Elemental Theatre is back to its radio show shenanigans

with Michele and Marcus Bachmann’s Christmas Intervention!

Providence, RI (November 13, 2011) — In 2008 Elemental singlehandedly changed the course of American politics with Zombie President!  In 2009, we solved the economic crisis with Recession! (The Musical) Now, with the Republican candidates jostling for the position of top nut job, Elemental hosts the biggest pair of nuts you’ll see all Christmas!  That’s right, get ready for Michele and Marcus Bachman’s Christmas Intervention!

Written by Elemental founding member Dave Rabinow and Directed by Elemental’s Artistic Director Alexander Platt, this live radio style show is guaranteed to jingle your bells! It’s Christmas time, and Michele and Marcus Bachmann are hosting a special intervention.  Perhaps you’re a fornicator, or a casual drug user, or even worse, an Obama supporter!—whatever your particular sin,  Michele and Marcus can straighten you out and get you back on your feet again!  Join them as they reach out to middle America the old fashioned way: through the radio!  Tired of your Holiday shows being visited by three spirits?  Well, Michele and Marcus have three special guests that will scare the Dickens right out of you!  Come see the show that Rick Perry can’t remember the name of…

Michele and Marcus Bachman’s Christmas Intervention!

Herman Cain says “Bring a Date!”

Michele and Marcus Bachmann’s Christmas Intervention will be presented for FOUR NIGHTS ONLY: Thursday, Dec 15^th through Sunday, December 18^th.  All shows at 8:00 pm at 95 Empire Street, Providence RI, home of Perishable Theatre.  Tickets are $10 each.  Information and reservations at www.elementaltheatre.org or (401) 447-3001.

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Our Resident Actors and fellow travelers have been busy since Go.Go 5 closed in February!

Artistic Director Alexander Platt, along with co-founder Dave Rabinow and frequent collaborator Elizabeth Gotauco, rocked Providence once again this summer in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a remounting of Perishable Theatre‘s wildly successful production from last spring.  The new production, produced in association with Trinity Repertory Company, ran all summer at the Pell Chafee Performance Center and garnered rave reviews.

Resident Actor D’Arcy Dersham spent the summer on the Cape at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, appearing in Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom by Jennifer Haley, and she’ll return there this fall to play Phyllis in Annie Baker’s Body Awareness.

In August, Resident Actors Kelly Seigh and Dave Rabinow will appear in Dario Fo’s We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! with the Wilbury Group at the Versailles Building in Olneyville.

Earlier this spring, Alexander appeared at the Gamm in Paul by Howard Brenton and Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them by Christopher Durang – the latter alongside Casey Seymour-Kim, who was in our production of Go.Go 5!  At the same time, D’Arcy was playing Andrea Yates in Carson Kreitzer’s 1:23 at Perishable Theatre, and Dave was playing one of the naked people in Kevin Broccoli’s Naked People at Hope Artiste Village.

We also want to add that fellow travelers Rebecca Noon and Jed Brainerd-Hancock created some great work this spring as part of their company Strange Attractor.  Together with Aram Aghazarian and Roblin Gray Davis, they devised and presented Phase I of The Brand Project (working title), and then went on to create and perform If You Shoot a Boot You Might Get Wet, a co-production with Ana Mirtha Sariego’s company Rompecabezas.

Finally (and perhaps this should have been first), Managing Director Katie Hughes managed the sisyphean task of forcing the collective to file its 501(c)(3) paperwork with the IRS this month.  Rebecca Noon tells us that this means the grant money will start rolling in, so our next show will definitely feature extravagant production values, mountains of glitter, and live animals onstage.  Oh, wait, that’s Hedwig!

