THE NEW NORMAL by Donnetta Lavinia Grays directed by Isaac Byrne October 13th-23rd, 2010 (Limited Two Week Run) Starring Nell Mooney*, Michael Mason, Andrea Caban* and Emily Rossell*
Dates and Times: October 13th-15th 8pm (Previews) October 16th 8pm (Opening Night) October 17th 2pm and 8pm *October 18th 8pm October 20th-23rd 8pm
Tickets $18 Available online at Brown Paper Tickets (*Special Monday Night Performance)
About the Show: Meet Anna, a 30 something funny and frank southern warrior living and thriving in Seattle with her rocker husband and 3 year old kid. As a mom, a wife and a survivor she's handled more than her fair share of drama, but nothing could have prepared her for this. The New Normal: Sometimes survivors need a survival guide.
--- The New Normal is a groundbreaking original full-length play developed by Coyote REP Theatre Company and written by Donnetta Lavinia Grays. Inspired by the life of 2009 Puget Sound Survivor of the Year Anna Warren Schumacher, it is a hard hitting play that tells the unique story of how a young woman finds humor and grace in the unexpected challenges of survival.
Starring Nell Mooney*, Michael Mason, Andrea Caban* and Emily Rossell*
*Actors Appear Courtesy of Actors Equity Association
THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED, IN PART, BY PUBLIC FUNDS FROM THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CITY COUNCIL.
Sound SFX system provided by a generous donation from Stage Research
Artistic Director and Playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays sat down with CBS 2 News Reporter Cindy Hsu to talk about Coyote REP's upcoming production of THE NEW NORMAL which premieres October 13th-23rd at Wings Theatre.
Ms. Hsu also spoke to the woman who served as inspiration for the piece, 2009 Puget Sound Susan G. Komen Survivor of the Year Anna Warren Schumaucher, via satellite from Seattle. Please tune in to meet Anna and hear tell her story in her own words.
The segment traces the friendship between the playwright and her muse and details what moved CR to develop and produce this groundbreaking new work about a young woman's unique story of survival.
Stay tuned this blog and our website for more information about THE NEW NORMAL!!
Things are in full swing for our 4th Annual Rising Moon Gala and Fundraiser. We have some exceptional auction items and stellar Broadway entertainment lined up and we want you to join the party!!
Join us Wednesday Sept 22nd 7pm at The Players Club for food fun and a fantastic evening to help support our 2011-2012 Season!!
Go to www.coyoterep.org for more information and to get your tickets today!
What is the performance schedule for the show? You only have five chances to see the show:
Sunday, 8/15 @ 10:15PM
Sunday, 8/22 @ 1:45 PM
Tuesday, 8/24 @ 2:00PM
Thursday, 8/26 @ 6:45 PM
Friday, 8/27 @ 9:15 PM
How much are tickets? Only 15 bucks!
How can I buy tickets?
Follow this link (Here) to TICKETWEB. A full calendar and online ticket purchasing are currently available. You may also purchase your tickets at the door.
I love the show. I've seen it and want to tell the world!!
Great! There are two ways to show your love!
VOTE for "Questions": in the Innovative Theatre Awards categories listed: (HERE) VOTE for "Questions": as an Fringe Audience Favorite: (HERE)
...Okay kids. You are now fully armed and ready to go. The fine folks at Coyote REP sure do hope to see you there as we usher in our first trip to the Fringe!!
Mark your calendar! Join Coyote REP, Andrea Caban, Rachel Eckerling & the rest of the creative team of Questions My Mother Can't Answer for a cocktail party and fund-raising event to kick off the upcoming Fringe Festival!
Your $10 admission fee lets you enjoy lots of great food donated by some of New York's landmarks (Patsy's, Levain Bakery, Mcgee's and Crumbs to name a few), receive one raffle ticket for the Questions My Mother... Can't Answer- Donate Your Birth Control Money Raffle (items include a Slingbox, an iTouch, gift certificates to Josie's Restaurant & Giggle Baby Products, personal training at Equinox, private in-home Pilates instruction & of course tickets to the show, to name just a few), sip on McGee's generous drink specials, and buy some more raffle tickets!
