Written by InViolet Company Member Bixby Elliot.
For the last few days I have been having an affair.
I have been frolicking and playing around and engaging in intimate contact with another…theater company! Scandalous, I know. But before you judge me and get all conservative on me, you should know that I have “permission to play”. You know what that is, right? It is kind of like a “Celebrity Pass” (where your partner allows you to have sex with your celebrity crush if you actually meet them). Well – InViolet wants me to go out into the world and co-mingling with other theaters and start relationships because it makes me a stronger artist and that in turn makes InViolet a stronger and better theater company. That is hot, right?
I am currently cheating with PAVEMENT GROUP in Chicago where my new play GIRL YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE is being produced and I am happy to report that things are going very well. It has been an exciting few days. I flew to Chicago on Sunday April 1st. I was greeted with a pot luck party where I met a ton of the cast and crew for the show and ate multiple rice crispy treats. It was a great way to get to know everyone and get acclimated to one another. We also made custom slap bracelets for the show (audience will get these instead of tix when they arrive). Note: I recognize that while I might have permission to “theater-cheat” on InViolet – they might not forgive me for “craft-cheating” (please try to find it in your heart to forgive me InVioleters).
The next day brought the first rehearsal (that I would attend) and a run thru of the play. While I was nervous I wasn’t apoplectic - I had done a workshop in November with Pavement and knew many of the actors and certainly knew the director David Perez’s work. I was confident they would be headed in the right direction.
Well – the run thru was spectacular. David has done a brilliant job with the show and the actors are phenomenal – all of them! For me, any nerves I had just dissipated entirely and I am was able to really enjoy seeing the play come to life.
I have been working on this play for the better part of a year and a half and have seen numerous readings/workshops…but nothing compares to seeing it come to life in rehearsal. Seeing the actors playing Rob and Fab of Milli Vanilli in their wigs doing period specific dance moves, watching the actors performing A & B fully inhabit their roles and bring the characters to life with nuance and humor, taking in the small details you had never thought of – like the actress playing Megan imbuing her character with a perpetually runny nose or the actress playing Sid surprising me with this funny accent or the final scene being played with such purity and honesty that it brought tears to my eyes…so many amazing moments and details – too many to list here.
It is the thing you live for as an artist/playwright – that moment when your work leaves your head and comes to life - on a stage. It is indescribable and it is what all the work is for!
We are heading into tech this weekend – where we will add sets, costumes, lights and the whole thing will get bigger and crazier and even more wonderful.
I am settling into a groove with my Chicago “theater lovers” – they are gentle and kind to me and most of all they are being so wonderful and amazing with this play. I feel so incredibly grateful to have found such a talented and dynamic group of people who called me and said, “hey, we want to produce your play.”
I miss my InViolet family back in NYC but I am also grateful for their support and encouragement - I wouldn’t be here without them. They have helped nurture this play (at the 2011 InViolet Retreat and beyond) and I feel like every day I get emails or FB posts about the show from InVioleters - asking how it is going and checking in with me. It is amazing to know that, back at home, I have a whole group of people cheering me on!
You see, making theater with multiple “theater lovers” can be a beautiful thing!
………………………………..
Girl You Know It’s True is being presented by Chicago’s PAVEMENT GROUP. April 12, 2012 - May 13, 2012 Thursday through Saturday @ 7:30pm, Sunday @ 3pm; Opening Night 4/16; Industry Night 4/23. For tickets go to www.pavementgroup.org
When a middle-aged playwright fails to get his work produced he conjures up a radical new identity for himself: an impostor. His stand in - an African American Lesbian woman in a wheelchair - instantly shoots to fame. Needless to say, shit hits the fan. Told in tandem with the infamous Milli Vanilli scandal, Girl You Know it’s True is a hilarious and bold indictment of the institution of theatre and true intent behind the act of creation.
THE WHITE SNAKE by Mary Zimmerman. Pictured: Amy Kim Waschke, Photo by Jenny Graham
THE WHITE SNAKE by Mary Zimmerman. Pictured: Amy Kim Waschke, Christopher Livingston, Photo by Jenny Graham
THE WHITE SNAKE by Mary Zimmerman at OSF. Pictured: Amy Kim Waschke, Tanya McBride, Photo by Jenny Graham
Dear InViolets and InViolet Supporters:
Hello from the Great Northwest! I’m writing to you from beautiful Ashland, Oregon. For those of you unfamiliar with Ashland, this little town is seated in the Rogue Valley, five hours due south of Portland and cozied up to the California state line. It is the headquarters of Dagoba Organic Chocolate; a once favored vacation spot of novelist Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita was finished in Ashland); and perhaps most notably, it is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where I have had the great good fortune to be working on The White Snake adapted and directed by Mary Zimmerman.
