The Stuart Excellence In Bay Area Theater Awards for 2013

Stuart Bousel gives us his Best of 2013 list. 

Three years ago I decided that I wanted to start my own Bay Area Theater Awards, because my opinions are just as legitimate as anyone else’s, the awards I give out are as valuable as any other critical awards, (recipients of the SEBATA, or the Stuey, if you prefer, get nothing but my admiration and some free publicity), and also because there’s a fairly good chance that I’ve seen a lot of theater the usual award givers haven’t seen. The best thing about the Bay Area theater scene is that there is a huge diversity in the offerings, and so much on the table to begin with. No one person can see it all, and therefore it’s important to share with one another the highlights of our time in the audience seat, if only to create a greater awareness of what and who is out there making stuff.

Also, there are some people who think I don’t like anything, and I feel a need to not only prove them wrong, but to do so by expressing how much of the local color I do love and admire, as opposed to just pointing out that the reason they think I don’t like anything is because I generally don’t like *their* work (oh… I guess I did just point that out, didn’t I?). Normally I post these “awards” on my Facebook page, but this year I decided to bring them to the blog because the mission statement of the SEBATA is pretty in-line with the mission statement of Theater Pub, and having come to the close of an amazing year of growth for the blog, it now has a much farther reach than my Facebook page could ever hope to have. Congratulations SF Theater Pub Blog- you just won a Stuey.

Anyway, because I am a product of the generation that grew up with the MTV Movie Awards- and, because I’m the only person on the voting committee and thus can do what I like- I have decided that my categories are purely arbitrary and can be stretched to allow me to write about anyone I feel like. The two limits are 1) I can’t give myself an award (though I can have been involved in the show on a limited level) and 2) I won’t go over thirteen (though there may be ties for some awards). Because seriously, how (more) self indulgent would this be without either of those rules? Oh, 3) I won’t give out awards for how bad something was. I’m here to be positive. And chances are those people were punished enough.

To all my friends and frenemies in the Bay Area Theater Scene… it’s been a great year. Let’s you and me do it again sometime. Well… most of you.

And now, presenting the Fourth Annual Stuey Awards…

BEST THEATER FESTIVAL
“Pint Sized IV” (San Francisco Theater Pub)
Pint Sized Plays gets better each year, and it’s honestly one of two things I actually miss about working at the Cafe Royale (the other is the uniqueness of doing Shakespeare there, which for some reason works in a completely magical way I wish it worked more often on traditional stages). This year the festival was put together by Neil Higgins, who did an amazing job, and I think we had some of the best material yet. The evening as a whole felt incredibly cohesive, with a theme of forgiveness and letting go, archly reflective of our decision to leave the Cafe Royale, and I think incredibly relevant to a lot of our audience. We knew Pint Sized could be very funny, and very socially pointed, but I’m not sure we had ever conceived of it as moving and this year it was, thanks in no small part to our writers (Megan Cohen, Peter Hsieh, Sang S. Kim, Carl Lucania, Daniel Ng, Kirk Shimano and Christian Simonsen), directors (Jonathan Carpenter, Colin Johnson, Tracy Held Potter, Neil Higgins, Charles Lewis III, Meghan O’Connor, Adam L. Sussman) and actors (Annika Bergman, Jessica Chisum, Andrew Chung, AJ Davenport, Eli Diamond, Caitlin Evenson, Lara Gold, Matt Gunnison, Melissa Keith, Charles Lewis III, Brian Quakenbush, Rob Ready, Casey Robbins, Paul Rodrigues, Jessica Rudholm). The evening would start off with a magical performance by the Blue Diamond Bellydancers, whose combination of skill and spectacle got our audiences excited for what was to come. As we moved through the pieces, each by turns funny and poignant, each in some way or another about finding something, losing it, letting it go, and then coming back stronger, you could feel the audience grow warmer and closer each night. By the time Rob Ready gave the closing monologue, fixing each audience member in turn with a smile, you could feel everyone really listening and you could hear a pin drop in the room, and that’s saying something for the noisy by nature Cafe Royale. I think a lot of love went into the festival this year, and not just because it might be the last, and the product of that love was real magic and like the best theater- you had to be there. And if you weren’t, you really missed out.

BEST SHOW
“The Motherf**ker With The Hat” (San Francisco Playhouse)
I saw a lot of decent, solid, well done theater this year but I had a hard time connecting to a lot of it, which was rarely a flaw with the show and probably had more to do with where I was/am as a person (lots of change this year). Then again, something about really good theater is that it can get you out of your own head and into some other world, for a while. Towards the end of the year, I saw three shows I really really liked: “Crumble, or Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake” at Bigger Than A Bread Box Theater Company, “Peter/Wendy” at Custom Made Theater Company, and “First” at Stage Werx, produced by Altair Productions/The Aluminous Collective and Playground. Still, San Francisco Playhouse’s production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s “The Motherf**ker With The Hat”, directed by Bill English, was probably my favorite show of the year. Who knows why it has an edge on the others? Maybe because as someone who spent most of their childhood weekends in New York it seemed oddly familiar, or maybe it was the deft handling by the universally excellent cast (Carl Lumbly, Gabriel Marin, Rudy Guerrero, Margo Hall, Isabelle Ortega) of the complex relationships and dialogue that Guirgis does so well, or maybe it was just refreshing to see such a simple, honest play in what, for me, was a year characterized by a lot of stylistically interesting but emotionally cold theater. There is something very passionate, scathing, bombastic and yet also humble and forgiving about Guirgis’ work that I think makes him such an important voice in modern American drama and English’s production brought all that out with an easy grace. The show really worked, and got me out of my head, and when I went back to my life I felt much better for the journey. What more can you ask of a theater experience?

BEST READING
“Paris/Hector” (San Francisco Olympians Festival)
I attend a lot of readings every year, and run a reading festival myself, so I’ve come to greatly value a really well done reading. This year, the award goes to director Katja Rivera and writers Kirk Shimano and Bridgette Dutta Portman, whose pair of one acts about the pair of Trojan princes Paris and Hector made for one of the best nights of this past year’s San Francisco Olympians Festival. Part of what I loved about it was that in one evening we saw the amazing variety the festival can offer: Kirk’s play was a comedy with a poignant moment or two, while Bridgette’s was a faux-classical drama- written in verse no less. Though the writers are the center of attention at the festival, credit really has to be given to Katja Rivera, who as the director of both pieces, made many simple but effective choices to highlight the best elements of both works and utilize the talents of her excellent cast: Yael Aranoff, Molly Benson, Jeremy Cole, Mackenszie Drae, Allison Fenner, Dana Goldberg, John Lennon Harrison, Michelle Talgarow, Alaric Toy. With the combined excellent story-telling of the performers (including beautiful and surprising singing from Yael, Molly and Dana), the thoughtfulness of the scripts, and the cohesiveness of the whole, this night of the festival stood out best in what was a consistently strong year at the Olympians.

BEST SHORT PLAY
“My Year” by Megan Cohen (Bay One Acts Festival)
Megan Cohen’s “My Year” is the kind of thing I wish more short plays would be: dynamic, personal, and complete. In a sea of short plays that are really fragments, or meet-cute plays, it’s always lovely to see something with a beginning, a middle, and end, and full-formed characters having actual interactions and not just feeling like Girl A and Guy B, thrown together by the whimsy of the playwright to make a point (though of course, the right playwright can pull that off- which is why so many people try to ape it). A friend of mine described “My Year” as “A fun little 90s indie film on stage” and my reaction when watching it was “Oh, Dear God, convince Meg to let me write a companion piece to this!” because let’s face it: at least a third of what I write is a 90s film on stage. My own vanity aside, what I loved about this play (directed by Siobhan Doherty, starring Emma Rose Shelton, Theresa Miller, Nkechi Live, Allene Hebert, Jaime Lee Currier, and Luna Malbroux) was that it felt constantly on the move, while still being mostly composed of intimate moments between a group of women at a birthday party. Like a lot of the theater that I really loved this year, it also just struck a personal chord, watching this young woman (Emma Rose Shelton) trying to enjoy the party her friends have thrown for her (though she doesn’t like surprise parties) despite there being no food and a random stranger (Theresa Miller) who worms her way in only to turn out to be the troublemaker she’s originally pegged for. Megan’s writing had its usual combination of smart and sentimental, but whereas a lot of her other work heads into absurdity and/or extreme quirkiness (not that this is bad), “My Year” stayed very grounded and found its meaning in that effort to stay grounded, making what might be a quiet little play in anyone else’s oeuvre, a nice change of pace in Cohen’s. The final moment, where the characters howl at the moon because what else are you going to do after a shitty birthday, felt like a communal sigh even the audience was in on, probably because we could all relate to Shelton’s character, and while having always loved and admired Meg’s work, this is probably the first time I related to it so wholeheartedly.

