Hey, you! Come see my show.

By Liam Billingham

I shouldn't say my show. It's more like OUR show. It's called “Human Fruit Bowl,” and it involves a whole buncha rockin' ladies (like Harmony Stempel, Andrea Kuchlewska, and Liz English) and me, a dude, putting together this piece about nude modeling. Yea, NUDE modeling. Pretty awesome, right? NUDE. Oh, yea, it's also about post- impressionist painters and the relationship between the model and the painter and your body and my body and our bodies, but mostly it's about nudity. Isn't everything?

Find out more about "Human Fruit Bowl" at the soloNOVA website: http://www.terranovacollective.org/current.html

That's right. I wrote a solo show.

By Jennifer Lane

Photo by Jennifer Lane

It's overcast in San Diego and I was on a plane for nine hours yesterday. I was pretty sure that they'd passed some law about how long they could make you just sit on the tarmac but we were most certainly there for going on three hours before we took off. It was a turbulent ascent, which pissed me off largely because there was interference on the screen of the in-flight entertainment system so I couldn't properly hear or see the rerun of “How I Met Your Mother” that I was trying to enjoy. But the reason I am telling you all this is because I'm exhausted and jet-lagged and it's overcast in California and I am on a deadline.

So, I wrote a solo show. You should come see it. Here are the reasons you should come see it: One - It is exceptionally well-acted. Two - it is beautifully directed. Three - The music is stunning. Four - the video elements are heart-breaking and exquisitely edited. And Five - this is unlike anything I have ever done before. But perhaps most importantly you should come see it to tell me whether or not I did my job right. That is to say, if you start thinking about the nature of God and the Universe, if after the show you get a drink with a friend and start discussing faith versus reason and the implications of their intersections, if you are trying desperately to wrap your brain around the idea that time started with the Big Bang, then good for me, I've done it right.

I was thinking about it again on the flight over here, why I set out to write a piece like this. I was looking out the window at a sky bruised with rainclouds -- rainclouds buzzing with electricity that interfered with my in-flight entertainment -- and I realized that it's a way to reach out. To connect. To get into people's heads the things that are constantly rattling around in mine."

Want to see Jennifer's play, "Convergence"?  Visit the website to find out more: http://www.terranovacollective.org/current.html

That's right, I wrote a solo show.

By Adam Szymkowicz

Photo by Erica Min

When I say I have a solo show going up people ask me if I’m in it.  Let me be clear.  I wrote a solo show for someone else.  I will not be in it.  This is not my tell-all autobiographical show about my time working for Tyler Perry.  (I signed a confidentiality agreement.)  It’s not a play about my childhood, which, let’s face it, wasn’t particularly interesting.

Instead I wrote a show for an actor/director I love named Daniel Irizarry.  He is, to put it mildly, a movement genius and a highly watchable man.  I’ve been wanting to work with him for years since we went to grad school together but I couldn’t figure out how to cast him in any of my plays so finally, I wrote one for him.

Daniel plays UBU, The King of The Great Expanding Universe and an UBer-CEO.  In the play, we watch him eat steak.  (It’s fun to watch him eat steak, I promise.)  He’ll also do a lot of other things, some of them disgusting, all of them electric.  There is a puppet, some poetry, swordfighting, music.  About what you would expect from a play very loosely based on Ubu Roi but fixed in a world with an alternate visual vocabulary.  It’s pretty crazy.  I’m having a great time watching it all happen and I think you will too. "

Find out more about UBU here: http://www.terranovacollective.org/current.html

Hey, you! Come see my show.

By Mark Sam Rosenthal
Photo by Evan Schwartz

Sorry to just say “you” instead of calling you by name, but I really can't remember what your name is! I'm sure you can't really understand what it's like to live life, as I do, in the public eye: surrounded by admirers, buffeted by tens of forgettable introductions each week. But try. Fame can be truly overwhelming and, at the end of the day, if all that slips through my grasp are a few unimportant names I'd say I'm doing pretty good! Of course I am - I'm the one who's famous after all.

Now that that's out of the way, “can we talk?” Some other famous person used to say that, but I can't remember her name either! Anyways, she's old. I'm reading from my celebrity autobiography in the soloNOVA Arts Festival (and still hoping to attract a publisher!), and I'm just desperate for you to be there. Desperate! I can assure you there is nothing more edifying happening in Christopher Street in early June - certainly not so close to the PATH station. (Feel free to cross to the south side as you pass!) The show really has it all - beginning and ending with me! I should stop there. But I'll go on ill-advisedly to say that, as many have reported from past performances, mine is just about “the only show to make AIDS and 9/11 fun again!” That's a quote.

