ArtSake

Recently, the multi-disciplinary performing arts troupe Sleeping Weazel marked its dramatic arrival to the New England theatre scene. We checked in with the group’s leader, playwright Charlotte Meehan, about the company, its past/future, and its fascinating Artistic Director.

Why Sleeping Weazel, the org.? Why Sleeping Weazel, the name?
Sleeping Weazel was originally founded in 1998 by my late husband David G. Hopkins to produce independent films, live and audio theatre, and a multi-genre experimental web magazine based in Bristol, UK. After David moved to New York to live with me, we continued our collaborations until his untimely death in 2004. This iteration of Sleeping Weazel, which we just launched with a festive party/performance night at The Factory Theatre in Boston, is a brand new endeavor I have taken on with three of my former Wheaton College students, Adara Meyers, Amanda Weir, and Jess Foster. We are producing live performance and music in Boston and presenting art works online for viewing across the globe on our Vimeo channel.

The name Sleeping Weazel alludes to the idea of “dreaming awake,” or being in a productive state of unconsciousness wherein the artist works to imagine and manifest what was previously outside the realm of possibility. In extending the invitation to join a work of art finding its way to new dimensions, the imaginary becomes a place of enchantment, growth, and abundant potential for all participants. In today’s economy, this is not an idea to “sell” and so the weazel himself is our wily little mascot slipping his way into the leaky system that is the American arts establishment.

What’s the most surprising response to your art you’ve ever received?
Someone once said to me after seeing four of my short plays in an evening that I had to decide whether my plays are funny, or sad. I politely responded that I’d decided to leave that up to each audience member.

Share a surprise twist in the Charlotte Meehan story.
I’m a 9/11 refugee. If the tragedy of that day had not occurred, I might still be living in my fifth floor walk-up on Grand and Mulberry in Little Italy. Shocks me to say this as a die-hard New Yorker, but I’m very glad to be here in New England where the sky is endless and there’s time to dream. I’m also very excited by the explosion of new theatre companies in Boston right now, and recently joined the Small Theatre Alliance through getting to know Meg Taintor and seeing the wonderful work of her company, Whistler in the Dark. It’s taken seven years to circle back to Sleeping Weazel after losing David, but I’m very proud to have reclaimed our company and look forward to sharing exciting new cross-disciplinary performance with the greater Boston community.

Like, what does your work MEAN?
Though perfectly capable of being charming and entertaining, my plays are stubbornly idiosyncratic in form and philosophical in nature. Others have described them as surreal fables, multimedia dance theatre, operas, performance plays, and choreopoems. Whatever form each play takes, the full array of circumstances that “ruin” people – childhood trauma, unexamined privilege, mental illness, frailty of character, war, poverty, etc. – make up a significant part of my theatrical landscape. I’m also very interested in how American culture in this late stage of Capitalism encourages all forms of predation upon the neurotic masses for profit and in the impossibility of communication that ensues. Fortunately, this can all be quite hilarious.

What do you listen to while you create?
Sometimes nothing, but I was greatly influenced by Erik Satie’s Les Inspiration Insolites and Nick Drake’s Pink Moon while writing Ceci n’est pas une Pièce (this is not a play), a sound performance version of which can be heard on my website.

What’s next?
Next up is an evening of performance and song by our affiliated artists on March 13 at The Factory Theatre. Erik Ehn, Head of Playwriting at Brown University, will present one of his puppet plays from Soulographie, a commemorative performance cycle, that will premiere at La Mama in New York in November. Also performing will be the incomparable Magdalena Gomez and a few other surprise guests. You must come and see…

Images: all photos by David Marshall. Pictured, from top: Amanda Weir, Charlotte Meehan, Adara Meyers, Jess Foster (Charlotte is Artistic Director and the others are Associate Artists of Sleeping Weazel); Loretta Pope and Jacob Richman perform RATS! (LYDIA SHERMAN, ARCHMURDEROUS OF CONNECTICUT) composed by Kirsten Volness (Kirsten and Jacob are Affiliated Artists of the company); Stephanie Burlington Daniels performs Ken Prestininzi’s BIRTH BREATH BRIDE ELIZABETH, a pseudo-lecture to young brides by Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein; Adara Meyers chats with Provost Linda Eisenmann and Dean of Students Lee Williams of Wheaton College.

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Son of a Bug Trailer from Nicky Tavares on Vimeo.

Raising money for a creative project can be a daunting proposition. Crowdfunding sites, if matched with the right project campaigns, can provide a useful template for attracting funds.

If you’re curious about starting a crowdfunding campaign of your own, check out how some Massachusetts artists are using the site Kickstarter:

Nicky Tavares (Film & Video Fellow ’11) has a campaign to fund her next documentary film, Son of a Bug. The project has already surpassed its $6000 funding goal before its Jan. 2 deadline (on Kickstarter, projects must reach their fundraising goal or no money changes hands). The trailer (see above) might reveal why the campaign has found success; its offbeat humor is as appealing as the film’s subject, the first Pakistani rock band, The Bugs.

