CollisionWorks

This just went out to the GCW email list - figured it belonged here, too:

*****

Friends of Gemini CollisionWorks,

2008 continues GCWs' happy residency at The Brick in Williamsburg, where we act as the theatre's technical directors, as well as assisting in the management of the many festivals at the space, and, of course, producing our own work.

Coming up for us this year at The Brick, a show in The Film Festival: A Theater Festival in June - The Magnificent Ambersons - and three shows in August - two originals: Spell and Everything Must Go, as well as Richard Foreman's hysterical and barely-known 1966 comedy Harry in Love.

So we've been able to keep up a pretty hectic pace of creating numerous shows each year, but it's been harder and harder as resources have been getting far more expensive rather quickly (especially rehearsal space) and while we've been known to work wonders on a low (or nearly non-existent) budget, as our work gets more ambitious, it gets harder to do this at the out-of-our-own-pocket level we've been working at for 11 years, especially as - with small theatres and low ticket prices on top of high expenses - we lose money on every show we do. As we have had no way to offer our supporters anything in return for donations, we haven't asked for them.

Until now. Gemini CollisionWorks is now a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts organization, and donations to GCW (made payable to Fractured Atlas) are now tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. For more information on contributing through Fractured Atlas, see https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/ or the directions below for how to donate specifically to us.

We hope you'll consider helping us out - our shows this year could use it (coming up soon in June, a show involving 20 actors with multiple 1880s-1910s costumes each! we need two overhead projectors!). We can't offer much in return, but it'll feel good, be worthwhile, the money'll all be there on the stage, and you get listed in our programs for the whole season (categories below). And it's tax-deductible.

Here is some more info on how to donate, and on this year's shows:


DONATIONS

1. If you wish to donate by check, they MUST be made out to "Fractured Atlas," with "Gemini CollisionWorks" in the memo line (and nowhere else), and should be given to us personally or sent to us for processing at:

Gemini CollisionWorks
c/o Hill-Johnson
367 Avenue S #1B
Brooklyn, NY 11223

2. You can also donate directly online securely by credit card at

https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/1394

or by clicking this handy link:



(please double-check to be sure you're at the "Gemini CollisionWorks" donation page)

All donors will be listed in all our programs for the 2008 season under the following categories:

$0-25 - BONDO
$26-50 - RAT RODS
$51-75 - CHROME
$76-100 - LOW RIDERS
$101-250 - CANDY FLAKE
$251-500 - FLAME JOBS
$501-1000 - T-BUCKETS
$1001-2500 - SUPERCHARGERS
$2501-5000 - KUSTOMIZERS
over $5000 - BIG DADDIES


SHOWS

The Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles: A Reconstruction for the Stage
adapted, designed, directed and narrated by Ian W. Hill
June 1, 6, 10, 12 at 8.00 pm - $15.00

In 1942, Orson Welles' second feature film, and probable masterpiece, was mutilated by RKO Radio Pictures. 43 minutes were cut, and several scenes were reshot in an attempt to make Welles' dark, Chekhovian adaptation of Booth Tarkington's story of a family and town swallowed up in the Industrial Revolution a happier and more commercial experience. It didn't work. The film was buried by the studio, both in the marketplace and physically - all unused footage from the film was destroyed - and Welles' version is gone forever, one of the great mythologized films of Hollywood.

In this show we attempt to reconstruct, as well as we can from the documents and photos that still exist, a theatrical interpretation of Welles' cinematic take on Tarkington's novel. It's not the movie, but it's as close as you're ever likely to see.

with David Arthur Bachrach, Aaron Baker, Linda Blackstock, Walter Brandes, Rebecca Collins, Ivanna Cullinan, Sarah Malinda Engelke, Larry Floyd, Stephen Heskett, Justin R.G. Holcomb, Amy Lizska, Roger Nasser, Vince Phillip, Maire-Rose Pike, Shelley Ray, Timothy McCown Reynolds, Bill Weeden, Natalie Wilder, Scot Lee Williams


Harry in Love: A Manic Vaudeville
by Richard Foreman - directed by Ian W. Hill
9 performances - July 31-August 21 - $15.00

Harry Rosenfeld is a big, neurotic, unnerved and unnerving man who believes his wife is planning to cheat on him. His response: drug her and keep her knocked out until her paramour goes away. The plan works about as well as should be expected and, over several days, a number of people are sucked into Harry's manic, snowballing energy as it becomes an eventual avalanche of (hysterically funny) psychosis.

