Producing Theatre Company: Majak Theatre Group and Jezek and Cizek Theatre Group
Performance Dates: 8/15/07-8/19/07
Director: Jakub Capka
Jakub Capka, director and devil for Faust.
This production of Faust was unique because it was staged in an unused reservoir. Also unique is the production company themselves because they are comprised of currently homeless people or people who have been homeless in the past. This production included the use of projections, video clips, and live music from a band called The New Kids Underground.
Title of Production: Romeo and Juliet
Producing Theatre Company: Theater Breaking Through Barriers
Performance Dates: 3/17/08-4/6/08
Director: Ike Schambelan
Costumer: Chloe Chapin
Gregg Mozgala and Emily Young as Romeo and Juliet.
Theater Breaking Through Barriers’ production of Romeo and Juliet was different because the cast was comprised of four actors, three men and one woman. The script was not shortened in any way, but the play was set in New York City in 2007. Even more impressive about this production was that at least two of the cast members had disabilities and still performed very well. Gregg Mozgala, who played Romeo, had cerebral palsy and George Ashiotis, who played the Nurse, was blind.
Title of Production: The Tempest
Producing Theatre Company: The Independent Eye and Sonoma County Repertory Theatre
Performance Dates: 9/18/09-10/18/09
Director/Puppets/Set/Lighting: Conrad Bishop
Music: Elizabeth Fuller
Costumes: David Romesburg
The Independent Eye’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an inspired, inspiring, and deeply moving evening of theater. The puppets are extraordinary, the music is brilliant, the design is beautiful, and most of all, the acting is superb and illuminating of every nuance of Shakespeare’s immortal text. Conrad Bishop’s direction, design, and performance as Prospero are sheer genius!
—Fred Curchack, Theater Artist/Professor of Aesthetic Studies, The University of Texas at Dallas
What made this production unique was the use of five actors for the entire play and the use of almost life-size puppets. The puppets were comprised of elegant masks and costumes. The actors wore all black and masks so they could blend in with their puppets. The set was a series of swooping fabric that had Shakespeare’s text on it and came together to resemble ship sails.
Title of Production: Pippin
Producing Theatre Company: Deaf West Theatre
Performance Dates: 1/15/09-3/15/09
Director: Jeff Calhoun
Illusions: Jim Steinmeyer
ASL Masters: Linda Bove and Alan Champion
Tyrone Giordano and Michael Arden in Pippin
http://www.deafwest.org/press/TheatreMania.pdf
In Deaf West’s productions, many of the actors are deaf and have speaking actors providing their voice. In the opening number of Pippin, hands pop up from rabbit holes on the stage and sign to the audience to the beat of the music. Deaf West used two Pippins; the hearing actor started off as an interpreter and later on became part of the play and taught the deaf actor’s Pippin his greatest lesson.
Title of Production: The Bacchae
Producing Theatre Company: Screaming Weenie Productions
Performance Dates: 1/18/05-1/29/05
Director: Ilene Lee Cramer
Lighting and Visual Design: Nathan Whitford
Sound Design: Noah Drew
“The audience, gyrating to Draper’s tribal beats, responded with fervour to the vocalizations. As the dialogue moved from performer to performer, the dancing attendees rotated their boucing bodies to face the singing; this made choral sections that involved two or more of the performers extra powerful, sometimes inciting a spontaneous atmosphere of festival among the suddenly directionally liberated dancers (audience).”
--Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight
http://www.screamingweenie.com/media/bacchae_media/Bacchae_Straight_05.pdf
Screaming Weenie’s production of The Bacchae took place in a large room above a bakery. Six scaffolds were set around the room that provided acting space, and a seventh scaffold was for the composer, Tracey Draper, who conducted and drove beats with all of her gear. The actors ranged from underground MC’s, to R&B and spoken performers.
