Marian, Or The True Tale of Robin Hood

Written by Adam Symkowicz
Directed by Kelly O'Donnell
Produced by Flux Theatre Ensemble

Nominations: Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role: Jack Horton Gilbert; Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role: Matthew Trumbull; Outstanding Choreography: Rocio Mendez


About the Production
MARIAN, OR THE TRUE TALE OF ROBIN HOOD is a gender-bending, patriarchy-smashing, hilarious new take on the classic tale. Robin Hood is (and has always been) Maid Marian in disguise and leads a motley group of Merry Men (few of whom are actually men) against the greedy Prince John. As the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, who will stand for the vulnerable if not Robin?

Enacting Rocio Mendez's fight choreography: (l to r) Marnie Schulenberg, Becky Byers, Matthew Trumbull

Producer Heather Cohn and 2017 It Award nominees Jack Horton Gilbert, Matthew Trumbull, and Rocio Mendez talk to us about the fun, camaraderie and meaning they found working on this re-telling of the Robin Hood legend.
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What attracted you to this project?

Heather: Flux commissioned the piece. It's the third play of Adam's we've produced

Jack: The character breakdown. It was something like "Tall, large, gentle, dumb" and I thought to myself, "yeah, that's pretty much me." Also the chance to work with Adam and Flux Ensemble, I'd been following both for awhile and jumped at the opportunity to work with them.

Matthew: I felt an immediate but peculiar bond with #Guard 1, even though he didn't have a name and didn't even factor into the main plot much except to be killed about dozen times. He was a miniscule cog in an evil machine, and he just wanted love and The Simple Life, two things he wasn't allowed to have on account of technically being a Bad Guy. He had a lot of quick, funny bits; that's why he was in the play. But I saw this tiny glimmer of a beautiful, conflicted inner life in those fifteen lines, and it was very rewarding to bring that out as an actor.

Rocio: The Flux Theater Ensemble has never let me down with the innovation and inclusivity. Marian is a great story with a female hero and leader, which is something I think needs to be shown more in the world.



(l to r) Jessica Angleskhan, Jack Horton Gilbert (background), Becky Byers (foreground)

What was your favorite part of working on this production?

Heather: The creative team was amazing

Jack: The cast and team. They were all so much fun and so talented. There was a really lovely, warm energy that permeated the whole process. Everyone just had such a good time putting this all together.

Matthew: This cast was large for an indie theatre play, and it was a great, joyous supportive family making comedy and art in the winter of 2016/2017, even though our hearts were breaking due to the election results and inauguration. We were feeling a lot of sadness, anger and fear, and it was a relief to work on a play about love, following your heart, and taking care of each other. Plus — as a nameless Guard, I got killed in the show's fights many times, and that is always a hoot.

Rocio: The fun within the stage violence, the cast and always working with Kelly O'Donnell — who has the best imagination and storytelling skills. It's the people who make it worth it all!




(foreground) Matthew Trumbull; (l to r) Aaron Parker Foohey, Kevin R. Free, Alexandra Curran (background)

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

Heather: A huge cast is always tough in terms of scheduling rehearsals

Jack: Nothing really stands out as being overly challenging with this production. Tech week is always stressful and there were moments of frustration and tedium, same as any show. But overall, everything went incredibly smoothly. That's a testament to how flexible and professional everyone involved was.

Matthew: Finding a balance between comedic bits, and the actual heart of the story.

Rocio: Twelve people fighting on stage at the same time! Haha!

What was the audiences' reaction to the work?

Heather: The sense of hope and joy despite our troubled times

What was the quirkiest part of the production?

Matthew: My character delivered the curtain speech about cell phones, etc., and it was actually damned amusing. Also, considering the political mood of those months, laughing and being funny came to us with surprising ease; it was emotional part of the story that provided the larger challenge. I think everyone was feeling very vulnerable, and playing the funny bits made us feel more secure.

