Fireside chats, fundraisers, and the glory of new plays

Cal Shakes has been making inroads into the world of new plays for some time now, with our New Works/New Communities program. Last year, John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven, written by Octavio Solis, directed by Jonathan Moscone, and developed in conjunction with Word for Word Performing Arts Company, became the first-ever work to have its world premiere on the Bruns stage. This summer, The Verona Project—Amanda Dehnert's music filled romp inspired by The Two Gentlemen of Verona—will make its debut at Cal Shakes, as well.

So Artistic Director Moscone knows a thing or two about new plays; PlayGround, a new-play development organization dedicated to local playwrights, knows even more (just don't tell Jon I said that). PlayGround has been holding monthly Monday night readings at Berkeley Rep's Thrust Stage for some time now; gives grants to local theater companies in order to produce world premieres by PlayGround playwrights; and offers master classes and workshops to a variety of experience levels.

While we at Cal Shakes love our Shakespeare, Shaw, Wilde, Chekhov—even Marivaux!—there's nothing quite like a new work to reveal the dizzying possibilities of theater. So we're pleased to be able to invite you to PlayGround's 15th annual Benefit & Awards Night, coming up Monday, April 11 at the Claremont Hotel. The evening features a fireside chat with Moscone, Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone, and local playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb—creator of BOB, T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common), boom, and Hunter Gatherers, to name a few. The party also includes reception, silent auction, and dinner; and the presentation of the 2011 PlayGround Emerging Playwright Awards, the June Anne Baker Prize, and PlayGround Fellowship.

Click here to learn about the benefit, and to buy your tickets.

More dispatches from Heaven

Les Reinhardt, stage manager for the our staged reading of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven at the New Play Festival in DC, is blogging about the experience over at http://www.bayareasm.net/. Be sure to check it out!

Dispatch from Heaven, DC

Amy Kossow of Word for Word and the cast of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven sent this dispatch from the New Play Festival at Arena Stage in DC, where selected scenes from Pastures are being performed alongside fellow inaugural selections of the National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Program.

Hello from snowy DC. Pastures of Heaven cast and crew finally all assembled after much airport drama. Costumes and props had an easier time getting here than we did!

Walking into the stunning new Mead Center took my breath away. Immediately ran into six people I know! Nice feeling. Plus, the mural is here in a place of honor.

We rehearsed today in the Kogod Cradle. Round theater with lovely, basket-weave wooden walls. The new cast members have blown us away with how quickly they have gained ownership of their many roles. Surprising how we hear the stories anew in their voices. I feel like I am seeing how a new director and cast would do things differently... gives me the sense that the show will move on out of our hands...

Busting the Myth of the “Off-Season”

A little perspective from Box Office Manager Robin Dolan.

On those crazy days here at the Cal Shakes office when there are actors warming up with nonsense words in the hall or playing instruments and dancing in the parking lot, I’m reminded why I’m grateful to work in theater. Performers notwithstanding, I’m surrounded by wonderful, funny, creative people year-round; I don’t have to worry if I curse occasionally; and I frequently see hilarious things—donkey’s heads, giant swords, jewel-encrusted wigs—being carried in through the front door.

But working in the nonprofit sector is demanding. Our resources are stretched, and many of us are often doing the jobs of several people. Patrons frequently say to me, “You must be looking forward to the off-season, when you’ll be less busy.” In truth, I think there’s perhaps four days a year when I’m not busy. I believe they happen in November, but they usually go so quickly that I don’t notice them till they’re gone. I remember relating this to Ilsa, our graphic designer, a few years ago; she replied, “Me too! But I think it’s about two days for me.”

In the winter and spring, our education department is busy setting up school residencies and Summer Shakespeare Conservatories. Development is raising money for the annual fund, getting corporate sponsors, and planning our annual gala fundraiser—referred to internally as our biggest production of the year, since it all happens on one night. The Artistic department is working on our New Works/New Communities projects, working with at-risk youth through Creative Risk, hiring interns for the coming year, and planning the Main Stage season. Marketing is designing our beautiful subscription brochure, fine-tuning the website, working with the press, and beginning group sales for 2011.

I’m busy with subscription renewals and seat change requests. I also work with the Marketing department to plan promotions and sales campaigns, and support other departments with statistics needed for corporate sponsorships and grant applications and reporting. In the box office it’s mostly me holding down the fort, answering the phone and talking to patrons. I have been lucky to have great people working during the season, and I miss their contributions. But the phones ring less this time of year, so I’ve got it covered.

A big thing we do in the “off-season” (which, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, is inaccurately named) is set objectives for the following year. We look at what worked last year and what we want to try again. This fall, our senior staff unveiled a three-year Strategic Plan for the company, spelling out Cal Shakes’ vision, mission, core values, goals, and strategies for the next three years. While this could be a very dry document, I’m finding it inspiring. For instance, how many companies include in their core values “humor, authenticity, and a sense of home?” Valuing all members of the Cal Shakes community is equally important to productive goals. Gotta love that.

When the final draft of the Strategic Plan was presented to us, staff members were invited to create a team—facilitated by board member Alan Schnur—that would come up with suggestions on how to implement it. This invitation to contribute allows us to feel included in the creation of everything that we do. A major concept we’re looking at here is “de-siloing”: making sure departments are not isolated from one another, and that pertinent information is shared. Most of all, de-siloing allows us to share our skills cross-departmentally; as a result, we’re learning more about each other’s talents.

