Evan's FWT 2018

I'm a sophomore at Bennington College in Vermont, studying Drama with a dash of Music and Public Action. This blog will continue to chronicle my Field Work Terms, currently following my work with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in Bloomsburg, PA, during the 2018 winter term.

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“Am I Haunted or Just Cold? - Seven Weeks in Bloomsburg PA”

(above: my commute to work, bascially)

I experienced something similar to what I experienced last year in regard to my Field Work Term search. Last year, for my 2017 FWT, I had already visited and confirmed a site before I even stepped foot on the Bennington campus. This saved me from some stress during term. With that in mind, I sent out most (if not all?) of my 2018 FWT applications during July, which meant all I had to do during the 2017 fall term was a few interviews. That also meant that I was offered the internship at the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble at the end of July, with a few other offers trickling in after. Most of my term was then about deciding which internship was the most feasible. Ultimately, as I am known to do, I dropped the ball on following-up with a few possible sites and by the time I had to register the site, Bloomsburg was really the only viable (and seemingly the safest and least sketchy, if I’m being honest) option.

I was admittedly very apathetic about spending seven weeks in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. I had never heard of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. I only knew one person from Pennsylvania and they were from Philadelphia. Philadelphia is, I assume, very different from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. I had been gunning to do a FWT in New York, or Chicago, or Boston — someplace big and loud and fast and known for theater and where all my friends would be. I had spent my first FWT in Miami, my hometown, and I wanted to go somewhere that I could be cold but busy with the city and the internship

Bloomsburg, for all its cold, was not a place I had ever planned to end up for any reason. I was not incredibly enthused, even though BTE seemed like a perfectly wonderful place.

I was incredibly wrong to feel any way but absolutely ecstatic. Although it’s a small town (not as small as a Bennington but definitely far from a Miami), Bloomsburg was so delightful and had no shortage of things to do.

The Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble was a really really amazing place to work. I’ve often felt very strange in internships, in a way that it seems like I’m there but not really there in a useful way. I did not feel this way at BTE. I felt very welcomed and by the end of the seven weeks I felt so comfortable and ingrained in the company that I could’ve thought I’d been there for seven years. I went from being rather meek and subservient to not just having ideas (!) but being asked for them (what!? madness!). I doubt there was a big shortage of that during my first FWT, but for my first extended internship away from home, it was very vital to making me feel like I was really “here.” Because I lived with my FWT supervisor (Laurie, a secret genius who need to be world-famous), I felt much more “in” the company than I had in any other internship. Often, meetings for “Ah-Ha!” were held at Laurie’s house over tea. There was a BTE potluck at Laurie’s house. Guest artists who came for “Georgie McBride” lived in the house with us. I was truly plunged into the depths of the BTE pool and I was giving so many Water-Wings to keep me afloat until I was ready to do it myself.

The Alvina Krause Theatre, where BTE’s offices are and MainStage productions happen, was three blocks down from the house. The rehearsal space at the Mitrani was slightly further away. The “Ah-Ha!” rehearsal space in St. Matthew’s Church was only slightly further away than that. Everything I needed was in walking distance. I didn’t feel isolated at all in this small town, as I had worried I may feel.

Part of being in the depths of the BTE pool meant spending a lot of time with the ensemble members, who are all lovely wonderful youthful joyous sassy people who I got along with very well and already miss very much. They took me to movies, to the store, to events, to meals, to game nights, and to and from the airport —  I felt incredibly supported and valued in the capacity of my internship as well as outside of it.

I believe it was this support that made it easier for me to feel that I could do things that I wanted to do. I casually mentioned one rehearsal of “I and You” that I did lighting design – rather than simply nod and politely acknowledge it, I was immediately asked to assist the lighting designer, which I did with some gobo and genie lift stuff. Laurie actively took an interest in the play I was revising over FWT that I had written in the fall for a class. The ensemble seemed interested in what I was interested rather than just what they needed from me in a technical sense. Although I didn’t get to do a ton of stuff for “I and You” outside of my Assistant Stage Manager role, I at least got even slightly exposed to every piece of the puzzle, so to speak, which made it a very enriching experience. I also got to read a bunch of the plays Laurie has in her library (as well as many from the BTE archives), discuss them (and especially the ones she’d directed) with her, and also watch videos of her past productions as well as read her writing and learn about her solo show she’s been developing. The openness and sincere sharing nature of the ensemble was wonderful.

