Sans A Productions

Sans A Productions is a relatively new theatre company, which  we all know can be simultaneously terrifying and thrilling.

They have been making a name for themselves with their high quality work. We caught up with founding member Sally Cade Holmes to find out more about this organization.




What are the origins of Sans A Productions and what is the significance of the company name?
Sans A started almost two years ago in a living room in Astoria. We wanted to be pro-active about our careers and have control over our art. All five of us went to the University of Evansville where we formulated a common language of theatre production. After moving to New York and working with lots of different companies, we longed for folks in the room that spoke our language.

We also saw the majority of new theatre companies focused on the actor/director/playwright relationship and we wanted to expand that conversation to include designers. We want a true collaborative process - the best idea comes from whoever has it.

Our name went through a few drafts. After our original name brought about a threat of lawsuit from another company, we found ourselves briefly without a name - we were sans a name. So we landed on Sans A which also serves as an acronym for our first names.

 

Sans A Productions is a new company. What has been the most challenging and most exciting part of creating this company?
Producing brings with it unexpected problems and pitfalls at every turn. Most exciting has been to look those unknowns in the face and decide to do it anyway. Honestly the hardest part was trying to decide who we were as a company and what kind of work we were interested in. How do you know what you want to do if you haven't done anything yet?! But it's been exciting to see five individual artists collaborating to become one cohesive artistic group.


Exit Carolyn was the company's inaugural production. Why did you choose this play?
We saw a reading of Jennie Eng's EXIT CAROLYN put on by the Slant Theatre Project. Besides being genuine and funny and ready for a production, Jennie's play also called to us because of its unique design challenges. The script calls for a full New York City apartment, an eccentrically dressed wacko and a beautiful moment when the whole stage fills with fireflies. So the opportunity to flesh out that world is what drew us to the play.


What was the most satisfying part of working on this production?
The most satisfying part was probably the first night of tech. Seeing all the different elements of the world come together for the first time was so exciting. The intersection of all the production elements is where the story lives and it's that collaborative intersection that we find most satisfying.


Your focus is on new works. Why develop new works?
Foremost we look for work that calls for a great degree of collaboration amongst all theatre artists (directors, writers, designers, actors) and that inherently begs working on new material. New York is a new play town and new work always has the potential to reverberate down the line. It's the possibility of being part of something bigger than ourselves, the possibility to develop the next generation of great plays in the American canon that excites us about new works.
 

What is next for Sans A Productions?
We have two projects in the works at the moment. Up next is a co-production with aMios Theatre Company on November 5th. We're bringing in design elements to their monthly short play series, Shotz!

Then in March of 2013, we're producing Mark Rigney's wonderful new play BEARS at 59E59. Come check it out!

Keep track of our upcoming projects via our website, facebook, or twitter!


Congratulations to the entire Sans A Productions team!

Homunculus Mask Theatre

Homunculus Mask Theatre is creating some of the most interesting and unique work in New York City.

Artistic Director, Joe Osheroff tells us about this cutting edge company that employs one of the earliest theatrical tools.




What are the origins of the Homunculus Mask Theater?

I'd been wanting to start a mask theater company for quite a long time here in NYC.  I've been making masks off and on for fifteen years and I had directed some mask shows in graduate school, but found it difficult to get it started again here in New York, where most of my focus was directed towards being an actor.

About four years ago, my friend Kevin Laibson, who was curating at the time for the Tank, asked me if I would like to create a mask show for a Halloween show at his venue. Apparently one of the acts had dropped out. This was exactly two weeks before the performance date. At first, I was pretty apprehensive, but then decided what the hell, why not? Somehow, I managed to wrangle a few actors together and we created about forty five minutes of material in ten days. The audience seemed to really love it, so we decided to keep it going. 

Somewhere down the line I cast Michael Raimondi in our adaptation of Karel Capek's RUR (the only traditionally scripted show we've done). He subsequently took the initiative to help legitimize the company, so to speak, and took on the role of Executive Director. He's pretty much the reason anything gets done, and definitely shares the same passion for this kind of work that I do.  

Why work with masks? and how do the masks enhance or change the work?

I've always been fascinated with masks, both from a theatrical and cultural/ritualistic standpoint. My parents used to work a lot in Africa, so we always had these crazy wooden African masks all over the house, which must have influenced me in some way as a kid.

I've studied a lot of different styles of mask work, but have always noticed that there isn't a whole lot going on to move the form forward theatrically. If you look around, you might find a lot of masks used in folk tale theater or in commedia troupes. I've never been interested in going down that road, although the work we do is certainly rooted in a lot of the older styles. What I'm attempting to do with Homunculus is make mask work more accessible to a modern day audience - make it a little more rock and roll, if you will. 