During our well-earned break over the holidays—the office is mostly closed between Christmas and New Year’s Day—I often personally consider what’s happened in the previous year, and make plans for the coming year. So does Cal Shakes. So what do we do off-season? We plan. We review. We talk with patrons. We vision. And we laugh, and support one another. Just like we do all year-round.

OakTechRep blogs from Scotland!

Below is a series of blog entries sent to us by several of Jessa Berkner's Advanced Drama Students, currently in the U.K. to perform Hamlet: Blood in the Brain at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, thanks to their winning the American High School Theatre Festival, and the support of Cal Shakes and many other friends.

Hey everyone, it’s Naomi Zingman-Daniels. I’m typing this from Pollock Halls all the way over in Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s been amazing! It feels like we’ve been here three weeks, not six days, and pretty much everyone wants to stay for a long time more. We’ve seen so much good theater, and we’ve started our run of Hamlet: Blood in the Brain off fantastically. When we got in, it was hectic—we went straight from the airport to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to see Henry IV, Part 1. It was awesome! The Globe is unlike any theater that I’ve ever seen before—for one thing, no roof. It was totally different to see a play in daylight like that. The show was amazing—the actors were brilliant (and the stage combat was so cool—I want to learn how to do that!). We returned there the next day for a workshop and a tour, learning lots of facts and even getting to work with one of the actors from Henry. It was so wonderful, I can’t even think of words for it (amazing keeps coming to mind, but it gets redundant to describe everything that way). To sum it all up: Thank you so much for making this possible! We love you!

Hey it’s G-MONEY! And I’m going to describe how opening night of Hamlet: Blood in the Brain went on August 18, 2010. “Are you listening, can you hear me? I said LISTEN UP!” A'ight then. Opening night was full of energy, ensemble flubs, and some damn heavy guns. We stepped down from the coach and sauntered in through the alleyway that led to our venue at the Church Hill Theatre in full costume. DAMN we looked bad-ass. The bystanders outside of the theater stole perplexed glances at our braids and baggy pants. When we got onside the theater, a black box with oversize curtains, we set up the blocks and the three Mylar flats we had constructed the day before. It takes two people to stand them up, but once we set them up they looked really good. Then we were given the prop guns that they let us borrow. The guns supposedly could be loaded to make a real noise, so they were legit. But they were entirely metal, so they were extremely heavy. When I tried to stash my prop gun in my jeans, my pants sagged down even lower than normal. During my big scene with Marcus, my arm was trembling from holding the gun up to his head for so long. The ensemble scenes went a little rough, but we had each other's backs. We have rehearsed this play for so long that we know each other's lines almost as well as our own, so when someone forgets their line, the brief silence is only due to everyone else deciding who should cover for them and say the line. But we got through it, and other than the curtains being too long for us to enter and exit smoothly, the show was fantastic. The AHSTF group that came to see us was very supportive. They cheered when we stepped outside like we were movie stars. I’m glad that the groups are so enthusiastic to see each others’ shows as well as performing their own. Well, thanks for everything. See you around!

Hello everyone! Marcus Thompson here! I’m having a blast here in the UK. Going to London was a fantastic experience. In a way it reminds me of New York City—many lights many people, very busy, always alive and quite inspirational. Now we are in Edinburgh, Scotland, taking advantage of the wonderful and priceless opportunity given to us. Every single day feels like two days in one, the reason being that we are always doing something, from going to see a show, to rehearsal, to enjoying the gorgeous and culturally abundant environment. It can get difficult to keep track of what we have done over the past six days. However, to be able to make that statement is an amazing thing to have the privilege to do. Thank you so much to all of the people that helped us get here, and thank you to everyone who has believed in us. I want everyone out there to remember that we couldn’t have gotten here with out you and that every one of us are very grateful for the love and support. You are all in our hearts during this journey. Well my time is up; we have to go to a show. So, until next time...

What’s up everyone??? This place is so utterly awesome like beyond words, but I’ll try anyway. We have been in Edinburgh for six days and it already feels like I live here. Everyone is so friendly and hospitable. Everything seems so familiar here for some strange reason even though the buildings look like they’ve been here for hundreds of years. It’s a very interesting mix of today and history. Because America is so young a country you don’t get to experience this there yet. The clothes people wear here are awesome too; everyone looks like they’ve stepped out of a magazine or something. You’d think it would be weird seeing a whole bunch of grown men walking around in skirts but it just makes them look more dignified. Kind of trippy. Anyway we’ve been able to embrace the culture here in many ways. This is made easier by the fact that it isn’t hidden in museums and monuments, it’s EVERYWHERE. A few nights ago we went to a Celidgh (pronounced keltay), which is basically a party, and it was so hard to keep up with the dancing. We learned many Scottish dances and about clothes and whatnot, while at the same time working off all the heavy food. You could eat very little here at breakfast and be full until around dinner. And haggis was not that bad. I expected it to look like someone had stuffed a stomach with a load of chopped meat and cut it up, but it just looked like a veggie burger the size of a hockey puck. It tasted kind of good too…for the first couple of seconds and then something about it hits you and you almost gag. It's amazing here and I wish everyone back home could see and feel what we’re feeling. Thanks so much!

