Tag: Max Reichlin

written by Charles Ludlam | directed by Ed Hawkins
April 17 – May 16, 2009 | Fri-Sat, 8pm

CAST

CREW

SPECIAL THANKS

Robert Aguilar, Susannah Anderson, Jillian Armenante, Sibyl Darling, Darren Davis, Josie Gardner & Deborah Skorstadt at Washington School of Drama, Chris Jeffries, Jen Moon, Brian Norton, Seattle Opera, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Laurie Utterback, West Seattle Senior Center/Stop ‘n Shop Thrift, Christopher Zinovitch at ArtsWest

written by Bret Fetzer & Juliet Waller Pruzan
directed by Rachel Katz Carey
with songs by Rick Miller
Jan. 16 – Feb. 14, 2009

When 8 year old Kirsty Vanderkamp finds a hidden world in the nooks and crannies of her house — dust bunny farmers under the bed, a burlesque show in the butter compartment, a tabloid published in the china cabinet — she also finds herself caught up the wake of Aura Rotter, an ambitious social climber working her way up the rungs of society, and the lovelorn Iota Potts, a farmboy who risks everything that ever mattered to him to win Aura’s heart. Kirsty travels from the depths of the drains to the heights of the lighting fixture as she tries to make sense of this miniature world — and her own.

REVIEWS

“Blind Spot wends its way into your imagination… I found Blind Spot something of a revelation: I saw new life and new civilizations, and boldly went where no man had gone before. Way cool.” — Seattle Weekly

“The play reinvents the house in a childlike way as a rich, surprising place and satirizes all kind of adults, from the poor devout to the filthy rich.” — The Stranger

The cast of Blind Spot

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BUILD CREW

Chris Bell, Daniel Christensen, Chris Comte, Meghan Darling, John DeShazo, Ciara Griffin, Allie Hankins, Sandy Kopriva, Todd Kopriva, Jem Lewis, Gary Menendez, David Roby, Matt Shannon, Suja Hart, David Otten, and Kristina Volkman

SPECIAL THANKS

14/48, Wendy and Marc Barrington, Ruth Baugh, David Baum, Lyssa Browne, Nicholas Carey, Stanley and Arlene Cohen, Chris Comte, John DeShazo, Eglantine, Ilene Fins, Anne Fitzgerald, Ted Ford, Susan Freccia, the Katz Foundation, Nebunele Theatre, Alan Pruzan, Brandon Simmons, Crispin Spaeth, Roy Stanton, Alia Swersky, Theater Schmeater, theater simple (Llysa Holland and Andrew Litzky), Sulo Turner

written by Mike Daisey | directed by Christopher Comte
October 17 – November 15, 2008

This first play by acclaimed monologuist Mike Daisey (21 Dog Years, Monopoly!, How Theater Failed America) weaves a vision of the brutal history of the Soviet space program with an unbelievable premise: a dead cosmonaut is called back down to Earth on a radio wave when Americans in a remote Arctic base hear the beating of his dying heart. A dark and hilarious fairy tale set against the Cold War, it asks what we risk in the struggle between will and humanity, and what it means to love beyond death itself.

Playwright Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections.

His monologues, fourteen and counting, include the controversial How Theater Failed America, the six-hour epic Great Men of Genius, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years. Over the past decade he has performed his unique extemporaneous monologues at venues such as the Public Theater, American Repertory Theatre, the Spoleto Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Cherry Lane Theatre, Yale Repertory Theater, the Noorderzon Festival, the T:BA Festival, Performance Space 122, and many more.

He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, a commentator for PRI’s Studio 360 and NPR’s Day To Day, a contributor to WIRED, Slate and Salon, a web contributor to Vanity Fair and Radar Magazine, and his work has been heard on the BBC, NPR, and the National Lampoon Comedy Hour. His first film, Layover, is being distributed by Lars von Trier’s company Zentropa, and he stars in the Lawrence Krauser feature Horrible Child. His first book, 21 Dog Years: A Cubedweller’s Tale, was published by the Free Press and he is working on a second book, Great Men of Genius, adapted from his monologues about genius and megalomania in the lives of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard.

He has been the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, two Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell Fellowship. He lives in New York City with his director and collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory. The Moon Is A Dead World is his first play.

REVIEWS

“[Playwright Mike] Daisey has a rich, restless imagination…. Moon is a small, sweet pleasure.” – The Stranger

“Director Christopher Comte has put together an entertaining production worthy of the script.” – Seattle Weekly

“Fascinating…. Annex’s production is an amazing display…. Crisp direction, great set design, and excellent sound support create a great reality for this unreal play. The four actors are all excellent. … This is one of the best efforts Annex Theatre has produced, and that’s saying a lot.” – Seattle Gay News

“If a new play of this caliber opened in Seattle every few weeks, we could stop going to see Hollywood crap or caring about how Christian Slater blows up Russians on the TV.” – Seattlest.com

Preview in the Seattle P-I: Full-length ‘The Moon Is A Dead World’ is a new phase for solo performer Mike Daisey

Interview on Seattlest.com: A Dialog with Newly-Minted Playwright Mike Daisey

The cast of The Moon Is A Dead World

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AFTRA Seattle Local, Cicada Bridal, Ron Darling, John DeShazo, A.J. Epstein, The Ethereal Mutt, Ltd., David Gassner, Teri Lazzara, Theater Schmeater, Frederick Vegas.

