5 Questions With undergroundzero Participant Leigh Evans

By Byrne Harrison

Name: Leigh Evans
Play: Quiet To Departure
Relationship to play: Choreographer and performer

At the intersection of dance, visual art, meditation, and theater, Leigh Evans' performance work explores the nature of perception by re-inventing our relationship to viewing the body. Evans' dance theater illuminates the darker aspects of human nature with the beauty of the physical form in rituals of invocation. Her explorations are fed by her fascination with the performance and meditative traditions of Asia. Integral to her work are her extensive travels and studies in the meditative and performance traditions of Asia, including Indian Odissi dance, Butoh, Yoga, Bulgarian singing and North Indian singing.

You've traveled extensively and have studied a variety of performance, movement and singing styles. Where does this interest come from?

I am interested in the internal energy of the dance, the sounds between the notes, the space between objects, and the deepening of consciousness. I felt unsatisfied with the Western theater and dance forms that I studied. I was drawn to Asian forms because they awaken energy in the body, deepen awareness, and offer a gateway to states of being beyond our concrete reality. I learned through Tadashi Suzuki's theater training how to awaken energy in stillness. In Butoh, I found a means to express the shadow side and explore the space between consciousness and unconsciousness, and between life and death. In my studies of Indian Odissi dance, I experienced how intricately interwoven their dance is with spiritual practice and an offering of one's creative expression to an energy beyond one's self. The sophisticated articulation of Odissi dance requires extreme focus and complete surrender simultaneously. I aim for this in my own work and in my life.

Quiet to Departure draws on Butoh, a performance and movement style that is gaining popularity in this country, but is not necessarily well known to Western audiences. What should your audience expect?

Butoh is unique to each artist's expression. As an audience member viewing my work, I suggest that you release narrative interpretations and allow yourself to be transported into the realm of dreams and the language of images and symbols. You can allow your relationship to time and space to shift. It will be helpful to release your expectations and relax into a meditative state of awareness, inviting your mind and body to settle in the stillness and embrace the opportunity to listen to the surfacing of the unconscious.

What drives you to create your work?

Fundamentally I am interested in developing presence and awareness. Performance provides the opportunity and support to drop into a deeply attentive state in which you are listening with every aspect of your being. This state of presence invites the audience to deepen their awareness as they experience the piece.

My work emerges from a very internal process. Images, gestures, movements, sounds, or songs come forward and I follow them. I often think of my pieces as movement paintings, or as live film.

What are your hopes for this production?

I'd love to perform Quiet to Departure for long run here in New York. I plan on performing it in San Francisco, where several of my collaborators as well as myself have spent alot of time. I'd really love to take it to Europe this Spring or Summer, I have my eye on Spain!

What is next for you after undergroundzero?

First, I'm going to go to the beach!! Then it's back to work, setting up the next venue to present the piece.

Quiet To Departure
Choreographed & Performed by Leigh Evans

P.S. 122
150 First Ave at 9th St. - Downstairs Venue

July 13, 14, 16, 17, & 18 @ 7:30pm, July 15 @ 9:30pm

5 Questions With undergroundzero Particpant Doris Mirescu

By Byrne Harrison

Name: Doris Mirescu
Play: From Dawn Till Night
Relationship to play: Conceived, Designed and Directed

