Friday photo rescue

Ikke, Ikke, Nye Nye Nye, from the 2005 Lanford Wilson season.

Friday photo rescue

As we go into the final weekend of performances for Candles to the Sun, I wanted to “rescue” one more current photo - in this scene, the miners are trying to convince Bram (Chuck Spencer, seated at center) to join them in the upcoming strike:

Fight Call

I filmed this video a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to post it then and spoil the surprise for anyone who hadn’t seen the show yet. With only one weekend of performances left, I think it’s safe now to share this look at the actors practicing the choreography of the big fight scene, where Star and Red are attacked by a gang of strikebreakers:

This is part of the preparations the cast goes through before each performance, making sure that the fight will look realistic - and be safe - when it happens in the show.

Ross Travis, who you can see getting in some gratuitous shots at Red at the end of the clip, choreographed the stage combat for Candles to the Sun.

Special significance

I was interviewed yesterday by a student at DePaul University, who is preparing a presentation for an Intro to Theatre class and chose to present the history of Eclipse Theatre Company.

Before the interview, she emailed me a quick list of the questions she wanted to focus on. The first question on that list set the tone for a great conversation:

Does the production of Candles to the Sun have any special significance to the history of Eclipse Theatre Company?

I’ve told this story before, but it’s always a fun one to tell - starting with that production of Confessional in 1999, where six of the current ensemble met for the first time, and that whole 1999 season, when we brought Eclipse back from the ashes (literally!) by spending the year exploring Tennessee Williams. When we started talking about the idea of the Celebration Series, I don’t think we could have imagined a better show to kick it off - not only do we get to return to our roots as a company, but also to Tom Williams’ roots as a writer.

Understudies

All this weekend, Nina O’Keefe will be playing Fern in Candles to the Sun. She’s understudying for Julie Daley, and she’s been working with us since the first rehearsal back in early February. I’ve watched her work with the cast in rehearsals, and I’m excited to see how her presence changes the show this weekend.

I got to watch my own understudy back in the 2006 season - my sister’s wedding fell in the middle of the run of Boy Gets Girl, and I got to watch James Joseph, who did a fantastic job, rehearse my role with the actors I had spent the last two months working with.

It’s a strange feeling as an actor to watch someone else play a role that you feel closely connected to (I watched a dress rehearsal and kept thinking “he’s wearing my clothes!”), but it’s also invigorating for everyone - I got to see an actor bring a different energy and make different choices (some of which, of course, I unashamedly stole when I went back on the following week), James got an opportunity to play a great character, and the rest of the cast got to feel a sense of newness that sometimes fades over a six-week run.

Friday photo rescue

Days are slipping into weeks too quickly - I blinked and it’s Friday again. Here’s Boy Gets Girl, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

Yes, that’s me lurking in the background. And yes, there is a reason for digging up this photo this weekend. More on that later tonight.

Friday photo rescue

Another Part of the Forest, from the 2000 Lillian Hellman season.

Bald Ridge

Bald Ridge is another location referenced in Candles to the Sun as a place where the boys would shoot squirrels. In my research there were several Bald Ridge locations including a Bald Ridge Reservation in northeast Alabama. I found a Bald Ridge in Jefferson County, Alabama, which is not necessarily close to Clay County or in the Red Mountain region. One of these two locations are likely what Williams had in mind when writing Candles.

But more interestingly, there is a Bald Ridge campsite in Georgia that happens to be on Lake Sidney Lanier, from whom Williams’ received his middle name from. Now I doubt that the campsite was there, at least in its current form, in 1937 when Williams wrote Candles. It quite the coincidence.

Living and Writing: Part II

At an Eclipse post show discussion during the Gilman season I recall an audience member asking a question regarding what the actors did outside of performing in that particular play. Every single actor on stage worked a 9-5 job during the week and moonlighted as actors during their evenings and weekends. The audience member seemed surprised that the actors needed to work these day jobs but in the world of non-profit, store front theater that is Chicago the majority of actors, playwrights and other theater employees work jobs outside of theater to make ends meet. Similarly, though his wasn’t exactly a need to make ends meet, Tennessee Williams worked at his father’s shoe company after failing his first year of college. His passion for writing drove him so hard that he would work all day (often writing at work as well) and then come home at night “tank up” on black coffee and stay up all night as his typewriter writing short stories.  All for the love of the art.