What was it like working with this group of artists?

Jack: I've never felt as supported as an actor than I have working on MARIAN. Flux was incredible, checking in and making sure we had tools available to us to communicate and providing this incredible base that we built everything else on top of. They're a very well-oiled machine and just a great group of people across the board.

Matthew: They have shown great love and respect for all artists and technical staff involved, and it has resulted in a vast, extended family that reaches into many corners of indie theatre. One of the key components of that respect is a dedication to high-caliber productions, and that is very special.

Rocio: The dedication and talent is sky high!

What will you take away from your experience working on?

Matthew: I got to work with several new faces, which is the joy of a larger cast with a familiar company.

Anything else?

Rocio: Fighting for what is right seems tedious and never-ending, but it is what we have to do.

Please follow Flux Theatre Ensemble on:
Twitter: @fluxtheatre
Instagram: @fluxtheatre

Rizing

Written by Jason Tseng
Directed by Emily Hartford
Produced by Flux Theatre Ensemble

Nominated for: Outstanding Lighting Design, Kia Rogers




About the Production
Rizing is set many years after the zombie apocalypse in Shelter, the last living city on Earth. Infected family members, friends, and lovers have been rehabilitated thanks to a daily regimen of drugs and therapy, but the uninfected that have brought them back do not trust them. Now the drugs are starting to wear off, and Shelter’s two-tiered society is poised on the verge of all-out war. Characters on both sides must choose between rebuilding the world as it was and creating a new one by force.

Lighting Designer Kia Rogers and Producing Director Heather Cohn talk about creating this ensemble driven piece about a world divided.

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What attracted you to this production?

Kia: There were a number of things that were very attractive about this project, a new playwright, multiple locations, allegory for the aids epidemic told with zombies...

Heather: Our history with Jason and the open-gender casting of this play. The story. The opportunities for other artists involved with Flux to shine.

What was your favorite part of this production?

Kia: Of course I love working with the creative team, director and cast. We really dove into the story and created a whole new world. Everyone was wonderful to work with and brought so many perspectives into the room with respect.

Heather: Seeing two artists grow tremendously in roles that were new to them. It was Jason's first full production as a playwright and Emily's as a director.

What was the most challenging aspect of this production?

Kia: The space! We were at Access and they had a power issue with the building. I only had 16 dimmers and when the conventionals were on we couldn't run the A/C! I brought in a LED package to supplement the limitations and it proved to be the workhorse for emotional and environmental storytelling.

What was the trickiest aspect of this production for you?

Kia: Because this was a new work, and a new playwright, we walked a thin line between wanting to say "yes" to every possibility, and needing to have an editing hand for what would make this production stronger while giving the playwright agency to learn. It was difficult during tech, and we made some big cuts close to opening that proved completely right but it was very hard.

What is it like working with Flux Theatre Ensemble?

Kia: They're awesome. I always have all the design support I get. How everyone wanted me to be satisfied with my vision, and the concern about being in a space that is not technically advanced.

What is it like working with Kia?

Heather: Kia is one of the hardest working artists in Indie theatre and she always goes above and beyond, filling voids that aren't hers to fill. And she's a wonderful collaborator.

You can follow these artists on Twitter
Flux Theatre Ensemble - @fluxtheatre
Kia Rogers - @kialights

Freelance Money Talk, and Nothing But Love

By Kia Rogers

Freelance was not new to me, but the landscape of NYC, navigating theatre jobs was and is still challenging.

As a female designer, I do feel like I have to dress the part, carry myself in a way appropriate to each situation. For instance, when negotiating for fees, I always ask myself “what would my male colleague ask for?” Yes, this is the world we live in. Not, “what am I worth, what amazing talent do I bring to the table....” Would I like this to change? Absolutely. How do I think it will change? By us talking about it, sharing fee information and fee regulation. Don’t feel shame! Talking about money is difficult since we live in a society that often perpetuates secrets and the fear of knowledge. How many of you have taken a freelance job (or any job) and been told not to discuss what you are being paid? Reasons I have been given over the years to keep my salary private:
#1 - Not everyone is getting the same amount, we don’t want them to feel bad
#2 - You are the only one on “contract”
#3 - Actors Equity only allows us to pay folks “this amount” but we’ll just give you two checks to make up the difference.