RSVP to the event (click here) so we know to expect you. And tell your friends! The more the merrier!!
If you can't make the event but would still like to contribute to the cause, go to www.questionsmymothercantanswer.com and click on 'Donate This Month's Birth Control Money'on the right nav. No contribution is too big or small. Really.
Questions My Mother Can’t Answer, a moving and funny one woman show written by and starring Andrea Caban, recipient of the 2008 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, will be part of the 14th annual New York International Fringe Festival – presented at New York Theatre Workshop's 4th Street Theater.
SCHEDULE!
SUN 8/15 @ 10:15pm
SUN 8/22 @ 1:45pm
TUE 8/24 @ 2:00pm
THUR 8/26 @ 6:45pm
FRI 8/27 @ 9:15pm
Andrea’s on a mission: she interviews eight “women-of-a-certain-age” including a sexy Moroccan ballroom dancer, a donations-only prostitute, and her Aunt Shirley, about getting pregnant, staying married and finding a flow. As she embarks on a healing journey after a personal tragic event, Andrea looks for guidance from a variety of female role models, only to find that there are no role models…that we are all flawed and that life isn't about avoiding accidents, or tragedy, but how we deal with it.
Produced by Coyote REP Theatre Company www.coyoterep.org, directed by Rachel Eckerling, co-director of this season’s acclaimed The Diary of a Teenage Girl at 3LD Arts & Technology Center and frequent collaborator of Francis Ford Coppola on both theatre and film projects. The creative team for Questions My Mother Can’t Answer will also include Grammy Award-winning sound designer Marcelo Añez and lighting designer Jason Teague.
Hey Friends! Here's a note from Andrea Caban about her upcoming FringeNYC show Questions my Mother Can't Answer! Check it out!
~~~
52 days until FringeNYC kicks off and I’m yet again jumping into the role of the lone wolf in the spotlight facing a pack protected by the dark. That notion used to scare me a lot more than it does in this moment. I think the story I’m telling in this piece and the journey of creating this piece for myself has helped me face a lot of fears about life & art. So laughing at myself and bearing my soul in front of a crowd of strangers, family and friends seems more like fun than anything else.
I’m in California now, reading the play for old friends and getting ready to learn it. Yes, I do have to make time to memorize the words I wrote. You’d think it would be a given, but no.
Through May and June, Rachel Eckerling, my lovely director helped me develop the arch of my story as it threads together the stories of the eight women I interviewed. And as soon as I get back to New York, I start rehearsals with Rachel, and the rest of my amazing team, including my Grammy award winning sound designer and my company manager who just happens to be my loving husband. So I’m a lucky woman, I know that.
But for now, I’m here in California re-connecting with old collaborators, classmates from grad school & dear friends, most of whom are women. In QMMCA, I’m searching for answers about how to be a good wife, when to be mother, and how to heal myself after a tragic event.As I snuggle into my old friendships here in Cali and indulge in some of this most-needed quality time that I’m ashamed I didn’t make a priority before now, I’m realizing in a very visceral way that all my friends are struggling with the same things I’m exploring in this piece.I knew that instinctively before coming out here, but now I really know.And I know the specifics. And I think we early thirty-somethings are taking a look at our lives and what we had expected our lives to be by this point, and it’s not always easy to take in the whole truth. Some of us are achieving everything we set out to and still haven’t found happiness, some of us are still looking for that one person to share life with, and some of us are in life or death situations because what we are is not at all what we expected to be.
I’m more inspired than ever to tell my story and be as honest and simple as I can be in hopes that it will push my girlfriends to face their stories and move beyond them. And their girlfriends and their boyfriends, and their mothers and their fathers. I have high hopes.
