Impermanence & Uncertainty

photos by Daniel J. van Ackere

From May 1st to 3rd, 2009, choreographers Gianni DiMarco and Kelley Donovan, composers Philip Glass and Mark Warhol and many splendid dancers, musicians, and designers collaborated on an evening of contemporary music and dance performance, presented by Ensemble Warhol, Contrapose Dance, and Kelley Donovan & Dancers. The venue was Green Street Studios, a dance space in Central Square, Cambridge MA.

Opening the program was Within and Between, a new dance work about transformation and impermanence created by choreographer Kelley Donovan for her dancers and featuring pianist Theodore Bale playing the music of Philip Glass.

This was followed by Scenes de ballet, a dance work for four dancers, flute, and harp by Mark Warhol. This production of Scenes de ballet was a collaboration between Contrapose Dance, Courtney Peix, artistic director, and Ensemble Warhol, a music group that specializes in the performance of contemporary music, featuring the work of Venezuelan choreographer Gianni Di Marco, Rockport artist Heidi Zander, and costumer Susan Paino.

Exclamation Point 5! The Science of Love

Exclamation Point!, Fort Point Theatre Channel's series of informal presentations of short works, returned in February 2009 with an evening of new films and video, plays, and performance art. In the month that brings us Valentine's Day, The Science of Love celebrated the optimist and the cynical, the sentimental and the brutal, the traditional and the contemporary.

photos by Daniel J. van Ackere

The Time of Your Life

By William Saroyan

November 2008

photos by Joel Benjamin

FPTC presented William Saroyan's sprawling 1939 masterpiece, timing our production to honor the 100th birthday of America's greatest playwright of Armenian heritage. The play is set in a waterfront bar in San Francisco, and we staged it in a bar, namely the legendary Lucky's Lounge, on Congress Street in the Fort Point Channel neighborhood.

A huge assortment of cops, longshoremen, drifters, hookers, snobs, innocents, lovers, pinball wizards, fortune-seekers and lost souls was brought to life by a brilliant cast of Boston-area actors, joined by a few of our own Fort Point Theatre Channel members.

Saroyan's play is rooted in the 1930s, but we felt it to be as fitting today as when he was writing for a nation mired in the Great Depression and facing a global upheaval.  Rejecting despair, Saroyan's warm-hearted play is one of hope for the future, even if that comes with the playwright's charge to viewers and readers: "In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."

The Time of Your Life earned Saroyan both the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. However, he refused the $1,000 Pulitzer, saying commerce should not judge the arts.

"THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE" CAST

Sylvie Agudelo (Mary L.); Sasha Castroverde (A Killer); Zash Chinhara (Wesley); Amanda Collins (Kitty Duval); Mary Driscoll (A Society Lady); Greg Ferrisi (Sailor, Cop); Silvia Graziano (Elsie); Jordan Harrison (Nick); Timothy Hoover (Dudley); Chelsea Lembo (Willie); Ari Lew (Krupp); Rafael Marinho (Harry); Robert D. Murphy (Joe); Mary-Elizabeth Murray (Lorene, Killer's Sidekick); William Neely (McCarthy); Allen Phelps (Kit Carson); Casey Preston (Tom); Robin Smith (The Newsgirl); Nick Thorkelson (A Society Gentleman);  Steve Triebes (Blick); and Rick Winterson (Arab).

"THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE" PRODUCTION STAFF

Sylvie Agudelo (Costume Designer); Deirdre Benson (Stage Manager); Jarrod Bray (Production Designer); Mary Driscoll (Costume Associate); Christie Lee Gibson (Sound Designer and Assistant Stage Manager); Marc S. Miller (Director); Alys Myers (Props Co-designer ); John Randell (Set Crew); Nick Thorkelson (Graphic/Web Designer); Daniel J. van Ackere (Technical Director ); Sandra Vieira (Props Co-designer); and Sarah E. Wall-Randell (Dramaturg).



Heaven and Earth

Two Evenings of Modern Chamber Music Theatre

During Fort Point Open Studios, at Midway Studios, on October 17 and 18, 2008, Fort Point Theatre Channel presented two evenings of contemporary music featuring Ensemble Warhol. The program included Tierkreis, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, by Mark Warhol. Ensemble Warhol consists of Naomi Gurt Lind, soprano, Donald Wilkinson, baritone, and Meghan Miller, flute.

Tierkreis is a celebration of the universe as expressed through twelve beautiful melodies, each dedicated to a sign of the zodiac. The work captures the wonder of creation with spirituality, humility, and joy. This production featured staging by Mark Warhol, set design by Heidi Zander, set construction by Tim Murdoch, and costumes by Susan Paino.

Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle is a celebration of nature as expressed through a recounting of the voyage around the world on the Beagle by Charles Darwin, a voyage which provided the raw data that powered the creation of his seminal work, The Origin of Species. The work traces the transformation of Charles Darwin from directionless young man to budding scientist and pays tribute to the wonder of original thought and the beauty of nature. A Sylvie Agudelo production. Click here to watch a video of the production.

Exclamation Point 4!

On September 27, 2008, we continued our Exclamation Point! series at the Channel Cafe on Summer Street, Boston. This time we branched out with music and film/video as well as the written word. The program included musicians, The Human Hairs (shown above, on right) and saxophonist Jorrit Dijskra;  film/video artists John Gayle, Douglas Urbank, and Vanessa Vartabedian; and words by Ed Valentine (a 10-minute play read by Jordan Harrison and Becca A. Lewis, shown at left), Silvia Graziano (her poems were read by Jordan and Becca), and Harold Pinter (monologue read by Kippy Goldfarb, shown at right with Jorrit on sax). Produced by Silvia Graziano. 

more photos by Daniel J. van Ackere