Doris Mirescu is a Romanian-born freelance director and writer. She is also the founder of New York based theatre company Dangerous Ground. Her most recent productions include John Cassavetes’ Husbands (Under the Radar festival at the Public Theater) and 3!, a multimedia experiment based on Fassbinder’s 1979 film The Third Generation (PS122 as part of the undergroundzero festival- winner of the 2009 undergroundzero “Best Production” Award). She directed Fassbinder’s Beware of a Holy Whore at the Visual Arts Theatre, Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris, Madness of Day by Maurice Blanchot and Neil LaBute’s The Distance from Here, all at Tom Noonan’s Paradise Factory. She also directed the American Premiere of Paul Solomon’s Aching to go Home at the Epic Center Theatre (Kalamazoo) and Battle of Black and Dogs by Bernard-Marie Koltès as part of Koltès New York 2003, a festival which she also produced (Ohio Theater). Directing credits include Story of Rats, her adaptation of works by French writer Georges Bataille (Chashama) and the European Premiere of Les Nuits Sans Lune by French playwright Véronique Olmi (Parc de La Villette, Paris). Other New York credits include: Silence of Snow (Soho Rep) and Cocteau’s The Handsome Hunk. Ms. Mirescu was the assistant director of French director Brigitte Jaques, with whom she worked on Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (La Comédie, Geneva, Switzerland) and Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost (Western Michigan University) and assisted Mr. Andrei Serban on Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci at the Grand Théâtre of Geneva. Ms. Mirescu was four times the recipient of Etant Donnés, the French-American Fund for the Performing Arts. She holds a Summa Cum Laude Master of Arts in French Literature from Paris-IV Sorbonne as well as an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University. She has taught Advanced Acting and Directing at The School of Visual Arts, worked as a theatre and film critic for the Swiss magazine Scènes and as a translator/interpreter for Lincoln Center Theater, the Centre Chorégraphique de Montpellier and the French Cultural Services in New York. She is an alumna of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. She is also a member of the Actors Studio Playwright and Director’s Workshop.

How long have you been involved in theatre and what is your background?

My parents left Romania when I was three years old. They didn’t want to raise a child in a dictatorship. I lived in Paris, did some of my studies there - literature at the Sorbonne - at the same time studying acting, theatre. Then I went to New York to study film and theatre. After I got my MFA at Columbia University, I founded my company, Dangerous Ground. So theatre has always been at the core… like a profound gesture of freedom, rebellion also… a political gesture. Something to give voice to the world we live in. And also what we aspire to… what we long for. The pain of being alive.

What led you to found Dangerous Ground?

The name of the company echoes one of my most beloved films, “On Dangerous Ground” by the great artist rebel Nicholas Ray. So danger is key. What I am looking for is what shatters the heart, the soul, what is dangerous… life is dangerous, messy, chaotic, sad, beautiful. Emotions contained in silence, nothingness. The simplest gestures. The quotidian. Time also. Dangerous Ground uses multimedia as an ultimate gesture of revelation. At the core is the erosion of human life, when we go beyond the wall of what is constructed, protected and we look at the wounds, at the trash, at what is hidden away. I am interested in raw emotion. In broken, ruptured things. It is the crack which I find most important, because therein is revealed something essential about human-ness. The imperfect is magnificent. What is unpolished, raw, hard. Not necessarily precise. Open…

This play concludes your Fassbinder trilogy. What drew you to Fassbinder's works?

Fassbinder is a revolutionary filmmaker. Danger is at the core of his work. The anarchy of imagination he used to say… He had the extraordinary ability to mix film and theatre and create a unique environment that revealed something very powerful about the world. He created disturbance in the most profound most moving way. Art is a disturbance. It creates discomfort. Awe. Each time I watch a Fassbinder film, I am in awe. Amazed at the risks he is taking and his willingness to destroy the obvious structure, to throw it all away. To look underneath.

Danger is there, always. This new piece is an ode to that danger… vivid and true. Real.

What are your hopes for this production?

The most important gift is that of performance. Which my friend Paul Bargetto, offered to us.

We need to be in the present… now… in the most fragile, vulnerable time… when the piece is about to take a life of its own. So every day is renewed and becomes the future.

What is next for you after undergroundzero?

A trip to Europe. Sleep. And then new work in the making. With my extraordinary friend and writer Ilana Ozernoy.

From Dawn till Night (The Earth is Uninhabitable Like the Moon)
Directed by Doris Mirescu & Produced by Dangerous Ground Productions

P.S. 122
150 First Ave at 9th St.

