Written by Allan Knee
Music and Lyrics by Andre Catrini
Directed by Thomas Cote
Produced by The Workshop Theater
Nomination: Outstanding Production of a Musical
About the Company: The Workshop Theater is a resource for artists and audiences to explore new works. From staged readings to polished productions, over 170 professional playwrights, actors and directors are given the tools of our development process to bring their works to life. You're not just an audience member at The Workshop; you're a part of the development process.
About the Production: Twelve years after the close of A Christmas Carol - Timothy Cratchit - now 19 - leaves the home of his benefactor, Ebenezer Scrooge, in order to find his place in the world. On his path he encounters many trying, eye-opening and comical situations, but it is with the magnificent stage clown, Grimaldi, and his troupe of lively performers that he discovers his true identity.
“The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit is a lively musical which takes place on a picturesque and wonderfully 19th century set, has memorable music and lyrics by Andre Catrini, and is directed by Thomas Coté. The story acts as a sequel of sorts to the Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. The costumes by Sharon Sobel are magnificent and the singing is a real treat.”
~ James Steinman-Gordon, Theater Pizzazzz
Make sure to follow WorkShop Theater Company on Twitter @workshoptheater
Written by Allan Knee
Music and Lyrics by Andre Catrini
Directed by Thomas Coté
Produced by WorkShop Theater Company
Nominated for: Outstanding Production of a Musical
About the Production
WorkShopTheater Company's goal is to "transport, challenge and surprise both artists and audiences," so it is not surprising that they were drawn to Allan Knee and Andre Catrini's musical The Astonishing Times of Timothy Cratchit. This production imagines the young boy in Dickens' holiday classic, as a young man venturing into the world for the first time to stake his claim.
Director Thomas Coté shares his thoughts about developing a new American musical.
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What attracted you to this subject matter?
Thomas: Allan Knee has been a long-time writer with The Workshop, and I have directed many of his plays. He first approached me with a straight-play version, but as it developed, Andre Catrini came onboard, and suddenly we were doing a musical! I love A Christmas Carol, and I love how Allan and Andre have imagined a continuation of that material. It's just very rich storytelling.
What was your favorite part of working on this production?
Thomas: The collaboration. We had an excellent production team, all of whom were talented and inspired by the material. Everyone's input was important, all the ideas were interesting, and so it was just one of those shows that made us all feel very creative.
What was the most challenging part of working on this production?
Thomas: Money! Stretching budgets, trying to get every dollar to show up onstage. How do you costume three bears when you have absolutely no money left?
What do you want the audience to come away with after watching your production?
Thomas: In this case, I want them to be entertained. Allan's writing is very layered, so there are many poignant and beautiful moments that will adjoin very funny moments, and Andre's music captures those emotions as well. Timothy's journey is a successful one, so I hope people leave feeling happy, maybe inspired, maybe hopeful.
Why do you think it is important to develop new American musicals?
Thomas: Putting together a new play is, I think, the hardest thing to do in theater. Putting together a play with music is probably even harder, so when you achieve any kind of success, it feels extremely gratifying. More importantly, musicals are a very pliant form, and when text and music are put together effectively, it can yield such powerful results. It is a form that can communicate stories in a very unique and compelling way.
What was the most noteworthy part of working on this production?
Thomas: There were really no hiccoughs in this production - that's kind of noteworthy!
AND, we're doing it again! Because The Workshop's mission is to develop new American plays and musicals. Andre and Allan have been hard at work using what we learned last December to revise and sculpt the play. I' m very excited about the revisions - changes to the structure, new songs, new characters. We open December 1 (www.workshoptheater.org).
You can follow WorkShop Theater on Twitter - @workshoptheater
One is the Road
By Mark Loewenstern
Directed by DeLisa White
Produced by WorkShop Theater Company
Nomination: Mark Loewenstern is nominated for Outstanding Original Short Script
Photos by Gerry Goodstein
About this Production
Our protagonist drives home from vacation with his wife, whom he has put on a pedestal. He relates to us the 7 things he is thinking and doing moment-to-moment over the course of perhaps 2 minutes.
This was produced as a part of an evening of short scripts titled Super Shorts 2013.
Playwright Mark Loewenstern and Director DeLisa White talk about this production that unravels the mental processes of a man as he contemplates his current relationship.
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What attracted you to this project?
Mark: I wrote this script because, back in college, I heard about a series of early cognitive psychology experiments which suggested that on average the human brain keeps track of about 7 different things at once. That idea stayed with me for a long time. What are the 7 things each of us is tracking moment-to-moment? What if you told a story by describing each of those 7 things at key points? I tried writing it first as a poem, and that didn't work out so well. It had no shape. And then years later I went back and tried writing it as a play and it just flowed. Who the characters had to be, and what had to happen to them, and how the story had to end -- it all just came together like a dream.