Hi everybody, this is Hong Ho. Here we are in Edinburgh, Scotland, and it’s beautiful. We went to a lot of terrific and amazing shows, especially No Child, an excellent show featuring a talented actress, Nilaja Sun, from New York, who portrays all the students she taught in New York. Her show presents her amazing acting skills that capture the audience, and the best thing was the comedy However, I laughed at the wrong moments. Is that weird? Oh, well. Thank you for this experience.

Hello everybody, it’s Rafa Moraga. I am in Scotland and having a wonderful time. I have met people here that are from so many different backgrounds and walks of life. I feel that all of the groups that we have met, the group from Savannah, Georgia has had the most in common with us. They have that same level of high energy and spiritedness that we have. This was first apparent when Marcus, Tyree. and I passed by them playing gigolo; they invited us with such open arms and kind hearts that it was hard to refuse them. Having had an encounter with them, we were so excited to see their show, The Katrina Project: Hell in High Waters. It was a wonderful and moving show that really gave me a different perspective on Hurricane Katrina and people's struggles through the disaster. It is great to see people like us doing works of art on their own.

Hey hey hey! It’s Keyera Lucas and, man, I am having the GREATEST time on this trip. Edinburgh is an extremely beautiful place. I have never seen anything like it. Every day we do so much. We have seen so many great plays. Yesterday, we went to see On the Verge or the Geography of Yearning, performed by the only other group from California, a group of five girls from Marin County. They represented the Bay Area very well. Their show was hilarious. Those ladies were amazing. COOL FACT: We actually met this group for the first time at the San Francisco Airport. We boarded the same flight to London. How crazy is that? Just know that the Bay Area is doing well! Signing off, Keyera.

Greetings from Gareth across the pond! This whole trip has been so much fun! I have really enjoyed spending time with the rest of the Tech students, as well as Ms. Sabella, Ms. J, and Scott. I’m really glad we all get along really well, because the trip wouldn’t have been as meaningful to me if I didn’t have friends to share the experience with. We like seeing the sights and meeting the other AHSTF groups. We especially enjoy seeing performances together and talking about what we liked and disliked about the show. One of the shows we saw in London was a play called War Horse. It was set during World War II, and it followed the close relationship between a young boy and his horse, Joey. The boy’s father ends up selling Joey to the Army, and the boy sets out to look for him. It was a very touching story. However, the most incredible part about the play was the fantastic puppetry. The horses were wood and wire puppets that were controlled by two to three people each. The puppeteers moved the horse puppets in such synchronized, animalistic movements, it really looked like a real horse was on stage. It was a very sad play, but with a happy ending.
Another play that we all saw together was a hilarious show in Edinburgh called the Beat Box Action Comedy Chef. The show consisted of about eight Korean men and two women, all of whom had their own special talent. The women could sing and dance; a couple guys were amazing beat boxers (they had a battle—coolest beats I’ve ever heard without using a drum machine!); and some other guys could break-dance really well! It was a tremendously funny and exciting show, and I was breathless by the end.

Hey, hey, it's Tenecia. The trip has been full of excitement so far, and every day has been a fun a new experience. Last night, however, was truly a treat. The cast of Hamlet: Blood in the Brain had the chance to be on the Scotland radio station, Fresh Air. The station was just a walk away from the school, so as we walked we got to site-see and be in a whole different vibe. It was around 9:30 when we left so we got a slight look at the night life, which was very friendly. The interview went great. They mostly interviewed Marcus and Keyera, and then the other rappers and I did our rap. It was great publicity and I'm hoping that we get a full house because of it

What’s really good with it? Alright so let it be known this is the one and only Tyree on the mic for the time being. You know the kid that’s oh so FLY. But yeah, man, I am loving it out here in Edinburgh. I love the sights and I am really digging how different it is out here. We've performed three shows so far and today is our last day to perform; every show has been a full house. I used to feel like I wasn’t a good actor and that I shouldn’t waste my time with this or anything in that nature, but man, Ms. Sabella helped me out and I feel a little more confident each time.

Hey guys. This is Krystal and on August 19 I saw the most amazing theater I have ever seen, Beat Box Action Comedy. It took my breath away I could not believe that I was actually watching all of it live because the play seemed like a movie filled with special effects. They beat boxed, danced, and did stage combat—the even had real food onstage, which they called somebody from the audience to try. And all the sounds effects were done by mouth. It was just amazing—such a great experience. I cannot thank you guys enough for making this experience possible, and your support of this adventure. Thanks again.

OakTechRep on performing on the Cal Shakes stage

So you've read Cal Shakes' thoughts on the OakTechRep performance of Hamlet: Blood in the Brain at the Bruns; now here's a representative from the cast (Naomi Zingman-Daniels) telling their side of the story.

So all along, we at OakTechRep have been sort of going "Woo! We're going to Scotland!" as we performed on various schools' stages. Every rehearsal we'd done was at a school, and every performance, too. We'd done a few excerpts in public, but actually performing on a big public stage—that was just insane. So when we went on a tour of the Bruns Amphitheater less than a week before we performed there, it started to hit us.

