Archive for October, 2009
Sex and the marine biologist
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Cathy Dresbach in Actors Theatre’s Boom
When you see the words, “Sex to change the course of the world,” what do you think of?
Yeah, me too.
But the marine biologist character in Boom, the newest production by Actors Theatre, means something very different when he posts an offer on Craigslist – and therein is the crux of the play written by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb.
Boom, first produced in New York last year, is the most widely done new American play of the current season, with nine productions nationwide in 2009-2010.
This gives pause to director Ron May, whose preferences are generally for less popular work.
“I’m not normally drawn to mainstream stuff,” says May, who is both director of patron services at Actors Theatre, and artistic director of the smaller Stray Cat Theatre.
May, 38, didn’t take Nachtrieb’s script to reflect the mainstream when he first read it last spring. Its story of a scientist convinced that the world is ending who snags a nymphomaniac journalism student with an Internet ad wasn’t exactly Neil Simon. Perhaps the unusual plot’s relatively wide acceptance is just one more indication that the world is catching up with itself.
“It’s tricky,” May says, when asked how he negotiates between an administrative job for one company, and being the artistic head of another.
“I do theater from the time I get up until I go to bed. There are actually worse situations to be in.”
At Stray Cat, May has directed such thins as The Laramie Project, A Clockwork Orange, Trainspotting, Fat Pig and Pulp.
“Stray Cat has a more indie sensibility than Actors Theatre. I can get away there with smaller, more intimate shows that wouldn’t play well in front of 300 people at the Herberger (where Actors Theatre performs).”
When he directs at Actors Theatre, May enjoys the luxury of a fully professional production. The rules permit Stray Cat only one Equity (union) actor per season; at Actors Theatre, Equity is the norm.
“It’s a great opportunity for me,” he says, “and I thank (Actors Theatre artistic director) Matthew Weiner for it.”
Of “truth” and other memories
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Taliesin West
Frank Lloyd Wright has been on my mind lately, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because his presence is always gently felt in the Valley, thanks to the various buildings he designed or influenced, most prominently the Arizona Biltmore and Gammage Auditorium. But mostly I think I think of him because of my lingering fondness for the modern over the postmodern. Only a modernist would say things like “The truth is more important than the facts,” “The heart is the chief feature of a functioning mind,” and “An idea is salvation by imagination.” To the postmodernist, there is no “truth,” – just perspective. The postmodern heart is a suspect organ at best, thanks to all those pop culture references, and who can take seriously anyone who’d talk about “salvation” without irony?
Wright designed buildings that said, “This is important,” and we live in a time when “important,” if it means anything, means merely powerful and wealthy. Different times, different sensibilities. But if I ever reach a point when the present presses on me too insistently, I may return to Taliesin West just to be reminded what it must have felt like to be an artist who made his art without the slightest hint of irony, to be someone who suspected that beyond the welter of random facts lay something called “the truth.”
Amazing what you can find outside Food City…
Posted by: | CommentsDo they know how to sing the blues in Phoenix, Arizona? Listen and learn the answer!
So Are They All
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Arizona Opera’s Cosi fan tutte
The title of Mozart’s opera, Cosi fan tutte, is notoriously difficult to translate from the Italian. Roughly, it means “It’s All the Same,” or perhaps, “So Are They All.” What’s all the same? Relationships. Girlfriends, boyfriends. You know: dating. Love is one thing, unique to the person you love. But (and you may not wish to hear this) that person could just as easily love another – it’s all the same. And that makes commitment a thorny issue. Don’t take my word for it: See Cosi, as produced by Arizona Opera, this weekend.
Arizona Opera’s YouTube channel doesn’t allow us to pick up its videos, so you’ll have to go to their site to see excerpts from the production.
Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia
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David Lewis as Benjamin Franklin
David Lewis was an actor before he turned to playwriting, and now he’s an actor again – in one of his own plays. Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia, which runs today through Nov. 15, is a one-man exploration of the kite-flying Founding Father.
“I acted for many years, but at a certain point I let that part of my life go dormant,” says Lewis, an Arizona native with more than 30 years experience in the theater.
“I’ve always enjoyed writing, I just never really made the time to concentrate on it consistently. Several years ago I committed to writing a screenplay with a friend, and having gotten in the habit of writing on a daily basis, I started to finish a number of ideas that had been swirling around my subconscious. I have several plays of all shapes and sizes ready when the opportunity presents itself.”
With his wife Tot Long, Lewis formed a company called Sasha Productions and started to produce some of those plays. One was about Marilyn Monroe. Another concerned an aging painter and the model who reawakened his passion for art.
For his next play, he’s looked to the past and to a figure almost mythic – not to say a little frumpy by some standards. Why?
“He was certainly the most protean of our Founding Fathers—Jefferson not excepted,” Lewis says. “His ideas about self-reliance and thrift formed the backbone of the American middle class. Politically he was a much stronger supporter of democracy than many of his contemporaries. He also feared the power of the uneducated mob. So he believed fervently in an educated and enlightened electorate. All of these things are just as pertinent now as they were then. Plus, he had enough humor to leaven the serious stuff. It is an entertainment, after all.”
Lewis is cautiously optimistic about the Valley’s taste for new work. While admitting “the environment for anything new and different in Phoenix is treacherous, at best,” he also believes that “with four million people crammed into the Valley, there must be a few thousand who’d like to see something they haven’t seen before.”
What’s it like to memorize and deliver his own words?
“The chief advantage of acting a part you wrote is that you can feel free to edit it as you go along. If I forget a certain word or turn of phrase I’m sure the playwright won’t be too mad at me. As far as playing Ben Franklin, it wasn’t my intention when I started writing the play, it’s just how it worked out. I must say it is very nice to be back on stage after more than a decade off.”
