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My students and I at the Calhoun School were excitedly working on Chicago: High School Edition when everything changed! Down but never out, we have persevered and are working on a music video mashup of the musical. We hope you’ll check it out when it’s ready. For now, please enjoy this incredible teaser by Attilio Rigotti and inspired by the scenic design of Chika Shimizu.
Created by Attilio Rigotti Inspired by the Scenic Design of Chika Shimizu
The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and Members of Tectonic Theater Project
Calhoun’s Mary Lea Johnson Performing Arts Center
411 West End Ave @ 81st Street
Thursday Dec 12 - 7pm, Friday Dec 13 - 7pm*, Saturday Dec 14 - 2pm and 7pm
*Ticket Sales Benefit Immigration Equality
$5 for Students/Seniors, $10 for Adults
To buy tickets visit calhoun.org/onstage
Mature Audiences (13+), Wheelchair Accessible
By Andrew Travers
What: Take Ten Festival, presented by Theater Masters
When: Sunday, Jan. 31 through Tuesday, Feb. 2, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Black Box Theatre, Aspen High School
How much: $25/GA; $12/students
Tickets: www.theatermasters.org
For local theatergoers, Theater Masters’ Take Ten Festival is a captivating night out — a grab bag of 10-minute plays ranging from farce to tragedy, without any thematic restraints. For local actors, it’s a week of rehearsals and three nights of bringing fresh work to life onstage. And for a growing roster of playwrights and directors, as Take Ten celebrates its tenth anniversary, it’s a family.
“Once you’re in this organization, you have an artistic home for life,” Theater Masters founder Julia Hansen said Tuesday in her downtown home, gathered with directors and crew after a round of morning rehearsals. “It really is a family.”
The annual festival selects winning plays from graduate students across the country, stages them here for three nights (this year, that’s Sunday through Monday), then brings them to New York for a spring showcase (April 26 to 29). In the process, many form relationships that continue through their careers.
Directors return to Aspen for multiple years. Alumni playwrights bring works to Theater Masters’ Palm Beach New Play Festival. They end up working together in New York and regional theater. They become Take Ten readers and judges. And some — like “Madam Secretary” and “Homeland” writer Alexander Maggio this year — return to mentor the new classes of writers.
2016’s short productions include seven plays by graduate students from programs at UCLA, Yale, NYU, Carnegie Mellon and elsewhere, directed by theater professionals and performed by a cast of 23 local actors (from teens to local theater vets like Mike Monroney and Kathy Pelowski).
“It’s a mysterious adventure,” said director Lee Kasper, among the team of directors in from New York to helm the plays. “We’re really excited about meeting local actors who are passionate about theater and getting to expose them to brand new 10-minute plays written by up-and-coming, emerging playwrights.”
Take Ten also hosts a competition of local aspiring high school playwrights — this year’s winners were Caroline Piffer of Glenwood Springs High and Tyler Gruel of Roaring Fork High.
“He jumped right in, having never been around a table for a table read, and was immediately collaborating and answering actors’ question,” Kasper said of the freshman Gruel’s first day in rehearsal. “It was amazing.”
Aspen native Naomi McDougall Jones, who won the high school contest a decade ago, now acts as the organization’s co-artistic director and has gone on to a stage and screen career, including writing and starring in the 2014 indie film “Imagine I’m Beautiful.” Her latest work, as a writer, is on the new Amazon original series “The New Yorker Presents,” which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival.
Each Take Ten piece gets about six hours of rehearsal time over the course of the week before opening night Sunday. That might seem a small window of time, but it carries expansive creative possibilities for actors, directors and the plays themselves.
“I think it’s an adequate amount of time for the first draft of a 10-minute play,” director Jessi D. Hill said. “It’s about giving the actors the experience of knowing they’re also helping develop the play — that their viewpoints and opinions matter to the playwright.”
The directors had a ready-made cast when they arrived in town — selected by Hansen and Jones, who oversaw auditions earlier this winter.
Every year, recurring themes tend to pop up, offering a glimpse into the country’s creative psyche from grad schools across the U.S. Many of this year’s selections look at the timeless dramatic theme of death but also at the link between technology and isolation.
Last year’s selected plays were recently published — a first for Theater Masters — so that theater companies and festivals can buy and produce them elsewhere. Hansen said the organization aims to publish annually from now on.
Along with three nights of theater, Take Ten this year is hosting a free panel discussion Saturday at the Aspen Institute on how theater can react to or take advantage of the increasing draw of home entertainment and streaming. It will feature Maggio, Hansen and Jones, along with Primary Stages Theater artistic director Andrew Leynse and this year’s winning playwrights.