The Balagan Film Series, founded by Alla Kovgan (Film & Video Fellow ’09) and Jeff Daniel Silva (Film & Video Finalist ’09), showcases unexpected, experimental works of film and video. The video for the campaign (which ends Jan. 12), does a nice job laying out the background of the series, the part it plays in the local community, and the reasons to support its 2012 season.

In Fall 2011, Steven Bogart (Playwriting Finalist ’09) worked with writer Neil Gaiman, songwriter Stephin Merritt, and actors from the American Repertory Theater to develop an original play about the Grand Guignol Theatre of Victorian Paris. A documentary film project about the process is seeking to raise funds (by Jan. 21), and I like how the campaign borrows its over-the-top tone from the subject of the play.

For further research, check out other local projects:

• Thomas Oboe Lee is a prominent local composer seeking to produce a double CD of his concertos, released under the Boston Modern Orchestra Project label (by Jan. 15).
• Non-Event is a presenter of new, experimental music, seeking support (by Jan. 18) for its 2012 concert season for artists fees, venue rental, and all the other aspects of putting together a fully-realized, like-no-other performance series.
• The Charles River Swimming and Diving Team (a Cantabridgian movie-making troupe) are trying to raise funds to rent the Brattle Theatre to screen the first three episodes of The Central Square Detective Agency (by Jan. 18).
• Documentary filmmaker Alice Stone is seeking funds (by Jan. 26) to complete her documentary Angelo Unwritten, about a boy who escaped the foster care system to a loving family – but not the struggles that continue to mire him.

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Tis the season (for great news from past fellows/finalists of our Artist Fellowships). Hark!

Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) blesses readers with God Bless America readings, including a co-event with the also-awesome Elizabeth Searle (12/6 at Stellina in Watertown).

Steven Barkhimer (Playwriting Fellow ’11) puts on his director’s hat for Merry Wives of Windsor with Actors’ Shakespeare Project (12/7-1/1).

Woo hoo! for David Binder (Film & Video Fellow ’11, Photography Fellow ’01), a 2011 Assets for Artists grantee for business/financial training and support.

Be a winner and learn about Edie Bresler‘s (Photography Finalist ’11) installation at the Somerville Arts Council’s Inside-Out Gallery.

Excellent: Beth Galston (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’11) has two large-scale installations at PAAM (thru 1/15/12), commissions from San Antonio and Nashville, and a 2011 Design Award from the Chain Link Fence Manufacturers Institute for Serpentine Fence.

Michal Goldman‘s (Film & Video Fellow ’07) At Home in Utopia just screened in Philly and will stream for free online at New Day Digital (12/17-12/18).

Above: art-lovers immerse themselves in Brian Knep‘s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11) Healing Pool, which is at SEVEN during Miami Basel (thru 12/4).

All A’s for Caitlin McCarthy (Playwriting Finalist ’11), Best Short Script winner for Pass/Fail at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

Complementing his work at ICA/Boston, Daniel Ranalli (Drawing Fellow ’10) shares Snail Drawings at Gallery Kayafas (thru 1/7).

Nicky Tavares (Film & Video Fellow ’11) is Kickstarting her new film-in-progress, Son of a Bug.

You already knew she’s in vogue, but did you know that Rachel Perry Welty (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) is in Vogue? Get the scoop on the artist’s Facebook page.

Read past Fellows Notes. If you’re a past fellow/finalist with news, let us know.

Image: Brian Knep, HEALING POOL (2008), six-channel interactive video installation, computers, six video projectors, three video cameras, custom software, vinyl floor, 30×20 ft.

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November, upon us like a helping of heavily syrupped sweet potatoes, brings with it this bounty of news from our past Fellows/Finalists…

(more…)

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In Three Stages, we ask Massachusetts artists to shed light on their art-making process by focusing on three stages in one work of art.

Here, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro (Playwriting Fellow ’11) traces her new play Before I Leave You from its inspiration, to its challenges, to its culmination in this month’s premiere (October 14-November 13, 2011) at The Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, produced by the Huntington Theatre Company.

Inspiration

My play, Before I Leave You, began 10 years ago with an inexplicable tumble in my kitchen. I began to lift a heavy skillet from the stove and suddenly fell backwards onto the floor. For no real reason I thought this was the beginning of the end. Four of my five characters are on the cusp of old age. As one of them says, “One day you’re in good health, the next – who knows? You hear of someone having his hips replaced or his arteries reamed, and you say to yourself, ‘Well, he’s seventy.’ And then you think, in a few years I’ll be seventy.” There have been many mid-life crisis plays, many coming of age plays. I wanted to write a coming of old age play.