The Peter O’Toole Award For General Awesomeness
Linda Huang (Stage Manager, Tech, Box Office, Everything)
You know how the Oscars and Tonys give out Lifetime Achievement Awards for people whose contribution is so massive that it would kind of be criminal to pick one work or contribution so instead they just get an award for basically being themselves? You know, like how Peter O’Toole got that award because at some point somebody realized that he was pervasively brilliant and always in fashion and therefore easily forgotten because things like “Oh, well, he’ll win next year” often times factors in to who we recognize, meaning things like reliability and consistency do not? Well, for the first time ever in the history of the SEBATAs, I’m creating The Peter O’Toole Award for General Awesomeness and giving it to Linda Huang, without whom, in all seriousness, I believe that small theater in San Francisco would probably grind to a halt. Earlier this year, I got recognized by the Weekly as a “Ringmaster” of the theater scene, but frankly I (and people like me) could not do what we do without having Linda (and people like her) constantly coming to our aid despite being paid a fraction of what they’re worth and half the time being forgotten because what they do isn’t in the immediate eye of the audience. Linda is a total gem of the theater scene. She wears many hats, though she’s probably best known for running light boards, and one of my favorite things when attending the theater is running into her, usually working in some capacity I previously was unaware she was qualified to do (note: Linda is qualified to do everything). What I love best about Linda (aside from her cutting sense of humor and tell-it-like-it-is demeanor) is her incredible generosity: she does so much for local theater and rarely gets paid, and even when she does get paid she often says, “Pay me last.” A true team player, and one we don’t thank enough, especially as she’s the only person who seems to know how to get the air conditioning in the Exit Theatre to work.

BEST BREAK THROUGH
Atticus Rex, Open Mic Night In Support of the Lemonade Fund (SF Theater Pub/Theater Bay Area Individual Services Committee)
I never expected to include a note about someone who performed at an open mic/variety show, but I wanted to shout out to Atticus Rex, a young performer who literally made his performance debut at the San Francisco Theater Pub/ISC fundraiser for the Lemonade Fund this year. A last minute replacement, Atticus and a friend performed some original hip-hop for our audience of mostly performance professionals and their friends, and despite the formidable crowd and the first time nerves, he basically killed it. Even when he made a mistake it worked: he’d call himself out, apologize, and start again, somehow without ever missing a beat. His lyrics are very tight and poetic, and the contrast between the power in his words and his humbleness at approaching and leaving the stage works so well you’d almost think it was an act- except he later confessed he’d never performed live before, and it couldn’t have been more sincere. With genuine hope he never loses his sincerity, while also continuing to grow his confidence and experience, I wanted to take a moment to say congratulations once again, and thank you for reminding us all what it looks like to really take a risk onstage.

BEST CHEMISTRY
Genie Cartier and Audrey Spinazola (Genie and Audrey’s Dream Show, SF Fringe Festival)
What’s potentially cuter than “Clyde the Cyclops?” Very little, but these two ladies and their breathless, funny, and surreal little clown show come dangerously close to giving Clyde a run for his money, and it’s the only show I saw at the Fringe this year that I wished my boyfriend had also seen. Bravely straddling the bridge between performance artists and acrobats, this collage of monologues, poems, jokes, mime, clowning, puppetry, stunts, music, and children’s games, is like watching two hyper-articulate kids on pixie sticks go nuts in a club house, but only if those kids had an incredible sense of timing and arch senses of humor (not to mention very flexible bodies). I’ve never been a huge fan of circus stuff (I like it as an accent, sometimes, but as entertainment on its own it doesn’t tend to hold my interest long), but I think I’d be a fan of anything that had these two women in it. Their ability to play off each other is the key to making their show work, and when you watch it you have that sense of being let into the private make-believe world of people who have found kindred spirits in one another. It’s an utterly magic combination and from what I know of other people who saw it, it basically charmed the pants off everyone. Or at least, everyone who has a soul.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR
Ben Calabrese (Apartment in “Crumble, or Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake”)
I saw a lot of great performances by men this year (Sam Bertken in “Peter/Wendy”, Tim Green and Gregory Knotts in “First”, Paul Rodrigues “Pint Sized Plays IV”, Will Hand “Dark Play”, Casey Robbins “Oh Best Beloved!”), but this one really took my breath away (though since Sam Bertken actually got me to sincerely clap for fairies in Peter/Wendy, he gets a second shout out). Ben’s role, which is to literally embody the voice of a neglected apartment, is the kind of role that could either be the best thing about the show, or the worst. Luckily for Bigger Than A Breadbox’s production of “Crumble, or Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake (written by Sheila Callaghan), Ben rocked it. Bouncing around the stage, dive bombing the furniture, all the while spouting, eloquently, Callaghan’s beautiful and complex monologues, Ben was so utterly watchable it was impossible not to buy the conceit of the role, and so moments when he has an orgasm from having the radiator turned on, or turns his fingers into loose electrical wires, don’t seem ridiculous, but made immediate and total sense. It’s usually not a compliment to tell an actor they did a tremendous job being an inanimate object, but what Ben did so well was illustrate that a home, while not “alive”, does indeed have a life to it. And if that life occasionally fixes the audience with Ben’s particular brand of “scary actor stare” why… all the better.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS
Brandice Marie Thompson (Georgia Potts in “First”)
Oh, this was a tough one. As usual, the actresses of the Bay Area are kicking ass and taking names no matter what their role, and my decision to pick Brandice above the rest is because I think she best exemplified that thing which so many actresses have to do, which is take a relatively underwritten role in a play about men and turn it into a rich, believable character who somehow manages to steal the show. Evelyn Jean Pine, who wrote “First”, is a fantastic writer and she writes women and men equitably well, and due credit must go to her for the creation and inclusion of this character in a story mostly about male egos, but in a lesser capable actresses hands, this role could have been annoying, or forgettable, or purely comical, and Brandice avoided all of these traps while making the character utterly charming at the same time. The truth is, her arc became much more interesting to me than that of the main character, and I think a strong argument could be made that “First” was just as much about Georgia as it was about Bill Gates. Director Michael French no doubt had a hand in this too, but in the end it’s a performer who makes or breaks a role and Brandice’s ability to combine mousy with spunky with unexpected and yet thoroughly authentic character turns was deeply satisfying to watch. Georgia kicked ass and took names, because Brandice does. Runners up: Melissa Carter (“Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake”, Bigger Than A Breadbox), Allison Jean White (“Abigail’s Party”, SF Playhouse), Sam Jackson (“Oh Best Beloved!”, SF Fringe Festival), Courtney Merril (“Into the Woods”, Ray of Light), Elissa Beth Stebbins (“Peter/Wendy”, Custom Made Theatre Company).

BEST FUSION THEATER PIECE
“Nightingale” (Davis Shakespeare Ensemble/SF Fringe Festival)
This little gem at this year’s fringe festival was adapted from the myth of Philomel by Gia Battista, with music by Richard Chowenhill, directed by Rob Sals (with Battista), and staring Gabby Battista, April Fritz and Tracy Hazas as three remarkably similar looking women who each take a turn playing the heroine of a bizarre fairy tale (all the other characters in the story are played by them as well). Dance, pantomime, narration, song and traditional theater techniques all came together in a way that was astonishingly clean and charming in its simplicity. The black and white aesthetic used to unify the look of the show and performers gave the whole thing a quality both modern and timeless, and in its gentle, dreamy tone the sharp elements of social commentary and satire often seemed more brutal and impactful. Of everything I saw at the Fringe this past year, which included a number of excellent works, this piece has stayed with me the longest.