Find out more about I Light Up My Life: The Mark Sam Celebrity Autobiography at the soloNOVA website: www.terranovacollective.org/current.html

Hey, you! Come see my show.

By Padraic Lillis
Photo by Betsy Waddell

Hi, I'm Padraic Lillis, director of Kelly Kinsella's one woman show “When Thoughts Attack.”  The play is fucking hilarious.  I offered to write this for Kelly because she's writing, producing, acting, and doing everything else. The show is about Anxiety. True anxiety. And Kelly comes by it honestly. And shares it with great humor. More humor than I have. But since this article has to get done by today, I thought it best that I write it. Because if Kelly has to do it there's a chance by the end of writing it she might be doing a different show entirely. Seriously, it takes her six pages to almost order lunch; which is honest, hilarious, and gives me gratitude not to be part of the wait staff.  And Kelly is a genius performer. Oh, and if you are genius perfomer, or always wanted to perform, you should come to the show. If only because if “When Thoughts Attack” gets to be too much for Kelly, well, maybe you'll be needed to finish the show. I hope not. Because the play is hilarious and so is she. So, I hope you'll come see the play.

Find out more about "When Thoughts Attack" and the soloNOVA Festival here: http://www.terranovacollective.org/current.html

That's right, I wrote a solo show

By James Harrison Monaco

I picked this headline (of the three that were offered) because it's only partly true.  The byline on this play, “Reception,” is mine, and the fast stream of words I say during it (it's a full-length fictional story-telling show) are also all mine. But in building this show, actually sitting down and writing was never part of the process.  I improvised in the room, only ever building the words in connection with the physical performance.

Many people I've talked to after previous runs of the show at HERE and at The Tank have been intrigued by this -- I'd been performing the full show for months before I ever wrote down a word of it (and the word count, as I later found out, is around 15,000).  When I eventually did write down the script, I just watched a video of the show and transcribed it.

Reception is a show where I simultaneously make rhythmic music with my body and voice (I'm a drummer) and orally tell a fictional story with many characters about a wedding reception on Long Island (I'm a fiction writer).  The goal building it was always that the language and its delivery be rhythmic and musical, and that the music I'm making throughout be active, take on literal meaning, and tell a narrative story.

All that's to say in making this show I've been trying to fuse live music, live theater, and fictional narrative into one, inseparable form.  I only ever ʺwroteʺ out loud and on stage because I didn't want the words and the music to be two different things.  The hope is that this allows a show with just a performer and a chair to, in a way, end up feeling large, spacious, innovative, and visually captivating.  My favorite fiction writers (and this show is in many ways a live book) are or were all trying to make their writing work like music -- Joyce, Proust, Sebald, Marías, Woolf, Fitzgerald, Stein, others.  I'm trying to tag along in my own way, with live performance thrown in the mix.

Come and check it out and you can let me know how well it's succeeding.  I would appreciate the help in figuring this out.

Find out more about James and "Reception" here: www.terranovacollective.org/current.html.

Baby Redboots' Revenge : Avante Vaudeville

By Anne Meighan and Philip-Dimitri Galas
Photography and graphic design by Anne Meighan

Whatever happened to...whatever happened to....Baby Four Strings?

You might be surprised to hear that former child star Baby Four Strings (the one that starred next to Baby Redboots on the stage and in pictures...they were adorable!) is still alive and ready to present his audience with a pop-culture iconoclasm, a performance so great it will ghostbust all performance demons of the past, present and future. Hipper than trans-modernism.  Cornier than science. Give me a one-two-three, Baby is going to shatter his own myth and perform as someone else ENTIRELY!

Baby Fourstrings’ manifesto: Theatre of Revenge. Baby plays Gasoline and the stage plays Flame. The explosion is unforgettable.

Intrigued?  Find out more about "Baby Redboots' Revenge" and the rest of the shows at the soloNOVA Arts Festival by clicking here: http://www.terranovacollective.org/current.html.

SoloNOVA Festival Day 1 - "Santa Claus Is Coming Out" and "Woman of Leisure and Panic"

By Byrne Harrison

This year, I kicked off my SoloNOVA Festival experience with Jeffrey Solomon's Santa Claus Is Coming Out, a documentary-style piece set after the incident known as "Santa-gate."  It all started with a little boy who wanted a doll for Christmas and ended with the most famous celebrity of all, Santa Claus, coming out of the closet.  Fashioned as a documentary, Solomon's play features interviews with those closest to Santa - among them, his long-time beard, Mrs. Claus; his agent; one of his elves; and even his Italian boyfriend.

