Theory & Crit -- Project 4

No Dice
The Nature Theater of Oklahoma
The Wexler Center/Columbus, Ohio
February 9-10, 2008
Director(s): Pavol Liska, Kelly Copper
Writer(s): The Nature Theater Company


Nature Theater of Oklahoma in No Dice (PHOTO LINK)
http://wexarts.org/db/press/911_WCA_February_Theater.pdf

“With No Dice, you’ll come for the magic and stay for the ham sandwiches. An epic of the everyday, it’s a relatively short, 4-hour distillation of a quasi-legendary melodramatic spectacle originally 11 hours long.” (REVIEW LINK)
http://www.wexarts.org/pa/index.php?eventid=2661

This piece is derived from the dialogue and text of over 100 hours of actual personal phone calls by the company. The actors act on a set built to look like an office, complete with cubicles and a break room where the audience can enjoy ham sandwiches. The company takes the calls and weaves a 3 ½ hour performance of it. Audience members watch as the company does mindless filing, typing, and collating while they hear only one side of phone conversations mixed with scenes that have actually happened to the actors. The actors tell their story through the text and more importantly through a gestural language created specifically for the piece.

Rash Acts
The Independent Eye
Spreckles Performing Arts Center/Rohnert Park, CA
January 23-24, 30-31 & February 6-7, 2009
Director: Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller
Writer: Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller


Rash Acts – The Independent Eye (PHOTO LINK)
http://www.independenteye.org/stage.html

“…their (IDE) hyper hype could illustrate this excellent theater-group's attitude, as summed up in the line from their program: ‘Thank you for supporting Company One and passionate not-for-profit art in Boston!’” (REVIEW LINK)
http://www.theatermirror.com/racobcals.htm

This piece is a collection of short plays written by members of The Independent Eye. Several of the pieces have toured and work-shopped all over and therefore are nice and polished. The thing that makes this piece unconventional is the fact that they are all coming together under one common theme and done with mainly mask and puppetry.

Tomorrow, In A Year
Hotel Pro Forma/Copenhagen, Denmark
This piece is in the development stage. It is set to perform November 2009.
Director: Ralf Richardt Strøbech and Kirsten Dehlholm
Music: The Knife
Choreographer: Hiroaki Umeda


Tomorrow, In A Year/Hotel Pro Forma (PHOTO LINK)
http://www.hotelproforma.dk/side.asp?side=2&id=437&ver=uk

Tomorrow, In A Year is a new opera based on the works of Charles Darwin. Using Darwin’s way of observing the world and the idea of “change as a process” are key elements to the production. The piece consists of three singers (all with very different vocal styles and backgrounds) and six dancers (all with different body types). The music challenges the normal conceptions of Opera and the choreography borders between modern and ballet.

Symphony Of Rats
Beyond The Proscenium Productions
California Stage/Sacramento, CA
March 23-April 22, 2007
Director: Nick Avdienko
Writer: Richard Foreman


Symphony Of Rats/BTPP 2007 (PHOTO LINK)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geminicollisionworks/190185500/in/set-72157594423846110/

“The author's objective is to discombobulate as well as entertain the theatergoer.” (REVIEW LINK)
http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=940DE3D7103FF931A25752C0A96E948260

Symphony Of Rats is about what would happen if our president had a nervous breakdown. Mr. Foreman’s style is to ne non-linear and unrealistic. The play takes the audience from landscapes such as outer space, the Oval Office, and “Tornadoville”. The set was describes as having such severe angles anyone sitting in a chair on the set would slide right off.

Dis-Orientations
Border Crossings
Riverside Studios/London England
September 13-October 1, 2006
Director: Michael Walling
Writer: Michael Walling


Dis-Orientations – 2006 (PHOTO LINK)
http://www.bordercrossings.org.uk/disorientations/images.html

“Despite its satiric glimpses of modern Shanghai life, its impact is that of a work in which mood and image, rather than argument or information, dominate a somewhat sad celebration of the varieties of love.” (REVIEW LINK)
http://www.bordercrossings.org.uk/disorientations/reviews.html

Dis-Orientations is a collaborative piece between Border Crossings and Shanghai’s all-female Yue Opera. It mixes traditional Yue Opera style and music with western multimedia theatrical practices. While the dialogue is chiefly English, the Mandarin sections as well as the opera lyrics, aren’t translated.