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2008/2009 SEASON EXTRA
Sunday, November 2, 2008
PREPARING FOR THE UTAH STAGED READING TOUR OF EXPOSED KIRT BATEMAN, ACTOR I'm honored to be part of EXPOSED. But it means more to me now that it did last year. I am--as this tour commences--losing my mother-in-law to cancer caused by exposure from our government's mighty show of nuclear strength. Another light going out...this one too close to home. As one government official put it so many years ago when justifying the tests: "[these people] are a low-use segment of the population." Well, that's my partner's mother, my friend's father, our playwright's sister, and YOU he's referring to. JOYCE COHEN, ACTOR I am so pleased to have an opportunity to present this play again. It's my fervent wish that it will continue to be seen and heard and, schedule permitting, that I may continue to be a part of it. It is so important that the power of this play be experienced. TERI COWAN, ACTOR My delusional self was thinking that picking up EXPOSED was kind of going to be a breeze. However, now that I've spent some time back in the script, I'm remembering all the non-verbals, the action worked around a prop and the body language that spoke volumes. Wondering how we'll re-create all of that in a "reading" performance. Thankfully, I trust our director to remedy those issues. MARY DICKSON, PLAYWRIGHT I can’t believe it’s been a year since the premiere of EXPOSED! It’s thrilling to be able to take it around the state with the original cast and bring this important story to new audiences. It’s our story as Utahns and as Americans. Plus, I can’t wait to spend time with this incredible cast again. We share a great bond. MARK FOSSEN, ACTOR My thoughts on revisiting EXPOSED a year after its premiere? In no particular order: "Can't wait to see everyone," "I need to remember how I did that voice," "It's awesome to take this to the affected communities that can't come to Salt Lake," and "I hope I still fit into my costume." Theatre's so ephemeral that it's a rare treat to come back a year later to do a tour like this. I'm looking forward to every minute of it. JENNIFER FREED, STAGE MANAGER I can't say I am surprised we are continuing our journey with EXPOSED. From the moment I first read this play I knew it would go on. Taking the play to some of the towns closest to the testing site is a natural progression. I look forward to seeing how the life of this play will continue to grow. JERRY RAPIER, DIRECTOR My natural mother was outdoors in Nagasaki when the bomb fell. My adoptive mother is currently losing her battle with lung and bone cancer. She grew up in Overgaard, Arizona which, according to the U.S. government, was the region in Arizona hardest hit by nuclear fallout in the 1950s. In fact, she lived there each of the six years in that decade that were identified as the highest risk. She is a downwinder. When I started working with Mary on this play nearly two years ago, it spoke to me on a gut level that I did not understand. Now I do--this issue is my issue. TERESA SANDERSON, ACTOR I can't wait to hang out with everybody again, this cast really feels like family to me so it will be a blast to go on a big old road trip. I also look forward to giving these characters a voice once more--they are passionate people and I can't wait to share their stories again. JASON TATOM, ACTOR It's strange to think it's been an entire year since the run. I'm excited that new audiences are going to be able to see and be affected by Mary's play--especially those in southern Utah, places hard hit by the testing, still dealing with the effects today. But I'm most excited to be working with the people again. It's like seeing family again after a long time apart (and without any pesky familial issues to deal with). I'm ready to get started. Read the blog postings from the original run in the fall of 2007 (scroll to the bottom). +++++ 2008/2009 SEASON Sunday, October 26, 2008 Sam Mollner, Foley, RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN A foley artist exists somewhere between an actor and a technician. Part of the world is of cue sheets and presetting props, and part of the world of having to have a costume and having to think about how to move about the stage. It was quite the jump for me to suddenly shift from being a theatre technician and designer to suddenly being more like an actor this was one of the many reason why RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN has been a totally new experience for me. From the first meeting with sound designer Cory Thorell, I have been figuring out just what a foley artist is. Part of that is learning how to 'play' a chair and how to make a realistic wind sound. Part of it is being able to deal with doing 5 things in the time it takes you to normally do one them with out panicking. Part of it is being able to see (or in this case hear) past what you normally consider the world to be like. While dealing with these challenges I have also had the pleasure of experiencing a side of theatre I had not experienced before. Instead of joining a cast for tech week and leaving when the show opened, with RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN I was at all the rehearsals and witnessed first hand the fun that is putting the basic building blocks of the show together--discussions about just how a character would sound to just when I was going to cut off an actor with a sound effect. The next hurdle came with preview when the show was first performned in front of an audience. As someone that is used to hiding in the background of the theatre when an audience is in the building it was quite intimidating to be in front of one. After preview I thought that opening would be easier--after all I had done it!