Creativity = Success

Imagination Stage has long known that the arts work with the body, voice, mind and imagination in such a way that students benefit at home, in school, or on the stage. In fact, students find success long term no matter what career choices they make.

Whether you're reading Richard Florida's RISE OF THE CREATIVE CLASS or Daniel Pink's A WHOLE NEW MIND, the writing is on the wall -- creativity will drive the future of our economy, society, and personal lives.

For example, this morning I was reading an article about a Washington DC-based researcher working across the country to explore how creativity will affect the economy. "Forty percent of new jobs in the next 15 years will require skills that our current work force does not have . . . We need workers with basic skills and the ability to be creative . . ." (read full article at: http://newsok.com/work-force-researcher-to-explore-how-creativity-will-affect-economy/article/3285948/?tm=1219200109)

Those of us who have worked for years in arts management know that creative thinking solves problems much faster than old, industrial age models. And, creative thinking is fueled through arts training and exposure from an early age (more articles and data support this, available through Champions of Change published by the Department of Education or Americans for the Arts - www.americansforthearts.org).

Change may be hard, but at least the change to the 'conceptual age' promises to be creative and fun.

Brett

Casting and our 2008-2009 Season

I am often asked where the actors come from who perform at Imagination Stage. Many people assume that because we are a theatre for young audiences that our company is made up of children. And while we do have a thriving education program that teaches acting, dance, singing and film to more than 3,000 children (ages 1-18) each year, our professional theatre is just that—a regional theatre that hires university trained, professional actors who are based in the Washington, DC area. Each year an organization called The League of Washington Theatres (LOWT) sponsors five full days of auditions for union and non-union actors. Artistic leaders and casting directors from more than 80 local theatres and agencies gather at the Round House Theatre to watch hundreds of actors perform for 2 minutes each. We sit there in the dark making notes on each resume, grading each performer, and making a special pile of the people who seem right for the shows in our upcoming season. LOWT tries to keep all the auditors in a good mood by providing delicious snacks throughout the day!

Casting for each new season then starts in early spring. We create a list of actors we know who seem right for a particular show and then add in anyone we found from the LOWT auditions. If the show is a musical, we ask each candidate to prepare “16 bars” for the Musical Director. This is the first cut. If an actor cannot sing the part for a musical role, it would not matter how well they read for the role. Singing is a talent and a skill that cannot be taught during a short 3-week rehearsal period! Once the capable singers are identified, the director calls this group in to read “sides.” These are short scenes from the play. The actors perform them in a variety of combinations. Sometimes an actor is asked to read for more than one role or to read the same scene with many different partners. How do the directors make the decision about whom to cast? That’s the million dollar question and not easy to answer. Washington is blessed with a wealth of talent. After each audition, I talk with my colleague Kate Bryer about which of the people we’ve seen could play a role. We are keen to make our casts inclusive and diverse but at the same time want to cast the best person for each role. Me, I never make any offers until I sleep on it. When I wake up in the morning I have generally made a decision. This is my dream cast! Or, wait a minute, I still haven’t seen the right person for a particular role. And we go back to the files, talk to people in the office about what we’re looking for and get a new list to audition.

At this point I’m happy to say that the first 5 shows for the 08-09 season are cast. Veteran local actress Helen Hedman (Olney Theatre Center) will be playing Miss Nelson in Miss Nelson is Missing, during the holiday season; Tara Giordano and Terrence Currier (Arena Stage) will star as Heidi and Alp in our new adaptation of Heidi in spring 09; Paige and Nick Hernandez will both participate in our hip hop show Zomo the Rabbit: A Hip-Hop Creation Myth—Paige as an actress/dancer and her brother as the DJ/Composer. We’re also proud to welcome Tami Lee Santimyer, a graduate of Gallaudet and most recently seen at the Kennedy Center in Marlee Matlin’s Nobody’s Perfect, for Playing from the Heart in November.

We’re are excited about bringing these artists and many others to our stage and audience. And we extend a loving embrace to all the extraordinary talent in the Washington, DC area. There are never enough roles to go around for all the actors who deserve them.

JS

Andrew Sonntag's Experience Playing Atreyu in THE NEVERENDING STORY

THE RESEARCH

After reading the novel, I approached this work first as a storyteller. What makes this adventure special is that it is really about every adventure, and the conflict becomes not one of "life and death" as is quoted so often in the script, but really one of being and nonbeing. It is about the future of stories and the nature of reality. So in the weeks before rehearsals began I went back to the mono-myth, studied again "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell, and became determined to find out why the play needed a hero at all, and why the play needed to be created and produced in the first place. It's a book every storyteller, in any aspect, should read. Here's a bit from the beginning that deserves to be quoted at length:

"There are of course differences between the numerous mythologies and religions of mankind, but this is a book about similarities; and once they are understood the differences will be found to be much less great than is popularly (and politically) supposed. My hope is that a comparative elucidation may contribute to the perhaps not-quite disparate causes of those forces that are working in the present world for unification, not in the name of some ecclesiastical or political empire, but in the sense of human mutual understanding"

Atreyu is, as heroes so often are, incredibly naïve and overconfident at the start. Even after failing again and again, it isn't until he loses Artax (who acts as not just a companion or friend, but as Atreyu's superego) that he is forced to come into being. In the book he considers letting himself die, but carries on. It is this decision that truly is his "manhood test," which he waited for his whole life before being called to the Great Quest.

