WRITERS’ THEATRE NEEDS YOUR VOTES TO WIN!

Broadway World Chicago launched a new Theatre Fans’ Choice Awards and Writers’ Theatre has earned seven nominations.  We need your votes to win!  Voting is open to the public through December 20, so be sure to cast your vote and support Writers’ Theatre and our fabulous nominees.

To cast your vote, click here!

Writers’ Theatre nominations of Broadway World Chicago Theatre Fans’ Choice Awards:

• Best Revival of a Play (Resident Equity) – A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
• Best Revue (Resident Equity) – OH COWARD!
• Best Actress in a Musical or Revue (Resident Equity) – Kate Fry, OH COWARD!
• Best Actor a Musical or Revue (Resident Equity) – Rob Lindley, OH COWARD!
• Best Actress in a Play (Resident Equity) – Natasha Lowe, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
• Best Actor in a Play (Resident Equity) – Allen Gilmore, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD
• Best Scenic Design (Resident Equity) – Colette Pollard, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

The winners will be announced on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at a celebration hosted by Broadway World Chicago at The Call (1547 West Bryn Mawr Avenue) from 9:00 pm-2:00 am.  For more information about the event, click here.

Congratulations to all of the nominees and thank you for supporting Writers’ Theatre!

Officially, it is closing week of  Streetcar and we must bid adieu to a summer of joy-filled memories.  Each night we celebrate the last performance of each calendar day and matinee, costume change and tossed chicken.  Of all the “goodbyes” dolled out, it might seem hard to place which one sits highest in our affections–however it is quite simple in the end.

Although endlessly endearing, it won’t be Danny’s weekly changing backstage game.  One week it was pronouncing lines, names, characters or actors names backwards (Natasha’s is “Ah Satan”).  Another week it was serenading everyone with cheesy 70′s rock ballades.  Currently, we are in the thick of some heated staring contests.  It isn’t the charm of Loren Lazerine’s logorian, uncensored internal monologue externalized.  It isn’t the utter and complete joy that I receive when squashing Ryan Hallahan in our regular scrimmage of scrabble.  Nor is it the consistently cunning, dry wit of our stage manager David Castellanos.

Today we mourn the loss of our greatest source of camaraderie during our run.  Every single person in the cast (and some staff) has communed with “Nancy” and yesterday (our last Tuesday performance), she left us.  We liked to pass her around–usually with four at a time.  I think Matt noticed it first…”does she look down?  Looks like she’s lost some air.”

“I don’t know, let’s just keep going.”

So we send her around a little bit more and surely, our lovely lady becomes more and more deflated.  *Oh this is so difficult to write about, now.  My hands are trembling.  Finally Danny comes out to make it official.  He steps in, gives her one last good slam and then we had to say goodbye to our best friend in the show.

Our four square ball: Nancy.

The rest of this week is dedicated to you!

(Clockwise from top left) Matt Hawkins, Esteban Cruz, Loren Lazerine, Danny McCarthy, Andrew Burden Swanson and Ryan Hallahan mourn the loss of "Nancy," their foursquare ball

Andrew Burden Swanson, ensemble cast member of Writers’ Theatre’s A Streetcar Named Desire, details his journey towards joining the production.

About a month and a half ago, I found myself suffering under a common mental strain which plagues nearly every college age theatre artist.  Once you find yourself spending hours on end looking through job ads for data entry and temporary administrative assistance, these questions seem more and more like a bag of bricks on your back: “What am I doing in theatre? What have I done spending all this time and money on a profession with so little chance of success at it’s end? What am I worth?”

These sorts of questions can cripple a person’s self esteem, and in the world of theatre (in acting especially) low self-esteem can be a death sentence. The month of April provided me with a perfect platform for these sorts of questions to all come spilling out at once. I was days from finishing the first semester of my sophomore year in college (after three years of study); I was unemployed, and as an actor my experience was less than amateur. I felt five steps behind the starting line after struggling through half a marathon.  Needless to say, before the end of April, I was not feeling great about my career choice as an actor. With the level of talent and professionalism in this city, there seemed little room for a kid like me to have any ground to stand on. Before the end of April my path did not seem like the wisest and my morale had suffered from a year of poor auditions and mind-splitting financial woes.