There is something incredibly simple and beautiful about watching mask theater.  It seems to often reach an emotional place for the audience that is unexpected. In terms of our productions, I don't think that the masks enhance the work. I think it's the opposite - the work enhances the masks. Or maybe it's a symbiosis between the two. If a mask is embodied fully by the actor, anything can happen.


The choreography and movement of the piece is very important. How did the movement enhance or support the production?

The choreography is a vital part of what we do. About eighty percent of what we do is set to music, so it's important that we allow the music and the movement to intertwine. On the other hand, what we are doing is not dance. We are telling stories with soundtracks. Sometimes the choreography is very exact, depending on the piece, and sometimes the actor has the leeway to use the music to inform his or her choices. 

I think the music enhances the production because it helps set the tone and inform the world we are creating. It's also essential to have certain moments in the show that don't have music - this juxtapostion adds depth to the overall tone of the show. 

What's essential to remember, though, is that nothing will work if the actors aren't being truthful with the masks. No amount of music or underscoring can cover up a "dead" mask. So, the piece should be able to stand on it's own without the music, although the music definitely gives it the boost it needs to be more visceral.

Homunculus: Reloaded was created by the group. What was that process like?

The process was fun but intense. A lot of times it felt like we were all jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.  There was definitely a freefall period between the first rehearsal to about two weeks before the show that was a little nerve wracking. I guess the same could be said about working on any show, but when you are up against the clock and trying to devise original material, you have to have a lot of blind faith that it will actually come together.

Our process included a lot of brainstorming and problem solving. Most of the time I would come into the rehearsals with an image in my head that I'd want to explore, or a piece of music that I'd found. Other times, it was a little more straightforward, where I'd have a definite story I'd want to tell. We'd do a bunch of improvisation based on these ideas. More often than not, something entirely new and much more interesting would emerge than what we originally set out to do, which is a testament to the amazing group of actors in the company. 

The concept of this show and a lot of our other work is to present a series of energetic, but non related scenes that segue seamlessly from one to the other.

After we found the overall arc of the scene, we'd then set about polishing it. With mask work the proof is in the details, so this would often take a lot of time. For example, we opened the show with a scene in a restaurant where everything goes woefully awry. The music was from the Barber of Seville - Evan Zes, the assistant director, and I were watching TV one night and heard that song on a car ad and immediately decided we needed to put together a restaurant scene set to that song. In our heads, it had all the elements of being something really cool - a bumbling waiter, an uptight maitre d, an abused customer, on and on. In reality, though,it was incredibly challenging.  Every second of that scene had to be airtight - in the end, the scene was about four and a half minutes long, but ended up using about twenty props and took thirty hours to rehearse. 


What is next for the Homunculus Mask Theater?

We are trying to regroup and gear up for a production in the next eight months. As you well know, it's crazy expensive to produce in this city, so we are going back to square one with our fundraising. In the meantime, we hope to keep busy by premiering new short work  around the city - we just did an few pieces at the Living Theater as part of Elephant Run Lab's evening of new work. We are currently collaborating with the Asian theater company Leviathan Lab to do a playwright/mask making program in the Chinatown school system. I'm also working with composer Bobby Cronin, Jack Feldman (Tony award lyricist of Newsies), and playwright Alan Mogul on a musical adaptation of the cult film Mary and Max, that will use masks to help tell the story. 

Contratulations to Homunculus Mask Theatre!

Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant

Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant creates a unique theatrical experience for each audience member. 

We asked founding member Conni Hall about how this eccentric troupe developed this adventurous and entertaining theatrical experience.

What are the origins of Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant?

The group of actors who founded Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant came together in the summer of 2006, while in residence for a production of As You Like It at The Stonington Opera House in coastal Maine. Our physical emblem, the “Conni’s Restaurant” sign, came from an abandoned diner that was known for serving legendary French toast to the town’s fishermen. We fantasized about moving into the place, asking, “What would happen if a group of experimental theatre artists took over a roadside restaurant?” Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant — the running joke — was born. Once we got back to New York, we decided to try the idea as the concept for a show. Since then we have brought in a resident production manager, director, and designers.

Conni's is more than theatre and more than just a meal. How do you create this communal experience for your audience? 

