Do I wake or sleep?

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I was chatting a bit with Clara Barton Green, Artistic Director and Producer of the Holla Holla Theatre Company (whose production of Romeo and Juliet ends its early autumn run this weekend with 3pm and 7pm performances both Saturday and Sunday) about some of the special challenges of outdoor theatre in public spaces. Aside from common headaches like arriving at the playing space to find people sleeping on the set, nearby children loudly at play and romantic couples getting overly demonstrative with their public displays of affection, she had a few other doozies to share; like the time in Central Park when another group had a permit to throw a loud roller disco party an audible distance from their A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Sometimes the problem is people who don't quite get the concept," says Green. "We've had joggers and bicyclists march grimly across the playing space, oblivious to the man in the jester outfit quoting verse to them, and children who wanted to play with us. We've even had the Park Enforcement Patrol drive right in up in the middle of the stage and ask to see our permit while a scene was playing!" (The actors kept going while others not in the scene scrambled to show them the paper work.)

The two performances of Romeo and Juliet today are cancelled. Shows will resume tomorrow as scheduled.

So Holla Holla is doing Romeo and Juliet this summer and I'm excited.

I've wanted to do this show for a long time--I've loved it ever since I watched it back in middle school. Holla Holla's first tragedy! I remember reading it in high school, and my 10th grade pre-IB English class went on a field trip to a local DC arthouse to watch the Zeffirelli version. When Romeo drank the poison, someone yelled out "Liquid Tylenol!" We read the play out loud in class, giggling adolescently over the "draw thy sword--thy naked weapon is out" exchanges. I've always loved the first exchange between the lovers at the party and I programmed my very first cell phone (the one I had in Spain when I was on my cruise ship contract) to greet me, when turned on, with the phrase "You kiss by the book." *Sigh.* So romantic.

We're going up later this year--the first three weekends in September. This will help with the heat, and also the Clinton Cove Festival is on one of the weekends, which will bring us a HUGE crowd. The Festival is lots of fun, they have music (before and after our show, but not during) and free food and kayak rides and everything. I can't wait to finish the show and then go and pig out on free food! My favorite shows last year were the 5:00 performances--playing Viola as the light starts to mellow, as the evening starts to spread out against the sky...And I love the idea of performing Shakespeare under the stars. We're doing it at the same park as Twelfth Night, but not in the exact same location--it'll be on the grass, INSIDE the roadway (for those who remember the Gestapo PEP rent-a-cops), on the boulders at the south end of the park.



You can sort of see the stage left end of the space in this photo.

I have the beginnings of a staff lined up--Jason is directing, Nicholas is the fight choreographer and a girl named Stefania Schramm is stage-managing. I will also be hiring a sound designer and possibly a lighting person and costumer. We'll definitely have lights, but I may be able to do it myself. We don't need any kind of artistic design, we just need to make sure we have plenty of it, for the night shows. I've had several meetings with FOHRP--they're actually ponying up a chunk of change for the lights and sound. Woo hoo! They've been communicating with the Board about how awful the PEP officers were last year and were very clear about how that couldn't happen again this year. (Since we're off the roadway, it shouldn't anyway but just to be safe, I'm having the permit tattooed on my back.)

Nicholas and I had a meeting and we discussed the fights. He has some great ideas so far--I want the fights to be great and VIOLENT. My concept of the show is to juxtapose the lyricism of the romance against the senseless brutality of the feud. And since I'm playing Mercutio, I have a vested interest in how good the fights look! Nicholas and I have started training, 'cause I want to look really kickass. We met last weekend at the space and worked on parrying and thrusting positions, and where to place your feet.

Jason and I have been dealing with the auditions--the casting notice went live a few days ago and he's been deluged with skinny young women who all want to play Juliet. We're having the auditions next week, and have booked more time than we usually do, a day and a half. Oy. Il faut souffrir pour ars gratia.

I regret that Seth and I will be unable to attend your show. We have heard from Tesse that it is amazing and are truly upset that we will miss out. [snip] Please extend our regrets to the rest of the cast. This is our loss as we have really enjoyed Holla Holla productions in the past.

Oh, also Ben will be there early before the show, but he probably can't stay. He says he will be at the final show, though. :)

This weekend, Duncan suggested that Holla Holla should do The Merchant of Venice: he reminded me that Portia is a britches role. It's been forever since I've read it (college) and I've never seen it. It's a problem comedy for sure, and Shylock is such a dominant figure. I don't know the play well enough to know off the top of my head if any of the male roles can be converted to women's roles. But Portia is tempting.

This weekend was very INTERESTING. As in the Chinese curse. Saturday dawned hot and humid--Ben showed up at my place and we lugged the screen and all the other stuff down to the Park. (One fantastic thing about this experience is that we can store stuff between show days at the Downtown Boathouse. Yay, no lugging stuff back and forth on the subway!) I was occupied with many producer-ial tasks, such as delegating tasks to the two volunteers, sending out for ice and water, setting up the backstage, setting up the stage right quick change section, et cetera. Laura, my FOHRP liaison, stopped by and we talked about the volunteers, and other stuff. She couldn't stay long, unfortunately. The show went up--we didn't have a huge audience, no doubt because of the heat. One volunteer, Selvena, was terrific in redirecting the foot traffic; she was very hands on and even kicked out three obnoxious little boys who were arguing with Duncan. (She threatened to call the cops on them--love it!)