July 21 & 23 @ 9pm, July 22 @ 7pm, July 24 & 25 @ 5pm - Upstairs Venue

5 Questions With undergroundzero Participants David Barlow And Phil Soltanoff

By Byrne Harrison

Names: David Barlow and Phil Soltanoff
Play: LA Party
Relationship to play: Conceived and Directed by Phil Soltanoff, Written by David Barlow

Phil Soltanoff is a New York-based theatre artist. His most recent work i/o, created in collaboration with sound artist Joe Diebes, fuses sound installation, physical theatre, and opera. i/o premiered at Theatre Garonne in November 2008. Original and site-specific creations include to whom it may concern (BITEF-31), Strange Attractors (Mass MoCA), five movements for people and sound, TIME/PIECE, wrench, Experimental Actions (Mass MoCA), Peter Handkeʼs The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other and LEMNATION (Mass MoCA). In 1999, Soltanoff teamed with performing artist Hanne Tierney to create five myles, an alternative performance/exhibition space in Brooklyn. They received an OBIE Award in 2000. Since 2002, Soltanoff has created two works in collaboration with Aurelien Bory and CIE111 (Toulouse, France). Their two collaborations, PLAN B and MORE OR LESS, INFINITY have performed around the world including Theatre Garonne (Toulouse),
TNT (Toulouse), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Eurokaz Festival (Zagreb), Trafo (Budapest), Vidy Theatre (Lausanne), Centro Belem (Lisbon), Pina Bauschʼs NRW International Dance Festival (Dusseldorf), Maison de la Danse (Lyon), Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), Patra Vadi (Bangkok), Theatre de la Ville (Paris), BITEF-42 (Belgrade) and the New Victory Theatre (NYC) among others. LA Party has appeared at the Prelude Festival, Under The Radar Festival, Fusebox Festival, and The Collapsable Hole. Upcoming projects include a commission to create an original work for The Center Theatre Group in LA, a new site-specific performance for SIGHTLINES, and a new collaboration with Joe Diebes and Mac Wellman. Mr. Soltanoff was nominated for a Moliere Award in 2007. His work is dedicated in loving memory to his wife, Stephanie Mnookin.

David Barlow has written other true-life stories to be performed. As an actor, his collaborations with Phil Soltanoff include: i/o (Theatre Garonne), Experimental Actions (Mass MoCA), and to whom it may concern (BITEF-31). Off-Broadway: Rinde Eckert's Horizon (New York Theater Workshop), Scenes From An Execution (Potomac Theater Project), Mycenaean (BAM), Romola and Nijinski (Primary Stages); Oroonoko, Andorra and Saved (Theater For A New Audience), The Seagull (Roundtable Ensemble), and Smashing (The Play Company). Regional/International: King Lear (Kansas City Rep), On The Jump (Arena Stage), This Is Our Youth (Philadelphia Theater Co.), Bauern Theater (with dir. David Levine in Germany) and Babel (Avignon International Theater Festival). TV: "Without A Trace," "Third Watch,” "All My Children." Barlow earned his MFA at NYU.

Your press release for LA Party had me hooked from the line about a fanatical vegan falling off the wagon and going on a bender. Tell me a little bit more about your show.

David: I wrote LA Party a year ago. It takes place at my wild cousin Jon’s 30th birthday bash in LA at a time when I was just emerging from a long period of being rather hermetic and a strict raw food vegan. The story describes the extraordinary lengths I had gone to detoxify and purify my body, before it veers into a long night’s journey down the rabbit hole of that party’s drug-induced debaucheries.

Last year, I was sharing a lot of my writing with Phil Soltanoff, who has directed me in a number of his theater pieces, and when he was asked to present something at the CUNY Prelude Festival, he thought it would be cool to do something with one of my stories. So we chose LA Party, and he collided the story with a very simple but compelling video technology idea that he had first played with at Mass MoCA in 2002. Phil is great at taking two things that have nothing to do with each other, and then seeing how they rub up against one another to create unexpected meanings and discoveries. In this case, six of us are involved in creating a virtual composite human being that tells you the story of LA Party. And whereas I think the story would work spoken on the radio or read on the page, it is given much greater dimension and complexity by this captivating and unnerving low-tech video concept that requires all of us as performers to acutely listen to each other.

What are the strengths of multi-media theatre works?

Phil: Technology is part of our world and part of our art. Why not? It always has been. The real question becomes what do you do with the technology? Most video in live performance puts me to sleep. Its usually attractive and impressive, but inert. So, I'm always considering the "live" interaction between the elements of video, the performers and the audience. It means, in the case of LA Party, a very lo-fi, D.I.Y. technological approach. Six performers are constantly adjusting to each other to create one video organism, a sort of video "puppet". It makes a very simple technology into a very lively experience.

What is your theatrical background?

