This story has all the drama of a great play. Vaclav Havel, son of wealth and privilege, whose work was banned by a totalitarian regime, gets nominated for president by an upstart party. Pictures of him were kept out of circulation by authorities, he was so feared. Two journalists sneak into his official nomination event and take one of the earliest pictures of him. Then, a group of rebellious printers reproduce and distribute 200,000 copies of the picture under the cover of night. Just think of all the cool music we could use in the sound design.

From an article in WSJ New Europe Blog:
“On Dec. 8th, twenty-one days after the brutal police crackdown of the peaceful student demonstration that sparked the Velvet Revolution, Czechoslovakia was still officially called the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and ruled by totalitarian President Gustáv Husák.”

Also, from the article:
“But the ban of Havel’s photos ended late at night on Dec. 8th, 1989 when an entire night shift crew at the state-run printing plant, called Svoboda (freedom in English), rebelled by volunteering to print some 200,000 posters sized 50 cm by 72 cm of the man who would later become the first non-Communist president of Czechoslovakia since 1948.”

Read the article here

Anita Deely

PS-And you’re welcome New York for A Steady Rain, Our Town, and David Cromer which were all developed in the intimate storefront theaters of Chicago.

In the world of ensemble member Sean Mallary, no good intention goes unpunished. Listen as Sean recounts his family’s effort to create a Halloween costume, and the problems that follow, in his personal essay ‘How I Became a Robot’. Recorded live at Strawdog Theatre’s Hugen Hall in May of 2009.

So far it’s been a great process. We’ve narrowed it down to myself and the lovely Ann Sonneville hosting a show that will last anywhere between 10 minutes and 4 days. The lovely Ryan Palmer will be DJing, and the lovely Kevin Alves will be our utility player. To be honest, I have no idea what I just said. There seems to be a consensus that there will be “musical chairs,” “people going out,” and “challenges.” Contestants (people just like you!) will be playing for amazing prizes like fast food, and tickets to shows that most theater companies give away for free anyway if you use code words on the internet because no one sees theater unless it’s advertised on a bus.

Watch Ann and I try to control a drunken crowd! Watch Anderson Lawfer giggle his way through another evening of chaos! Watch the bartenders at Hugen Hall wonder why they work there instead of Holiday Club!

Join in on the fun at Musical Chairs! What the hell else are you doing…raising your children poorly?

(moment of silence)

Hit Factory still retains a lot of the foundation that was laid by WRLS.

(moment of silence)

A live radio show complete with a foley artist, a band (if we can wrangle one together) and a group of versatile actors with nothing but their voices, a mike and a music stand for their script (if we can wrangle some together). There’s no smoke and mirrors here. What makes Hit Factory different from it’s predecessor is the performers and their relationships with the stories they are telling. WRLS used the device of characters performing as other characters. Follow me? Hit Factory uses actors. Period. There is no extra veil of performance. So, instead of layering the delivery, you simply have an actor sharing an experience. What’s even greater is the fact that the actors know the owner of the brain from which these stories were born. Pretty slick, right? Right.

In the first round of Hit Factory pieces, I contributed as an actor. Lending my voice to breathe life into the characters created by these wordsmiths for the very first time. Next, I was given the opportunity to direct. Just recently, I was able to contribute all of myself as a personal essayist. Having donned so many skins, I feel like I’ve grown up with Hit Factory. From adorable and utterly forgivable infancy, through the messy brat phase, eking over awkward adolescence, and finally emerging into a decently scarred adulthood; the stories shared and explored were consistently genuine and infinitely entertaining. However, what I’ve gleaned as a participant, and ultimately a Word Jammer (I have a certificate…), is that the end result is less than half the aim of what Hit Factory is about.

Everyone in this business has a talent that they’re good at, or at least recognized for, but living within a creative community you begin to breathe your fellow artists’ air and like the taste. Maybe it’s the grass is greener mind-job we pull on ourselves but I like to think it’s admiration for your peers and wanting to tap into other facets to fine tune your own artistry. The Hit Factory has provided a safe forum for that desire to stretch and re-form ourselves amidst family. That being said, we don’t handle each other with kid gloves. We are, after all, a family. There have been no brawls (to date…) only criticisms to further the progress of the individual and challenges to make sure it’s a grand slam success.