He is called to this adventure to find a cure for the Childlike Empress. In the book she is said to be "the beginning of all things," and if she dies, the boundless universe in which Atreyu exists ('imagination' if you like), will cease to exist. And still, with this burden, Atreyu, as the archetypal hero, deals with his own great quest, as we all do: one of purpose. In the play, this comes to a peak at the Sphinx Gate, whose riddle is manifest in the question, "What is the Great Quest when I look out at all those stars?" This is a test of will and perspective, and boils down to "why do I exist?" He doesn't find an answer, but rather a state of mind, which serves as a solution. Like Sisyphus (as understood by Camus), it isn't that he finds a purpose, but a will. He thumbs his nose at the gods and keeps pushing, in spite of everything telling him that his existence is worthless, and hinting that he may not even exist at all.

So that's a very small bit of background about how I approach things (I also recommend doing your etymology work, but I will pass to try and keep this short).

THE PROCESS: "It is fun to play a hero."

As for the actual acting process, Janet helped me find a way to let all of the above serve me in a real way. I had done so much work figuring out who Atreyu is that I had lost something in translating it to the stage. Janet's best piece of advice was this, "Ultimately, Atreyu is stuck with you. Not the other way around." I stopped worrying about every last detail and let myself grow into the role (or let the role grow into me I guess).

It is fun to play a hero. I didn't get to create fantastic voices and creatures like my fellow actors, but I learned a lot from them. Eventually I found a solution to my own Sphinx Gate within the process. We're coming up on 60 shows—ten just this week, but it doesn't get old (I hear Carl laughing at me somewhere in the back of my head). We do get tired, but we keep it fresh, and even better, the audience keeps it fresh (gasps, screams, laughs, and even one time a young boy declaring "AAFFRIICCAA!" at the top of the show). You never know what to expect.

I want to express thanks to my fellow actors. I learned from them every day, on and off the stage, and I still am. They are all phenomenal people in some very surprising and beautiful ways. The show will close this week, but we won't start saying goodbye until the story is told one final time.

Behind the Scenes of AS YOU LIKE IT

The Midsummer Shakespeare Company performed As You Like It in July. The teen company had lots of fun on stage and back stage. The Director, Madeleine Burke, set the play in 1930s Louisiana and has this to say about it:

Directors notes
by Madeleine Burke (pictured to the right with Katie Le Dain).

Every summer I am delighted by the journey that these student-actors and I take exploring one of Shakespeare's great plays. I am always thrilled by the discoveries and choices made and how perceptive the students are and how invested they become in the text and in the world of the play. This year, I decided we would visit Arden and delve into As You Like It. When choosing a concept for one of Shakespeare's plays, I think it is important to not impose on the text, but to find an environment and time that will speak to the themes and will allow the play to be flexible. I chose to set the play in the deep South in the 1930s, partly because I felt a resonance of Southern Gothic in the tangled relationships of Duke Senior and Duke Frederick (Duchess Francesca and Duchess Frederica in our production) as well as in that of the troubled brothers Orlando and Oliver. Two pairs of brothers in conflict and both pairs redeemed by the end of the play. I also wanted to find a green world that was beautiful, mysterious, idyllic and also dangerous -- and I thought the bayous of Louisiana would stand in perfectly for my vision of Arden. Music was also very important to creating the world of our play -- from the frenetic Dixieland jazz of the court to the traditional American folk songs of the pastoral world.
At its heart, As You Like It is about the discovery of love -- and love in many forms. Duchess Frederica has a twisted love for her daughter; Celia is the model of selfless love for a friend (and yet is very suspicious of romantic love); Silvius suffers unrequited love for his Phebe and Rosalind and Orland fall in love at first sight. But, what is remarkable about the play is that Rosalind is not content with love at first sight and she tests Orland to see if he can move beyond his picture of idealized love into a more truthful comprehension of what marriage and love entails. In this production, the student-actors were in agreement that Orlando's journey is as complex as Rosalind's and that he has a real choice to make, once he realizes that Ganymede is Rosalind. Is Rosalind's disguise and her testing of his love a deal-breaker for him? We decided that Orlando makes that realization well before the last scene of the play -- giving him the opportunity to decide whether this Rosalind should be 'his Rosalind.' Rosalind, Celia, Orlando and Oliver go through profound changes by their travels into Arden -- as are all of us who took this 5 week journey with them.