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Praise for the Go.Go Plays
“Both the Go.Go Plays festival and the Elemental Theatre Collective itself have developed a reputation for featuring wonderfully original works.” – Molly Lederer, Providence Monthly
“Don’t miss this show!” – Kim Kalunian, Examiner
“Worth stepping out in the snow for!” – Robert Barossi, Motif
“Cutting edge, innovative, outside-the-box theatre” and “One heck of a good time” – Don Fowler, Warwick Beacon

Praise for Wake by Jill Blevins
“Filled with intense, gripping moments…the characters are strongly built” – Robert Barossi, Motif
“Hilarious” and “Irreverent” – Don Fowler, Warwick Beacon
“Compelling and hilarious” – Kim Kalunian, Examiner

Praise for The Pickle Shop by Rob Grace
“Poignant” – Robert Barossi, Motif
The Lady is a “humorous and substantial” character, with “moments of dark emotion kept suppressed” - Bill Rodriguez, Providence Phoenix
Casey Seymour-Kim “chew(s) up the scenery” – Don Fowler, Warwick Beacon
“I was fully captivated and moved” by Seymour-Kim, whose “whole-body commitment to the role is perfection” – Kim Kalunian, Examiner

Praise for Baby Talk by George Brant
“Beautifully constructed one-act” - Bill Rodriguez, Providence Phoenix
“Will have you in stitches” “Clever, original and dark” – Don Fowler, Warwick Beacon
“Charming and funny” “Comedy gold” – Kim Kalunian, Examiner

Praise for A Brief History of the Earth and Everything In It by Dave Rabinow
“It should be running off-Broadway already.  With this cast.” – Kim Kalunian, Examiner
“Controversial” – Robert Barossi, Motif
“A hilarious romp that will sneak up on you” – Don Fowler, Warwick Beacon
“Edgy, politically charged humor” – Kim Kalunian, Examiner
“The songs are good fun” - Bill Rodriguez, Providence Phoenix
“You don’t want to miss seeing Presley Turtledove…played by Kelly Seigh” – Robert Barossi, Motif
“Some of the smartest humor I’ve heard in a while” – Kim Kalunian, Examiner

Read full reviews here:

Robert Barossi, Motif (page 26)

Don Fowler, Warwick Beacon

Kim Kalunian, Examiner

Bill Rodriguez, Phoenix

Molly Lederer, Providence Monthly (page 62)

[Following is the text of Don Fowler's review of Go.Go 5 for the Warwick Beacon, which is no longer available at the original URL]

Go see Elemental Theatre’s hilarious ‘Go.Go 5′
by Don Fowler 02.04.11 – 10:17 am

It’s Elemental, dear theatre lovers.

If you like cutting edge, innovative, outside-the-box (and inside, too) theatre, then you must take in an Elemental Theatre production. They have been doing the Go.Go Plays, a series of new short plays, for five years now.

This year their call for submissions brought 31 plays to the table for consideration. They draw “common elements,” which must be integrated into the play, from a hat. Items this year were intense light, something importantgoing unheard, a mistaken identity, a bone and a pickle. Playwrights had only six weeks to submit their plays. All four plays chosen are incredibly well written, funny and with messages that are relevant.

And Elemental Theatre has found just the right mix of actors to fill the roles, including seasoned veterans Rae Mancini and Casey Seymour Kim, who have made their presence known with a number of smashing performances in Rhode Island.

Jill Blevins’ “Wake” has the widow and two children of a deceased man gathering at their home following the funeral. Mom and son get the inheritance, while the devoted daughter only gets his ashes. The daughter (Erin Olson) wonders why. She has been a much better child than her lazy, good-for-nothing brother (Kevin Broccoli). After some family squabbling, which includes a hilarious, irreverent scene involving the ashes, Mom (Rae Mancini) gives her the shocking answer.

Rob Grace’s “The Pickle Shop” is an opportunity for multi-talented Casey Seymour Kim to chew up the scenery as the “crazy pickle lady” before the appearance of her “knight in shining amour” husband (Jed Hancock-Brainard) and a most poignant ending.

George Brant’s “Baby Talk” is a fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek, black comedy about two couples who had babies born in the same hospital at the same time.  David Rabinow, D’Arcy Dersham, Rebecca Noon and Chris Rosequest will have you in stitches as they clash over whose baby is whose and why. It is clever, original and dark.