I feel like I underwent a good deal of growth over this FWT, both as a student/intern and as a human being. I got more comfortable asking questions/asking for help when I needed it. I even asked questions about things I didn’t NEED to know more about but just wanted to. I learned a lot about the way BTE operates – I got to sit in on Tactical meetings, Envisioning meetings, Play Selection meetings, Committee meetings – and although I didn’t feel entirely informed enough to take such an active role in those meetings, I was fully engaged and able to absorb everything going on. Watching Jim and Eric directing “I and You” and “Georgia,” respectively, also helped me understand how to be a better directing and what might be a good way to articulate my ideas and the pace at which those ideas need to be articulated. Because I was so trusted, I was able to feel very independent (partly having to do with not being home?) and didn’t feel that I was out of my lane when I was given independent tasks. I also grew more comfortable speaking up even when I wasn’t explicitly asked to (but not so much in the insular meetings, as I had explained) but when it was appropriate too. I also got a lot more comfortable with giving my opinion since I was often asked for it.

This FWT was quite incredible simply because of what BTE is. It’s a small theater, with a relatively small staff, in a relatively small town, and yet it has lasted for quite a longer while than I’m sure anybody would guess it could. It was truly beautiful to see how much the town loves its theater and the people who work there. BTE is also, as its name implies, an “ensemble theater.” There isn’t any real hierarchy within the ensemble – I mentioned the “holocracy” in an earlier post. The members perform in plays, design plays, direct plays, mostly using each other’s talents. It’s a collaborative atmosphere. I personally found it to be an interesting and fruitful model for a theatre company – one that I would certainly want to use in the future.

A few final thoughts before I jump back into the term:

Getting to help the lighting designer has made me even more interested in pursuing lighting design at Bennington.

 I enjoy keeping a blog over FWT because summarizing and reflecting on what I’ve done throughout the week helps me feel grounded and productive.

I need to learn to take care of myself diet-wise – I was not very good at grocery shopping.

Doing all that research for “Ah-Ha!” made me very interested in taking a dramaturgy class to see how that translates to working on a pre-written text.

(Oh, and re: the title of this blog post. Laurie was having hip surgery and recovering at a more handicap-friendly house than her own for the first month of FWT, so although I got to see her I was living alone in a huge house, I got used to the creaking and clanging but for the first weekend I was thoroughly creeped out. It was cold and while the furnace warmed up I would walk into cold spots that were a little unsettling. Anyway. Goodbye. ‘Til next time.)

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week 7 - the farewell tour

My last week was also the first week of rehearsal for Ah-Ha! Amazing Inventors and Their Extraordinary Inventions. Although I obviously couldn’t take on as consistent a role as I did with I and You, I was still able to be involved in rehearsals. The show has gone into rehearsals without a script -- simply concepts drawn from original ideas or from past iterations of Theater-in-the-Classroom, as well as all of our compiled research about these inventors. Rehearsals officially started on Tuesday afternoon after the weekly ensemble meetings in the morning, but we used available time on Monday to meet and begin to hone down which inventors we wanted to use. Part of this process included re-evaluating a few male inventors who we had thought were Hispanic/Latino (and therefore non-white, fulfilling the goal of the show to educate about inventors who were not white men), but with further research realized wouldn’t work. This included Quirino Cristiani, who although he lived in Argentina from a young age was Italian-born, and Juan Vucetich (pioneer of fingerprinting) who also lived in Argentina but was Croatian.

(Below: rehearsal set for Ah-Ha!)

Ah-Ha then transitioned to the rehearsal room, where it was a pretty flexible, nebulous process. Each day informs the next, and so it’s difficult to plan ahead so early while the show’s content is being generated. Much of the work involved taking the research and ideas we had and trying them out in concrete representations, either through devising an improv or splitting up and working on a script. One of the fun activities we’ve done as a warm-up for rehearsal is creating a “machine” through noise and movement, where each of us is a part that interacts with another. This carried over into staging the story of Margaret Knight, with the actors forming a loom and also forming her machine that makes flat-bottomed paper bags. I’ve never worked from scratch in a rehearsal room, so that’s been a fun thing to experience -- that possibility of the material going anywhere. That first week also included thinking ahead and finding some through-lines and repeating plot/staging devices to give the show a cohesive structure.

