Memories and Fantasies

An evening of dance featuring Ensemble Warhol, Contrapose Dance, and Kelley Donovan & Dancers

Friday, June 10-Sunday, June 12
Midway Studios, Fort Point

Click here to see photos by Daniel J. van Ackere

Conductor: Kim Diehnelt
Choreographers: Eve Summer, Lorraine Chapman, and Kelley Donovan
Set designers: Heidi Zander and James Fuhrman
Costumes: Penney Pinette, Kathleen Doyle, and Anna Zamarippa
Music: Morton Feldman, Mark Warhol
Stage Manager: Tanya Kutasz

The Big Mouth Frog (Camden Ierardi) begins to realize the Hungry Lion (Arian Winn) means him harm. From La Grenouielle à Grande Bouche (The Big Mouth Frog). Photo by Daniel J. van AckereLa grenouille à grande bouche (The Big Mouth Frog) is a popular story told to children in Quebec to practice proper French pronunciation. Although based on a children's story, this will be an outrageous, stylistic, and sophisticated fantasy featuring bilingual narration and the dancers of Contrapose Dance. Click the photo on the left to watch a video of this sublime dance.

Kelley Donovan & Dancers then presented an extended abstract dance work based on the theme of memories.

The performance continued with Jeanne's Fantasy, which is scene 6 and 7 from the opera Jeanne by Mark Warhol. This is a fantasy scene that features both dancers and actors choreographed to music performed by Ensemble Warhol.

Click here to watch Jeanne's Fantasy.

Hotel Cassiopeia

By Charles Mee
Inspired by the life and work of Joseph Cornell

May 5-21, 2011
10 Channel Center Street, Fort Point, Boston

Production Design/Concept by Sylvie Agudelo
Stage Direction by Marc S. Miller
Assistant Director, Christie Lee Gibson
Stage Manager, Tanya Kutasz

Click here for photos by Daniel J. van Ackere

Hotel Cassiopeia, Charles Mee's fantasy inspired by the life and work of the master of assemblage art, Joseph Cornell, was itself be an assemblage. Accompanying the production were Constellations, a series of artistic exhibitions curated and created by Sylvie Agudelo, the Hotel Cassiopeia design team, and guest artists at various locations in Fort Point and other parts of Boston.

In an environment created by Fort Point artists, a talented ensemble of seven performers played two dozen characters, ranging from the people in Cornell’s life, such as Lauren Bacall and Hedy Lamarr; the artists Arshile Gorky, Marcel Duchamp, and Roberto Matta; a trio of ballerinas led by Allegra Kent; and the poet Marianne Moore, to an overbearing mother and a brother with cerebral palsy, to the people inhabiting his mind: a pharmacist, an astronomer, a birdwatcher and a corkmaker. In this theatrically charged collage of ideas and people, the company explored, in the words of Charles Mee, what we'd hear if Joseph Cornell’s boxes could speak “about art, about America, about compassion and longing and loneliness and heartbreak.”

The ensemble
Robert Murphy (appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association): Joseph Cornell
Jake Berger: The Astronomer, Robert Cornell
Mary Driscoll: Joseph's Mother
Silvia Graziano: Allegra Kent, Lauren Bacall
Meredith Stypinski: Waitress, Marcel Duchamp, Ballerina, Corkmaker, Singer
Allison Vanouse: Herbalist, Roberto Matta, Marianne Moore, Ballerina, Leila Hadley
Rick Winterson: Pharmacist, Arshil Gorky, Robert Cornell

The production team
John Crowley: Set construction
Kippy Goldfarb: PR photography
Jennifer Hardy: choreographerRobyn Linden: marketing consultant
Tanya Kutasz, stage manager
Andrew Neumann: composer
Robin Reilly: costume consultant, set construction
Todd Sargent: lighting design
Nick Thorkelson: set design collaborator, graphic design
Douglas Urbank: film design
Daniel J. van Ackere: set construction, photography
Mark Warhol: sound design

Robert D. Murphy on playing Joseph Cornell

“Joseph Cornell could rhapsodize about a cinnamon doughnut and discover constellations in a shot glass. How do you portray this alchemy to an audience? How do you find the drama in a painfully shy homebody who made world-class art at his kitchen table? And then project that drama onto the floor of a sprawling warehouse space? That’s our ensemble’s challenge in Hotel Cassiopeia and playwright Charles Mee provides the map. Mee assembles drama, beauty, and a few laughs into this dream-catching play. We are scrambling to keep up.”

Sylvie Agudelo on Hotel Cassiopeia

“Our challenge is to present a theatrically functional work of art that honors both Joseph Cornell and the individual artists contributing to the design of the production. We are trying to weave together Mee’s abstract fantasy--a delightful pastiche of imagery and writing--with assemblies of language, art, and sound in a way that engage and provide a foundation. Here is a story about how far you can go on a daydream. Our wish is that the audience leaves inspired and reminded of the power of the imagination.”

Art Raffle

The raffe is over! Liliana Folta, an internationally known artist now living in Fort Point, created "Cassiopeia Behind the Scene" as the first and only prize in Fort Point Theatre Channel's spring art raffle. The acrylic on canvas painting measures 24" by 30". Fort Point Framers donated the framing.

