Twelfth Night, or What You Will

I was lucky enough to score an invitation to see a dress rehearsal for Pig Iron's Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, their offering to the 2011 Live Arts Festival. As expected, it was a fantastic production.

The set was distressed and gray with a skater park-like half-pipe that was used with great energy. The music by Rosie Langabeer and performed by a motley Balkan Band became a character in itself. Sometimes the band existed as a band for a character to listen to. Other times the band was in cahoots with a character, listening to his cues and acting accordingly.

The basic premise of Twelfth Night is such:

Girl washes up on beach, disguises herself as boy. Girl, disguised as boy, falls in love with Duke. Woos lady on behalf of Duke. Lady falls in love with girl-disguised-as-boy. Longing ensues. As does the imbibing of enormous quantities of alcohol, plus outrageously melodramatic breakdowns to “the saddest music in the world.”

And then her brother shows up, adding to the madness.

My two favorite actors in this show were Dito van Reigersberg as the Duke and James Sugg as Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's drunken uncle. The play opens with a depressed Duke calling for music to ease his soul. Van Reigersberg's entrance was protracted and hilarious and took 'depression hurts' to a new level. His physical embodiment of the Duke's emotions was terrific.

Sugg's Toby was reminiscent of an aging British rock star, all colorful suits, crazy hair, and a kicked out leg that constantly tapped to some beat only he could hear. Toby has the most fun with the band, guiding them through his malicious prank like a mad band leader.

My brother came to the show with me and explained afterward that he was surprised in a good way by the casting. Typically Sir Toby is cast as a large man. (I didn't pick up his last name during the show so wasn't expecting that.) And the fool Feste is typically slender and lean - a Harlequin known for his physical agility.

Pig Iron reversed these types to great success. Toby is a sexy, crazy man who inspires a party. And Feste is a monkish sort, always one step ahead of everyone else.

When I got home I looked up Twelfth Night because I wasn't sure how the title related to the plot. I saw Shakespeare in Love so know that Queen Judi Dench asked for the play to be performed on Twelfth Night but it had to be more than that.

Thanks to Wikipedia I learned that the play was written for Twelfth Night entertainment. In Shakespeare's time Twelfth Night had changed from a Catholic holiday to a day of festivities and debauchery - servants dressed up as their masters, man as women, etc. This mood of revelry and reversals inspired the plot, and the title lets the audience know good times are coming.

Pig Iron certainly played up the revelry. An exciting, insane moment was when Toby gets married. A party ensues on stage.

This is a version of Twelfth Night, or What You Will not to be missed. It is running the length of the festival at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre. Go, go, go!

All the show information can be found here.

Learn more about Pig Iron Theatre Company here.

Kickstarter

We began a Kickstarter campaign that is already a success with 10 days left!

We are campaigning for funds to pay our production staff, as well as cover the supply costs for the set and other design elements. Eric will construct and reshape our main set structure during each of our five performances in the Fringe Festival. We anticipate needing several backup pieces in case Eric is particularly zealous during a show.

The budget is as follows:

$300 for stipends for our cast and crew

$200 for building materials

Since we have hit our goal of $500 (and recently crossed the $600 mark) I will be updating our Kickstarter page to include details about what any additional dollars will support.

Please review the list of contributors in the sidebar and if you know anyone personally give them a hug for me.  Craig and I are so grateful for everyone's support.

Thank you,
Jillian

Chance to win free passes

UWISHUNU is giving away the chance to win a pair of passes to three Live Arts and Fringe shows.

One lucky Grand Prize winner will receive:


• Two vouchers to any Live Arts and Fringe Festival event
• Two vouchers to a performance of Traces
• Two vouchers to the Thursday, September 8 performance of the Green Fairy Cabaret

Click here to enter.  Just plan on using your two voucher for any performance to come see Straw, Stick, Brick,.

Huzzah!

The postcards are in!!  Liz Semon, our marketing guru, did a fantastic job.  And a big thank you for Fireball Printing for their discounts and for shipping the postcards in a box with a couple of fireball candies.

Why Theater Rocks

I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.


This supremacy of the theater derives from the fact that it is always 'now' on the stage.