At the end of April, the weather changed and my sails were filled with a surprising, even supernatural wind.  Believe it or not, Facebook deserves some thanks. I received a message from an administrator here at Writers’ Theatre requesting my presence to meet with director David Cromer and discuss my potential involvement with his production of A Streetcar Named Desire, which was at that time scheduled to begin previews in eight days or something ridiculous. As is to be expected, I assumed some very cruel friend of mine had played a prank on me, making my response seem rather ominous and maybe even a little insulted. However, much to my enjoyment, the meeting with David took place, our discussion went well, and I was added into a cast filled with actors I had been reading about for years. This play has saved my summer, my chances of returning to college and my faith in myself as an artist. I may never truly discover how this casting choice came into fruition, but I am now,and will forever be grateful to Writers’ Theatre for creating that shift in my life and allowing such a tiny fish into a pond as rich and stocked full of talent as this one.

Hello and welcome to the Writers’ Theatre blog!  I’m Carolyn Nelson and I play the Colored Woman & Matron in our production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire.  Here’s a backstage look at our show.

We thought it appropriate to start where we start: at the beginning.  We have a large cast of 12 people.  This gives us many ways to warm up and get ourselves ready for the production everyday.  The most popular way seems to be “4 Square.”

( Clockwise starting left) Ryan Hallahan, Esteban Andres Cruz, Ed Flynn and Patrick Holland.

(Clockwise starting bottom left) Patrick Holland, Danny McCarthy, Esteban Andres Cruz, Andrew Porter and Matt Hawkins.

As it gets closer to curtain time, our warm-up takes on a different twist.  It’s calmer.  Actors now concentrate on the characters they are becoming.

Stanley Kowalski (played by Matthew Hawkins)

Stella Kowalski (played by Stacy Stolz)

Steve Hubbell (played by Loren Lazerine)

(From left) Our stage manager (David “Coach” Castellanos), the Mexican Woman (played by Rosario Vargas) and Eunice Hubbell (played by Jenn Engstrom)

Blanche DuBois (played by Natasha Lowe) makes sure that everything is ready for her departure to New Orleans.

So there you have it.  A little peek into the pre-boarding process of A Streetcar Named Desire.  We hope you get a chance to come see our show!

Here’s a quick recap of rehearsal last week:

Tuesday, April 27

First day in the space! Because of the intimate nature of the space and the reality of some of the set pieces, we spent a good deal of time today exploring sightlines (the audience’s view of the stage). We have a bed with a large headboard and Blanche’s all-important trunk that holds many props and costume pieces. Both are quite large and primary pieces of Stanley and Stella’s bedroom. We spent a good hour today doing the “bed-and-trunk dance.” Many of you may not know what this dance is, but we know it well. Basically we all sat around in various seats and configured the bed and desk in as many orientations as we could come up with to see what would work best.  Director David Cromer and set designer Collette Pollard have worked tirelessly to create the audience experience of peering into this home. It is a unique and intensifying theatrical experience that will certainly bring you closer to this play.

This morning we also went to our draper’s home in Logan Square, where Blanche (Natasha Lowe) tried on some of the original costumes designed by Janice Pytel. This involved Janice, Janice’s assistant, Cromer, myself, Carolyn (the draper) and Carolyn’s assistant all sipping coffee and standing around Natasha, scrutinizing her in-process and lovely costume pieces. We make sure it fits perfectly and has a great sense of vitality.

Wednesday, April 28

Today, we add lights and sound. We started from the top and have been working our way through the show. After 4 hours of technical rehearsal, we got through about 15 minutes of show, which—to be perfectly honest—is pretty impressive considering the technical complexity of this play. We spent some time creating the opening moment and its encompassing soundscape. Cromer really wants to introduce the street, the neighborhood, New Orleans and then “zoom into” Stanley and Stella’s home, where our play unfolds. We are working with live sound and recorded sound to create this. Two actors walk past a bank of seats to create a conversation. Another actor runs around back and through the dressing room, shouting lines, to give the sense he’s walking around the block. Then we have the recorded sounds of the “Blue Piano” (a jazz club around the corner). All the sound and original music have been carefully and beautifully composed by sound designer Josh Schmidt. We rehearsed this over and over, tweaking cues and timing to make the sounds happening all around the audience jibe with each other. And we’ll continue to do so over the next week.

Friday, April 30

Today we spent approximately 3 hours “teching” Scene 6. It’s about a 15-minute scene that takes place when Mitch and Blanche return home from their date. It’s a beautifully written, sweet and emotionally powerful scene. The work that the design team is doing to enhance this beauty is full of nuance and takes time to develop and hone. Again, it’s totally worth it.

This scene takes place around 2 AM, so we really want to achieve that pitch black, middle-of-the-nigh moonlit effect. Most of the scene is lit by actual candlelight, which is quite exciting as it takes on a sense of life and possesses a much different quality of light than the theatrical lighting instruments we’re using elsewhere. To highlight certain moments in this scene, Lighting Designer Heather Gilbert and Master Electrician Margaret Hartmann focus their lights to bathe the characters in just enough moonlight so we can see their faces. Blanche has a very powerful—and informative—monologue in this scene, and Heather focuses this one light (beautifully, amazingly) on only Blanche’s face. It takes time to get just the right amount of light in just the right place, but affords the moment such beauty, power and intimacy.