So I guess I’m really not very alone after all is this ‘solo’ piece. I can’t wait to share it with you.
It's the week for special announcements at Coyote REP!
And here's a great one.
Mike Caban has been named CR's new Literary Manager! He's smart. He's experienced. He ours! Meet the man who will help shape seasons to come at CR.
Welcome aboard, Mike. We are lucky to have you.
Get to know Mike Caban:
Mike Caban is excited about joining Coyote REP as Literary Manager. He first became involved with Coyote REP through his wife Andrea, also a company member, in late 2007 as a volunteer working on their annual Rising Moon Fundraiser. Since then, he has worked with CR as an actor in their successful radio play Deception, and is now honored to take on a more substantial role in the Company.
Mike brings considerable experience in working behind the scenes of a theatre company, as he was co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Jobsite Theater, an acclaimed theater based in Tampa, FL. From their humble beginnings playing at a minuscule art gallery that once was a row home in a bad neighborhood, to their present home in a state-of-the-art black box space at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Mike was there for the first two years and came to appreciate the work involved in rallying a group of like-minded artists -- all of whom were close friends from university --into working as a company and cultivating an audience. As an actor, he knew he wanted to do shows that spoke to him, that were politically and socially relevant. As a co-founder, he was influential in working with the other members by encouraging them to pick interesting, under-celebrated works by established playwrights, and presenting them with a fresh, innovative perspective.
But by far his favorite part of that group’s repertoire was the Original Works program, which invited new voices -- starting with the founding members of the company -- to create plays and present them in their October-November slot. Now as a writer, director and company board member, Mike learned first-hand the challenges involved in fostering brand new work and sharing it with their nascent, hungry audience.
To Mike, the most alluring aspect of Coyote REP is their ambition and courage to look from within, to encourage the company to create what they present, and to do so with tremendous success. It is his hope that as Literary Manager at Coyote REP, he can continue in that track with this impressive group of artists and help to discover new playwrights -- be it the person across the table from him or even in the mirror -- and to cultivate an audience that will be back again and again, knowing that they will always have a home for fresh work at Coyote REP.
Coyote REP is proud to announce that Andrea Caban's beautiful new solo endeavor Questions my Mother Can't Answer has been named an official selection for the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival! You might remember that Questions was recently presented as part of our Works-in-Development Series and was a huge hit with our audience.
Questions My Mother Can’t Answer, a moving and funny one woman show written by and starring Andrea Caban, recipient of the 2008 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, will be part of the 14th annual New York International Fringe Festival starting August 13 through August 29 – presented at New York Theatre Workshop's 4th Street Theater.
Andrea’s on a mission: she interviews eight “women-of-a-certain-age” including a sexy Moroccan ballroom dancer, a donations-only prostitute, and her Aunt Shirley, about getting pregnant, staying married and finding a flow. As she embarks on a healing journey after a personal tragic event, Andrea looks for guidance from a variety of female role models, only to find that there are no role models…that we are all flawed and that life isn't about avoiding accidents, or tragedy, but how we deal with it.
Produced by Coyote REP Theatre Company www.coyoterep.org, directed by Rachel Eckerling, co-director of this season’s acclaimed The Diary of a Teenage Girl at 3LD Arts & Technology Center and frequent collaborator of Francis Ford Coppola on both theatre and film projects. The creative team for Questions My Mother Can’t Answer will also include Grammy Award-winning sound designer Marcelo Añez and lighting designer Jason Teague.
They're doing it again and, yes, we may be a long shot but I encourage you to vote for Coyote REP in the Chase Community Giving event happening right now on Facebook.
It only takes a second and it will help us keep our programs running. The smallest prize of 20k will help the Works-In-Development Series continue for oh, ten years!!