David: My theatrical background is pretty eclectic; I attended NYU’s Grad Acting Program, and since then I’ve acted in a lot of Shakespeare plays, contemporary plays such as Kenny Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth, and even a musical comedy, Perfect Harmony, that I helped develop with Andrew Grosso and The Essentials. Commercially, I have acted on several television shows too (most recently CBS’s Without A Trace). One of my favorite theater experiences was remounting Edward Bond’s Saved here in New York, directed by Robert Woodruff. Now I gravitate mostly to originating new work in collaboration with other artists I admire, such as Horizon with Rinde Eckert, and all the productions I’ve done with Phil. In 2007 I performed the role of a German farmer in David Levine’s Bauerntheater. For this work I literally planted by hand and hoe a ton of potatoes on an acre and a half of East German farmland 9 hours a day over the course of a month. Most of my writing is in the vein of storytelling, and I look forward to performing more of my own work.

Phil: I've spent much time in Europe with three shows I built with CIE111 of Toulouse, France. They're hybrid works mixing theatre, dance, circus and visual art. They don't fit easily into any one category. I like that position. I sort of pursue interesting projects with interesting collaborators rather than fixing my sights on any one particular way of doing things. You can check out my work at philsoltanoff.org

What are your hopes for this production?

David: LA Party is built to tour, and we would like to perform it around the country, as well as in other countries. The show has so far had a wide appeal wherever we go. I see the show having a long run somewhere as well.


LA Party
Conceived and Directed by Phil Soltanoff and Written by David Barlow

P.S. 122
150 First Ave at 9th St.

Wed July 7, 8, 9, & 11 @ 7:30pm, July 10 @ 9:30pm - Downstairs Venue

5 Questions With undergroundzero Participant Rock WILK

By Byrne Harrison

Name: Rock WILK
Play: Broke Wide Open
Relationship to play: Writer and performer

An actor, playwright and poet, New York City's own Rock WILK is also a socially and politically charged vocalist and an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. He creates all of this art while riding the subways of NYC. Along with being a 2009 Nuyorican Poet's semifinalist and 2010 runoffs qualifier for The Nuyorican's national team, Rock has worked as a studio and touring background vocalist for many years, most recently singing with the legendary Patti LaBelle and contributing vocal and horn arrangements to the Grammy Award winning Les Paul compilation album, "Les Paul and Friends."

Rock's music can also be heard on such TV shows as MTV's "The Real World" and "Making The Band," among others.

You have a very interesting bio. What would you consider your best performance moments so far?

Hmm... that's a tough one because all of my performances are special in their own way. Lemme see... hmm.... well, I'm just gonna go with a relatively recent staged reading of Broke Wide Open. It was at a beautiful small theater down in Asbury Park, NJ called The Showroom, and it was going to be my last reading for a while because I was, at that time, in the process of workshopping with a number of directors, in the midst of trying to find the perfect person to continue this journey with. And so the day came for this performance, and there was a pretty big snowstorm, and I thought, "Damn, nobody's gonna come." To make a long story short, the theater was full, there were a few directors in the house, and the performance was profound for me, I felt like I found a lot of new things in my words that night, and we had a Q&A after the performance that was so deeeeeeeep. A man walked up to me after the performance with his son, who was about 20 years old, and they both looked kinda dazed. This guy had seen me perform at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe one Friday night and when he saw I was performing in his area, he decided to come see me and bring his father, not really knowing what to expect. I'm not sure he even knew that he was coming to see a play, that perhaps he thought he was going to see a night of poetry. Cool thing was this... he was adopted, was bringing the man who had adopted him, his father, and my play REALLY affected both of them. [Broke Wide Open is the true story of my search for my biological mother] They came up to talk to me after the Q&A, both in tears, and his father said to me, "I heard so much in your play that I have heard out of my sons mouth over the years. We have had some issues." The son said to me, "Yeah, we've had some issues. I've had some problems dealing with this 'being adopted' thing." It was very intimate, and so without getting into the details of our conversation, that experience really hit home with me, made me realize that there were people I was seriously connecting with, made me feel the power of the theater. Truthfully, I was humbled by that, everything changed for me that day. I have always felt like people go to the theater or to concerts or to any type of performance to FEEL something... that night I REALLY felt that, like this was a beautiful shared experience for me and the people who came out to see my show. So from that day on, every time I get on stage, I say to myself, "Tonight.. all I want is to have this beautiful shared experience with these people. Tonight is never going to happen again, so let's do something special together." And it seems like it always works out that way, I appreciate each opportunity to perform, but that night is one that I will never forget. Oh... and about a week later, I decided that my director was going to be the amazing Tamilla Woodard, and thankfully, she said yes!