Santa Claus Is Coming Out isn't exactly what you might expect.  It's not camp.  It's not mean-spirited.  Ultimately it's a charming story about a boy learning who he is, and an icon coming to terms with the effect, naughty or nice, that his living a lie has on the people around him.  If he tells the truth, will people accept him, or will Christmas be over forever?

Solomon is a pleasure to watch as he creates the many, many characters who fill his play.  He is so convincing that it comes as a bit of a surprise when there is only one man taking bows at the curtain call.  Director Joe Brancato is completely in sync with Solomon and does a great job with the material.

A well-done piece about love and acceptance, Santa Claus Is Coming Out provided an excellent start to SoloNOVA.

My second show for the day was Charlotte Bydwell's Woman of Leisure and Panic.  I'm always a little concerned when I hear about a show that deals with the difficulties of being a young artist in New York City.  Often these pieces are self-indulgent and obvious, dealing superficially with well-worn subject matter.  Bydwell's play is a pleasant surprise.  Yes, she does cover some familiar territory - the seeming futility of the audition process, the difficulties of dating, the soul-sucking subsistence jobs.  Bydwell's hook is that she approaches her show both as an actor and dancer.  Emotional moments in the play are often punctuated by dance in clever and unique ways, heightening the effect the scene has on the audience.

Much of Woman of Leisure and Panic deals with time - how to make time for work, auditions, family, friends, dating, and everything else - and whether we control our calendar or our calendar controls us.  It's pretty clear that the calendar always has the upper hand in this play, but as Bydwell cleverly hints at the end of the show, maybe she doesn't really mind it that much.

Woman of Leisure and Panic was a nice surprise, as was Charlotte Bydwell.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of her work in the future.

Santa Claus Is Coming Out
Written and Performed by Jeffrey Solomon
Directed by Joe Brancato

Woman of Leisure and Panic
Created, Choreographed and Performed by Charlotte Bydwell
Dramaturgy by Carlye Eckert
Costume Design by Erica Evans

SoloNOVA Festival Interview - Joseph Keckler of "JOBZ"

By Byrne Harrison

Joseph was born in Michigan, and grew up in one of several tiny towns that begin with the letter P and slowly orbit the relative metropolis of Kalamazoo (completing a full circle once in a human lifetime.) Joseph spent his early life inside his mind, before moving out of it as a teenager to wander the aisles, late-night, of the local 24hr Walmart, and lollygag in the basement dwellings of self-proclaimed warlocks, waiting in vain for them to levitate scraps of paper.

He attended the University of Michigan, where he trained as a painter and an opera singer, graduating at the top of his class. He immediately moved to New York City to establish himself as a singer, performance artist, and avant-monologist.

What is your theatrical background?

I studied visual art, and I also trained in voice. In calling what I do theater I feel that I'm an impostor -- as though my mask will be pulled off at any moment, like a Scooby Doo villain, and that I'll be revealed as... well, I don't know what. I will say that I have been writing for performance for a number of years, using performance as a laboratory and party zone in which I can combine different artistic elements in whatever way I see fit. I've written a number of plays, and a lot of solo pieces, both short-form and full-length.

I've done quite a bit of acting as well. I've been in operas, plays, and even done commercial work.I love it, but again, I didn't set out to be an actor.

How did you get involved in the solo format?

I studied both performance and writing under Holly Hughes. I might not be performing original text if it weren't for her. I found myself particularly drawn to the form, and to the way Holly presented it, because of a certain deep sense of inclusion -- the notion that anyone could be a performance artist, and that any medium could be brought into performance.

I continue to use myself in my work because I'm portable, available, somewhat reliable, and cheap. I've trained myself to do the things I want done on stage. Reciprocally, I've tailored my work to my strange and diverse set of skills.

Who are your inspirations?

I admire all sorts of artists, dead and alive. Truthfully, I am most strongly inspired by intense, dramatic singers. Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Marian Anderson, David Bowie, Bessie Smith, Jimmy Scott, Poly Styrene...

Tell me a little bit about your show.

The subject matter is low-level day jobs I've held in the New York arts world. I've worked in a gallery, a museum, a music bootleg operation... The show is about being a young artist in New York, identity formation -- don't worry, I won't say "finding yourself". It's a mediation on fantasy in daily life, the creative impulse, and the desire to escape -- from a job, a body, a situation. I named the show JOBZ, because I got a kick out of how awful and absurd it sounded to me. Now I'm trapped in it, which is sort of like being trapped in all those day jobs and having to find a way to exist within them.

The show is made up primarily of storytelling and monologue, with some sung sections also. Dan Bartfield plays fantastic live violin in the show, and my director Josh Hecht and I have been working closely with sound-wizard Rob Kaplowitz, who designed FELA! and many other things, to create an intricate score for the piece.