Friday photo rescue

Lost in Yonkers, from the 2003 Neil Simon season.

Living and Writing

Those that have dedicated their lives to the arts generally live paycheck to paycheck, especially in the beginning. That still rang true when Tennessee Williams started his career in the 1930’s.

Williams states that he wrote through his young adult years “not with any hope of making a living at it, but because I found no other means of expressing things that seemed to demand expression.”

As stated in an introduction to a collection of Williams’ essays Where I Live: “Williams found that the pains and pleasures of humanity create a tension which must be housed in the body and the mind. To him, a person seems to ache continually with the exercise of existence, the effort of trying to resolve this tension. “

Friday photo rescue

In honor of this weekend’s event, Exploring Cocteau’s World, this is The Infernal Machine, from the 1997/98 Jean Cocteau season.

Exploring Cocteau’s World

This Saturday we’ll be checking in with another one of our past featured playwrights; Jean Cocteau, who kicked this party off back in 1997/98. That was the first season of Eclipse’s “One Playwright - One Season” mission statement, and the beginning of a new direction for us.

I first worked with Eclipse as the lighting designer for The Infernal Machine, the final production of the Cocteau season (and the last show in the old Bucktown theater, which was destroyed in a fire after the first weekend of performances, but more on that later).

As part of our two-year celebration of the first ten playwrights we’ve featured, ensemble members and guest artists will be reading scenes from Cocteau’s plays, discussing his novels and films, and playing some music. In this picture, Cheri Chenoweth and Nina O’Keefe rehearse a scene from The Holy Terrors as Josh Venditti and Kevin Scott look on.

The event - Exploring’s Cocteau’s World - will be this Saturday at 2pm at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater at 2257 N Lincoln in Chicago. It’s a free event for Eclipse subscribers ($5 suggested donation for everyone else); call us at 312-738-0704 to reserve a seat.

The Cathouse Rags

About an hour before each performance of Candles to the Sun, the cast runs through the musical pieces in the show, with some help from cast members Stephen Dale (fiddle), Sorin Brouwers (guitar) and Ross Travis (harmonica), who play their instruments throughout the show on stage and off.

In this video, the three actors/musicians, who have taken on the name “The Cathouse Rags” (inspired by a line in the script), spend a few minutes jamming and talking about the band:

Britney Spears to play Blanche DuBois

Part of me hopes this is a terrible April Fool’s Day rumor; part of me is fascinated by the idea of it:

Britney Spears to star in West End show?

A “source” - who I assume is from the London theatre that’s allegedly offering her the role, but I guess it could have been anyone - explained the logic:

“She’s living out the story, so to harness that on stage would be amazing for an audience to see — and cathartic for Britney, too.”

We talk a lot at post-show discussions about the experience of playing characters whose emotional journeys are especially draining, and how much of ourselves we bring to the roles we play. I haven’t followed the Britney drama that closely over the last few years, but from what I know of her life (which comes mostly from standing in line at grocery stores), I get the feeling that the “source” is on to something here …

On the Air

I spent an hour this afternoon in the AM-1350 WJJG studio, talking about Candles to the Sun (and baseball) with Ron and Joe on “Out n’ About.” It was a great hour - we listened to some scenes from the show, talked about the history of the play, and took calls from listeners who talked about the social relevance of Williams’ 71-year old story, the process of getting a play like Candles ready, and Ozzie’s opening day lineup for the Sox.

Tune in to 1530AM this afternoon

I’ll be on “Out N’ About” this afternoon from 2-3pm on WJJG 1530AM, talking with host Ronnie Kelpsas about Candles to the Sun, Williams, Eclipse, and whatever else people want to talk about - I’m told it’s a call-in show, and I’m excited to hear what people have to say. Tune in, call in, tell the Tennessee Williams fan in the cubicle next to yours …

Friday photo rescue

Suddenly, Last Summer, from the 1999 Tennessee Williams season.