BEST SOLO SHOW
“Steve Seabrook: Better Than You” by Kurt Bodden (The Marsh)
I saw a lot more solo performance than usual this year (including works by Annette Roman, Laura Austin Wiley, Alexa Fitzpatrick, Jenny Newbry Waters, Rene Pena), and realizing how good it can be is, in and of itself, kind of a miracle because I used to say things like, “Theater begins with two people” and “If Aeschylus had wanted to write sermons he wouldn’t have added Electra”. Kurt’s show was not created this past year, it has a long history, but I only saw it in its most recent Marsh incarnation and I’m hoping he’s been able to find ways to keep it going (his Facebook feeds indicate this is so). A satire of motivational speakers and the cult of self-improvement, “Steve Seabrook” manages to be so much more by combining satirical fiction with moments of the kind of personal monologue (still fiction) that permeates solo shows. The result is a sense of development, of a story (Steve’s) unfolding in real time while another story, (Steve’s Seminar) plays itself out over the course of a weekend. Playing off the convention of a backstage comedy (we see the seminar, then we see Steve when he’s not “on”), Kurt’s brilliance as a performer is evident in the seamless transition from one to the other, again and again, carrying a throughline that shows us not only why Steve buys into his mantras, but why any of us buy into anything we’ve come up with (or adopted from someone else) to keep us moving through life’s ups and downs. At once very funny and cutting, while also moving and real (and yes, fuck it, kind of inspirational), Kurt’s show also gets a nod for its fantastic takeaway schwag: a keychain light with Steve’s name on it, with which every audience member is encouraged to shine their light in a dark world.

BEST DIRECTOR
Rebecca Longworth and Joan Howard, “Oh Best Beloved” (SF Fringe Festival)
“Oh Best Beloved” got a lot of attention and deservedly so- well acted, well designed, it was a genuinely fun piece of theater. Perhaps most deserving of being singled out in the project, however, are director Rebecca Longworth and partner Joan Howard, who share credit for conceptualizing the show (in which Joan also played a part and had, in my opinion, the single best moment in the show), and who lead the rest of the company in adapting the material from Ruyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories”. Anyone who saw the show could easily see that it had about a million moving parts, and Longworth and Howard’s ability to keep all those plates spinning on a small budget and under the strict conditions of the San Francisco Fringe Festival (they literally put up and pulled down a full set with each performance) is worthy of award in and of itself, but the level of commitment and craft they were able to pull from their design team and performers was equally as impressive. Everything about the show, even the parts that didn’t work as well as others, felt thought through and done with panache, making this ambitious and unique experience a delightful jewel in the SF Fringe Festival’s crown.

BEST DESIGNER
Bill English, “Abigail’s Party” (SF Playhouse)
Scenery in general doesn’t do much for me. I enjoy good scenery, but the best scenery should kind of vanish into the background, in my opinion, and be something you barely pay attention to. As a result, I’m often just as happy with a blank stage, or really well thought out minimal set, as I am with a full one, so long as the play I’m watching is good. That said, every now and then I will see a set I just adore, and this year it was Bill English’s set for SF Playhouse’s “Abigail’s Party”, by Mike Leigh, directed by Amy Glazer. Basically a living room/dining room/kitchenet combo, this fully realized “home” was very well crafted as a place, but more importantly, it really worked as a place where people lived. The 70s style was at once present without being overwhelming, evoking the time period without looking like it was a homage to the time period, or a museum dedicated to 70s kitch. I mean, it honestly reminded me of numerous homes I’d played in as a child (I was born in 1978) and all the wallpaper looked like wallpaper in my parents’ home before my mother completely re-did the house in 1990 because “we can admit this is ugly… now”. The amazing thing about English’s set is that it didn’t seem ugly, in spite of being made up entirely of patterns and colors we now find appalling. He made it all work together, the way people once did, and the final result was simultaneously comfortable and dazzling. I remember thinking, waiting for the play to begin, “I could live here.”

And last, but not least, every year I pick…

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE EXPERIENCE TO WORK ON
“The Age of Beauty” (No Nude Men Productions/The Exit Theatre)
I had taken a break from directing my own work, but with this nine performance workshop I allowed myself to re-discover that, as much as I like directing plays by others, there is nothing quite as satisfying as feeling like I’m telling a very personal story of my own and having the final say on how that happens. Of course, such experiences are only rewarding when you get to work with great actors, and I was lucky to have four amazing women (Megan Briggs, Emma Rose Shelton, Allison Page, Sylvia Hathaway) who were willing to go on this adventure with me, always keeping stride as I made cuts and changed lines, memorizing a mountain of material in Emma and Sylvia’s case, and crafting subtle characters who had to be both different from each other and relatively interchangeable at the same time. When I had a hard time articulating what I was going for, they would nod and smile and then show me what I meant by doing it better than I could describe it. When the show opened by the skin of its teeth it had one of those minor miracle opening nights, where even though you’re just a tiny bit unprepared (all my fault, I kept changing the script), it somehow all comes together and really works. Over the course of the show, as their performances grew and refined (our final two nights were simply perfect), I was able to see what flaws still remained in the script (two pages, middle of scene of scene two were cut the day after we closed), and any writer of new work will tell you that’s the best experience you can hope for on a first production. Shout outs to my awesome design team Cody Rishell, Jim Lively and Wil Turner IV! “The Age of Beauty” helped restore some of my lagging faith in the theater process, and made me commit to doing more of my own work in the coming year.

Stuart Bousel runs the San Francisco Theater Pub blog, and is a Founding Artistic Director of the San Francisco Theater Pub. You can find out more about his work at http://www.horrorunspeakable.com.

Theater Around The Bay: 16 Actors You Should Totally Cast

Stuart Bousel processes a callback that was an embarrassment of riches.

I recently had the awesome experience of sitting through the call-backs for Custom Made’s 2014 production of The Crucible, which I will be directing. I say “awesome” because it’s probably the first time in my career I gotten to watch 50+ actors audition their butts off for five hours and have literally all of them be really, really good. No lie: we honestly could have charged admission to the callbacks, they were that entertaining and engaging. I could have easily cast the show three times over with totally different people each time, and been perfectly happy with each version of the cast, that’s how good this pool of performers was.

Alas, as is often the case, I only had 16 slots available, not even a third of the excellent actors I had to choose from. When it came to decision time, I worked really hard to balance my final choices with familiar faces and new ones, people I loved working with along with people I’ve been wanting to work with, while also factoring in all those different things any director factors in when casting (like if certain actors make for a believable family, etc.), and yet of course at the end of the day I still ended up with a list of un-cast actors I couldn’t help but stare at and think, “Oh, but that person’s fantastic!” while also recognizing there just wasn’t a place for them in this show.

For me, the list of desired collaborations is always longer than the list of people I actually get to collaborate with on any given show, so, with an enormous desire to celebrate just how much talent we really have in this Bay Area theater scene of ours, here are 16 incredible folks from The Crucible callbacks that I didn’t cast this time around, which again still leaves out a whole lot of other great people who I saw that day. Next time, my friends. And in the meantime, to all my fellow directors, snatch these folks up while you can. They’re amongst the best of the best.

Sam Bertken. I’ve gotten to know Sam pretty well over the last year since I first met him at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, and he’s both a delightful person and a delightful actor. His strengths lie in physical comedy and exciting, larger-than-life characters, and so he’s perfect for stylized works, broad comedies and performances pieces. He played Tranio for me when I directed Taming of the Shrew this past year and he’s very easy to work with, very dedicated, and he comes into the room with a lot of ideas to contribute towards building a character. He also takes direction exceptionally well, pulling back and toning down when you need him to, opening up and making a character explode on stage when you let him run loose. He almost stole the show every night of our run and yet he’s undeniably a total team player. He’ll be playing Peter Pan this fall at Custom Made and I kind of can’t wait in an embarrassingly fanboy way.