Born in Argentina, Liliana Folta is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily with acrylics, ceramic sculptures, and installations. Liliana's inspiration for "Cassiopeia Behind the Scene" comes from the assemblages of Joseph Cornell, the subject of FPTC's production of "Hotel Cassiopeia" by Charles Mee.

Artist's Statement
"The potential ability of the imagination has an important impact in our lives. Minds have visual images that we collect from the moment we are born to the moment we cease to exist. These inner images that represent my works are examinations of my existence. However, in this bank of memories I cherish every possible emotion: happiness, growing pains, family loss, first love, motherhood, sexuality, multicultural experiences, frustration, society's rules, and, most importantly, the celebration of life."

To view more of Liliana's work, visit lilianafolta.com.

Fort Point Framers, custom framers of choice for many of Boston's best-known corporations, artists, photographers, and design professionals, is a full-service picture-frame shop. It is conveniently located at 300 Summer Street, the artist coop near South Station. A gallery displays the work of Fort Point artists. frameboston.com

The Marquis de Sade's Justine

A Staged Reading of the Libretto for a New Opera
By Meron Langsner and Silvia Graziano
Directed by David Gram

A Valentine's Day Benefit for Fort Point Theatre Channel
Monday, February 14, 2011
Boston Playwrights' Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

With fabulous food and beverage donations from our friends at Barlow's Restaurant, Channel Cafe, Flour Bakery + Cafe, Gelology, and Sagarino's Market, FPTC's first public benefit celebrated Valentine's Day with the contrarian Marquis' anti-romantic saga of virtue punished and vice triumphant. The reading featured a dozen of our favorite actors: Carolyn Berliner, Brendan Buckley, Megan Cooper, Christie Lee Gibson, Mathias Goldstein, Tim Hoover, Ashley Korolewski, Hugh Long, Robert D. Murphy, Kristina Riegle, Ally Tully, and Mark Villanueva.

photos by Daniel J. van Ackere

Codes of Conduct

 November 12-20, 2010
Plaza Black Box Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont Street, Boston

Fort Point Theatre Channel, described in September/2010 in Boston Magazine as "a unique initiative in the performing arts in the city," premiered the one-act plays Trapped Inside a Low-fat Twinkie, by Silvia Graziano, and Sunday with Joy, by James Swindell. Boston Magazine was honoring Graziano, who is FPTC's co-artistic director and resident playwright, as a "New Revolutionary." Both plays were presented at each performance of Codes of Conduct.

Photos by Daniel J. van Ackere

TRAPPED INSIDE A LOW-FAT TWINKIE
By Silvia Graziano
Directed by Dawn Simmons

Trapped Inside a Low-fat Twinkie tells the story of an on-again, off-again relationship between a man and a woman--and an obsession with low-fat Twinkies. The question is, which is healthier, the relationship or the ingredients of a Twinkie?

Silvia Graziano is the co-artistic director and resident playwright of Fort Point Theatre Channel. Her play The Romantic was produced in FPTC's "Gods, Monsters, and the Other" play festival. Other works include the prose poems A Slightly Sick Feeling and Pussy Willow, the short play Mourning the Narcissist, a poem/video script Boys Running: A True Confession, and the script for the short film, The Lumber Yard. Graziano coordinates our Exclamation Point! series of new works readings and performances. She has a BFA in dramatic writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

Dawn Simmons, co-artistic director of New Exhibition Room, directed Trapped Inside a Low-fat Twinkie.The Romantic. Simmons previously directed Graziano's one-act play, She is director of programs for StageSource: The Greater Boston Theatre Alliance.

SUNDAY WITH JOY
By James Swindell
Directed by Dani Duggan

Sunday with Joy is a real language romp, a display of consummate word craftsmanship as we follow Joy disregarding the rules of her marriage and trying her hand at driving that relationship. This was the first full production for the stage. Sunday with Joy received a reading by Main Street Theater at the Ovations Night Club, November 2006, in Houston, Texas.

James Swindell worked throughout his life behind the scenes in technical roles at many theaters. He was a lighting designer, sound designer, set designer, stage manager, and house manager at such theaters as Main Street Theater and Stages Theater in Houston, Texas, the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Clarence Brown Theatre at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Besides Sunday with Joy, he wrote poems and full-length plays. He also wrote two opera librettos for composer Mark Warhol, co-founder of Fort Point Theatre Channel and artistic director of Ensemble Warhol.

The director of Sunday With Joy was Dani Duggan, veteran of the Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Ireland. She is artistic director of Devanaughn Theatre, president of the executive council of the Massachusetts Drama Guild, producing director of Shakespeare on the Rock in Plymouth, and has worked with many international companies.

The Cast of Sunday With Joy: Christie Lee Gibson, Frances Idlebrook, Christine Power, Paul Shafer, and Robin Smith

The Cast of Trapped Inside a Low-fat Twinkie: Tim Hoover, Rory Kulz, Greer Rooney, Nick Thorkelson, Ally Tully, and Amy West

Crew: Sylvie Agudelo, Costume Designer; Deirdre Benson, Stage Manager; Sean Cote, Set Designer; Kurt Cole Eidsvig, Tech; Marc S. Miller, Co-producer; Amanda Sheehan, Props Design; PJ Strachman, Lighting Designer; Daniel van Ackere, Tech; Mark Warhol, Co-producer; Heidi Zander, Scene Painter