Peter Lettre in Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant

In a way, the meal actually does the work of creating community for us. We seat people at banquet tables of 10 each and they share a meal, family style. This is a novelty for many people. The theatrical experience begins when the audience meets eccentric characters at the box office and in the bar, and they choose an identity for the evening with a “hello my name is” nametag. They agree to playful rules of etiquette that are sung to them by devotees of the legendary Conni Convergence. This warms up the party atmosphere and invites them into the room with individual attention. Only after this pre-show initiation into our strange world, do we reveal an elaborate pre-set dining room. We make it clear to the audience as soon as they walk in the door that we will take care of them as our welcome guests and that they need to respect our home. We make the food and the theater ourselves from scratch. A New York audience can smell authenticity and they appreciate it. I think they can feel that the show doesn’t exist without them. 

Some of the performance is improvised and dependent on audience reactions. Can you share a few of the more interesting audience interactions?

There are some I won’t share. “What happens in the restaurant stays in the restaurant.” But on more than one occasion I have had to physically put my hands on an audience member to keep them from charging the stage. During the Bus-That-Table game in the middle of the performance, we routinely have people taking off articles of clothing, leaping into the air and doing flips, and running around the room pursued by other audience members while holding a bus bin. They never cease to amaze me. More intimately, we have a section of banter in the middle of the show where audience members get to ask questions of one of our self-declared celebrity avant garde performers, and their participation re-shaped that section. Each of us has moments when the audience ‘stopped’ us. As Sue James, I had an audience member grab my arm in Cleveland to tell me all about the way that food is saving that city. Rachel Murdy, who plays Muffin, has gathered a wealth of advice for new mothers from her survey of mothers in the audience, who ask to feel her bump.  

Conni's is nominated for Outstanding Ensemble and many of the performers have commented about what a gratifying experience it is. Why do you think the project is so rewarding for the performers?

As a performer, I can only answer for myself.  It feels like this show was given to us, even though we made it. Partly it’s the authorship of it. We made it together, and we keep re-making it together. Partly it’s the audience. It is gratifying to make people feel good but to feel like we are still pushing the boundaries of our own creativity. In other words, I feel like we made something populist by working in a way that’s deeply personal and artistically demanding, as actors working through character.

What is Conni's working on now?

We are creating three new shows this year, with smaller groups of company members working with outside actors and collaborators. While continuing our ongoing fascination with food service, we are branching into new ways of exploiting theatricality–namely walking tours and social clubs. We recently premiered Little West 12^th Night, a historical walking tour of the meatpacking district based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which ran as part of the undergroundzero festival throughout the month of July. We are hopeful that we will be able to re-mount that production in the near future. Four of the company members are currently in Cleveland devising a new piece with local actors called The Secret Social, which will run in December at Cleveland Public Theatre. Soon after we return to New York, we will create some new material for the Conni’s Restaurant characters at NACL’s Deep Space Residency.  This will be a more intimate setup, with some of the Restaurant characters taking on roles from classic texts. That piece will show on October 13 in Highland Lake, NY.


Congratulations to the Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant!

Miranda

Miranda stretched the musical theatre art form in some exciting and modern ways this last season.

We caught up with creator and composer Kamala Sankaram to ask about this groundbreaking work.

Miranda is described as a "The Steampunk Murder Mystery Opera." What was the inspiration for this Musical?

I was really interested in writing a modern opera- something that would borrow from the classical form, but would resonate for a contemporary audience. I settled on using the frame of reality TV. In a reality TV show, we’re conditioned to accept these very stylized versions of people, complete with theme music. It seemed a natural extension to then have the stylization include singing. This frame also led to some of the major themes in the show, such as the idea that you can’t really judge a person by what you see of them (or by what music they happen to have attached to them.)

Miranda was really a multi-media project that mashes up various genres. What were the challenges of piecing together all of these elements.

I’m very interested in mash-ups, and have used this approach in some of my other works. In this case, the different genres were used to give a sense of character to the murder suspects. I was interested in seeing whether one genre would tend to sway the audience toward voting for a suspect more or less than the others… and it did! I think part of what helped the different elements hang together was to have a strong overarching aesthetic- that of steampunk. Steampunk is a branch of sci-fi that imagines what the modern world would look like if it relied on mechanical, rather than electrical, power. It uses Victorian England as a jumping off point. I first settled on steampunk because it allowed us to use a law that was in effect in Britain at the time- if you were wealthy, you could pay someone poor to stand trial for you (and sometimes even to serve your sentence. This is actually going on in China right now). But I’ve always had a fascination with old machines, gears, and corsets so it just made sense that the entire world of the show should use the steampunk aesthetic. We were also lucky to have a great design team involved (including Matt Tennie designing the video and Spike McCue performing the live video feeds), so we seemed to be pretty much on the same page.

What was the audience's reaction to the piece?