As you mentioned, Broke Wide Open is a very personal piece. Tell me a little bit about how it came to be.

Broke Wide Open actually started as an album. Music. A collection of songs. My very close friend Jack Rollins, who was the long time manager of Woody Allen, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, David Letterman, and who also happens to be the father of my old girlfriend, who now happens to be my best friend, [whew! I digress]... Mr. Rollins encouraged me to embark on this journey of revealing myself in this collection of songs, to create an album that would, in a sense, be my legacy. He kept saying to me, "Rock, I feel like you NEED to do this, you have this interesting life story that people will want to hear, and if you are willing to REALLY open up, they will love you as much as I do." Damn, THAT stopped me, I took that moment in, we were sitting together in Riverside Park on a bench at 83rd Street that day. Anyway, he was talking about doing this for the sake of the art, like I said, he felt it was IMPORTANT for me to do this, and I respect Mr Rollins so much, and so after going back and forth for a while, thinking about whether or not I really had anything to say that anyone would find remotely interesting, I decided to take the opportunity to do this album. So I got on the subways and started to write songs. That's where I write, on the trains, just riding and riding, that environment is inspiring for me, it's where I feel most creative. Then when my little digital recorder was full, when the songs were written, I locked myself in my small studio in my apartment in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn and recorded the album in a few months. Then everyone who heard the album said, "Damn, this sounds like a play", and so I created this performance piece called Ma'Plej, each letter standing for someone in my family. At a performance of Ma'Plej, I met Stephen Bishop Seely, who was at that time the creative artistic director of The Revision Theatre in Asbury Park, NJ, and he said, "This is great, but it's about 14 plays, so you need to choose one, and write it." I chose the portion of Ma'Plej that was my search for my biological mother, my search for home, my identity, and so then this cathartic journey began, and Ma'Plej found it's way back to the beginning of this process and so Broke Wide Open, the play, was born, and here we are now.

I like that you call it a "verbal opera." What exactly does that phrase mean to you?

My director, Tamilla Woodard came up with that. And when she said it one day, it really hit home with me, felt like the perfect description of Broke Wide Open. There are A LOT of words in my play, and sometimes I say them REALLY FAST. They feel like a "movement" or almost like an opera or symphony. The play moves dynamically, with parts that are quiet and somewhat serene and then there are crescendos. We journey up and down, high and low, it feels like there is this beautiful motion, or EMOTION. So when Tamilla said that one day, "Rock, this is a verbal opera", my approach became like I was a conductor moving through this story like music, and it really feels that way for me, only verbally. There IS, literally, plenty of music in the play, along with these monologues and all of this poetry, all of these words are being weaved in and out of each other... yeah, Tamilla found the perfect way to describe Broke Wide Open.

What are your hopes for this production?

To serve the work, to really explore this and make it a beautiful work of art. To give it real opportunity to grow, to continue, for Broke Wide Open to have a long life. And to be REALLY honest... the first day I sat with Stephen Bishop Seely when we first began talking about what I was doing with this project, he asked me, "Where do you want to go with this? Where do you want to do it?" I immediately said, "The Public Theater." That was my dream from the beginning, my intention, and so I would like to see Broke Wide Open keep progressing, and yes, I'm saying it out loud, I WANT TO DO THIS AT THE PUBLIC, THE MARK TAPER FORUM, BERKELEY REP, BROKE WIDE OPEN ON BROADWAY!!!!!!!!!! I would love the opportunity to share this work everywhere and anywhere. And I visualize all of that, every day, seriously. But having said all of that, truthfully, it's all about the work for me, I am completely in love with this process, and we will just continue to attend to this work, to stay open to learning, I'm very grateful to be here at this particular moment.

