20 years, 200 photos

A compilation of photos of our work over the last 20 years, made for our anniversary party.  Made the midnight before, which perhaps explains the misspelling of "anniversary"  The voiceover from a moment of our presentation in 365 plays at The Public, read by Henry Akona.

20th Anniversary Memories - Eddie Goes to Poetry City

An additional memory. Jenny Mercein was in a number of UTC61 shows in the late 1990's... Here are her memories of the first, Eddie Goes to Poetry City. George McGrath, pictured left, a veteran of many UTC61 productions, recently passed away.

George McGrath and Stephen Waldrup in Eddie Goes to Poetry City

There's a Picasso quote that goes something along the lines of, "I spent my childhood trying to paint like an adult and my adulthood trying to paint like a child." Or something like that... In any case, when I think back to doing Eddie Goes to Poetry City with Edward Einhorn and UTC61, that quote comes to mind. Oh my goodness, we were so young and SO FEARLESS! I had worked with Edward on one small ten minute play when he asked me to do this Richard Foreman play at NADA. I studied Foreman in one of my theater studies classes in college, so I jumped at the chance.When I learned of his concept that I would play both Marie and Estelle, I didn't bat an eye. Sure, I would have to get in a fight with myself and slap myself on stage. Sure I'd have to simulate sexual acts in a tiny basement theater with my parents in the audience. Why not!

Julia Martin and Jenny Mercein in another
UTC61 production, Sweeney Agonistes

Edward (and Ian Hill and so many other of those wonderful collaborators from the early days on the Lower East Side back when Ludlow Street and the surrounding areas were filled with theaters and not fancy restaurants) asked me to do all sorts of crazy things and I just did it. We all did. Maybe we were too young and inexperienced to question whether or not we "could" or "should" make such wild choices. We just went for the ride. Edward cast some wonderfully fearless actors, especially the late, great George McGrath, who taught me lessons that continue to resonate today. Now, when I get scared confronting a role, or I find myself in my head judging myself, I try to think back to those days in the (yes, rat-infested) basement at NADA with Edward and the crew and just go for it! Marie and Estelle would expect nothing less.

20th Anniversary Memories - more Fairy Tales of the Absurd and a treat...

This is the final memory in the series. You can also read about this show in the blog post by Uma Incrocci. Please join us at the 20th anniversary party on Sunday! 

Ian Hill, Peter Bean, John Blaylock, Celia Montgomery, and Uma Incrocci

In 2004, I brought Fairy Tales of the Absurd Off-Broadway. The show consisted of three one-acts: To Prepare a Hard Boiled Egg, a monologue by Ionesco, translated by me, and performed by Peter Brown. Tales for Children, based on short stories by Ionesco, adapted by me, translated by Karen Ott, and performed by Celia Montgomery, John Blaylock, and Uma Incrocci. And finally One Head Too Many, written by me, and performed by all of the above plus Ian W. Hill. It was a children's play, with actors and puppets and an absurdist sensibility that appealed equally to adults. It originated in the Ionesco Festival, played the Fringe, and then moved Off-Broadway.

Every time I told theater veterans that UTC61 was going Off-Broadway, they had one piece of advice:

Uma Incrocci, John Blaylock, and "Josette"

Don't.

The budget you have is unrealistic, they told me. I had raised over $60,000, but they told me it would take $200,000 at least. For a four week run, with five actors, in a 160 seat theater, with an Equity agreement. Not possible.

I would probably give someone the same advice myself, now. But at the time, I ignored it. The Pearl Theater was giving us a good deal on the theater. Since we had done the show in the Fringe, and before that we had done pieces in the Ionesco Festival, rehearsal time would be at a minimum. I had an almost free rehearsal space in my brother's building. My talented assistant, Glory, had found me a crack team of interns that would handle all the little stuff. I was going to ask every friend I knew to volunteer to help. And I myself was planning to take on as many jobs as possible: director of the whole evening, writer of one play, translator of a second, adapter for the third, producer, general manager, company manger, production manager, chief marketer, chief worrier.

John Blaylock. Uma Incrocci, and Celia Montgomery

When it was done, we had put up a full production that felt like Off-Broadway. We had done it on budget. We had received a rave from the Times (twice, actually, including the children's section review from Laurel Graeber), and nothing but good reviews all round.

We also often played to houses that were only a quarter full. And many publications waited till the last week to reserve, then realized there wasn't time to go to print. We lost a lot of money. I worked nonstop for months, and felt so exhausted I couldn't move.

I saw my show on the board of TKTS. I got some of my actors into Equity. I brought the people who I had been working with for years through the Off-Broadway process.

And it was a damn good show.

It was worth it.

Post script, of sorts: A special treat. When we were doing The Ionesco Festival, Peter Brown (he was Brown then, since he wasn't in Equity yet), traveled from theater to theater doing the monologue I translated, To Prepare a Hard Boiled Egg. It had never before been translated into English, and it remains one of my favorite little Ionesco bits. You can hear him here, in this audio recording:

20th Anniversary Memories - Unauthorized Magic in Oz

The houses from Unauthorized Magic

Rarely do I get to feel like a rock star.

However, with one small production, a toy theater piece called Unauthorized Magic in Oz, I did.

Unauthorized Magic was a rare instance where I crossed my children’s books with my theater.  It was created for Great Small Works’ Toy Theater Festival, at St. Ann’s Warehouse.  It existed in two small but beautiful houses, built by Barry Weil and Berit Johnson and based on Eric Shanower’s illustrations of my Oz books.  Unusually, I performed a role, along with fellow cast members Tanya Khordoc, Barry Weil, and Talaura Harms.

The experience with Great Small Works is a great one.  There is a new Toy Theater Festival coming soon (featuring frequent collaborators Tanya Khordoc and Barry Weil’s play, Secrets History Remembers), and I highly recommend it.  We were in an evening with Brian Selznik’s play about Christine Jorgensen, which I loved.

The audiences oohed and aahed appropriately at the puppetry flourishes, but the Oz references escaped many.  Then we were asked to bring the show to the Munchkin Convention, the East Coast gathering of Oz fans being held in Princeton, New Jersey.

An audience full of Oz fans, many of whom had read my books (Paradox in Oz and The Living House of Oz), was a very exciting event.  They were enthusiastic about and responsive to every reference.  Eric, and the publisher David Maxine, also had a chance to see the work.  If a play ever had its ideal audience, it was then.

Tempus fugit!  Tanya Khordoc puppeteers.

Later, we brought the show to the Looking Glass Theater, and it received a wonderful review from Laurel Graeber at The New York Times ("exquisitely ingenious!").  But having an Oz audience who knew my work so intimately was really my ideal experience.

You can see a performance on YouTube—not, I think, the same as in person (and that particular show had definite glitches), but still, worth checking out, especially if you are a fan of Oz!