The New Normal
By Donnetta Lavinia Grays
Directed by Isaac Byrne
Monday May 24th 7pm
ART/NY Bruce Mitchell Room
520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor
(between 36th and 37th Streets)
New York, NY 10018
($5 suggested donation)
So, back in 2007 I am on the receiving end of a mass email from my mentor Joy Vandervort-Cobb at The College of Charleston in South Carolina. She writes that a former student and friend, Anna Dorcas Warren (Schumacher), is participating in the Susan G. Komen 3 Day Walk for the Cure and that we should support her by sending in what we can. I see the words diagnosed in 2006, battle, fight, baby…and I don’t quite get what I am reading. I mean, Anna is around my age. So, even with those specific words on my computer screen I think to myself, “I wonder who Anna’s walking for?” Seriously, I could not make the connection from “diagnosed with breast cancer” to Anna herself.I think, instead “Dude, Anna got married?? Anna’s got a baby?? Hot dog! I really need to get in touch with that chick!" Then my mind wonders to a couple plays we did together while we were in school and…yeah, I think that was that.
For one thing, this says quite a bit about my attention to detail, but moreover, in my mind Breast Cancer had always been this sort of disease of age. I mean, I knew my neurosis would have me spending the better part of my 40th birthday cooped up in some doctor’s office demanding another look-see at my mammogram results. There were commercials, morning talk shows and Oprah at 4pm all telling me that there was a threshold. I knew my facts. But, I also knew that Anna was maybe a couple seconds older than me (she was 32) so, there was no room whatsoever for her to fit into that medical community and media driven equation. No room. So, I couldn’t really see the words in that email as the truth. I guess I was shocked and shockingly ignorant.
And then there was Facebook.
I had lost touch with Anna for a while. And then, through the magic of Facebook in early 2008 we found each other again. We chatted. We exchanged inappropriate jokes as is our nature. We laughed “LOL” style. And then I clicked on a link attached to her profile page which led me to her personal blog.
Man…there were pictures. I saw my friend’s beautiful bald head. I saw my friend’s beautiful baby boy, Silas. Her husband, Kevin. I saw her being a Southern girl dealing with Seattle. Yeah. But, I also saw her…drinkin’, partyin’ and cussin’ with other beautiful bald ladies, putting ketchup on anything that moved, cracking jokes and being the firecracker I remembered from school. I saw Anna living. I saw Anna’s babyface making this incredible turn into adulthood and around that corner comes this disease to meet her full on. And I broke. I did. I broke out into tears. I broke into laughter reading about her son’s potty training stories and I broke open with so much love for her and a clearer understanding of why her diagnosis didn’t really sink in for me. The public dialogue about women under 40 being diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer had not reached me and so, it wasn't a part of a reality that I could digest in reference to her.
That dialogue hasn’t reached a lot of people. And that’s what both Anna and I want to change with this play.
The New Normal is based on Anna’s blog which she maintains to this day. It details not only her struggle with breast cancer, but also the joys and pains of being a mother, wife, daughter and a member of a community of young women facing there lives as survivors.
The characters’ development in the play (of Anna and of those in her family and community)have been dramatized and fictionalized, of course, in order to ground the argument that young survivors are invisible to a certain extent and that this specific illness affects relationships and families not only the women who are diagnosed. Their portrayals are amplified to reveal truths.
The New Normal received an initial workshop with Coyote REP in June 2009. Invited guest artists during that workshop were a collection of individuals who either knew Anna while she was a theater student at The College of Charleston, Coyote REP members or artists who where familiar with creating documentary theater: Emily Ackerman (The Civilians), Blaire Brooks, Safiya Fredericks, Chad Goodridge, Carla Musgrove, Laura Rikard and Jeanne LaSala. These artists were invaluable in helping to sculpt a time frame and context for over 300 pages of blog entries.
Ultimately, I want to illuminate a major point that I learned
from reading Anna’s blog and knowing her as a human
being. The humor in her blog is directed at the illness the majority of the time. This is not by coincidence. I think she says through her humor, “look, it’s the people in my life who are sacred NOT this disease. I have it, but I get to define it. Not the other way around.”I hope that this sentiment is reflected in the work Coyote REP has started to create.