I also got to observe some rehearsals for BTE’s next mainstage show, The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, about a down-on-his-luck Elvis impersonator who has to become a drag queen in Panama City, Florida. It’s a pretty old-fashioned story structure (“understudy becomes shining star” and “learning to be true to yourself”) packaged with a modern twist. It’s delightful. It’s interesting to sit back in a more traditional rehearsal and seeing actors work with a real script after Ah-Ha and of course it’s a wildly different show than I and You. This is a bigger show, cast-wise and staging-wise, and there’s a lot to think about. It was also interesting to watch a different director, focusing less on intimate moments and looking more at blocking and movement and how that affects intention and energy (which this show requires much more than I and You, I think).

(Below: costume designs for Georgia McBride)

Another fun part of this week was going with a few BTE folks to the Sit Next To Me! Film Festival, featuring short films from young, local filmmakers that focused on diversity, community, racism, identity, and LGBTQ+ issues. BTE was pretty involved in the festival -- many of the kids have been in their shows and a few of the ensemble members appeared in the films. It was really enriching to see a small community like Bloomsburg really embracing these short films and supporting future artists.

(Below: entrance to the film festival at the Children’s Museum)

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week 6

I got sick again for most of this week

I was worried it might be the flu but I popped pills and drank tea and VOILA! here I am still alive and well. So. I think I’m good. I feel fine now. Anyway.

This week felt like another ‘transitional’ week. We’ve wrapped up most of our research and our preliminary development/study guide work for “Ah-Ha!” and now we’re gearing up to start rehearsals next week. Obviously, since I’ll be leaving after their first work of rehearsal I won’t be having anywhere near as ‘present’ a role as I did with “I and You,” but i will get to watch and engage in some of the devising they’ll do in this first week! exciting!

Researching the Pennsylvania core curriculum, though time-consuming, was actually an incredibly interesting assignment. Obviously, it contextualizes the work that BTE is doing with its Theater-in-the-Classroom series (TIC), but it also gave me a really fundamental (if incomplete - i didn’t have to cover all the subjects, of course, just the relevant ones) understanding of the educational priorities of the state of Pennsylvania. There wasn’t anything shocking or bureaucratic or ignorant or anything, it was just intriguing to see it all laid out in writing.

Fun thing I got to do this week was visit BTE’s storage facility!!! I learned a few things from ensemble member Elizabeth about the history of the town of Bloomsburg on this trip (including about the Bloomsburg Fair - the largest fair in the state), since the storage place used to be the town mill owned by the Magee Family, which essentially dominated town business back ....in the old days?

What follows are a bunch of pictures I got in the storage warehouse!

And I’ll leave you with this: From a past TIC about Ben Franklin, one of his inventions-- a chair that turns into a ladder!

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week 5

I am late with this entry. Which you (FWT Cosmic Power) obviously noticed. Sorry. Okay. Here we go.

Lots of things have happened in the past week, both those directly related to BTE and others that are merely the goings-on of the universe. A big one: Super Bowl. The Eagles won. I’m in Pennsylvania. Fireworks and a burning couch. Fun stuff. A small one: I got sick and drank a lot of tea and now I’m not sick. Fun stuff. I’m working on writing a reflection titled, “Am I Haunted or Just Cold? Seven Weeks in Bloomsburg, PA.” I think this will be the title of my final entry. Spoiler alert.

This week has been /half/ wrapping up “I and You” and /half/ research & development for “Ah-HA!” We had a strike on Sunday night which I vaguely mused about in the last entry, but on Wednesday we had two meetings to officially wrap-up the show and reflect on acting, technical, etc. issues and triumphs that we wanted to note for the future. There was a lot of focus on the problem-solving we went through in tech, such as finding alternatives to the gobos that ended up burning in the lights and how we were able to work to figure out the ending of the play on a technical and artistic level.

I’m continuing to trudge through the Pennsylvania core curriculum frameworks and standards to identify the benchmarks that were most relevant and best served by “Ah-HA!” We’ve also begun meeting regularly to discuss the play’s format, focus, and content, continuing to focus on and do research about black, Hispanic/Latinx, and women inventors who aren’t represented in common historical narratives. This has been especially enlightening to me, since I didn’t know a huge amount of these individuals existed or about their specific contributions before doing this research. An example: Quirino Cristiani, an Italian-born Argentine animation director and cartoonist who made the world’s first two animated feature films, first animated film with sound, and the first animation created only with cardboard cutouts.