For example, the last Hit Factory was centered on personal essays. Being someone who likes to tell a story (though in the past I’ve been accused of being long winded and divulging insignificant details i.e. <---) I was interested in sharpening this quality. My first story was an absolute mess. If at one point it wasn't scattered, it was cluttered. In other segments, I was using someone else's voice, not my own, making it impersonal and false. Best part? I didn't finish it. I couldn't. It wasn't until I read it out loud that I was clear on why my tale went nowhere. Simply... I started telling a story I wasn't ready to tell. My peers understood and after some pointers to help dig me out of the trap I'd laid for myself, I tried again. For the record, the story still isn't finished. It's progressed but...

What Hit Factory has actually done is extend our family's reach into outer space with Stella Stargirl (by Aly Greaves), into a gritty crime world fantastically with John Henry Robert’s Dr. Night and hilariously with Michael Dailey’s drunk lady detective, Nelly Quinn. Hit Factory made us shudder in the alternate realities of Shelf 13(Hank Boland) and quenched our thirst with a cool pint in the company of the the patrons of Anita Deely’s Dooley’s Public House in Galway, Ireland. The people in these stories are other versions of ourselves and we want to share them with you. If you’re willing to listen but in our experience we’ve learned people like being told stories.

It’s just that simple.

Come see it this Saturday. I’ll be performing.

Michaela Petro

here

and here

See you at the space this weekend!

Anita Deely

It’s a tricky business this mad-cap comedy about war, death, morality, forgiveness, love, God, Harry and England. From the designer run in the rehearsal hall to dress rehearsals and previews, I saw the cast and crew wrestle with the sometimes opposing forces of the serious and the funny.

Why is war so funny? Is it because it’s such a traumatic event that we feel the need to find humor in it just to stay sane? Are we thumbing our noses at the horror of it because it scares us? Are we just jerks?

HOGAN’S HEROES, MR. ROBERTS, BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP. World War II must have been hilarious. As I kid, I remember thinking what a good time that must have been. There was the occasional ‘very special episode’ but it was all pretty much lighthearted stuff. Vietnam has come across as a much more serious war if you take out Charlie Sheen’s HOT SHOTS (and I’d prefer it if you did.) DEER HUNTER, PLATOON, APOCALYPSE NOW,…geez, pretty heavy stuff all around.

And then there was M*A*S*H. That show could get really serious and then really over the top funny before you knew what hit ya’. HBO’s recent mini-series GENERATION KILL also pulled me from silly to the profound. CATCH 22 mixed the absurd and the heartfelt. So the challenge (and one of our mainstays at Strawdog) is finding the funny in something serious and the serious in the funny. What could be funnier than the plague (RED NOSES), going bankrupt (CHERRY ORCHARD), and the end of human life on earth (RUR)? Last season! That’s what! (But seriously, we had some laughs last season, didn’t we?)

I think the challenge for ST. CRISPIN’S DAY is the same.

Watching the show as it was gelling proved how tricky it is to dance on that line. You’ve got pieces of dialogue and situations that rely on comedy in a very technical way. You also have characters in a life and death battle for survival. You can’t go one direction and not the other or you aren’t telling the whole story. Some audiences may be too affected by a genuinely emotional moment to turn on a dime and laugh at the ensuing antics. Some will be relieved to have the release of a knee-slapping joke to break the tension. Audiences for a comedies are always unpredictable but when you have these hybrid kinds of pieces, they are especially so.

On opening night I could feel the audience struggle with this and eventually realize that it’s okay to laugh and it’s okay to let a moment take you over. On that muddy stage I not only saw stuff I thought was ‘ha-ha funny’ but stuff that was ‘holy frijoles, did they really did do that? funny’. The deeper, more emotional moments weren’t just daytime soap-opera serious, they were heart sinks, heart breaks, eyes mist, can’t pull your eyes away serious.

Some of my favorites are:
Bardolph and Nym doing some “visual translating” for the French girls.
Tom finally making his confession
Pistol finally does ‘it’
When we find out who killed the priest.
And Pistol pleading for his friends’ life does it all at once.

Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

A few years ago, we decided to renovate the big wooden rehearsal space, Hugen Hall, next to the main stage into a cabaret theater and get a liquor license for a little more income, but we had no programming, besides rental groups. Well, necessity being the mother of invention, we started making shows to get our friends and fans to stick around after the mainstage shows to have a few laughs and more importantly, a few beers.

We tried everything we could think of, and usually they were half-assed, poorly planned nights of story-telling and acoustic guitars or readings of old scripts. Once, we built an entire show around one word. The more we’ve done it, the better we’ve gotten, and the things that I find work the best have been the pieces that explore different genres of old shows filmed live in front of a studio audience.