From Theater Masters: We are absolutely thrilled to present to you the winning playwrights from our 2016 National MFA Playwrights Competition, whose plays will be performed as part of "Take Ten 2016" in Aspen in Jan/Feb and NYC in April: SEAN DAVID DEMERS (University of Iowa), BENNETT FISHER (UCSD), ANNA FOX (UCLA), JESS HONOVICH (Carnegie Mellon), GENNE MURPHY (Yale), MING PEIFFER (Columbia), and PETER ZINN (NYU). Congratulations and welcome to the Theater Masters family!
This January/February, Lee will travel to Aspen, Colorado to direct three short plays as part of Theater Master's Take Ten Festival. He will be directing:
Lilly by Peter Zinn (NYU)
Monument by Bennett Fisher (UCSD)
No Easy Thing by Tyler Gruel
Lee will be Associate Directing the Roundabout Theatre Company's upcoming 50th Anniversary Season Reunion Benefit Reading of Kaufman and Hart's he Man Who Came to Dinner on December 7th, 2015
From Roundabouttheatre.org:
Roundabout Theatre Company is proud to announce a 50th Anniversary Season Reunion Benefit Reading of Kaufman and Hart’s The Man Who Came to Dinner starring Nathan Lane, Jean Smart, Harriet Harris and members of the original 2000 Broadway Revival Cast. The Man Who Came to Dinner was the inaugural production at The American Airlines Theatre.
Set during Christmas in the 1930s, this classic comedy deals with famous radio personality Sheridan Whiteside who is invited to dinner at the home of a rich factory owner. Before Whiteside enters the house, he falls and hurts his hip and ends up staying at the home to recover and consequently terrorizes the lives of everyone in the house.
The Man Who Came to Dinner will be directed by Roundabout’s Adams Associate Artistic Director Scott Ellis, who will be directing Roundabout’s production of She Loves Me opening this spring.
December 7, 2015, at 7:00 PM
Studio 54
254 West 54th Street (between Broadway and 8th Avenue)
Benefit Underwriters
Michael T. Cohen, Colliers International NY LLC
Tom and Kitty Patterson Kempner
Proceeds from the 50th Anniversary Benefit Reading of The Man Who Came to Dinner support Roundabout Theatre Company’s many programs and initiatives, including the Company Archives and Classic Play Production Fund. Classic plays are the founding cornerstone of Roundabout Theatre Company’s mission and the Classic Play Production Fund allows Roundabout to plan future productions that enrich New York City’s theatrical landscape. Roundabout’s Archives preserve materials related to current works and the 50 years of its nationally acclaimed, Tony- and Drama Desk–Awarded productions as well as institutional documents that chronicle how the company grew from a 150 seat off-off-Broadway theatre to the largest not-for-profit theatre in the country.
Lee has been named one of three directors taking part in "Take Ten 2016", Theater Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival. The Festival will occur in Aspen, CO (1/31/16 - 2/2/16) and again in New York City (4/26/16 - 4/29/16).
From TheaterMasters.org:
"Each year, Theater Masters hosts a national 10-minute playwriting competition among the MFA students at the top MFA Playwriting programs in the country. Participating schools include: Brown University, Cal Arts, Carnegie-Mellon University, Columbia University, Fordham/Primary Stages, New York University, Northwestern, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of Iowa, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Yale School of Drama.
Between 8-10 winning plays are selected from these submissions by a Distinguished Adjudicator along with Co-Artistic Directors Julia Hansen and Naomi McDougall Jones, and a reading panel made up of industry professionals. The winning playwrights are flown, first to Aspen and then New York, for workshops and performances of their pieces. This is a unique and career-starting program for these young playwrights. The festival culminates in a public performance of these pieces, along with the winners of the Aspiring Playwrights Competition, first in Aspen, CO and then an Equity showcase in New York City. "
We are thrilled and delighted to be able to announce our directing team for "Take Ten 2016," the 10th Anniversary of...
Posted by Theater Masters on Wednesday, September 16, 2015
In October, Lee will direct a workshop production of Philip Dallman's new play Straight On 'Til Morning at the West 4th Street Theater. Straight On 'Til Morning follows the lives of four teenagers with autism and the families and teachers who care for them.
Lee is excited to return to the After Work Theater family this Fall with Urinetown the Musical! Check it out Nov. 13th - 15th and Nov. 20th - 22nd at the 14th Street Y in NYC. Stay tuned here for ticketing information.