Slivers

Our set is fabulous! It is made completely of wood and it is just my luck that I get thrown and slapped around on it quite a bit. We have had 3 days away from the show (just enough time for me to fold and put away my laundry, and get my paperwork in order to do my taxes) and I find a sliver from the set. It was lodged in the knuckle of my middle digit finger on my left hand. It took me three days to realize it was there. Oh, my attention to detail.

Opening night

Candles to the Sun opened last Saturday night, for only the third fourth time since Tom Williams was sitting in the audience in 1937. I couldn’t get a seat for myself (never a bad problem to have), but from everything I heard it was a wonderful show, and a great reception with the actors and the audience after.

Now we get to watch the show evolve as the incredible 16-person cast starts a six week run, and we get the opportunity to talk to audiences about the production, the process and the history of this seventy-one year old Premiere. Join us for post-show discussions after the Sunday matinee shows - as always, I’ll be sharing some moments from those discussions here as we go along, and I’m excited to start the conversation.

Friday photo rescue

Just added, from our current production of Candles to the Sun (opening tomorrow night) - this is Bubba Weiler, CeCe Klinger and Stephen Dale in the prelude.

Singer of Darkness

Even lighter blogging than expected (partly because I got more sick than I expected), but I promise we’ll be back in full force soon. I did manage to put together a quick video of the prelude to Candles to the Sun: the sonnet “Singer of Darkness,” which Williams wrote just before Candles, and which our sound designer Toy DeIorio set to music.

This is from yesterday’s technical rehearsal (if you listen closely you can hear stage manager Kat Saari calling light and sound cues):

Load In

This is a busy week, so blogging might be a little light (and I brilliantly managed to get sick just as we started loading the set into the theater, which isn’t helping), but we’ll have pictures and videos of the load in process and tech rehearsals for Candles to the Sun as I can find time to post.

Thanks to all who attended the Total Eclipse 2008 Benefit - it was a great party and a great opportunity to meet subscribers and supporters.

Friday photo rescue

The Talking Dog, from the 2002 John Guare season.

Total Eclipse 2008

Still looking for somewhere to go for brunch this Sunday? Join us at the Bluewater Grill (520 N Dearborn) from 12 pm - 3 pm for Total Eclipse 2008, our annual benefit and celebration of the upcoming season.

Along with a great brunch (mimosas or bloody marys included, of course), you’ll also have the chance to help us craft the 2009 season. Ensemble members will perform scenes from plays we’re considering from our 2009 featured playwrights (Pearl Cleage, Rebecca Gilman, John Guare, Romulus Linney and Keith Reddin), and you can let us know which ones you’d like to see us explore next year.

There’s also a raffle - with prizes including restaurant gift certificates; Cubs, Sox and Bulls tickets; original artwork; theater and symphony tickets; and more. And yes, you can buy tickets for the raffle online even if you can’t make it to the party Sunday. But then you’ll miss out on some great door prizes, including signed scripts from all five 2009 featured playwrights.

Give us a call at 312-738-0704 for more information, or click here to purchase tickets online. See you Sunday!

The Battle of Angels

Battle of Angels Williams’ first Broadway production, produced in 1940, closed after 2 weeks in New York. This early failure taught the young playwright Williams two key lessons.

First, Tennessee says he felt gullible at the time as he let in a lot of changes of which he did not approve into the final production of Battle. When the play opened in Boston it was torn apart. Tennessee says the Theatre Guild messed up his Battle of Angels - “which is the best play I’ve written yet; it may not be quite so polished as the one that is now on but it has an epic quality, it has sweep, and I think that is more desirable than finish.”

However, on the other hand, he also said, “I’m glad now that the play was not a success,” Williams says. “If it had been it would have gone to my head and I would have thought I knew all there was to know about playwriting. As it was, I was forced to realize I had much to learn so I set out to learn it.”

After Battle of Angels closed he felt ridiculously oversold and started publishing poetry and short stories. He was a known playwright without a known play. On his notoriety after Battle “I was in the peculiar position of being fairly well known in the theater, but having no productions.” 

Join Eclipse this spring in their production of Williams’ first full length play, Candles to the Sun.  

Interview with the Artistic Director

As we were closing out last year’s Pearl Cleage season, and as I was getting ready to step into the role of Eclipse’s new Artistic Director, I sat down for a long interview with ensemble member Cecil Averett. Here’s a short clip from that conversation - Cecil had asked me to talk about our mission statement and how it informs our approach to the work we do:

I’ll be posting more clips from this video, and more interviews with more artists, soon. Keep up with the growing collection at YouTube.