We were performing at Cal Shakes.

I mean, it wasn't new news. We'd known about it for months. But when we were walking the stage, going over blocking, figuring out how to set the stage—it was actually real. We were really going to perform on the Bruns Amphitheater stage. People—about 500 of them—were really going to come see us perform. This was really happening. It was also really, really cold, and on the night of the show, incredibly windy.

In the hours before we got called for the start of the show, the backstage area was buzzing. People in their dressing rooms were taking pictures with their mirrors (we have slightly modified bathrooms at school and get rather overly excited anytime there are professional dressing rooms), resting, frantically going over lines, and—in my case—figuring out which costume I was going to wear. Everyone was talking and yelling about everything under the sun, finding props, and doing last minute runs of blocking.

And then came the call for places.

By 7pm, it was already pretty cold out. We stood at the entrances to the amphitheater, in character, for about half an hour before we moved to the stage. Personally, I think it was the best show we've done yet. We seemed to find new dimensions to our characters throughout the show. Throughout the show, we had to make a few emergency changes—one being me standing behind the mirror we use for one scene, so the winds wouldn't knock it over onto one of the characters—but in the end, everything worked out great.

We were down one actor, Rafa Moraga (Fate/Funeral Home Employee), who was out of town, and I was playing his part, so I had rehearsed it before plenty of times, but just for me, performing that scene was a whole different experience. The show was unlike any we'd ever performed before, and I think I can speak for everyone when I say that it was absolutely amazing (thank you so much, Cal Shakes!) and it just made it even more excited (if that's possible) for Scotland!

Oakland Tech Takes Orinda by Storm (almost literally)

Wow! What a night! Last night we hosted our largest New Works/New Communities (NW/NC) event to date. My name is Daunielle Rasmussen and I am, among many other things here at Cal Shakes, the Community Engagement Manager for the NW/NC program. I began fulfilling the responsibilities of this job title last December and have had an amazing year of discovering what our community engagement program is.

In the last week, we have opened the "doors" of our outdoor Bruns Amphitheater to the talented young actors of Oakland Technical High School to prepare for a one-night-only performance of their much celebrated production of Hamlet: Blood in the Brain. Since March, we have become close collaborators; upon hearing that they were selected to take Blood in the Brain (the first work created through NW/NC) to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, we knew we needed to send them off in style.

The company members of OakTechRep first set foot on our grounds last Monday when they came to rehearse in the space. We were immediately blown away by their professionalism and dedication. This is no mere group of teenagers—this is a well-trained team of actors who are giving, fun, and extremely talented. The process of putting on the performance last night went insanely fast. They had one four-hour rehearsal in the theater on Monday, July 19 to reset their blocking to our space. They had to use and work around the set that we currently have on stage for Mrs. Warren’s Profession—a play as different from this one in aesthetic tone as could be.

The second rehearsal was a technical rehearsal wherein we added in sound and light cues. In between the two rehearsals, members of our tech team—composed of interns from Cal Shakes' Professional Immersion Program—and theirs feverishly worked to solidify what cues and lighting design could be done with what was already hung for Mrs. Warren’s. Sunday night, after Mrs. Warren's had ended, we tech'd Blood in the Brain from 7 to 11pm. The kids were released but we kept working on notes and adjusting the lights. Monday (yesterday) the OakTechRep cast showed up at 4pm for a speed-through of the play, took a short break for dinner, and went straight into the show at 7:30pm.

The house was almost full, which felt fantastic! We were so pleased to be able to share this special event with such a large group, many of whom were completely new to our Theater. The only disappointment was the weather. The wind was so bad it was hard to hear the actors from the back of the house, and it was sooooo cold! We were worried that the large standing mirror—one of the few props OakTechRep brought with them—would blow over. I had to run backstage at one point to ask one of the actors to stand behind it during the scene. Overall, though, the show was an amazing success: We raised $1,100 to continue and deepen the residency partnership between Cal Shakes and Oakland Tech.

This group is special, and I feel like I have gained so much just by being in their presence.

Photo of OakTechRep curtain call by Jay Yamada.

Hamlet in Juvy

This past Memorial Day weekend, a special group of teens came together to perform adapted scenes from Shakespeare for their peers. It’s not a traditional summer holiday activity for kids, that’s for sure; but these kids are in Alameda County Juvenile Hall, where neither beach trips, nor barbecues, nor performing Shakespeare is an everyday occurrence.

For several years, Cal Shakes has worked closely with Write to Read, a program of the Alameda County Library; Juvenile Hall’s head librarian Amy Cheney; and Associate Artist Andy Murray to provide Shakespeare workshops in the hall’s classrooms. This May, we expanded to our first evening residency: three hours per week over four weeks in which students took on selected scenes from Hamlet. With the guidance of new teaching artists Sean Levon Nash and Jade Raybin as well as Cal Shakes Artistic Administrator Daunielle Rasmussen, students read scenes from Hamlet and Hamlet: Blood in the Brain by Naomi Iizuka, then improvised the actions of the play to create performance pieces that recast Shakespeare’s characters in modern times.

