Cleage – Upcoming Playwright Scholar Series!

Eclipse puts on several Playwright Scholar Series events each season to give the audience a deeper look into each writers canon.
This Saturday, August 1st at 2pm, we will be exploring the prose, poetry and essays of Pearl Cleage.
Ensemble members JP Pierson and Sarah Moeller selected inspirational excerpts out of her writing and brought these pieces [...]

Friday photo rescue

Women and Water, from the 2002 John Guare season.

Separation/Insulation

In preparation for our forthcoming show SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, now in rehearsals, I had gone through many reviews of the John Guare play; and many had referenced THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES by Tom Wolfe.  “Transcendent…magical…a masterwork that captures New York as Tom Wolfe did …” as Frank Rich wrote in his review of [...]

A Song for Coretta Pre-Production Photo

Hey everyone! As a production assistant for A Song for Coretta, part of my job was to set up a pre-production photo shoot. After having a lot of luck with scheduling, we were able to get the photographer, the actors, the costumer, and a few others to come and take some great photos! This one [...]

Coretta Rehearsal – Day 3

Day 3 of Rehearsal-Ownership?
We just completed the third day of rehearsal for “A Song for Coretta”
To recap Day 1 was the first read through in which we invite subscribers, ensemble members and other friends of the company to hear designer presentations and hear the actors read the script aloud together for the first time.  Day [...]

Friday photo rescue

Late Bus to Mecca, from the 2007 Pearl Cleage season.

Friday photo rescue

I’m adding Scott Cooper’s fantastic new photos of our current production, Blue Surge, to our Flickr set now – here’s Sandy and Curt (Laura Coover and Kevin Scott) playing darts:

Taking a punch

I shared a video a few weeks ago of Kevin and I (playing Curt and Doug in Blue Surge) running a fight scene in an early rehearsal. At the time, we hadn’t worked with our fight choreographer, ensemble member Thomas Jones. Kevin and I did spend a few minutes figuring out what we were going [...]

Voting Day

Don’t forget to vote today – if you’re in or around Chicago, you can find your polling place and lots of other information here.
From Candles to the Sun, here’s a little politics Tennessee Williams style -

Friday photo rescue

Spinning into Butter, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

Plaza Hotel

The Plaza Hotel set the standard for luxury hotels in the early 1900’s. The building was opened to the public on October 1, 1907. It extends along Central Park and 5th Avenue New York City. The 19 story building is the premiere hotel in New York City.

Plaza Hotel – Part 2

Beatle-mania struck the United States in full force in the 1960’s. Starting with their first American appearance in New York City in 1964. They stayed at the Plaza Hotel during this time and made appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, gave a press conference and partied at the Peppermint Lounge and the Playboy [...]

Plaza Suite – Broadway Production

To follow in suit with Nat, its been awhile but things seem to have settled and summer has set in, with perhaps some spare time for blogging.
To get back in the swing of things here are the basics facts about the original production of Plaza Suite by Neil Simon which opened on February 14, 1968 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Opening night

Bourbon at the Border opened this past Sunday; it’s the third and final play in our year-long journey through the works of playwright Pearl Cleage (although we do have one more opportunity to hear her stories before the year is done).
So far this season we’ve explored social tensions and personal dreams in the Harlem Renaissance [...]

Ethnicity in Theatre

Last summer Time Out Chicago had a feature article discussing the race barrier in Chicago. Prior to the articles publication Eclipse had already announced their 2007 season playwright, African American writer Pearl Cleage. A mostly white theater company producing an entire season of theater by an African American playwright. Could this [...]

Robert Moses-Civil Rights Activist

Robert Moses started actively working as a civil rights activist in 1960 when he became the field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. By 1964 Moses became co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations and a leading figure in the Freedom Summer of 1964. His leadeship did not stop there, he later moved to [...]

Attention: Murder in Mississippi

It has been said by many and understood by most that the only reason the murders of three young civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 received national attention was because two white men were murdered. In fact, many historians would say that the only reason freedom summer got as much attention as it did [...]

Mississippi Burning

The most publicized murders from Freedom Summer were those of three young civil rights workers-a black volunteer, James Chaney, and his white coworkers, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The trio set out to investigate a church bombing but were arrested that afternoon and held for several hours on alleged traffic violations. Their release [...]

Freedom Summer of ‘64

Charlie and May Thompson, characters in Bourbon at the Border, spent the summer of 1964 in Mississippi. That summer over a 1,000 mostly young people rode down to Mississippi to help disenfranchised blacks register to vote.
In 1964 Mississippi had the lowest percentage of African Americans registered as voters at 6.7%. This statistic [...]