20th Anniversary Memories - Cat's Cradle, Brains & Puppets, & Hiroshima

Barry Weil in Brains and Puppets

Hi, Barry Weil of Evolve Company here. My creative partner Tanya Khordoc and I are puppeteers, and our company has been given some amazing opportunities (as well as some really weird challenges) through the work we’ve done with UTC61. When Edward asked me to write a reminiscence of the 2008 Walkerspace plays (Cat’s Cradle, Brains & Puppets and Hiroshima: Crucible of Light), I have to admit that it took me a while to actually come up with anything. Not because it was an uneventful experience – far from it. It’s just that Tanya and I were so involved in all three plays that our memories are a very tired blur.

At one point, while Cat’s Cradle was running, I remember ending an evening performance and heading uptown to Edward’s place to help Tanya cut out Brains & Puppets shadow figures for hours, catnapping on Edward’s couch briefly and then getting up to perform a matinee of Cat’s Cradle. Tanya’s schedule was similar, though she probably wins the crazy award for setting her model of the Trinity nuclear site watchtower on fire in her living room (not out of frustration, I should add, but for filming purposes).

One of many models from Cat's Cradle

Confused? It went down like this: Tanya and I designed and built two huge bakers’ racks full of puppet/models for Cat’s Cradle, which I puppeteered while also having an acting role in the production. Tanya created stop-motion models for Hiroshima, and we each directed, designed and performed one of Edward’s two single-person plays that made up Brains & Puppets. On top of that, I designed the brochure and graphic art for the entire endeavor. Now, when you’re in college, staying up all night is fun, and you can do that amount of work without breaking a sweat. When you’re forty and attempting it…well, you just want to lie down for a few minutes. Or a week.

So why would anyone in their right mind do things like this? Well, the plays were amazing, and we’d have to have been insane not to be a part of them. How often do you get to create a model airplane that mounts to a video camera and crashes into a sand castle, or a pair of elegant Leonardo da Vinci wings? A tiny period UNIVAC computer decorated for a Christmas party, or Matisse and Kandinsky paintings that come to life? A multicolored dragon with an East European growl, or a miniature Caribbean dictatorship with its own flag, buildings, hotels, shantytown and taxicabs?

Tanya Khordoc in Brains and Puppets

We’ve always loved the way UTC61 incorporates puppetry into its work, and appreciates its value as a unique form of theatre. And Edward has always shared our joy in getting to create and use cool things. That’s definitely worth a few days’ sleep. Over the years, Evolve has provided UTC #61 with living houses, electronic sheep and intricate temple arks that contain shadow puppet shows. And we always look forward to hearing a crazy idea and realizing there’s no way we can say no.

20th Anniversary Memories - Lysistrata

Part of the cast of Lysistrata

Lysistrata was a huge and complicated endeavor. It was marked by difficulties with the co-producer and the publicist, difficulties that I won’t be exploring too deeply here but definitely colored my experience. It also had a directorial concept (my own) that proved difficult to fully realize, logistically. But more on that later.

On the positive side, the show included a number of talented actors and a very talented group of assistant directors, including my current Associate Artistic Director, Henry Akona. It also inspired a translation/adaptation I am quite proud of, now printed by Theater 61 Press. The translation has inspired a surprising number of productions, particularly university productions, including shows in Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Aachen, Germany.

I had had a brainstorm about performing Lysistrata with a cast of 100. It seemed doable. The amount of resumes I receive for each show is overwhelming, and it seemed to me that a huge company could be assembled. The chorus would become a huge environmental element that would immerse the audience in the Bacchanalia that was the play.

Part of the cast of Lysistrata

It was a good concept in many ways. I thought it would attract some press, and it did attract some press. And I do think I was right, it was doable. The fact that it didn’t happen as envisioned…well, there’s more to this particular story.

The space we used was actually the basement of a bar in DUMBO, Brooklyn, right next to St. Ann’s Warehouse. At the time it was a large, empty space, except for some distinctive architectural details, like its Ionic columns and two-story wrought iron stairway. It seemed ideal for an environmental production.

For the principal performers, we had a good and reliable bunch. Our trouble was the chorus. We were a non-Equity show, because we had signed on to an open ended run. But attracting enough actors for a non-Equity Brooklyn show to fill out a chorus of 100 turned out to be a logistical problem. Yes, they came. But yes, they went. The turnaround in chorus members was tremendous, and we were in constant state of casting and recasting.

Those we did keep were a mixed bunch. Some were terrific, stalwart cast members with talent. Some had never done a show before, and I remember receiving a call from one after a show saying “I got lost walking from the subway, and by the time I figured out I had walked the wrong way, I felt so upset that I decided to go home.”

Part of the cast of Lysistrata, with Corey Einbinder, chorus leader

By the time we were in opening week, we may (or may not) have had actors who had, at least briefly, called themselves members of the cast, but we certainly did not have 100 cast members onstage, more in the realm of 50. In truth, we needed only about 60 to make the cast seem full, but we were a bit short of that. The program listed all who had ever been part of our cast, and a few who hadn’t, with transparently absurd names like Caveman Coletti. And then the flu hit… On the night reviewers came, I think there were 35 people onstage, and our claims of a large cast had become increasingly questionable.

Still, those who were there did a game job, and a few nights later with the full cast onstage I felt proud a quite a few moments onstage. And I do think that those involved enjoyed their experience. We got some good reviews, mixed in with a scathing one written on the day of 35 actors. Many of the actors have continued to work on UTC61 productions. And the script, as I mentioned, has lived on in numerous productions.

Sometime I would love to do the play again and try to realize my original vision. I remain convinced it can be done...though I don't know when I would have the energy to try to achieve this particular vision, once more.

20th Anniversary Memories: 24/7 Fest

Dave Hanson looking out at New York

Dave Hanson, a friend and playwright who actually was in attendance in at the first ever UTC61 show, Artist Descending a Staircase (and knows me long enough to call me "Ed"), tells about his experience in our 24/7 Fest, seven straight days of 24 hour plays on different themes.  Dave and I met as interns at New Dramatists.  Now Dave does theater in Kansas City, where I participated in a similar project last year.

Ok, I'll be honest when Ed called me up to participate as a playwright in something called 24/7 I didn't know exactly what to think. You see, I'm not an actor or director or a designer or any of those kinds of theater jobs that would have led me to cross paths with the idea of writing a short play in a night and then fully staging it the next day. I would find out later that lots of people do these things. But at that moment, waiting to get on a plane to go from Kansas City to New York to be in two rounds of the 24/7 festival what I was thinking was who the hell does this? Of course, Ed Einhorn does this. And thank god he does.

I attended the performances the night before my first round came out. I was part of the neuro night. Whatever our play was, it was to be about something in the brain. It also had to include the following: someone had to die, we had to think we were in one place but really be in another, somebody had to sit in a chair, and the last requirement (which was picked from a jar because again it's Ed) was that there had to be a talking animal.

So I go to my room at the YMCA - yes folks, I went to New York and stayed at the West Side YMCA because it was very affordable. I stayed up to like 2 AM that night writing my play - Theater of the Mind. I know the title kind of fit with the whole Neuro theme. I show up at 8 AM at the theater the next morning and that's when all kinds of wonderful and terrible began.

