I recently had the pleasure of seeing the revival of Hair on Broadway.

I had a lot of trouble getting into it at first, the show was decked out in hippie regalia, a complete immersion into the era it was written in. I was frustrated by Diane Paulus’ (the Director) lack of innovation with what I thought was a completely outdated period piece. Why had she chosen to recreate the PAST so precisely?

As the show went on, it began to grow on me. There was a creeping feeling I had that there was something greater at work than I could see. And the actors were tremendously charming, which helps, a lot.

They sang songs about sexual repression, sexual experimentation, the draft, Black Boys vs. White Boys, the dawning of a new age, the true apathy of activists, and about the looming death in Vietnam. This play premiered in 1967. It took no prisoners. It was a rallying cry, a beacon of hope, a forward push to a movement that was already hugely underway. It was a sign to the “old folks” of the day, that the Hippies (or at least the progressive young Americans) were here and here to stay. What a monumental show it must have been!

So what is it now? It’s still monumental. It begs the important question: what happened to the Hippies? Have we made progress as a nation? YES. We have MUCH MUCH MUCH in the way of excellent progressive Policy. But what about our Policy-Makers? Our Industry Leaders? They are largely, the SAME OLD BOYS as they were in 1967. So what happened to the Hippies?

Ms. Paulus presents us with the essential truth that the need for “hippies” is as strong today as it was in 1967. The fact that apathy and greed, and the Cult of Self-Importance has taken over our national culture (since the 80’s) does not mean it can’t change. And the election of Obama, while fantastic, doesn’t mean we have any more of an active citizenry as we did before 2008. It just means that David Plouffe was the first guy to realize that if you can catch America on their Electronic Devices, they’ll vote for you.

At the end of the show, Ms. Paulus goes as far as to have the Curtain Call littered with banners advertising the National Equality March on Oct. 11th in DC. WHY NOT? This was one of the first pieces of theatre I’ve seen that actually may have gotten SOME portion of the audience to DO SOMETHING after they left. Wonderful.

What does this all mean for ensemble113? It means at least we’re being exposed to this work, which can’t help but enrich our own. It means we value the importance of theatre as a cultural event, and we hope to find more ways to bring that energy to our work in Skokie. Are you likely to see us performing polemical, activist works down on Oakton any time soon? Probably not. Unless they’re REALLY funny. But who knows? You very well might. At very least, I hope you’ll be seeing some work that aspires to add to the discussion.

Looking forward to what’s next.

Clayton Fox, Artistic Director

When the branches fall the leaves will burn leaving only ashen birds to keep their roost

Bears’ claws will scatch soil; Bears’ paws will heal it.

When Marty Scanlon and I  first brought up what is now called Brought To Life at our proposal meeting, its working name was Scary Stories, and it was probably closer to The Iceman Cometh than what it has turned into over these past months. What was originaly going to be a devised exploration of all the ways to frighten people on the stage turned into an exploration of spirits, ritual, and the nature of performance.

How did this change come about?

Back at school a play I was putting up at the Armory Free Theatre fell through due to scheduling issues. I had a slot at a nice black box space and a three hundred dollar budget. I figured I might as well get a head start pushing through some of my questions about ‘Scary Stories’ by doing a week long workshop. That week was very productive, and a story all unto itself, and by the end our group of four actors presented what we came up with. It was all right, it definitely had its problems, but the biggest thing it was missing takes us all the way back to a discussion the ensemble had about theatre months earlier. We were talking about our mission statement and what kind of work we wanted to do. There was a wide variety of ideas, but the one overarching principle most seemed to agree on was that theatre should capitalize on the uniqueness of the art form. Theatre’s strength resided in the fact that it was a live experience, and anything could happen.

Where was I utilizing this strength in Scary Stories? What I had created at our workshop, in all honesty, was probably better suited towards film. Frightening visuals, loud noises, where did the live experience come into play?

That was when Brought To Life began to form in my head. When I began to question the validity of having a normal passive audience watching people play parts on a stage. From there, a month of percolating let everything fall into place. I started pursuing contact with a shaman my brother knew named Barnaby Ruhe. I began to send emails to all of the ghost research societies in Chicago and I read about hauntings. What if instead of trying to play at the idea of being afraid, we just actually made a frightening situation? What if, to ensure that we utilized the live experience part of theatre, we just made the show a completely live experience? There didn’t have to be a wall between our performers and the audience. We could acknowledge who we were and what we were trying to do. It all became very clear to me.

We wouldn’t play parts at all, we would summon a real spirit.

In a typical design process, the designer gets the script and reads it once just for plot and to capture that valuable first impression. Then on the second read, a designer is much more focused on practical needs of the script and then they usually talk to the director to see what they’re thinking and what they want. Then the designers go away, come up with their design, it gets finalized and the production gets into full swing.

Brought to Life to life had none of this.

Needless to say it has been a challenge. But of course, I like challenges (how boring it would be without them!). Going into preproduction, there was no script. The whole premise was that it wasn’t going to be a production. There wasn’t a set script, there were no set roles, there would be no lights up lights down applause. Our director, Ben, had very clear ideas in his mind of how he wanted to shape the process, but it was going to be driven by group during their rehearsal meetings.

So for the designers, it was a little like pulling something out of nothing. How do you come up with a set design for something that doesn’t exist yet?

The result was much more collaboration that any other show I’ve worked on. Ben and I talked. Yonit (our costume designer) and Ben talked. Mitch (our lighting designer) and I talked. Yonit and me. Ben and Mitch. Yonit, Ben and me. We did a lot of talking. And what we developed was a framework for the piece to develop within. We discussed a lot about the “visual vocabulary” of the show. What sort of colors? Materials? How would these things work together?