Friday photo rescue

Orphee, from the 1997/98 Jean Cocteau season

Can You See the Light: Part III

Continuing with the name references. Williams‘ gave one of the pivotal characters the name Fern.

The plant fern is popular for its ability to grow and thrive with a minimal amount of light.  Fern in Candles is living in what Williams has set as a bleak, dark place.

A fern is also an ancient heraldic symbol and an emblem of fecundity and loyalty. It can also stand for sincerity.

Red Hills Salamander

Red Hills isn’t only a location in Candles to the Sun:

The Red Hills Salamander is also the state amphibian of Alabama and is a threatened species, due in most part to people destroying its habitat.

You can learn more about the Red Hills of Alabama and the Salamander in this video clip.

An early look at the set

Kevin Hagan, set designer for Candles to the Sun, created a model of the set to show the actors and designers at rehearsals. It’s a simple and slightly abstract set (designed to create the sense of being inside a mine shaft), and serves as both Bram’s cabin and Star’s cabin at different points in the play.

In this video, Managing Director Kevin Scott demonstrates the set change:

Be a fan

Check out Eclipse Theatre on Facebook - and register as a fan to get event updates, see photos and videos, and write on our wall.

Be careful - I’m starting to realize it’s very addictive …

Can You See the Light Part 2

I feel like I should get in on this - as the lighting designer for Candles to the Sun, I’ve been thinking a lot about Williams’ use of light and dark as metaphors throughout the script. His plays are always a challenge and a joy for a lighting designer (I designed our lights for Eccentricities of a Nightingale and Suddenly, Last Summer in the 1999 season), and in Candles to the Sun light is, in many ways, a character in the story.

I started talking to director Steven Fedoruk months ago about how we wanted to use light and shadow to tell this story. Both of us had the sense that this design needed to reflect the metaphorical contrast Williams uses, as well as create the heightened reality of being in the world of a coal mine.

In the first line of the stage directions, Williams establishes the image that defines this lighting design for me:

In a mining camp in the Red Hill section of Alabama, it is a typical miner’s cabin, sparsely furnished, and dark, lit only by a faint streak of lamplight coming from a partially opened door of an adjoining room.

Throughout the play, there are references to light: Fern, named for a plant that seeks out the light; Bram, whose eyesight gets worse as he spends more of his life in the darkness of the mines; dialogue about how dim the lantern is, how bright the sunshine is, and how characters can disappear in the shadows.

So I’m playing with “streaks” of light as an important part of my design - using them to highlight moments and hide things, and explore the metaphors.

The photo on the right is one of many I’ve pulled together in my research, looking at the ways light can create natural streaks in mines and caves. It’s the kind of image I have in my head as I’m thinking about Williams’ wonderfully poetic description of my key visibility light in the opening stage directions.

The little doodle on the left (click for a full-size version) is my sketch for the end of that first scene - the moment when Joel points out to Hester the ominous letter she’s just dropped on the floor. I’m not so good at drawing, but if you’ve read the post this long hopefully you won’t hold that against me. Here a streak of light is separating mother and son by highlighting the letter, as a lantern throws shadows around the room.

Friday photo rescue

Landscape of the Body, from the 2002 John Guare season.

That’s ensemble member Julie Daley, now playing Fern in Candles to the Sun, as Rosemary. Todd Behrend is behind Julie, about to kill her with the bike. It was a great show.

Red Hills Alabama

Now generally a large part of my job as a dramaturg is to research the time and location of the play, which isn’t always as easy as it sounds. For example, Williams‘ Candles to the Sun is set in the Red Hills in Alabama. In my research for Candles I could not find an actual mining camp called Red Hills. Now that is not to say that a Red Hills mining establishment never existed in Alabama, I just did not run across it in my research.

However, when one cannot find the proper factual information one can only draw conclusions to where Williams could have come up with the Red Hills. Here are a few ideas:

Can You See the Light Part I

First an easy one regarding Williams references to ‘light.’

One of the characters in Candles to the Sun is named “Luke“, which literally means “light”, which Williams points out (quite blatantly) in the dialogue.