If you could get any person (living or dead, famous or not) to come see your show, who would you choose?

Someone from the middle ages. They would be sure to be blown away, if only by the sight of electricity, and the power point cues in my show.

What's next for you after soloNOVA?

I'm premiering a new piece, A Voice and Nothing More, in Amsterdam in September and working on music projects and a collection of stories.

JOBZ
Written & Performed by Joseph Keckler
With violinist Dan Bartfield
Directed by Josh Hecht
WORLD PREMIERE

MAY 21 and 24 at 7pm
MAY 22 at 2pm
MAY 26 at 9pm
MAY 28 at 4pm

SoloNOVA Festival Interview - Desiree Burch of "Tar Baby"

By Byrne Harrison

Desiree Burch is a New York-based solo performance artist, comedian, writer, actress and producer. She earned a B.A. in theater from Yale University in 2001, and continued her theater education in New York, performing at such venerable downtown venues such as Dixon Place, P.S. 122 and The Atlantic Theater, as well as with experimental companies like NYU’s E.T.W. and Gorilla Rep. She honed her cabaret emcee performance aesthetic as the host and curator of the weekly alt-performance series SMUT at Galapagos Art Space. Desiree’s previous full-length solo performances include Greatest Hits, Careless and The Sit Down Show. Her hit solo piece 52 Man Pickup has visited numerous theatres and festivals, including the Edinburgh Fringe.

What is your theatrical background?

My first play was Our Town, my junior year of high school (I played the Stage Manager). From there, after being actively involved in theater programs productions and regional competitions in high school, I attended Yale University and received a BA in Theater Studies.  Guided by my performance studies teacher Deb Margolin, I created my first solo show as my thesis project, and did my first solo performance at Dixon Place.  I have been working in NYC since, for the past 10 years, in theater, solo performance and comedy.

How did you get involved in the solo format?

I was always a writer, and found that this was the best medium in which i could express a personal truth and connect to others in a meaningful and evolving way.  But I would say that it was really studying with Deb Margolin in college that ignited that.

Who are your inspirations?

Bill Hicks, Deb Margolin, Dael Orlandersmith, Spalding Gray, Mike Daisey, Anna Deveare Smith, John
Leguizamo, Margaret Cho, Cynthia Hopkins, Eddie Izzard, Richard Pryor, Louis C.K., Zora Neale Hurston, and Morrissey.

Tell me a little bit about your show.

Tar Baby is about the struggle, or lack thereof, with race in America. I am trying to find a new way to fight the old "Tar Baby".  Taking a very personal tack with this, I explore cultural and personal history through the use of childhood games and entertainment to expose an underlying isolation in all that is America.  Also, Punch and Pie. 

If you could get any person (living or dead, famous or not) to come see your show, who would you choose?

Definitely Zora.  She might hate it in parts, but she'd get it for sure.

What's next for you after soloNOVA?

I will be taking my previous solo show 52 Man Pickup on another trip to the UK, as well as revamping my popular variety show, SMUT, for the Edinburgh Fringe, before continuing to tour.  I am also working on extending the life of both Tar Baby, and The Soup Show (created with Erica Livingston and Cara Francis and Lauren Sharpe of the New York Neo-Futurists) through future runs, and creating material for the web.

TAR BABY
Written & Performed by Desiree Burch
Co-Written by Dan Kitrosser
Directed by Isaac Byrne
WORLD PREMIERE

MAY 21 and 24 at 9pm
MAY 22 at 4pm
MAY 26 at 7pm
MAY 28 at 2pm

SoloNOVA Festival Interview - Andrea Caban of "Questions My Mother Can't Answer"

By Byrne Harrison
Photo by David Flores

Andrea Caban is a New York based actor, writer, producer, and teacher. 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. Other solo pieces include a documentary piece developed under the direction of Bill Rauch called Tony exploring the life & restaurant stories of an illegal Mexican immigrant. New York & Regional 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, Boise Contemporary Theater and The Hayworth Theater in LA. Andrea is a Medici Fellowship Recipient for her work in Balinese mask theater. She is the Producing Director of Coyote REP Theatre Company (http://www.coyoterep.org/).

What is your theatrical background?

I'm a classically trained actor. Got my MFA from UC Irvine, trained at the Public Theater Shakespeare Lab,

How did you get involved in the solo format?

I was working with Bill Rauch while at Irvine. I created a documentary theater piece under his direction and something magical happened. Something had clicked in me. Collecting and performing someone else's words seemed the perfect confluence of my curiosity about other people's choices and my skills as an character actor. I created one solo piece at Irvine, and then another here in New York called You Got Questions? I Got Answers! in which I interviewed 10 New Yorkers about when they felt the most isolated and when they felt the most connected to others. I knew I had another in me and Questions My Mother Can't Answer emerged as a story about the journey I was on, despite my reluctance. My faux anthropological curiosity no longer served me and I became a character in my play.