--that was not the case. Walking into the theatre at the start of the show was still nerve-wracking. Fortunately I didn't have time to dwell on my nerves, for the show started and I had to starting making the noise in the form of some wind, a few splashes, and slam a wooden box closed to create the sound of a ship hatch closing. From there I enter into the world of foley barely come up for a breath during the show. Working on RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN has been a completely new and pleasant experience for me. Sam Mollner +++++ 2008/2009 SEASON Sunday, October 19, 2008 Randy Rasmussen, Set Designer, RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN The first Plan-B radio show was RADIO MACBETH in the mid-nineties. For those of you who missed it, imagine 6-8 actors in costumes with swords and sounds effects, crammed in a closet in the attic of the Art Barn. The "scene" was a Victorian living room, a radio prominently place center stage, maybe a tea set and some cookies. The deal was you listened to most of the show, then for the fight scenes the actors would bust out of the closest(no pun intended), the lights would change, though all I really remember is maybe a blackout. Did they really do the fight scene with the swords in the dark? I bet they did. It was a crazy time. Tobin cranking out adapted scripts, directing and acting, Cheryl selling the props and costumes in yard sales at an duplex she rented on 11th East. We tried radio drama a few times with varying success 'til THE WAR OF THE WORLDS in 2002. That was sure fun, and I think a real turning point for Plan-B. Sure we had had some great shows, but now we had the Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner. On top of that we now had the Magic Barn. For those of you who do not know, the house I bought in 2000 came with a barn that is magic. If I need something and I think about it long enough it will appear, somewhere, hidden in the mountains of stuff. It has happened over and over again. Best of all it has a roof and finally some of the parts and pieces are out of the rain and snow. Some of you may have noticed, and I know it a source of humor for the Rose staff but we don't just recycle cause were cheap, though admittedly I am. We recycle scenery cause it's the right thing to do. It saves not just natural resources but also public arts funding. If you give us $1000 for scenery know that we are going to try and use every piece 3-5 more times, easily. How's that for bang for you buck? In fact I was just going though the stacks the other day and I found flats the Skip Atkinson built for the big puppet show, can't remember the title. That must have been 1992 or so. Sorry I digress. We connected with Doug Fabrizio our years ago and started doing radio drama again, moving in into the KUER studio. Cheryl and Cory took care of things and they really didn't need any scenery so I was kinda out of that loop for a while. Which is kind of a milepost in a organization, when things get so busy that whole projects started happening around us and we need to divide to conquer them all. Anyway I think the studio experience really took what is now called RADIO HOUR to a whole other level. It gave us a chance to really figure out what radio theatre is and how it really is different from the other stuff we do. Big Thanks to Doug and Elaine! I am glad were doing big production radio theatre again, that people are into it and I can't wait to see what happens next. Thanks for coming along for the ride, I know it's been a long strange trip and sometime we don't know where we are going but I know wherever we go it will be interesting. Randy Rasmussen +++++ 2008/2009 SEASON Sunday, October 12, 2008
Tobin Atkinson, Actor, RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN
After Cheryl asked me to play the Monster last spring I started the obligatory research, which consisted primarily of reading the Shelley novel and online articles that explored the symbolism of the Monster. As detailed as the descriptions are in the novel about the monster, it really wasn’t going to help my voice-only radio performance. And after 28 years in the theatre as an actor, director, playwright and producer, I’ve never seen anyone successfully play a symbol. Cymbal, yes; symbol, no. If acting is all about completing an action first, and establishing behavior second, then that’s where I finally started the “real” work on the play.
I’ve been assigned four roles in the play. I created character worksheets for each scene a character is in to help me keep them straight. I analyzed all of them using the same basic questions (Where does the scene take place? What occurred immediately before the scene started? What do they want to happen by the end of the scene? What is their relationship to the others in the scene? What do they want right now? How does their current goal satisfy their future plans? What tactics are they using to achieve their current want?). Basic acting stuff that leads to more revelatory questions like “Where were they born?” The Lieutenant on the Prometheus will have a completely different birthplace than the Irish fisherman, or Frankenstein’s Swiss father, or the Monster that is “born” right before the audience’s ears. And the answer to the birthplace question will immediately create behavior. The Irish fisherman will speak with an accent and the Lieutenant (whom I’ve decided is from York) speaks with a Midlands accent (akin to Sean Bean in the Sharpe’s Rifles series). The newly minted monster needs to learn how to speak, and because he’s been cobbled together from the spare parts of several corpses, he might have some built-in speech impediments to overcome. (All of this on top of Cheryl’s request that I try to create audibly an image of the Monster’s massiveness.)
From what I’ve seen in rehearsals, the other actors are experiencing similar trials in creating their different characters. The cast has certainly risen to meet the challenges presented in the script and I hope the audience enjoys the ride!