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week 4 - preparations

This weekend marked the closing and strike of the BTE’s production of “I and You.” I could go on and on about the bittersweet endings and the proud but sadly content fulfillment one gets closing a show, but these ideas aren’t neccessarily new or foreign to me so I wont. There isn’t much time to dwell on those feelings anyway, since i’m now about to be off onto my next project I’m working on thwith the BTE: their theater-in-the-classroom (TIC) touring production of “Ah-HA! Amazing Inventors and Their Extraordinary Inventions” that will kick into gear just after I leave to return to Bennington.

Prior to the start of their rehearsals, I’ll be helping with research & development to get the script and study guide ready. That really gets going next week, but I’ve already begun to help facilitate some of that process by getting a head start on the bibliography for the study guide.

(Above: I occupied the desk of my supervisor Laurie while she was out for hip surgery recovery. The books are what I’ve been catalogueing.)

It’s not a formalized MLA-style bibliography, rather it serves as a printed resource for teachers and educators to be able to find the books for interested students and also use them in the classroom if they’d want to. For a similar idea, I’m also navigating through the state of Pennsyvlania’s common core/educational standards and identifying relevent benchmarks to the concept, style, purpose, and subject of the show (specifically in entrpreunership, theater, english & language arts, and science).Teachers can then understand how this show relates to and fits in with what they’re required to teach and get a better idea of how exactly to incorporate this show into their classroom instruction.

Quite some fun and reading ahead of us!

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week 3 - opening weekend

It’s hard to believe it’s already the third week of FWT. I guess time flies when you’re having fun. That, or my sense of timing is warped because of the head injury I got from standing up right into a counterweight backstage. I’m a professional, I promise. (And the head injury is not bad at all. Listen, I really am fine. This is going great. Don’t worry about me, FWT office.)

Just finished the opening weekend of “I and You” with today’s matinee. Thursday and Friday nights were the first two preview performances, and Saturday was the opening night followed by a post-show dinner with the cast and crew, which was all great fun.The opening night was attended by a really enthusastic and responsive audience and ended with a full standing ovation! Hooray! It was the kind of audience every theater person dreams of, honestly, and even being backstage, it gave me great pride. It’s also nice to have my name in a program so my parents can show it off to their friends.

Saturday’s opening was a “Pay-What-You-Decide” performance, which means that audiences pay for their ticket AFTER the show rather than paying a flat fee beforehand. This idea was totally new and really interesting to me. It was a great way to remove the risk from a night at the theater (that is, audiences are more likely to come if they don’t have to pay full price for a show they’re not sure about - which also can draw in people who may not have otherwise opened their minds to the show), and allow people who may not have the money to pay for a regular ticket price an opportunity to come enjoy theater and pay what they feel comfortable with. I’m always interested in these little ways to make theatre more accesible and open for audiences.

In a group chat earlier this week, one of my friends brought up the idea of forming a theater company after we graduate. I feel like working at BTE is giving me some really helpful templates, ideas, and frameworks in which a theater company (even a small but well-regarded one) can operate really successfuly and fill an important gap in a community. BTE is a great example of a theater that both supports and is supported by its town.

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week 2 (technically 1?)

I got into the full swing of rehearsal this week. I’ve continued being on-book for the actors and helping them run lines, which has been lots of fun because they’re lots of fun. An area in which I could grow little (which I’ve known about forever!) is paying more attention when I’m on-book -- I end up watching the actors instead of the script and lose my place, which is just a focus thing. Since they’re more comfortable with the lines and not calling for “line” as much anymore it’s not a big issue, but it’s definitely something that I always have problems with. I like theater too much. Darn.

(Above: the actors on the rehearsal set!)

On Tuesday morning I got to it in on the BTE’s “Tactical” meeting. BTE doesn’t function like most theater companies - there is no Artistic Director or established heirarchy. This was their original structure, but because they realized that being Artistic Director meant you’d spend all your time in the office and couldn’t take on artistic projects, they restructured into a “holacracy.” Basically, it makes horizontal the governance of the company, so each person takes responsibilty for a certain area and they report to each other as an ensemble (and these positions are flexible so someone can switch areas as they and the ensemble sees fit). It’s a system I’ve never heard of so it was definitely a new and exciting thing to experience. They also check-in on any productions they’re working on.

(Above: the basic structure of the set!)

On Wednesday night’s “I and You” rehearsal we moved into the actual space (the Alvina Krause Theatre) for load-in and to start tech week! Mostly what I’ve been doing is assisting the designers/stage manager wherever they need it. I helped the lighting designer re-focus some lights and choose/insert gobos for some cool lighting effects that make the end of the play pop - it was a great experience to augment the work I’d done in my lighting design class last term! Most of the “hands-on” tech work was done during “Dry Tech,” which takes place without the actors to solidify technical cues, which gives us something to work off of when the actors come in (and saves time!).