You see it's not just good enough to write a play in less than 12 hours. These puppies were going to be fully staged. You know memorized, blocked, lighting cues, and memorized. I met my director-- Alexander was his name--and my cast. It was a great cast and very, very honest. I'll admit that I wrote a drama and very well difficult scene for the actress who was assigned to my cast. I think it was Nancy Nagrant. She read my play, twice and then ... and I remember this clearly ... looked at the director and then me and said, "You bastard, I'm only doing this part twice. You get once in rehearsal and once in the performance."

Like I said, I'm not an actor but I did know this wasn't the moment to quibble over such things. I remember thinking, I've either written a really great scene or well... it really sucked. We were really too busy to think much about it. Well, to be fair, the director and the cast was too busy. I was floored by what these people could get done. I mean they were really doing it. Well, up to and including complete memorization of the lines. Honestly, the whole memorization thing... well, the cast never actually got through an entire run through of the play before curtain with all the lines memorized. But I liked what I saw and I took my customary seat to watch a play of mine... far back corner on the right with at least two seats between me and anybody else.

The energy in the theater was crazy as the curtain came up. My play wasn't first and it wasn't last, but I still remember when it happened. It truly was the magic of the theater. The performances sparkled. The big scene... memorable. One of those moments when the whole theater goes really, really quiet. Then... then it was over.

The cast and I went to drinks that night and it was clear we had all bonded a bit over the day. Not like I'd donate my kidney to you... although I would consider it - especially for Nancy because you owe something to someone who calls you a bastard. What I think we all realized around that table was there was a feeling that we didn't really want to let go.

Doing theater is one of the hardest things in the world to pull off. You can't fix it in editing. You don't get to redo a performance in front of an audience. Usually, you don't get to do it period. And we did it all in less than 24 hours. Now, it is interesting to note that for most plays the prevailing theory is that they must be developed for months and months before they are ready for the light of day. I participated in two rounds of the festival and can report that both plays received full productions later on in my writing career. Maybe there is something to the madness. A madness that really could only be pulled off by Ed Einhorn. So to Ed, I have only one thing to say...

You bastard. I know it's odd but it really worked out for me last time so it's my new term of endearment.

Thanks Ed for 20 years and thanks for 24/7.

20th Anniversary Memories: A Shylock

Uma Incrocci and John Blaylock in
Fairy Tales of the Absurd

John Blaylock, who first performed with us back in 1996, when he played the lead, Jacob Levy, in A Shylock, tells of his memory of his first day with UTC61.  In a side note:  I had been listening to actors read a monologue from the play all day, and I was feeling in despair by time he arrived, thinking perhaps it was the fault of the monologue, not the actors.  Then John came in and let me live longer in the delusion that I should be a writer...

Well, although I go back pretty far with UTC61, there are certainly folks who go back farther than I do, and also have done far more than I have with the company. Still, I guess it's best to start RIGHT at the beginning, and it's not a stretch for me to do so with, literally, my first day on the job…

I had been cast as Dr. Jacob Levy in the UTC61 production of A Shylock back in 1996. As fate, (or perhaps more accurately, my own particular reverse luck) would have it, I had only just recently moved to Brooklyn from the Upper West Side. The first rehearsal for A Shylock was to be held at a location on, you guessed it, the Upper West Side. Had I still lived on West 75th Street, I could have taken a leisurely stroll into the 90's for the rehearsal. Instead, on this Saturday morning, I had to hike it in from the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Not that this is a big deal, but we all know what the subways can be like, particularly on the weekends. Good native New Yorker that I am, I allowed PLENTY of extra travel time but, needless to say, to no avail. At 5 minutes after the appointed time for our first reading, I'm fast-walking down the block to the rehearsal location. Just as I spy the correct address, I also notice a tall, chisel-featured gent dismounting from a motorcycle in front of the same address. He calls out to me when I turn onto the steps, asking if I'm there for the Shylock rehearsal. When I reply that I am, he introduces himself as Dan Leventritt, who will be playing the titular character. I introduce myself along with my own character name, and we enter the building together. Naturally, I'm silently pleased that while I still feel like an idiot for being late to the first rehearsal, at least I'm not alone. Once we're in the rehearsal room, Edward Einhorn greets us both pleasantly and it's clear that he and Dan have worked together before. I'm thinking this is more good luck, because Edward's not going to chastise me for being late when here I am walking in with someone who is clearly both friend and colleague. As we are settling ourselves down at the table with the rest of the cast -- no mention whatsoever having been made of our tardiness at this point -- and I am breathing a SERIOUS inner sigh of relief, Mr. Leventritt announces to the group, "Sorry we were a bit late, everyone. Actually, I would have been on time, but Blaylock over here was talking my ear off outside, like, forever and so, well, here we are." To this day I hope that the laughter that ensued masked the redness of my face, but that little episode set the tone for the work on that show and every one that I've done with Edward Einhorn and the UTC61 since that day. Namely, that it's always been that all-too-rare combination of some of the best fun and most rewarding theatrical work that I've had the pleasure to experience in my career.

20th Anniversary Memories: Linguish

Jospehine Cashman, Max Zener, and Ken Simon in Linguish

Actor and Artistic Board member Josephine Cashman writes about Linguish:

My friends have often (and fairly) accused me of being a word nerd. It is fitting, therefore, that I was cast in Untitled Theater Company’s play about language and communication. I cheerfully told my friends that Linguish was like No Exit with a dash of The Outer Limits, but it’s core, I believe that this play is about the need for human communication. That need is so strong that in the absence of one language, humans will create another one.

In Linguish, (part of UTC’61s Neurofest), four people catch a contagious form of Aphasia and are quarantined together. I enjoyed investigating the precise and delicate text of Edward’s delicious word salad, and playing Beth became a very rewarding experience for me. Our characters may have been unwillingly forced to deal with each another, but I think it’s safe to say that the cast bonded quite happily. Onstage our characters tickled, kissed, fought, laughed and quibbled over Latin pronunciation (classical or medieval?). Offstage we had fiery conversations about the rules of our onstage card game “pinochle” (nothing like the actual game). Even though Edward told us there were no rules to the game, we made them up anyway. During one rehearsal, the “Linguish” language took on a life of its own as one day I mistakenly renamed our “Pinochle” game as “Neepocle.” Somehow, the nickname stuck and became a part of the show. It was a hilarious but telling moment about how fluid language can be, and how easily we took to the new name.

Linguish also had a second life, when we went to Chicago to perform for rooms full of neurologists. A heady experience indeed. Imagine performing the different forms of aphasia for a room full of experts, studying our every movement and the language we used. Happily, they not only understood what the play was about, but they enthusiastically participated in the discussions afterwards. I remember having a talk with a doctor after a performance, trying to explain the rules of our fictional; Neepocle/Pinochle game, simply because he thought it looked fun to play. From Mirroring Neurons to made-up card games, acting Linguish was an amazing experience; I got to work with actors I admired in a play full of delicious challenges. What more could an actor want?