Tobin Atkinson +++++ 2008/2009 SEASON Sunday, October 5, 2008
Cory Thorell, Sound Designer, RADIO HOUR: FRANKENSTEIN
A quick peek inside Cory Thorell’s head as the sound design takes shape: Two prop tables full of things that make noise. The classic door prop. A thunder sheet or two. Some rice poured on a washboard…hmm…will that do for rain? Maybe beans for a storm? How many mics do we have? Where are they placed? Hanging out in the plumbing aisle bonking pipe ends with a pencil, thinking about church chimes, and the clerk asks me if he can help me “I wish you could but I don’t think you are on the same planet as me.” How do you create Frankenstein’s lab and ELECTRICITY so it also reads on the radio? The chop chop chop of body parts, dripping blood, and dead bodies. I need melons, a knife, some celery, a bag of potatoes, and a metal bucket and a wet rag. That should do it, I hope. Setting the scene with sound…sound creates environment…what are these people doing? Where are they? What does that environment sound like? Foley 1: Rain (continuous) and wind at the same time. Foley 2: Door open, footsteps, door close. Cork pop, pour drink. Thunder sheet. Foley 3: …wait, only 2 foleys…rethink… Foley 1: Rain stop, hatch door, keys in lock. Foley 2: Wind, stick snap, rustle bags, soft thunder. Prop placement, script placement, mic placement, cabling, oh my. Music accents for scene changes. Call composer again! Character themes to drive the plot forward. What sound do we need when Victor Frankenstein realizes the depth of the doom he has created? How does sound support sympathizing with the monster? How does sound support the innocence of Elizabeth? Silence is a character too. Which scenes are text only? Which scenes are filled with background sounds? There is a pile of props on the back porch that look different than they sound. Still need a few items. Oh shit, and teaching it all to 2 willing people! Things to do…gotta go! Cory Thorell ++++ 2008/2009 SEASON Tuesday, July 22, 2008 Plan-B's Resident Playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett on the 2008/2009 Season
There's a thread that runs through all three plays for the upcoming season. An adaptation of FRANKENSTEIN, a play about
Japanese-American internment camps, and a play about Leonardo da Vinci - what could they all share? As I was writing them, I realized that what they all
share is a subtle reminder to me that the Shadow within will devour
us if we fail to acknowledge it and deal with it quickly and decisively.
The
Shadow of FRANKENSTEIN is the monster, and the monster is a metaphor
for the part of ourselves we think is ugly, evil and undeserving of
love. But the monster is us. ...The monster is us... We ignore it
and spurn it at a cost. The monster thrives on our inattention and is
urged on by our (self-) hate and will kill everything we love in order
to get us to love it.
The
Shadow of BLOCK 8 is racism. The racism against the Japanese Americans
in the 1940's was totally out of touch with reality. Yes, Japanese
soliders killed many, many American soldiers. They bombed us by
surprise. They flew planes suicidally into our warships. They
captured and tortured young men in the Pacific. And it's tragic. I
weep thinking about it. I also weep, however, thinking about the fact
that Americans failed to distinguish between Japanese nationals and
Japanese Americans - as if a yellow face meant you were a
traitor. 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly
incarerated during the war and no one was convicted of espionage. The
hate was out of touch with reality. The hate was a projection of
America's Shadow within. By fighting the Nazis we began to become
them. Of course, they needed to be fought. The challenge to us in the
future, as a nation, is to defend ourselves as best as possible while
acting with love.
The
Shadow of DI ESPERIENZA is the myth of Leonardo. I personally believe
that the myth of The Great Man ate at Leonardo. He wrote in the
notebooks, "As a kingdom divided among itself is destroyed, so [is] a
mind divided among different studies." Of course there's no denying
that Leonardo is a genius and uncannily accomplished. However, as I
studied the notebooks, I began feeling like he was sometimes the
whipping boy of a burning perfectionism. Then I saw a trail of
unfinished art projects. The notebooks are definitely dotted with joy,
but the unfulfillment is palpable to me. So I wrote a play that busts
the myth of a demigod Leonardo and show us that he was a man. A man of
ups and downs. A man of good ideas and bad ideas. At times happy, but
like all of us, not 100% sure of who he really is, and who is pursued
by the Shadow that says "you aren't good enough."
On
a less philosophical note, I'm thrilled that the season is fully cast
and cast well. I feel incredibly, incredibly lucky that - in the
development process and auditions - we found great actors AND that
they're excited about the plays. Good theatre, I think, only comes
from directors, designers, and actors who really want to be there.
When
I first began writing plays, I thought that I would want to be
intimately involved in the production process. Now, from having
developed a relationship with Plan-B, I'm realizing that the best part
of writing a play is releasing it into the hands of artists you trust
and love. So I set all these plays free. There may be a tweak needed
here and there with these plays, but I'm confident that the Plan-B crew
will turn them all into wonderful (even if painful) experiences
instead of temporary distractions.
With Love,
Matthew Ivan Bennett
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