On the final night of the residency, six students performed for an audience of fifteen peers and three staff members, a first in our three years of Shakespeare at the Hall. Plans are in the works for further residencies at Alameda County Juvenile Hall and, with the help of consultant Kim Nelson, we are pursuing new partnerships with other organizations and facilities serving juvenile offenders.

Pictured above: Jade Raybin, Sean Levon Nash, Daunielle Rasmussen, and Cal Shakes Director of Artistic Learning Trish Tillman in a curriculum meeting for the Hamlet residency; photo by Brianna Regan.

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Summer in OakTechRep

In August, Jessa Berkner's Oakland Technical High School advanced drama students will travel to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. As American High School Theatre Winners, they will perform Naomi Iizuka's Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, which was the first development project of Cal Shakes' New Works/New Communities program. (For more information, visit our news and NW/NC pages.)

Summer's starting, and OakTechRep is full of exciting news! A few weeks before school ended, we made our fundraising goal for Scotland—suddenly, it's so much more real to all of us who are going. In addition to this exciting news for all of us, senior Marcus Thompson, who plays H, the Hamlet character in Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, won the Beach Blanket Babylon scholarship—a $10,000 scholarship that is awarded to the best actor, the best singer, and the best dancer graduating from a Bay Area high school each year. Congratulations, Marcus!

For all of us, what we have now to do is rehearse—which is going to be a journey unto itself. We have a busy summer schedule, rehearsing at school, in parks, on the steps. If you're around, maybe you'll catch us at a rehearsal somewhere. The place you can for sure catch us is at Cal Shakes on July 26, when we have our last US show before heading over the ocean to Edinburgh.

We're all really excited for everything that's coming up. Since not everyone in the original OakTechRep cast of the show could make it to Scotland, we have to change roles and reblock for the smaller space that we'll have in Scotland. Nearly everyone has changed lines and two of us have completely changed roles, which means new lines for most of us and new blocking for everyone. It's going to be hard - this is all of our first time really reblocking a show that we've already done a bunch - but it's going to be amazing in Scotland, so it'll be worth it. We're also really excited for the Cal Shakes show; it means a lot to us (thank you so much, Cal Shakes!) and it's our last chance to show everyone on this side of the world all our hard work.

Because we essentially have another show to learn, we have a lot of rehearsal to go through. Even with all the craziness, though, it's going to be an amazing summer for all of us. We all know we're incredibly lucky to have this chance—and, sure, maybe we'll have to cancel a day at the beach—but it's more than worth it. I can't think of anyone or anything I'd rather spend time on than this.

Intern Eden Meets the Muralists

The following blog was originally published over at our Profesisonal Immersion Program (PIP) blog, Inside the Interns Studio.

My name is Eden Neuendorf; I’m an artistic department intern at Cal Shakes. I attended the Meet the Muralists event on Saturday, June 26, after the 2pm matinee of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven.

It was a very hot day, but quite a few patrons stuck it out to listen to Salinas' José Ortiz (pictured below right in a photograph by Jay Yamada) and six of young muralists of Hijos del Sol describe the Pastures mural in the plaza, titled Las Pasturas del Cielo. People were very attentive while José spoke about the mural and his process, even applauding after the answer to a question from the audience. Many patrons stayed after the talk had ended just to ask more questions and to personally thank José and the boys. Patrons seemed very grateful of and amazed by the work.

What most interested me was to hear about the strong connection José and his students felt after reading Pastures of Heaven, and about how they felt a mural was the best way to present that connection to the stories. José gave a brief description of each story depicted in the mural, and also gave the illustrators a chance to say what part of the mural they had worked on. José said they all fought over the painting of Tularecito, because as painters they all connected closely with that story. It was also one of their favorite parts of the play. It was so amazing to hear how much these young artists connected to the story.

During the talk I was struck by the depiction of the sunset at the very far right side of the mural (photographed below by Paul Doyle). I’ve seen the mural so many times, but for some reason this was the first time I really saw the sunset. But Saturday afternoon, the picture and José’s description of the artist's intent really spoke to me. The sunset was painted with different shades of grays, which aren’t the colors you typically think of when you think about a sunset. They were trying to depict the Salinas sunset, ending the mural's story with lots of grays and just a glimmer of color and hope. This is how they interpreted the end of Pastures of Heaven. It’s beautiful; I’m thankful I was finally able to see it and to fully appreciate it.

Amy blogs the last week of PASTURES.

Nearly three years. That's how long I have been involved in the collaboration which ends its first life this coming week. I have been immersed in Pastures for these last weeks, doing my work while performing, but also letting it have free reign through all my quiet time, my half-awake time, what I call my dream-time, when so many ideas come to me, things to try during the next performance. My body changed over these weeks. I am stronger now than I was on May 1. I know, because I can get up off that platform during the tantrums so much faster that I have time now to see Julie, to focus my rages at her, to send her scurrying out of my line of sight (whereas before...I was just working on getting the heck up off the floor!) Also, I know, because the pillows I fling seem to go so far sometimes if I am not careful...backstage crew says they are taking bets about whether or not I'll heave the mattress off the platform after the pillows one night...well, maybe closing? Wouldn't that be fun?!