20th Anniversary Memories: The Velvet Oratorio

Tony Torn and Peter Bean in The Velvet Oratorio

Tony Torn (soon appearing on Broadway in Breakfast at Tiffany's) tells his memory of The Velvet Oratorio, performed in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.  We had a performance at the Walter Bruno Theater at the Lincoln Center Library, then at the beautiful Bohemian National Hall, for a Czech audience.  We plan to revive the show for the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution!

When we performed The Velvet Oratorio at the Bohemian National Hall, we were all very nervous to perform before a Czech audience, many of whom had lived through the events depicted. The show itself was full of gremlins that night. Lots of small things went wrong.  In my scene as a drunken police interrogator, I set down my glass of beer a little too hard and the entire table flipped over. Fortunately the glass was plastic and the smell of spilled beer gave the whole scene a atmospheric veracity. But later, in a climactic moment, the chorus in which I was part got confused and completely lost the choreography that Henry had so painstakingly mapped out. It was a hair raising night on stage for sure. But the ovation was so warm, and the gratitude of the crowd so overwhelming, that this performance became one of my most cherished experiences in the theater.

20th Anniversary Memories: Ken Simon

Ken Simon in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Actor and Artistic Board Member Ken Simon shares his memories of Rhinoceros, Linguish, The Memo, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

My association with Untitled Theater Company #61 began in 2001, with the production of Rhinoceros as part of UTC61's Ionesco Festival (my first of three UTC61 festivals [actually four, if you count the 24/7 Fest - EE]). From a carnival-looking Cafe Proprietor to an officious Office Manager to a green-skinned rhinoceros (don't ask), it was a very enjoyable show (as was the reading we did of translated French conversation lessons that Eugene Ionesco had written for a friend...when UTC61 festivals, it festivals) and the start of an important part of my performing career.

There was the production of Linguish in January 2006 written and directed by Edward Einhorn, Artistic Director of UTC61 (and for whom people have been mistaking me since I have known him) as part of UTC61's NeuroFest, a festival of original plays about neurological conditions. It was a play about four people quarantined with a virus (fictional) that caused various types of aphasia (real neurological disorder). I was cast as Michael, a lawyer so snarky and sarcastic that after one scene rehearsal, I told my other castmates that I didn't understand why they just didn't kill me and eat me. In fact, a castmate, Uma, told me that one of her friend's said, "That guy who played the lawyer, he must be a real jerk." To which Uma said that she told them, "No, he's really very nice." Which is an amazing things for an actor to hear...and maybe why non-actors have a hard time knowing how to compliment actors. And we were invited to perform the show again at the American Academy of Neurology's 60th Annual Meeting in 2008. You just never know where UTC61 will take you.

In the same year as Linguish, November 2006, I had the privilege of working on an original translation of The Memo by Vaclav Havel as part of UTC61's Havel Fest (did I mention we've done a number of festivals?) The Memo was my first introduction to President Havel's work and even more, to President Havel himself, as he was an audience member for one of our performances. I was at first confused why everyone else was running to the dressing room when the show was over...until I heard the former President of the Czech Republic had been in the audience and then I joined the running mob (it was a large cast) for him to sign my script as well. I've had the opportunity to meet Elie Wiesel (late '90s) and formed a theory then about truly great people; that theory was further cemented in meeting this playwright/world leader: a distinguishing characteristic of the truly great is their humility and appreciation of people. So not only do you not know where UTC61 will take you, but you don't know who will be brought to you by UTC61.

In December 2010, I was part of the Edward's original adaptation of the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis for Ridley Scott's movie, Blade Runner) by Philip K. Dick. I played Isidore. A shorthand way I described him was as "a radiation-affected moron" (which is actually kinder than the nickname given to him throughout the script, ie, "chickenhead", which was used to great delight during rehearsal by one of my castmates, Alex, who played Deckard. But underneath this bantering, and possibly to offset the necessary approach, was a great affection I felt for my character. Part of his backstory that led to these terms was that he is a man degraded by the radiation of the Earth's last world war to the point that his cognitive abilities are weakening and likely to grow weaker. But what I loved about him, and the way Edward had written him that fed into portraying him, was a sense of ever-present courage that expressed itself in optimism and perseverance. Of all the characters I've portrayed, I think I care most about Isidore. And that may be why it was also easy, and maybe necessary, to joke about him, because getting too caught up in pathos for one's character actually detracts from it. I wanted to honor the character by making sure he stayed a human being, who lusted and eventually fell in love with the android using him; who experienced anger and despair when he found out the philosophy upon which he based his whole life and hopes was a lie; who with all his limitations and the pain he experiences, ends the play sadder but maybe a little wiser. Which is a pretty amazing thing when you're degrading from the radiation around you. It was an honor to play Isidore, a transcendent experience for me as a performer, and I will be forever grateful to Edward and UTC61 for the opportunity.

Happy 20th Anniversary, Untitled Theater Company #61. As my relatives would say, "May you live to be 120, and never know a day of suffering."

20th Anniversary Memories: The Good Woman of Setzuan

Peter Brown in To Prepare a Hard Boiled Egg

Peter Brown, an actor who was with us from day one and has perhaps logged the most acting miles overall with the company, tells his memories of a very early production (our second in New York), The Good Woman of Setzuan.  I have often thought of revisiting it; I was very happy with the overall concept, though I would definitely tweak the audience interactive parts and probably bring in more music.

Of the many UTC61 productions I've had the pleasure to be part of over the past two decades, the one that's most distinctive for me is the 1994 staging of Brecht's (and Steffin and Berlau's) The Good Woman of Setzuan. I say "most distinctive" because it would be impossible to write about the most enjoyable one. There is none. They were all wretched experiences and I'm glad to...no. They were all highly enjoyable and fulfilling theatrical experiences, with Edward's trademark intelligence, humor, and deep trust of his actors unfailingly present. That goes for Good Woman, as well. Yet it was in Good Woman that I first encountered the kind of challenging thinking on Edward's part that would make UTC61 truly a "theater of ideas."

In a nutshell, Edward believed that in the many years since Good Woman's 1943 premiere, Brecht's so-called "alienation" techniques (actors directly addressing the audience, unflattering lighting, interrupting the action with songs) had become dull from overuse, and were no longer sufficient to accomplish Brecht's original intention of reminding the audience that they were watching a play, purposely disrupting the willful suspension of disbelief on which theater is based. Edward, in effect, sought to put the alienation back into Brecht. He conceived of a production of The Good Woman of Setzuan set on a bare black-box stage, with floor-tape outlines of the basic playing areas and a few simple wooden cubes for occasional furniture or levels. The lighting would be only the room's fluorescent lights, shining equally on stage and house, and the play's sixteen characters were to be played by five actors, in mildly distinctive rehearsal clothes, each wearing removable placards with the name of the character they were portraying at a given moment. As there are several scenes in which more than five characters appear, the name-placards would sometimes be hung on music stands literally "standing in" for the character, while the actor voicing the character moved from one stand to another (and from one voice and physicalization to another) as the dialogue of the scene required. In addition, at certain points in the play, the action would stop altogether and one of the five actors would address the audience directly, as him or herself, the actor, and offer extemporaneous thoughts or questions about the play and its ideas. The audience was encouraged to do the same, and not only at the pre-arranged pauses set by the director, but, ideally, whenever they felt so moved.

