So what can I possibly say about A Midsummer Night’s Dream that anybody with a high school diploma doesn’t already know? Here’s the crucial information: The Tennessee Shakespeare Company is entering into its second season and the Bard’s frothy but dark-edged comedy about love, lust, power, drugs, fairies, fools, mules, goblins and glory holes is on stage now.
Watch for the review which is coming soon.
U of M professor and playwright Stephen Hancock is known for his love of absurd situations and his latest comedy The Horror of the Little Family Farce is yet another example of Hancock’s screwball affections. Horror explores the unintentional and unexpected influences that each generation in a family has on its off-spring. It follows a young girl named Tina and her younger brother Sam whose playful imaginations create horrifying and hilarious situations. Here’s what Hancock had to say about The Horror of the Little Family Farce.
Intermission Impossible: Your new show puts a lot of emphasis on play and the imagination. How do imaginary circumstances result in real consequences?
Stephen Hancock: The Horror of the Little Family Farce is a play about kids acting like adults who as adults act like kids. It shows how previous generations have unintentionally influenced the succeeding ones. On one level the four scenes depict the retirement years of Mother and Father K; from a retirement party to death. On another level, however, we discover that in reality two grandchildren, Tina and Sam, have been “playing house;” that the action and the imaginary circumstances are the impressions that Tina and Sam have formed about their parents, grandparents and other relatives. This realization is both the “horror” and the “farce” found in the title.
Where do your plays—and this play in particular—come from? Are they inspired by real things or projections of pure imagination?
My inspiration comes both from real events and fictionalized ones. For example, in scene three, the grandparents are fighting over the telephone. They play a tug of war to decide which one will get to tell the person on the other end “the news.” This is based on a real situation that my mother had with her parents. Dramatically, I’ve invented the circumstances which lead to the argument and it’s final outcome which finds the two characters wrestling on the floor. Another play I wrote—Revelations—is purely fictional. It’s based on the premise of what if God sent another son down to earth and he was gay?
What is it about farce that keeps you coming back to it either as a theme or as a form?
The simple answer is that I like to laugh. The more complex one is that I like the challenge the form presents of putting a play together that relies on situation, conflict, language and physical action. I have, however, written dramas. It’s just that none of them have been produced as yet.
For only having had two weeks with Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind‘s founding director Greg Allen the students at Rhodes College have developed a compelling original Neo-Futurist show. Incorporating elements of the confessional monologue, improv comedy, and Brechtian social commentary Neo-Futurism isn’t going to be everybody’s cup of Joe. But if the idea sounds interesting there are only two more chances to catch this unique performance. The show closes with an afternoon performance on Sunday, September 27.
Tonight I’m planning a trip to The Hattiloo Theatre to check out their production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Ekundayo Bandele, the Hattiloo’s founding Artistic Director is making a rare onstage appearance in the role of Stanley. His performance as Booth in Suzan-Lori Parks Top Dog/Underdog was one of the Highlights of the 2007/08 theater season.
There’s a very cool thing going down this weekend at The McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College: an original
Neo-Futurist performance created by the students under the guidance of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind creator Greg Allen, who founded the Neo-Futurist movement in Chicago in 1988.
So what exactly is a Neo-Futurist performance? It’s a live theatrical event made up of several micro-plays and dedicated to the principle of absolute honesty. Neo-Futurists don’t want you to suspend your disbelief they want to showcase real people doing real things in real time. The 30-Plays in 60-minutes format used in Too Much Light insures that the audience will never see the same show twice and can result in weirdness, hilarity, and moments unexpected and absolute beauty. Kudos to Rhodes for exposing their students to this unique and exciting approach to theater.
Some might describe the Neo-Futurist’s work as non-commercial. And yet Too Much Light is the longest continuously-running late night show in Chicago. It offers audiences something they just can’t get anywhere else. Well, except for the McCoy Theatre this weekend.
Looks like indie performing artists in Memphis will soon have a new place to do their thing.
The TheatreWorks Board of Directors and Circuit Playhouse, Inc. are proud to announce that TheatreWorks is expanding to include The Evergreen Theatre (formerly Circuit Playhouse). TheatreWorks will continue to be able to fulfill its mission to provide affordable space to new and emerging artists. There will now be additional opportunities for artists to produce non-commercial work and to succeed or fail without fear of financial strain. Because of its prior success, TheatreWorks has been booked two years in advance. Now, due to Circuit Playhouse moving into the space formerly occupied by Playhouse on the Square and because of grants from ARTSMEMPHIS, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis and a generous gift from the Jeniam Foundation to fund a feasibility study, Fred Harpell, the Facility Manager for TheatreWorks, will become manager of both Evergreen and TheatreWorks and will book both facilities. Resident companies of TheatreWorks will have priority in booking time slots, but there will now be space available at both the “old” TheatreWorks and the “new” Evergreen. These changes will take place in April of 2010. Contact theatrework@aol.com.
Cool!
The deadline to reserve spots for Tennessee Shakespeare Company‘s first (and planned to be annual)
Roiter-Doiter is coming up fast and…
What’s that you say? You don’t know what a Roiter-Doiter is? Apparently it’s some sort of festival according to a press release which asks readers if they “Remember the old days in the Renaissance when a Roiter-Doiter meant fun, togas, feats of skill, and winning something big?” Unfortunately nobody here at Intermission Impossible was around during the Renaissance so nobody remembered. And Google didn’t remember what a roiter doiter was either. So who knows?
There was a packed house at Memphis Botanic Gardens for the 26th Annual Ostrander Awards hosted by Sister Myotis Crenshaw.
Click on for a full list of the winners, Ostrander night musical performances, and a look back at some of the best productions of the season.
The Ostrander awards are a notoriously pagan affair that brings the entire Memphis theater community together for the purposes of drinking strong beverages and fornication. This Sunday’s ceremony may be a bit less wicked than usual though thanks to the presence of the event’s host Sister Myotis, who is gearing up for her Off Broadway debut next summer.
We asked Sister how she came to be associated with such a secular affair. Here’s what she had to say.
Walter Finn & Rachel Sheinkin’s 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, currently on stage at Playhouse on the Square, is 90-minutes of no frills fun.