Tag Archive for: Ed Herendeen

Fall 2010: Another Beginning

The 2010 Festival is history and the work speaks for itself. Now it is time to re-invent a new repertory. Nothing compares to the feeling that I have when I begin to plan a new season. It is Fall in Shepherdstown and that means reading scripts. I have been traveling back and forth to New York and Chicago where I have been meeting with playwrights and Literary agents…taking “pitches” and attending readings and workshops. My Kindle is loaded with new scripts. Beginning a new season is thrilling, exhilarating and frightening. I am ferociously devoted to finding provocative scripts with good stories and new ideas…new works that express the beauty, wonder, and dirty truth of the human spirit.

Our Odyssey continues…

For two decades the Contemporary American Theater Festival has invited brave artists and adventurous audience members to join us on an extraordinary odyssey to discover and create the future of the American Theater. It has been an exhilarating voyage in search of new American plays. Over the years we have explored and produced new works by some of the best playwrights in America, as well as discovering a new generation of emerging writers. Our quest for innovative new plays and new ideas has earned us a reputation as one of America’s most important producers of new work. Our long strange trip has been an artistic endeavor of collaboration between the artists, the work and our followers. This eventful journey began on a wing and prayer AND a burning passion to make art. Our passion, creative spirit, imagination and industrious commitment to discover truth and beauty in our turbulent world–guides us on our next odyssey.

I am looking forward to sharing with you my thoughts on our upcoming 2011 Theater Festival. I also look forward to hearing from you. Please send me your comments, reactions, impressions and testimonials from our 2010 Season. Let’s start a digital conversation. Let’s TALK THEATER!

Ed Herendeen, Producing Director

FESTIVAL TIME

It is FESTIVAL TIME in Shepherdstown WV. Shepherdstown is the oldest town in West Virginia doing the newest plays in America. Visitors from across America are descending on this historic semi-rural town nestled in the foothills of the BlueRidge Mountains to experience Five new American plays in rotating Repertory. Our small town is alive with aggressive storytelling and creative rebellion. The pubs, restaurants, and shops are filled with conversation. People are talking-theater. Everywhere you go you hear the buzz of radical innovation. The tsunami of creative energy is thriving throughout the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Shepherdstown is the cultural gateway into West Virginia. And the people are talking…Theater critics are talking…

                    “A gas-masked figure tossing moon pies. A stuffed dachshund named Sarah Palin. A tap-dancing vagina. Those are just a few of the hallucinatory images that swim out of THE EELWAX JESUS 3-D POP MUSIC SHOW, the most memorable, if not the most satisfying, production at the 2010 Contemporary American Theater Festival. —THE WASHINGTON POST  Wednesday, July 14, 2010

                   “If you long for the curious likes of Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT, or Tom Stoppard’s ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, you’re in for a treat…you’ll get an eye-popping evening with CATF’s world premiere offering of THE EELWAX JESUS 3-D POP MUSIC SHOW.”—THE HERALD MAIL July 13, 2010

                    “The 20th Anniversary of CATF appears to be the finest yet of the five play summer series.”—Bob Anthony, allartsreview4u.com

                    “INANA…Michele Lowe has written a well made thing. It’s a pleasure to watch a play go beyond what is expected.”—THE MONSTERRAT REVIEW

Yes people are talking…more later… I am looking forward to your comments.

Ed Herendeen

REHEARSAL JOURNAL # 4 TECH

We moved into the theaters this week and today we begin our first Tech Rehearsals for LIDLESS and THE EELWAX JESUS 3-D POP MUSIC SHOW. On Friday we tech INANA, BREADCRUMBS and WHITE PEOPLE. It is an exciting time. I love this part of the process. This is the time when all the elements of a theatrical production come together. The collaboration among so many diverse artist is intense and exhilarating. Tech is when we blend all these diverse art forms into an organic whole. This is the time when we create unity and harmony in art…live art. This is the time when we create truth and belief on-stage. I get very jazzed during this part of the process.

Here’s a quote from the American Playwright Thornton Wilder:

                    “I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share  with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. The supremacy of the theater derives from the fact that it is always “now” on the stage.” 

Our previews begin next week and we open the 2010 REPERTORY on Friday July 9th. I’ll see you at the Festival.

Ed Herendeen

REHEARSAL JOURNAL #3

Week three at the Festival…we are in the thick of the creative process. Scenery, costumes and props are being constructed. The Frank Stage has bits and parts of scenery from five different shows scattered across the stage. Sculptures for INANA are being fabricated and carved in the sculpture studio. The costume shop is busy with actor fittings, shopping and construction. Our Props dept is raiding the local flea markets, shopping for props and creating props. The electrics crew is hanging three rep lighting plots.The admin staff is preparing for our opening weekend. And the actors are digging into the third week of rehearsal. Needless to say…there is a tsunami of activity throughout the Festival. I can honestly tell you that I am having a BLAST. The work is hard and exhilarating. The work is intense and collaborative. The work is endless and yet full of joy.

I am pleased with the publicity that we are receiving. Elizabeth Blair from National Public Radio visited rehearsals and conducted interviews with Max Baker and Lee Sellars. She is doing a feature story on our 20th Anniversary Season which will air on NRP soon. West Virginia Public Radio did a story on the Festival which aired this week. Wednesday’s Washington Post had an interview with Michele Lowe and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig. WYPR Public Radio in Baltimore is doing a story on INANA next week. So the word is getting out…we are creating BUZZ.

So…can I count on you to help me “spread-the-word?”  

Ed Herendeen