Kat Bushnell. Kat and I have a long history of working together, ever since I cast her back in 2011 in my production of Giant Bones, the auditions for which were my first introduction to the bundle of warm support and talent that is Kat Bushnell. Funny, smart, friendly- and she can sing!- Kat Bushnell is a triple threat who pulls off one of the best British accents of any actress I’ve seen in the Bay and she works hard in any role you put her in, from minor character to lead: a perfect ensemble member (which was essential in Giant Bones). She’s also a great cold reader- playwrights take note!- and a lot of the work I’ve done with her has been script in hand because Kat’s good at making strong, immediate choices and she has a lovely, melodic speaking voice that makes all your lines sound good, hence making her a staple of the SF Olympians festival since year one.

Ben Calabrese. Never saw this guy before Crucible auditions, I sincerely hope to get a chance to work with him at some point in the future. An able reader and a jovial participant, I kept having him read partly because I enjoyed what he brought out in other actors and he had a really nice, open-to-anything vibe that I found myself enjoying regardless of what role I had him read for. Lots of energy and enthusiasm, my guess is he’s a total team player- you’d have to be to endure five hours of callbacks and still have a smile on your face.

Ashley Cowan. Ashley has played a lead for me twice now and I have to say, she is one dedicated actor and you can be sure, if you cast her, that she will work incredibly hard. She’s also a friendly, pro-team presence backstage, perpetually positive and good at rallying the troops even when you’re marching through that deathly terrible dress rehearsal where nothing goes right. She turns in thoughtful, layered performances with a particular penchant for anti-ingenues, those young women roles characterized by being just outside the normal, run-of-the-mill heroine variety, smarter and quirkier than the girl next door. As Viola in my Twelfth Night she had a heart-breaking reunion scene with her Sebastian that brought tears to the audience’s eyes every single time but she’s probably better known throughout the Bay Area as a comic actress and for very good reasons: she’s genuinely funny and has a dry, deadpan delivery that kills when aimed to do so.

Laura Domingo. A passionate, fiery performer, Laura does hysteria and agony like nobody else, but she’s also got a sexy, seductive side that revealed itself during the Olympians Festival last year when she played a femme fatale in a noire style play by Colin Johnson. In reality, she’s a sweet person who has been game for everything we’ve given her at the Olympians Festival and I love when she turns up again and again for consideration- demonstrating a positive, open attitude that characterizes the best variety of performer. One day, Laura, I just know we’re going to do a kick-ass show together. 

Matt Gunnison. Matt and I have done four full productions together and a play I wrote has, what I think, is the perfect leading role for him (now if only I could find a producer!). Talk about an actor with range, Matt can do funny, Matt can do scary, and Matt can do sympathetic, and in my ideal role for him he gets to do all of that and more in one night. He has an elastic body and an incredibly expressive face that evokes tremendous responses from audiences and he’s both absolutely solid and reliable while also being the sort of performer who can, when asked, surprise the hell out of you. On top of that he’s arguably the nicest guy in the Bay Area theater scene, soft-spoken and gently witty, astute and supportive and 100% there when you need him. He’s a cornerstone actor, the kind of presence that elevates your production both backstage and onstage, and it’s criminal that he’s not hugely famous.

April Green. Seriously, this woman is such a powerhouse and I never saw her or knew her name before these auditions and now I want to see whatever she gets cast in next because I sense she tears it up like few others can. She brought a deeply emotional weight to everything she read for and she has a grace and a kindness to her that I found very moving, especially for a cold read. I worry she’s gonna read this and think I’m a stalker. I swear, I’m not. Just a freshly converted fan to who was, for me, the best new face in this truly epic assortment of actors.

Ryan Hayes. My longest running collaborator in the Bay Area, Ryan was in the very first show I ever directed in the Bay Area (Edward II) and we’ve probably done ten shows together since, not to mention a ton of readings and other theatrical collaborations. An amazingly versatile and dedicated performer, Ryan is one of those people who can play a wide variety of roles, from over-the-top to incredibly subtle, and often times accessing both extremes of his range in the same evening. He loves big characters but he’s excellent at solid and subtle ones too and when he’s in your cast you can rely on him coming through on all fronts, being one of the first to get off book, and ready to lend a hand with any element of the production. He’s a team player and a team leader, and he just gets better and easier to work with as time goes on.

Neil Higgins. Neil can do flamboyant, acidic wit like nobody else and, interestingly enough, his other forte is charmingly insecure everymen. He has exceptionally good comic timing and the unique ability to go from brittle to endearing at the drop of a hat. Backstage he’s a solid addition to the mix, sure to make people laugh in the rehearsal process, always able and willing to buckle down and get work done when the time has come. During the production of Measure for Measure I cast in him (and in which he stole the show every night) he destroyed a bottle of beer mid-performance and totally made it work without missing a beat. It was pretty legendary. 

Sharon Huff Robinson. I only got to know Sharon a little bit through callbacks but she made a very good impression on me, striking me as a smart woman with a great sense of humor about herself and the whole show business thing, combining that with some really truly solid acting skills. What I loved the most about her audition is that she’s so obviously a strong, self-assured woman who wouldn’t put up with all the crap Miller subjects his female characters to in The Crucible. Side note: she kind of looks like mid-1980s Carrie Fisher.

Heather Kellogg. Yet another smart, enthusiastic and courageous actress, Heather always makes super daring choices during auditions that are a nice contrast to her very girl-next-door look and vibe. She can do a thoroughly believable Irish accent, has a good command of stylized language and classical text, and she’s at the perfect place to play a number of different ingénue roles, from flighty and delightful, to the “guarding secrets and plans” variety, to the brave and plucky kind. I kind of want to see her play Anne Shirley in a stage adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, and if you know how much I love Anne of Green Gables, you realize this is no joking matter.

Brian Martin. Of all the actors I have known over an extended period of time, Brian has evolved the most. He was always very watchable, a cute guy with a very natural acting style that makes him an excellent choice for modern theater, but in the last few years I have been using him for classical productions and he’s just as competent and comfortable with verse and poetry. He works hard, he takes himself and the art very seriously, but he’s never a wet blanket about anything and he has no ego at all, making him a great addition to the backstage environment of the show (seriously, is there anyone in the world who doesn’t like Brian?). He’s at the perfect age to play lots of male romantic leads and he’s one of the most non-awkward stage kissers I’ve ever directed. Seriously, he’s made out with somebody in every single play I’ve cast him in, and nobody ever complains about it. 

Theresa Miller. Speaking of inarguably lovable, Theresa Miller is another person I think we can all agree is just, well… utterly likable. Blessed with an inarguably endearing smile and a penchant for feckless comedy, my favorite roles I’ve seen her in are the ones where someone has noticed just how terrifying Theresa is when cast as evil. Evil Theresa is truly scary, because when she says horrible things there’s still an undertone of sweetness to her that somehow makes it just that much more psychotic sounding. She also nails victimized characters, at least partly because you never want to see anything bad happen to Theresa. A few years ago I produced a play she was in called Oily Replies where she played a kind of lost film noire ingénue and moments when the detective would manhandle her you really just wanted to punch him. A truly charming and dedicated actress who generates immediate emotional loyalty from audiences (when not creeping them out), I can’t recommend her more.

Allison Page. This just in: if you don’t know Allison Page, you need to, and now is your chance because I predict she will be beyond big time relatively soon. Everything about her is star quality. She’s funny, she’s smart, she’s sensitive, she’s articulate, she can take direction well and she likes to push herself to do new things and go places she hasn’t gone before. She’s a delight backstage- I thoroughly believe she has been blessed with the remarkable ability to be able to get along with virtually anybody- and audiences fall in love with her approximately 35 seconds after she first walks out on stage. Jennifer Lawrence whatever, Allison is the perfect ingénue for modern theater because she nails quirky without ever being precious or contrived and she’s also got a tough core that lends her characters a nice edge and some gravitas. She’s very beautiful in a throw-back to the Golden Age of Hollywood way, and her ability to knock both indie heroine roles and comedic love interest parts out of the park makes her usable in a variety of shows and contexts.

