Went over to Pittsburgh on Sunday to see Peter Roth’s play Ganglia. This is the second time that I’ve been over to Bricolage, the first was for Midnight Radio several years back, which is a really cool experience. Each time I’ve been to Bricolage I’ve been impressed by the quality of the productions they have, as well as the quality of the lobby experience. That’s right. The lobby experience. Each production I’ve been to has interactive “exhibits” in the lobby that engage the audience. This most recent was possibly the most fun I’ve ever had filling out a demographic survey: moving around interacting with various displays.
Peter received a very good reading of his play, which is a quasi-B movie scifi send up of brain-invading parasites, love, and relationships. It is, at base, an examination of human relationships (sexual, friendships), their failings, their triumphs, uncertainties seen through an attempt by aliens to understand and, to some extent, suppress them. Peter is a good playwright, though, and the consideration of these subjects is surprising, funny, and never simplistic or passe. Each character is unique, has a strong voice and purpose, and the play continues to leave me thinking about them.
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Manhattan Project Oak Ridge
My good friend Peter Roth did something quite exceptional yesterday, well, he had probably been working on it and thinking about it for a bit longer, nevertheless, yesterday evening he convened the first meeting of the Manhattan Project.
By his own description:
Between 1942 and 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer gathered the most brilliant minds of the age at Los Alamos, New Mexico to create something magnificent and terrifying. The Manhattan Project – Cleveland Lab seeks to do the same for the Cleveland stage.
Based on the Theatre Lab model taught at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama and inspired by The Brooklyn Generator in New York, The Manhattan Project wants to introduce Cleveland actors and playwrights to each other by organizing a monthly production of brand new 10-minute plays.
Participating artists will meet early in the month and will be broken into teams, each with one playwright. The playwright will then be given a writing prompt to write a new 10-minute play based on the prompt and including all the team’s actors. The rest of the evening the team members will get to know each other and get a feel for each other’s skills and voices.
The teams will reconvene later in the month to perform these plays for each other.
These 10-minute plays are not an end in themselves. Through these small collaborations we hope to build relationships between the two most vulnerable artists in theatre; the actors who put themselves on stage and the playwrights who pour themselves onto the page. Perhaps these 10-minute plays will grow into longer works or maybe these collaborations will become partnerships on larger projects.
I am pleased that Peter invited me and that I am one of six inaugural writers. Upwards of twenty people showed up last night and all were enthusiastic. This is an exciting project and will only grow with time.
If you want to participate, please RSVP at TrinityCrater@gmail.com.
The first performance will be Monday, May 6, at 8:00pm at Mahall’s on Madison Avenue, which is a kick-ass venue with a good beer selection.
Rock-on, Peter!
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Went over to Pittsburgh on Sunday to see Peter Roth’s play Ganglia. This is the second time that I’ve been over to Bricolage, the first was for Midnight Radio several years back, which is a really cool experience. Each time I’ve been to Bricolage I’ve been impressed by the quality of the productions they have, as well as the quality of the lobby experience. That’s right. The lobby experience. Each production I’ve been to has interactive “exhibits” in the lobby that engage the audience. This most recent was possibly the most fun I’ve ever had filling out a demographic survey: moving around interacting with various displays.