Donnetta Lavinia Grays is the Artistic Director and is a Founding Member of Coyote REP Theatre Company. She worked with Director Bill Rauch as an AltvaterFellowship Recipient at Cornerstone Theatre Company and served as Stage Manager and assistant to Fredrick Bailey on the original production of Beth Henley’s Sister’s of the Winter Madrigal at Moving Arts Theatre in Los Angeles. Donnetta also served as an assistant to Woodie King Jr. on various projects for New Federal Theater including BLACKBEAUTIES: Celebrating 100 Years of African-AmericanWomen on Broadway. Donnetta has written the cowboy is dying, her first solo play effort, which she performed with Coyote REP in 2008. Her play THE B FACTOR received a reading at Henry Street Settlement’s AbronsArtsCenter as a part of the 2002 Women of Color Arts and Film Festival and a reading with TOSOS Theater Company in 2009 as part of their Robert Chesley / Jane Chambers Playwrights Project. She has also presented her written work at Pride Goes East and with Kathleen Warnock’s Drunken Careening Writers series at KGB Bar. Other works-in-progress include ABSENCE OF FAITH, and THE REVIEW (working title). Poetry featured on shortpoem.org.
Acting Credits; with Coyote REP, the cowboy is dying, DECPETION, PATRIOT ACT (AN OCCURRENCE AT YANKEE STADIUM Broadway: IN THE NEXT ROOM OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY (Cover), WELL (Cover). Off- Broadway: SHIPWRECKED! AN ENTERTAINMENT (Primary Stages) Regional Theatre: NO CHILD…(2 Connecticut Critics Circle Awards) JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE (Baltimore’s Center Stage) WELL (Huntington Theatre, Arena Stage), A RAISIN IN THE SUN, THE ROYAL FAMILY (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). TWELFTH NIGHT (Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Co.), MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Charleston Shakespeare Co.),Television: RUBICON, MERCY and LAW & ORDER: SVU (all recurring), THE SOPRANOS , LAW & ORDER and LAW & ORDER: CI. Film: THE WRESTLER (Darren Aronosfsky dir.) SHOOK and the Emmy Award winning documentary WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Proud member of AEA, SAG and AFTRA. Also a member of TOSOS Theater Company. BA: College of Charleston. MFA: University of California, Irvine. www.donnettagrays.com
The New Play Development Program is our commitment to nurturing the original work of our company's playwrights. This intensive, ten-month program provides a structured series of workshops culminating in our May Works-in-Development Series, a public presentation of readings.
312 West 36th Street (at 8th Avenue)
New York, NY10018 ($5 suggested donation)
“Oh, you’re developing a solo show. . .why would you do that?”
A dear friend asked me this question about a year ago when i mentioned that i was in the midst of developing a rhyme for the UNDERground.
“I don’t even go to see one-person shows anymore,” he further explained as i gave my knowing smile.
Frankly, i understand the reluctance to see yet another solo show. i too have had to endure more than my fair share of overindulgent, dry, self-congratulatory one-person shows. Of course, through the mire there are some beautiful, standout gems, but it often seems like you have to wade through much “mire” to get to the “gems”.
And, as a rhyme continues to evolve, it has truly been amazing journey so far shaping this gem.:^)
The idea for this play started when subway fare was only $1.50. The New York Historical Society was running an exhibit about the enslavement system in New Yorkand i went to the exhibit. Being a native New Yorker, i had known vague details about the lives of enslaved Africans in New York, but the general stuff, like how Broadway and Wall Street were built by enslaved Africans during this era in New York’s history and there was an African burial site uncovered several years ago in downtown Manhattan. You know, general stuff. What captivated me about the exhibit (and is so crucial in untangling this nation’s history) were the personal accounts and specific stories that were instrumental to recounting the intricate history. So, in this flood of images and facts and reflection, for some reason the name Violet stood out among the many placards and signs. Violet was (. . . well, to be honest, all i remember of Violet these many subway-fare hikes later,is that she was an enslaved woman in New York City.) But on the subway ride home right after leaving the exhibit i just scribbled on one of the papers i had collected during the tour, “What if Violet saved a teenage girl today?” (i co-founded a non-profit, performing arts-education organization to work with teen girls so they are sort of always on my mind!)
