performances at REDCAT this summer that will continue in Winter/Spring 2010 and bring Liz LeCompte and other members of the company into regular conversation with the School.

Franco Dragone (director of the last ten Cirque du Soleil shows). He came in for a get-to-know you workshop to test out three-d projection/live-action ideas, working with our actors, designers and technicians. A good time was had by all! He’s now conceiving of a Romeo and Juliet that takes up issues of Israeli/Palestinian relations; workshops scheduled for the Fall. We’re thankful to Ellen McCartney for this connection.

- Have a great summer!

Erik

letter at year’s end from erik ehn

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