LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU: BEST OF...!

Last weekend, The Civilians took over The Living Room in the Lower East Side for an afternoon of performances of some of the best interviews from our archives. Much like Disney, we cracked open our vaults and brought some great monologues to the stage. We had some great characters, including a Remote Viewer, a facialist, an Evangelical Christian in the air force, and the founder of Hot Nude Yoga, If you missed it, don't worry - all of these will be released on our podcast series (launching this fall). Here are couple of choice quotes from the event:

"...the pendulum swings, we talk about the pendulum at the academy, and just swingin’ from y’know too strict to too loose and that kinda thing,. I think the pendulum swung way the other way, to where it’s just getting ridiculous, you got cases where, uh, the protes – or the uh Inner-Faith council, you’ve got people complaining on the inner-faith council cause there were Easter Bunnies, on the tables on Easter, and saying well, Christian’s are tryin’ to evangelize, everybody’s getting an Easter bunny, well Christians, don’t like the Easter bunny. Y’know, we don’t like Santa Claus." - an Evangelical Christian

"Don’t get me started on Bush. And people say he’ll get re-elected. He can’t get re-elected, he was never elected in the first place. The Supreme Court handed him the presidency. Iraq, that war was fought for Halliburton. Don’t get me started on that. It’s a fact. It’s been all over the place. It’s a fact. Cheney worked for them years ago, and now he says he doesn’t – then why is he getting paid one million dollars a year by them? They have a contract to reconstruct Iraq." - A facialist 

And lastly, here is a photo of Emily Ackerman playing a 70 year-old lady who Emily interviewed for This Beautiful City, who said:

"And then I started picketing at Planned Parenthood.  And there were women who would come down there and have their children in strollers, and we would hold signs, but nothing really active... It’s just that killing those babies is just killing babies.  For no reason.  And they think there’s a reason.  And I dug that thing out, the thing I wrote, a few years ago, and I said Jeepers!  I wrote that?  I did a pretty good job on that!  It was the first thing I had done on my own, that I had written, and I could pick my own subject.  I’ve just been an activist from that time."

 

TALES FROM MY PARENTS' DIVORCE at Williamstown

TALES FROM MY PARENTS' DIVORCE has officially opened at Williamstown Theatre Festival, and we still have a weekend of performances to go! The actors, who all interviewed their own parents and in fact play their own parents, do a fantastic job of, dare I say, becoming their parents and telling the stories of building and dividing their families. Writer and actor Robbie Collier Sublett brought up another layer that the show offers during a talk-back after Tuesday's performance - which is that these actors witnessed a lot of these events as kids, and in fact, the stories that they're now telling had a major impact on shaping their childhoods. So it's all the more cathartic to be able to look at these events with the distance (all of the parents are over 20 years divorced at this point) that their parents' have been able to get over time.

The Boston Globe liked it, too, saying it's an "engrossing production" and applauding the actors' "impressive skill." Click HERE for the whole review!

And here are some wonderful program notes written by our most fabulous former Literary Associate, Rachel Lerner-Lay! The notes take a look at some of the statistics (with some great info-graphics) to accompany our stories of one of the wide-spread social phenomena in America today (click on it to enlarge).

And here's a photo of the theater....

And here's a photo of the set! (Note the dishwasher in the back - it really works!)

Congrats to all the cast and crew - break a leg this weekend, and we can't wait for the show to go up to ArtsEmerson in October!

GONE MISSING at Barrow Street on 8/08!

We would like to give a big thank you to everyone who came out to the Barrow Street Theatre last Monday for the concert version of GONE MISSING! It was such a treat sharing the show with members of the original audiences as well as introducing it to some fresh new faces. Everyone had a blast, but we all seemed hyperconscious of forgetting something upon exiting the theatre…  Keys? Check! Rings? Check! Phone? Check! The nostalgic event brought back many great memories (though as we learned from the show- the word nostalgia comes from the Greek roots “algia” meaning pain and “nostos” meaning homecoming).  I found myself reflecting on things that I have lost in my own life along the way. The investigation might be completed for now, but we still want to hear from you- Do you sometimes feel like your mind is an etch sketch? Is your apartment the equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle? Share your own stories of lost and found in a comment below!

And here are some photos from rehearsal for you to enjoy!

 L-R: Emily Ackerman, Colleen Werthmann, Brian Sgambati, Stephen Punkett, 

Lexy Fridell, and Matt Dellapina

 Down in front! Just kidding, that's Steve.

And this one is from the production at Barrow Street in 2007!

GONE MISSING - Blast from the Past!

In celebration of the Gone Missing concert this Monday, August 8th at Barrow Street Theatre, we have been checking out some videos of past productions of Gone Missing on the web. Professional and community theatres as well as universities and high schools have been putting up productions all over the country. These talent-filled, heart warming, and sometimes hilarious performances have brought back lots of great memories.

Check out this video of Everett High School's Drama Club rehearsing for their performance of the show. Don't miss the 2:10 mark- you will fall for this actress' spin on our work!

And let us not forget this incredible animation done by Rita Sá for School of Visual Arts:

Can't get enough? Be sure to pick up tickets, put on your Gucci pumps (if you can find them), and join us next Monday. So if you saw the show at Barrow Street and have missed it, or missed it during its last run, don't miss Gone Missing on August 8 at 8pm!

Tickets can be purchased at Barrow Street's website:

http://www.barrowstreettheatre.com/whats-on/gonemissing_onenight.asp

See you all next week!