Annex Theatre wishes to acknowledge the generous contributions of 4Culture, The Flintridge Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, The Seattle Foundation, The Boeing Company, ActiveMac, and the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs for their support of this production.

written & directed by Scotto Moore
August 1 – 30, 2008 – Friday & Saturday at 8 p.m.

In this epic blend of science-fiction and fantasy, a mysterious amnesiac finds herself in the lobby of an infinitely tall building located in the center of the multiverse, the headquarters of the United Association of Interdimensionary Travelers.

Her unexplained presence sets off a series of increasingly catastrophic events that not only compromise the security of the Association, but threaten to unravel the entire fabric of creation itself!

Can a superhero with a divine pedigree, an android companion, and archangels and devils together combine forces to help “Andrea Change” find her true identity, and prevent the impending apocalypse?

Drawing on influences as diverse as the metaphysical explorations of Philip K. Dick, and the scrappy tradition of low-budget sci-fi television, interlace [falling star] is a unique saga of love, loss, and redemption.

REVIEWS

“Beautiful imagining…. Next to the shine of speculative nodes are jokes that snap, crackle, and pop…. The presentation of this fantastic fusion, which also includes theological thought experiments and the narrative structure of a thriller, is strong all around…. The pleasures of interlace [falling star] are more than plenty.”
– Charles Mudede, The Stranger

The Stranger Suggests, August 15:
“Like life itself, this new play by local writer/director Scotto Moore is silly, in both the ancient (spiritually touched) and modern (frivolous) senses of that word. It is also serious (history has not changed the sense of that word). Set in an infinitely tall building – one that might resemble a new tower in Dubai or a tower Frank Lloyd Wright once imagined in a moment of madness – interlace is a tireless narrative machine that generates comic nonsense and cosmic concepts.”
– Charles Mudede, The Stranger Suggests

“Just go see it and enjoy yourself. Jen Moon’s performance as the nameless amnesiac heroine is smart and funny. LaChrista Borgers’s turn as the robot companion Trickle confirms that women in pink wigs make us think bad thoughts. Stan Shields brings all the gravitas and physical presence you could want to his super-hero character The Amazing Dr. X, while capturing his vulnerable side. And Kristina Sutherland, who has yet to disappoint us, recalls what Deckard must have been like before he became the burned-out shell of a man we meet in Blade Runner, with her hard-as-nails performance as psychic security officer Agent Grey.”
– Jeremy M. Barker, Seattlest

“Clever, amusing…. Sardonic bon mots are scattered throughout…. [Writer/director] Moore conjures…with geeky authority and natural comic flair.”
– Misha Berson, Seattle Times

“This trippy, smart, new sci-fi fantasy…uses futuristic techno-speak cleverly, and often keeps you guessing.”
– Seattle Times

In this “bent science-fiction vision of the godly plane”, the “characters joust with jaded irreverence and are skeptical of their own tropes.” The show is “zany fun…as if Joseph Campbell wrote an episode of Red Dwarf.”
– Giani Truzzi, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Jen Moon [as] ‘Andrea Change’…is wonderful to watch…. The very strong cast…takes a very funny journey into Infinity…. The journey is worth taking.”
– Miryam Gordon, Seattle Gay News

interlace [falling star] delivers “a cheerful blend of horror and humor, fueled by a heady mixture of future shock and super-heroics. Gotta say this about Annex: For a company that just reached the advanced age of 21, it’s still unafraid to tackle weird material and provocative ideas.”
– John Longenbaugh, Seattle Weekly

“Behind the absurdity, sci-fi mystery takes on serious questions about God and faith”
– Preview article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Kristina Sutherland, Jen Moon & Stan Shields

CAST

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SPECIAL THANKS

Annex Theatre wishes to acknowledge the generous contributions of 4Culture, The Flintridge Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, The Seattle Foundation, The Boeing Company, ActiveMac, and the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs for their support of this production.

created by Max Reichlin | directed by Ellie McKay
written by Scot Augustson (1001), Elizabeth Heffron (Foxy Populi), Bret Fetzer & Juliet Waller Pruzan (ElectriCity)
Feb 8-March 8, 2008

To keep spirits high after a world-changing catastrophe, a small group of hardy survivors have put together a theatre troupe to entertain their community. This evening of three new plays is presented using only the electricity created by two human-powered generators operated by the actors.