What is next for you after undergroundzero?

We are fortunate enough to be doing a full workshop in September at The Medicine Show Theatre on 52nd Street in Manhattan, directed by and developed with Tamilla Woodard. We will have the full production being workshopped, collaborators included, lighting and set design, the video and music elements, I am VERY EXCITED to get this on. We open that on September 9th and will run Thursdays through Sundays until September 26th. After that, who knows? We are rolling!

Broke Wide Open
Written & Performed by Rock WILK
Directed by Tamilla Woodard

Staged Reading

P.S. 122
150 First Ave at 9th St.

Sat July 24 @ 2pm - Downstairs Venue

Review - The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer (terraNOVA Collective and Weeping Spoon Productions and the undergroundzero festival)

By Byrne Harrison

Is it odd to call a play set in a post-apocalyptic world charming and delightful? Probably so, but be that as it may, The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer is a charming and delightful modern fable. While it deals with environmental issues, Alvin Sputnik is mostly a story about love and sacrifice.

Alvin and his wife are among the few survivors left after global warming floods the entire planet. After his wife dies of a fever, Alvin sees her soul descend into the ocean. Unable to follow her, he fears that he is doomed to a life of loneliness. That's when he hears the call from Earth HQ. They will be launching a mission to find a hidden paradise under the sea, man's last hope for continued existence, and the man who can find it will be a hero. Like Orpheus, Alvin descends into the watery underworld to find his lost wife and mankind's future.

Tim Watts is a gifted performer, and Alvin Sputnik draws on his many skills as an actor, musician, animator, and puppeteer. Through this multi-media creation, Watts brings to life an undersea world full of delights and dangers, sacrifice and reunion. More than that, he has created a play that is wistful, amusing and inspirational. Though much of the play is non-verbal (who can talk at the bottom of the ocean?), this fascinating play and its charming leading man easily draw the audience in and keep them rapt until the play's lovely and satisfying end.

Anthony Watts, Tim's father, built the many sets and gadgets used in the show, much of which was created to complement Tim's animation. The elder Watts is an engineer, and his skill and ingenuity is obvious. Mat Cheethum's sound design is excellent, strengthening this already well-done show.

Alvin Sputnik is a beautiful, touching and inspiring piece of theatre and should be on everybody's must see list for the undergroundzero festival. To give you a taste of what the show is like, I've included a short video montage below from an earlier incarnation of the play.

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer
Creator, Performer, Animator: Tim Watts
Collaborator/Tour Manager: Arielle Gray
Set and Gadget Construction: Anthony Watts
Sound Design: Mat Cheethum

P.S. 122
150 1st Avenue
Upstairs Venue

July 7 - 7pm
July 8 - 9pm
July 9 - 7pm
July 10 - 7pm
July 11 - 3pm

5 Questions With undergroundzero Participant Tim Watts

By Byrne Harrison

Name: Tim Watts
Show: The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer
Relationship to play: Creator and performer

Tim Watts is a performer, deviser, director, producer, puppeteer and animator. He is a member of “Weeping Spoon Productions”, an international multi-award winning independent theatre company based in Perth, Western Australia. He has performed/devised/directed theatre and participated in various workshops all around the world with leading theatre practitioners/companies including Marek Bečka (Prague), Jean-Guy Lecat (Paris), Complicite (London), and Dell'Arte International (USA). His most recent credits include, Deathtrap (PICA, Perth) The World Inspite of Itself (China), Red Lashes (UNIMA 2008, Perth), Greed (Canada Fringe), Hope is the saddest (Brisbane Festival), Duck Duck Goose (The Blue Room, Perth), Oscar (Perth) and Heart of Gold (PICA,Perth).

First of all, it's great to see you back in New York with Alvin Sputnik. How does it feel to bring the show back to a new festival? And what do you hope to bring to the new production?

It is great to be back in New York. I really love this city, and it is great to bring the show back to a new festival. Its a chance to meet new people, and be apart of such a strong Off-Off Broadway theatre scene. There are so many talented artists living in this city, and it is fantastic to be submerged into that theatre culture, even if only for a week. I have improved and tweeked the show since last year, and i am keen to get more feedback on it so that i can continue to tweek and improve it over the years.