Before embarking on his great career directing his own groundbreaking avant-garde plays, Richard Foreman briefly entertained the possibility of being a commercial Broadway playwright. This 1966 boulevard comedy (which Foreman has compared accurately to the plays of Murray Schisgal) nearly made it to Broadway, which very well might have meant a very different career for Foreman. It's not what you probably know from him, but it's as funny as his best work, and any line from it, out of context, would not sound out of place in one of his later plays. Really.

with Walter Brandes, Josephine Cashman, Ian W. Hill, Tom Reid, Ken Simon, Darius Stone


Spell
written, designed, and directed by Ian W. Hill
9 performances - August 1-August 24 - $12.00

An American woman who considers herself a patriot has committed a horrible terrorist act as an act of protest and, she hopes, revolution against the government, which she believes no longer represents the law, people, and Constitution of the USA.

As she is interrogated, her mind reinterprets her surroundings into a chorus of voices - witches, revolutionaries, doctors, generals, bossmen, old boyfriends, fragments of herself - arguing over the validity of her violent actions while at the same time trying to deny that the monstrous act has ever occurred, or that she could be capable of such a thing. A meditation on - among other things - whether violence can ever be truly justified, and if so, what limits are there and where does it end?

with Fred Backus, Olivia Baseman, Jorge Cordova, Gavin Starr Kendall, Iracel Rivero, Alyssa Simon, Moira Stone, Liz Toft, Sammy Tunis, Jeanie Tse, Rasha Zamamiri


Everything Must Go (Invisible Republic 2)
text, design, direction and choreography by Ian W. Hill with the company
9 performances - August 2-August 24 - $12.00

A play in dance and fragmented businesspeak. A day in the life of an advertising agency as they work on a major new account, interspersed with backbiting, backstabbing, coffee breaks, office romances, motivational lectures, afternoon slumps, and a Mephistophelian boss who has his eye on a beautiful female Faust of an intern.

A constantly shifting dance-theatre piece in which anything that matters must have a price, anyone is corruptible, and everything must go.

with Gyda Arber, David Arthur Bachrach, Becky Byers, Patrick Cann, Maggie Cino, Ian W. Hill, Amy Lizska, Brandi Robinson, Dina Rose, Ariana Siegel, Julia C. Sun

All shows will be at

The Brick - 575 Metropolitan Avenue - Williamsburg, Brooklyn
right by the L Train stop at Lorimer - G Train stop at Metropolitan/Grand

Advance tickets for all shows will be available at Theatermania.com - there will be special discounts for seeing two or three of the August shows. More info as it happens . . .

hope to see you at our shows, and thanks for your continued support,

Ian W. Hill, arts
Berit Johnson, crafts
Gemini CollisionWorks


Gemini CollisionWorks is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Gemini CollisionWorks may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Back in Portland, ME for a few days, and the last of my dentistry work, I hope.

My bottom wisdom teeth were pulled four hours ago. One went easily and there is no real pain on that side at this point. One didn't want to go, required some unpleasant struggle ("Ooh, had a little hook there on the root, that was the problem" said the very skilled Dr. Killian D. MacCarthy), and, now that the novocaine has worn off, the empty socket on that side hurts like a sonovabitch. The lovely lovely vicodin I took earlier isn't having its normal excellent effects (or maybe it is, and without it I'd be screaming or something).