“What if Violet saved a teenage girl today?”
It is from this simple question that a rhyme for the UNDERground began.
When i finally started to find answers to that question (right around the giant fare hike to $2), the piece was a multi-character, multi-actor play. But as the play called for more poetry, dance, original songs, spoken word and rap, it became clear that there was actually one central voice in the play—the voice of the character “chandra”. All of the other characters were, in fact, connected to this core character in a way that necessitated a single actor performing the entire piece. From “chandra’s” central humanity these other (now EIGHTEEN) characters were there to shape, guide and transform her. It has been amazing (and frightening!) to see that these other characters have always been and always will be pieces of the puzzle that compose this woman trying to figure out her journey.
My friend who asked that inciting question at subway fare price $2.25 has RSVPed as a “Maybe” to the Facebook invitation for the special workshop performance on May 17th, as part of Coyote REP’s Works-In-Development Series . (Please note that i did NOT send him that invite :^) So he just may be there. . .
Either way—
Albertine
Sam
Denitra
Jameel
Thomas
Fria
Malik
DaStruggle
Christina
Estrella
Male Voice
Lela
Dr. Barkley
Ernie
SaKeisha
Ray
chandra, and, of course,
Violet
will be there on this stop on the ride of a rhyme for the UNDERground.
Join the trend on Twitter::#arhyme
Originally from New York, chandra thomas is an actor/writer/producer. As an actor, performances include No Child... (2009 Barrymore Award nomination for Outstanding Leading Actress), Coney Island Avenue(NYTW), Reflections of a Heart (Theatre Row). Other theatre performances include contemporary and classical works atClassical Theatre of Harlem (AUDELCO nomination), Public Theatre, Guthrie, Women's Project Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater, CherryLaneTheatre, P.S. 122, among others. On screen, chandra has most recently performed in co-star roles on The Good Wife and Law & Order: CI as well as a supporting role in the upcoming independent feature Sweet Lorraine. As a writer, her other plays include Standing At..., A Woman/B Woman, LETTERS (co-created), and many poetry/spoken word pieces; she is also currently working on several screenplays, including the feature LoveMatters. chandra is the co-founder of viBe Theater Experience, an award-winning, non-profit, performing-arts education organization empowering teenage girls in New York City. a rhyme for the UNDERground is her first full-length, solo play. Of course there is more info at www.NYchandra.com.
The New Play Development Program is our commitment to nurturing the original work of our company's playwrights. This intensive, ten-month program provides a structured series of workshops culminating in our May Works-in-Development Series, a public presentation of readings.
What She Means by Rebecca Tourino Sunday, May 16th 7pm The Barrow Group Theater The Garret Studio 312 West 36th Street (at 8th Avenue) New York, NY 10018 ($5 suggested donation)
Although my grandmother is still living she is, to me, already gone. I don’t really see her anymore; looking at her, there’s hardly a trace left of the woman I knew. Alzheimer’s disease has taken her, and with her, a wealth of tenderness, a volume of knowledge, a hundred impressions of my younger self. Growing up, she was both my memory and my mirror. What do you do when your mirror breaks?
As an artist, my work had always smoothly reflected me just as my grandmother had. I knew who I was and what I had to say, but mostly because she'd always been there. After losing her I forgot, for a time, how to write. It was disorienting. Maybe I became as confused as she was. I couldn’t make sense of anything. I couldn’t make sense. I wrote the play for her.