I was pretty amazed by the audience- we had people ranging in age from 8 years old to 73, from different ethnic backgrounds, theater people, opera people, people who had never been to a downtown show before… And they really seemed to get into it! Even the audience who started out not wanting to yell along with the Bailiff (Jerry Miller- who did a fabulous job getting the audience involved), by the end was fully invested in seeing their murder suspect get punished. I heard many people arguing about it afterward. I also got so many requests for cds that we decided to record a cast album, which is being mixed right now.

What was the most satisfying part of creating Miranda?

This was my first large-scale work, and, honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to pull it off. So, it was thrilling to see it come to life in a way that I never could have imagined. It was also such a treat to be able to get to know all of the people who worked on the show and made it happen- it wouldn’t have been possible without them, and without the support of HERE, which gave me space to develop the show through their artist residency program.

Do you think musical theatre is still important and why?

I do think musical theatre is important for several reasons:

1. Music is a universal, and so it can provide a way to connect with experiences that are unfamiliar to us. I think part of the success of shows like Next to Normal, is that music provides an entryway into something that is very foreign for most of us. You can do this in a play, but it takes more time. Make it a song, and people immediately understand it.
2. This may be because music creates an immediate emotional response. You can use this to amplify the text of the song, to provide a layer of subtext, or to be completely ironic. Can you imagine the Book of Mormon without the music? Part of what makes it funny is how the text plays against the familiar musical theatre tropes.

What is next for the artists involved with this project?

We have another big show in the works, but are holding off for a bit to let everyone spend some time on their individual projects before we jump back in. 

Rob and I received a commission from Opera on Tap to write an immersive parlor mystery, so we’re working on that right now. I’m also working on a new show (Thumbprint) with playwright Susan Yankowitz based on the life of Mukhtar Mai, which will be produced by Beth Morrison Projects. Rob, Matt Schloss (sound design), and Eric Brenner (the voice of DAVE) have been finishing their own musical- Yahweh’s Follies. Lauren Yalango and Christopher Grant (choreography) are on tour with Pilobolus. Most of the cast members are composers in their own right, so they’re all writing music and performing... It’s an amazing group of people!

Project Y Theatre Company

Project Y Theatre Company is a transplant from Washington, DC. Since 2009 they have been producing new works here in the Big Apple.

We asked Artistic Director Michole Biancosino to tell us about their process of developing new works.

What are the origins of Project Y Theatre Company?

Project Y started as the dream of two recent college graduates, me and my co-Artistic Director, Andrew W. Smith, who moved to Washington, DC and saved up money to rent a small space in Adams Morgan and put up two plays over the course of a year.  After that immediate critical and personal success we agreed to a project-based company - we were choosing plays that were new or unseen and that spoke to our younger generation - and set a life limit of 5 years on the company to avoid any pressure to "get big" or plan seasons.  After those 5 amazing years were up, we parted ways and went to grad schools, got married, moved abroad, lived life. Then in 2007 we were both pulled back to Project Y, to the passion we had for producing new work together, this time in NYC.  We started up again in our new home, first with a reading and then with the world premiere of Karl Gadjusek's FUBAR. We have been doing exciting work with Project Y ever since - we have a new team of awesome producing partners who go above and beyond to support the work - and we're still staying true to our project-based philosophy of focusing on the development of new work and artists.

LoveSick is a collection of humorous love-gone-awry stories incorporating music. What was the inspiration for LoveSick?

LoveSick in its current form was really a three-separate-parts inspiration.  Lia Romeo, the playwright, was inspired by her fascination with romantic comedies, and she wrote all these stories about screwed up love happening to screwed up people - she focused on the funny fact that most people search and hope to find love.  Tony Biancosino, the songwriter, was inspired by breakups, relationships, and all the misery that comes along with being in love when a relationship is either doomed or done - and he found a sick humor in the heartache.  The combination of those two parts - plays and songs - was just a crazy idea I had to make a musical all about screwed up love - to stage it as an event and let theme be the force behind the musical.  I had directed a reading of Lia's plays and I had been listening to my brother's songs on my computer and they just started to fuse in my mind as a perfect combination, so we put it together in a workshop production in 2010 to see if there was something to this. That was the birth of the current musical, LoveSick or THINGS THAT DON'T HAPPEN.

What was the most satisfying part of working on this production?

The choice to use actor/musicians was the best decision we made, because not only did it get the actors intimately involved with every aspect of the production (if they weren't acting, they were playing guitar, or dancing in a spotlight, or singing or shaking a tambourine), but it got them to fully support each other both on and off stage.  Watching the audience scream with laughter after our boy band-type number, then seeing one of the lead singers hop on stage, take off his tuxedo jacket, and play a full drumset, illustrates how dedicated and ego-less our cast was.  It was a unified effort and the audience could sense how all the actors were in sync with each other.   