Now I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a thrill for the cast. We each got to play multiple parts, some voiced by different actors in different scenes. I think three of us played the Unemployed Man over the course of the play. And there was a lot of manic fun in having to shift, on a dime, from one music stand/character to another as the dialogue required. I imagine (hope) that for the audience it was a bit like watching the voice-over recording sessions for a really good animated TV series. Each of us also had at least one lead role which we alone played. The young pilot Yang Sun, Wong the water-carrier/chorus figure, Shu Fu the unctuous barber/capitalist. I, myself, played Shu Fu, as well as all three of the Gods as a sort of Robin Williams-ish schizophrenic having conversations with himself. Interestingly, Edward went against the only doubling up that Brecht himself had assigned, that of Shen Te and Shui Ta. The chief conceit of the play is in the soft-hearted prostitute Shen Te's creation of a hardass, male cousin alter-ego, Shui Ta, to save her fledgling tobacco shop from moochers and layabouts. Yet Edward had one actor play Shen Te, throughout, and another play Shui Ta.

Feeling alienated, yet? Some of the audience seemed to. I don't recall a performance of the run in which we didn't lose at least a few people at the intermission. The spontaneous talk-back they'd been encouraged to initiate didn't materialize, apart from a few brave attempts by Edward's dear brother David, a lawyer, who at one performance, stood up in the middle of a scene to ask if one of the characters needed a lawyer, and held out his business card. One of the actors, staying in character, grabbed the card and claimed it was "no good, here," tore it up, and continued with the scene. Another night, an actor, during his pre-arranged moment of addressing the audience, concluded his remarks by turning off the room's fluorescent lights, plunging the house into darkness, and leaving the stage bathed in the comparatively warm yellow wash of a couple fresnels that had been added for front-lighting. A cast member sitting next to me gasped quietly, the scene resumed, and for a moment it felt like the "real" play had begun, like Judy Garland first opening that door onto the full color land of Oz after the lengthy black-and-white intro...until Edward quietly walked to the back of the house and turned the fluorescents back on.

Looking back, though, I wonder if moments such as these were, in fact, the very lightning Edward was trying to capture in a bottle. Moments when the stark difference between the theatrical and the real, the planned and the unplanned, became abruptly evident. At the time, and for some years afterward, I had a stumbling block with Edward's concept in that it seemed to only be about the difference between theatrical realities. Theater about theater was still theater. If Edward, like Brecht, wanted to break through the easy sentiment of traditional narrative theater, and expose the emotional manipulation at the heart of theatrical performance, why not just write an essay? It seemed that we were fighting fire with fire.

Or maybe I just wanted more flattering lighting. The truth is, now, as I re-read the paragraphs above, I can't help but think, "That sounds like a really neat Good Woman of Setzuan."

Happy 20th, UTC61!

20th Anniversary Memories: Fairy Tales of the Absurd

A short story about Fairy Tales of the Absurd, by actor and Artistic Board member Uma Incrocci.


Fairy Tales of the Absurd played at the Ionesco Festival, FringeNYC and eventually Off-Broadway at Theater 80. I was lucky enough to be in all three productions. It was the best kind of children’s show, the kind that brings out the kid in everyone.

Once there was a girl who loved to do plays.

She read a newspaper called Backstage, where there were jobs for actors.

She answered an ad, and she felt very lucky, because she got a job in a play.

In this play, she got to play a little girl. A very little girl, who was less than three years old.

Since she was a big girl, the director (who is in charge of doing all the deciding for a play) decided that she would use a puppet to play the little girl.

This puppet was very cute. Her hair was made of yarn and her dress was pink and she had blue bows in her hair. The girl also wore a dress that was pink and had blue bows in her hair. Her hair was not made of yarn.

Together, the puppet girl and the real girl had many adventures. When they were together, their name was Josette.

The play was written by a man named Eugene Ionesco. He had a BIG imagination and saw the world in his own way. He liked to remind serious grown-ups that really, life can be pretty silly. The play was very funny and sweet, and in it Josette had a wonderful father who told her all sorts of wonderful stories, and a housekeeper who wore a flowered dress. There was an elevator ride, a moon made of cheese and a whole pile of dolls all named Jacqueline.

There was a time in September 2001 when the people of New York City were very sad. They were sad because the Twin Towers were destroyed and there was a hole left in all of their hearts. This was the same time when the play was happening. It was hard but all the actors and the director decided that the play had to go on – and the show made the children and their grown-ups who came to it laugh and it made them all feel just a little bit better.

Then, two years later, the girl got to be Josette again, this time in big celebration of many plays called the Fringe Festival. This time, the girl also got to be a Princess. This was not a frilly pink princess, but a princess from another planet whose face was blue. In the play, she grew another head! But in the end she grew to love her second head and there was a happy ending. And a talking pudding.

The people at the Fringe Festival loved it so much that the director had to make another decision. He decided that more people should see this play and get a chance to see the talking pudding.

The play moved to a bigger theater and all the actors in the play got to join Actors Equity. This meant that doing this play was finally a real job. This made the actors very happy, especially the girl. They got to do the show every night for many weeks and make all sorts of people laugh.

The sad thing about plays is one day they are over. The props and costumes get put away. Everyone hugs and says good-bye. But this is also one thing that makes plays so special.

Josette and the girl and the director and all the lovely people who worked on the show went out for a beer. They toasted to a wonderful play and hoped they would work together again soon. In fact, they did. There were many plays to come.

20th Anniversary Memories: Rudolf II

Yvonne Roen and Timothy McCown Reynolds in Rudolf II

Yvonne Roen, who played Katerina in Rudolf II, the mistress to the emperor and the mother to his children, writes about the experience.  You may also remember Yvonne from Pangs of the Messiah, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Velvet Oratorio, and many other UTC61 productions.

ALCHEMY

The first step into the theater at the Bohemian National Hall was marked by the sound of shoe leather hitting elegant parquet. The tap echoed against the high ceilinged walls and my eyes traveled to the airy crystal chandeliers. This room invites reverence. Here was enough space for epic lust. Here was enough space for war. Here was enough space for heartbreak. So when Edward Einhorn wrote a script that encompassed power, sex, religion, astronomy, art, and alchemy, within a crumbling empire, here was perfect. Edward had been working on Rudolph II for several years. I first saw it at a table read in 2005. I fell in love with the script and with Katerina, the role I read in it.