The four characters in my play range in age from 58 to 65, the time of life when one is alert to any sign that one’s physical and mental powers might be failing. All four are lifelong friends – they dine together regularly at the Royal East, a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge; they drop in unannounced at each other’s houses; they each try their hand at parenting the fifth character in the play, an angry boarding school dropout. I wanted to see what happens when a serious illness strikes one of the group – do they remain steadfast, or is it time to run away?

Challenge

I soon decided I wanted to set Before I Leave You in Cambridge, the place I have spent 46 years of my life. My other plays have been set as far afield as Amsterdam, Mexico City, Mount Olympus, and an imaginary dictatorship in Latin America, but I thought it was high time to write about my own city, teeming with college students, but also inhabited by vigorous elders, whose passions, both personal and professional, still run deep.

I wanted to capture the diverse community of Harvard Square: Jeremy, a professor and novelist, is the one who takes the tumble; Koji, a professor and theater director, suddenly rediscovers his Asian roots; Peter, the boarding school dropout, has found romance with the Vietnamese checkout girl at Shaw’s; and Emily, an artist, Koji’s wife and Peter’s mother, is the still point of this spinning world. My challenge was to create recognizable Harvard Square types – accomplished, neurotic, and opinionated, but each with their own unique and keenly felt problems, based as they are on people (including myself) I’ve known for a very long time.

Culmination

As I write this, the rehearsal space has just changed from a large, cold, windowless warehouse room on Huntington Avenue to the warm comfortable Wimberly Theater in the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. Tech rehearsals have begun. Suddenly everyone is in costume, the three sliding palettes (Jeremy’s study, Koji and Emily’s living room, and the Royal East) are taking turns at center stage in an amazing set bordered by back-lit bookshelves. It seems incredible that we are about to open for previews in three days!

I gathered notes (and scenes) for Before I Leave You for four years, then I worked on it at the PlayPen in Central Square Theatre, where it had its first public reading, and at the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program, at the end of which I was told it would be part of the 2011-2012 Huntington season. One compelling reason for being a playwright (as opposed to a novelist or a poet) is that it’s a sociable profession for at least part of the year. You spend most of the time alone with characters of your choice. You put words in their mouths. You spend hours thinking about what you should have said in conversations that never took place. Then, if you’re lucky you get to hang out with exciting directors, actors, dramaturgs, designers, all working together intensely for a short time to get the play on its feet and as perfect as humanly possible for opening night. There are few things in my life more stressful and exhilarating than that!

Before I Leave You, produced by the Huntington Theatre Company, runs at The Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, October 14-November 13, 2011. Find video, audio, images, and articles about the production.

Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro is a Huntington Theatre Company Playwriting Fellow whose plays have been performed at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Magic Theatre, The Boston Women on Top Festival, La MaMa ETC., and elsewhere. She is the writer and narrator of the documentary Japanese American Women: A Sense of Place. Seven of her short plays have been in the Boston Theater Marathon, and eight were finalists in the National Ten-Minute Play Contest. Her plays have been anthologized by Baker’s Plays, Heinemann, Charta Books, Smith and Kraus, and Meriwether Publishing. Ms. Alfaro is 72 years old, and has been a resident of Cambridge, MA for more than 40 years.

Images and media: Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, photo by Gustavo Alfaro; Ross Bickell, Kippy Goldfarb, Glenn Kubota, and Karen MacDonald, from BEFORE I LEAVE YOU at the Huntington Theatre Co., photo by Paul Marotta; quote from BEFORE I LEAVE YOU; behind-the-scenes video about BEFORE I LEAVE YOU, by Huntington Theatre Company.

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In September, past MCC fellows/finalists venture into imagined flora, faraway lands, outer space, the impermanent, the temporary, and the nearly not. (For starters.)

And now, we venture into our monthly round-up of the news of past awardees of our Artist Fellowships Program.

Karen Aqua (Film & Video Fellow ’11) will be honored by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston in a tribute program, on Sunday, September 25, 2011, 3 PM. Read more about the program on ArtSake.

Sally Bellerose (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist ’04) will read from her novel The Girls Club at Forbes Library in Northampton on Saturday, September 24, 2011, at 3 PM. The novel tells of the complicated, interconnected lives of three working class sisters in small town Massachusetts.

Congratulations to Alice Bouvrie (Film & Video Fellow ’11), whose documentary Thy Will Be Done now has a distribution partnership with New Day Films. The film will be appearing at Heart of England International Film Festival in the UK, September 7-18, 2011. The film, an excerpt of which won the artist an 2011 Artist Fellowship, will also be screening at the North Louisiana Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Shreveport, LA on September 17 (12:30 PM) and September 20, 2011 (5:30 PM, followed by a panel discussion). Next month, along with a screening at the International Film Festival Australasia in Australia, the film will be shown at Lesley University‘s Marran Theater in Cambridge on October 12, 2011, at 7 PM.

Sarah Braunstein‘s (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’04) novel The Sweet Relief of Missing Children was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize.