We began preview performances this week, where we tweak and rehearse during the day and perform the show for audiences at night. Check back for more updates!

Josh

Well, folks. We’re in the midst of tech week, when the entire company moves into the theatre to finish creating each and every delicately crafted moment of the play, beautifully syncing the work of the actors, designers and every collaborator.  I will post soon about everything that happens during tech, but in the meantime here are some notes from our previous week of rehearsal.

We staged the final scene and began to revisit the rest of the play. Actors are working tirelessly to get off-book. Designers and members of the company are visiting rehearsal to discuss props and costumes. Actors are bouncing in and out of rehearsal to go over to Tudor Court for costume fittings. Claudia, the dialect coach, comes in to visit and work with actors. David Woolley, the fight choreographer, and his assistant Charlie have come in to stage several significant moments of violence.

As Cromer said to me on the drive home a few days ago, “We’re deep into Streetcar.”

And we certainly are. Cromer has said that this play is incredibly unwieldy. I looked up the definition of unwieldy and the word could not be more apt for the situation.

unwieldy: difficult to carry or move because of its size, shape, or weight

It really feels that way. First of all, there’s just so much play. 11 big ol’ scenes—some of which are really several scenes, spread out over 3 acts. Tons of props, tons of costumes, on stage violence, accents, emotional depths like you wouldn’t believe: I could go on and on. This play has it all.

This is truly the joy and the challenge of the play. It tests us, stretches us, and is, ultimately, a great gift.

While we, of course, spend lots of time discussing the character journeys and themes, we also dedicate a great deal of time to all the practicalities the play forces us to confront.

One of the most significant challenges—and also the most fun—is the stage violence. There are three moments of violence in the play. Each is carefully crafted and rehearsed endlessly so it functions like a well-oiled machine but appears to be a fresh and impromptu fight.

Our biggest fight in the show is during the poker scene. It involves nearly every character in the play. A radio is shattered; there is fighting in the bedroom, in the kitchen, even in the off-stage shower. I don’t want to give away too much about this moment, but, if you know the play, you know what a pivotal point this is.

Meanwhile, over at Tudor Court, the set is being loaded in. Piece by piece it comes, but the basic structure is there and it’s darn exciting. Stanley and Stella’s home juts out into the space, and the audience surrounds it. There are 9-foot doorways that make for fascinating theatrical architecture and there is even a staircase up to Steve and Eunice’s apartment (characters who live above Stanley and Stella). It’s so neat to have a staircase on stage. Seeing people walk up and down stairs may seem mundane and banal, but it’s actually beautiful and interesting. I can’t wait to see what it all looks like under lights…

More soon!

Josh

Hi there!  My name is Josh Altman and I’m the assistant director for Writers’ Theatre’s upcoming production of A Streetcar Named Desire.  Every week I’ll post an entry to the Writers’ Theatre blog, sharing my insights on the process, letting you know what we’ve been up to in the rehearsal room and design meetings, and how we’re approaching this challenging and thrilling text.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is one of the greatest, most-revered plays in the American theatrical canon.  One of Williams’ earlier works (and his first Pulitzer prize), this play is full of fascinating relationships, uniquely crafted characters, bright comedy and painful tragedy.

This play has been put into the hands of one of America’s most exciting directors: David Cromer.  Cromer is known for creating exciting, deeply honest and moving productions that cut to the core of the play and reveal its insides.  This production is sure to do no less.

One of my favorite things about Writers’ is how they choose these mammoth plays and present them in one of their two extremely intimate spaces.  The action of the play happens, literally, right in front of you.  You can feel it.

Needless to say, it’s an exciting rehearsal room to be in.  Some wonderful artists—some who have collaborated before and some meeting for the first time—have all started to come together and bring this production to fruition.

At the first rehearsal, Cromer addressed the company about the power of Williams’ texts:

“We go from the everyday, the practical, to the poetic, the lyrical. The practical leads us to the high poetry, high tragedy.”  This really is a gift that Williams gives us.  His language is so beautiful and so powerful, that if we just climb the rungs of the ladder he has built for us, it will guide us to these powerful poetic moments.

Cromer also discussed “the body and the spirit” and how they feed and combat one another.  We’ve been exploring the “ecstatic connection” that Stanley and Stella have through their bodies and how that informs their spiritual connection—and how the body and spirit connect in all our relationships.

