Tag Archive for: Ed Herendeen

REHEARSAL JOURNAL #2

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We are into our second week of rehearsal. The work is intense and the company is responding to this ambitious season. We are confronting the many unanswerable questions that these five plays raise. I agree with David Mamet when he says that the playwright’s highest calling is to wrestle the unanswerable. Help us see it, give us an opportunity to sit in a room together and bear it. Craft something beautiful out of our human mess. The 2010 Repertory meets these challenges…fearlessly. I am proud of the work that we are doing. Our playwrights, directors, designers and actors are not turning away from the world that we live in. These plays burn with intensity and truth. This work reminds us that theater has the power to change us.

Storytelling is thriving at the Contemporary American Theater Festival. We live in a turbulent and dangerous world. We face an uncertain future…yet the theater offers us a public space to come together in a community to ask difficult questions by engaging us and entertaining us with new stories. The CATF rehearsal spaces are buzzing with creative energy. I can hear the EELWAX JESUS Band belting out the music below my office. The shops are working late into the evening preparing the costumes, props and scenery. And there is a constant hum of human emotion and activity coming from the artists residences. The Festival is in high gear. The work has begun.

REHEARSAL JOURNAL: COMPANY READ-THRU

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Theater is the celebration of the idea. Nowhere does the “idea” reign more alive than at the 2010 Contemporary American Theater Festival. Our first day of rehearsal convinced me that this season’s Repertory embraces new ideas, dramatic stories and new works that are bold enough to reflect our present culture back to itself. This Repertory of five new plays speaks of: war, fear, neurosis, healing, forgiveness, relationships and redemption. And at CATF…ideas are still necessary. For 20 years the Theater Festival has found new work that keeps ideas alive and vital. We build plays. We nurture playwrights, we discover new and passionate voices. If you want to see what is on the minds of five American writers…if you want to see what you can learn from them…if you want to be engaged by ideas…if you want to be entertained…if you want to discover new American theater…then you must attend and experience the 2010 Contemporary American Theater Festival. We are relentless in our pursuit of the “idea.”

I was blown away yesterday as I listened to the CATF Acting Company read-thru these stunning new plays. The five plays presented this year reflect the American mood, for better and worse. They are a reliable barometer of our country’s mood presented live…on-stage…in the present moment. I promise you that the “idea” reigns at the Contemporary American Theater Festival.

Ed Herendeen

A TSUNAMI OF CREATIVE ENERGY

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Today we are witnessing a tsunami of creative energy as the 2010 Contemporary American Theater Festival arrives in Shepherstown, West Virginia. You can feel the creativity everywhere. Tonight we put into motion our 20th Season with a Company Picnic on the Frank Center lawn…we begin the rehearsal process on Tuesday. We will have a Company READ-THRU of INANA, BREADCRUMBS, LIDLESS and THE EELWAX JESUS 3-D POP MUSIC SHOW.

 Yesterday we were in Washington, DC at BUS BOYS AND POETS for a discussion on race in America. We read four short excerpts from J.T. Rogers’  WHITE PEOPLE. Cast members: Lee Sellars, Margot White and Kurt Zischke read short monologues from the script. Then we had a lively discussion. BUS BOYS AND POETS is sponsoring a bus trip to Shepherdstown in July to see WHITE PEOPLE and LIDLESS.

I am looking forward to beginning rehearsals on Tuesday. The first rehearsal/Company READ-THRU is the first opportunity for the CATF Company to hear four plays read by the cast with the playwrights, directors, designers etc. It is one of my most favorite days of the summer. We have assembled an extraordinary company of theater artists to join us for our five play rotating repertory. The Company READ-THRU puts into motion our creative journey…a rare new lyrical moment in the life of our theater company, one of those occasions when in the words of Tennessee Williams:

 ” Our hearts are uncovered and their words released and that’s when poetry comes and the deepest emotion.”

Ed Herendeen

CREATING RESONANCE

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                     “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring

                       will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”  T.S. Eliot

 All the risk taking, creativity inducing, entrepreneurial flames that have ignited the Contemporary American Theater Festival since 1991 continue to burn strong. Opportunities abound for creative stimulation, and inspiration continues to flow as we begin our 20th Anniversary Season.

 We embrace the excitement and wonder of our 2010 Repertory and we are clearly focused on  our vision, mission and core values. We are a community of artists who are united by a common purpose–to help people raise the standard of living meaningful lives by producing provocative contemporary works of art that help us to understand our world and ourselves. Our work empathizes with others because empathy lies at the heart of morality, and we are a theater company that embraces social responsibility. Our purpose drives our mission, which drives our vision, which is inspired by our core values.

Creativity is the nucleus of our collective enterprise. We understand that the creative process is essential to the health and success of our organization. We are a theater that is willing and agile enough to adapt to the unpredictable rhythms of society. This means that our Theater Festival is alive with possibilities. We celebrate the power of ideas and we seek fresh opportunities for new thinking. The 2010 Repertory will continue to rock-the-boat and shift the status quo.

Our 2010 playwright’s: Max Baker, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Jennifer Haley, Michele Lowe, J.T. Rogers and Lee Sellars function as master storytellers, while sending activist tentacles into the world to bring about dialogue and positive change.

So here’s a question: What does the Contemporary American Theater Festival truly represent? How does the work we create relate to the current social events and why does it really matter? I invite you to attend all five plays…and see for yourself…Because theater can move us…it ignites our passions and inspires the best in us. When we try to explain why theater is so effective, we speak of strategy, vision, or powerful ideas. But the reality is much more primal. Great art works through the emotions. Our success depends on how well we do this.

Throughout history and in cultures everywhere, people look to the artists for assurance and clarity when facing uncertainty. Artists act as our emotional guides. They help us to become more self-aware by mirroring our behavior. Self-awareness plays a crucial role in empathy, or sensing how someone else sees a situation: If a person is perpetually oblivious to their own feelings, they will also be tuned out to how others feel. Being attuned to how others feel in the moment can create an atmosphere for social awareness and empathy. Empathy which includes listening and understanding other people’s stories creates resonance. The root of the word resonance is revealing: the Latin word resonare, to resound. Resonance, the Oxford dictionary states, refers to “the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection,” or more specifically, “by synchronous vibration.” This occurs in the theater when the audience is on the same wavelength emotionally with the actor and production–when they feel “in sync.” And true to the original meaning of resonance, this synchrony “resounds,” prolonging an “AHA!” experience with the audience.

Our 2010 Repertory presents five new works that will inspire and create resonance…plays that will move you with our  compelling vision and collective mission. I am attracted to contemporary writers who are attuned to our world and whose stories help us to define these tumultuous times.

I assure you that Max Baker, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Jennifer Haley, Michele Lowe, J.T. Rogers and Lee Sellars are attuned to today’s world and their stories will create resonance long after you leave the theater.

Ed Herendeen