John Cameron‘s (Crafts Fellow ’11) work is included in New Hampshire Furniture Masters 2011. The annual auction is on September 10, 2011, at the Currier Museum of Art in NH.

Cheryl Clark (Poetry Finalist ’10) will read her poetry on Saturday, September 24, 3 PM, at Outpost 186 in Inman Square, Cambridge, as part of the Unaffiliated Reading Series.

Shawn Cody‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’07) new music theater work The Water Dream will have a staged reading as part of Shakespeare & Company’s Studio Festival of New Plays. The performance features Broadway veteran Anthony Rapp and takes place Monday, September 5, 2011 at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. Read about the event in Playbill.

Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo show of new paintings, called Nearly Nots, at The Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown. The show runs September 2-21, 2011, with a reception on Friday, September 2, 7-10 PM.

Vico Fabbris (Painting Fellow ’06, Drawing Fellow ’00) will have an exhibition titled Floragenis at the Rice Polak Gallery in Provincetown from September 1 to September 15, 2011. Opening reception, with the artist, Friday, September 2, 2011 at 7 PM. An interview with Vico Fabbris on his Floragenis exhibition at the Rice Polak Gallery will appear in the Provincetown Banner on Thursday, September 1, 2011, written by art historian and art critic Susan Rand Brown.

Long time organizer of poetry and interdisciplinary programs in Massachusetts, Michael Hoerman (Poetry Fellow ’04) has created a brand new organization, The Temp Series Project, to advocate and promote writing and art in the Commonwealth. Based in culture-rich Lowell, MA, The Temp Series Project will create interdisciplinary events, develop commissions, and host special showcases that highlight Massachusetts artists and promote their appreciation. Projects in the works include a temporary reading series, pocket poetry festival, and temporary public art. For more information, join The Temp Series Project on Facebook. The Temp Series Project was recently approved for fiscal sponsorship by Fractured Atlas.

Brian Knep (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11) is showing Healing 2 as part of the group show Building Expectation: Past and Present Visions of the Architectural Future at Brown University in Providence, RI. The show runs at the David Winton Bell Gallery September 3-November 6, 2011, with an opening reception and curatorial talk on Friday, September 9, 5:30-7:30 PM.

Jesse Kreitzer (Film & Video Finalist ’11) has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for his independent feature film, The Wake. The film, which was recently selected as a finalist for the 2012 Sundance Institute’s Screenwriter’s Lab, is the story of a grief-ridden social worker who cares for a dying woman in secrecy from his wife and two children.

Dawn Lane (Choreography Fellow ’10) will premiere a new work of dance, one potato, two potato, at the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow on September 2, 2011 (8 PM) and September 3, 2 PM and 8 PM. The work draws on aspects of Irish culture & history (i.e. knitting, the famine and Irish dance) to explore perceptions of excess, wastefulness, having enough, or nothing. Dawn’s MCC Fellowship, as well as a Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Creative Development Residency, helped pave the way for the new work. One potato, two potato is presented in cooperation with Jacob’s Pillow Community Dance Programs and Community Access to the Arts. Read Dawn’s post about the development of one potato, two potato, on ArtSake.

Scott Listfield (Painting Finalist ’10) is among the artists with work in Lift Off: Earthlings and the Great Beyond at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University in NJ. The exhibition is in the Main Gallery September 1, 2011-January 5, 2012, with an opening reception and catalog launch Thursday, September 15, 5-7 PM. Follow Scott’s new blog for more info on his upcoming solo show at the University Gallery at UMass Lowell, Astronaut: Paintings by Scott Listfield. That show will run November 7–December 2, 2011, artist talk & reception November 8, 3-5 PM. Finally, Scott is featured in a recently released book documenting the great Crazy 4 Cult art shows at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles.

Christian McEwen‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’11) new book World Enough and Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down will be published by Bauhan Publising this month. The book reflects on how slowing down the pace of one’s life can have profound benefits, including on creativity.

Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) has two solo shows in Massachusetts, this month: Musical Storms is on exhibit at the Cushing-Martin Gallery at Stonehill College in Easton from September 22-October 31, 2011, with an opening reception October 5, 6-7:30 PM. Another solo show, Changing Waters, is on exhibit at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown September 30-November 30, 2011.

Anne Neely (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo exhibit, Mopang: Recent Paintings on view at Lohin Geduld Gallery in NYC, from September 7 through October 8, 2011, with an opening reception September 8, 5–7 PM. A catalog with essay by Jonathan Franzen (who, incidentally, won our Artist Fellowship in 1986!) accompanies the exhibit.

Congratulations to Marlo Poras (Film & Video Fellow ’05), whose film-in-progress The Mosuo Sisters received a Chicken & Egg Pictures Liberty Grant.

Eric Henry Sanders‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) play Reservoir is being remounted at Theater 89 in Berlin (translated title: Haseks Heimkehr), following a successful production there in May. There was one performance in August, and upcoming performances September 9, 10, 16, and 17, 2011.