The script underwent revisions over the next few years. We finally had a public reading of the script in 2008. Timothy McCown Reynolds came to play the title role and Henry Akona signed on to direct. We staged another public reading, this time at BNH, and in March 2010 we finally got to bring the play to production in that amazing hall. Timothy is a supple and powerful actor. Henry applies fierce intellect, genteel manners, and a naughty wit to directing, and he led us beautifully through rehearsals. By the time we got there, Edward’s script was already strong and he made it stronger through the process. The rest of the company of actors, musicians, technicians, and designers brought life and beauty to each day of building and performing Rudolph II. That ballroom lived up to it’s possibility. Nightly, I eschewed the reverent tap of shoe leather and scampered barefoot through the back stairways and over the red carpet that defined our playing space, wearing nothing but a long, sheer, silk nightgown. It was perfect.

You may be sensing about now that this is a love letter, and, if you are, you are right. Building and performing Katerina von Strada is an unmatched pleasure in my career. I literally squealed with joy and gave Timothy a full body embrace upon entering the first rehearsal. I could not believe we were actually finally going to do this. My anticipation for this production was immense. UTC61 came together, matched my anticipation and then produced a show that outstripped it on every level. Rarely do I get the chance to spend years letting a script and a character grow in my mind. Rudolph II afforded me that opportunity. Katerina was sexy and intelligent, heartbroken, politically saavy. She  moved with the confidence of a woman in full control of her body and the care of a person whose lifelong residence at an empirical court had taught her the nuance and manipulations of all forms of politics. She was a mother, a lover, an artist. She was close to me in many aspects and she forced me to stretch for so many others. I’ve not felt sexier, smarter, more playful, and more bereft in any other role. Henry plotted a line between the emperor’s mistress, his intimate friend, the mother of his children, and the emperor’s loyal servant, subject to his laws and whims. Then he helped me navigate its curves. Timothy’s Rudolph rapidly switched from one side of that line to the other, speeding along the curves and forcing me to follow or perish. Eric Oleson’s Rumpf provided an avuncular ally in the politics while attempting to turn a blind eye to the sex. Joe Gately played Tycho Brahe’s crass jokes with appropriate self importance and dismissiveness. Jack Schaub’s Philip was always a threat even when I saw the only other person at court who could understand my position. I didn’t interact directly with either Adriana Disman or Shelley Ray who played Lisbuse and Elizabeth Jane Weston, respectively, but we shared a dressing room and like the male company were talented and generous partners.

That’s the thing about Rudolph II, everything about it was a partnership. We each did our part and the result was the stunning collective breath of a company. I cannot think about this show without recalling the feel of Carla Gant’s silk nightgown, or Candace and her nightly knock on the door asking if I needed help lacing my corset; remembering the sound of Katherine Boynton, Rosalynd Darling, Mike Hill, Parker Scott, Phoebe Silva, and Sandy York singing on the balcony above the stage, or their quartet of instruments punctuating a half lit sex scene; calling to mind Ian Hill carefully plotting lighting instruments to moodily illuminate a thirty foot run of carpet, without blinding the audience who sat tennis-court style on either side of the playing space. I think about the huge and richly draped bed that provided our only set piece and still marvel that it appeared and disappeared nightly so that the embassy could have its ballroom back. I remember Karen Ott bringing in reams of historical research and seriously reviewing it one moment then laughing at human nature and sex the next. Berit Johnson fully appreciating and participating in the vigor of work and gently reminding us, like a good stage manager, that we had a timeline to stick to. Tom Berger weighed in with questions, thoughts and excitement. Lindsay Carter, James Isaac, and Romo Hallahan always had a joke or wink or hand when needed. This was truly a collective. Each moment was the work of everybody. Edward Einhorn reached into history, churned it through his imagination, and produced a sheaf of papers in the form of a script. Little by little, each of us gave our bit of vitality to this idea. The collective breath filled it up and expanded it to full resonance until each tiny moment was big enough to fill a two-story ballroom. We created gold. I believe they call that alchemy.

20th Anniversary Memories: From Trav SD

Trav SD in Guardian Angel

"Downtown Impressario" Trav SD (as the reviews for seemed to always call him) tell his memories from the Havel Festival and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 

When I was in school, in response to a fellow student’s remark to my acting teacher (“Ya know, he [ -- meaning me --] writes too, he writes really good plays”), the professor’s reply was short and apparently intended to be definitive , if not downright possessive: “He ( -- meaning me -- ) should act”. Dan Van Bargen (Basic Instinct, O Brother Where Art Thou, etc etc) liked my performance in Sam Shepard’s Action so much he came over specifically to tell me so on two separate occasions. As Treplev in The Sea Gull, I produced the requisite weeping from the audience, and as Crow in Tooth of Crime, the intended heebie-jeebies.

It had always been my intention when I moved to New York to sort of pursue all my interests simultaneously. I would produce my own plays, and act in them, too, etc. And while I’ve begun to get traction in certain areas of this multi-headed (one might say monstrous) career, I’ve begun to realize that acting, as a career aspiration for me, has somewhat begun to languish. It’s not hard to diagnose the reason. I think of myself as a sort of plate-spinner, career-wise. While I’m busy twirling the sticks to keep these five plates going, unavoidably the sixth one over there starts to wobble. And, as a practical matter, acting has indeed wound up being about sixth on my list.

And then there are stumbling blocks. I won’t audition, and I don’t seek roles out. I either act in my own plays (almost two years since the last one, and who really kicks their own ass, I mean all the way? Not me, baby!), and when I’m not acting in my own shows, I’ll sometimes get cast in shows by colleagues, where the challenges tend to be less emotional and more mechanical (less ‘acting” in other words, than negotiating an obstacle course, at least that’s how it can seem.). The fact that I spend a good deal of my time on stage performing light entertainment in variety shows also probably reinforces the perception that that is what I “do”, or prefer to do, which isn’t the case at all.

But, for the record, I also act, can act, would like to act. I’d like to do more of it than I have been doing, at any rate.

A lengthy preface, but I include it to shed light on how happy I was on the two occasions I got to play roles in UTC61 productions. Although, for those who worked with me, “happy” may not be the word that first springs to mind. Because I’m not a full-time actor day-in, day-out all the year round, I took both assignments with an absurd amount of seriousness. The first occasion was in 2006’s Havel Festival, in a radio play called Guardian Angel, directed by Jeff Lewonczyck. I wrote about that experience on the festival’s blog at the time, so I won’t rehash it here, except to reiterate that it was a highly rewarding challenge…and somehow we actually managed to rehearse it (almost) enough to where I was comfortable in performance. The piece consisted of pages and pages of what were essentially monologues (with short interjections by my scene partner Richard Harrington). I like a lot of rehearsal under the best of circumstances, and we actually had more than the usual amount. It’s just that I had a phone book’s worth of lines. Anyway, whatever anxiety I had, I “used it” (as the acting gurus say), and I certainly hope I came across as psychotic as I actually felt.