HESTER: What did it say the boy’s name was?
BRAM: She said it was Luke.
MISS WALLACE: Yes, Luke, a good old Biblical name. It means light.
HESTER: Light!
MISS WALLACE: Yes, that’s what it means.

Can You See the Light Preface

Director, Steven Fedoruk emphasized throughout the first meetings and rehearsals that light is a key element in fully understanding and interpreting Tom Williams’ Candles to the Sun. Even the introduction to the play states:

“It is an extended study of light and dark, both inside and outside the characters and the setting.”

Williams’ took care in filling the play full of metaphors regarding lightness and darkness, perhaps it is the poet in him shining through. Throughout the Williams’ portion of Eclipse’s 2008 season this blog will help guide you through some of the not-so-subtle metaphors regarding light Williams uses throughout Candles to the Sun.

to be continued….

a.k.a. Tom

Tennessee Williams wasn’t always Tennessee, he was born Thomas Lanier Williams in Mississippi. In fact, he was Tom Williams when he wrote Candles to the Sun, he was nicknamed Tennessee during his college days by his fraternity brothers and didn’t start using the name Tennessee until later. You can read more about his early life in this biography Tom: The Young Tennessee Williams A Biography by Lyle Leverich.

Tablework

For the first few rehearsals of Candles to the Sun, the cast worked around a table (”tablework” is the fancy name we give it), discussing the script and their characters with director Steven Fedoruk and dramaturg Sarah Moeller, digging into the text before getting up on their feet.

Here’s a quick video from those rehearsals, with Steven talking about the use of metaphors in the script, and Sarah giving us all some background on Pellagra, a disease that affects many in the mining community where Candles is set:

Friday photo rescue

The Rimers of Eldritch, from the 2005 Lanford Wilson season.

Speed Theater

The Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater, our home for five years now, is having an Open House tonight - it’s a free event with food, drinks, and performances from Eclipse, Shattered Globe, MPAACT and Victory Gardens. We’ll be presenting a scene from Candles to the Sun, which is now a week into rehearsals.

The “Speed Theater” format - a Valentine’s Day play on Speed Dating - means you’ll have the chance to meet and flirt with all four companies in under two hours, and decide who you’re interested in seeing again. And unlike most speed dating events, polygamy is encouraged here.

The doors open at 6:00 tonight at 2257 N Lincoln.

Get the story behind the story

Almost all of Sarah’s dramaturgical information is now here - the permanent link is on the right hand sidebar. We’ll keep adding to it as we go along, but it’s worth a look now.

This is the same information she prepared for the actors and designers; the detailed research that helps us understand and create this mining community in 1930s Alabama.

Whether you need to know the difference between anthracite and bituminous mining techniques, or what Red’s talking about when he sarcastically dreams of Beulah land, or if you just want to learn some interesting new facts about Tennessee Williams’ early life, it’s all here. Check back soon as we keep adding more.

Friday photo rescue

Eccentricities of a Nightingale, from the 1999 Tennessee Williams season.

Ask the Stage Directions

Tennessee Williams is well-known for the poetry in his characters’ dialogue, but many who see his plays performed in theaters around the world never get to appreciate the incredible poetry in his stage directions. Fewer still understand just how helpful his stage directions can really be - and not just for the designers.

This week’s edition of The Onion changes all that with “Ask the Stage Directions to Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof“

More on this, and a more serious look at Williams’ stage directions, soon - but this article is too funny to pass up. Thanks to Sarah for pointing it out to me.

Second Day of Rehearsal-Let’s Start Diggin’!

To follow on Nat’s last post-

Day Two: This time 16 actors, a director and a dramaturg came through some crazy sleet to start digging into Tennessee Williams’ first full length play, Candles to the Sun. Rehearsal started with a dramaturg session, which, generally speaking, consists of the director and dramaturg unloading piles of information on the cast. In this case it was primarily regarding the life and times of Williams and the persons in the play. Candles is set in a coal mining town in the Red Hills of Alabama around the 1930’s, clearly very different from 21st century Chicago. The purpose of the session is to give the actors an idea of what the lives of the characters in they play were like. Loads of information regarding Williams and the coal mining industry was given to the cast and discussed, leaving imaginations to wonder about what life really was like in a small mining camp in Alabama nearly 80 years ago.