DeLisa: I have had the good fortune to work with Mark before and his writing is so deeply compelling to the mind, the dialogue so juicy for the actors, and the questions it poses so close to the nerve it’s always a treat to work on something of his. The rhythm, poetry and deep subtext of this piece demands that everyone involved in any production be at the very top of their capabilities and it’s wonderful to get the kind of script that challenges you to be at your very best. Scary, but wonderful.
What was your favorite part of working on this production?
Mark: My director (DeLisa White) and my actor (Tom Berdik). Seriously, they were awesome. My schedule at the time was crazy and I was only able to attend about 90 minutes of a single rehearsal. And yet, when those 90 minutes were done, I walked out of there utterly sure that my team knew exactly what they were doing and that my script was in the best possible hands. For a worrywart like me, having that kind of certainty was nothing short of miraculous!
DeLisa: There was a constant discovery process of questions that Tom Berdik absolutely had to answer VERY specifically and communicate in ways that were clear but never too overt. We had a lot of great discussions about why long-term relationships work and don’t work – and in what ways - the kind of discussions that make you a less judgmental and hopefully better and continually growing person. It was a really great rehearsal process and Mark gave us just enough room to find our way into it before we shared it with him. That’s very courageous of him and allowed it to be a deeper experience for us. It’s also the kind of piece that’s repetitive enough that it’s surely astonishingly difficult to memorize. Tom was essentially off-book at the second rehearsal. His hard work was my massive luxury.
What was the most challenging part of working on this production?
DeLisa: Knowing that the piece is complex enough that there are probably 20 different ways to do it and still be true to it and sticking to the one that felt right to us, and hoping it would feel right to Mark as well (and what if it didn’t!) Also - how do you create what feels like being on the hood of moving car and peering in the windshield and into someone's mind while on a teeny blackbox stage? Duane Pagano (set and lights and NY Innovative Theatre Award winner) accomplished that for us with great aplomb.
Mark: A few audience members asked me to explain the conceit to them, because they just didn't get it. For me it is no fun having to explain what I wrote, because it means that for those people at least, the work didn't speak for itself. And then I have to wonder: maybe I didn't do my job as well as I could have? I suppose anytime you attempt to innovate, you run this risk. But for me, those are the least fun moments of the production.
In your opinion, what is the most innovative aspect of this production?
Mark: Unpacking a moment, and looking at it from 7 different points of view, and then unpacking the next moment, and so on, and using that to tell a meaningful story. It is a different way of looking at time and at the mind. It's not processed and unified like a monologue. It's more raw and impressionistic. And I think it works well in live theater because it has the immediacy of live theater.
DeLisa: Firstly, it’s stream of consciousness times seven. (Read it on indietheatrenow and you'll see what I mean - I'm not even kidding.) THEN it’s stream of consciousness that feels like the most naturalistic off-the-cuff dialogue even though it’s a poetic monologue. Further, it’s stream of consciousness that masks part of what the character is feeling while still giving the actor a chance to reveal that to the audience even while he's not entirely honest with himself! Lastly, I have never once read or seen anything quite like it.
What did you want your audience to take away from this production?
DeLisa: I think the hope is that the finished piece inspires the kind of discussions that working on it did. What does being a loving, committed, grown-up, responsible person in a long-term relationship mean and how wide a berth do we need to give ourselves and each other in the course of that goal?
Mark: First, I want them to take away a new way of experiencing their own minds, taking stock of how their attention is split, and what it is split on.
And then, I want them to experience through that prism what it means to choose a partner for whom you are trying to take care of everything, what it means to choose someone whom you put up on a pedestal instead of treating as an equal partner.
Relent, an Indie Musical
By Jennifer Makholm (book/lyrics) & Ian Wehrle (music)
Directed by Fritz Brekeller
Produced by WorkShop Theater Company
Nomination: Jennifer Grace Makholm and Ian Wehrle for Outstanding Original Music
Photo by David J. Goldberg
About this Production
A visceral, raw meditation on love. With music. Vera and Pace never stop. She's caustic. He's clueless. She can't stand to be around him until he's gone. This endless cycle is taking its toll on Vera's band The Vagrants. When a free-lance music photographer crashes at Vera's Williamsburg pad while Pace is in the outs, Vera becomes his next subject. But can he handle her up close?
Jennifer Makholm and Ian Wehrle talk about taking a controversial hot-button topic, making it funny and setting it all to music.