I went and had the work done - about 35 minutes in the chair, 25 minutes of which were filling out forms or waiting - got my prescription opiate and foodstuffs (soup, pudding, ice cream) at the Rite Aid and now I'm sitting back, waiting for a time when I can eat something and take more painkiller, and watching a rerun of the C.S.I. episode "Fur and Loathing" - the one about the furries . . . which has one of the single best music cues I've ever heard composed for episodic television - the only reason I'm watching this again is get to hear this cue - the rumpy-pumpy, sleazy-but-comic, circusy music that accompanies the "yiff pile" sequence is magnificent (okay, the scene just went by and the music isn't at all like I remembered . . . has it been altered in syndication from what's on the DVDs?).

So I'll be up here a couple more days recovering, watching the TV stuff I don't have at home, retweezing the rehearsal schedules for all my shows (many more conflicts have come in), and trying to write some substantial pieces of Spell and Everything Must Go, which I somewhat need to at this point to move those shows forward, though it'll be easier with EMG, as I've had three rehearsal/creation meetings for that one, and only one first meeting/inspiration session for Spell - which will also be a harder show to write, as I had thought it would originally just need a working knowledge of psychotic mental states (which I know something about) but has wound up requiring substantial research into the revolutions or conflicts of China, Cuba, Palestine, France, and pretty much any country that has gone through such an upheaval; the history of Pacifism; Kabbalah and Numerology; Feminism and The Male Gaze; and god knows what else will come up in creating this piece.

I'll post first draft pieces of the scripts as they appear.

I watched Cloverfield last night, which I expected to mostly like, and really loved it. I also watched Romance & Cigarettes, which I expected to really like, and didn't like it at all - fine actors doing excellent work in a badly-conceived and indifferently-executed . . . thing. Ugh.

Oh, and, courtesy of Bryan Enk, here's a picture of me as George Westinghouse in the season finale of Penny Dreadful:

It's now hours later from when I started this post - the painkillers are working, mostly. Time for ice cream . . .

Last night's rehearsal went great. {phew}

I wound up with only four actors plus myself, but we set up the basic set, played the music, I described what ideas I had at that point, and immediately new, good ones began appearing, as the piece began to come clear.

Good discussions with the actors as well, and I'll have to be on my toes and keep up with them. I had planned one scene that took place out of the office setting where the rest of the show takes place, but had always been disturbed by leaving the setting for just the one scene - I figured it would work anyway, as the sequence is kind of a big, exciting, flashy one. I got called on that by an actor last night, who noted the structure and feel of the piece seems to demand the unity of staying in the office the whole time. And, yeah, he's right. So I have to rethink that scene. Dammit. The assembled came up with several good suggestions for that, but just starts in the right direction, no solutions.

My nerves have pretty much abated on this show - it opens way off on July 30, and in a few hours last night, I solved maybe half of the confusion in myself about what was going to happen in the "blank spaces." I also discovered I need to find two more songs to put in to make transitions work, and one other song I have in there may not work.

Now I'll see if I still have all the actors I thought I had for this show. I could do it with the ones I know I have now, but it's a bit heavy on the female side onstage right now, and that doesn't work right for this show.

25,597 tracks in the iPod - here's a Random Ten for this morning:

1. "Blue Velvet #1" - WFMU - station promos
2. "Fotomodelle" - Piero Umiliani - Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso
3. "I'm Gonna Dance All Night" - The Equals - First Among Equals - The Greatest Hits
4. "Walking Down Madison" - Kirsty MacColl - Galore
5. "Fiabla Bolero" - Franco Ferrara - Music Scene: Musica Per Radio - Televisione - Films
6. "Satellite of Love" - Lou Reed - Transformer
7. "Let's Go Away for a Mashup" - Totom - Bastard Pet Sounds
8. "Code Monkey" - Jonathan Coulton - Thing a Week Three
9. "Sequenza Psichedelica" - Piero Umiliani - Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso
10. "Crazy Sally-Ann" - Sit N' Spin - Enjoy The Ride

What th-? Real random, iPod. Two tracks from the same 60s Italian movie soundtrack? (which I think is some kind of softcore "study" of Sweden) Well, I guess that will happen on random.