Do you think musical theatre is still important and why?

I actually think musical theatre has the potential to be the most important theatre because it is seen by so many people. Audiences pour into town everyday and want to see the latest musicals, and later the biggest hits will be performed and seen at high schools, colleges, and small theatres across the country.  So musicals reach people. LoveSick is not your grandmom's musical - in style, tone, and structure it breaks all the rules - yet we still wanted people to leave the theatre humming the songs.

Your process for developing new work includes; readings, online video projects, workshop productions and full productions. How do each of those elements help the production progress?

We have developed this amazing three-tiered approach to working with new playwrights on new work.  Our online projects have introduced us to so many writers and actors, who become life long collaborators. The yearly themed reading series are the backbone of our company - LoveSick started in our reading series, last June we did a Workshop Production of Sean Christopher Lewis' "Goodness" at Under St. Marks that started in our reading series, and our next full production also came from this year's "Holy Cow!" series: plays about religion, faith, and Life after death.  Workshop productions have allowed us to develop a new work with the playwright and then put it up before audience without the stress of money or reviewers. We mount a full production every 12-18 months because we normally work with the writer for at least 18 months to develop the piece and because we wrangle every ounce of man-power and fundraising available to have high production values and amazing casting. By the time we open a production, every producing and creative team member is fully immersed in the play.  Its actually a pretty unique way to run a company - focus on the development process and get everyone involved in and excited about the play from the first reading, through a development process, then a workshop production, and culminating in a fully realized show.  

What is next for Project Y Theatre?

We are thrilled to announce we will be producing the world premiere of "User's Guide to Hell, featuring Bernard Madoff," by Tony- and Pulitzer nominee, Lee Blessing.  Lee is a huge supporter of Project Y - he has been one of our Champions (our version of an Advisory Board) for years and comes to everything we do.  We were excited to have his play as part of this year's reading series; it was a huge hit. This play is so smart but also laugh-out-loud funny.  The reading went so well, we all kind of thought, "Let's do this again!"  We are once again on the furious search for the "right" space, which is always a huge hurdle for us, since we pick each theatre for the needs of the play itself.  We're putting those pieces together right now.

Kim Katzberg

Kim Katzberg's Penetrating the Space garnered critical acclaim and two nominations this season.

It has been a busy year for the multi-talented performer. We asked Kim to tell us a little more about her provocative work.



What was the inspiration for Penetrating the Space?

For years I felt this burning in my gut that I wanted to create an original piece of theater that was entirely from my voice. I felt limited in many of the roles I played in traditional theater and felt that there were characters inside of me that wished to be expressed that lived beyond the boundaries of most plays. The characters in PTS came from my bowels. After I earned my MFA in acting I finally had the confidence to try and write a show from these characters' points of view.
What has the audiences’ reaction been to the piece. 

People either really like it or they don't get it. Even though it is exploring a woman's experience in relation to dominating men, guys seem to really relate to the vulnerability in the show. Audiences find it disturbing and funny at the same time. People have told me that sometimes they feel worried to laugh because they aren't sure if they should. I love that reaction!


Tell us a little about your 'one-woman show kit' and maybe some of the best reactions to it.

When I would cart all of my props, costumes, set pieces and the huge purple horse around the city in a grocery cart to go to a rehearsal studio-people mostly said, "nice donkey!"


Maia Cruz Palileo is also nominated for the Innovative Design award. What were her contributions to the work and what was it like working with her?

Maia is a visual artist and had never worked on a piece of theater before. She is my wife and we both adore eachother's work so we felt inspired to collaborate. Maia created stop motion animations that expressed the characters' inner monologues or moved the story along. She also designed and built the purple horse. Working with her was a dream. She's incredibly hard working and intense. I can't wait to work with her again.


Penetrating the Space was produced on a double bill with Tom X. Chao’s nominated production Callous Cad. How did these two shows work together as an evening and what were the benefits and challenges of having two separate productions on the same bill?
One of the challenges of doing a solo show is that it gets lonely. Working with Tom gave me a lot of support because we were in this thing together and we weren't competing in any way. Also, Tom is an experienced producer and I was not. This was my very first solo show. He acted as a mentor to me which was invaluable. It was also financially helpful because we split many of the costs. The challenge was to get reviewers to see both shows.


What’s next for you?

I have a new solo show, Darkling, in development. It's partly autobiographical in that the protagonist is based on me at 13 when my older sister ran away from her lock-up boarding school. I recently performed a short excerpt from the piece in CATCH 52.


Congratulations to everyone involved with Penetrating the Space!