Each of the three scripts in Keep the Light On takes a different approach toward entertainment in a disastrously changed world, offering a variety of ways “to remember, and to forget”:

• 1001 by Scot Augustson celebrates the act of storytelling as a young delivery boy falls into the path of danger and has to talk his way out of it. Tales fold in on each other like origami, featuring sudden kisses, pearl-handled revolvers, dust on the ceiling of a Thai hotel, and a Mexican widow with a Castilian lisp.
• Foxy Populi by Elizabeth Heffron is a wild musical that looks back to the extravagent days before the apocalypse when we all had iPods, SUVs, and stock options.
• ElectriCity by Bret Fetzer and Juliet Waller Pruzan takes us on a journey with a mother and her daughter as they visit the last amusement park on earth.

Keep the Light On began as an experiment in human-powered lighting. The show’s creator, Max Reichlin, wanted to discover what could be done on stage when all electricity is provided by actors pedaling custom-made generators.

“It turns out that it’s tricky – people don’t make much power,” Max said. “So the show would look different from a traditional play in terms of the lighting.”

This line of thinking led Max to a conclusion about the content of the show:

“I thought ‘When would people actually use people to power a theatre?’ I’ve always enjoyed apocalyptic literature and I realized that in a post-apocalyptic world, with no electricity, somebody just might perform theatre this way. So that’s why the evening is composed of three plays presented by an imaginary, post-apocalyptic, theatre company.”

Keep the Light On will provide a total-immersion experience in the world of the future, according to director Ellie McKay:

“Our dream is to take Annex Theatre ‘off the grid’ for each performance,” she said. “This means that the moment the audience enters our space, there is no outside electricity entering the building. To light the hall, we will hook up a car battery to some lights. Actors will be riding the generators on the stage to light the audience’s seats. Bathrooms will be lit by the users providing light with hand-crank flashlights. Instead of programs we will have a wall with hand-written information on recycled paper for people to read.”

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Watch a 5-minute television feature about the Max and the show from KING-5 TV’s Evening Magazine by reporter Jim Dever, broadcast February 8. Click here to watch.
• Listen to a February 6 interview with Max on Seattle’s NPR station KUOW. Click here to listen to Max’s segment in Real Player format. Or visit KUOW’s web site for an MP3 of the entire broadcast.
• Read the January Spotlight at GreenIsSexy.org for an extensive interview with Max and Ellie!
• Check out the YouTube video of Max demonstrating a generator in action!

REVIEWS

Misha Berson, The Seattle Times:

“If you gotta have a gimmick, the one Annex Theatre employs in Keep the Light On is an eco-friendly dandy. … What a novelty, in an age of digital and automatic everything, to see the cheerful, muscle-toned cast members take turns whirring away on stationary bikes.”

Foxy Populi “is a hilarious, sharp-fanged satire on the downfall of Western civilization, through the meltdown of a crazed blond pop star…, a swift, smash-mouthed portrait of celeb self-destruction. … Even people who wouldn’t be caught dead reading People magazine at the supermarket should know enough about Britney Spears to find this whipsaw version of her saga smart, funny and horrifying.”

1001 is “a skein of surreal scenes spun by a Scheherazade-like delivery boy who tangles with a one-eyed pharmacist, a homicidal client and a lisping Mexican widow.”

ElectriCity is “sweet and twisted, a puppet/human chronicle of a curious child and her mother visiting the world’s last remaining amusement park.”

“Bravo to Annex for continuing its irreverent explorations – and for ‘going green’ in a whole new way.”

Miryam Gordon, Seattle Gay News:

Foxy Populi is “fast and furious and sad and strange. … Megan Ahiers channels Britney [Spears]…as if Britney had suddenly shown up to be in this play.”

ElectriCity “had the most intriguing contexts and the best acting from Pamala Mijatov as a little girl who visits this strange amusement park. She has a particularly haunting little girl voice, as she observes too much for her own good.”

Keep the Light On is “a worthy effort, an interesting evening and a challenge to think about.”

Joe Adcock, Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Keep the Light On “is an exercise in anti-conventional comedy…. The show is made up of three darkly comic one-acts…overwhelmed with shadows.” Keep the Light On “is a uniquely theatrical take on the familiar theme of a dystopian future…. Six plucky performers struggle to put on a show. Their hands, faces and clothes are smudged with dirt, but their creative spirits are unblemished.”

Neil Corcoran, Seattle Weekly:

Keep the Light On is “a well-done and novel sort of play-within-a-play which channels three curious vignettes of imagination and moral wonder.”

Foxy (Megan Ahiers) and her asset manager Jett Alamo (Alex Garnett) feel each other, while Sam Wilson pedals for power.

CAST

CREW

SPECIAL THANKS

Annex Theatre’s 21^st Season is generously supported by: 4Culture, Flintridge Foundation, Seattle Foundation, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, Microsoft, and The Boeing Company.

Thanks to GreenIsSexy.org for featuring KTLO as their Spotlight of the Month for January 2008!

Special thanks to Wright Brothers Cycle Works in Seattle for their support and donations to this project.

Thanks to Cranked Magazine for blogging about KTLO.