Dirty Little Secrets
I gave myself this rule: Don’t work on a show that doesn’t pay everyone equally. How do I know about the fees? I ask, politely, but I ask. I understand that there are productions out there that want to produce, and do so on a shoe-string budget. Produce! Love your work, your company, this is your art. I say this with all heart, I don’t want to come across as wagging my finger at anyone, just know that I am not the designer for you. A while back, I stopped taking gigs that paid under what I could afford to take on. (Here is the golden nugget I want to share with all freelancers) Yes. I said “afford to take on”, my monthly budget is ~$2800, that includes rent, utilities, phone and internet, groceries, health insurance (thanks Obama!), Metrocard and basic living expenses. This is my choice, to live by myself, pay all the bills, by myself. Simple math folks, I don’t have a trust fund, my jobs don’t pay into a retirement fund, or my health insurance. Getting paid with 1099s means as freelance, I have to save from every check or risk owing thousands at the end of the year. I look for work to clear about $800 a week, which keeps me in the black. Do I get $800 a week from designing? Sometimes, but not on the showcase code, and rarely with Off-Off Broadway shows. How do I survive? I pick and choose the jobs based on many considerations:
#1 - Do I love working with these artists?
#2 - Do I love this script?
#3 - Is there life for this project/with this company/with these artists after this production?
#4 - Do I want to develop a relationship with these new artists?
#5 - Does the budget allow for equal pay for everyone involved?
#6 - Do I have the monetary cushion to take this on?
#7 - How much time is needed for this project?

It’s freelance, I make all the choices, do I make bad choices? Ha! I don’t like to say “bad choices”, a choice always leads to growth, so no, I never make “bad choices”! I love my life, my choices and this theatre community.

There were many folks along the way who shaped my theatre passion, pointed me in the right direction, and I am so grateful to all of them. I took the lessons they taught me, and made them my own.

Special thanks to Flux Theatre Ensemble and Rising Phoenix Rep, where I am supported artistically, valued as a creative partner/member and always striving for equality. Thanks to New York Innovative Theatre Awards for supporting this blog, asking me to share, and always bringing down the house with their awards parties!!!...you folks have made a vibrant, loving, hard-working and amazing community I am proud to support and be a part of.

Kia Rogers - Lighting Designer - Off Broadway: Angeles/Almas at BAM Fisher, Made In Heaven at The SoHo Playhouse, Passage through Light and Shadows at Theatre at St. Clement’s, Pressing Empty at Danspace, Sistas The Musical at St. Luke’s. Regional: Thieves by Charlotte Miller in LA. Selkie by Sarah Shaefer in San Francisco. International credits: Associate Lighting Designer for Slutforart/98.6 in Gothenburg, Sweden with Muna Tseng. Tours: The God Box Project with Mary Lou Quinlan, Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca and Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana. Awards: Outstanding Lighting Design for Jane The Plain with the New York Innovative Theatre Awards 2014. Kia has been a creative partner with Flux Theatre Ensemble based in New York City since 2010 - http://www.krogersld.com/.

#SPEAK UP: Sharing = Enlightenment

Contributed by Shaun FauntleroyThere’s great power in the sharing of personal stories. People seldom respond well to being preached to unless they’re members of the choir, and let’s face it, “preachy” art usually isn’t very good. However, when you allow an audience access to your hurts, fears, longings, and deepest wounds you give those in observance a cathartic release along with the freedom to think differently, love differently, and behave differently. This potential for enlightenment is one of the many reasons that using storytelling as a form of advocacy can be so effective.