10 fingers and 88 keys at Mach 1
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes, Valley artists are better known in their professional communities than they are in the Valley. Ask a balletomane in New York or San Francisco to tell you about Ballet Arizona, and they’re likely to know more — and possibly hold the company in even higher esteem — than the typical, casual dance-goer in Phoenix.
Such is the case with Caio Pagano, professor of piano at the ASU Herberger College School of Music. Internationally regarded by lovers of the piano, the Brazilian-born Pagano (who earlier this year became a US citizen) maintains a relatively low profile locally, except for occasional ASU recitals. Check out the video above for a taste of his considerable gifts. Consult ShowUp.com’s ASU School of Music page to find out when Pagano and other ASU artists can be heard in performance.
Bring on the dancing vampires…
Posted by: | CommentsAbove, an excerpt from the 2007 production of A Vampire Tale, using Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata. The 2009 edition will feature all new music.
Long before Twilight, long before the current vampire craze, Lisa Starry and Scorpius Dance Theatre explored the world of the undead. Six years ago, Starry first presented her contemporary dance take on the legendarily fanged. This week she unveils – in two cities – her newest version of A Vampire Tale, complete with an original score.
“I commissioned Kristofer Hill to write new music so we could take this show other places. I couldn’t continue to use the licensed music,” Starry says.
Starry knew Hill from Metro Arts, the Phoenix arts charter school where they both teach. The score comes just in time to coordinate with the sudden national interest in a work that’s been called dark, sexy, comic, sexy…and sexy. An indie film director found out about A Vampire Tale at the Scorpius website (www.scorpiusdance.com) and is coming to the Valley to see the show for a possible movie version. The director of something called the Vampire Film Festival also discovered it at the website and invited Starry to bring her company to New Orleans – the heart of vampire culture in this country, thanks to Anne Rice.
That means Scorpius Dance Theatre will open A Vampire Tale Wednesday night in Phoenix, take the show to New Orleans a couple days later, and return to Phoenix with it after that. See ShowUp.com for performance details.
High flying
Posted by: | CommentsIf you haven’t yet seen Arizona Theatre Company’s production of The Kite Runner because you’re wondering how they could possibly have transfered such a rich novel to the stage, you can go to YouTube and get a taste of how ATC did it. The clip above shows the opening of the play; go to YouTube and search “kite runner” / “Arizona Theatre” to find two others.
Arizona Idol
Posted by: | CommentsAmerican Idol finalist Scott MacIntyre is back and the Symphony of the Southwest’s got him – for a concert Saturday in Mesa.
Before MacIntyre found glory on TV as a singer-songwriter, he was belting our showtunes in his native Arizona. Check out the video clip above to hear him sing “Tonight at 8″ from “She Loves Me!”
A life for the arts
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Marvin Cohen with his wife, Frances Smith Cohen
The spirit of art is the opposite of the spirit of greed. The artist is inherently a giver – someone who wants to share a vision, an idea, a way of hearing/moving/seeing/being.
But artists are alone and unable to give without the help of those even more selfless: arts patrons and promoters. The Valley lost one of its greatest arts patrons when Marvin S. Cohen died in June, age 77, of Lou Gehrig’s disease. An attorney specializing in eminent domain, aviation law, civil litigation and public-utilities law, he was accomplished enough to have argued and won a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Marvin – he was on a first-name basis with everyone – might have gone still further in law, might have carved out even greater professional glory for himself, but he cared about one other thing so much that he sacrificed inordinate time and energy to it: the arts. Marvin was a co-founder of Arizona Theatre Company in Tucson, and later pushed it to become the two-city operation it is today. Over the years, he served on the board of the Scottsdale Cultural Council, as chairman of the Arizona Commission on the Arts (twice), as president of the Herberger Theater Center and as president of Center Dance Ensemble, the modern dance company in residence at the Herberger. His wife, Frances Smith Cohen, is the company’s founding artistic director.
This week, Center Dance Ensemble gives its first program since Marvin’s death. A certain sadness will likely attach to the event, and yet, Marvin’s presence will be palpable in the joyous art onstage.
“Center Dance Ensemble would never have made it without Marv,” says Frances Smith Cohen.
“The financial help was huge, but more than that, he was a great sounding board. I don’t remember one time where he thought I shouldn’t try something, no matter how weird it sounded to him. He was so proud of what I did.
“There were many times, I really wanted to quit. I would get so discouraged. But he was such a great fan–I couldn’t let him down. He never complained about the really late suppers, or the rehearsal times that went into the night. It was, he felt, part of the deal of being married to an artist.”
This week’s program, called “Shakespeare at the Herberger,” will feature The Fateful Loves of Hamlet, choreographed by Fran. It’s the fourth version of her take on Shakespeare’s tragedy, and she feels Marvin would’ve given it a positive nod.
“I looked at the Hamlet ballet Friday and thought, ‘He would have really liked this version four.’ Version three began to explore the women of Hamlet and Marv felt I was really on to something. This version really develops this idea further. I’m pretty sure it would have been a favorite.”
What made Marvin Cohen an effective arts supporter? Shelley Cohn, who succeeded him as director of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, thinks it was his ability to “see both the big picture and the policy implication of decisions we made.”
And then there was his energy:
“I swear the man never slept.”
Cohn is not alone when she says she will “miss Marvin’s wisdom, his zest for knowledge and reading, his passion for the arts and his friendship.”
Many will miss those things. I barely knew Marv Cohen, yet he once gave me a personal tour of his and Fran’s home — which he showed with great relish — and even took the time to inquire after my own artistic goals. He had the kind of life-force energy that makes it hard to believe he’s gone. And as long as Center Dance Ensemble, Arizona Theatre Company and the Herberger exist, he’s not.
