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Theatrical consulting group continues its promotion of new theatrical works with performances livestreamed during the COVID-19 crisis.
NEW YORK, NY (March 23, 2020) – Show Shepherd, a theatrical consulting group that works with writers, independent producers, and theater companies to develop new work, announces its new series of free livestreamed theatrical performances – The At-Home Theater Series – which launches on March 26, 2020, on various platforms including YouTube and Instagram.
In 2019, Show Shepherd launched its Digital Services for promoting new stage works and with The At-Home Theater Series, it expands its online presence to include live streamed performances.
“For 10 years Show Shepherd has worked directly with writers and other industry pros to strategically advance their projects in creative and exciting ways, most recently through Digital Services designed to help them reach decision makers in the field and audiences through online video content. So we’re very proud to take the next step and present these exciting artists and their beautiful, very personal work as part of The At-Home Theater Series during this time when closures and social distancing have focused us even more online,” said Matt Schicker, founder and president of Show Shepherd.
These solo performances, developed for a theatrical setting, will be performed by the artists in their own homes for the first time. All of the shows will be completely free, and filmed LIVE. For the full lineup and schedule of shows, please go to ShowShepherd.com/Live.
Current artists set to perform in The At-Home Theater Series are:
Douglas Waterbury-Tieman – Johnny & the Devil’s Box is a folk musical about a brash young square dance fiddler from Georgia who must navigate young love, evade corrupt revenuers and outwit a devilish preacher on his quest to prove himself as the best fiddler that has ever been.
Ty Autry – A Southern Fairytale, based on real events, this solo show takes you on a wild journey through the Deep South as a young man tries to find his footing in his queer identity and relationship to God. How does he learn to live, survive, and thrive in an area attempting to tear him down?
Vivian Nesbitt & John Dillon – Mother Jones In Heaven is a new musical by folk bluegrass, and roots music legend Si Kahn about ‘The Most Dangerous Woman in America’, Mother Jones, the infamous labor organizer famed for her tireless efforts on behalf of the rights of the working class.
James Patrick Nelson – Speak What We Feel is a rich, touching remembrance of the great stage actor Brian Murray, who starred in dozens of Broadway productions during his illustrious career.
…and more to be announced!
ABOUT SHOW SHEPHERD
Led by Matt Schicker and Blair Russell, Show Shepherd has advanced more than 40 new musicals and plays, working with writers, producers, and theater companies to strategically develop their work. The company was launched in 2011 in response to the growing need for writers and producers to get advice as they navigate this often complex industry. Show Shepherd team members have non-profit and commercial producing experience, which is shared with clients through services that are practical, valuable, personal, and educational at every step. Show Shepherd provides Digital Services, dramaturgy, submissions strategy, collaborator matchmaking, scouting, and more. www.showshepherd.com
A white bench. Vaseline. A flashlight. What story is being told tonight. Joan Kane, known as a director and co-founder of Ego Actus (with her husband Bruce A! Kramer) in theatrical circles performs her solo piece, Almost 13 , as part of the Best of United Solo.
Kane already had the the lively audience in her hands the moment the house lights went down and the stage lights came up. We were willing to travel back in time to “South Brooklyn” (now known as Park Slope) circa 1969. It was a tough time. Racism was represented by lines of demarcations in neighborhoods. The biddies sat on the stoop and reported to each other and the whole neighborhood. An unforgiving parish instilled fear instead of love. Now add being a latchkey kid from a broken home, no one is safe. In a world where distrust permeates everything, bad things will inevitably happen. And they do to Joan. You kept your mouth shut and prayed that no one would find out. But then the abuse on your body and mind cause “acting out” and then you breakdown. You need to go through that to get to the breakthrough. Healing begins. Love prevails.
Love heals even when the hope seems gone. Kane tells her story through eight characters, a simple set lighting design and precise directing under Bruce A! Kramer. Told in a concise 45 minutes, the story is clear and to the point. When the lights went to blackout after her last brilliant and hopeful line, she came out to do her a bow to a standing ovation. Three times.
Those who have been in the audience with me know know my telltale signs. For a good show it is my inaudible gasp with my hand flying to my mouth. I had two moments like that. The good news is Almost 13 will return for one more performance. More details can be found at http://www.unitedsolo.org. Be sure to see it’s encore presentation.