Tara Sellios (Photography Fellow ’11) is preparing for a solo show called Lessons of Impermanence at The New England School of Art & Design, this November 2011.

Peter Snoad‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’09) short play My Name is Art was staged at Artists Exchange in Cranston, RI, August 19-28 as part of their Black Box Theatre’s annual one-act festival.

Julia Story‘s (Poetry Finalist ’10) poetry was recently featured in TriQuarterly literary journal.

Steve Tourlentes (Photography Fellow ’11, ’05) currently has a piece in Night Vision, an exhibition on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City through September 16, 2011.

Frank Ward (Photography Fellow ’11) gave two presentations in Central Asia, in August, first presenting his work in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, followed by a lecture in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Jeff Warmouth (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’05) has a solo exhibition at the SHOW Gallery and Performance Space in Staten Island, NY. The show, called SuperJeffuBurgerMarket, runs September 10-October, 29, 2011, with an opening reception Saturday, September 10, 5-8 PM.

Ellen Wineberg (Painting Finalist ’04) has work in two MA exhibitions this months: she has four pieces in 24 Solo Shows at Bromfield Gallery in Boston, August 31-October 1 (opening reception Sept. 9, 6-8:30 PM). She’s also part of a five-person show, Exquisite Corpse at Deerfield Academy. The show, with work ranging from minimal to real, runs September 22-November 17 (opening reception Sunday, Oct. 2, 2-5), at the school’s Russell Gallery.

Michael Zelehoski (Painting Fellow ’10) has a solo show at Sanford Smith Fine Art in Great Barrington, running through October 13, 2011.

Past Fellows Notes
Aug. 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
Apr. 2011
Mar. 2011
Feb. 2011
Jan. 2011

Are you a past fellow or finalist with an event, honor, or other bit of news you’d like to share? Tell us about it.

Images: Painting by Vico Fabbris, from the FLORAGENIS series; paintings by Rebecca Doughty, from the NEARLY NOTS series; Michael Hoerman’s digital rendering of Storehouse No. 1, a video installation proposed by The Temp Series Project in Lowell; cover art for Christian McEwen’s WORLD ENOUGH & TIME (Bauhan Publishing, 2011); Frank Ward, #3 (2009), Giclee print, 22X33 in.

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New England playwrights, here’s what we know about you: 1. that you write plays; 2. that you live in New England (hence your “New England playwright” moniker – I’m assuming it’s not a given name); and 3. that Portland Stage Company HEARTS you. The Maine theatre troupe demonstrates this ardor through a commitment to new work, particularly through its annual new play event, the Little Festival of the Unexpected, and its prestigious contest for New England stage scribes: the Clauder Competition.

The Clauder Competition, created in 1981, supports playwrights through monetary awards, production and workshop opportunities, and a commitment to dramatic writers that includes encouragement, exposure, and critical feedback.

Along with its monetary awards – the Clauder Grand Prize Winner receives a cash award of $2500 and Gold Prize Winners receive $600 each – the competition is designed to help playwrights advance in their careers. The Grand Prize Winner receives a full, professional production at Portland Stage. And Grand Prize and Gold Prize winners will be invited to workshop their plays at the Little Festival of the Unexpected.

Playwrights not selected for any of the prizes still have opportunities for advancement. Every play received by December 31, 2011 may be considered for staged readings as part of the 2012 Little Festival of the Unexpected. And, all plays submitted will receive an individualized letter of response, including readers’ comments.

Past winners or finalists of the competition, which accepts submissions from the six New England states, include numerous MCC awardees in Playwriting: William Donnelly (Fellow ’05), Laura Harrington (Fellow ’05, ’97), Gregory Hischak (Finalist ’11), and Melinda Lopez (Fellow ’03).

Read more about the competition and find submission guidelines. Deadline for the submissions is March 1, 2012 (postmark).

Images: photos from past plays at Portland Stage Company by Clauder Competition Winner: William Donnelly’s MAGNETIC NORTH, featuring Tom Butler and Jessica Dickey; Gregory Hischak’s THE HISTORY OF GRAVITY, featuring Matthew Harrington, Sophia Holman, and Christopher Kelly. Photography by Darren Setlow.

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1001, Jason Grote‘s explosive theatrical reinvention of The Arabian Nights, opens tonight in Boston, in a production by the adventurous Company One.

Mr. Grote, who has family ties to Massachusetts, is a Brooklyn-based playwright/screenwriter and a past reviewer for our Artist Fellowships. Intrigued by the writer and his new production in Boston, we poked our nose into his business with a nano-interview, and he poked right back with the following A’s to our Q’s.

What artist(s) do you most admire but work nothing like?
I’d say ensemble/auteur creators like Elevator Repair Service, The Civilians, Young Jean Lee, and so on. As an audience member I gravitate towards what’s called “devised work,” and my most successful plays to date (including 1001) vaguely resemble this kind of work — but I’m definitely a writer by temperament. This is one of the reasons I enjoy writing for television so much, as it combines collaborative with writerly methods.