Who are your inspirations?

Nilaja Sun, Anna Deavere Smith, Lisa Kron and Bill Rauch.

Tell me a little bit about Questions My Mother Can't Answer.

The play is my emotional journey after being hit by a NYC cab, losing my period, and losing my sense of self. I interview 8 women all around my mom's age (60's) about how to stay married, when to have a baby & how to deal with bumps in the road. It's a healing play filled with lots of female wisdom. In a way, it's also the story of my becoming a healer myself.

It's not all woo-woo & gooey though. These women will say ANYTHING, and I ask a lot of them, so they DO say anything. The play has a lot of humor in it because of them.

If you could get any person (living or dead, famous or not) to come see your show, who would you choose?

Nilaja. And she's coming!

What's next for you after soloNOVA?

The play is on the 2011/2012 season at Boise Contemporary Theater. And I'm in the process of booking more theaters and venues. I wouldn't mind doing a tour. Or an Off-Broadway run. We'll see where it wants to go next!

QUESTIONS MY MOTHER CAN'T ANSWER
Written & Performed by Andrea Caban
Directed by Rachel Eckerling

MAY 21 at 4pm
MAY 22 at 6pm
MAY 23, 25 and 27 at 8pm

SoloNOVA Festival Interview - Brendan McMurtry-Howlett

By Byrne Harrison

Brendan McMurtry-Howlett has performed "…and stockings for the ladies." in all its incarnations since its creation in 2007. Recent credits include: Geoffrey in The Overwhelming (CanStage/Studio 180), Nicholas in the the Fringe hit Sia (Pyretic Productions), Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (Classical Theatre Project); Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Rose Theatre); Wayne Gretzky in John: Sudden Death (NTS); and Josh in Guns & Roses (The Original Norwegian). Brendan directed and co-wrote the play Honey in the Lion’s Head that premiered at last year’s Edmonton Fringe Festival. Film and television credits include: Degrassi: The Next Generation (CTV); Valemont (MTV); and Peripheral (Talon). Brendan is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.

What is your theatrical background?

I’m still building my theatrical background. I trained at the National Theatre School of Canada. I was accepted into the acting program right out of high school and was the youngest person in my class. It was after my second year of study, still learning my craft, that I became involved in a tiny no-budget summer fringe festival project: “…and stockings for the ladies.” We blindly stumbled our way through rehearsals and emerged on the other side unsure if anybody would care about what we had spent many weeks creating. But apparently we had tapped into a specific story and form of storytelling that really resonated with people and from that first haphazard summer the show took on a life of its own. Now four years later we find ourselves mounting this show again. This show has been a significant part of my “theatrical background” and although I have been working on many diverse projects in the interim years, this show (my first “paying gig”) has had a major influence on all my work in theatre. I learned a lot about a performers relationship, puppetry, script development, character acting and physical theatre mostly on the fly.

How did you get involved in the solo format?

The short answer is money. This would have been a very expensive show to hire 25 actors to play each character, with one actor this show becomes a lot more economically viable. But of course it goes far beyond that. The actor builds a very different and more direct relationship with the audience through the solo format. In a show like ours there are two separate emotional connections that the audience experiences: they connect to the characters either loving them or hating them following their journey through the whole play; but of course in a solo show all the characters, good and bad, are played by the same actor. It is the emotional connection that develops with the actor, watching another human being jump, spin, yell, laugh, sweat their way through the show, that is so unique in the solo show format. And I feel that connection as an actor too; I rely on the audience, I live and die with them every night, there are no other castmates that are sharing the story with me, just a room full of strangers. It is vulnerable, for everyone involved because in the end it is just the actor, maybe some lights and sound, and the audience. It is the most reduced form of storytelling and I love it.

Who are your inspirations?

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say someone like Patrick Stewart or Johnny Depp, but I’ve always needed a closer proximity to inspiration in order to really be affected. The people who inspire the most are the actors and artists that I know and work with in Toronto, and many of the teachers that I had in theatre school. One major point of inspiration is a woman named Kate Hennig who was recently starring as the Dance Teacher in Billy Elliot on Broadway. She was a teacher and mentor at school and was one of the few people who have said to me “that is not good enough. I’ve seen you do better, so just do it.” I actually helped her out with lines as she was preparing for the Billy Elliot auditions three years ago. And As cheesy as this sounds, both the writer Attila Clemann and the director Zach Fraser have been huge inspirations. Their previous experience as actors, and their expansive experience with puppetry has opened up that whole world to me in a way I never thought possible. I’ve gained a lot of respect for puppetry because of these guys and I was a pretty big skeptic at first. We work extremely well together having developed a vocabulary with this show over a period of four years and I like to think that we inspire each other through the rather challenging rehearsals. Cheesy I know, but it is what it is.