Now, the more recent occasion, 2010’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was a bit of stunt casting. I’ve actually conducted hundreds of interviews on podcast and public access tv, which actually in some ways prepared me for the role. Edward Einhorn cast me as Buster Friendly, the smarmy, slightly Orwellian talk show host in an odd future when no one is certain who might be human, or what humanity even is. (The book gives a strong impression that Buster may be an android himself). At any rate, in this play I had a handful of lines for a combined total of about five minutes of stage-time (although I was onstage, not speaking, for a good bit of the play, as well).

You would have thought that this would be a “falling off a log” type assignment for me. But, NO! Whew, boy, I worried the hell out of that part. Initially, I had a grand idea to do Buster as David Frost, but with only a week or two of preparation, I chickened out on the English accent. You might think that that would be like throwing some ballast overboard, right? Smooth sailing after that? But, NO! I lived in constant terror that I would go up on my handful of lines. The script was never out of my sweaty hands for a minute during the run (except when I was onstage of course). I just stood alone backstage, running them, running them, running them. Then, in performance, I kept worrying about acting “truth”, which was probably the last thing in the world to fret about for this particular character, who was written as an insensitive phony. Only Edward can answer if he was expecting (hoping for) more slapstick and foolishness from me, but all I could think about was “Serious Play! Ideas! Opera! Important people in the audience!” In retrospect, I think I should have been more of a freight train, for, truth be known, that can be a vital aspect of acting too, though they do tend to beat that out of you in theatre school. Trying to harness that energy and keep it under control simultaneously can feel like busting like a bronco, sometimes.

Does that sound harrowing? It was! And you might think, “Well, what’s someone like you want to act for?” And all I can respond is, “Well, shit, it ain’t only me.” In 1995, I got to see F. Murray Abraham, Helen Mirren and Ron Rifkin do Turgenev’s A Month in the Country at the Roundabout Theater. By happenstance, I actually got to talk to Abraham in the lobby after the show. I spoke from the heart, “You were so great!” But he, a bundle of nerves and self-recrimination, was like, “Yeah? Really? No! No, man, I wish…I wish I could nail it, but I can never fuckin’ nail it, ya know? I just wish I could fuckin’ nail it.”

All that anxiety and pain comes from actually caring about what you’re doing. And I am immensely grateful to UTC61 for trusting me with some work that I cared that deeply about getting right.

20th Anniversary Memories: Doctors Jane and Alexander

For this entry, we have two actors from Doctors Jane and Alexander writing their memories of both the original one act and the full length version...and also a little of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and The Velvet Oratorio. First, Alyssa Simon, who played my mother, Jane:

In the winter of 2006, Ian W. Hill, the artistic director of GeminiCollisionWorks, cast me in Edward Einhorn’s Drs. Jane and Alexander for Untitled Theatre Company #61’s, NEUROFest, a theater festival of plays exploring neurological conditions. The only things I knew going in was that the play dealt with senile dementia and I would play Jane, a woman at three stages of her life; high-school age, adult and elderly. It was a fascinating script based on interviews Edward conducted with his mother, Dr. Jane Wiener Einhorn, after she suffered a stroke and subsequent verbal aphasia.

Her father, Dr. Alexander Weiner, together with his colleague Karl Landsteiner, discovered the RH factor in blood, crucial in curing Rh disease, a cause of infant fatality, and increasing the safety of blood transfusions. Jane, following in her father’s footsteps, became a doctor as well, in psychology, conducting experiments on children’s conceptions of ethics and honesty.

It was the first time I would play a role based on a person who was still alive, but I had no expectation of meeting her in her physical condition. She was wheelchair bound and her vocabulary was severely reduced since her stroke. My research came from my memories of my grandfather who had also suffered a stroke and my elderly neighbors with whom I grew up in North Miami Beach, Florida. We had about three performances under our belt when Edward announced his mother would be able to attend the show. Jane sat with her nurse in the front row.

In one section of dialogue I have with my son (played in the 2006 version by Jorge Cordova, Jason Liebman played the role in 2009), I reminisce about a wonderful friend I had for years. The character Jane can’t recall her friend’s name, but the real Jane reminded me, calling out her name from the audience. It was a very touching moment. In the 2009 version, Edward included the character of his brother, played by Peter Bean, who also comments on the action from the audience. I wonder if Jane inspired that as well.

And now Timothy Babcock, who played the other title character, my grandfather.  He exaggerates both his own difficulties with the piano and my grandfather's a little for comic effect...though I know the piano was a struggle.  Henry's arrangements are beautiful, but difficult.  I should probably have not put him through the pre-show, where he played some old tunes from the 20's and 30's, but I had such fond memories of my grandfather tinkling on those ivories.  He may have occasionally hit an off note (don't we all), but he had a true love for music...

Back in 2008 I did a solo show at the Fringe and the talented and charming Henry Akona saw me in it. He suggested that I audition for the upcoming production that UTC was planning, Doctors Jane and Alexander. Much to my pleasant surprise, I was cast as one of the titular characters, Dr. Alexander S. Wiener. I think one of the reasons Henry suggested I try out was because he knew I was a composer and, to a certain extent, pianist. At least he assumed that I was a pianist. And herein lies the significant first for this show. And it ain’t pretty. Dr. Alexander S. Wiener was a world-famous scientist (and grandfather to UTC61 Artistic Director and Founder, Edward Einhorn), and an amateur composer/pianist. I would be required to play the piano onstage, both as the pre-show music and as accompanist to the really challenging score Henry had arranged from the Doctors’ own compositions. I hadn’t played the piano in many, many years. I told Henry and Edward this, but both assured me that it would work well, since Wiener was not supposed to be a professional. I took the liberty of re-arranging some of Henry’s really great arrangements, so that I could at least accompany onstage without too much difficulty. That helped somewhat, for at least I only had to play small intros to the big chorus numbers that I was also a singer in. And the shorter, easier pieces I simply practiced and got down as best I could. But the pre-show music was a different matter entirely. My fellow cast mates and I were all onstage while the audience came in and Edward had me play songs of the era of his grandfather--great old standards from the 20’s and 30’s. I was awful. Really awful. I felt so bad--not just for my fellow cast members but for the audience as well. How were they to know that my character's piano play was supposed to have an...unaccomplished quality? Ideally when asked to perform something poorly, one is actually good enough to make it sound bad without it actually being bad. Not so with me. To this day I shake my head in shame at the poor poor job I did at being a bad piano player!

The other two memories are much happier ones.

Playing Mercer in the highly acclaimed Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was my first experience with live video feed. Actually with ANY video feed. And I got to work with a green screen for the pre-taped stuff, although I still wonder if the brilliant video designer Jared Mezzocchi really needed to have people throw fake rocks at me, or if he was doing it just because he could. Hmmm.

Finally, the very brilliant The Velvet Oratorio afforded me the distinct honor and pleasure of performing at both the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center and the beautiful Bohemian National Hall, fro the Czech Ambassador and other high-ranking dignitaries associated with the actual Velvet Revolution. Being a part of history is always pretty special.

SO, that’s my experience with UTC61. I should definitely add that, bad bad piano playing notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed working on Doctors Jane and Alexander, as I thoroughly enjoyed working on the two subsequent productions. Everyone I have encountered while working with the company have been not only fine actors, designers, directors and technicians but really, really great people to boot. And THAT is what makes doing theatre truly enviable and wonderful.