What’s the worst day job you’ve ever had?
Ugh, I’ve had dozens, but probably the worst was working for a contractor at the Javitz Center whose name escapes me now. I had to wear an ill-fitting yellow baseball hat with the words “May I Help You?” written across the forehead, and police a line at a tech conference while horrible yuppies made fun of me. I guess the supervisor knew how awful the gig was, because at the beginning of the week he said that if any of us walked off the job before the end of the week, he would do whatever he could to delay our paychecks. This was, of course, totally illegal but I desperately needed the seven dollars an hour or whatever sad amount it was, so I stuck it out until the end of the conference and never returned the contractor’s calls again.

What’s the most embarrassing line of dialogue you’ve ever written?
I can’t remember it exactly, but it was something like “I’m not stupid, you know. I’ve read Camille Paglia.” I don’t know why I thought Camille Paglia was an unassailable example of intellectual sophistication, but I definitely meant it without any irony. I was 23.

Computer, longhand, or typewriter?
Longhand, then computer, then print it out and write longhand on it again, and back and forth ad infinitum.

Share a surprise twist in the Jason Grote story.
My real name isn’t Jason Grote.

Have you ever performed your own writing, and if so, did you revise it mid-performance?
Yes, and yes. I’ve done stand-up comedy and solo performance, though I no longer do either very often.

What’s next?
I’m currently writing for the Broadway-themed NBC/Steven Spielberg show Smash under the supervision of the amazing Theresa Rebeck, premiering February 2012. 1001 is running in Chicago at the same time Company One is doing it in Boston — it’s a revival of Collaboraction‘s 2010 production, directed by the brilliant Seth Bockley.

My latest play Civilization (all you can eat) is being done by Woolly Mammoth in DC and Salvage Vanguard in Austin in early 2012. Over the long term I’m working on a musical adaptation of 1001 with composer Marisa Michelson and a new play about Stalin and Shostakovich commissioned by Seattle’s ACT.

1001 by Jason Grote, directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian, opens tonight, produced by Company One at the Boston Center for the Arts. The show runs through August 13, 2011. See a video trailer and learn more about the production.

Image: Jason Grote, photo by Lisa Jane Persky; actors Lauren Eicher and Nael Nacer, from Company One’s production of 1001 by Jason Grote.

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You might view the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan story as a key to understanding the scandal-devouring nature of American culture – a kind of tabloid Rosetta Stone. Or you might view it as an occasion to rock. In either case, you’d be right: Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera, returns the the A.R.T.’s Club Oberon in Cambridge for six performances July 18-21, 2011.

In early 2011, ArtSake hosted a conversation between writers Elizabeth Searle and Lise Haines, and Elizabeth discussed how the tumultuous mid-’90s saga of Olympic figure skaters Harding and Kerrigan captured her imagination. It provided the background of her novella-turned-blog-turned-film Celebrities in Disgrace and was the center-stage inspiration for her libretto in two operas – the most recent of which, a rock opera, is about to return to Club Oberon after a successful run in January and February 2011.

Listen to a review of TONYA & NANCY: THE ROCK OPERA by local poet Richard Cambridge.

The opera is a darkly comic look at two women “going for the gold,” Olympic skaters whose rivalry reached a bizarre apex when Kerrigan (a Stoneham native, incidentally) was attacked on the ice, her legs clubbed by Harding’s ex-boyfriend.

On ArtSake, Elizabeth said of the scandal:

It was one of the first crazy tabloid stories that took over 24/7 news coverage. One of my inspirations for pursuing it was that at that time, the conservative commentator George Will made the comment, “This is a ridiculous story that has nothing whatsoever to do with life in America today.” And I thought, ridiculous story, yes, of course. But it has everything to do with life in America. I thought that back in ’94; I think it even more now. This story just carries for me. It touches on all sorts of themes of American life: jealousy, the glittery surface of these pretty skirts and girls skating, but violence right underneath it, just brutal violence. And this desperation for attention and fame and acclaim that they both in their different ways had.

Public sentiment about the scandal – and the two central figures – seems to fall to extremes. “I’ve been working on this crazy stuff for the last six years, having many conversations with people, and they get worked up about Tonya and Nancy,” Elizabeth said. This shaped how she and her collaborators crafted the show, making it more audience-interactive to invoke an almost “Roman coliseum kind of feeling.”

The opera – and the whole story – speaks, as Richard Cambridge puts it, “to the fleetness of fame, how effortless the rise & fall of our cultural heroes and heroines, how close we skate to the edge of our lives, (and) the soul-barter with our shadow selves.”

Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera, libretto by Elizabeth Searle, music by Michael Teoli, direction and choreography by Janet Roston, returns to the American Repertory Theater’s Oberon Stage in Cambridge, on Monday, July 18 and Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 8 PM, and Wednesday, July 20 and Thursday, July 21 at 7:30 and 10 PM. Presented by Paul T. Boghosian/Harborside Films.

Images: publicity still from TONYA AND NANCY: THE ROCK OPERA; Kristen Lee Seargent as Nancy; photos by Barry Weiss.

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Set off some dazzling fireworks (naturally, I mean safely and legally) – it’s time to celebrate July’s news and notes from past MCC fellows/finalists.

Shakedown, an exhibition at DODGE Gallery in NYC, includes work by Taylor Davis (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’99), Sheila Gallagher (Drawing Finalist ’10), and Laurel Sparks (Painting Fellow ’04). The show also features Massachusetts artists Robert de Saint Phalle, Jane Fox Hipple, and Douglas Weathersby, among others.

Rebecca Doughty (Painting Finalist ’10), Eric Gottesman (Photography Fellow ’09), Frances Hamilton (Drawing Fellow ’98), and Dawn Southworth (Drawing/Printmaking/Artist Books Finalist ’04) are all exhibiting work in Picture Books, featuring art in all media that pictures, or, references a book within the composition, or, is a book of some kind. The show runs at Clark Gallery in Lincoln through August 6, 2011.

Chuck Holtzman (Drawing Fellow ’06), Joel Janowitz (Painting Fellow ’08) and Harold Reddicliffe (Painting Fellow ’10) join Mary Armstrong, Carol Gove, Conley Harris, and Anne Lilly for an exhibition at Victoria Munroe Fine Art in Boston. The show of drawings, paintings, and sculpture runs through August 20, 2011.

Camilo Ramirez (Photography Fellow ’09) and Irina Rozovsky (Photography Finalist ’09) are exhibiting in a dual show of their recent photography, called Details at a Distance. The show runs at Fountain Studios in Brooklyn, NY, July 9-30, 2011, with an opening reception July 9, 7-10 PM.

An installation of the work of Karen Aqua (Film & Video Fellow ’11), called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, will be on exhibit at the Brickbottom Gallery in Somerville, through July 10, 2011. The exhibition features pastel drawings, sounds, and video from Karen’s final film, Taxonomy, which was completed one month before her untimely passing on May 30, 2011. There will be a memorial tribute to Karen’s life and work on July 10, 2011, 2 PM, at the Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville.

Sweetgrass, a film by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Film & Video Fellows ’11), will be broadcast on PBS as part of the POV series starting July 5, 2011.

Congratulations to Michele Caniato (Music Composition Fellow ’07) for receiving a Fulbright award. He will be in Helsinki, Finland for four months starting in September, hosted by Metropolia University and will be composing, conducting, and lecturing.

On her blog, Cheryl Clark (Poetry Finalist ’10) added an audio recording of her reading from the Commonwealth Reading Series this past March 2011.

Patrick Donnelly (Poetry Fellow ’08) has a great interview on the Mass Poetry Festival blog, where he discusses opportunities available at The Frost Place, a poetry education center where he is Director of the Advanced Seminar.

Janet Echelman (Crafts & Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09) was recently interviewed by CNN!

Samantha Fields (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11) has a solo show, Ecstasy and Common Sense, at NK Gallery in Boston. The show will run July 6-29, 2011, with an opening reception July 8, 6-8 PM.

Laura Harrington‘s (Playwriting Fellow ’05, ’97) novel Alice Bliss is a People Pick, receiving four out of four stars in the July 4th issue of People Magazine. Laura will join JoeAnn Hart for a reading on Wednesday, July 6, 2011, 7:30 PM, at Gloucester Writer’s Center (call for start time). Laura will also have a joint reading with fellow debut author Rebecca Makkai at the Boston Public Library (Tues, July 12, 2011, 6 PM). And, she’ll have a talk, Q&A, and signing at Stellina’s Restaurant in Watertown, on Wednesday, July 13, 6-7:30 PM.

Gregory Hischak‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) new full-length play Volcanic in Origin had its world premiere at the Source Festival in Washington D.C. and runs through July 3, 2011. Read an essay about the play by its dramaturg LaRonika Thomas.

Congratulations to Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’11, ’07), whose A Girl and Her Room series is featured in a same-titled exhibition at The Mosaic Rooms in London, UK (through July 23, 2011). Also, Umbrage Editions will print a book of photos from the A Girl and Her Room series, scheduled for release Spring 2012. Rania’s exceptional work has recently been awarded the Legacy Award by Debra Klomp Ching in conjunction with the 17th Juried Exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography (through August 29); First Place at the Off the Wall Exhibit at the Danforth Museum of Art (through August 7, 2011); First Prize at The Julia M. Cameron Awards: Category Portrait, People and Figure; and Winner in the PDN Magazine Photo Annual 2011 in the Personal Category (featured in the June 2011 edition). Rania’s work is included in a number of group shows: University of Maine Museum of Art Photo National 2011 Exhibition (through September 24, 2011); Photographic Resource Center Exposure 2011 Exhibit (opening reception: July 21, 6:30PM, exhibit through August 21); Beirut Exhibition Center, Rebirth: Lebanon 21st Century Contemporary Art (through July 24, 2011).

