Happy Valentines Day from The Play Company!
As a loving fan, we’d like to make it super easy for you and your special someone to see THE UGLY ONE on V-Day! Use the code VALENTINE for 2-for-1 tickets.
CLICK HERE TO BUY DISCOUNTED TICKETS and see below for more information!
The Play Company compliments its production season with an eclectic series of stand-alone events, including reading presentations of plays and literature, evenings that examine a particular topic through the work of a variety of prose and poetry writers and/or other media, and panel discussions featuring theatre artists, writers, scholars and community leaders. These events may link to a production, or extend our programming to other ideas or issues of interest to our community.
IDEA LAB EVENTS FOR THE UGLY ONE:
Marius von Mayenburg’s play brings together notions of individualism versus conformity, beauty and capitalism, self-improvement and the group mentality. We delve into these topics with great gusto and detail. All events are free and open to the public and begin immediately after the evening performances.
Saturday, February 4th, 2012 | Marius von Mayenburg in conversation *after the matinee
The playwright in conversation with Dr. Frank Hentschker (City University of New York, Martin E. Segal Theater Center).
Friday, February 17, 2012 | Creative Team Talk
Join members of THE UGLY ONE Creative Team as they discuss the production. Moderated by Soho Rep’s Literary & Humanities Manager Raphael Martin.
Saturday, February 18, 2012 | The World of Self-Betterment
Why do we in America feel an obsessive desire to better ourselves with therapy, pills, surgery and positive thinking? Join an illustrious panel of thinkers and writers in cogitating this issue.
Thursday February 23, 2012 | The Economy of Beauty
Is Beauty spurred by Capitalism? What is the role of big-business and the magazine industry in defining what is beautiful?
All events are free and open to the public and begin immediately after the evening performances unless otherwise noted. More @ www.playco.org/idealab
“I fall seven times, I get up eight.” – Japanese Proverb
“People of this world
Notice not its modest blossoms -
The chestnut by the eave.” – Basho
Check out this beautiful video for Shinsai Theatres for Japan and join with us! The Play Company is proud of be a part of this project.
In the 2007/08 Season, PlayCo produced Simon Fahquar’s RAINBOW KISS. The play starts with a kiss and ends in blood. Keith, raising his infant son alone while holding down a dead-end job, stakes his future on a one-night stand with Shazza, an upwardly mobile beautician he meets at a club. She has a master plan and he doesn’t belong. Yet she keeps coming back for more. Set in Aberdeen, Scotland’s “Granite City,” Rainbow Kiss paints a stark portrait of life and love on the dark side of the city’s oil-fueled boom.
We’re so excited to introduce Charlotte back into the PlayCo community before she heads to Broadway again! Check out the exclusive interview below.
Charlotte Parry . Actress
PLAYCO: How did you first get involved in the RAINBOW KISS production?
CHARLOTTE: I auditioned for Will Frears and Judy Henderson, and got offered the job later that day.
PLAYCO: Tell us about the role (or roles) you played – how did you prepare and which character did you identify with most and why?
CHARLOTTE: I played Shazza – a pretty rough girl from Aberdeen. She was lost, poor, struggling, and had developed a hard, tough outer shell to protect herself. I loved playing her – and welcomed the rather large challenge. As the play was so beautifully written (by Simon Farquhar), it helped immensely in finding out who this girl was, and how to get inside her skin.
PLAYCO: What has been the most exciting project you’ve worked on in the last year or so? What did you enjoy most about it? Any challenges?
CHARLOTTE: I very much enjoyed doing The Importance of Being Earnest on Broadway. I loved the role of Cecily – though it was a challenge to do it for so long and keep it interesting. I particularly loved my last job – Bluebird, at the Atlantic. I was playing a prostitute from the north of England – what’s not fun about that?! It was also an incredibly close, lovely cast. The Bridge Project with Sam Mendes came with a world tour, so that takes first prize for adventure!
PLAYCO: Who is someone that inspires you? Or what is your greatest motivator?