(Above: view from above the tech tables!)

(Below: a little snippet of the production schedule, just to give you an idea of all the work and time that goes into an even seemingly simple show like “I and You”)

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finally at Bloomsburg!

Whoa whoa whoa! This Field Work Term got off to a pretty rocky start. Not because of the site (which I’ll talk about in a few) but the journey to get here was pretty rough. First, my flight got delayed! Then, it got canceled! Then I rebooked and traveled from 5:00 AM from Miami to Dallas to Philadelphia to Williamsport and then a car to Bloomsburg and got in around midnight! I only arrived last night because of  the crazy northern weather! (I think I took for granted doing last FWT in Miami…) But now I’m just about settled in to a big house in the center of Bloomsburg with lots of space and theatrical memorabilia, so I’m feeling pretty good now (albeit quite cold).

For better or worse, Bennington has made me used to getting a bunch of connecting flights and sitting in a car for an hour before finally unclenching, so I was able to wake up nice and ready this morning to sit in on my first rehearsal for “I And You” by Lauren Gunderson. Without revealing too much (the genius of this play lies in how it all comes together at the end), it follows one evening when Caroline (who suffers from liver illness) and Anthony (a seemingly perfect student and son) get together to work on a school project on Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” Today was just a stumble through of the show along with my meeting the cast and most of the team, so I don’t have much to report in regards to a learning experience. 

I WILL say that I didn’t realize how prepared Bennington Drama had made me to jump into situations. As an Assistant Stage Manager for “August: Osage County” at Bton, I was basically on-book for the actors most of the time during rehearsals before I was backstage for tech, so I was really ready to volunteer to be on book for the actors in their first run through (which I think surprised the Stage Manager a bit that I wasn’t content to simply sit back and take everything in on my first day!). I felt so comfortable in the rehearsal room and I’m ready to dig in and start having more responsibility! Everyone has been so wonderful so far. Very exciting to work with this community of artists.

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the finale

Well, this is it. My last day of my first Field Work Term just ended.

I need to start off this reflection by saying that although I had seen a City Theatre show before taking the internship, I wasn’t aware of the scope and extent of the work City Theatre actually does. Nan Barnett, the Executive Director of the National New Play Network, said it best, so I’m going to paraphrase a chunk of her speech from City Shorts:

“There is no other theater in the country that is doing this kind of work at these many levels in your community.”

 A list of the programming I was exposed to: City Shorts, Summer Shorts, the Short Cuts School Tour, Shorts Gone Wild, City Wrights. Five different programs (not counting the forthcoming Winter Shorts) that I was able to take part in. I helped with both the Short Cuts and City Shorts tours as well as read at least - and this is a rough guess, I should say - 400 plays, some of which were new submissions being considered for 2017-2018 programming and most of which were past scripts.

The reason for that is, my major task was updating and organizing the City Theatre production archives, making sure all produced scripts were accessible and accounted for. I was largely successful in this endeavor, except for a handful of plays that are still out somewhere in the nether. I guess those weren’t mine to find. Plus, I had access to the entire production history of a 22-year-old theatre company, which was something I didn’t think I would ever have so soon, which, forgive my informal enthusiasm, is pretty darn cool!

I’ll sandwich the okay between the great, since this is a reflection and I shouldn’t sugarcoat everything (even though there’s nothing bad to sugarcoat). The only part of this FWT I would consider a “low point” is that I wasn’t as involved in production as I would’ve liked to have been. Although I assisted with front of house for City Shorts and got to go out with the school tour, I was doing more administrative/literary work. I was very much a Literary Intern rather than a general one, which was not bad or enjoyable, but just a bit different than I expected. In hindsight, though, I think I should’ve expected this. The winter is a particularly literary-heavy time for City Theatre, since they get so many submissions for Summer Shorts. (Last year they got 1,3000 and so this year they had to cap submissions at 550.)

The best thing about City Theatre is its size. Although it’s staple of the Miami theatre community (and indeed a “rite of passage” for many South Florida artists), the core staff of the company is relatively small. Usually, there were only five or six people in the office, including me. The most people I ever saw in the office were ten, and that’s only because some board members came prior to the City Shorts opening. This meant there was no bureaucracy in or hierarchy to get lost in.