After we had that finalized, we visited rehearsals frequently; we had to know what was happening with the piece. Thing that we thought were decided were thrown out the window, and throwaway suggestions became essential. There was (and still is) a fantastic collaborative energy: performers responding to costume pieces, lighting responding to ideas from actors, scenery evolving based on costumes that came out of rehearsal. That sort of energy is something I haven’t felt before.

Going into our final week before we present this experience, things are still changing. Things are being restructured, repainted, redraped and rethought. And even as we continue finalizing things this week, I’m certain things will continue to be fluid and changing. But that’s what is exciting and makes it live theatre, and part of what makes this project so unique.

Be sure to check out other behind the scenes photos and our trailer here or on Facebook. And for the latest “play by play” updates, check out our Twitter stream.

Auditions will consist of various exploratory exercises, no advanced preparation is required.

Looking for actors/performers 19 and older
Open call Monday, June 22nd
7:15 PM
Temple Judea Mizpah
8610 Niles Center Road, Skokie, IL

Please bring a resume and recent photo so we can match names with faces.

Please arrive by 7:15 PM. There is no advance sign up. Please be dressed to move.

ensemble113 is a not-for-profit company of young artists committed to bringing ensemble generated work to Chicago’s Northshore. By exploring the unique opportunities afforded by live theatre, ensemble113 hopes to make performance a necessary and accessible part of the community

Brought to Life

Our culture believes there is nothing to fear from the supernatural. We are told that ghosts and demons aren’t real, but can we be sure? Across all cultures, the unnatural roams the earth and dark magic tempts the good. They have many names but we fear them just the same. Brought to Life adapts the most frightening stories from across the globe and conjures fear held deep within each of us. Take caution: when you meddle with the otherworldly, the consequences can be fatal.

We are interested in exploring the role of ritual within storytelling and blending the lines between performance and reality.

Brought to Life will rehearse 6/23-7/25.

Tech and Productions will be:
July 26th (12-6)
July 27th-July29th (5-10)
July 30th (5-10)
July 31st (5-12)
August 1st (3-11)
August 7th (5-12)
August 8th (5-11)

There will be no compensation.

Any questions can be directed to broughttolife@ensemble113.org

Thank you

Marketing efforts for The Best Medicine are well under way!  Today and tomorrow we’re at the Skokie Festival of Cultures at Oakton Park promoting our show. Come check us out at the Children’s Pavillion tomorrow if you’re around.

Here are a couple photos from the festival:

Also, for those of you on Facebook, become a fan of ensemble113 or follow us on Twitter!

Stay tuned for more updates on The Best Medicine as production ramps up.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how diversity is represented in the theatre. It’s not. Really. There is a significant lack (or so it seems to me) of truly American Theatre. America is the only (big statement) TRULY mixed race country on earth, and yet, we have a canon of plays that represents Old Dead White Guys with all white characters or (for the most part) the reaction to that– Ethnic Plays (with primarily non-white characters). I look forward to the day when great plays are being written/performed which reflect the true diversity of America: an America which interacts and experiences together, as one, to move beyond THIS or THAT.

And it occurred to me that Skokie is one of the most remarkably diverse places I’ve ever been. (And I live in NYC) And one of the most community oriented places I’ve ever been. Skokie is working to move past THIS or THAT in an incredible way. Our ensemble is mostly white, and we have to work with that as we move forward.

But let me say it is a long-term goal of mine to bring visiting artists from all over America and the World to Skokie, to present their own work, to work with us; because ours is a population that deserves (and I think would appreciate) to be truly represented onstage, across many more boundaries than are currently being crossed on the stages of America.

If you are reading this and want to help me get started, feel free to seek me out, to start the discussion.

With enormous excitement for the potential ahead,

Clay

PS If you can’t tell I’ve been reading a lot of Suzan-Lori Parks. And what a FABULOUS writer. Read her. If you haven’t.

I actually was thinking about posting to our blog this morning because I was bored at work. That was before this newfangled blogosphere came into being.  I thought it might just be a fun place to talk about theater that we as artists love, and why.  It will let all those millions that will be reading our blog to know a bit more about us than what it says in our sarcastic bios.  Plus it will be something fun to go back and look at when we think about future seasons (ie “Remember how Joey kept talking about that Moscow Cat Circus?”  ”Yeah he blogged about it ten times!” “He is out of the ensemble.”) 

So I would like to start by posting about Peter Brook’s Hamlet, and not the cat circus (its amazing though).  Peter Brook filmed this very stripped down Hamlet with one of the most diverse and talented casts I have seen.  Now I know that this isn’t an example of live theater, but the film style is as if he filmed a dress rehearsal of a stage show.  He cut a lot from the original, but overall it is one of the best cuttings I have ever seen (he starts the film at “Oh that this too, too solid flesh” and then cuts to the Claudius after his “Though yet of Hamlet…” speech).  Not only is it by a great director, who you should all check out, but it is a great example of how film is different than stage and how one can bring texts like Shakespeare into the modern world. You have to find a way to keep it gripping and intense, and find actors that can speak it naturally (not naturalistically but naturally). It is a lean cast and a lean cutting of the script, but it is great.  I can’t say I will lend you my copy because it’s not mine, but I recommend looking for it.  

So yeah, lets keep this going and I think it could be cool.  Also feel free to disagree with me.