Now we do roasts (most recently The Roast of Christopher Piatt); variety shows (Kyle’s Basement); cooking shows (Amerisnax with Shannon Hoag); one man shows (James Zoccoli’s Wiggerlover); radio shows (Hit Factory); game shows(the Game Show Show and Stuff); and directing contest shows(The Direct Off which, incidentally, was judged by ahem Steppenwolf’s Francis Guinan once) and they are all original! All these pieces are borne out of our own ideas, tastes, and talents.

The reason I feel these are successful is because they let us explore ourselves as performers. By using these different ways of entertaining, we really can expose ourselves as people, or create a persona and I feel like we are influencing the art that is coming out of 3829 North Broadway in a very personal way.

To be on stage as Anderson Lawfer changes the way I see myself as an artist, gives me confidence, and a certain responsibility to put out a good product. There is also something cleansing about accepting blame when things don’t go right at your show. So when Strawdog presents: Anderson Lawfer- an exploration in clay! doesn’t go well, we all know who to blame. Me.

Anderson Lawfer

Don’t listen to this picture. Theatre Wars is happening on October 3 @ 11 pm. Why do you fill America with lies, picture?

The more I’ve done this the more I have respect for people and their idiosyncrasies, their “things”. I love my things. (I’m Kevin, by the way. Nice to meet you.) One of my possibly-in-your-eyes-eccentric things, but-in-my-eyes-that’s-just-how-she-rolls things is kinda that I don’t do Director’s Notes in the program. I also love and respect that Phil always does write Director’s Notes and they involve stories from auditions and ‘that one night on the El platform’, and I love that in his Director’s Notes, Jerry summarizes the play and tells you every answer to the questions the play was written to open in your mind, and I love that Betty’s notes consist entirely of quotes from a shockingly lyrical, insightful and well-spoken mind I think even Betty would acknowledge is a bit of a stretch with whom to juxtapose herself. All this is a long way of saying, Director’s Notes are not only not my thing, but not-doing-Director’s-Notes is my thing.

As the reader of this blog, then sir, I am confused as to what on this green earth might be your point. . .

Stay with me, Reginald (sorry, giving names to strangers is one of my things. Ask my cast; the patrons that sit in the far left and right seats, as well as their dates, have names, and have had since we started in the rehearsal space), I’m inching towards my point. . . So, while I respect that others want and need to do them, for whatever reason, I don’t really care to, because I think it’s my job to do it all between the curtains, if you will (insert joke, Reginald. . . go ahead. you’re so predictable with the innuendos. . . ). I don’t want to tell you something in the program that might change the way you see what’s happening. The richest lens you bring to a play, Reginald, is YOUR LIFE, your personal experience of being a human being - up to this second. In my opinion, Reg, if I do my job right, that humanity and a basic desire for storytelling are all you should need to “get” the play. If I tell you why I did it right before you see it, it’s kinda like reading a review of a show right before you see it. How can your experience not in a way be a comparative exercise? Did he succeed in doing what he said he wanted to do? Was it as as good as Bonnie from the Daily Mirror said it would be? If that’s what you’re into Reg, if that’s your thing, I want you to play it that way. But I represent myself best with my “things” and my thing is never to read a review before I see a show, so I can be there just receiving the story as rendered that night; I’d rather a reflection of a review not be part of my play-going experience. And likewise, I’d rather your experience of this play not include Director’s Notes from me that you read right before you see the show. And I humbly thank every producer that’s allowed me my obnoxious preference in this arena.

But this website venue, this blog thing, feels more appropriate to me, especially because the odds are that you’re not reading this in your seat right before watching the play. And I’m not going to give you any answers or quote anyone who writes ridiculously well (all others are fair game) or tell you about that night on the El platform. . . though it was an amazing night. . . seriously . . . I mean, I’m not sayin, I’m just. . . it was electric that night . . . sorry. Anyway. Enough of the disclaimer. Glad you’re reading. All two of you. Two million!

Mother of a duck, friend, you’ve said nothing yet. I’m through two cups of coffee and your preamble is down-right Founding-Fathers land - it’s a blog for crying out loud. At long last, sir, have you no point?!!!