Jessica Rudholm. Ultra-professional backstage and a thoughtful, invested performer, the most unique and startling thing about Jessica is that she packs, into a small and delicate body, an unbelievable amount of power and strength. She has dancer and movement training that allows her to do physically astounding things on stage and her voice is deep, smoky and resonate. She’s so striking on stage she almost demands exceptional parts of the Queen, Sorceress, God Incarnate variety, and in the past she’s played unusual characters like Feste in Twelfth Night and the Moon in my play Twins because there is an ethereal, mesmerizing quality to her that allows her to pull off those kinds of roles without the tiniest bit of affectation. It’s just Jessica doing what she does best, namely being the most riveting presence in the room.

Paul Stout. I kind of feel like Paul can do almost any kind of character you throw at him, and is the apex of that solid, dependable performer you can use in a wide variety of roles, always knowing that whatever he’s been given he’ll make it a vital part of your production with strong and compelling storytelling. I’ve particularly liked Paul in lovable dickhead roles, though I think my favorite performance of his is still the first one I saw him in, as a drunk, pathetic factory foreman in Audience at Theater Pub. Paul nailed that perfect balance between irritating and impossible to not feel sorry for, and he repeatedly makes difficult characters accessible, show after show.

So there you go. Sixteen actors I won’t be using for my next show but you absolutely should. And you know what? I could list another 16, and still not have listed everyone at these call-backs who was worthy of note (which again, was pretty much everyone). What it really comes down to is this: there are a lot of things we can stand to improve in the Bay Area theater scene, but it’s important to also remember there are a lot of things which are right, which are un-beatable, and there’s nothing like five hours of watching talented, passionate performers perform to remind you that a lot of the good stuff about doing work out here starts with the people you get the chance to work with. Someone you love not on this list? Then by all means, tell us about them! Tell the world! Help open a door for them and by doing so continue to grow our scene into a better, brighter, more exciting place to be.

Stuart Bousel attends an abnormally large number of auditions over the course of any given year and does his best to pay really close attention to all of them. That said, he won’t be casting any shows for quite some time in the forsee-able future. Yes, it’s screwing with his brain. He hopes to one day talk a producer into funding his dream production of Clive Barker’s Colossus, in which he would be able to cast literally everybody who was at the Crucible auditions, and then some. You would want to see this show. It would be amazing.

Don’t Miss The Dead! One Night Only!

Every year on June 16th, fans of James Joyce celebrate “Bloomsday” – the day upon which the novel Ulysses takes place. But what is to be done on the day after?

Join us today, June 17th, for San Francisco Theater Pub’s staged reading of Joyce’s famous short story, “The Dead!”

Performed Reader’s Theater style, this adaptation of The Dead, by our very own Jeremy Cole, ran for six seasons at Hunger Artists Ensemble Theater in Denver, CO!

The year is 1904. It is a snowy winter’s night in the city of Dublin. Gretta and Gabriel Conroy are among the guests at the Morkan Sisters’ annual dinner on the Feast of the Epiphany and the last day of Christmas. An evening of laughter, music and dance ends in introspection and Gabriel has an epiphany of his own.

The Theater Pub cast features: Melissa Clason, Siobhan Doherty, Jean Forsman, Cameron Galloway, Heather Kellogg, William Leschber, Theresa Miller, Rhio Ossola, Vince Faso, and Sara Breindel on the harp.

Admission is, as always, FREE with a suggested donation, and of course, we’ll have Hide Away Blues BBQ there so arrive hungry and get there early to ensure a seat!

See you tonight!

The Dead Will Rise One Week From Tonight!

Every year on June 16th, fans of James Joyce celebrate “Bloomsday” – the day upon which the novel Ulysses takes place. But what is to be done on the day after?

Join us on Monday, June 17th, at 8 PM for San Francisco Theater Pub’s staged reading of Joyce’s famous short story, “The Dead.”

Performed Reader’s Theater style, this adaptation of The Dead, by our very own Jeremy Cole, ran for six seasons at Hunger Artists Ensemble Theater in Denver, CO.

The year is 1904. It is a snowy winter’s night in the city of Dublin. Gretta and Gabriel Conroy are among the guests at the Morkan Sisters’ annual dinner on the Feast of the Epiphany and the last day of Christmas. An evening of laughter, music and dance ends in introspection and Gabriel has an epiphany of his own.

The Theater Pub cast features: Melissa Clason, Siobhan Doherty, Jean Forsman, Cameron Galloway, Heather Kellogg, William Leschber, Theresa Miller, Rhio Ossola, Vince Faso, and Sara Breindel on the harp.

Admission is, as always, FREE with a suggested donation, and of course, we’ll have Hide Away Blues BBQ there so arrive hungry and get there early to ensure a seat!

Bring Out The Dead!

Every year on June 16th, fans of James Joyce celebrate “Bloomsday” – the day upon which the novel Ulysses takes place. But what is to be done on the day after?

Join us on Monday, June 17th, for San Francisco Theater Pub’s staged reading of Joyce’s famous short story, “The Dead.”

Performed Reader’s Theater style, this adaptation of The Dead, by our very own Jeremy Cole, ran for six seasons at Hunger Artists Ensemble Theater in Denver, CO.

The year is 1904. It is a snowy winter’s night in the city of Dublin. Gretta and Gabriel Conroy are among the guests at the Morkan Sisters’ annual dinner on the Feast of the Epiphany and the last day of Christmas. An evening of laughter, music and dance ends in introspection and Gabriel has an epiphany of his own.

The Theater Pub cast features: Melissa Clason, Siobhan Doherty, Jean Forsman, Cameron Galloway, Heather Kellogg, William Leschber, Theresa Miller, Rhio Ossola, Vince Faso, and Sara Breindel on the harp.

Admission is, as always, FREE with a suggested donation, and of course, we’ll have Hide Away Blues BBQ there so arrive hungry and get there early to ensure a seat!

Don’t Miss Our Next Show On Tuesday, June 12!

Founding Artistic Director Victor Carrion returns to Theater Pub after more than a year long hiatus with HIT TRIP FALL RUN DREAM STICK SLEEP, a new performance piece about the early days of AIDS research in the 1980’s.

Of the piece, Carrion writes, “It’s a dramatic portrayal of coming up in the medical industry during the discovery of AIDS and the impact of
homophobia on the development of young medical students and residents.” Seeing this as a way for Theater Pub to contribute to the general discussion of LGBT history and rights that marks every June in San Francisco, Carrion adds that this moment in past was particularly interesting because “The innocence of medicine at the time combined with the social ignorance of the early 80’s to have a profound effect in the lives of a generation of gay men.”

Written by James D. Lock and directed by Carrion, the evening will employ a number of narrative styles, including screenplay, and will be performed by some of our favorite actors: Nick Dickson, Julia Heitner, Rik Lopes, Brian Markley, Theresa Miller and Nick Trengove. As usual, it’s free to attend, though we recommend a five dollar donation at the door, and get there early as we tend to fill up!

The Cast of “Brainkill” Tells All

In the latest of our series of articles on “Brainkill”, this year’s Theater Pub contribution to the annual Bay One Acts Festival, we chat with the cast about what it takes to put together a new work, what makes them tick and how many eggs you have to crack to get an omelet.

All right cast of “Brainkill”. Who are you?

Dave Levine: I am a San Francisco native, a big fan of puns, and love spending time in the sunshine. I love good jokes and if you ask nicely, I’ll tell you one, or five.

Theresa Miller: I love cooking, acting and watching squirrels in Golden Gate Park. I grew up in Santa Monica, went to school at Sonoma State and now happily live in SF. By day, I act as a patient for medical students where I get to have babies, weird infections and hang out in hospital gowns.

Travis Howse: I’m a recent graduate of SFSU, an actor, a puppeteer, a techie, a clown, and at the moment, a professional grilled cheese maker.

Kate Jones: I’m a Chicagoan who moved to SF based on a gut instinct 4 1/2 years ago.  I love acting more than candy (and I really love candy) and have been involved with theater – improv, sketch, drama, etc., since I could talk. Oh, and during the day I manage travel industry sales at the amazing California Academy of Sciences!