Backstage with the cast (left: the women of As You Like It; right: Celia and Orlando )







On stage in performance: (left to right & below) Orlando with the Duchess, Orlando at Court meeting Rosalind and Celia, Rosalind as Ganymede in the Bayou.

SOME NEVERENDING STORY PHOTOS

Photos by Scott Schuchman
Eribo arrives on the scene, angry at the overly large visitors



Artax and Atreyu struggling in the swamp

Atreyu receives his mission from the Childlike Empress

Atreyu being followed by Gmork

Developing New Plays for Imagination Stage

New plays are the life blood of live theatre. Our culture and priorities change so quickly nowadays that even versions of classic stories written two decades ago feel out-dated. The female characters are too passive, or the action too violent, or the messages too pat to speak meaningfully to today’s young people and families. That’s why at Imagination Stage we are always working on four or five new plays at a time. Each new commission is different. Sometimes we have an idea and go to a particular playwright with it and other times a playwright comes to us with an idea. That was the case with THE NEVERENDING STORY. Toronto-based playwright David S. Craig obtained the English-speaking theatrical rights to Michael Ende’s novel while working on another project in Germany. Because the Ende estate commands considerable respect internationally, David needed to promise its agent two productions at leading American Theatres for Young Audiences. I called up my counterpart at the Seattle Children’s Theatre, Linda Hartzell, and suggested that we share the premiere of the play and open it on both coasts in the same season. The fantasy novel turned out to be a favorite of Linda’s only son. She was not hard to convince!

And, as a seasoned playwright, David was not hard to work with. Once the commission was negotiated, he holed himself up on a beach in some South American country for a month to write the first draft. I then met with David and the Linda in Seattle to talk about how to maximize the dramatic elements of the story. The threat of the evil Gmork and The Nothing needed to be established early in the play and build to a climax. David’s second draft was not as faithful to the book but it was a much improved vehicle for the stage. Then when Seattle opened the first production last holiday season, I met David out there again, we talked at length about the production choices there which were, of necessity, very different from what Imagination Stage was planning. The Seattle Children’s Theatre has 600 seats (as opposed to the 380 we have) and the stage is a traditional proscenium, or picture frame stage (as opposed to the thrust that we have). David and I also talked about some possible adjustments to the script that would work better in Bethesda. David arrived about midway through our June 08 rehearsal process and jumped in immediately to make several cuts since the show was running long, and to make line adjustments that helped our particular production. David was ultimately very pleased with Imagination Stage’s production of his show. At his encouragement the artistic directors of two other TYA theatres have traveled from Milwaukee and Tempe to check out how we have solved some tricky staging problems. It is above all gratifying to know that a play that Imagination Stage helped to give birth to is already scheduled to have at least one more year of life at numerous other theatres across the USA next season.

Julie Garner, actor, on 4 characters and even more puppets

I officially play four characters in the show, but it adds up to NINE if you count all the ones for which I make a contribution (aka, Ygramul, Vooshvazool, the Nothing, etc.). I'd have to say the most challenging and rewarding characters for me throughout this process are Morla and Urgl, even though I am hidden behind the puppet and the mask, respectively. There was an intense amount of experimentation that went into fine-tuning these characters -- their movements and characterization. I'm virtually blind while "operating" these characters, but they always illicit squeals and giggles from the audience, and that is very gratifying.

I think the best reason to act in a show is to try something totally different from yourself and to expand the variety of your craft as a performer. The Neverending Story let me accomplish both. Never before have I had to incorporate so many different skills in the same show. Character variety, puppetry, masks, movement, quick changes and ensemble work are not foreign to me, but layering them on top of one another was an exhilarating challenge. Then to layer the expertise of Janet (director), Leslie (movement) and Eric (puppeteer) on top of my own experience was to create a new perspective for each moment on stage.

The technical ambition of this show was enough to alter any actor's typical "process." For example, when I should have been contemplating "what is the bully's super-objective?" I was thinking, instead, "What are the changes I'll fall down if I try to zip my pants and put both arms through a book bag while going down a spiral staircase?" Once the show opened (and I had successfully flirted with this quick-change disaster), I finally began to relax into the natural rhythms of that particular character.

Making this experience even more memorable is the ensemble of actors, directors, designers, and technical crew at Imagination Stage. There is a sense of trust that makes this magic possible. I trust Janet's artistic vision; I trust that the trap doors will open and close safely; I trust that every actor in the show will play each moment to its fullest potential; and, of course, I trust that every person of every age sitting in the audience will leave our theatre entertained and inspired by The Neverending Story.