Altruistic Theatre

I love that word!

…well, now I’m off and going. Up til now my job has been a combination of task master and cheerleader, but now I get to direct! This has been an amazing couple of weeks for this fledgling company. Lets hit some bullet points:

First and foremost, we found an affordable space for our taste of the Altruistic pieces (working title). Not only is it affordable, it’s easily accessible, it’s on 14th st in Manhattan and it is all ours April 1st-3rd. Posters are on the way.

Also, Both scripts are in final draft with only minor changes coming from discoveries in rehearsal.

Our amazing sound designer, Adam, has been spinning gold with guitar string for CYOA and the sounds of death and mayhem for Zombie.

We are also gearing up a fine submittion to Theater for a New City’s Dream Up festival. If we get get in we’ll be using one of their fine theater spaces for 6 nights of the fest.

Zombie is fully cast and we had our first rehearsal last night and it felt great. We worked mostly on tone and character and it’s already working so well. We started with a regular ‘in character” read-thru based on the actor’s first instincts. Interesting enough, it came across as a bit dark. The second time through we lightened the feel and then a third read brought out the vision in my mind of the world of the play. Joe and Jordon are going to be great.

The search for our last cast member continues tonight with a reading of an actress our costume designer, Mary, brought to us. We are trying to fill the “female” for the CYOA, the actress will end up playing multiple parts in the different paths of the play, interesting part. Her play will be vastly different from night to night. The major challenge for the actors in this piece is going to be memorization. There are 15 separate scenes to block and memorize lines for, but only four or five will be preformed a night.

Next on the aggenda is finding rehearsal space, it’s not as expensive as a performance space, but $15-30 an hour will break the bank over time.

Oh money, how I loath thee…more soon.

So, still getting used to this journaling every time something happens, so sorry for the lag. Here is part one of our two blog recap of the the last two weeks.

The weekend before last Joe, Max and I met to discuss his then current draft of zombie and it was dead on target. Joe and I did a quick read-thru for Max to hear flow and I have to say I read the girls part pretty well. I’m really glad we decided to have a guy/girl cast. The fact that they specifically have no romantic attachment gives us an interesting dynamic for the horror genre, they don’t have much to lose in each-other. We also moved away from utilizing hipsters to showcase societal downfalls, feeling the the problem is widespread and using average people will have a more universal appeal.

We again met in a small Manhattan cafe. Max and I both ordering chai, but instead getting what we decided was chai latte soup. We came to this conclusion due to the fact that the chai soup was served in a handle-less bowl and a spoon. Oddly enough, it was an effective was of nursing the chai to last the entirety of the meeting. I thing that Joe a coke and possibly a muffin…

Last week…

I spoke to Jenn about her progress on the CYOA, she has been cruising along with new scenes including one from a car dealership! I can’t give away story of course, but I thought that might be a fun tidbit. We have decided that there will be three points in the production where choices will have to be made, which is manageable, but will keep the actors on their toes. I also emailed with adam about the sound design and he is in creative mode ready to see the finished scripts to finalize his ideas.

Good week, well for work…

Something I should mention is that this is a blog of “the poor theatre”. When I talk about these productions and their cost, understand that, as of now, we are paying for these out-of-pocket. This is partially due to starting out, but also falls in line with my philosophy on theatre, it shouldn’t cost a fortune to put on amazing work. These pieces we are developing are specifically created with a nearly nonexistent budget. The greatest expense we foresee is renting space. Space is fairly plentiful, but not cheap. I’m really hoping that we are officially a nonprofit will help. Really hoping…

Joy. Language is so limiting… I think thats why I have trouble with writing. I am unbelievably excited… no more than that… Max got me the first tidbits of zombie today and it couldn’t be more on target, he was able to take the threads of ideas we had discussed and spun it into gold. We are getting so close. Also, over the last week Jenn and I got to talk about the bad ass pages she sent me from the piece she’s writing for us, the Choose your own adventure. It is right a par as well.

Point of reference, we are currently developing two original works to be produced together with a third “literal theatrical trailer” of a future piece as a “tasting menu” of theatre by the Alt+T+C. I’ve also been playing with some abbreviations for the company, ATC being the obvious and overused option so I’m thinking AltTC or Alt+T+C as kind of a computer joke. Let me know what you think.

Back to the Choose your own adventure. We all remember the book series from childhood, well we’ve worked out an innovative way to bring the concept to life onstage, well at least our vision of it. I also got to touch base with Adam, our sound designer, and he is raring to go with some special bites for both pieces.

We are just getting started here, lots of work ahead but tons of progress!

On Sunday we had our first official development meeting for one of our original works, “Wardrobe of the Living Dead”, referred to hereafter as the “zombie piece”. For reasons of theatrical espionage and intellectual property theft, I will be vague about themes and concepts of the original stuff. With that in mind, I will try to include as much of the development process as I can without letting the cat out of the bag.

So, our first development meeting started with our playwright, Max, being told on the street that the hat he was wearing should only be worn by someone selling really good weed. The hat in this story being one of those fairly popular hunter type hats with the flaps on the side. Not realizing his faux pas, Max then began to question his chosen career path, which was the perfect state of mind for us all to be in as we started this somewhat absurd project.

Next our group found a small coffee shop with some available seating for the three of us and Joe, Max and I got down to business deciding what we wanted to drink. At this point you’re asking what any of this has to do with developing a script. That’s easy, everything. Honestly, theatre needs to be collaborative and I’ve found the best collaborators are those who have insight into what and how the others think. Communication is made easier through familiarity.

It also helps to infotain your audience and readers. One other thing before we go on, I have a beard…I feel like that will matter to someone.

Anyway, I had first wanted to have this project be written organically and collectively in rehearsal, but seeing that we had brought on a talented young playwright who is working with us at no charge, might as well use him for all he’s worth. I explained this and all agreed. It’s at this point that we received our various beverages and breakfast pastries and began a fantastic discussion about the piece and where we want to go with it. Our plan from this point is for Max to start writing based on what we had discussed, we’ll meet weekly and Joe, Geoff and I will make suggestions of additions and deletions until we have a solid work. still collaborative, but with a clear structure and foundation.

I had a very good chai latte and a tasty low fat berry blast muffin, yogurt muffin I think.

A very promising start, I CAN NOT WAIT FOR REHEARSALS:)

This is an experiment, well, for me at least. When I say experiment, I in no way see this as being clinical. This is going to be a fairly raw and honest account. I’ve never considered blogging before now. I’ve never considered myself much of a writer, but now I have something to write about and in a way need to. Like with most things in my life, I tend to only excel at things that hold a high intrust for me, that stimulates my brain. Theatre is one of those things.

I see the purpose of this blog to be three-fold, with my main goal being to document the process of the work I’m doing, both in rehearsal and in the development of the company (Altruisictheatre.com) and the its voice. Secondly, to expand awareness and add validity to the company in a grade school “show you work” kind of way. I’ve personally never been very good at showing how I got the final product, but that leads me to my third purpose. I hope to use this blog to analyze myself as a director. Find the things that work (more importantly the things that don’t) and refine my craft. Directing is what I want to do and I want to be the best I can be. Life is constant learning and art is a constant search for perfection of vision. I’m hoping this process helps make my search a bit clearer. So, let try to overlook grammar and spelling errors and remember what we’re here for … the art of it all. Here we go…