Tell me a little bit about your show.

The play follows many different storylines and depending who you ask and what they connected to the most, you could get very different descriptions of what the show is about. The main through line is the story between Ted Aplin a real life officer in the air force, and Daniel Friedman, based on Stan Winfield who served as Ted’s assistant during the time overseas in post-WWII Germany. Though Ted and the work he did during that time is the main point of inspiration for the show the real journey of the piece is through the eyes of Daniel. At the heart of it, “…and stockings for the ladies.” is a coming of age story. Daniel is a young man who joins the army seeking some obscure notion of adventure and ends up being deployed after all the “action” has happened and their air force group is left to twiddle their thumbs for a year. That is until Ted Aplin recruits a rather unwilling Daniel in his efforts to bring some sort of normalcy and dignity to the survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Amidst a volatile landscape of Nazi collaborators, desperate survivors, and obstinate military commanders, Daniel’s own sense of self is challenged by what Ted shows him and a deep friendship is formed. But sometimes the only way to do what’s right is by sacrificing one’s closest relationships.

If you could get any person (living or dead, famous or not) to come see your show, who would you choose?

Ted Aplin and Stan Winfield, for sure. But the amazing thing about this show based on true events is that there have already been a long list of people who, after seeing the show, came out of the woodwork to say I was there or my uncle served with Ted, or I was the last baby born in the Bergen-Belsen camp. There was one woman at a show in Toronto who came up to me afterwards with tears in her eyes saying “That puppet, that character was based on my mother.” It has been amazingly humbling that after spending an hour and a half on stage people come up to me and tell their own stories. This play opens up a floodgate of everyone’s personal experiences with war and the human aftermath of such epic events. Oh, and Hitler. Just to see his reaction to seeing all of these amazing stories of people who refused to be defeated by his twisted actions.

What's next for you after soloNOVA?

We take “…and stockings for the ladies.” to Halifax and then Toronto; this is the show that refuses to be put to bed. After that I’ll be directing a show going to Edinburgh and working on several other projects for the fall and winter. No rest for the wicked.

"…and stockings for the ladies."
Performed by Brendan McMurtry-Howlett
Written by Attila Clemann
Directed by Zach Fraser

MAY 12 and 16 at 7pm
MAY 14 and 17 at 9pm
MAY 20 at 7pm

SoloNOVA Festival Interview - Atilla Clemann of "... and stockings for the ladies."

By Byrne Harrison

Attila Clemann has worked almost exclusively on collectively devised pieces including award-winning productions of Fathom (SaBooge Theatre), The Overcoat (Vancouver Playhouse) and Brilliant (Electric Company). His work as a performer has brought him from New York to the northern reaches of British Columbia teaching on the way with highlights in the favelas of Recife Brazil and The National Theatre School of Canada. As a cabinet maker, Attila’s craftmanship also frequently calls him into set design and construction. "…and stockings for the ladies." is Attila’s first playwriting credit and sources his personal family history.

What is your theatrical background?

I am a graduate of a small but renowned Canadian theatre program called Studio 58 as well as Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. These two schools have pushed me into working almost exclusively on collectively devised pieces and new works. I think I have worked on all but two scripted traditional shows; the rest of my 15 years experience has been on completely new work where issues of story, style, theatricality are added to the challenge of creating characters and producing a show.

How did you get involved in the solo format?

Mostly money; it's hard to get a cast of thousands these days. But in terms of this piece, the solo format actually became a real bonus. We wanted numerous voices. It could have been done with several actors playing several parts but the virtuosity of seeing all the characters and voices spring from one body is part of the enjoyment and allows for us to have a cast of thousands on stage without all those bodies physically there.

What are your inspirations?

True stories, little tidbits of strange information, one-liners overheard in coffee shops. These are the stuff of life, the most fascinating part of theatre. As one writer said to me, "Wouldn't it be cool if the word 'fiction' was used to declare something as awesome or amazing; as in 'That's totally fiction.'" Sometimes I hear a strange phrase or story or see a really interesting person and I think: if I put that on stage no one would believe me - that's fiction man, totally fiction.

Tell me a little bit about your show.