And in the land of cat photos, here's Hooker and Moni curled up together last week . . .

And here's one from the last half-hour - Hooker has been sweetly curled up against and around my feet since I got up and got on the couch and computer, purring and making happy grunty noises and mushing his forehead into my toes. So I grabbed the camera to try and get a record of how adorable he was and can be. He stopped being adorable the moment after I took this and took a big chomp into my foot. Ow. I think you may be able to see the transition happening here from sweetness to BAD KITTY . . .

Tonight, we show The Magnificent Ambersons (final 88-minute version, of course) on the big big screen at The Brick for cast members and friends who want to come by (if you're in the latter group and I neglected to email you, let me know). Tomorrow, more making stuff up on Everything Must Go. Looking good.

Last night I went over to The Brick to see a bit of a rehearsal of Babylon Babylon, which I'm now designing the lights for (original designer couldn't do it).

I need to see a few more rehearsals to figure out how to make it work - I can do it with the instruments we have, sure, but I need to really buckle down on what to put where - can't be wasteful at all with instruments on this. The Brick is pretty much all opened up, with rows of seats against the walls, as Frank Cwiklik did with Bitch Macbeth in January.

There's a low central platform, a big stairs/dais piece (the "holy ground") at one end (with projection screen to be bisecting it) and 16 small areas where people have a kind of "home base." Jeff tells me there's really just about 8 real areas to deal with isolating, which helps. I have 26 source-4s (two with I-Cues, two with color scrollers), with 3 others that are broken but fixable (I have the parts), 1 PAR can, two working birdies on floor stands (maybe another one or two fixable), another floor stand for the PAR or a source-4 (and I can always make more if I need them), and basically 31 dimmers (+1 for the house lights). I can make it look good, I'm sure, but I need to see how the whole show moves before I figure out how.

23 out of the 32 listed cast members were there last night, including many friends and frequent collaborators. It'll be fun coming by to these rehearsals and seeing everyone without having to direct them or act with them for once.

So tonight is a first meeting for one of my August shows, Everything Must Go (Invisible Republic #2).

This show is to be "a play with and in dance," and is being built around the actors, so I don't have very much to it yet. A vague structure and setting, some visual, scenic, and choreographic ideas, and the characters I think the 13 actors will be playing -- assuming I have all 13 actors - some haven't replied or said anything to me since agreeing - sometimes vaguely - to do the show. Tonight I'm expecting 8, maybe 9 of the actors. Maybe. I'll see who shows.

I think the show will be about 75-95 minutes long, in one act, in two defined parts that take place in the advertising agency setting - either two days or one day split in half by lunch. I hope I don't lose any more actors (and I keep the one who's still checking schedule to see if she can do it).

Oh, and I have some music for this. Probably most or all of it, some may be added, some may be dropped. I like these songs basically for their sound, the way I feel movement flowing to them, and the emotional rise and fall of the action in the show as a whole as I see it - the only problem is that they are songs, with lyrics, and while the intensity and feel of the song as a whole is exactly what I'm looking for, sometimes the words are distracting, and would seem to impart meanings to the scenes they're intended for that aren't supposed to be there.