I’m a mother now, trying to balance professional and creative aspirations with the most challenging full-time gig I’ve ever known: the care of my two-year-old son. My grandmother always made it look easy. I’m learning, of course, that of the many adjectives one could use to describe the parenting of young ones, “easy” is not one of them.
What She Means is about memory, childhood, grief, and the bewildering process of creation. It's also the first of my plays that I've acted in, and, as such, it's become personal in a way that's new to me. The main character is a writer trying to write a play about someone important to her. Five adult actors play children helping to tell her story. Writing the play, I found myself asking far more questions than I answered. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because the story is personal? Maybe because it deals so directly with feeling small and powerless in the face of a big loss? Or maybe simply because I was immersed in transcribing the voices of five kids? Anyone spending extended time with children, of course, had better get comfortable with questions quickly.
How do you tell a sad story? What if nobody cares?
How can you make a gaggle of ten-year-olds do what you want?
Is it even possible to form words from a place of mute grief?
And what's that cabbage doing onstage, anyway?
Some losses are almost too big to handle, even if you're a grownup. I'm not sure I've come to terms with my real-life loss yet. By the end of What She Means, my counterpart has managed to strip artifice from art to reveal a few hard-won personal truths. The most straightforward conclusion I can draw from my own work, this time, is that I think my grandmother would like watching it. For me, most days, that's almost enough.
(Images, above, by Lorretta Lux)
Rebecca Tourino is a teaching theater artist living in Brooklyn. She’s written two other full-length plays: The Naked Eye Planets, awarded the Coyote REP Moon Award and produced at the American Theater of Actors in New York and Quickening, produced in Los Angeles by Lucid by Proxy and in New York by the Albertine Theater Company. As an actor, Rebecca’s credits include PCPA Theaterfest, Texas Shakespeare Festival, Oregon Cabaret Theater, Rogue Music Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the East Bay Actor’s Collective, among other regional credits. She’s also happily nudging her way into the directing area, working most recently with Coyote REP and Invisible, LLC. BA, UC Berkeley; MFA, UC Irvine; Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts.www.whatshemeansblog.com
The New Play Development Program is our commitment to nurturing the original work of our company's playwrights. This intensive, ten-month program provides a structured series of workshops culminating in our May Works-in-Development Series, a public presentation of readings.
Sunday May 10th 7pmBruce Mitchell Room
ART/NY
520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor (between 36th and 37th Streets) New York, NY 10018 ($5 suggested donation)
I got the idea to write "Questions My Mother Can't Answer" (a working title by the way) after one of the performances of my last solo show, "You Got Questions? I Got Answers!" That piece was a documentary theater collage derived from the interviews I conducted with 8 New Yorkers about when they feel the most isolated and when they feel the most connected. A friend of mine brought her mother to the show. Her mom commented to me that I interviewed people of all different races, genders, & ethnicities, but I had no one in my play that represented her generation, the voice of women in their early 60's. I felt a little guilty I hadn't included anyone of that age. And then I felt a little curious.
Then I started finding friendships, lots of friendships, with women around my mom's age. My husband thought it funny that while my peers were going out for drinks until the wee hours, I was making dinner dates with 60-something year old women I met on the subway! I started to wonder what it was these friendships were giving me that perhaps my relationship with my mother did not. So I started asking for interviews. And unlike with my first piece, every women I asked said yes! There was absolutely no shame in their stories...they were pleased to be able to tell me about the moment they found out they were pregnant, about the fall of their first marriage, and a few things they wouldn't tell their own daughters.
So not only wasI gaining the benefit of delving into the lives of these highly fascinating and highly flawed women, they were finding release in the telling of stories, that in some cases, they had never told anyone before. And they had never told anyone before because no one had ever asked.
I tell people when I work in this way, I start from a curiosity and follow my nose until a play presents itself to me. I titled this one before I knew what the heck it was going to be about. So when I interviewed my mom, I was shocked at and grateful for the answers I got. I don't think I'm giving too much away by saying that.