Beyond the logistics of the programming itself, my advisor Susi Westfall made sure that I was privy to everything that it takes to run. I was in there in the midst of grant applications, board member meetings, donor meetings, conversations about expanding and networking, et cetera, and although I didn’t directly take part in most of that I learned a lot from having it on my periphery. The most important lesson I learned from Susi was that theatre management is way more important than people realize. You can be a great playwright, but if you don’t have the right skills you won’t be able to run a theatre company. Likewise, gathering your actor friends may be easy, but you won’t sustain a group without vital parts, so you need to also grab your accountant friend, your marketing friend, your designer friend - in other words, you need to know the business side of show business. Otherwise, you’ll flounder.

Over this FWT, I think I became more independent and confident. I was thrust into a new environment that was very different than I had ever been in. My first few weeks (and even the internship in general) was a crash-course in Who’s Who in the South Florida theatre community. As I became accustomed to the way things worked and who did what, it was much easier for me to understand what I needed to do, when I needed to do it, and who I needed to assist.

Being back home for FWT was convenient and enjoyable, but I also felt that it sort of stifled my ability to be independent. In many ways, it felt like I was back in high school - you know, spending 6 or 7 hours out in the day and coming home at night for dinner and sleep. For a first FWT, though, I can’t deny that being home was the best choice financially, and it was great to be in town to see some relatives and friends that I hadn’t seen in a while.

The final verdict: I bonded well with the staff, I got to see City Shorts in three very different venues (which as a director was ridiculously interesting), and I made some great contacts that will definitely come in handy when it comes to summer internships and post-graduation things. This FWT was truly a wonderful experience, and I can’t wait to work with City Theatre again one day.

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auditions + MMB

Today I got to assist with auditions for the “Summer Shorts” festival (although regrettably, I won’t be here for callbacks). I checked in actors, collected headshots/resumes, and got to share some banter with artistic director Margaret and accompanist Carol. I really think there is no better way to understand how to format a resume and know what is and isn’t a good headshot than being exposed to 40 in the span of seven hours. (I think, in the long run at City Theatre, I’ve learned a lot by simply being exposed to so many things, even if I didn’t actively take part in what I was being exposed to.) Although I didn’t get to see every audition, I heard all of them, which is great as an actor because you focus on the words (and the intention behind them - the tone, the emotion, the intricasy of the language). It was a bit like listening to a radio play!

On that note, Leslie’s play: “Mention My Beauty.” This may have been the most affecting performance I have ever seen, and it is surely not going to leave my memory for a long, looong time. Before she began, Leslie explained that she wanted this to be theatre in it’s most distilled form: just a storyteller telling a stories. No theatrics, no extra trimmings. Much like a radio play, she let the audience fill in the details with their imagination. There was a talkback after the show, and although she talked about many things, what stuck with me most was when she explained that this show was very much her own. No one else could perform it with the raw emotion of someone telling their own life story. No one else has pitched her a way to do the show in a wholly original way. What made it so moving, I think, was that it was so personal and simple. 

I loved every moment of it.

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workshop with Leslie Ayvazian

Today I got to do a workshop with playwright Leslie Ayvazian. City Theatre is hoping to expand their playwrights’ weekend “CityWrights” into year-long programs of workshops and whatnot. This was basically a test-run.

The workshop was amazing! I hadn’t been able to write so freely and without fear in years. Leslie didn’t have an interest in revising our work. She stressed the need to listen to writing (our own and others’) and linger on the words. She gave us three sets of prompts, from which we wrote three passages and read them aloud. We weren’t allowed to comment on any writing, especially not our own. We just let the writing speak for itself. It was wonderful to be in a room of writers and let the words flow freely. Definitely a great kick-off for my final week. (Leslie even called me a “riot!”)

Some of my favorite excerpts from what I wrote:

“I was a science nerd back then. I wanted to be a zookeeper when I grew up. Now, I study theatre - an animal of a different kind.”

“That was Disney, though. It was all make-believe. It was all fake. Fictional characters in fictional situations. The smiles on the workers were fake, the spacecraft people posed with in front of Space Mountain was fake, and the chicken tenders were probably also very fake.”

“I named the bike after Mike Pence because it’s usually pretty useless and I sometimes forget it exists.”

“Did I care? No. Because I’m a Caldwell. Descended from a long line of stubborn Irishmen who never listened to the women in their lives, even when they should’ve.”