Giovanna Arieta: I’m an ultra-sensitive, laughter enthusiast who flosses twice a day. Seriously.

Dave Levine plays Bobby.

And have you ever worked with Theater Pub before, or been a part of the Bay One Acts Festival? Or both?

Giovanna Arieta: This is my first time working with Theatre Pub and BOA.  I’ve worked with Sara Staley in NCTC’s Youth Aware program and Sheherezade X.  She’s a fabulous director so I know if she’s involved in a project, it must be amazing.

Travis Howse: I haven’t worked with either group before. I have worked with Stuart Bousel before, on Juno En Victoria and last year’s Olympians Festival. I’m very excited to begin what I’m hoping is a long relationship with both the BOA festival and Theater Pub.

Theresa Miller: For Theater Pub, I was in the Greek plays The Congresswomen and Helen. I suspect that Stuart just likes dressing me in sheets. This is my fourth BOA. Our fabulous director, Sara Staley, directed me in BOA ’08, where I was proud to play Object #1. Last year in the festival I was a God freak and three years ago I played a devil.

Kate Jones: I just did Theater Pub for the first time this year (January’s Occupy Theater Pub!), which was such a fun experience, and this is my very first BOA!

Dave Levine: This is my first time acting with both Theater Pub and BOA.

What’s got you excited about being in this year’s BOA Festival?

Travis Howse: I love working with new people. New directors, new actors, and new writers all add to a person’s growth. It is always fantastic to work with such a large group of people on so many different projects and new scripts.

Theresa Miller: Getting to collaborate with a bunch of talented and creative artists has got me pretty pumped too! We had a big table read back in March, and there was this excited energy in the air. I’m thrilled to see how it all comes together.  I also LOVE Brainkill and working with Sara, Dave, Kate, Giovanna, Travis and Stuart. I’m looking forward to seeing how it is received.

Dave Levine: All of the acts are bringing something so new to the table. They’ve all got such style and flavor, their own blend of spices, so I’m excited to see the delicious contrast between the pieces. From what I’ve seen so far, I can’t wait for a taste!

Kate Jones: Ohmigosh, I am so thrilled to be in BOA.  So excited in fact that I am taking a night off from performing in my own show (PianoFight’s ForePlays) that I produce so that I could be involved.  I can’t think of anything more wonderful than being surrounded by so many talented writers, directors and actors, and I feel very lucky to be included in this group.  Hopefully this is my first of many BOAs!  Also, I really loved this piece, Brainkill, and after reading my characters monologue I couldn’t wait to perform it on stage.

Giovanna Arieta: Being in the original cast of any show is an honor, but with Brainkill it is particularly so because the characters give breath to such a raw depiction of human kind.  The script says the characters can be any race, age or sex, so it is exciting to create character that that could have been cast in a completely different way.  Every Carmen will be different.  I am excited to introduce the audience to MY Carmen.

Giovanna Arieta plays Carmen.

So what is this play about?

Dave Levine: Brainkill is a bit of an onion. From the get go, you meet characters that are pressed by their incredible wants and needs as well as the world they live in. We can see what drives people at a very basic level, and sometimes, the terrible places they go because of it. In the end, we all have to come to face up to who we are and what we’ve done. But more than anything, Brainkill is about eggs.

Travis Howse: I think it’s a play of extremes. It’s about extreme bad and extreme good, extreme chaotic and extreme lawful. It’s about being trapped by those extremes. And it follows one character as he tries to find a balance between those extremes, and we get to see those struggles play out.

Giovanna Arieta: Brainkill shows, in a very sassy and fun way (if I do say so myself), the potential that we all have to be greedy, vulnerable, evil and hyper-sexual, especially in desperate situations.  One person might see the show and relate it to their social circle and someone else might relate it to the world as a whole.

Kate Jones: I really think it speaks to the greed and need for material items in today’s world.  We are all at fault – myself definitely included – but it is important to remember what we should really value and hopefully that is not just “stuff.”  I think this is an extreme way of looking at what the world could become if you take a high contrast, without the grey, and look at society.

Theresa Miller: It’s about different value systems and moral codes, friendship, power, choices, understanding ourselves, what drives us… and Eggs.

Theresa Miller plays Alex.

And who do you play in this show?

Giovanna Arieta: I play Carmen.  She (Or “it,” perhaps?) is objective, steady and without opinion.

Travis Howse: I play Elliot, and Elliot falls into that extreme good category. He is optimistic to the point of delusion, and has a constant desire to help everyone around him. He is like that friend we all have that constantly says, “no worries man, its a beautiful day”. He is attracted to Bobby because Bobby is struggling. Elliot feels that not only can he help Bobby, but he has to help Bobby.

Dave Levine: I play Bobby. He is sweet, unfortunately for him not the sharpest knife but unexpectedly strong in his determination to escape from a life he didn’t mean to fall into. I look at Bobby as a personification of something we all wish we could have done over again and done right.

Theresa Miller: I’m Alex and Alex is Terrifyingly Awesome. She’s powerful, aggressive, manipulative, violent, impulsive and super hot.

Kate Jones: I play Darcy and  I really feel for Darcy. Her character is one that I think people can relate to though they may not want to admit it.  She wants to be wanted and she thinks that having stuff makes her desirable so she will do anything to get it and must constantly have more.  The unfortunate result is that she looses her own values and who she is in order to become what she thinks other people want.

Got a favorite line?

Travis Howse: “I am free”. The line doesn’t make much sense out of context, but it is such a powerful statement in the realm of this play.

Kate Jones: Oh gosh, I have several.  Out of my character’s lines, I really like “”I have never had an ulcer but I know it feels like an empty hole in your gut where other people’s stuff is supposed to be.”  It really shows how much people in this society have lost their own sense of self and who they are is defined by their material items.

Theresa Miller: Too many favorites! Top 3: “I want a fucking omelet. Don’t you want an omelet Bobby? “So put Darcy out of Darcy’s misery” and “Let’s fuck”, which is still kinda scary to say, but I love it!

Dave Levine: I love ‘We’re carrying guns!’ It’s such a delicious verbal joust.

Giovanna Arieta: “Why doesn’t my character have more lines?”

Kate Jones plays Darcy.

So when you’re playing a part, how do you go about getting into the character’s head?

Dave Levine: After I read the script, I go back and sift through trying to find any major or defining moments for the character. What was their motivation and why did they make those choices? It’s important to understand what type of person would choose to live that way. Once I have an understanding for those moments, I can expand on who that character is and step into their skin.

Travis Howse: Honestly, the first thing I do is say all of my lines out-loud. Before a first read through, I’ll sit in my room and speak. Reading the words is one thing, but saying them gives you the feeling of being the character. It starts to train your mouth to talk like the character, and familiarizes your mind with the character’s. It’s difficult to explain without sounding pretentious.

Giovanna Arieta: I define the character’s point of view.  I believe a person’s perspective of the world is the most revealing thing about her.

Kate Jones: I try to understand what the character wants and then why the character wants whatever it is they want.  I can usually find something to identify with based on my own personal wants and needs.  We are all willing to go to different extents to get something that we feel is necessary to our being.

Theresa Miller: I ask why is this person saying this? If the script is well-written, the answers are there in the text. I understand who they are and what motivates them by looking at what the writer gives me.

So in light of THAT, what’s the greatest challenge with playing this character?

Kate Jones: How she can seem one dimensional at points.  But if you look deeper, you can see the sadness, see how she is breaking down and see how she is a little part in all of us.

Giovanna Arieta: Carmen lacks emotional connection to any of the other characters, which makes her very different from any other role I have ever played.

Dave Levine: Bobby is a ton of fun. I don’t really see anything at the level of ‘greatest challenge’, but I did spend a fair amount of time memorizing the repeating and reflexive lines, as well as all the ‘but’ and ‘what’ lines. Those were pretty tricky.

Theresa Miller: I’m enjoying the challenge of making Alex relatable. Her ideas are so out there that she could easily be written off as an evil lunatic. My challenge has been to find the humanity in her and make her real.

