Sibling Thrivalry

A particularly telling moment in Penny Seats play selection history last week.

Lauren and I tried to describe Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's The Velvet Sky (sadly, not up for consideration this year) to Jacqui, talking almost simultaneously. Jacqui pointed out that Lauren had become visibly distraught and freaked out...while I only got more excited. Oh well.

I mean, yeah, it's totally messed-up and disturbing. But SO GOOD.

You can probably guess, from that last post and this one, that the plays I've been looking at this year have been on the dark side (not to be confused with the Dark Side, or Tales From the Darkside). Might comment on this more when we've figured out our 2012 season.

(Photo: 826 Michigan's Five Bowls of Oatmeal fundraiser performance, November 2010. In this segment, Lauren is a unicorn and I am a psychotic woodpecker.)

Graft of the Glue Gun

JP recently referred to some correspondence we had, in his post about The Pit. I thought I'd discuss the context here, as it's an odd story.

The Penny Seats are currently hunting for plays for our 2012 season, and I've been doing a lot of searching and reading. Recently, I found a copy of The Gift of the Gorgon by Peter Shaffer, better known for Amadeus and Equus. Played in the Pit in the early 90s, with Judi Dench and Jeremy Northam; themes of vengeance, artistic inspiration, passion. I took it home.

Fascinating read - harrowing, yet still in its way seductive, with lots of possibilities for clever staging, alongside a few truly insane images. So far so good, though the part of Helen seemed a doozy.

I consulted my friend The Internet to read up on past productions. Sure enough, I could find one or two articles on the original - but nothing past that. A passing mention here or there. In about 20 years? I entertained the possibility that one Internet search might not tell the whole story, but something seemed off: I wondered if companies simply avoid this one.

As luck would have it, JP called that same day to catch up. At an opportune moment in the conversation, I asked if he'd ever heard of it. He hadn't. I told him my suspicion, and he said he'd look it up in Judi Dench's autobiography.

A day later, he sent me a passage through one of those sites that lets you look inside books (I may edit this later, but tonight I'm too lazy to do links).

Dench writes that she hated doing the show, and contends that if she'd given the script a closer look she'd have passed. Though the production drew sold-out houses, she wanted out, and even made a move toward closing the show with a contract issue.

What could have made her hate the part so much? As I said before, it's a doozy, but perhaps it's even, uh, doozier than I thought. To be sure, the part asks a lot, and takes an actor on a unique and scary journey - but was it the subject matter, the darkness the character falls toward, the fatigue, the writing itself? Dench's words are unclear on the specifics, and she soon refocuses her attention on how much she hated working at the Pit.

Hmm. I don't want to be scared off, but perhaps a closer read will be necessary. I don't think I'd usually discuss our play selection process here, but for the moment, I don't see the harm.

Thoughts? Come across any scripts or shows that simultaneously intrigue and repel you?

Like I'm Joking

I received a rather strange direction from Jacqui during rehearsals for Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet: "Do it like you think I'm joking."

It makes quite a lot of sense, actually.

It all starts in a tavern

Well, I've just posted to Facebook that The Penny Seats are auditioning for Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), so I guess it's time for me to actually discuss the company here.

The Penny Seats began - now this isn't the official story, but this is the part I was there for - after an audition for a local company. My sister Lauren and I were getting a drink with Roy, Vicki and some other friends at some awful sportspubmicrobrewerbar, and our dissatisfaction with certain aspects of not having our own theatre led, as such talk tends to do, to the conclusion that we should have our own theatre. (I assure you, there were all kinds of highfalutin' ideals flying around during this discussion. They - the highfalutin' ideals - continue to do so regularly amongst our crew.) I wasn't the first to say "we should just say screw it and start a theatre," but I clearly remember telling the others that I hoped they were serious about it. (Also, that was when Roy and I bonded about Sam Shepard and other stuff. What a neat guy.) Fast-forward a few months...if memory serves, Lauren had just closed Oklahoma and I was recovering from Gypsy and trying to find my footing with my day job. I walked in and Lauren asked me if I wanted to start a company, and that was it. The core members were assembled within a month.

The idea to take our shows outdoors was Lauren's, inspired by the goofy but cherished work of Wisconsin's American Folklore Theatre, combined with news that the city was renovating the West Park Bandshell. Also, having a niche is nice, and to our knowledge - then - Ann Arbor didn't have any outdoor summer companies. As it happens, this will be the first year of Blackbird's Shakespeare West program, which will use the space right before we do. (It's just happenstance that we're doing a Shakespeare-derived play; seems fitting, though.)

At some point I really do intend to go into the paperwork, filings, licenses and other such tasks necessary for the formation of the company. Or I'll just make Lauren and Matt write about it in a Featured Guest Post (this is not yet an institution here on Reactionary Meter, but they don't know that yet). Anyway, we formed a board of directors, hacked out a reasonable schedule for the year, a budget, all that. We decided to use Kickstarter for our initial fundraising campaign, and I'm pleased to say we hit and exceeded our mark.

On a sidenote, this campaign prompted Jacqui and me to write and produce the very first Penny Seats video, with music by our affiliate Hard Taco. (The thinking was: We're not going to be the billionth Kickstarter company to stare at the camera and mutter a sales pitch.)

Thus far, we've had two additional fundraiser cabaret events, both held at Mediterrano in Ann Arbor. We plan to have more of these - actually, I could probably write a fairly meaty post about the company's plans for easy-to-assemble, out-of-a-box venue shows, but that will have to wait, since this is getting long enough as it is.

I guess it's clear that I'm skipping vast swaths of important information about the formation and intentions of The Penny Seats, but there will be time for that. For now, let's focus on the fact that we're registered as a nonprofit, seem to have attracted some interest in these parts, and are starting pre-pre-production (um, there's a lot to do) on our first full show. Reactionaries, please keep me honest and make me document the company's formation, detail our ethos and all that. That's what shared blogs are for, yeah? If you're really curious (or even just kind of curious), you can check out our website.