Rachel Mello (Painting Finalist ’10) has a solo show of works from her Cities and Shadows Series at Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, July 8 through July 20, 2011. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, July 9 5-7 PM. Rachel’s monoprint School of Pliers in Peril is featured in Crest Hardware Art Show in Brooklyn, NY, a show that features art inspired by and/or involving hardware. The show runs through July 30. Also, Rachel’s work was recently featured in Multiple/Unique at the Washington Street Art Center in Somerville.

Congratulations to Nathalie Miebach (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09), who received a TED Global Fellowship! As part of the Fellowship, she’ll participate in the TED Global Conference, which will be held in Edinburgh (UK), July 11-15, 2011.

Caleb Neelon (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’07) was one of the innovative thinkers invited to speak at the June 2011 TEDxBoston! Read a recent interview with Caleb on the Converse blog.

Liz Nofziger (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’05) is among the artists in Shifting Terrain: Landscape Video at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH. The exhibition runs July 2-September 18, 2011, with an opening reception July 7, 5:30-7:30 PM.

Masha Obolensky‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’11) ten-minute Girls Play has been selected to participate in The Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. The festival, now in its 36th year, takes place at The Lion Theatre on Theatre Row in NYC on July 19-24. Read an interview with the playwright on the Festival’s blog.

Monica Raymond‘s (Playwriting Finalist ’07, Poetry Finalist ’08) story Ludd and the Perkadoodles was a runner up for the contestoria contest at HERE ARTS CENTER. Read it online.

Alison Safford (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03) just completed a solo show at Gallery 303 at the New England Institute of Art.

Katy Schneider (Painting Fellow ’00) is featured in Inside/Out, a dual show with David Gloman of expressive landscapes and interiors, at studio21south in North Adams, through July 10, 2011.

Congratulations to Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry (Film & Video Fellows ’07), whose Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project won a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts!

Naoe Suzuki (Drawing Fellow ’06) is collaborating with the theatre company Dramahound Productions for a fascinating multi-media installation. Mi Tigre, My Lover at the Open Source Gallery in Brooklyn, NY features a play based on Naoe’s paintings, which are inspired by early 20th century female tiger trainer Mabel Stark. The paintings serve as the backdrop for a play by Anne Phelan. The play runs June 25-July 9, 2011, at 306 17th Street, between 5th and 6th Ave, South Slope, Brooklyn.

Rachel Perry Welty‘s (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’09, Drawing Fellow ’04) Rachel Perry Welty 24/7 at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Musueum was very favorably reviewed in Art in America Magazine.

Nine Houses: nine matted archival pigment prints by Maxine Yalovitz-Blankenship (Drawing Fellow ’83, Painting Finalist ’82, ’83), has just been published by Tahawus Press. The prints are in a clothbound boxed folio, limited to an edition of fifty, and are accompanied by text and poetry, written in response to the images, by Alan Lightman, Maxine Kumin, Florence Ladd, John Baeder, Elizabeth McKim, and her fellow Guggenheim Fellows: Morris Halle, Philip Levine, Ann Patchett, and Richard Wendorf.

Kevin Young (Poetry Fellow ’10) will present an afternoon of poetry at The Mount, the historic home of Edith Wharton in Lenox, MA. The reading, presented in partnership with the Amy Clampitt Fund, is on July 9, 2011, at 4 PM. Tickets are $12 and are available online.

Evan Ziporyn (Music Composition Fellow ’11) will present in The Music of Evan Ziporyn on Thursday, July 7, 2011, 8 PM, at the Shalin Liu Performance Center as part of the Rockport Music Festival. The composer will perform along with musicians including “friends from Bang on a Can.” Speaking of: from July 13 through July 31, the tenth annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival takes place at MASS MoCA in North Adams. Evan Ziporyn, who has been actively involved in the festival since its inception, will pariticpate in the Festival, which is dedicated to programming today’s most innovative new music and includes public performances, recitals, and lectures, plus workshops for participants in everything from Balinese music to improvisation, master classes, music business seminars, and more.

Past Fellows Notes
June 2011
May 2011
Apr. 2011
Mar. 2011
Feb. 2011
Jan. 2011

Are you a past fellow or finalist with an event, honor, or other bit of news you’d like to share? Tell us about it.

Images: production photo from Masha Obolensky’s GIRLS PLAY, featuring scenic design by Caitlin Fergus; Samantha Fields, Detail of SHE SPEAKS FOLLY IN A THOUSAND HOLY WAYS; Liz Nofziger, PORE; Evan Ziporyn, photo by Kevin Yatarola.

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