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What attracted you to this project?
Jennifer: I was licking my wounds after an Off-Bway show I had produced had closed. It was an intensely humbling and traumatizing experience, and I was feeling weak, paralyzed, and despondent. In my pajamas, I sat down to write. I wanted to write a character who was loud, ansty, angry-- full of piss and fury, full of passion. So I wrote Vera. Then I gave her a tremendous loss. A baby. And finally I gave her an indie rock band for her to sing her heart out.
I made Relent as raw and jagged and true as I could. I made Vera because I wanted to make a character who people stepped aside for. At a certain point, Vera was boiling over with such heat, we had to give her songs. I've always loved this little play because it had an urgent, impudent truth to it, almost rude, like someone burping at the table.
Ian: The dark and current nature of the piece, the poetry of Jen Makholm's writing and the love that has encouraged it's development.
What was your favorite part of working on this production?
Jennifer: My fellow collaborator, Ian Wehrle (the composer) and I had such a fruitful and rich process. I've never met someone as amiable and good-natured as he is. I had a very vision, but not necessarily the vocabulary to make my vision come to fruition musically, and Ian's patience and talent and gentle disposition made the process a joy.
That said, I'd say that I was UNIQUELY gifted by a cast like no other. Shonda Leigh Robbins and Rosebud Baker were in the very first reading of the script and were SUCH a blessing. They both, upon reading the script, called me and told me they would follow this show anywhere, and they did. Rosebud even flew in from a trip she was taking for a staged reading we did, and then flew right back out. Both of them were such advocates of "Relent" from the very beginning. When you are a writer, and you send your work out for the first time-- the terror cannot be overstated. Both Shonda and Rosebud were so taken by the piece and that certainly made the 4 year process of getting it produced easier. (I'll say that David J. Goldberg was also involved from early on, but not as Sam, the part he eventually was cast in, and he too was a true gift).
Shonda and Rosebud started the process, but, when we finally got the greenlight to produce the show, the rest of the cast: David J. Goldberg, Kenyon Phillips, Katherine Connally McDonald, and Ben Sumrall made the show come ALIVE.
I'll never get over watching someone pace around a stage, reciting words I wrote in my PJs. It is almost an out of body experience to have someone sing the lyrics you wrote for the first time. There's nothing like it.
What was the most challenging part of working on this production?
Jennifer: Getting the damn thing up was, and always is the hardest thing for me. The years of readings and meetings and almosts can be heartbreaking. Even when someone finally agrees to do it, by that point, you hardly believe them. Even so, the production was postponed twice before we finally started rehearsals. The first time it happened, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. The second time it happened, I thought "this is never going to materialize." (To be clear, I have nothing but love, gratitude, and admiration for The WorkShop Theater, the delays were necessary and understood.) When we actually started rehearsals I was surprised as hell.
What was the craziest part about this production?
Jennifer: Besides the on-stage abortion? No, just your typical indie-musical-abortion-comedy. Nothing crazy about that.
I think there were SO many truly demanding things asked of the actors, and they all did SUCH an outstanding job.
There is an on-stage sex scene that is written particularly explicit, not just the actions, but Vera is a talker, and so she engages in some pretty filthy sex-talk in the scene. I remember when she read it for the first time, and she looked at me and just shook her head. "Jenny, you're gonna make me say that, aren't you?" she said with her little Southern drawl. "All of it?" she asked. "AAAALLL of it." I replied.
Watching the rehearsal for that scene was pretty hilarious. Having Dave have to negotiate where he was putting his hand so it looked convincing as Shonda is telling him to "dislocate my bones with your cock." Priceless.
I'll also say Rosebud was a pretty ingenious improvisor, and during the scene while they all get stoned, she offers Dave's character, Sam, a brownie, and in the script it was supposed to be a homemade brownie, but we were using cheap brownies for rehearsal that were wrapped in plastic. In the play, the two women, Vera and Dot, are best friends, but Dot is feeling a little threatened by their house-guest, Sam, who's recently gotten very close to Vera. So, while they get high, Dot attempts to make Sam as uncomfortable as possible, while, of course acting like the perfect Brooklyn hostess. So, Dot offers Sam food, but she's trying to gross him out at the same time. So, she's offering him the brownies, but calling them "cock" and asking is Sam wants one. Now, because the brownies are wrapped in plastic, Rosebud just gets up and started lightly slapping Sam on the cheek with the brownies as she goads him. It was the most Dave could do not laugh the first time.
I realize that both of these stories are pretty obscene, but the show is. . .well, very unabashed.