My experience at the Bruns has been intimate, and expansive, and has stretched me in ways that feel so good, like oiling a creaky joint. And now comes the last week of sharing these stories with an audience. Here lies the rub. How to gently let it go. I always feel as though doing theater is like filling up the gas tank of my soul. I suppose because of my home circumstances, which only allow me to do theater work every so often, I may never feel that professional detachment I see in other actors, which I imagine they use most when the time comes to let the experience go. I will miss Cal Shakes in a personal way, all you in Admin, and Box Office, and backstage, and the interns, and the artists. Jon and Octavio. I will miss my castmates...all the love and chicanery...and most of all I will miss my characters. They have been my constant companions and now will have to be folded away and put in the memory box with the script, the book, the reviews, and some hairpins from Miss Martin's wig. Phillipa Kelly asked if I would come back to work again at Cal Shakes; yes, I would. It is a truly special family, and I am grateful to have shared this experience with you all.

Cheers.

Pictured above: Julie Eccles and Amy Kossow as Helen and Hilda van Deventer, respectively, in John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven; photo by Jay Yamada.

Goats at the Bruns! Scads of 'em!

(Donor Relations and Special Events Manager) Beth Sandefur and I just returned from the Bruns, where the great Rachel Lane (our Facilities Manager) has engaged fire goats to trim the grass. Today they were working on the parking lot. The company of goats will be in residence at the Bruns through the weekend, and will emerge from the workshop with a finished piece: a freshly mown outdoor amphitheater.

All photos by Paul S. Doyle.

Oakland Tech Blogs!

In August, Jessa Berkner's Oakland Technical High School advanced drama students will travel to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. As American High School Theatre Winners, they will perform Naomi Iizuka's Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, which was the first development project of Cal Shakes' New Works/New Communities program. (For more information, visit our news and NW/NC pages.)

Currently, Berkner's students are working with Cal Shakes on a modernized Twelfth Night the cast is pictured at right, photographed by Berkner). What follows is what we hope will be the first of several blogs by Naomi Zingman-Daniels and the other OakTechRep students. This blog was written last week, when Twelfth Night was still in performance.

Everyone is rushing around; a girl in a red robe is holding up a beard to her face; another girl is putting yellow fishnets on. This is just another normal scene backstage at OakTechRep, Oakland Tech's advanced drama program. We're in the production week of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and every member of the cast and crew is making last-minute preparations, running over lines, and discussing blocking. It's the normal pre-show craziness here.

The 2009-2010 school year is our Shakespeare year here at Oakland Tech. We started out the year with Naomi Iizuka's modern adaptation of Hamlet, entitled Hamlet: Blood in the Brain. Set in 1989 Oakland, it was a really great way to start off. We all got completely into it—Shakespeare's stories are absolutely timeless, and can be set, if you think about it enough, anywhere. And it wasn't just an interesting play for us to do. It hit close to home. Oakland is where we live, where we work, where we go to school. A lot of the problems in both Shakespeare's and Iizuka's versions of Hamlet exist in our community today, and it made it a lot more real for us and a lot easier to get into the script, especially for the actors who hadn't previously studied much Shakespeare.

We're taking Hamlet: Blood in the Brain to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, and even though all the fundraising and preparation is driving everyone involved a little crazy, we're all really excited for it. It's been a lot of work. We started the show with 16 cast members. In Scotland, we're going to have only nine, so we have to reblock and reassign lines. We've also been raising all the money for it, so that's been crazy, too.

Since we're a repertory theater, we have multiple shows going on at once. We're taking a break from Hamlet with Twelfth Night, and going back in time to 1920s New Orleans and the classic text. We had our first preview last night, and it was amazing. Our Orsino came in just the weekend before, so we've had to cram a lot of rehearsing into very little time. Scenes had to be newly figured out, relationships onstage reworked, and of course, lines to be learned. It's been stressful, of course, and there was the usual arguing over cues and lines and who goes on when backstage before, during, and after the show. But it was a lot of fun. The only real sad thing for me is that there's only going to be two more nights of it.

2010 Season Artist Profile: Octavio Solis

In the months leading up to our 2010 Main Stage season, we’ll be profiling the creative minds behind the season’s productions—John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Macbeth, and Much Ado About Nothing—in our e-newsletters. For the inaugural installment, we are introducing newsletter subscribers to playwright Octavio Solis, a Cal Shakes Associate Artist and occasional contributor to this blog. Since 2007, Octavio has been working with us and Word for Word Performing Arts Company to adapt John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven, the first new play to debut at Cal Shakes in 25 years. What follows is the full transcript of my email interview with Octavio. To sign up for our email newsletter, click here.

Do you remember your very first piece of creative writing, or perhaps the piece that alerted you to the possibilities of the form?
Yes, a pair of poems I wrote in class when I was in the fifth grade. One was a tribute for my mother. The other was a poem called "Ode to a Prairie Dog" or something like that. I lived in Texas and we had these critters everywhere. I was very moved by a ballad I had read in class that practically sang to me: “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. It really made me want to be a poet. Then I discovered Edgar Allan Poe and I consumed everything he ever wrote. All his fiction, all his poetry, everything. I loved him.

Is there a work (literary, musical, or any other form) that would be your dream adaptation project?
I would love to attempt sometime an adaptation of the life of Eva Hesse. She was a beautiful German-born American artist who was one of the biggest influences on Abstract Expressionism. She led a troubled life, surrounded with tragedy and death, from the Nazis to the brain tumor, which eventually took her life. I think her life is compelling enough to warrant a play or film.