"... and stockings for the ladies." is a mosaic of voices from post-war Germany; a small German boy, a Nazi doctor, Jewish survivors, Canadian Airforce men, letters home, and much more. Together they tell the story of Squadron Leader Ted Aplin who worked against orders to help survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was the epitome of a humanist who had no time for religious moralism but would stop at nothing to help his fellow man. Ted Aplin was in a time and place where a man like that could do his best work and despite nearly being dismissed from the army he was greeted with a hero's welcome upon his return. Numerous Jewish families were reunited through his efforts and he was nicknamed the "Angel of Belsen". Ted Aplin is also my step-father's father and his letters home to his wife in the year that he served overseas are an incredible record of the time. As part of our family archives they are poetic and thoughtful and are the very spine of this play. "...and stockings for the ladies." is a post-war story; a period of history we hear little about but need to know more.

If you could get any person (living or dead, famous or not) to come see your show, who would you choose?

Well, if Ted Aplin saw the play that would be incredible. I was given much freedom by Ted's family to write this play as I needed to. They never once interfered but if Ted saw it I wonder if he would actually have a thing or two to say.

What's next for you after soloNOVA?

"...and stockings for the ladies." tours to Halifax and Toronto and will hopefully pick up some more attention for further performances. Otherwise, as a playwright, I am working on a new historical fiction play around Guglielmo Marconi, one of the inventors of the radio, whose famous trans-Atlantic radio signal was received in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. It's another fascinating time and ripe for questions around new media and the generational divide that happens as new technology displaces old.

"…and stockings for the ladies"
Performed by Brendan McMurtry-Howlett
Written by Attila Clemann
Directed by Zach Fraser

MAY 12 and 16 at 7pm
MAY 14 and 17 at 9pm
MAY 20 at 7pm

SoloNOVA Festival Interview - Charlotte Bydwell of Woman of Leisure and Panic

By Byrne Harrison

A recent graduate of The Juilliard School and celebrated performer with choreographers such as Monica Bill Barnes and Larry Keigwin, Charlotte Bydwell makes her solo show debut with Woman of Leisure and Panic at the SoloNOVA Festival.

What is your theatrical background?

I trained as a dancer growing up and graduated from The Juilliard School with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance in 2009. I joined Monica Bill Barnes & Company shortly thereafter and have performed with them at a number of venues around the United States, including the Joyce Theatre in New York City. I started studying acting with Anthony Abeson in my final years of college and have since been auditioning and taking small jobs here and there to try my hand in the industry. Woman of Leisure and Panic grew out of my experiences both as an emerging dancer and as a budding actress.

How did you get involved in the solo format?

This is my first evening-length solo work, but I've been creating shorter solos on myself since a very early age. This show is actually an expansion of one such work that I created to commemorate my graduation from The Juilliard School. On this occasion, my classmates and I were each allowed to select any choreographer of our choosing to set a solo for us. I opted to return to my roots and rediscover the spontaneity and freedom I had always found in my own material. Through this experience, I was reminded of the joy there is in creating my own circumstances on stage and performing something I understand on a very instinctual level.

Who are your inspirations?

Margie Gillis, a famous Canadian solo-dance maker. She's made a career out of listening to the characters inside of her, following her impulses and trusting her creative inspiration. And, Meryl Streep, for her poise, elegance and sense of character.

Tell me a little bit about your show.

Woman of Leisure and Panic is a one-woman show based on my experiences as a performing artist and emerging adult in New York City. Using physicality and text, it conveys my quest to find balance in a life where every achievement seems to bring further uncertainty. The audience gets a very intimate look at my struggle to remain financially stable, physically fit, romantically satisfied and creatively stimulated. It’s very neurotic, but in the most enjoyable and charming way!

If you could get any person (living or dead, famous or not) to come see your show, who would you choose?

Tina Fey. Or the late Artistic Director Emeritus of my first dance school, Mr. Brydon Paige, who was the first person to notice my inclination towards theatricality and my quirky sense of humor.

What's next for you after soloNOVA?

I'll be performing at the Joyce Theater on June 2nd and 4th with Monica Bill Barnes & Co. Then, showing another work of mine at the Center for Performance Research at the end of June. But mostly, I’ll be trying to find ways to keep Woman of Leisure and Panic going, hopefully with new performance opportunities.