All photos are courtesy of Isaiah Tanenbaum Theatrical Photography / Flux Theatre Ensemble.

Last year I, along with Flux Theatre Ensemble, produced a one night event focused on the theme of street harassment titled #SPEAK UP: The Street Harassment Plays. We commissioned monologues from six playwrights and asked them to write about their experiences and feelings on street harassment. Our goal was not to “tell” our audience how harmful and ubiquitous street harassment is, but to “show” them how it personally affected the souls of the brave writers who shared their stories. We put our focus on female-identified playwrights, mainly because studies have shown that the majority of victims of street harassment are female-identified and the majority of perpetrators are male-identified. (We did attempt to widen the diversity of our playwrights, but when it came down to it I realized that I didn’t know many LGBTQ artists. I was dismayed by this, especially since in a 2014 study by Stop Street Harassment, people who identify as LGBTQ were more likely to report experiences with street harassment than those who identify as heterosexual. I’ve since worked to amend this dearth of diversity in my artist pool.)

We’re not the only ones who had this impulse. In October of 2014, Hollaback released a video that showcased a woman being sexually harassed by strangers as she walked the streets of New York for roughly 10 hours. The video sparked a bit of controversy for many reasons I won’t get into here, but it did highlight how street harassment can create a sense of being preyed upon for its victims. The woman in the video, actress Shoshana Roberts, often looks afraid, perturbed, and weary as a result of being stalked, aggressively objectified, and criticized by the men who approached her and commented on her body and demeanor. You can see the effects of sexual harassment in her body language as she holds her body more stiffly and begins to pay closer attention to the people in her periphery.

   

Additionally, last year, Emily Arnold, a comedian, wrote a revealing blog post detailing her experiences with sexual harassment in the stand-up comedy industry. In her post, she artfully (and comedically) exposed the underlying social belief in this country that a man’s sexual approval of a woman is a high honor and should be welcomed in all its forms. Along with this belief is the notion that if a man is aroused by or attracted to someone, then he is entitled to their body, time, and attention. These beliefs, essentially, are the fuel that feeds the fire of street harassment and sexual harassment in general. Additionally, Arnold’s blog revealed that the men (and probably some women) around her had no idea of the emotional toll these beliefs and the abuse that stemmed from them took on her and easily dismissed her complaints.

Lastly, Jen Kirkman, another brilliant comedian, recently began reTweeting the testimonies of women who have shared their stories about street harassment on Twitter. With Hollaback’s video, Arnold’s blog, and Kirkman’s reTweets women’s experiences are being told with their own authentic voices, revealing the hurt, oppression, and oftentimes terror of sexual harassment. Their stories don’t tell you sexual harassment is bad, they allow the reader/audience to see the effects of it in the author’s lives and the audience can then decide for themselves how to absorb this new information.



I’m proud of so many things where #SPEAK UP is concerned, but one of the the most poignant for me was hearing from victims of sexual harassment how powerful and healing it was for them to have the light shown on this topic. So often, we’re told that being victimized by someone who is attracted to us is just a part of life. Calling that absurd notion out as a lie with the Flux team was one of my proudest moments. Another thing that made my heart swell was hearing from several of the men in attendance that the stories they heard illuminated this subject for them in a way that they didn’t expect. I heard phrases like, “I had no idea that women were going through this” and several in attendance, both men and women, vowed to take a more active role in combatting street harassment (safely, of course. Nandita Shenoy’s brilliant monologue The Interruptor gives a hilarious “how to” for this).

All in all, you can be funny, poignant, entertaining, and moving while opening up a can of whup ass on social injustice, but you have to be willing to get bare, and you have to be willing to let people think for themselves. There were those in attendance at #SPEAK UP who didn’t agree with our message and told me so. I’m still very glad they came.