InViolet’s leaders, Michael and Angela, have asked me to talk about my experience working with Mary and OSF. I have nothing but good things to say. Mary is a genius— and I say that with all the weight that word implies— and OSF is a unique and brave arts organization. For example, when Mary was initially meeting with Bill Rauch, OSF’s Artistic Director, she asked him to look her in the eyes and say, “I understand there will be no script on the first day of rehearsal.” And he did! It was a leap of faith for OSF to program and market The White Snake without a script and it is testament to Mary’s genius that she was trusted to unfold the story in her own time.
This is how we would work. Each day, the cast would walk into rehearsal and pick up the new pages Mary had written the night before or early that morning. We would read through the new scene once for comprehension, Mary giving small notes as to why she had written a line a certain way or why this action was happening at this point in the play. Then, she would stage the scene. Once the new material was staged, we would run the full play from the beginning, adding the new scene to the end. Working this way, a new scene each day and frequent run-throughs, is like Christmas for the actor. It’s surprising and wonderful and forces you to focus on the present. (Ha! Pun intended!) You can’t play to the next scene— or worse, to the end of the play— because you don’t know what the heck it is. You are completely innocent to what may or may not happen, just as we are in life. And while running the play every day in rehearsal may sound daunting, it’s actually very helpful. You build the necessary stamina to navigate the demands of a Mary Zimmerman play, which are often physical, technical, and emotional feats.
Our rehearsals were short, usually four hours long, but extremely focused. I still can’t believe how much we accomplished in that small amount of time, but I chalk it up to two things: Mary has a very clear idea as to how she wants to tell the story, both verbally and visually; and the majority of the cast were OSF company members, many of whom had worked together for years. Her clarity of vision, along with the inherent comfort level of the ensemble, allowed us to create the play with ease and enjoyment.
Mary once joked that she wants things, “fully realized and instantaneous.” It’s kind of true, but I think what she really means is that she wants her actors to attack the material with no fear. There is no creeping into a Mary Zimmerman play. There’s no time. As I said before, you get to read the scene once and then you stage it. Not a lot of table work. On top of that, I don’t care who you are or how healthy your ego is, no one wants to suck in front of Mary Zimmerman. What she brings to rehearsal is so smart and specific, you want your work to be exceptional as well. And because you’re moving so quickly— memorizing fast so you can have hands free to operate a snake puppet, or pull yards and yards of china silk into the form of a cloud— it forces you to trust your initial instincts about the scene and sometimes fill in the acting moments after the scene has been staged. Initially, I felt uncomfortable with this, but what I grew to understand is that most of the acting work is already there for you on the page. Mary is writing for you. She takes your strengths, your quirks, your warmth, your sense of humor and puts them into your character. It is also one of the reasons why there is no script before the first day of rehearsal. Mary channels the energies of the actors and the demands of the story through her creative subconscious and trusts that what resonates with her, will also resonate with the audience.
I’ve included some pictures and a short synopsis of The White Snake. I hope you enjoy them. This play has been a real gift to me. As my castmate Lisa Tejero once said, “The White Snake is a balm for the soul, artistic and otherwise.” I don’t know if this is true for other actors, but I find it rare to work on a play where everything comes together to lift the art form. It’s part of the reason why I joined InViolet. You stack the odds in favor of making great theatre when you work with a living playwright, a rep company of artists, and a supportive audience. Wow! Writing this makes me so excited for This Is Fiction by Megan Hart! Onwards friends! Let’s make something magnificent!
Much love,
Amy Kim Waschke
Synopsis
The story of The White Snake is a popular Chinese fairytale that first appeared in the T’ang Dynasty (618-907 CE). Over hundreds of years the story has evolved and, depending on the times, the central character Lady Bai (Lady White) is depicted as a villain sorceress or a heroine in love. In Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation, Lady Bai, a lonely snake spirit studies the Tao in hopes of finding enlightenment. After 1700 years she is able to change her shape into human form. She meets an old friend, Greenie, and the two snakes decided to transform themselves into young maidens and visit the human world for one day. On earth, she falls in love with Xi Xian, a poor scholar, and decides to stay. Lady Bai abandons her quest for enlightenment in exchange for a human existence— for love, a domestic life running a small pharmacy, and a baby. Unfortunately, a meddling Buddhist monk, Fa Hai, reveals to Xi Xian that he is married to a snake and plots their separation. Once Lady Bai’s secret is revealed, Xi Xian realizes he loves her just as she is. However, the religious zealot Fa Hai won’t allow this unconventional marriage. He tears Lady Bai away from her family and traps her under Thunderpeak Pagoda for many years.
THE WHITE SNAKE by Mary Zimmerman. Pictured: Cristofer Jean, Christopher Livingston, Amy Kim Waschke, Vin Kridakorn, Gina Daniels, Lisa Tejero, Photo by Jenny Graham
THE WHITE SNAKE by Mary Zimmerman at OSF. Pictured: Emily Sophia Knapp, Photo by Jenny Graham
THE WHITE SNAKE by Mary Zimmerman act OSF. Actors: Emily Sophia Knapp, Vin Kridakorn, Photo by Jenny Graham