WOMAN OF LEISURE AND PANIC
Created and Performed by Charlotte Bydwell
Presented as part of the 8thAnnual soloNOVA Festival
P. S. 122 (150 1st Avenue)

Wednesday, May 11th at 9pm
Friday, May 13th at 7pm
Saturday, May 14th at 4pm
Wednesday, May 18th at 7pm
Thursday, May 19th at 9pm

Tickets may be purchased online at http://www.9thspace.org/ or by calling 212-352-3101.
womanofleisureandpanic.tumblr.com | terranovacollective.org

SoloNOVA Festival Interview - Jeffrey Solomon of Santa Claus Is Coming Out

By Byrne Harrison

Jeffrey Solomon’s play, Santa Claus Is Coming Out, is currently being presented as part of the SoloNOVA Festival. This acclaimed one-man mock-u-mentary explores the secret romantic life of the great holiday icon and the controversy that engulfs the world when the truth is revealed. When a little boy’s gender atypical gift request to the North Pole is denied, a series of heart-felt letters from the child nudge Santa Claus out of the closet and into the culture wars. A theatrical documentarian in the mold of Anna Deveare Smith and the Laramie Project, Mr. Solomon purports to have interviewed, and portrays, all of the key players in the scandal that has come to be known as ‘Santa-Gate’.

Solomon's other solo play Mother/SON has been seen at HERE (NY), Celebration Theatre (L.A.), and he received a Joseph Jefferson Nomination for Best Actor for the same performance in Chicago at the Bailiwick Rep. Internationally, Mother/SON has been seen on London’s Off West End at the New End and Oval House Theatres, the Edinburgh Fringe, Homotopia in Liverpool, the Leeds International Jewish Performing Arts Festival, and the 4th Floor (Mumbai, India). His performance won the Best Actor Award in Dublin’s Absolut Gay Theatre Festival as well as the Awards for Audience Favorite, Best Playwriting and Best Male Solo Performer at the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival. Santa Claus is Coming Out won the Best of the Fest at the same festival. The play had its premiere at the Bailiwick Pride Series in Chicago.

What is your theatrical background?

I cut my teeth in the 80’s working Off Off Broadway with Robert Patrick’s Blue is For Boys and was a founding member of CityKids Repertory Company where I worked with Diane Houston, the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Directing Oscar. I developed there a passion for creating theater that was engaged with issues… had a fire in its belly, but was never didactic or preachy.

How did you get involved in the solo format?

I saw Anna Deveare’s Fires in the Mirror at the Public Theatre in the early 90’s and was completely blown away and inspired. I had a similar response to John Leguizomo’s first solo show Mambo Mouth. It seemed to me that with so much of the theater audience being diminished by television and films, here was one experience that only theater could provide: One gifted actor/story-telling engaging the audience’s imagination and taking them on an unforgettable ride. Television and movies can do a lot of things, but the solo play done well is unforgettable and something that is uniquely theatrical.

Tell me a little bit about your show.

Santa Claus Is Coming Out imagines how the world would react if the great holiday icon were revealed to be a gay man. The program will inform you that the play is crafted from three years of interviews I conducted at the North Pole and beyond, about the scandal that has become to be known as "Santa-Gate." If you missed the run on Theatre Row in 09, now is your chance to catch the show the NY Times calls a "Delightful Surprise!"
If you didn't know the true story of Santa Claus, here it is in a nutshell: Mrs. Claus is just a beard, a third rate actress hired by Santa’s agent to protect the Coca Cola image. Santa Claus’s true love is Giovanni Geppetto, a strapping Italian toymaker, the great-great-great-great grandson of Pinocchio. The religious right, convinced that Claus has become a tool in the Gay Agenda’s attempt to recruit children into the homosexual lifestyle, is preparing a sweeping propaganda offensive against the great holiday icon that may end Christmas as we know it.

If you could get any person (living or dead, famous or not) to come see your show, who would you choose?

I choose Candi Cushman, the so-called “education analyst” from the group “Focus on the Family.” In her blog, Ms. Cushman attacked my play along with a chorus of other right-wing voices including Fox News, when it ran Off Broadway in 2009 and accused me personally of perverting the innocence of Christmas and "using shock tactics to expose children to homosexuality." I laughed long and hard about this because Ms. Cushman’s lines seemed to have come directly from the mouth of my play’s antagonist Mary Ellen Banfield, chief Santa Claus foe and president of the fictitious group Families Against the Gay Agenda (F.A.G.A.) My fantasy is that watching my play would cause Ms. Cushman’s heart to “grow three full sizes” in a Grinch-like redemption, but more likely Candi and Mary Ellen could have a strategy session on how they can better facilitate the likelihood of gay kids jumping off bridges in the coming year.

What's next for you after soloNOVA?

A Spanish translation of my actual documentary play DE NOVO will be performed in El Salvador in June (see http://www.housesonthemoon.org) or you can see the same play, mostly in English in September at the Passage Theatre in Trenton. I am performing with the acclaimed storytelling org The Moth in Michigan this June as well. In October “Mother/SON” will be travelling to Greece.

For more information about Solomon’s work, visit www.jeffsolo.com