All photos are courtesy of Isaiah Tanenbaum Theatrical Photography / Flux Theatre Ensemble.

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Shaun Bennet Fauntleroy is an actress, playwright, and producer living in New York, NY. As an actress, she was most recently seen in Resonance Ensemble’s World Premiere of Burning by Ginger Lazarus, and this June she can be seen in Smith Street Stage’s production of The Tempest. As a playwright, her work was most recently featured in Primary Stages/ESPA’s Detention Series, New York Madness’ Radical Bias night (with guest playwright Chisa Hutchinson), Flux Theatre Ensemble’s ForePlay (appearing before the premiere of Gus Schulenburg’s Jane the Plain), at The Brick Theatre’s “Cleverbot Plays,” and in #SPEAK UP: THE STREET HARASSMENT PLAYS, which she co-produced with Flux Theatre Ensemble. As a producer, she has worked with Gideon Productions, The WorkShop Theater Company, and the HB Ensemble. Proud member of NY Madness, Resonance Ensemble, The League of Professional Theatre Women, AEA, and DGA. Shaun lives in Brooklyn with her dog, Bentley.

Opening Doors

Contributed by Stephanie Willing

As a child I knew I wanted to be an actor, but not in an all-encompassing “This is my dream!” kind of way. I also wanted to be a marine biologist, a writer, an equestrian, a ballerina, and when I was very young, either a unicorn or a dinosaur--whichever happened first.

My early acting career was uneventful but satisfying. When I was handed my first script at Bible camp with highlighted lines, I was ecstatic. Later when I auditioned and won the part of the (I now realize) caricatured Jewish innkeeper’s wife in the Christmas play, I was triumphant. And when I played the Virgin Mary in sixth grade with a pillow tied under my robe with my father’s leather belt, I was happy. I dropped that baby weight with a slip of the belt loops, but I never dropped a line.

And then I stopped acting because I still wanted to be a dancer/writer/martial artist/
equestrian/ecologist. As the eldest of four in a household of specific and limited means, I was told, “Pick one.” I chose dance and stuck with it for the next twelve years, all the way through college, thanks to scholarships. Then, like many artistic and nerdy folks, I went to work for a couple years in a used bookstore, saving money and glorying in the dusty pages of potentiality. One day, while shelving a tray of battered romance novels, I knew in my bones what I had to do. Go to New York and be an actor/dancer/stage combatant!

While still in Texas searching Craigslist for jobs and auditions in NYC (I’d never heard of Actors Access or Backstage), I clicked on a “volunteers needed” ad for something called the IT Awards. I responded, emailed, confirmed. It seemed like a good place to begin my reconnaissance; I figured I could meet people, learn the names of the theater companies, and see what kind of work was being made. I found short-term housing in the Bronx, booked a one-way ticket, and flew to New York City. My first week in town I was an usher at the 2008 New York Innovative Theater Awards.

That was the year that the Vampire Cowboys swept with Fight Girl Battle World. I only saw screenshots of the cast and costumes, but I was in love. I was in awe. I said, “I need to know these people.” Again googling, I found The Saturday Night Saloon and signed up for the Rabid Vamps Fight Studio (the VC’s stage combat and choreography class). Through the Saloon, I met the folks behind Gideon Productions, Nosedive, and The Brick.

My first acting opportunity came through those connections, and I was cast in The Ninja Cherry Orchard with a huge bevy of actors that blew me away. Since then, almost entirely, every part I’ve played or production I’ve choreographed has come through a connection that began in 2008, even down to the man I married.



Stephanie Willing (left) performs with the Vampire Cowboys in the
Opening Number of the 2010 IT Awards

Just like my two years in the bookstore, I had found a group of passionate nerds who always had room for one more, and just like that, Indie Theater became home. I can directly trace my path in NYC theater from that single moment standing at the back of the auditorium at the IT Awards manning the doors. If you were there that night, you probably didn’t see me. You saw your friends, the wonderful people of our community that I had yet to meet. But when I held the door open for you to walk into the auditorium, I was also opening all the doors I’d walk through for the next eight years.
 

