The House of Ash

I have been lame about updating this summer but nevertheless it's been a wonderful few months. Basically I've been reading and writing a lot, taking lots of pictures (I joined a photography club). As soon as I can, I look forward to uploading a photo blog. I'm also working on my EmergeNYC project (which has taken on many forms) but right now looks like it's going to be some sort of art installation. I've also had the chance to catch up with people I haven't seen in awhile and some of my favorite friends and mentors. And yes... on Saturday afternoons, I put on a giant Rubix Cube costume and dance around Times Square to promote "The Awesome 80's Prom" (see photo above) It's an amazing experience! For real. I'm super grateful to be doing it. I have do a lot of theatre promotions in the past and always have a blast meeting and getting to talk with the most fascinating people in Times Square but stepping into a large box makes interactions with people even more interesting. You wouldn't believe the things people will say to a woman in a box. This brings me to a larger idea... somebody needs to write an ethnography on street teams and the people in Times Square who sell "tickets to stand up comedy" (among many other things). The majority of us are all actors/dancers/singers/some sort of performers trying to make it in NYC... so aside from the fascinating people you meet along the way, it becomes a networking opportunity and chance to run into old friends.

Robby, Casey and I recently started doing "The Artist's Way" (http://www.theartistsway.com/). I did it years ago during my angsty high school years. I only got to week 3 (and never did the "morning pages"). Thankfully, things are working much better now...

I decided that I'm going to read all of the books that have been stacking up this past year before I go to new material. I think everybody does this at one point or another. This strategy has been working... a little. It was fine until I became obsessed with "Regarding the Pain of Others" and Sontag's work and took a detour only to read Sontag. Oh well. I got through six books before I got onto the Sontag kick. I'm reading one of her biographies now. It's outdated, as it leaves off about two years before her death. My Sontag kick couldn't have come at a better time, as I'm completely obsessed with photography.

Still have many more books to get through including...

Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postmen
The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew: Three Women Search for Understanding, Rayna Idilby/Suzanne Oliver/Priscella Warner
Take this Bread, Sarah Miles
Radiant Mind, Jean Smith
Restaging the Sixties: Radical Theaters and Their Legacies, Hurling and Rosenthal
Performance Studies: An Introduction, Richard Schechner
Legislative Theatre, Augusto Boal
Who Sings the Nation State? Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak

I hope by the time I return to this post, I will at least have gotten through half this list.

The audition front has been very slow but it doesn't matter to me because I have a ton of directing projects and COTE related events keeping me busy until November. We have auditions coming up on August 9th and 10th for our fall projects and outside of COTE, I am working with the Manhattan Theatre Source's "Estrogenius Festival" and directing a one-act play at the American Theatre of Actors called "Inseminary" by Dicky Murphy. This runs August 20th-24th. I am also working with the East Village Community Coalition, organizing a bike parade (for October). I'm thrilled to be doing community organizing and to have the opportunity to work within my own community - Alphabet City and the Lower East Side.

Sometime between now and the end of August I'm going to be sending in an audition tape to Globe Trekker. I have one... it just needs major editing. I will probably need a MAC for that project...

Labels: random musings

Labels: random life aspirations, random quotes

I'm creating a performance art/visual/photography installation for The Hemispheric Institutes's EmergeNYC commission that will be held this October in New York City. I'm developing this piece around interviews/literature that I've received from hundreds of people regarding beliefs in the "end of time"/"end of the world"/"doomsday"/"Apocalypse"/"rapture" and I'm collecting drawings/doodles/sketches/painting/collages etc. (anything you can think of... be as creative as you would like) from anonymous sources and individuals around the country of how you think the world will meet its end (If, indeed, you do believe that there is an end). Will humans destroy themselves through nuclear war and/or global warming? Do you think there will be a final battle between aliens and humans? Will God come back to earth? Will there be no "end"?

Whatever you believe, put it on paper and send to:

Interpretations of the End Art Project
375 Kirby Avenue
Elberon, NJ, 07740

Your work will be featured in my upcoming performance art piece beginning in October 2008 and in any other manifestations that this project takes.

I will also be spending some time in Union Square and Washington Square Park on the following days, collecting drawings from anyone who stops by. I'll have paper, markers, crayons and art supplies available but feel free to also bring your own if you prefer anything specific:

Saturday, July 19th from 1:00pm - 4:00 pm in Washington Square Park. (Under the Garibaldi Statue)
Sunday, July 20th from 1:00 - 4:00 in Washington Square Park. (Under the Garibaldi Statue) Friday, July 25th from 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm in Union Square Park. (Under the Gandhi Statue.... Southwest Side)

*** If you are planning on sending submissions through the mail, please keep them to 11x14 size and smaller.

To be put on this project's mailing list e-mail arm391@nyu.edu .
(Credit provided. There is no pay. All submissions become property of "Interpretations of the End Art Project")

Thanks so much!

Labels: Interpretations of the End, What To Do Incase You Miss The Rapture

Pictures from 4th of July Weekend... (details below)

Labels: COTE, photography

In the midst of all these things... I still need to find a "money job".

Lots of projects in process. I am getting ready to work on directing a play for Manhattan Theatre Source's Estrogenius Festival in October ( http://www.theatresource.org/estro.htm ). I haven't found out yet which play they've given me but I know the four possibilities. I recently interviewed with the Artistic Director of the American Theatre of Actors, James Jennings, last week to talk about potential directing gigs. He gave me several plays to read. If all goes well, I will be directing three shows there per season.

