The official blog of the Dramaturgy Department at Baltimore's CENTERSTAGE. For posts related to our current and upcoming shows, click the links to the right. Alternatively, you could begin at the beginning, and explore our posts in chronological order.
Pub Reads on Broadway World…
A spot of drink with your pub read calls for a few rules, now…
yfrog.com/obp2tndj (via The drinking rules @CENTERSTAGE_MD pub readings)
“I did think you are a beauty queen, and I do think” look at this awesome turn out! CENTERSTAGE inaugural pub reading; we’re doing it again next Sunday with The Lonesome West, so come one come all.
yfrog.com/odpo7idj
So says Liam of his newly opened pub:
Liam Flynn’s Ale House is a new public ale house in the Station North Arts & Entertainment District of Baltimore City. Informally known as the Pub or Liam’s, The Ale House has 15 taps. 2 being for locally brewed, cask-conditioned “Real Ale”. We specialize in British Isles Ales, Whiskeys & Ciders. We have a growing range of Scottish beers and English Ciders Are home to the Glasgow Celtic F.C. & London Fulham F.C. Supporter’s Club although we welcome every fan of Soccer, Rugby and Gaelic sports.
Well, you can add to this litany, supporter of local arts and culture. On two coming Sundays (Jan 22 and Jan 29), Liam’s will play host to FREE public readings of two of the plays in Martin McDonagh’s acclaimed Leenane Trilogy. Starting at 8 those nights, you can drink along with the daft denizens of Connemara as company members from Baltimore’s Everyman and Single Carrot theaters join CENTERSTAGE folks for first Beauty Queen of Leenane then The Lonesome West. And the middle play of the trio? Well that’s A Skull in Connemara and you can catch that Jan 26 - March 4 over at CENTERSTAGE. So fill up on McDonagh while you have the chance, and get to know the newest destination spot on North Ave—then make sure you stop by the current digs of both Everyman and Single Carrot, both close at hand.
The company around the table at Illusion Theater in Minneapolis—working through the text of Marion McClinton’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s monumental Jazz as part of the Fresh Ink series, in conjunction with The Playwrights Center and CENTERSTAGE.
In just a few days (end of July) a few artistic emissaries from CENTERSTAGE (Gavin and Kwame, actually) will head to Minneapolis for a weeklong workshop and reading of Marion McClinton’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Jazz—further developing the piece for its January opening here in Baltimore. Anyone in or around the Twin Cities July 29th should come catch the project; it’s part of the Fresh Ink series at Illusion Theater, supported as well by the gracious folks at the Playwrights Center. Here’s the poop:
July 29th at 8pm Toni Morrison’s Jazz
Adapted by Marion McClinton
A reading of McClinton’s beautiful adaptation of Toni Morrison’s classic, Jazz, a passionate and profound story of love and obsession, set in Harlem where Jazz was being invented and re-invented as African Americans were migrating up away from the injustices of the South and re-inventing themselves in the cities of the North.
Tickets for this production are free. Call 612-339-4944 to place your order.
Last spring at this time, CENTERSTAGE was hosting the provocative Israeli playwright Motti Lerner for a workshop of his developing piece, Benedictus—centered on secret, last-minute negotiations among Iran, America, and Israel in an effort to avert nuclear disaster. It just keeps making the news….
npr:
For the United States, Iran — and its nuclear program — is a hard case to crack. It figures prominently in so many American foreign policy challenges: Iraq, Israel and the Palestinians, Afghanistan and the United States’ own nuclear program.
For years, successive U.S. administrations have been at a loss to figure out how to change what they call Iran’s bad behavior. But in the past year, another option has emerged, says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“I think there’s a perception that shunning Iran, ignoring Iran, is not an option,” Sadjadpour says. “Bombing Iran or military engagement with Iran would exacerbate a lot of these challenges. And so the option we’re left with is this kind of more creative in-between option of covert war and sabotage and economic coercion.”