Stay tuned to the blog for more information! In the not so distant future you will be able to read some of the information the cast was given tonight to read and discuss further the world of creating Candles to the Sun.

The first read through

Sixteen actors trudged through the snow and the creepy fog last night to gather for a first read through of Candles to the Sun - with members of the design team and a few friends there to listen, the cast got their first opportunity to play together with Williams’ language and the rest of us got the opportunity to hear these words out loud for the first time.

And you get an opportunity to take an early look into the process - this is a scene from the beginning of the play, where Bram and Hester confront their sixteen year old daughter Star after she’s spent the night out with a young man and returned home with a new silk kimono:

The Day on Which a Man Dies

We’re not the only ones in town currently working on a Tennessee Williams premiere - SummerNITE, the Northern Illinois Theatre Ensemble, is opening the world premiere of The Day on Which a Man Dies tonight at Links Hall in Wrigleyville.

The web site describes the show (written in 1959) as a “visionary text”:

[d]irectly influenced by Butoh dance and Yukio Mishima, to whom the work was dedicated, the context is a Happening, with echoes of Kabuki and the anarchic Gutai art movement of 1950’s Japan.

I won’t be able to see it myself until next weekend; if you’re able to check it out before me let us know what you think.

Friday photo rescue

Confessional, from the 1999 Tennessee Williams season.

Worth noting, in this picture - seated left to right are current ensemble members Julie Daley (playing Fern in Candles to the Sun), CeCe Klinger (playing Hester), Nathaniel Swift (producing and designing lights - and writing this blog post) and Steven Fedoruk (director). Sometimes it’s like no time has passed at all …

The Lamp

We’re about to start rehearsals for Candles to the Sun, the first production in our 2-year Celebration Series. I’ll be adding our dramaturgical research to the blog soon, as well as some of the notes, sketches and images that the designers are kicking around as we begin the process.

I wanted to start, though, where this play started - with a rough draft of a one-act play that became Tennessee Williams’s first full length play.

Friday photo rescue

It’s actually a sneak peek today - the first photo from our upcoming production of Candles to the Sun:

That’s Ross Travis, Bubba Weiler and Chuck Spencer in the coal mines.

The beginning of the ride

In the spring of 1999, I played a young boy in Tennessee Williams’s Confessional (I think the character’s name was actually YOUNG BOY, or maybe just BOY) who was on the last legs of a bike ride from Iowa to Mexico. I wore ridiculously short shorts and a T-shirt that said, in big block letters on a brown background, IOWA TO MEXICO. I had a short scene late in the play where I got picked up by a young man (YOUNG MAN, as I recall) played by Steven Fedoruk.

That was the beginning of the 1999 Tennessee Williams season, and it was really the beginning (or maybe re-beginning) of Eclipse Theatre Company; seven members of that cast became ensemble members that year - myself included - and we dove into Williams with a passion that would set the tone for the next nine years.

It seems natural to start this ride the same way that one began - by exploring a little-known, rarely-seen play by one of the best and most prolific writers in American history.

We’re just over two weeks away from the first rehearsal for Candles to the Sun (directed by YOUNG MAN Steven Fedoruk), which hasn’t been produced professionally since its 1937 debut in St. Louis. The design team has been bouncing around ideas for a few months now, the cast is ready to run, and we’ll have a lot to share as we go along.

Friday photo rescue

The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

Merry Christmas!

Best wishes to you and yours for a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season - I’m in New York right now, where carolers are making the Yuletide bright under the arch at Washington Square.

Friday photo rescue

Spinning into Butter, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

Friday photo rescue

A Woman Without a Name, from the 2001 Romulus Linney season.

In case you missed it …

You can watch a clip from last Saturday’s Playwright Scholar Series event, From the Page to the Stage:

This is Steven Fedoruk reading part of “Monogamy Blues,” from The Brass Bed and Other Stories.

Ensemble members read excerpts from What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, Deals With the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, and The Brass Bed and Other Stories in a great afternoon enjoying the side of Pearl Cleage’s writing that we can’t present on stage.