CHARLOTTE: Gosh – so many people.My friends, in their individual ways. My mother. In terms of within the industry, I was very inspired by the late Lynn Redgrave, who I worked with the first time I did Importance Of Being Earnest with Peter Hall. Her grace, humor, humility and ability to laugh at herself and make the smallest person feel the greatest was something I aspire to. Not an ounce of ego. Other role models I’ve got to know and learn from in this business have been Tyne Daly, Alfred Molina and Simon Russell Beale – all of whom share those same qualities and don’t make it all about themselves.
PLAYCO: What’s up next for you?
CHARLOTTE: I’m playing Helena in Look Back In Anger at the Roundabout, which runs from mid January.
I’ve also just trained as a Doula (one who gives support to the mother during labor, childbirth and the postpartum period), so I’m currently trying to drum up work amongst those pregnant ladies!
PLAYCO: You can see more about Charlotte’s latest project @ http://broadwayworld.com/article/Charlotte-Parry-Joins-Cast-of-Roundabouts-LOOK-BACK-IN-ANGER-20111212
Keep on rockin’, Charlotte!
PlayCo is proud to be joining theaters across the country and around the world in creating SHINSAI: THEATERS FOR JAPAN. Shinsai [SHEEN-sigh] means great quake in Japanese.
On Sunday, March 11, 2012, the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Japan, theaters nationwide will join together in solidarity with our fellow Japanese theater artists. A menu of 10-minute plays and songs have been donated by major American and Japanese artists such as Edward Albee, Naomi Iizuka, Yoji Sakate,and Stephen Sondheim for this one-day-only event. Each theater will craft their own event, drawing from the donated plays and from work generated by their own resident artists. Presenters will encourage their audiences to donate relief funds (any and all amounts) to the Japan Playwrights Association. The funds will then be disbursed to the Japanese theater community affected by the disaster.
We want YOU to be a part of this important event. To get started: (1) go to www.tcg.org/shinsai/ to register your interest, check out the FAQs, and read the plays; (2) blast this information to your community; and (3) create your own SHINSAI event in your theater/town/university. The event can be fully-staged in a proper theater, presented as a reading, performed in a lobby or public space—anything goes!
If you are interested in getting involved in this exciting event and have any questions at all, please email japan@tcg.org. We will sign you up for our alert list and make sure you are updated as we move forward. If you are looking for other theaters in your area to work with on an event, please inform us and we will do our best to help facilitate that collaboration.
SAVE THE DATE: On Saturday, January 14th @ 3pm we will be hosting an information session in the LuEsther Lounge at The Public Theater as part of the Under the Radar festival. If you are in the area, please join us to learn more about the event and how to take part.
Contributing artists include: Edward Albee, Fred Ebb, Philip Kan Gotanda, Richard Greenberg, John Guare, Oriza Hirata, Naomi Iizuka, Nen Ishihara, John Kander, Shoji Kokami, Tony Kushner, Toshiki Okada, Suzan-Lori Parks, Yoji Sakate, Kumiko Shinohara, Stephen Sondheim, Toshiro Suzue, Jeanine Tesori, John Weidman, and Doug Wright.
Participating organizations include: Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Atlantic Theater Company, Cooper Union, Dramatists Guild Fund, Japan Playwrights Association, Japan Society, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop, The Play Company, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, and Theatre Communications Group.
Looking forward to joining with you on March 11, 2012 for this very worthy cause!
Susan Pourfar
A few years ago PlayCo kicked off the 2007/08 season by producing Bad Jazz written by Robert Farquhar and directed by Trip Cullman at the Ohio Theatre. Bad Jazz chronicles the lives of young artists in pursuit of a shared dream, as an actress takes a role that puts her sanity at risk, an actor struggles to remain true to his artistic ideals and a director drives his company past the point of reason. When the lines between reality and performance begin to blur, relationships are tested and this group of desperate souls is forced to ask themselves how far they’re prepared to go for art’s sake.
We’re excited to welcome back Bad Jazz cast member SUSAN POURFAR as a featured PlayCoPlayer!
–
ARTIST PROFILE: Susan Pourfar
How did I get involved with BAD JAZZ?