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Stephanie Willing is a dancer/actor/choreographer/stage combatant/voiceover artist, so the childhood dream is working out so far, but she’s still working on the marine biologist bit. She received a BA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University and studied Fight Choreography with Qui Nguyen of Vampire Cowboys. She is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing for Young People from Lesley University. Upcoming projects include fight directing for Flux Theater Ensemble’s production Rizing, opening May 2016. She will also be performing as Joan of Arc in MTWorks’s production of David Stallings’ Anais Nin Goes to Hell in October 2016.

Jane the Plain

Jane the Plain
By August Schulenburg
Directed by Kelly O’Donnell
Produced by Flux Theatre Ensemble

Nominations: Janie Bullard is nominated for Outstanding Sound Design; Kelly O'Donnell is nominated for Outstanding Director; Kia Rogers is nominated for Outstanding Lighting Design

              Photos by Deborah Alexander

About this Production
Football, popularity and the clash of the gods: it's all going down at Plainview High School's homecoming game in the comic fairy tale Jane the Plain. Jane's status takes a sudden rise after she saves the mysterious Glowing Girl and is given the gift of beauty. Everyone starts falling for her: quarterback Scotty the Hotty, second-stringer Lesson the Decent, even the most popular girl in school, Lexi the Sexy. As the jealous Betty the Pretty seeks to eliminate her newfound rival, Leonard the Awkward tries to win his best friend Jane back. But when another mysterious god, the Mirror Man, starts haunting Scotty, this battle of love and social status takes a dangerous turn of cosmic proportions. What if the wrong choice in high school really could end the world?

Producers Heather Cohn and  Rachael Hip-Flores, Lighting Designer Kia Rogers, Set Designer Will Lowy, Playwright Agust Schulenburg, Director Kelly O'Donnell, and Actors: Becky Byers, Chinaza, Sol Crespo, IsaiahTanenbaum, Alisha Spielmann share their experiences of working on this collaborative process about beauty, humanity and the nature of the universe.

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What attracted you to this project?

Kia: The play, Jane the Plain, really resonated with me. The feelings of not fitting in, all the crazy things we do as teenagers to try to fit in, and that everything is the MOST important thing, EVER. It's been 20+ years and August Schulenburg put me right back into the hallways of my youth. That's powerful writing, and I wanted to support it creatively, with honesty and beauty. Lighting it was fun, challenging and rewarding.

Heather: About a year ago, Flux expanded our ensemble rather significantly, bringing on five new Creative Partners all at once. These five new CPs (Alisha, Becky, Chinaza, Rachael & Sol) are all actors and Jane the Plain seemed like to perfect show to do to honor our new CPs with great roles for four out of five. Alisha had helped developed the role of title character Jane since the early days. It's also a very ensemble-y show and for that reason too it seemed like a great choice.

What was your favorite part of working on this production?

Becky (Betty the Pretty): My favorite part of working on this production was the true ensemble nature of it all.  Bouncing ideas off one another, trying different things out, being malleable and open toward one another...it's not something you get with most productions.  With Kelly at the helm, this show was something we truly created together, like we were all responsible for our own individual ingredients in making this delicious theater stew.  I felt as though this process brought together us as friends, colleagues, and artists by the art we were creating, manifesting in an honest sense of kinship. Also, there was a confetti cannon. It's mostly the confetti cannon.

Chinaza (Scotty the Hotty): Becky, already said it best... Every face in the room was an artist we loved and respected. The play is about old friends coming back together - to remember one of their own. To look back on this magical moment of time they shared together. And to take that theatrical journey with that group of people brought a special kind of resonance to the piece.

