The Road Ahead: 2009

2008 was perhaps not the year to create a new theater company. It seems that everyone is struggling to raise money, and given the economic environment out there no one is donating. A month hasn’t gone by that I haven’t read about another theater company going bankrupt.


In spite of the tough times, Playlab NYC has had some success during our first year. We were able to put together a two-week workshop of Loss of Breath back in March. That our first toe in the water was so productive is due in no small part to the efforts of John Pieza and Todd Courson.

In June we mounted our very first production. The Tempest was presented on Father’s Day weekend at Socrates Sculpture Park. Considering the rain and the heat we attracted good crowds at all three performances, and I look forward to having the opportunity to work with the cast and our director again.

We learned a lot this past year as well, about fundraising, marketing, producing, and much more. Our only disappointment has been in our thwarted efforts to produce our second show, ©. Artistically things were shaping up to be a fun evening skirting intellectual property law, but without the money to rent a venue the show had to be postponed.

Looking ahead to 2009, Playlab NYC is going to pick itself up and push ahead. If we need to be a theater company that is only producing one show a year then that show is going to be the best production that we can put together. We will redouble our efforts to building a company that produces quality shows in line with our desire to bring a spirit of play to artists and audiences.
Based on our Loss of Breath workshop last spring, a new draft of the script was completed in October. This month we are looking forward to sitting down and hearing a reading of this new draft. Playlab NYC is putting together an application for The New York International Fringe Festival. We will know more in spring, but we are looking forward to getting Mr. Lackobreath in front of an audience in 2009.


Taking a page from Theater on a Tabletop by Kuang-Yu Fong and Stephen Kaplin, we are looking toward embracing puppetry for small spaces. “Working small is not the same as thinking small.” By working small we hope to create some imaginative productions in 2009 and beyond, including a new tabletop presentation of The Tempest, and a resurrected ©.

I hope that we will see you around in 2009.

Attitude of Gratitude: The Tempest Edition

In honor of the Tony awards this weekend…

Oh my goodness. I can’t believe it. [Carefully removing a stack of notecards from inside my jacket pocket.] I don't have anything prepared. Wow. Thank you. [Flipping through the cards.] I'm speechless! So many people to thank. Wow. [Pause. Inhaling deeply.]

My sincerest thanks to all the members of our immensely talented cast. Bob, Molly, David, Major, Johnson, Jonathan, just to be included in a group with you all is an honor. I'd like to thank our director, Kyle Grant, our stage manager, Colleen McKeever, and all the people at the Juilliard School for their generous help with props, costumes, and rehearsal space. Elizabeth, Traci, James, Kathy, Joe, Mary, and Marion. Thanks to all of them.

I've been thinking a lot about fathers in the course of this, and I'd like to thank my own father, as well as my own fine boy, Edison. I'd also like to thank Jennifer Wilcox, Playlab NYC’s Managing Director and my one...true...love. [Gazing into the audience.]

To the audience, all those who came out to watch the show, it is to you whom I feel the deepest gratitude forgive me if I say just simply, "Thank you."

I’d like us to take a moment to remember all the visionary people who said “yes” but whom we lost during the course of the production. [Begins tearing.] Todd, John, Mick, and of course... [Orchestra begins to play.] No! Zoiks!! Don't start playing that music, I have forty-two more people to thank! Our Lab Assistants, Jon, Rob, Heather! My brother Eric, the crowd down at the Bel-Aire, Tara and the staff at Socrates Sculpture Park. And finally a shout out to God for not making it rain even more than you did, and for not striking Molly with lightning. Thank you all very much indeed. Oh I forgot, thanks to...

[Music swells. Looking lost I wonder off stage in the wrong direction.]

Acceptance speech jokes aside, my sincerest thanks.

Kevin.

This blog was created in part using the Radar Oscar Acceptance Speech Generator by Willa Paskin.

All the Blessings of a Glad Father

I have been asked on more than one occasion over the last three months, “Why The Tempest?”

The first impulse, and the most superficial, came while directing Macbeth for Socrates Sculpture Park’s Halloween Harvest Festival. If you have ever been out to Socrates, you are no doubt aware of the unique design of their cobblestone stage. As wonderful as that performance space was in the role of Macbeth’s the blasted heath, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would be even better standing in for Prospero’s not so deserted island.

Beyond that impulse, the compelling reason to produce The Tempest for me is Prospero’s relationship with his daughter. It is because of his tenderness and care with Miranda that Playlab NYC celebrates Father’s Day with The Tempest.

Shakespeare’s plays are filled with fathers. In Linda E. Boose’s article “The Father and the Bride in Shakespeare,” she points out that fathers and sons appear in the action of twenty-three of the plays in the canon, and fathers and daughters in twenty-one. Unfortunately few of Will’s patriarchs are deserving of neckties or homemade ashtrays. Oh sure, we hear wonderful things said about King Hamlet, but none of the dead king’s actions on stage amount to much more than, “Me, me, me.” No one wants to be a stepchild in the household of Titus Andronicus. And the less said about Lear’s parenting skills the better.

But in The Tempest, we have a father who genuinely cares for his child’s well-being. Prospero has his faults of course, which parent among us doesn’t. Like Shakespeare’s famous magician, I’m not always very patient with my two-year-old, and I worry that my son isn’t listening to me as closely as he should. Between you and me, I too look forward to my child’s nap time so that I can plot revenge with my imaginary friends. As a father though, I would certainly use all the power at my command to see to my son’s education and happiness.

Prospero’s character lapses never get in the way of his relationship to his daughter. He tells Miranda early in the play, “I have done nothing but in care of thee.” As an audience we never are given reason to doubt him. Prospero is the most successful parent of all of Shakespeare’s fathers. I hope that you will come out and join our celebration of dads this Father’s Day weekend.