( A Foolish Thing Was But a Toy... )

Holla Holla is on MySpace now!

The one flaw is that I can't seem to edit the calendar to show the days of the Twelfth Night run...I added the August 4th shows but everytime I add shows for the other days, they never show up. Grr!

(Second time around--this is the two-hour post that was et on Friday.)

So, yeah, uh, Holla Holla is doing another Shakespeare in the Park this summer--Twelfth Night to be performed for three weekends in August as Clinton Cove Park along the Hudson River (at 55th & the River). Ever since I saw Shakespeare in Love I've had that final image in my head of Viola emerging from the water--and I knew if I ever produced or directed it, it would be on the river, with Viola literally coming up out of the water. And that's how this production is starting--Viola pulling herself out of the water and standing there, wet and gasping and shivering. Not only is it a powerful, resonant image, it's also important to establish Viola's situation--she's much more of a waif than Rosalind, Viola has absolutely no support system, she's completely alone. She's such a haunting character--one reason I love Twelfth Night is that melancholy, that pocket of sweet sadness in her and Antonio. It gives depth to what could be a farce--makes it a true comedy.

Why, what would you?

Make me a willow cabin at thy gate
And call upon thy soul within the house
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud, even in the dead of night
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air cry out...
Olivia.
Oh, you should not rest between the elements of air and earth, but you should pity me...

Another cool thing about this production is that Friends of the Hudson River Park (FOHRP) is partnering with us. Check out their blurb! They've also put a big featured mention of us in their brochure--there's a picture of Kyle and me from Midsummer and a blurb and we're in a different color type. And they're providing us with a running crew--I don't even know if we need one yet but if we do, we've got one! The FOHRP connection came last fall--I happened to be in Hell's Kitchen and saw posted signs advertising a "Comunity Fair" with free food. I was all "Free food, woo hoo!" and went to check it out. When I saw the space, I was intrigued--clean, sweeping space, water, some interesting structural features. I asked if one of the volunteers if they had an arts liaison on the preimises and she beckoned someone over. I said "I'm a producer and we've done several productions of Shakespeare outdoors. We're thinking about doing Twelfth Night this summer--would you be intereseted in partnering with us?" She thought about it, we set up a meeting, I put together a presentation and pitched it, and they went for it. What this means is, is mainly institutional support--they're helping to promote the show and they're facilitating things like permits (they have carte blanche with the Parks Department so I don't have to apply for anything). It's all very exciting.

The cast (I had invited auditions) is as follows (explicatory notes for the uninitiated):

Orsino...Kenneth Ruth (Cinderella's Prince from Into the Woods)
Sebastian...Paul Martinkovic (Flute from Midsummer)
Antonio...Michael Vaccaro (Demetrius from Midsummer)
Valentine/Curio...?????
Sir Toby...Letty Ferrer (fellow Lovestreet refugee, along with Tracy and Tom)
Sir Andrew...Duncan (king_duncan)
Malvolio...Tom Cleary (Menelaus from 2004's Trojan Women)
Fabian...(Attend the Tale of) Katie Stodd (Peter Quince from Midsummer)
Feste...Jason (jayspec
Viola...me
Olivia...Tracy Walsch (Hermia in Midsummer and kimdeal2)
(They Call the Wind) Maria...Elizabeth Ruelas (hi, actress_in_nyc)
Captain/Priest/Court Musician...Nicholas Santasier (Dominic in Admit Impediments)
Court Musician...Chris Combs (planga)

Ben Beckley (he was in Eternity: Time Without End is directing and Mickey Zetts (neoscribe) is composing.

Going into auditions, for my sanity, I'd slotted people into certain roles--you think "well, if all else fails, at least I know this person can play that role." This isn't precasting, it's just a way to kind of organize thinking about all the people you're calling back. When I directed Agnes of God back in DC, I did that...of the three people I'd pre-slotted into those roles, one of them didn't come to callbacks, one of them came but didn't get cast, and only one of them actually played the role I'd pre-slotted her in. This time, I don't think even one person got cast in the role for which I'd pre-slotted him/her. This is why it's essential to keep an open mind--I didn't DREAM Jason would read so well for Feste. He literally sent chills down my spine--he has this edge that's very intriguing for that role. Like many actors, he uses on stage what he rarely if ever accesses offstage--similarly, many famously liberal actors play conservative characters very well (Alan Alda in The West Wing and The Aviator and Richard Dreyfuss in The American President come to mind). I resisted because we were hoping for a female Feste but in the end, I had to go with Jason.

I'm really pleased with my cast. I have to say, I think everyone is cast pretty damn well.

I've started thinking about costumes (can't get started too early) and I'm thinking Mardi Gras colors (purple, green and gold) against black velvet. Twelfth Night is of course January 6--the Feast of Epiphany, which ends the season of Christmas and begins the season of Epiphany/Mardi Gras. Furthermore the theme of Mardi Gras is Misrule--everything is turned upside-down (the song "Topsy Turvy" in the Disney version of Hunchback expresses this--that scene takes place on January 6). The lowly reign; things are crazy and confusing--much as when a young woman is mistaken for her twin brother, and a steward is thrown into prison for no apparent reason. The black velvet will 1) look good against the grass and 2) suggests nobility. It will also highlight the purple, green and gold nicely. I like the idea of black warring against these bright colors--it's a good visual representation of "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Malvolio of course will have no Mardi Gras colors, and Feste will be almost entirely in them.