It seems the news on the environmental front seems to be getting worse and worse. Do you think people will ever learn from their mistakes, or are we heading for something like the waterworld of Alvin Sputnik?

I think the world has changed dramatically over the last year, and people and companies are making changes. I have noticed a big difference in NYC since I was here last year; it is becoming easier to do the right thing, because companies are realising its what people want. "Green" its becoming very marketable, it seems. Which is a HUGE step for the world. It makes the consumer feel empowered, like they can make a difference by the choices they make. I have faith and hope that we will learn from our mistakes, and I hope that the change happens soon. Though when news comes in of a preventable environmental disaster such as the oils spill it exhausts that faith in humanity for a while, but there is no point wallowing in the despair, and just looking at the spill like a child whose ice cream just fell on the floor, we just need to fix it.

The "waterworld" of Alvin Sputnik is not a scientific possibility. From my understanding the rising water level won't rise high enough to cover the entire planet. But that dramatic change in the climate will kill a lot of life, including humanity. This of course is immensely tragic, and we must do all we can to prevent it from happening.

What can people expect from your show?

They can expect a fun, inspiring show about the power of enduring love and the end of the world. Puppets, bubbles, deep sea creatures, animation, and a wiimote.

When last we spoke, you had plans to take Alvin Sputnik worldwide and translate it into other languages. How is that going?

Great! for the rest of this year and next year I will be touring Alvin all over Australia, India, Korea, China, Scotland, Ireland, England, France, Germany, New Zealand, and I hope in 2012, I will return to the USA and Canada. Korean will be the first language we translate it into, with others to follow. There is very little dialogue in it, and we will figure out the best way to perform it in another language - subtitles or if I learn sections in another language. It is very exciting!

What is next for you after undergroundzero? And will we see you in New York again soon?

After undergroundzero we head down to perform in Columbia, South Carolina, on the 14th of July, and in Wilmington, North Carolina on the 17th of July. I am performing at the Port City Puppet Festival in Wilmington, and it is the main reason i have been able to make it to the USA this year. I am very excited to engage with the American puppetry scene, and it is a very exciting program they have booked down there.

I certainly plan to be back in NYC and the USA again. Next year is fully booked up with touring Alvin all over the world, so I won't have a chance next year, but I am currently trying to organise a tour of the USA and Canada in 2012, so I'll keep you posted.

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer
Created & Performed by Tim Watts, Australia
Produced in Association with terraNOVA Collective

P.S. 122
150 First Ave at 9th St.
Upstairs Venue

July 7 - 7pm
July 8 - 9pm
July 9 - 7pm
July 10 - 7pm
July 11 - 3pm

5 Questions With undergroundzero Participant Ian Rowlands

By Byrne Harrison

Name: Ian Rowlands
Play: Marriage of Convenience
Relationship to play: Writer and director

Though resident in Wales, Ian Rowlands is no stranger to NY. His play Blink ran for three weeks as part of the Brits Off Broadway Festival in 2008. He is a Lark Alumnus and his last play, Desire Lines was developed in conjunction with The Lark and read for two nights (with John Doman of "The Wire" in the lead) in 2009. That play will be fully staged and toured in Spring 2011. In Wales, he writes and directs, both in tv and theatre. His plays are published by Parthian Books (Marriage of Convenience is published in the volume "One Man, One Voice") and he has an entry in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

Your previous work, Blink, played here in 2008 in an Off-Broadway production at 59E59 Theatres. What can people who only know your work through that play expect from Marriage of Convenience?

I am largely an autobiographical writer in that I tend to take moments of life, compound and juxtapose them in order to heighten dramatic potential and create, what I term, 'hybrid' histories. What's on stage is not my life, rather aspects of it. Both Blink and Marriage are therefore based on real events but fly off tangentially from them.

What led your to write it?

In essence, exile. I was living abroad and saw my nation, and my formative experiences living within it in a different light -- 'By measuring the distance we come home' wrote the Welsh academic Raymond Williams. Marriage of Convenience was a way of measuring.

You're an alumnus of the Lark Play Development Center. How did their program help you?

I cannot thank The Lark enough - not only support but friends. Whilst at the Lark I wrote a new play, Desire Lines, which was read as part of a studio retreat last April. This play will go into full production and tour UK next Spring (though the contract has yet to be singed!).