After a brief intermission we are treated to “A Brief History of the Earth and Everything in It,” as performed by Ms. Lopicolo’s Third-Grade Drama Group, a collaborative effort by Dave Rabinow, Vicki Dorazio and John Rogers. The actors from the first half of the program are joined by Amanda Ruggierio, Kelly Seigh, Chris Rosenquest, Bryce Johnson and accompanist John Rogers in a hilarious romp that will sneak up on you.

For the first five minutes I was looking for the exit, as the adult actors played third graders running around the stage. Then it became clear that these kids had something going for them. They were questioning authority. They were sneaking in their views on evolution, creation, organized religion and intelligent design. Things started to come together, much to the concern of the school principal (Mancini again).

Rabinow’s lyrics were crisp and funny, all leading to the conclusion as to what life is really all about. It’s a great history with important messages, all done in a most clever manner and making me glad I never found the exit.

Put them all together and you have one heck of a good time, thanks to the overall direction of Alexander Platt and this talented group of people that call themselves Elemental Theatre.

Go.Go 5 is at the Perishable Theatre space at 95 Empire St. in Providence through Feb. 13. Tickets are $10 (that’s $2.50 a play). Call 447-3001, or check them out on line at www.elementaltheatre.org.

© warwickonline.com 2011

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[Following is the text of Robert Barossi's review of Go.Go 5 for Motif Magazine, which is no longer available at the original URL]

[theatre] feb 3-feb 16 2011

Four Play Feels Pretty Good @ The Go.Go

by Robert Barossi

Sometimes inventive ideas come from the things you’d least expect. Take a pickle for example, just one of the five elements included in Elemental Theatre’s annual festival of short plays collectively titled Go.Go 5, directed by Alexander Platt. The collective gave Providence writers 6 short weeks to compose a play of any length for submission. Out of the 31 to take this challenge, four were chosen.

All plays had to include these five elements: a bone, a moment of intense light, something impor- tant going unheard, a mistaken identity, and of course, one glorious pickle.

Writer Rob Grace went straight for the jugular and skillfully used the pickle element for the title and setting of his play, The Pickle Shop, a brief but poignant play exploring the damaging effects that the American economy has on one’s identity. The main character, an immigrant woman, played by Casey Seymour-Kim, who calls herself “the crazy pickle lady,” is a perfect depiction of the free market’s slaughtering of the value of people.

Jill Blevins’ Wake is a short play about the surfacing of dark family secrets in response to their father’s death. It’s filled with intense, gripping moments that will engulf your attention and the characters are strongly built here. Ruth, the daughter and black sheep of the family is overflowing with anger and confusion as she gets bequeathed with nothing but her father’s ashes. The question is, why does she get the ashes and her brother gets a trust fund?

George Brant’s Baby Talk is a comedic story about the extremes a woman and her boyfriend are willing to go to attain perfection through their child. D’Arcy Dersham plays Lisa who’s married to Paul, played by Dave Rabinow and though their scenes are frantic and funny there are some honest moments where Lisa proclaims her disappointment in herself and in her spouse. In the end, this short play teaches a sweet lesson about how love sees past impecfections.

A Brief History of the Earth and Everything In It by Dave Rabinow is a hysterical, yet con- troversial, play where a third grade drama club puts on a musical that argues the case of creationism. Their aim is to undermine the Christian culture of the school. Though the topic of what they are singing about is potentially divisive, the characters and music in this play make it light-hearted, cre- ative and the acting is hilarious — especially since it is played by adults. A crowd favorite character is Turner, an adorable British lad, played by Seymour-Kim who so aptly embodies this funny tike’s quirky personality. And you don’t want to miss seeing Presley Turtledove, a pig-tailed, manatee obsessed, outrageously funny girl played by Kelly Seigh.

Though each of these plays have entirely different plots, they all touch on a universal truth that binds them together: the characters are on a quest to find their own identities.

D’Arcy Dersham of Elemental says this unplanned emergence of a theme happens every year. “Somehow people are always struggling with the same things. There are always areas of confluence.”