Over the past week, we’ve been exploring the first act of the play.  We read a scene, we talk about a scene, we do it on its feet, and then we continue this process.  As we chug along, we learn more about each character and the play as a whole.  The beginning of this rehearsal process is so exciting because, even though we are all so familiar with the play, we are learning so much about it (and from it) as we let it play out.

What’s so exciting about watching Cromer work with these actors is how he astutely breaks down the action of the scene.  When we pause to discuss, we are simply discussing what is happening to characters and, most importantly, what is going on between the two characters.  How they feel about one another, what they want, and how what’s happened before informs what’s happening right now in the play.

Another thing that we’ve found in this first act is how often characters have stops and starts and false starts in their dialogue, especially with Blanche and Stella who have several meaty scenes in this first act.  These two sisters often have fundamental moral differences on various issues.  Even in their first scene, there are little “cracks” that develop, forcing the characters to take a new tactic in their effort to connect.  It will be exciting to see how these discoveries inform our work on the next two acts of the play.

Oh, and we’ve also been playin’ some poker.  Scene Three is titled “The Poker Night” (also the title of an early draft of the play).  Stan, Mitch, Steve and Pablo have a very long night of poker playing so we’ve been having some fun practicing five card draw, seven card stud and getting the game to match up perfectly with the script.

I’ll leave you this week with a little information on the physical environment of the play.  Tudor Court has been reconfigured and there will be seating all around the set.  Cromer and set designer Collette Pollard are going to make us to feel like we are sitting in Stella and Stanley’s apartment with these characters.  We will be so close to the action, and each angle will provide a completely different perspective on the experience.

Check back in soon to find out what we’re up to!

Josh

We have moved from our own “church home,” the rehearsal space at the Glencoe Union Church, to the theatre at 325 Tudor Court and the tech process has begun.  Jack Magaw’s brilliant set is structurally complete and new details are being added each day; it already feels like the home of Elizabeth Borny in 1943.  Ron is working with our lighting designer Heather Gilbert and Josh Schmidt, the sound designer, to create the sense of time, place and focus in the story.  Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Duke Ellington play as light pours in from the window that overlooks the Harlem street.  The actors are doing final fittings and rehearsing quick changes of Nan Cibula-Jenkins’ marvelous costumes.  Life is really starting to buzz in the world we are creating.

Even in the tech process, Ron takes time with the actors, continuing to finely craft their relationships.  He and the ladies spoke about the dynamics of an older sibling versus a younger sibling.  “The younger child is the jewel of the family, no matter how old they get,” Cheryl Lynn pointed out.  And John Henry Redwood includes these details in the relationship between Elizabeth and Quilly; though they are both in their fifties, there are moments in which we can see the girls they once were.  Moreover, we see the protection and support the elder gives the younger and the way the younger “still thinks they can get away with everything,” as Wandachristine has put it.

There is no place more potent for these sister relationships than in the kitchen.  There is an intimacy about this room in any house or apartment.  It is a communal place where meals are made and eaten in love and in strife.  On Jack’s set, the kitchen is Elizabeth’s “heart” and Ron is taking advantage of this intimacy, staging some lovely moments in this “woman’s space.”  In many ways, this kitchen is just as much a creation of Cheryl Lynn as it is of Ron and Jack.  She has helped imagine which items Elizabeth would have used in this space during the time period.  Our prop designer, Sarah Ross, has acquired cans of evaporated milk, containers of Alaga syrup and other items to which the actresses have attached personal significance for Quilly and Elizabeth.  It is rare that Husband goes into this charged space, and when he does, you can be sure that it’s electric.

More next week!

Jack
Assistant Director

We’ve completed our second week of rehearsal.  Each day, someone brings in something delectable to eat to share with our little family: clementines or caramel corn or cake.  And we continue to flesh out this intensely personal play, even as tragedy strikes in Haiti and Ron and the actors have a moment of silence for the passing of their friend and colleague, the actor Paul Butler.

John Henry Redwood had a PhD in religion, and religion figures prominently in his plays.  As Ron has pointed out, “the church is an important character in The Old Settler.”  The moment we meet the sisters, they have come from a funeral at their church.  Ron states, “it’s a typical Black church, with big hearts, lots of love and worship…. and of course, cliques, gossip and rumors.”  Quilly and Elizabeth speak about Sister Laidlaw, Sister Wallace, Deacon Slater and other characters whom we never meet but who form the fabric of the church community to which they belong.  Cheryl Lynn and Wandachristine mused that one of the first things their own families do after moving from one house to another is “find a church home.”