What inspires you right now? Any particular music, current events, people, et cetera?
Music is a chief inspiration. I listen to jazz from every epoch, particularly the bebop era, and the jazz-flavored world music coming from the ECM label: Anouar Brahem and Arve Henrikson and the Tomasz Stanko Quartet. Really dark moody stuff. The music takes me to other worlds.

If you could have written any play in history, what do you wish it could have been?
A Streetcar Named Desire. Maybe Our Town.

Who are your favorite writers (theatrical and nontheatrical, living or deceased)?
That changes from year to year and mood to mood. Right now I like the fiction of Roberto Bolaño and the poetry of Mark Strand. I am enamored of the works of Mary Oliver too. And Thomas Hardy. His poetry is as rich in story and nuance as his novels.

You’ve been so very busy these last few years. Do you have any plans to slow down in the next months or years? Or are you just building up momentum to keep going at a similar pace?
I have slowed down. My body has buckled under me and imposed a period of rest. So I am laying low at the moment. I like it. I have been working at a pace that was killing me, and now I don't think I want to do that anymore.

Subscribe now to get the best seats at the best prices for John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven, and the rest of our 2010 season. Photo by Anne Hamersky.

New Works/New Communities play goes to Edinburgh Fringe!

This weekend, Oaklanders will get another chance to see Hamlet: Blood in the Brain as Oakland Technical High School's award-winning drama department presents the play for three nights. Naomi Iizuka's reimagining of the Shakespeare tragedy transports the scandalous classic to the drug-ravaged streets of mid-1980s Oakland; as American High School Theatre Festival winners, Oakland Tech will tour the production around the Bay Area this spring—including a Feb 24 performance at Stanford and an excerpt performance at Oakland's popular street festival. Art Murmur, on March 5—before traveling all the way to Scotland to present Blood in the Brain at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival!

Back in 2003, Cal Shakes partnered with renowned playwright Iizuka and San Francisco's Campo Santo—the resident theater company at Intersection for the Arts—to launch this first New Works/New Communities project. The play was developed over the course of three years of grassroots community engagement that included community conversations and public readings, and culminated in a sold-out eight-week run at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. (Pictured above, Sean San José and Ryan Nicole Peters perform at Intersection; photo by Dave Nowakowski.)

We are so pleased that Oakland Tech is performing this play, and we congratulate them on their AHSTF win. Break a leg!

Click here for more info on the Oakland Tech performances.
Click here for more info on New Works/New Communities, or get regular updates on our new play and community development efforts by signing up for our email list and clicking the box for New Works/New Communities.

Online volunteer registration and serving on a not-for-profit board

There’s some exciting news on several Cal Shakes volunteer service fronts that we’d like to share with you.

First, participants in our general volunteering program—ushers, Inside Scoopers, administrative office helpers, et cetera—will now be able to register and schedule online. In 2009, nearly 500 volunteers recorded more than 4,000 hours, and that’s a lot of us to keep track of. So this year we’ve made it easier by using Shiftboard online scheduling software. Once you’ve registered at shiftboard.com/calshakes you’ll be able to sign up for all of your favorite Cal Shakes opportunities. There are even a few new ones this year, helping out the Artistic staff, actors, and designers. PLEASE NOTE: Everyone—including returning volunteers—must register with Shiftboard in order to receive volunteer information and to schedule a shift. For more information about Cal Shakes volunteer opportunities, contact Jamie Buschbaum at 510.548.3422 x101 or jbuschbaum@calshakes.org.

Secondly, Cal Shakes will be participating in the Board Match event next Tuesday, January 12, 4:30–7:30pm at Moscone Center South in San Francisco. If you’ve ever considered deepening your commitment to Cal Shakes or another not-for-profit by serving on a board, then this free event is for you. The Volunteer Center’s Board Match is a job-fair style event featuring over 100 Bay Area nonprofits—large to small, focusing on everything from the environment to arts toYouth. Serving on a nonprofit board can provide fantastic opportunities for your personal and professional development. You can build new and skills, network and broaden your knowledge of the community and provide essential skills to community nonprofits. This may be the single best opportunity to talk to nonprofit leadership (including Cal Shakes Managing Director Susie Falk) from over 100 Bay Area nonprofits about board membership. Bring copies of your résumé and business cards—board members are the foundation of nonprofit organizations, and we’re looking for a few new recruits! For more information on the event, click theboardmatch.org.

Listen to interviews with Jon and JoAnne

A representative of the NEA's New Play Development Program came out to observe the final development workshop for John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven last week, and conducted interviews with Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone and JoAnne Winter, Co-Artistic Director of our collaborative partner, Word for Word. Hear the interviews at http://bit.ly/51f6RQ.

Heaven in Oakland—a Halfway Point

"In talking about the house on the Battle Farm, and how the townspeople in the Pastures of Heaven view it, I asked kids if they knew of places like this in their own lives. One student said there were ghost stories about a house he knew of where a person had died in the basement. Others said they knew of places that were really worn down. I said, 'Yeah, they may be abandoned, like how the Mustrovics had to suddenly up and leave.' Another student chimed in, 'We call those bandos.' I thought about our current economy and how it might be more timely than I thought to have empty, worn-down houses in their very midst due to foreclosures."