A conversation with the sound designer

Bourbon at the Border’s sound designer, Cecil Averett, sat down with me last week to talk about the collaborative process, the emotional connections a melody can evoke, and some damn good music. Watch the video:

Pearl’s Top 10

Plays are great not only to watch but to read and imagine the entire show how you would like to see it acted out.

To get you started here is a Top 10 list of plays recommended by Pearl Cleage from a 2001 article:

1. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange

2. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

3. A Soldier’s Story by Charles Fuller

4. Pretty Fire by Charlayne Woodard

5. Flyin’ West by Pearl Cleage

6. Beauty’s Daughter, Monster, The Gimmick: Three Plays by Dael Orlandersmith

7. Fires In The Mirror by Anna Deavere Smith

8. A Black Woman Speaks by Beah Richards

9. Trouble In Mind, a “comedy-drama in two acts” by Alice Childress

10. Fences by August Wilson

Friday photo rescue

Blues for an Alabama Sky, from the current Pearl Cleage season (this is from a tech rehearsal a few days before the show opened).

Cleage’s Early Career

Clearly, Pearl Cleage is currently primarily known as a novelist, playwright and poet. However, as pointed out by an audience member at last weekend’s post show discussion many people from Atlanta first recall her from her more publicly political years. In her early career she worked a number of media jobs, most prominently as press secretary and speech writer in the 1970’s for Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta. Additionally, she often wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Atlanta Tribune. In 1991 she won the outstanding columnist award from the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists. Since her early days in which the public saw her more as a public political figure she has taken the political into the personal through her fiction works. This can be seen through a number of her works including Deals with the Devil, Some Things I Thought I’d Never Do, and Bourbon at the Border, currently playing at Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater.

Freedom Summer School

Two girls hanging out of a window at Freedom Summer School.

The Motivation behind the Words

In several of the post show discussions for Bourbon at the Border questions regarding the motivation behind Pearl’s writing have come up in reference to the powerful subject matters used in her writing. In a general sense, Cleage is zealous with regard to issues of black life she feels the need for a forum for discussion and promotes practical education whenever possible.  Cleage dives into race, sex and love “in a growing body of literary work while she reveals poignant truths about brave black women.”  She states “The purpose of my writing, often, is to express the point where racism and sexism meet.”

Below is a snippet from the article Home Time and Island Time regarding Pearl and her writing influences:

“Two regular-size windows in Cleage’s office that are anything but regular when it comes to influencing her writing. ‘Through those windows I can watch my neighborhood go by,’ Cleage says. ‘I watch girls getting pregnant too soon, guys hard eyed and looking mean whom I knew as cute four year olds. By choice, I don’t leave my Southwest neighborhood much, and these windows are my windows to all of it…….The contradictions that I write about in my novels are here everyday. Some writers write about blacks, but they never see blacks.’”

An interview with the director and producer

A few weeks ago, director Ron OJ Parson and I sat down with Dr. David Unumb, host of Northeastern Illinois University’s Vantage Point radio show (which airs Sunday mornings at 6:30 on WTMX), for an in-depth interview about Bourbon at the Border, Pearl Cleage and Eclipse Theatre Company in general.

In case you weren’t up early enough on Sunday morning, you can listen to the full half-hour interview by clicking here (the link will open a file you can play on your media player).

I should note that because we had not found our fantastic lighting designer, Gina Patterson, at the time we prepared a press release for this interview, Dr. Unumb refers to me as the lighting designer. Thankfully, Gina joined us shortly after that so I was able to focus on producing instead of trying to wear multiple hats.

Friday photo rescue

A Woman Without a Name, from the 2001 Romulus Linney season.

 

 

Friday photo rescue

Boy Gets Girl, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

A video interview with the dramaturg

Our dramaturg for Bourbon at the Border, Sarah Moeller, sat down with me yesterday to talk about the process and the research she put together for the cast and crew:

Friday photo rescue

Talley & Son, from the 2005 Lanford Wilson season.

Watch a scene from Bourbon at the Border

Act 1, scene 5, to be exact - I filmed this during a tech rehearsal a few days before the show opened. Watch for Kat Saari, our fantastic stage manager, calling sound cues in the foreground.

You can watch this same scene at Stagechannel.com, filmed a few days later with a much better camera.

Opening night