Andrea Caban is an actor, writer, producer, and teacher. She last appeared in Craig Wright's The Pavilion in the role of the narrator and 17+ other roles at Boise Contemporary Theater. Andrea received the 2008 New York Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for her documentary-based play You Got Questions? I Got Answers! Her play also earned Outstanding Short Script & Outstanding Performance Art Production nominations. Regional and New York credits include productions at The Public Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Long Wharf Theater, New World Stages, HERE Arts Center, GAle GAtes et al, and The Hayworth Theater in LA. BA: University of South Florida. MFA: University of California, Irvine. www.andreacaban.com
The New Play Development Program is our commitment to nurturing the original work of our company's playwrights. This intensive, ten-month program provides a structured series of workshops culminating in our May Works-in-Development Series, a public presentation of readings.
Coyote REP is very excited about the work we are showcasing in or Works-in-Development Series at ART/NY and The Barrow Group Theater. We asked our company playwrights to share more about the pieces they are featuring for the month long May event.
RATED M FOR MATURE by Greg Ayers Sunday May 9th 7pmBruce Mitchell Room
ART/NY
520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor (between 36th and 37th Streets) New York, NY 10018 ($5 suggested donation)
Let me make one thing clear: I love video games. I always have. I can still spend an entire weekend playing any one of the Final Fantasy games.Videogames will always occupy a special place in my heart because I grew up on them.Some of my earlier memories include playing Jungle Hunt and Joust on the Atari 2600. Back when I was in elementary school, owning a specific game could be viewed as a status symbol.I remember being the first of my friends to own Super Mario Bros 2.I suddenly had people begging, yes, begging me to let them come over and play the game.And, I admit, I may have taken advantage of my new position of power by demanding that everyone share their fruit rollups with me in exchange for 10 minutes of game play.So what if I was drunk with power?I was ten.And I was having fun.And for me, that’s what videogames are all about: having fun.Entertainment.But somewhere along the way, for some people, videogames have become a serious addiction.That’s not so fun.
I suppose there are a few reasons I decided to write Rated M for Mature.The firstbeing, I had recently read an article about a teenage boy who shot both his parents in the head because they’d taken away his favorite videogame.And then, a while later, I heard about a couple in China who were so wrapped up in creating a second life for themselves in an online game that they neglected to feed their newborn baby, which ended up starving to death.Clearly, these are two example of love for videogames gone wrong.
Another reason I was inspired to write this play is because I find teenagers to be some of the most fascinating and exciting people out there.I can vividly recall the pain that shaped my teenage years.The pressure.The bullying. The frustration.The anger. But I’m now at an age where, although I can still empathize with the plight of teenagers, I also feel a tinge of fear whenever I see a group of them
on a subway platform.I feel disconnected from them.And at times, I feel intimidated.I mean, do they really need to talk that loud?Really??
Rated M for Mature is a play about all of the above.The confusion and disconnect some parents feel towards their children.The pain and frustrations of being a teenager.And the need to escape life by immersing one’s self into an online fantasy world.
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Greg Ayers co-wrote and starred in John and Greg's High School Reunion, which premiered at last year's New York International Fringe Festival. As an actor, some of his favorite credits include Small Tragedy at the Aurora Theater, HOLES at the Orpheum Theater, and The Lion in Winter at PCPA Theaterfest. Greg is a graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts
The New Play Development Program is our commitment to nurturing the original work of our company's playwrights. This intensive, ten-month program provides a structured series of workshops culminating in our May Works-in-Development Series, a public presentation of readings
tarring Nell Mooney*, Michael Mason, Andrea Caban* and Emily Rossell*
THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED, IN PART, BY PUBLIC FUNDS FROM THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CITY COUNCIL.
Sound SFX system provided by a generous donation from Stage Research