Kelly: My favorite part was to be given the opportunity to work with such a dynamic cast and creative team. It felt like a true team effort. The process was everything I could hope for as a director: everyone involved believed in the show, gave it 100% commitment, and together we created a wonderful production. It was a privilege to be the leader of so many talented artists who trusted me to guide the show to fruition.

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

Sol (Lexi the Sexy): Not having enough time in the space before opening. This play was very physical, had many moving parts- literally- we moved the bleachers around to create a new scene and with such a tech heavy show, for example, confetti cannon precision, it would've been great to have more time to iron those details out. I know a huge challenge of many indie theatre companies is not having enough in the budget to facilitate this extra time. Flux is a very movement oriented company and a lot of us have training to supplement that so I am very confident that we rallied and did the very best we could during our load-in and tech and I'm very proud of our work in JTP. Also, carrying a star drop that requires 6-8 full grown adults is part workout, part teamwork, all fun!

Will: As the set designer, I'm tempted to say the design process itself. With this particular show we needed to create a recognizable high school environment that not only had to flip between locations quickly but had to encompass various levels of our reality, from the everyday to the nostalgic to the mythic. However, that's admittedly just my job when it comes down to it -- every show has its own world that has to be developed and hammered out choice by choice. So to choose something much more specific, I'd have to say the confetti cannon, as every part of its journey sketchpage to stage took an incredible amount of brainpower. Our early research phase was extensive as we determined what would suit our needs theatrically; the cannon itself appeared like it would be unaffordable until Red Mountain Theatre Company loaned us theirs; there were some delivery issues getting the supplies in by tech; due to the manual trigger it took the clever craftsmanship of Friend of Flux Mike Mihm to rig the special effect in a way that the stage manager could trigger it from the back of the house; and then we encountered several consistency issues as we ran the effect in tech that had to be individually solved. Ultimately, we overcame the obstacles, and I was ecstatic that we were able to pull off that particular theatrical exclamation point.

Kelly: A great deal of the play was devised with very little indication, in the script, on how things should be staged. A majority of the final product came out of the rehearsal room and we discovered the vocabulary of the play as an ensemble.

What was the most memorable moment for you during the creation of this production?

Kelly: Flux used wordbuilding marketing strategies to bring the show out of the theatre as much as possible. For example, each character in the show had his or her own Facebook page which the actors in the show maintained and updated on a regular basis.

Isaiah (Leonard the Awkward):  Flux heads out to Little Pond, PA every summer for a week-long retreat, where we workshop plays, talk about the future of the company, and just hang out with some of our nearest and dearest fellow artists. It's magical and invigorating, like the theater camp I never got to go to as a kid. We staged Jane the Plain in its entirety for the first time at the especially magical 7th Retreat in 2012, and for Jane's run through the rain to the edge of the highway we made the rain sounds using whatever was at hand (a design choice that was translated to the staged version two years later) and then had the audience run with her around the back of the converted barn that serves as our staging area as we named all her names for rain. Then Ryan Andes delivered Scotty the Hotty's showstopping "young girl" monologue leaning against his motorcycle, and the Spirit of Beauty was a tree that we puppetted, which drew Jane into its branches before sending her rolling down the actual hill next to the road and back to mundane reality, whereupon we returned to the barn to stage the rest of the play. The way that we physically broke out of the space for that supernatural moment was so powerful that it propelled the rest of the play forward, and that shift has stuck with me through all the subsequent iterations of the show as not only a favorite Jane the Plain development moment, but also a favorite Flux moment, and a favorite theater career moment.

Rachael: Dude, let me tell you about the thing that, like, literally made me believe in God. So, we had a costuming mishap. Our take-no-prisoners-talented costume designer, Stephanie Levin, ordered a custom-made varsity jacket for the character Scotty "The Hotty" Johnson, from a vendor off Etsy whose house I may or may not have burned down several days after this all took place. Of course, the jacket never showed up. The vendor waits until I think it was actually the day before previews to say, "Oh, BTdubs, totally not gonna be able to do this, sorry, don't burn my house down, byeeeee."