Travis Howse: I tend to have a more cynical view of the world and of people, so I’m constantly looking for the negative aspects of any character. In Elliot, I am naturally looking for the ways in which he is a bad person. But after talking with Stuart and Sara and really dissecting the script it is clear to me that Elliot really is the embodiment of a good person. Even though some of the things he does are for somewhat selfish reasons, his heart is always in the right place and his actions are always helping someone else. So the biggest challenge I’m having so far is trying to keep my own prejudice out of Elliot’s personality.

What’s a part you’ve always wanted to play, or an actor whose career you’ve always admired?

Kate Jones: Wow, great question!  I tend to steer on the comedic side. My dream would be to star on a comedy TV series so this might not be very theatery but I would love to take the path of Julia Louis Drefus – SNL, Seinfeld, New Adventures of Old Christine – yes, yes, yes!

Giovanna Arieta: Karen Walker from Will & Grace.  Cam from Modern Family.  Veronica Corningstone from Anchorman.

Dave Levine: I don’t have my sights set on anything specific right now, but I would like to play a character like Gene Wilder’s in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Johnny Depp in Ed Wood, or Nathan Lane in The Birdcage. Something along those lines.

Travis Howse: I’ve always wanted to play the Emcee from Cabaret, which is unfortunate because I can’t sing very well.

Theresa Miller: My dream is to play Portia from Merchant of Venice in rep with Pantalone- the commedia character who’s the ultimate crotchety, sex-starved, miserly old man.  I love how they’re opposites!

Travis Howse plays Elliot.

What’s something else going on in this year’s festival you’re really looking forward to seeing?

Theresa Miller: I’m especially excited to see A Game and I.S.O. Explosive Possibility, which are both in Program 2.

Travis Howse: I’m looking forward to I.S.O. Explosive Possibility, because I’m a huge Claire Rice fan, absurdly huge, and she’s directing it. I’m also really excited for The Seagull Project. I went to school with a lot of the performers and creators of that piece and it is always great to see classmates doing so well.

Kate Jones: Of course the PianoFight piece (In Bed) because I do love my theater group and our material and also those 3 Dumplings because I just get giddy at the thought of peaking inside Megan Cohen’s head.

Dave Levine: It’s my first BOA, so naturally, I’m a bit like a kid in a candy shop. If I had to choose, I can’t wait to see In Bed by Sam Leichter. I watched the reading and was totally blown away. It’s raw and very touching. I’m also really excited to see Three Little Dumplings Go Bananas by Megan Cohen for its unhinged hilarity as well as the ukulele playing in The Seagull Project by 11th Hour Ensemble.

Giovanna Arieta: Everything!  I know our show has come a long way since the first staged reading so I’m excited to see how all the other plays have evolved.

To find out more about the Bay One Acts, check out http://www.bayoneacts.org.

Writer Stuart Bousel on “Brainkill”, Theater, Celebrity Guests, and His Mental Health

At the end of this month, the Bay One Acts Festival will be premiering a number of new works by local writers and performances groups. San Francisco Theater Pub will be producing one of these works, a new short play, “Brainkill”, by Stuart Bousel, one of the founding artistic directors. We’ve already spoken with “Brainkill” director Sara Staley, so this week we thought we’d check in with the writer but (and now the secret is out), the website interviews have predominantly been conducted by Stuart Bousel, and having him interview himself seemed a little bit ridiculous. Ever resourceful, we asked Megan Cohen, frequent Pub collaborator and fellow BOA writer, to pick the brain behind “Brainkill”. Keep reading to see the results.

Meg: If you could make any three people in the world come to see “Brainkill”, who would they be and why?

Stuart:  Okay… let’s limit this to living people. Because the dead… I mean, there are a lot of dead people I’d love to get feedback from. But as for the living… well, Hal Hartley is the first that comes to mind. He’s my favorite film-maker and in many ways my favorite living American artist. His writing and his films have been very influential on me over the years and his way of making art- his absolute commitment to making his work on his own terms and maintaining his artistic integrity- have been really inspiring to me as a person. I met him years ago at a screening of a movie of his and I was so tongue-tied it was probably very socially awkward. I suspect he probably wondered if I was mentally stable, but he was still a really nice guy to me. And I’d love to have him watch something of mine, even though I don’t know if he’d like it. But I’d love that chance to have five minutes afterwards to ask, “What did you think?” and hear what he had to say, whatever he had to say. The other two are Stephen Sondheim and Sally Potter and the reasons are essentially the same- they’re just artists I have an endless amount of respect for and it would be deeply humbling to have a chance to learn directly from people whose work I have been following and learning from for years.

Meg: You wear almost every conceivable hat in the Bay Area theater scene: writer, artistic director, producer, director, actor, one-man publicity machine, ad-hoc casting director, diplomat, nemesis, cheerleader, and goodness knows what else.  How, if at all, do you think these different perspectives on this art form have informed your work as a writer?

Stuart: I think that the more hats someone has worn in the theater community, the better in general they are at everything and more importantly, the more considerate and aware they are of what it takes to make a play happen. Directors who have been actors have a better understanding of what actors are going through; designers who also direct learn to think more efficiently, etc. Walking in the shoes of another role usually results in learning to work as a team rather than thinking a show is all about you and your vision. As a writer, I think having been an actor has resulted in me always striving to make sure that characters I create are genuinely interesting to play- not just a set of quirks or a stand-in for an archetype or symbol, but rather a personality with something to say and a reason to be there beyond “advances the plot.” Though it’s always important to advance the plot. All the other hats I have worn have taught me to never limit my imagination as a writer. No matter what your crazy vision, the fact is the right director and designers can make it happen. They may have to dance-theater that shit, but there’s always a way. So don’t limit yourself- just also make sure you don’t limit them. Don’t insist your show only be done with real helicopters or life-size elephants or whatever. Your job as the writer is to plant the seed, not tend the leaves, you know? My life as a producer has taught me a lot, but the big thing is to always create with passion. Because we’re definitely not in it for the money or the love of our peers. As a writer, that means write what’s important to you because if your work isn’t important to you, why should it be worth someone else’s time and money?

Meg:What’s the creative history of Brainkill?  Has it had previous stagings or readings, and when did you write it?

Stuart: I wrote it in March of 2011, in about three hours, during a moment of deep frustration and disappointment with… the world. I wrote it by hand in a spiral notebook, while sitting at a table in Caffe Trieste on Market Street. I did some re-drafting over the next couple of weeks, but I’d say it’s about 85% exactly the same as the first draft. I actually only heard it aloud for the first time at the BOA reading this past March. Which was terrifying, because I had no idea how it would come off.

Meg: The dialogue in BRAINKILL is mostly very terse, fast, and streamlined; the world of the play is intense, and pretty much breathless.  What’s your writing process like when you’re crafting such a crisp, curt script?

Stuart: Almost every play I have written has a different process it seems. In this particular case it was just sitting at the table and scratching away till my hand hurt and then scratching away some more because I had something I felt I really needed to say and it was now or never. The breathlessness of the script reflects my own mind at the time, which was just exploding with rage. I was having some chai, and thinking intensely about things, and suddenly I heard Alex and Bobby’s opening dialogue and I thought, “Oh, I need to write this down right now” and I just kept writing… one scene led to another. And then it led to the end. I remember afterwards going to a rehearsal for M. Butterfly and saying to Rik Lopes, “I just wrote a play.” And it was like I had just woken up. Sometimes you get possessed like that and there isn’t much to really say about how it happened. I was inspired and I followed that inspiration until I got out what I needed to say.

Meg: At least one of the roles in the play, Alex, could have been cast with either a male or female actor.  What kind of conversation did you and director Sara Staley have about who to cast, and how much of a factor was gender?