What are your hopes for this reading?

Severalfold. Amongst them, a further chance to be a part of a reading process and an opportunity to continue a dialogue with a city that I have come to love. My work is culturally specific and it will be an opportunity to measure how transferable the nuances of my experience are - an exercise in cultural equivalence.

What is next for you after undergroundzero?

Over the coming few months I will embark upon a new writing project - On Script / Off Broadway. I am fascinated by the dominance of rehearsed reading in the theatre ecology of NY. On Script / Off Broadway will be a play within a play; a play about a rehearsed reading of a contemporary version of The Trojan Women set in Troy, Ohio. I'm off to Ohio in the morning to spend some time there as part of my research process. I will write the play within the play in full (even though only a few minutes of it might appear in the body of the main text). This will be developed in conjunction with The Lark and Daniella Topol (who is also great). This will be read several time in NY this coming Fall and in the Spring and the experiences of this reading process will feed into the development of the main play. As a byproduct of this process, I have also carried out research in Britain and the Netherlands (courtesy of Wales Arts International and the Netherlands Theatre Institute) into comparative practices. The fruit of that research will be a series of tailored essays upon the roles rehearsed reading fulfills in the theatre ecologies from New Amsterdam to Old Amsterdam. The Welsh essay goes to print next week and hopefully I will hit Caridad Svich's August deadline for the American essay.

Marriage of Convenience
Written & Directed by Ian Rowlands, Wales
Performed by Christian Conn

Staged Reading

P.S. 122
150 First Ave at 9th St.

Sat July 10 @ 2pm - Downstairs Venue

Special Events Announced for undergroundzero festival

By Byrne Harrison

The 4th Annual undergroundzero festival is coming soon. StageBuzz.com will be interviewing members of several productions over the next two weeks - keep an eye open for that.

In addition to producing some ground-breaking theatre, the festival will feature weekly special events providing opportunities to mix and mingle with the artists. All events are open to the public with a suggested $5 donation and refreshments are provided.

Each Tuesday (July 6, 13, & 20) from 8–10pm in the Upstairs venue at PS122, commonground, a meta-theatrical talk show, will introduce the festival artists and highlight the festival's international guests. During the first hour, the attendees will comprise a live studio audience while special guests interview participating artists and cultural experts. The second hour will be an open gathering for participants, special guests, and audience members to mix and mingle.

Hosts include Festival Artistic Director Paul Bargetto, playwright Saviana Stanescu, the festival’s production team, and amazing artists from here and around the world.

On July 6th, commonground: Australia & Catalonia celebrates the launch of the festival and highlights Australian and Catalonian experimental theatre by featuring Au Ments (based in Catalonia), Tim Watts (Australia), and international theatre agent David Berga with special guests from the Catalan Center at NYU and the Institut Ramon Llull.

On July 13th, commonground: Italy & Romania celebrates the Italian and Romanian experimental theatre communities by featuring Compagnia La Fabbricca (Italy) and Green Hours Theater (Romania) with special guests from the Romanian Cultural Institute of New York and the Italian Consulate.

On July 20th, commonground: Ireland & Germany opens our final week, celebrating the Irish and German experimental theatre communities by featuring axis ballymun (Ireland) and Theater Bielefeld (Germany) with special guests from the Goethe-Institut New York and the Irish Consulate.

Each Friday, the festival presents latenightzero, a downtown dance party that welcomes everyone in the arts community and beyond to shake off the work week by getting down. latenightzero happens every Friday (July 9, 16, & 23) from 11pm – 1am in the Upstairs venue at PS122.

Friday, July 9 latenightzero kicks off the opening week of the festival to welcome our participants.

Friday, July 16 latenightzero hosts the League of Independent Theater, the membership, advocacy and business league for the independent theater community in New York City (www.litny.org).

Friday, July 23 latenightzero invites all movers and shakers from the downtown dance community to celebrate the final weekend.

The 4th Annual undergroundzero festival will run July 6-25 at Performance Space 122 (150 1st Avenue at East 9th Street). Tickets ($20) may be purchased online at www.PS122.org or via phone at (212) 352-3101.