So, we're out a very specific, rather important, and pretty damn iconic costume piece (Scotty "the Hotty" Johnson is jock, after all) with maaaybe 24 hours to replace it? So Stephanie is like, "Go to these stores - we're looking for a heavy-weight letterman's jacket in purple or teal" (because ps- our kick-ass set designer, Will Lowry, has made the school colors purple and teal and designed the entire set in those colors) "but seriously, if it's a neutral, grab it because we need something and we're not gonna get anything. Whatever name is on it is fine. Hopefully it's something generic, but whatever." So I set off on a trek which takes me through the bowels of Brooklyn, into second hand stores housing objects which - you know, probably haunted. Also, it's May? And even if someone were willing to part with his/her somewhat expensive and probably sentimentally valuable high school varsity jacket, remarkably few places sell winter coats at the beginning of summer.

I went to...I think it was 7 different stores. The last store. In the back. I'm pawing through all manner of tweedy nonsense...And I see...this heavy-weight letterman's jacket...in purple!...the right size!...with the name JOHNSON embroidered in enormous letters right across the big, broad back. AND it was half the price of what we had anticipated. I just stood there, looking at it and laughing.

For, like, an uncomfortably long time.

I saw Jane the Plain a bunch of times, and every time that jacket came out, there was a part of me (the face part, mostly, with some help from the lungs and the soul) that could still not stop giggling.

What did you want the audience to come away with after watching your production?

Alisha (Jane the Plain): "And what I think is, and this is the great secret: I think that happens all the time. Every day, the glowing girl against the mirror-man, every night, beauty and death, every hour the world almost ending, then going on instead." I think what I want people to come away with after watching this story is that there is magic all over the place if you are open enough to see it, and that at the end of the day you need to be true to who you are, to yourself.  That's your truth, your inner beauty. It's easy to forget though. Jane never actually changed her physical appearance, it was how people saw her that changed. People will say things and try to do things and crazy things happen all the time every day but the more you stay true to who you are the more your beauty, your true inner beauty will shine.  Your job is to let that shine by just being and embracing who you are.  Jane realized who she was in all of this, and her walk at the end in my opinion is the most powerful of them all because of everything she had been though. She came out of this knowing herself a little better, and that knowledge is strength that can last a lifetime. That is life.

Heather: Questions about how we define beauty and what it means to be human.

August: I suppose I wanted the audience that followed the adventures of the Plainview Jaguars to walk away with the same thing I myself hope for: More life.

As artists, we are advocates for life as it really is: complex, evolving, difficult, beautiful, interconnected, precious, dangerous, and as far as we know, unlike anything else in our universe. We create work in opposition to forces that seek to simplify, commodify, categorize, deaden and cheapen life for their own self-interests, turning each unique human life into an expendable statistic. These are powerful forces, and we work on little stages, but their size is part of our declaration of what matters: not a huge viewership of interchangeable consumers, but these irreplaceable humans in the here and now.

When I see a great play, I feel the people around me become irreplaceable again, instead of adversaries walking too slow on the sidewalk; and I become aware of just how much we are capable of, for better and for worse. I’m given more life, and it’s just irresistible when it happens, and so I keep coming back and back, in spite of all the flailing absurdities in this calling called theatre. And if I can give some measure of that to someone else, it’s all worth it. That sounds lofty or overreaching, but I don’t mean it or experience it that way. I think it’s actually an everyday kind of magic, as Alisha says, if we can just let go or hold on enough to see it.

But honestly, one of our audience members said it way better than all of that listing verbiage above. One night, as the applause died down and the actors exited into the house, they heard one person say with great energy and sincerity: “Damn. Go Jaguars.”

And, really, that’s what we all want, right? To throw the best we have on the stage or field and afterward, for someone to say, “Damn. Go Jaguars.”