Cheryl Lynn reflected, “my favorite part of church is the devotional: usually the older folks arriving before the official service and taking part in thanking the lord, singing and calling, each in turn, responding to one another with their eyes closed.”  This music lingers, to be sure: each time we rehearse “Satan, We’re Gonna Tear Your Kingdom Down,” a deliciously palpable energy remains in the rehearsal room.

Redwood also held a degree in history and he vividly paints 1943 Harlem in The Old Settler.  The audience sees this historic New York through the eyes of Husband, who has come from the sea islands of South Carolina.  The sisters (and the City itself) teach the young man about some of the particulars of the time: “pimp steaks,” “swamp seeds” and “Kitchen Mechanics’ Night.”  The characters speak in their own particular, historic vernacular.  “Redwood is a Wilsonite,” Ron explained.  He definitely drew from what August Wilson was doing, both in terms of poetic language as well as historical significance.

The play also explores the conditions in pre-civil rights New York.  Even though they are in the North, Elizabeth warns, the situation is not necessarily better for African-Americans, “in many ways it’s worse.”  1943 is a tumultuous year and, as Ron pointed out, “even though the play is not about that specifically, the effects of these conditions are brought into the apartment by the characters.”  For instance, Redwood touches on the propaganda created by whites using the fear of venereal disease and crime occurring at the Savoy Ballroom to try to get it closed down, presumably because white men were upset about white women dancing with black men.  This is the world into which Husband is plunged when he finally finds his Lou Bessie.

Ron describes the process of crafting a play in terms of human development: “we’re embryos right now and we’re growing,” he has said.  He continues to draw life experience from the actors.  He has also invited them to include their own old photographs among the numerous frames Elizabeth keeps in her home.  Even images of Ron and his grandfather are going to make an appearance on the set.

Until next week!

Jack
Assistant Director

We’ve finished our first week of rehearsal and already it has been an amazing experience.  Working with Ron O.J Parson and the cast, I am learning so much.  Since the play centers around the relationship between two sisters, Ron has encouraged the cast to share their own familial experiences in the rehearsal hall, especially as they relate to the events of the play.  It’s thrilling, the details that come to the surface.

Since the play takes place in 1943 in Harlem during the war, we’ve broached the topic of conservation.  Cheryl Lynn has revealed that, because of her mother’s influence, she finds herself conserving paper towels at home, rinsing them and hanging them to dry in the kitchen—a detail that Ron has decided to include in the production.  Don’t be surprised if you see used paper towels hanging in the kitchen on the set!

At moments in the play, Elizabeth sings a couple of snippets of gospel tunes. On a break, Cheryl Lynn started singing “Satan, we’re gonna tear your kingdom down” and accidentally started snapping her fingers. She stopped herself abruptly and informed me that this was not allowed.  With all of the singing, clapping and swaying that happens in Southern Baptist churches, apparently it is not appropriate to snap your fingers to “church music!”  “And no whistling either,” she added.  Who knew…  Wandachristine chimed in to include that “oh yeah, on Sundays we were very restricted about what we were allowed to do: no playing cards for example… that’s Jesus’ day.”  The sense of religion is so important in the play and the actors already have a strong personal connection to it.  It’s this “love for the king” and reliving of going to a country church that is part of the initial connection between Husband and Elizabeth.

The character of “Husband” has come to Harlem from Frogmore, South Carolina in search of his long lost love. So, we’ve been chatting about the “geechee” people and their culture. “Geechee,” a derivation of the Ogeechee River, is another name for the Gullah people of South Carolina who, because of cultural and geographical isolation, have maintained much of their African culture. This is an area that Cheryl Lynn knows well and she has brought in both literature and personal experience which she’s shared with us. At one point in the play, Quilly says that Husband must have Elizabeth “fixed,” meaning that he must have put some kind of spell on her. The “geechee” area is still known for its medicine men, often known as “Doctor Buzzard,” and their use of roots and concoctions to protect people from “hags” and evil spirits. Here’s a link to some information compiled by Joseph A Opala of Yale that covers some of the Gullah customs and traditions more thoroughly:

http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/05.htm

It’s really no wonder that the good people of Writers’ Theatre wanted Ron to direct for them.  He is definitely an “actor’s director.”  As he and the actors work, he reminds them that they are not “blocking” the play, because “blocking blocks creativity.”  Ron prefers to think of the work as “crafting.”  And as he shares ideas with the cast, he will often speak of “feeding two birds with one seed” instead of the more popular “killing two birds with one stone.”  His openness, experience and gentle hand with the actors has inspired a tremendously personal process that is certain to grow into quite the amazing production!

That’s all for this week!

Jack
Assistant Director