The Good Stuff, part 1

Good one, Reg. Are you sitting? Here’s my biggest thing that I like to do with plays: I like to hold up the mess. I love that real life is messy. I celebrate it. As a theatre artist, I am most driven to hold up the mess of our human flaws and let all of its facets reflect in the light of a good play. None of us fits neatly into any single box. I suggest we are a walking mass of contradictions. Despite our best intentions to walk straight and true, we all limp with contradictions; our beliefs to our actions, our correct words to our petty prejudices. And Reg, maybe these contradictions don’t have to be justified or reconciled in a semantic exercise; maybe they just are. And because we’re human, every day we’re alive we will make good choices and bad choices. As a storyteller, I want to invite you to notice the beauty and capacity for love in someone you want to despise (neat black box) and the lies and loathing in someone you want to love (neat white box). I posit that we all share in this complexity. And maybe the power for change can come in calling a duck a duck, in seeing that complexity for what it is, instead of denying its existence. Maybe we all come into this world with the capacity for extraordinary love and extraordinary hate, selflessness and selfishness, purity and lust.

So now it’s ducks is it? Is this a play about ducks? Is that what you’re saying, Fox?

Yes it is. It’s about a band of ducks who preemptively invade another country. Fortunately, things like that don’t happen anymore . . . but it’s interesting to look at what we as a race used to be like. . . oh, you love it, Reg, come on. . .

Fine. haha.

The Good Stuff, part 2

So, in this play St. Crispin’s Day that’s opening the 22nd season at this fantastic place called Strawdog Theatre, along with a glimpse at 10 beautifully flawed characters in this story about the night before the battle of Agincourt, Matt Pepper delivers low comedy, high comedy, true love, confused love, immense pain, cruel comedy, palpable fear as people face their mortality, and marvelous wit —and a spectacular Shavian debate about why human beings go to war. Yes, Reg, you’ll get all that and MORE!

We’ve got quite a world in store for you, sonically, scenically, and . . . costumi…em, you know, like. . .that em, that adverb that would refer to the costume design element . . . there are also cool clothes. Right. Point is, the design is kickin, Reg.

Fine, good for you.

So cynical, Reg. My my. Well, I won’t tell you who, but I believe there are some fellows you may take to rather strongly in our story.

Background, or “resources”, as the kids say

For you research hounds, while this is a fictional story, the world was carefully researched by both your playwright and your players. The story of this battle is a very compelling drama and we found tons of inspiration through immersing ourselves in things like a day-in-the-life of an English solider on a foreign campaign or a day-in-the-life of a 15th Century French whore and exactly how an exhausted, sick and near starved force outnumbered 5 to 1 defeated an army that was healthy, alert and waiting for them.

Since we’re on this blog thing, if you’re interested in some of the stuff we looked at, here are a couple hot links for you:

“Female Camp Followers” in Lancastrian Normandy 1415-1450 (for real)

Wanna Preemptively Invade Your Neighbor? There’s an app for that. How Henry got there.

Brief brief synopsis of campaign

Map of Harfleur to Agincourt

Agincourt Documentary, it’s in 5 parts, the others will come up in the margin after this one plays out. 50 min total.

A New Rules segment from Bill Maher from early August 2009
Very pertinent to a particular arguement in the play (yes, I spell it with an e, that’s one of my things, one of my anglophile things, I guess)

Two great books on Agincourt:

• My fave is the imaginatively titled Agincourt by Juliet Barker
• Only slightly more imaginatively titled, because it was written four decades earlier, is Christopher Hibbert’s Agincourt

Oh, is this like that other play . . . ?

A final note, with feeling: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard is a brilliant play and a favorite of mine. That other-side-of-the-mirror work, based on two minor characters in the mirror that is Shakespeare’s Hamlet, works because that play is infinitely more popular and can be enjoyed by an audience member with a pedestrian received-version of the story OR an ardent student’s rabidly enthusiastic knowledge of the play.

St Crispin’s Day is not to Shakespeare’s Henry V as R & G is to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. And that’s a good thing, since the former is nowhere nearly as popular or universally adored as the latter. The playwright has said that SCD “takes place on the tattered fringes of Shakespeare’s Henry V”. No knowledge of H V is required to enjoy this play. Some knowledge of that play adds some enjoyment, but I’d suggest it’s mainly in the dramaturgically fascinating category. Pepper uses some characters you may know, keeps some of their attributes, tosses others out, and invents new ones -just like Shakespeare did with his source material. This play is a riff on that play; it’s also a riff that shifts chameleon-like through many different styles of writing/theatre. In fact, I’d say it’s messy, in the best way.

Invitation and Sign Off

See you at the bar afterward. And thanks for reading.

Oh, Reg, when you see the show, if you want to tell me what you thought or ask something or complain that you’ll never get those two hours of your life back, write me at dreambrotherkevin@gmail.com That’s my private email, so please don’t pass that on to just anyone.

Kevin Fox