Trip Cullman. Trip is a director I’ve had the great fortune to collaborate with several times. We’d been doing readings and workshops of BAD JAZZ for almost a year. I was in LA when Trip called to say the play was being produced by The Play Co. I packed my bags and got on a plane. No questions asked.
Rehearsing with Trip is like showing up to an art class and they have a bunch of pastels and oil paints and watercolors out, and someone says, “pick one of these to work with today, and see where it gets you.” Eventually, you settle on your medium, but there’s a lot of experimenting before that.
And he’s a joyful presence to be around. He once laughed so hard during rehearsal of an Adam Bock play that he fell out of his chair. I mean it literally. He was on the floor. I think I told him he wasn’t allowed to laugh that hard while we were working! Which probably made him laugh more.
The character I was drawn to in BAD JAZZ is the playwright, Hannah, who is having her first play produced; she is practically suffering a nervous breakdown watching actors “riff” on her material. At one point, the director of Hannah’s play crumples her script pages, right in front of her, and let’s the actors say whatever comes to them “in the moment.” She’s horrified.
In the script of BAD JAZZ, Hannah has a journal. It’s her security blanket. I would scrawl in the journal at every rehearsal and before every entrance and on stage (which was specified in the stage directions). At the end of the run, I looked over the entries and they were truly disturbing. I couldn’t bring myself to throw out the journal, but I didn’t want to hold onto it. So, I went to the post office on 34th Street, across from Penn Station, which seemed very New York-y to me, and I mailed the journal to the actual playwright in England. I attached a note. “Bob. Feel free to use this as a prop for a future productions of your play.” I like to think that it made its way into some production. I hope he didn’t hold onto it. it contained the incoherent ramblings of a disturbed young woman.
My Motivation?
When I was growing up, I used to drag my family to the Berkshires every summer for a pilgrimage to Jacob’s Pillow, Berkshire Theatre Festival and always last stop: Williamstown. I remember taking my dad to see Marisa Tomei and Reg Rogers in “Rocket to the Moon,” on the Nikos Stage. Many years later, I was invited to Williamstown to do a new Jonathan Marc Sherman play opposite Reg on the Nikos Stage. Inviting my family up to see it, well, there was great poetry and great blessing in that. There have been those peak moments of genuine appreciation along the way. They serve as motivation to stay on the path. Especially on days when I’m wondering what the heck it is I think I’m doing!
Acting Inspiration:
I remember a performance of Measure for Measure in the Park, in 2011, watching Billy Crudup very methodically removing a tea bag from a delicate china cup with a spoon. It was outdoors, in the Park, which is, you know, a huge venue, and this small, everyday gesture was mesmerizing. It actually took my breath away. The take-away was: the smallest gesture can speak volumes, even under a night sky; the other take away was, “oh, when can I do a play where I get to pull a tea bag out of a mug?!”
Tiny Pet Peeve:
I’m bummed when people say about a stage actor, playwright or director: “Oh we’re losing him/her to the screen.” Really? What about what we’re gaining? I’m psyched that I get to watch Edie Falco do “House of Blue Leaves” and also “Nurse Jackie.” I loved Adam Rapp’s “Metal Children,” and also loved his storyline on “In Treatment.” The goods are the goods. And if we’re lucky enough to bank something for our hours … why not?More money to afford going to the theatre! But that’s a whole other story!
Next Up?
I’m going to do a reading/presentation of a Wendy MacLeod play for Naked Angels. I love Wendy’s writing. Totally relate to it.
Dream Gig?
I want co-write and participate in the story of the women who are as addled, neurotic and misguided as the men on “Bored to Death.” I love that show. But, I’m also completely longing for those characters in female form. Women who wear Converse and shower every other day and have trouble spelling Manolo Blahnik. That’s something I’d be proud to show my kid one day. “See honey, women can be as drug addled and morally reckless and grungy as men! We’re not always waiting for our men folk to come to their senses and get home in time for the (fill in: wedding, baby delivery, casserole). Women are real fuck ups too! Got it? Ok, nighty night. Sweet dreams.”
–
Thanks, Susie! Keep it up 