-Thornton Wilder

(from The Paris Review: Playwrights at Work)

Philly Fun Guide

So one of the many emails I have received from Craig (the man behind the Fringy curtain) mentioned listing our event on Philly Fun Guide.


The site lists all sorts of things to do in and around Philadelphia - including Straw, Stick, Brick,!  Check out our page here and feel free to add a comment about how excited you are to see the show.  (Shameless, I know.)

Then hunt around the Guide for other things to do like attending the Crabfest at City Tap House or watching a Revolutionary War Reenactment.

(By the way, Philly Fun Guide is kind of stalking me.  I had posted a link to our page on the Facebook event I created and suddenly my activity was on their home page.  It knows what I shared!!  Freaky technology.)

The Poster Is Ready!!

A HUGE THANK YOU to Liz Semon for creating the awesome poster for Straw, Stick, Brick,!

Liz also created our postcards which I'll be ordering this week.  It's official - the countdown to opening begins!  T-minus 30 days.

Conundrum

Do you know what the most difficult aspect of playwriting is? I'll tell you. It's dealing with the money people. The commercial end of it is the most appalling part. The demands for changes and rewrites don't bother me if they're made by the director, and I think they're intelligent demands. But when the money people get into the act, you're in trouble.

-Tennessee Williams

(from The Paris Review: Playwrights at Work)

So I am both a playwright and the producer for Straw, Stick, Brick,.  Does this mean I will find it extremely difficult to work with myself?

Tickets are on sale!!!!

The 2011 Philadelphia Live Arts & Fringe Festival website is up and running!

Here is a link to the main page.

But you can buy tickets to Straw, Stick, Brick, here.

Only $10 each - hopefully nice and accessible.  We will only accept cash at the door so if you want to buy tickets with your card, please visit the website.  See you there!

Building Blocks

The jumping off point for Straw, Stick, Brick, was a one-man show by Charles L. Mee called The House of Cards.

The House of Cards is part of the (re)making project.  The description of the project begins as such:

There is no such thing as an original play.

Mee then encourages playwrights viewing the plays on the project website to use the plays as resources for new work.  He advises to pillage his plays in order to create an entirely new piece that truly belongs to the playwright.

Craig was drawn to The House of Cards because hee enjoyed the tactile nature built into the structure of the play – throughout the running monologue the actor builds a house of cards.  The stage directions read:

A man builds a house of cards throughout the entire piece
 so that the house of cards becomes a vast, elaborate structure.

He was thrilled by the intrinsic metaphor and the action during the play.

I, to no one’s surprise, was terrified by the concept.

Building a house of cards for twenty minutes (Mee’s running time) was scary enough.  We wanted to lengthen our production to around 45 minutes.  That is a long time to stack cards and not have any fall down.  A cough from an audience member in the front row might be enough to bring down the house.  Literally.

I’m a bit of a worrywart and the idea made me itchy.

Luckily, Craig didn’t want to poach the tangible idea of the play if we were thinking of using some of Mee’s text.  So we tabled any discussion of what would be built until we had a better understanding of what our play would ultimately be about.

We know Eric will be building something during the show; we discussed building multiple somethings for a bit.  Eric at a table with different types of supplies – think versions of straw, sticks and bricks.  (I personally loved this idea because he only had to make something exist for about 15 minutes before it was dismantled and a new supply was used.)

Currently we are considering the show in the round with Eric building in the center.  No table so the structure might be tall.  Still some dismantling and rebuilding.  But the movements will be bigger.  No longer tethered to a table Eric can move around the space, fetch supplies from behind the audience, etc.

I have my personal ideas for what Eric will build.  Craig hasn’t seen them yet.  Fingers crossed my ideas and his ideas are similar enough to compromise on a single vision. 

Hello, hello!

Welcome to the Straw, Stick, Brick, blog.

Here you'll find information about the co-creators, the actors and the 2011 Philadelphia Fringe.  You'll also see some random posts on the frustrating process that is writing as our submission in this year's Fringe Festival coalesces into the final product.

Basic information about our show can be found to the right.  Check out the About Us tab to learn about everyone working on this project.  And the About the Play tab will provide up-to-date information about tickets and the venue, as well as helpful stuff like directions, parking and area restaurants and bars.

We hope to see you at Straw, Stick, Brick,!