For anyone following along, and who knows if there’s actually anyone out there, just a word to the wise and wise-asses: we’ve got about four projects all simultaneously rolling around here, so posts to thaumaturgy might start to get all humble-jumble and scattergory. We can only hope of course, but just read along or avail yourself of the tags to follow a particular thread. But here’s a sort of road map, if it helps.
1) The Wiz opens tomorrow night, and has been rockin’ the house for a few previews now; no doubt there’s so more to be said on that front, especially with our first post-show discussion coming up Thursday.
2) We’ve got the two writers from The Second City arriving next week, spending about a week of “immersion” time soaking up Baltimore, and no doubt there will be anecdotes, links, and phonography galore to go with that. Meantime, follow our random associations and collection of fabulous Baltimore tidbits with us on delicious.
3) Starting Thursday, the day after opening of The Wiz, we start rehearsals for our first of three Play Labs—this one is a new comedy by longtime dramaturgy and associate artist James Magruder, a scathing piece of steaming wickedness called Dunkler-Related Disorders. We rehearse and read Thursday - Sunday, and if you’re in the area come check it out. James will be doing rewrites, and rehearsal 12-5 Thursday and 4-6 Saturday will be open to audience attendance. Stop by. Readings themselves are a mere $10, and rehearsals are FREE.
4) And starting rehearsals Oct 22 will be our remount of American Records wonderful new play ReEntry — fresh off lauded runs at Two River and Urban Stages, and due to play for 4,000 Marines at Quantico shortly before we open. In anticipation of this piece, and rehearsals, you can expect to start seeing quite a flurry of material jumping on here. But in addition, or in the meantime, check out our show-related links on delicious right here (and feel free to check out appropriate sub-threads). The production itself is based entirely on transcribed interviews with vets and their families, and we’ll be offering subsidized tix for service members and families to come see it.
come on along…
While we unburdened crawl (well, frolic quite delightedly) towards first preview of The Wiz in less than two weeks, we’re also gearing up around here for quite a few other activities. Tonight, for instance, is the first Cabaret—featuring legendary songstress KT Sullivan—and October 7th ushers in the first Play Lab (James Magruder and his sinfully side-splitting domestic sex-comedy Dunkler Related Disorders). But coming down the pike quickly as well will be ReEntry, based on first-hand accounts of Marine vets and their families. KJ Sanchez (follow me around the base paths on this one), who directs and co-wrote/created the piece, will be down in DC on September 28th to direct a somewhat related work, the increasingly acclaimed Theater of War project. They’ll be doing a one-night reading at Woolly Mammoth, and the link here will tell you all that you need to know about that, and getting tickets if you’re so moved. We’re hugely excited about everything to do with ReEntry around here, as well as being big fans of KJ, so we’re delighted that she has this opportunity. With top brass and DC nabobs slated to attend, along with regular vets and caregivers, it should be a stellar event. It will also be a nifty chance for KJ to promote ReEntry as well. Anyhow; check out the link and make the connection. (A hint: Theater of War involves readings of the ancient Greek tragedy Ajax for an audience of veterans and others, with discussion to follow; ReEntry of course concerns the experience of going to and returning from war as told by current Marine vets and their families, and will be followed nightly with discussion. Pretty easy math.) Whew! 
In case anyone wonders whether Motti’s play really has anything to do with anything….
Benedictus, gone from the theater (as is, sadly, author Motti Lerner), but still in the headlines, up to the minute….
“Obama warns nuclear summit of terror risk” | Irish Examiner | April 13, 2010
Still waiting for for that snapshot of POTUS addressing the Joint Chiefs and other top brass seated, in shoelessly bemedaled glory, on the floor…. I guess being Supreme Leader has its privileges.
obviously, not from the CENTERSTAGE version (which is merely a concert reading, at music stands); this is from the 2007 world premiere in San Francisco