But I don't have anything better as yet for those scenes, so these songs will stay until anything better comes up (unlikely). I spent some of the morning burning CDs of the music to be able to give to the cast tonight. Here's what's on them:

PRESHOW:
1. "Anthology" - The Kay Gees
2. "Listen to the Band" - The Monkees

SHOW, part 1 (morning to afternoon, or maybe day one; I don't know yet):
3. "Jimmy Carter" - Electric Six
4. "Slug" - Passengers
5. "Down at McDonnelzz" - Electric Six
6. "Dry Bones" - The Four Lads
7. "Laughing" - Pere Ubu
8. "Transylvanian Concubine" - Rasputina
9. "Shannon Stone (mashup)" - Mark Vidler/Go Home Productions
10. "Not Yet Remembered" - Harold Budd & Brian Eno

SHOW, part 2 (afternoon to evening, or maybe day two; I don't know yet):
11. "The Coo-Coo Bird" - Clarence "Tom" Ashley
12. "Paradise Flat" - The Status Quo
13. "Maybe" - The Chantels
14. "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" - Roxy Music
15. "Uptight Maggie (mashup)" - Mark Vidler/Go Home Productions
16. "Episode of Blonde" - Elvis Costello
17. "Theme One" - George Martin
18. "Back of a Truck" - Regina Spektor

POSTSHOW and EXIT:
19. "Money Changes Everything" - Cyndi Lauper
20. "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" - X

I have no idea yet if this odd jumble of styles and sounds will mix in an interesting and ultimately coherent way, or simply seem scattered, disparate, and unfocused. I think it'll work the way I want it to, and unfortunately confuse some people, which I'd rather not do, but whatever. You can't make it work for everyone.

Tonight I'll play the music and watch how people move (several are trained dancers, of various styles, some are musical-theatre people with some dance, some are actors who move well, and there are a couple that I have no idea about, but they seemed to be needed in this world and I'll choreograph around however they move). Maybe set them up in patterns and see how they work visually. Think about words they look like they should be saying.

So much of me hates working this way, making it up as I go along, but I just know I have to do it this way right now.

From today until the August shows are done - 151 days - Berit and I will have a total of 27 days without a rehearsal or performance of one of our four shows - and never two days in a row except maybe between Ambersons performances in early June. And most of those 27 will be filled up with work to get the shows and space ready (as well as working on Babylon Babylon, Penny Dreadful, and The Film Festival: A Theater Festival). And then the two days after the shows are over will be spent getting The Brick spiffed up for this year's Clown Theatre Festival, followed by another 33 days straight of techs and performances for that festival (and Penny Dreadful again).

We finally get some time off September 29-October 17. Until then, we're pretty much busy every day on shows.

We're fucking nuts.

Still casting the shows. Glad I'm working this far in advance, as it's taking a while.

As mentioned previously, the August production of Harry in Love: A Manic Vaudeville (by Richard Foreman) has been fully cast.

Spell (original play to be created in collaboration with the company, also to go up in August) is mostly cast. Currently in: Moira Stone, Fred Backus, Alyssa Simon, Iracel Rivero, Rasha Zamamiri, Jorge Cordova, Olivia Baseman, Sammy Tunis, Jeanie Tse, and Liz Toft. I still need another woman who speaks a non-English language fluently - and it has to be a language that comes from a country with some kind of revolutionary movement in its past (I've gone through actresses that spoke Russian and German). Also waiting for a man I've asked to say yes or no. I may want another woman in it as well.

Most recent description of the show sent out to the last people I was asking to do the show:

It's about an American woman (Moira) who has apparently done some kind of horrible, murderous terrorist action in the USA, and is being interrogated, or maybe examined by doctors, to find out why she did it, and we watch her attempt at justifying her action in light of other "revolutionary" movements of the past. We're seeing it all inside her fragmented mind, however, so things are changing and sliding around all the time. She keeps changing the "Military Interrogator" back and forth to a "Doctor" in her head, and also keeps changing the sex of this person (Fred & Alyssa). She also keeps imagining herself as a man, a romantic, handsome young revolutionary, who comes out to defend her actions (Jorge). She is also haunted by three witches who seem to be out of Macbeth, but also maybe are the Three Fates, and also represent revolutionary activity of the past as they speak mainly in non-English languages - the witches are Cuban (Iracel), Palestinian (Rasha), and To-Be-Decided (actress-to-be-cast). She also has "flashbacks" to her life before terror, where she's always tormented by men in control of her life (all played by the same man to be cast), and sees herself as a number of different women of different kinds (Olivia, Sammy, Liz, Jeannie, and maybe another).