Tomorrow, I’m attending a free performance of Leslie’s play “Mention my Beauty”, essentially a memoir about growing up in the 60s and 70s. The performance is just her, standing at a music stand, and reading from a notebook. No director, no production values, just a writer reading the writing that’s come from a lifetime. It’s a pretty radical format; as Leslie explained, no woman has really done this before. Men have done “stand on stage and read”-style performances, but women have been forced to up the production values to be taken seriously. What Leslie does in this performance is effectively say, "I’m here. I’m a writer. I’m a woman. And you will listen to me.”

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week 6 (!)

It's hard to believe there's only one more week left of my first Field Work Term! Things are starting to wrap up, which is bittersweet. I'll definitely miss City Theatre and my co-workers (and warm weather - a bit). But before I wax sentimental or become too reflective (I'm saving that for my final post, of course), I'll move on.

This week was pretty uneventful (especially in comparison to last week's kick-off of the tour). I'm continuing my archival work. As part of that, I've been uploading every play City has produced in its 22-year history to Literary Manager, putting in playwright contact information, play summaries, character breakdowns, etc. I've become used to certain playwrights' styles and voices. I can pretty much tell by the playwright how a play will be. A few examples: Paul Rudnick is deliciously and obscenely funny, Rich Orloff is thoughtful (and also hilarious), Richard Dresser is excellent at crafting character, and Staci Swedeen takes somewhat mundane situations and makes them interesting. And, of course, there are the surprises from single-play playwrights that catch me wonderfully off-guard (like "Drinking the Goddamned Sun", which I read way back when).

Speaking of surprises, this week I got to read a ~top secret~ play that City Theatre is looking to produce in partnership with another local theatre TBD next March. (Okay, maybe it's not ~top secret~ but I don't think I'm at liberty to be talking about it and don't want to risk it.) Without going into detail, the play is a visceral response to the Trump administration. It reads almost like science-fiction; if it was written twenty years from now, it could be a history play. It's a really engaging character study that doesn't shy away from being blunt and is a scathing indictment of complacency. Reading it made me think about the intermingling of art and politics and what kind of art I want (or need) to be making now. I wish I could write a profound statement that resulted from that thinking to end this post, but I'm still unpacking all those ideas in my head.

[caldwellfwt]

week 5

This was probably the busiest week thus far, since Friday night was opening night for the “City Shorts: Best of the Fest” tour in Key Biscayne.

But first, some highlights of this week:

—I read (at least) 100 more plays in my continuing quest to reorganize the archives for efficiency and accuracy.

—I met Nan Barnett, the Executive Director of the National New Play Network.

—I met several members of City’s Board of Directors (and helped transport their opening night wine.)

—I worked on some PR material for City Theatre, posting on their instagram and helping make this “Short Cuts” board to encourage donors to help us bring the tour to more schools.

Okay: Opening night. We went from the office to the venue, which meant playing puzzle and fitting all of our paraphernalia in a car. (Including this beautiful - but unwieldy - sign and easel).

There were a lot of people there who’d worked with City in the past, so it was really interesting to put names to faces (specifically Gail, the director of the tour who I hadn’t had the chance to meet yet). Since there was an opening reception before the show, I was tasked with following Amy (Programs Manager) as she photographed guests and taking the guests’ names for identification purposes. (Which was essentially the concluding assignment of a week with a lot of exposure to how PR and marketing play a crucial role in maintaining the interest of donors and audiences.)

As the show began, I took on an usher role, passing out programs to (probably drunk) elderly patrons, a task I found to be more difficult than expected. Many members of the audience had complimentary food in one hand and wine in the other, which led to a few of them requesting I just put the programs in their mouth. I couldn’t make this up. I wouldn’t have expected to be able to say this by the end of FWT. But I am. That’s showbusiness?

There was also a Q&A with the actors and director after the show, which was incredibly interesting to me as a fledgling actor/director/playwright, especially since any one performance of “City Shorts” is ten different plays with very different characters, messages, and styles. How does an artist approach this type of theatre? With a lot of hard work, dedication, and patience, I notice.

Side note: the Key Biscayne Community Center doesn’t have an actual theatre (just a room with an elevated stage and chairs), so it’s going to be interesting in the next two (final) weeks of the tour to see how the show translates to very different spaces.

[caldwellfwt]

week 4

Today I went on a mini road trip to Homestead (FL) on City’s "Short Cuts” school tour. (The tour is aimed toward middle school students, and is an hour-long program consisting of four short plays with anti-bullying themes that travels from school-to-school). I tagged along with “Short Cuts” director Jessica to Campbell Drive K-8 Center to help with today’s performance.