Stuart: Actually, all five roles in the show can be cast with either men or women. The names are intentionally non-gender specific and there are no pronouns in the play. Alex ended up as a woman in this first production because Theresa Miller auditioned for the play and Sara and I both love Theresa and both really love it when Theresa, who is a lovely person, plays evil. And so we had her read the role at auditions and she was just super funny, but she also made all of Alex’s lines really work- on the first read. They were simultaneously very outrageous and totally believable coming out of her mouth. The rest of the casting went from there: Dave Levine had a kind of feckless sweetness that made him a good Bobby, who needs to be easy to dupe but also easy to root for; Kate Jones has a sexiness combined with a certain edge that screamed Darcy; and Travis Howse is one of those actors who is just immediately likable, which is ideal for Elliot, who needs to be trust-worth from his first entrance. The only time gender really entered the decision making process was when we realized that if Alex AND Darcy, were both women, as the less sympathetic characters, we would need a female Carmen to balance out the gender portrayals in the play. Otherwise, it would potentially come off as “Women evil, Men good”, which is not what either of us wanted the play to be construed as. Luckily, a very strong actress named Giovanna Arieta auditioned and seemed like the perfect foil for Theresa, so she rounds out the cast. I’m excited about them all, but I won’t lie, I also look forward to someday seeing a production with, say a female Bobby and a male Darcy. Or where everybody is female, or everybody is male. An all male cast, with only Carmen as female, strikes me as potentially very interesting.

Meg: The characters in BRAINKILL spend a lot of time at and/or near the psychological breaking point.  Stuart, are you okay?

Stuart: Um… no. No I’m not. I’m getting better, but the truth is, I’m exhausted, I’m frustrated, and I’m angry at a world that is too many parts apathy and too many parts unfocused rage. I feel like we’re progressively living in a society that doesn’t value teaching its kids to think for themselves and be creative, be forgiving, be honest, and understand that it’s not all about status or material gains or physical pleasure or being told you’re special all the time. There are people I know who claim to be my friends but really aren’t, and from what I can tell have nobody else’s lives in mind but their own. I often feel like I’m struggling with a local art scene that has a ton of potential but perpetually shoots itself in the foot, or its best people in the face. I love San Francisco, but I also recognize it’s a city that is becoming impossible for people of diverse incomes to live in and it often seems indifferent to cultivating and preserving those things that make a city great- like a great art scene, and a variety of industries and professions. I’m angry at how little we, as individuals, say and how often we’re encouraged to keep our dissenting thoughts to ourselves for fear of saying what isn’t popular or what people don’t want to hear. I’m scared by how, when we finally do say these things, it’s usually in a forum or manner that makes it dismissible or violent or impossible to be argued and reasoned with- either because we’re driven past the point of reason, or because the real goal has been to just lash out rather than reform. The death of critical thinking, the animosity with which intellectual and artistic integrity are met, sometimes within the artistic community itself, really tortures me. The extremes of everything terrifies me. I don’t want to live in a world of flag waving mediocrity and I don’t want to live in a world of chaotic anarchy. But I may have to. And I may have to accept that speaking my mind and telling the truth and living by example will mean losing some friends and half my votes for prom king. Actually, accepting that is pretty much what it’s going to take to be okay. And I’m working on that. Actually, writing this play was the beginning of accepting that.

Meg: How did you and Sara Staley, who is directing the production, find each other as collaborators?

Stuart: Theater Pub, as a group, made a decision to be a producing partner in the Bay One Acts Festival this year, but one of our requests was that we produce a play by someone who had worked at the Pub previously, and that it be directed by someone who had worked at the Pub. Sara Staley had worked on three pub shows and so Jessica matched her up with us. Sara was then free to choose any play she wanted from the writers who had submitted work, though preferably one who had worked with Theater Pub already. She picked me from the pile, which was deeply flattering of her, and that’s how it happened. Though we’ve both done a lot at Theater Pub, this is actually our first time working together.

Meg: As a busy theatermaker, you spend a lot of time in rehearsals, in performance spaces, and at shows.  It’s easy to get lost in the black box and forget about the outside world; what’s a non-theater-related activity that enlivens your work?

Stuart: I read a lot. I go on long walks. My boyfriend and I recently re-watched the entirety of the 1991 revival of Dark Shadows. I have a lot of friends around the country and world I try to keep up. Some aren’t even involved with or like the theater, which can be truly refreshing. I also have a semi-secret hobby of hand-drawing street-maps of cities and floorplans of medieval castles. I’ve been generating a massive fictional world, a la J.R.R. Tolkien since I was in high school. It’s very calming.

Meg: What’s next on the docket for you?

Stuart: I’m directing The Merchant of Venice for Custom Made, which I’m very excited about. It’s my second time working there and I think they’re really emerging as a company so it’s a good time to be there and feel like you’re helping good people better realize their dream of having a diverse and accomplished company. Plus I love that play. After that, there’s a bunch of things, but the big thing is the third installment of the Olympians Festival. You can find out more about that here: http://www.sfolympians.com.

Meg: What are you looking forward to seeing onstage in the coming months, besides the hundred-and-one projects that you’re involved in?

Stuart: There are some other shows in BOA that I’m looking forward to. Namely, yours, actually, and Claire Rice directing Erin Bregman’s play (which I’m also producing). In both instances, the scripts are kind of out of left field and I’m just, frankly, waiting to see how they are realized onstage because I can’t envision them myself, particularly Erin’s. It’s a very clever script and I feel like I “get it”, I’m just also sort of boggled by it on a practical level but those scripts are my favorite to see Claire wrestle with because she’s a super astute director and an innovative thinker. I’m looking forward to the new Sleepwalker’s show, Down To This. I like Tore Ingersoll-Thorpe a lot as a director. Even when I don’t particularly like the plays he’s chosen to direct, I admire his aesthetic and his approach and I like that he chooses challenging work. I actually know very little about the show, I just know I’ll walk out having something to talk about with my boyfriend. I look forward to seeing what Pint Sized looks like this year. We have a ton of submissions, more than ever and many from people I’ve never heard of, and even though I’m part of Theater Pub, Julia Heitner runs that festival, currently, and she brought in a bunch of surprises last year that really elevated the evening. I’m excited to see what she does and to continue to see our pool of writers expanding. Claire Rice’s full length, Waterline, is also slated to be directed by John Caldon over at Geurilla Rep, later this year. I went to a reading of it the other night and it’s a great script. John, like Claire, is a theater artist whose mind I just really admire and so seeing them work together basically gives me hope for the future. Which clearly I need a strong dose of.

Meg: In five words or less, what do you hope you’ll overhear someone in the lobby say after seeing this production of Brainkill?

Stuart: “What did you think?”

For more information about the BOA Festival and all the great shows included in this year’s line up, including “The Bird Trap” by Founding Artstic Director Bennett Fisher, head over to http://www.bayoneacts.org.

Join SFTP this Valentine’s Day for a Classic Rom Com!

Join San Francisco Theater Pub this Valentine’s Day for a classic story of boy meets girl, boy loses girl to sexy foreigner, boy declares war on foreigner’s homeland, boy destroys foreigner’s homeland, boy gets girl back only to lose girl again and discover he may have never lost her (or had her) to begin with. Euripides’ HELEN is considered by many to be the first dramatic romance, an adult play (in the maturity sense, not the rated X sense) about middle aged lovers learning what it means to be married and committed, not just hot enough to die for. It’s comic, it’s bizarre, it’s full of massive plot gaps and leaps of logic, and more than one genuine nugget of beauty and wisdom on the evasive nature of true romance.

If you’re single, what better place to come launch a thousand ships with that sexy smile? If you’re paired off, bring your beloved and learn from the Great Poet while you’re still sober enough to absorb something useful, then get drunk with us afterwards and screw it all up during the trip home!

Starring Tonyanna Borkovi, Kirsten Broadbear, Nick Dickson, Maura Halloran, James Kierstead, Dan Kurtz, Theresa Miller, Tonya Narvaez, Karen Offereins, Leer Relleum, Marissa Skudlarek, Aaron Tworek and directed by Stuart Bousel, this will be a classic Theater Pub dramatic reading, complete with sexy actors in sheets and perhaps a Valentine’s Day Treat or two.

Admission is FREE with a suggested five dollar donation. No Reservations necessary, but we encourage early arrivals to get the best seating. The show begins at 8 PM!