COTE is going well. We're in the middle of our "Summer Park Meet-ups", where we gather in Washington Square Park on Monday nights at 7pm and read plays/play theatre games. We'll be continuing through August where we'll be reading submissions of works in progress that playwrights/screenwriters have been sending to us. We have an exciting season planned for 2008-09. We'll be announcing it in August as soon as we hear back from the rights/royalties and theatre rental spaces. This week we're deciding on the final selection of one-acts that we'll be presenting in September at The Tank.

Auditions have been a little slow these past few weeks post Springboard. I've had about two per week but there is nothing more that I am really right for. I know this will pick up in September. In the meantime, it's given me the opportunity to work on my solo-performance/photography/visual art instillation piece that I'm working on through the Hemispheric Institutes's EmergeNYC Lab called, "What to Do In case You Miss the Rapture", which is basically an exploration into the current "end times/apocalyptic" obsession that Americans have. I'm collecting interviews/stories/writings/drawings from all different types.

My EmergeNYC Colleague Beatrice is working on a fantastic action (please see details below). If you are in the NYC area on July 16th, you definitely should come and participate.

*****

Dearest Friendly Friends,

I am creating a viral, collaborative piece, “Crime on13th,” for the Hemispheric Institute’s EmergeNYC commission that will be shown this October in New York (yes, I will be living in Peru by then) and am sincerely asking for your participation.
I have been compiling different NYC Crime Maps like“Death by Lover,” “Death by Sibling,” “Death byStranger,” “Stabbing,” “Gunshot,” “Robbery” etc. Ihave restricted the time frame to 2004-Present (the time I have lived here). Contrary to popular belief ofEast Village’s façade as a safe neighborhood, I foundthat the 13th Street that I lived on to be quite thehaunted path…with bodies in trunks...rapists on theloose and…! I have had an intruder in my bedroom aswell as suffer a horrific chase.
Therefore, I would like to involve everyone in a WHISTLE BLOWING 'vigil.' Each one of us will bestationed at a specific crime scene with a whistle. Starting in Alphabet City, the whistle-shrieks willform a sound-chain through violated spaces indomino-effect until reaching Broadway by Grace Church.
Please respond if you would like to participate or ifyou have a story to share. Ideally, I am looking for25 whistler blowers to cover the grounds. It willhappen on Wednesday July 16th at 8:30 PM. We willmeet at 8 PM to take positions and distributewhistles. Credit will be given to participants.

THANKSA BUNCH and I hope to see everyone before I leave!

Positivity, love, luck,
Beatrice

Labels: COTE, EMERGENYC, What To Do Incase You Miss The Rapture

The American regional theatre movement is nearing disaster. Without an adequate sense of tradition or sense of social responsibility, it is in danger of becoming a movement whose only purpose is self-perpetuation. This idealistic movement begun some generations ago has been unable to achieve a living wage for its actors, a livelihood for its playwrights; it demands that its designers accept twelve to fifteen productions a year just to make ends meet, and forgoes its responsibility to train directors while permitting, under the heading of financial survival, the average income of its audiences to climb higher and higher, under this once bastion of social ideals and aesthetic concerns has become the plaything of the upper middle class and very wealthy. How did this happen?

-Richard Nelson

Saw Mike Daisey's "How Theater Failed America" last night at the Barrow Street Theatre. Brilliant. If I had seen it before its closing night, I would have probably been back several times. There was an excellent roundtable to follow the performance, which included Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director of the Public Theater), Richard Nelson, Jayne Houdyshell, Gregory Mosher, Aaron Landesman, John Eisner and Garrett Eisler. I definitely look forward to applying some of the issues and suggestions to reclaim the theatre, to COTE. Mike Daisey will be back in New York in the fall with a new monologue called "If You See Something, Say Something". I'll be there for sure.

Labels: How Theater Failed America, Mike Daisey

random life aspirations (in no particular order):

*own a feminist/progressive book store and coffee shop
*direct or/and write a play that starts a revolution (or at least a riot)
*finish a PhD before I'm 30
*do international relief/aid work
*spend quality time at a buddhist monastery in india
*live without a cell phone for a month
*get a nose piercing and a cedar tree tattoo on my back
*run a groundbreaking cultural organization
*have an art/photography installation at a gallery or museum
*visit the "1000 places to see before you die" (according to the 2007 edition of the book...apparently there is a new edition every few years)
*create my own "1000 places to see before you die"
*grow my hair super long and then shave it all off and allow it to grow back in its natural color without ever dying it again
*finish reading all of the books in my current library
*foster cats
*host a "dinner party" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dinner_Party)
*have a vegetable garden
*have lunch with hillary clinton
*go on a national tour with a show or performer or performance collective
*host a travel show
*do an arts/theatre rehabilitation program with prisoners
*start an arts/theatre initiative with refugees
*become fluent in arabic, french and spanish (because I want to do it... not because the academy tells me it will look good on transcripts)
*have the ability to know word meanings/definitions just based on their latin or greek prefix or suffix (in other words have a familiarization with latin and greek)

to be continued...

Labels: personal lists, random life aspirations