The logistics of setting up a performance of "Short Cuts" are difficult, to say the least. Each performance space (and accompanying tech capacity) differs. Campbell's "theatre" was an outdoor space where the cast performed on a portable, raised platform. Although our sound system was up-and-running in time, the start of the show was preceded by me running around campus trying to find extension chords. Our sound designer, Kathleen, also taught me a better way to set up extension chords (basically overlapping the chords to make a loose knot to limit the possibility of them getting unplugged by a stray foot - an incident that is far more common than we'd like to admit).

Aside from technical knowledge that I gained from helping with setup, today was really fundamental to a special aspect of what I ultimately want to do with theatre/my life: providing meaningful theatre for those who may not be able to otherwise afford it (in this case, students). The performance was followed by a Q&A with the cast about bullying and working as an artist, and the questions/responses of the students demonstrated their willingness to see theatre that was relevant to them and their experiences.

Today also resulted in this delightful Facebook update:

[caldwellfwt]

week 3 (+ some thoughts)

Yesterday, Donald Trump was inaugurated. Theatre folks tend to be predominantly liberal, which maybe goes without saying, so the tone at City this week has been less than upbeat - ESPECIALLY with a preliminary federal budget cutting the National Endowment for the Arts. Being in a theatre company during this time is a bit surreal. We laugh and make jokes at the incoming administration’s expense, but it’s a lingering fear that the work we do - that all artists do - is being openly threatened. Will gutting the NEA really hurt art in the long-term? Probably not. Losing federal funding isn't the worst thing that could happen. But it's a terrifying first step for something worse. In some ways I feel empowered to be working in this environment at this time. I think coming of age during this election cycle (and at Bennington) has been fundamental in developing my appreciation for the importance of art as a tool for unification and communication.

On a lighter note: files, files files!

The search for missing plays yielded only two discoveries this week, but we continue undaunted.

The City Shorts program is coming along nicely, although reading everyone's bios is provoking some unnerving dread inside of me (probably compounded with the uncertain future of Trumps' America). These theatremakers have made careers out of this! Will I? Agh. Fun. Dread aside, I get to have my name/bio in the program, which is pretty cool! It's strange to see most of your credits/accomplishments bluntly stated in a single paragraph.

[caldwellfwt]

week 2

This week got off to a rough start - my phone broke, effectively neutering communication and use of Uber - but it has since been fixed so things are okay again.

This week involved a lot of (continuing) search through binders and file cabinets, trying to find produced scripts that aren't archived digitally. The search takes me back to the 1990s, back when things were handwritten instead of e-mailed, which makes me so grateful for modern technology. I was barely a year old when this script was submitted!

Having to look through the prompt book from Summer Shorts ‘98 was also really interesting for me, having just taken a Stage Management course where I had to make my own prompt book. Real-life! Wow! Sadly, part of this quest to create a physical archive means coming to terms with the fact that some plays won't be found, especially when the playwright has since passed away or turned to other endeavors.

On a lighter note, the search uncovered a hidden treasure: a short play by Bennington’s own Sherry Kramer! (Strangely enough, I also found a separate play that referenced Bennington in dialogue. Small world.)

Bonus: After being completely briefed on the networking and producing aspect of putting up their touring "Best of the Best Fest” City Shorts, I've been put in charge of making the programs for the festival venues! Busy, busy, busy.

[caldwellfwt]

week one

Rehearsals for the winter shows haven’t begun so much of the work I’ve been doing is reading and evaluating submissions for the Summer Shorts series and National Short Playwriting Competition. One of the reasons I wanted to do this for FWT was the exposure I'd get to all these works and use that to improve my own writing. I read 36 short plays in two days (plus a few that my wonderful supervisor and City's Literary Manager Susi gave me to peruse). Talk about exposure!

Some upsides of working at City Theatre: - "Family lunch" (when Susi buys food for the office) - Getting my own unofficial desk! - Reading plays with titles like "I Will Drink the Goddamned Sun" and "Banging Ann Coulter" - The wonderfully convenient LiteraryManager - Being allowed to give critique like this:

I've been given the task of organizing City's archives of past shows, involving combing through spreadsheets and files (electronic and physical) and making sure that we have a copy of every play that's been produced. Step 1, which I accomplished this week, was updating our "Playwrights" spreadsheet (on which every playwright and play is ~theoretically~ listed) to reflect the last two years of Summer Shorts. I get the inkling my Excel skills are going to expand by February.