It’s interesting to see what emerges when you give a group of talented playwrights five elements to fashion a story with. “What we are exploring is the act of creativity,” Dersham says.

To see the work of these local playwrights’ imaginations is worth stepping out in the snow for.

www.MotifMagazine.net

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PROVIDENCE, RI – January 16, 2011

All of the playwrights featured in Go.Go 5, the fifth installment of Elemental Theatre Collective’s Go.Go Plays, wrote their plays in six weeks last fall, in response to ETC’s playwriting challenge.  Of the thirty-one plays submitted to Elemental, the works of these four were chosen for production this January and February.  All four artists have deep connections to Providence theater.

Playwright Jill Blevins has previously collaborated with ETC as an actor and a director, but this is her first time working with the company as a writer.  A graduate of URI with a BFA in Theatre, she began her connection with Elemental when she was cast as Clarissa in ETC’s free outdoor tour of King Stag in the summer of 2007.  Although she moved to Salem, MA in 2009, she has maintained her artistic connections here, contributing her writing to the Rhode Island Bar Plays in 2010.  The play that won her a place in this year’s Go.Go Plays is Wake, a short play about long-buried family secrets that emerge as a result of a father’s last will and testament.

George Brant’s plays have been produced and developed at theaters across the country, and published by Samuel French and Smith & Krauss.  A Providence-based playwright until last fall, he contributed The Cabin to last year’s Go.Go Plays.  This year, he created Baby Talk for the festival, a comedy in which “two couples attempt to attain perfection through their children.”  He visited Providence from Cleveland last week, spending several very fruitful days with the director and the cast, reworking sections of his script as part of the development process.

A newcomer to Elemental and to Providence, Rob Grace’s play The Pickle Shop was an immediate favorite with the play selection committee.  He describes the origin of the play as an investigation into “the free market’s deleterious effects on the soul.”  A ten-minute play featuring Casey Seymour-Kim, it portrays an immigrant woman managing her life and an ailing husband.  Grace has had his work produced at the Sundance Theater Lab, New Georges’ Manfest, the Culture Project Main Stage, and the Stella Adler Theater in Los Angeles.  He moved to Providence with his wife, a 2^nd year student at the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Directing program.  He collaborated with her on The Little Secrets, which was produced in an underground bank vault in Manhattan with a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

The last playwright of the group is Dave Rabinow, a co-founder of ETC.  He has written numerous plays for the company, but this is the first time he was asked to submit his work anonymously, and he admits to having had a few nerves about the process.   Ultimately his play, A Brief History of the Earth and Everything In It (As Performed by Ms. LoPiccollo’s 3^rd Grade Drama Group at the William Jennings Bryan Elementary School in Springfield, Missouri) was too good for the selection committee to resist.  The play, a musical in which a group of 3rd Graders create a school play in an attempt to subvert their school’s Christian fundamentalist culture, features the evening’s largest cast and most outrageous storytelling.

Go.Go 5: The 5^th Annual Go.Go Plays will be presented at 95 Empire Street (Home of Perishable Theatre), January 27 – February 13, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees at 2:00 pm.  Tickets are $15 General/$10 Student ID, with $10 Previews on January 27 and 28.  Visit www.elementaltheatre.org to reserve tickets, or call (401) 447-3001.

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About Elemental Theatre Collective

The seed for Elemental was planted in the fall of 1999, when the Trinity Rep Conservatory Class of ’02 met for the first time. During three years of intensive learning and collaboration, the students became a tight-knit group of theater artists.  The Collective was founded in the summer of 2004, and has mounted a wide array of productions, from full-length dramas, to late-night live radio plays, to cutting-edge original work, to free summer tours presented across Rhode Island.   What links these diverse projects is a commitment to providing affordable theatre that surprises, challenges, and excites our audience and our artists.