I've watched a few movies recently that have had some kind of inspiration for where this is going: Godard's Tout Va Bien, Ken Russell's The Devils, some Greenaway, and I'll get to INLAND EMPIRE again sometime soon.

This image seems inspirational for this show as well - John Heartfield's Hurrah, the Butter Is Finished! from 1935:

(quote at bottom) Goering: "Iron has always made a nation strong, butter and lard have only made the people fat."

Songs that are in the playlist for Spell right now: "Children Go Where I Send Thee" - traditional, performed by Ralph Stanley; "Monkey Gone to Heaven" by Pixies; "Highway 61 Revisited" performed by PJ Harvey; "The Red Telephone" by Love; "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray" - traditional, unknown performer; and "Just Another Day" by Brian Eno. And somewhat tangentially, "Folk Song" by Bongwater and "High Water" by Bob Dylan.

The other original August show is now being called Everything Must Go - previously the working title was Invisible Republic, but I always figured that would be a subtitle. It's now become apparent that Invisible Republic has become a "series title" for me like NECROPOLIS, with That's What We're Here For as the first part of the series.

Now in Everything Must Go are: Jai Catalano, Dina Rose Rivera, Gyda Arber, Maggie Cino, Jay Liebman, Amy Liszka, Patrick Cann, Julia C. Sun, Brandi Robinson, and Doua Moua. I'd like another two men in the company - I've asked one, and I'm going to audition another.

Most recent description sent out to cast about this one:

It's about the USA, capitalism, and advertising/selling. It takes place in an advertising agency, over the course of a day . . . and that's most of what I know about it. Jai plays The Big Boss, and everyone else works under him, from VPs down to clerks. I'm going to create the dialogue and movement around the actors I get - I'm asking certain people I want who feels right for the world of the show, who I think can move well - there will be a mix of actual dancers of various kinds and people who just move well, or who I know can move "right" - and we'll see how it goes. And that's probably all I can say about it right now. I have music in mind, and dances and movement, and a bit of structure, but I can't do anything else until I have the performers.

Songs to probably be used in the show: "Jimmy Carter" by Electric Six; "Slug" by Passengers; "Down at McDonnellz" by Electric Six; "Dry Bones" performed by The Four Lads; "Transylvanian Concubine" by Rasputina; "Laughing" by Pere Ubu; "Not Yet Remembered" by Harold Budd & Brian Eno; "The Coo Coo Bird" performed by Clarence "Tom" Ashley; "Episode of Blonde" by Elvis Costello; "Theme One" by George Martin; and "Back of a Truck" by Regina Spector.

I've watched a couple of inspirational movies here, too -- Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, All That Jazz, and in some strange way Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 all had something to give.

Oh, and this show also has a particularly inspirational collage image, Richard Hamilton's work from 1956 (though the authorship is disputed), Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?:

And that's the August shows. Now as to the June show, The Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles: A Reconstruction for the Stage . . . this is a casting pain!

I've got nine people set (besides myself) for this one, and still need another 11. I'll be auditioning four people I know of now, and I've asked another person who hasn't answered, but that leaves a lot more to look for. Hard to get people for this it seems.

Currently in: Timothy McCown Reynolds, Stephen Heskett, Shelley Ray, Walter Brandes, Ivanna Cullinan, Rebecca Collins, Amy Liszka, Linda Blackstock, and Aaron Baker.

In the morning, I'll send an email out to the people already cast in all shows asking for suggestions of people they know, like, and trust I should meet for the remaining parts - I usually wind up getting good people that way.

And that's it for the shows for today. Tomorrow, a little work on them in the morning, then over to The Brick to prepare for Penny Dreadful and the opening night party for Notes from Underground. Another day.