That's an excerpt of a blog by Emily Morrison, Cal Shakes Artistic Learning Programs Manager. She's teaching John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven to eighth-graders as part of a residency at E.C. Reems, an Oakland charter school, and blogging about it at OER (Open Educational Resources) Commons. We'll be excerpting the blog and linking to it in this space as the residency continues, building toward a community event featuring student readings and artwork in mid-December. Read the full blog entry for a window onto Morrison's arts education experience.

Pictured above: Emily teaches at at a 2007 Cal Shakes Summer Shakespeare Conservatory; photo by Jay Yamada.

Entering into The Pastures of Heaven

So folks, we just ended a full week of workshopping the first complete draft of Octavio Solis’ adaptation of Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven. We’re premiering it next year on our Main Stage, and it was quite a week.

Octavio’s play is, simply, beautiful. On the path to making a play, you look for its DNA: what it’s made of. Changes will be made—cuts, rearrangements of scenes, additions, etc.—but what needs to be there at one point is the play’s DNA. Its self. Octavio’s Pastures has real DNA. It has a genuine theatrical life, blending Word for Word’s sensibility of translating literature into theater with my love of the nakedness of storytelling in the hands of actors (as we explored in Nicholas Nickleby). But more importantly, it has heart. And poetry. It’s also very very funny. And that’s all Octavio. He pulls Steinbeck’s quiet words off the page and finds the juxtapositions between humor and pathos in a way that makes me happy to feel like I am in the hands of a Chekhovian writer.

We assembled a group of actors, some of whom had been with the process since it started two years ago, and some new actors. And all were splendid collaborators, able to make characters distinct and alive in an extremely short time; also able to ask smart questions of the text that will inevitably inform our next steps in the development of the piece; and most of all, united, in just six days, into an ensemble. Which is what this play celebrates: the storytelling of an ensemble of actors. It’s sheer theater—authentic and alive.

We invited some funders, board members, staff, and patrons to the “window on the work” yesterday, reading abou half of the play. The feeling in the room was palpable—there was something special going on here. I was, to be quite sentimental, extremely proud, moved, and almost speechless (and for those of you who know me, that is no small feat) by the presence of a wonderful new American play, inspired by one of our great American writers—a classic writer if you will—at a Theater that is taking a big leap forward in defining who it is.

The great folks at Arena Stage sent someone out to chronicle the process. They, along with the NEA, were partners in selecting John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven as one of five NEA Distinguished New American Plays. This, along with support from the Irvine Foundation and other amazing foundations, is making it possible for us to do this piece. And our subscribers delight in the surprises we make for them. So their spirit was in the room as we made steps in the creation of this piece. And our staff, led by the great Jessica Richards, producer of the project, was there every step of the way.

Hence the pride, the being moved, and the almost-speechlessness. I couldn’t do this anywhere else but at Cal Shakes, and in the Bay Area, which is by far the best place in this country to take chances in theatrical expression.

There’s a lot of work still be done with the play, but Octavio knows where to go with it and what to do. Trust the playwright. Especially when it’s Octavio Solis, who listens more than he talks, takes in and thinks hard about what the actors and I are doing, and is open to the collaboration of the ensemble and myself.

I am genuinely happy about what happened last week, which is just a marker in the path of the making of this new American play. And our community engagement—with folks in Salinas, especially the young artists of Alisal Center for the Arts (whose mural inspired by The Pastures of Heaven will be on display at our Theater during the play’s run) as well as students in the Bay Area who are learning about Steinbeck and how to make literature come alive (via our excellent teaching artists)—makes this more than just a play-making process. It’s a community-building process. It makes it all bigger. It makes more impact. And it will forever change this Theater and, I hope, some of the communities we are reaching out to.

More anon.

Jonathan

Pictured above, from top: Jonathan speaks to project artists at the last Pastures workshop; Danny Scheie; Maya Lawson; Craig Marker; photos by Jay Yamada. View more at the New Works/New Communities Flickr page.

Steinbeck Blog Prompt #3 by Jonathan Moscone

The third and last in our series of three prompts, designed to help inform our upcoming Steinbeck Project workshop. The Cal Shakes New Works/New Communities program would love for you to leave your input in the "comments" section below, via prose, poetry, links to video, imagery, or audio, and whatever else you can think of. Posting your comments on an individual prompt blog during its first week gets you entered in a drawing to win a prize*, and all comments are eligible for publication in Cal Shakes newsletters, on our website, and/or in the program for John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven during our 2010 season.**

This week's prompt comes from Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, who will be directing the Main Stage production of Pastures.

In Steinbeck's book of short stories, The Pastures of Heaven, lives are eternally changed by the smallest action, the merest word, the slightest touch. Life is not melodramatic, he seems to be saying. There are no good guys and bad guys; any of us can say something or do something that seems small and insignificant, and yet has the most epic, seismic effect on the life of someone else. Has this happened to you? What are those little moments that have had the biggest effect on your life? Or can you think of a small thing that you have done or said that inadvertently affected another person's life in a surprisingly large way?

Photo of Jonathan Moscone by Jay Yamada.