20th Anniversary Memories: Audience

Dan Leventritt, Václav Havel, and Scott Simpson after Havel visits the performance of Audience at the Havel Festival

I have directed Václav Havel’s play Audience twice.

The first time was as part of a double bill, which included Slawomir Mrozek’s Striptease.  It was my first production in New York, and I was not only director, I was stage manager, set designer, lighting designer, costume designer, tech crew and  box office.  The second time was as part of the Havel Festival, and Havel himself attended.  The first time the translation was by Vera Blackwell, and I had found it in a big stack of Samuel French scripts and taken a liking to it, somewhat at random.  The second time the script was by Havel friend Jan Novák, who had been commissioned to translate all of Havel’s Vaněk plays for the festival.  The first time we averaged about eight audience members a show.  The second time we had a relatively full house every night.

Both times, the Brewmaster was played by Dan Leventritt, who seemed to me to be made for the part. Dan’s performance in 1992 stuck so strongly in my memory that I knew I wanted no one else to play the part in 2006.

Audience, for those unfamiliar with it, is a two-hander that introduced the character Vaněk, an alter ego of sorts for Havel.  Like Havel, Vaněk is a playwright who is forced to work in a brewery because the government has declared that he can no longer work as a writer.  I have written a little about the character in my essay that introduces the book The Vaněk Plays (you can find that essay here)

When I first directed the play, I was new to New York. I borrowed money from my father and brother to rent a black box theater for two weeks, but had no money for any other aspect of the production.  We rehearsed Audience in Dan’s apartment on the Upper West Side, where I and the actor playing Vaněk, Moni Damevski, crowded in around a small table.  Fortunately, a small table was about all the play demanded.

Simultaneously, I was directing Striptease with an actor I knew from college, Jason Katz (who now uses the name Jason Harris), and an actor who had appeared in my New Jersey production of Artist Descending a Staircase, Peter Brown.  Both became good friends.  They were game enough to follow me into a little empty space I found that seemed unoccupied, somewhere in midtown.  After a couple of rehearsals, we found out why it was abandoned, when men in protective suits came in and told us they were there to remove the asbestos.

The set included a table (which I found in the theater) and two freestanding doors.  I created the lighting on my own one night during what I loosely called “tech week,” running between the light boot and climbing up ladders to approximate some very basic cues.  I recorded a toilet flushing and used some Michael Nyman music as our only sound cues, except for the mixtape I made for preshow and intermission.

A day before we went up, there were still no doors.  The morning before the first performance I called my friend Mike Nuzzo.  “Can you please help me?” I asked.

 

“Sure,” he said, always game to assist.  “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Curtain is in eight hours,” I said.

He drove in from New Jersey with two doors, and with the help of a little wood from Dykes Lumber, we somehow got them to stand.  When the actors arrived at 6pm, they expressed surprise that we had been able to set up the doors at all.

My brother David, who besides being our major funder/cheerleader was a stagehand/puppeteer for Striptease (there were two giant hands that needed manipulation), came in and learned his part in the hour or so remaining.  Then we opened.

Fourteen years later, at the Ohio Theater, Václav Havel sat in the audience and watched Dan and our new Vaněk, the wonderfully talented Scott Simpson, perform the show.  Afterwards he congratulated Dan and Scott, and I introduced him to our terrific stage manager, Taylor Keith, and the rest of our staff.

It was another small theater in New York, but it was a long journey between the two productions. And I am proud to say, Havel was pleased.

20th Anniversary Memories: Cat's Cradle and Tom Berger

 -->

Guest blogger Tom Berger writes about his memories of UTC61/Cat's Cradle.  Do you have fond memories/scathing exposés that you can write about on the occasion of our 20th anniversary?  Please, write them!

Tom Berger choreography in action, as Timothy McCown Reynolds, Darius Stone, Horace Vincent Rogers and cast get ready to perform the boka-maru

 It’s hard to condense my feelings about UTC61 into one document; it’s hard even to take a step back and think of my experience as a separate section of my life. The incredible artists I encountered, the brilliant texts and music I worked with and the overall experience was wonderful. But I think my main love of the company stems from the broader push for new ideas and inspiring debate that is the crux of its existence, and the heart of why it’s important to me.

                  I worked with Edward and Henry for many years and in many capacities but I suppose I have to pick one project, so it might as well be my first. An interesting ad popped up on Playbill; a company was looking for someone able to assistant direct, assistant music direct and possibly choreograph a musical adaptation of Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. A strange combination of skills, to be sure, but I always say that what I lack in talent I make up for in versatility (in other words, why do one or two things really well when you can do nine or ten things mediocrely?) [EDITOR'S NOTE: Tom's contributions are far from mediocre]. I submitted, scheduled a phone interview with the aforementioned Messrs. Einhorn and Akona, and picked up the book. It was nice to return to Vonnegut after a long absence and, of all his work, I feel that Cat’s Cradle makes the most sense to musicalize, as so little of his work was linear in a theatrical sense.

                  I got the gig, and was plunged into a room with some of the most terrifyingly intelligent people I’ve ever met. It was an eye-opening experience for me; as much as I’d done some scrappy Indie theatre (and ran a not-too-shabby company myself for five years) and liked to think of myself as a fellow of intelligence and broad interests, I was in a room of brilliant and passionate artists, who truly knew from where they spoke (I personally just fake it most of the time and amp up the charisma). But even with the ridiculous IQ points around the table, they were always open to new ideas and made sure that everyone’s input was carefully considered. As I dove into contributing what little I could to Edward’s wonderful libretto and Henry’s scintillating music, I began to realize something shocking – I was not only being listened to when I feebly popped in my two cents, I was being actively solicited for my opinion by pretty much everyone in the room. I had been under the impression that they needed a musical theatre hack to fill in the blanks and I was there just to make with the dance-y / musical instrument-y stuff.

                  And the rest was history, as they say (or will be, I’m sure, when the annals of theatre history will be written and we’ll all be fondly remembered as pinnacles of the age; right? Right?). By what is most likely my wildly inaccurate ballpark, I worked with the company on something like eight or nine shows over the next couple of years, as well as helping to run the International Jewish Theater Festival of Ideas and joining the Board. The running joke in the company was “If Henry and Edward had a love child…” I can think of no greater compliment.

                  Your success as an artist is only the sum of what you’ve absorbed from the artists who have touched you. With UTC61, I found an artistic home away from home, brilliant collaborators who challenged me every day, pieces that juuuuust stretched me beyond my comfort level (in a positive way) and friends for the rest of my life. I hope that, via quantity if not quality, I was able to give something back to this amazing group of artists in breathless gratitude for everything they have given me. Happy Anniversary, Untitled Theater Company #61.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Many thanks, Tom Berger.  Hopefully more to come about Cat's Cradle soon, where we make a full length calypso musical with a cast of 20+ actors/singers/musicians!]