This production is using the space at 95 Empire St, home of Perishable Theatre, through the Perishable Enriches Artists (PEA) program, offering below-market rehearsal and performance space to new, emerging, and established artists.  The spaces include a dance studio, classroom and black-box theatre space. More information about space at www.perishable.org/rental.  Go.Go 5 is not a Perishable production.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 26, 2010

CONTACT
Alexander Platt (Director)
aplatt@elementaltheatre.org

Elemental’s Go.Go 5 – Five Years of New Plays in Providence

PROVIDENCE, RI – December 26, 2010

Every autumn, Elemental Theatre Collective commissions original works of theater from local playwrights, then casts them, rehearses them and premieres them by the end of January.  The pieces are always written in response to a challenge: ETC draws random playwriting elements out of a hat, and the playwrights have to incorporate those elements into their plays, to be completed by a certain deadline. Elemental calls the resulting program of new work “The Go.Go Plays.”

For Go.Go 5, the fifth annual event, ETC decided to do something different.

Rather than commissioning particular playwrights to participate in the event, the company publicized the elements online, and put out a general call for play submissions.  Forty-five days later, Elemental had received 31 new plays.  Without knowing who had written them, the selection committee set to work, evaluating the pieces based on dramatic structure and conflict, language, character development, and creative use of the required elements.

Four plays were finally chosen: Wake by Jill Blevins, Baby Talk by George Brant, The Pickle Shop by Rob Grace, and A Brief History of the Earth and Everything In It (As Performed by Ms. LoPiccolo’s Third-Grade Drama Group from the William Jennings Bryan Elementary School in Springfield, Missouri) by Dave Rabinow.

ETC Artistic Director Alexander Platt is directing the evening of plays, and was thrilled with the selection process and the finalists.   “We received a surprising number of good plays, and we wanted to do many more of them than we are able to produce in this round.  When we finally narrowed down the finalists and looked at the names of the writers, we were delighted to find that we had two local playwrights (Grace and Rabinow), and two formerly local playwrights (Blevins and Brant).”

ETC has produced plays by Brant and Rabinow in previous festivals.  This is Rob Grace’s first time collaborating with the group, while Jill Blevins has worked with the company as an actor and director, but never before as a playwright.

The cast features a stunning array of local talent.  Many of the company are new to the Go.Go Plays.  Gamm Resident Artist Casey Seymour-Kim* is working with Elemental for the first time, as is another Gamm regular, Amanda Ruggiero.  Rae Mancini is joined onstage by Kevin Broccoli and Erin Olson, all frequent actors at Second Story.  Bryce Johnson, a Junior at the JM Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts, is making his Elemental debut.  Returning to the festival are Jed Hancock-Brainerd, Rebecca Noon and Chris Rosenquest (fresh from their Special Happy triumph).  Rounding out the cast are ETC Resident Artists D’Arcy Dersham*, Dave Rabinow and Kelly Seigh, who between them have been seen in 11 previous Go.Go Plays.

Go.Go 5: The 5^th Annual Go.Go Plays will be presented at 95 Empire Street (Home of Perishable Theatre), January 27 – February 13, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees at 2:00 pm.  Tickets are $15 General/$10 Student ID, with $10 Previews on January 27 and 28.  Visit www.elementaltheatre.org to reserve tickets, or call (401) 447-3001.

*Members, Actors’ Equity Association

January 27-February 13 (Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 2:00)
More details to follow…

Elemental Theatre Collective presents four WORLD PREMIERES (including one MUSICAL!) during their Fifth Annual Go.Go.Play Festival:

WAKE by Jill Blevins

PICKLE SHOP by Rob Grace

BABY TALK by George Brant

and

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE EARTH AND EVERYTHING IN IT
(As performed by Ms. LoPiccolo’s Third-Grade Drama Group from the William Jennings Bryan Elementary School in Springfield, Missouri)
by Dave Rabinow

Directed by Alexander Platt

Featuring a wonderfully talented cast:

Kevin Broccoli
D’Arcy Dersham*
Jed Hancock-Brainerd
Bryce Johnson
Rae Mancini
Rebecca Noon
Erin Olson
Dave Rabinow
Chris Rosenquest
Amanda Ruggiero
Kelly Seigh
Casey Seymour-Kim*

Members, Actors’ Equity Association

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