United Solo, the world’s largest solo theatre festival, is proud to present its 10th anniversary season at Theatre Row in the heart of New York City’s theatre district. Since its inaugural year, United Solo featured over 1,000 theatre productions from all over the world. This season, performers from six continents will present their unique works between September 19 and November 24, 2019. TICKETS are available NOW through Telecharge (www.telecharge.com or 212‑239‑6200) and at the Theatre Row Box Office (410 West 42nd Street, NYC). For the full calendar of performances, please visit http://www.unitedsolo.org/us/ufest
Joan Kane (director/producer/dramaturg/writer/actor) is the founding Artistic Director of Ego Actus, an independent NYC Theater Co. Joan has written, devised and directed six Living Newspapers from 1979 to 2018 that toured and performed in NYC Parks & Streets, Theaters and Clubs. Topics included Women’s Issues, Environmental Justice, The Civil War and Ageism. As an educator she designed and implemented a Living Newspaper curriculum that she taught in the NYC Public Schools throughout the five boroughs. Selected Directing: Sycorax by Fengar Gael at HERE, Play Nice! by Robin Rice at 59e59 theaters, I Know What Boys Want by Penny Jackson at Theatre Row, Aliens With Extraordinary Skills by Saviana Stanscu at Theater 54, More by Maria Tryti Vennerød at Theater For The New City, Six Characters in Search of an Author in Oslo, Norway and Kafka’s Belinda by Bruce Kraemer in Prague. She also directed both Safe by Penny Jackson and what do you mean by Bruce Kraemer at 59e59 theaters and in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, getting four star reviews for each. Selected other work: Joan has also directed and devised plays, workshops and readings at the Lark, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Urban Stages, Workshop Theater, Nylon Fusion, Articulate Theatre, Abingdon Theatre, Oberon Theatre, the Samuel French Short Play Festival, the Actors Studio, T. Schreiber Studio, the Broadway Bound festival and many others. As a writer Joan has written and devised: The Judges, The Trial of Mary Reade, Richard III. She is performing her biographical solo play Almost 13 in The Best of The United Solo Sept .2019. Awards and honors: Joan was awarded Best Director in the 2016 United Solo Festival. Joan was named one of the 2011 People of the Year in honor of her contributions to the NYC theatre scene and inducted to the NYC Indie Theatre Hall of Fame by nytheatre.com. Her shows have been nominated for 61 awards, winning 21. Education: Joan graduated from NYC’s High School of Performing Arts (La Guardia), studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner and has an MFA in Directing from The New School For Drama and an MS in Museum Education from Bank Street College. She is a member of The New York Madness Company, the League of Independent Theatres, the Dramatists Guild and the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers and The League of Professional Theatre Women.
Show Information:
Where: Under St Mark’s Theatre at 94 Saint Mark’s Place
Tickets: http://www.horsetrade.info/event/be402d57b3d578097f90dcbcdde5e2f4
Social: @TheLastAmanda https://www.facebook.com/imjustkindeying/ $5 off with code DONATELIFE
Show Information:
Name: Kelly HaramisShow Information:
Name: Sabina England
Tell us about you.
I am a filmmaker, playwright and performance artist. I am profoundly deaf and cannot hear but I work with musicians a lot in my projects. I just won a Jury Award at Lady Filmmakers Film Festival in Beverly Hills, California last month for my short sign language poetry film, “Deaf Brown Gurl,” which I wrote, filmed, directed, produced and edited.
Tell us about your current project?
I wrote and created “Allah Earth: The Cycle of Life” which is a solo multimedia performance show with sign language, mime, music, video and movement. I incorporated elements from traditional South Asian dances and Sufi poetry into my show, creating an unique deaf theatrical experience for both deaf and hearing audiences.
Where are you performing your show and why is it a good fit for your production?
I am performing “Allah Earth: The Cycle of Life” at New York International Fringe Festival here in New York City. I believe New York City is a great fit because of the rich diversity of so many cultures and communities. My show appeals to everyone, not just for Deaf or brown people, but for anybody who has wondered about the meaning of life and why we are here on Earth.
What’s next for you?
After I am done with New York International Fringe Festival, I will write, direct and produce a short silent narrative film about an undocumented man and deaf woman who fall in love together.
What is the name of the last show you saw?
No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre, produced by SATE Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri
Any advice for your peers?
Don’t worry what everyone thinks of you. Just focus on doing what makes you happy and keep going with your dreams. You are here on Earth for yourself, not to please anybody or make others happy.
Show Information:
WHEN: October 21 (7:00pm), October 23 (4:45pm), October 27 (1:15pm)
WHERE: 685 Washington St, New York, NY 10014
TICKETS: https://www.sabinaengland.com/allahearth.html
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Sabina_England/
Name: Fengar Gael
Tell us about you.
I don’t sleep well; I keep dreaming that I’m a resident alien in a plutocracy led by a miserly, mean souled, tinpot dictator who has tricked us into allowing the ethics of business to infest every aspect of life. My mother said I was born wanting to re-stage the world, but since I’ve failed miserably, I drink too much, eat too much, read too much appalling news, and because I’m a playwright, I’m also subject to bipolar-manic-depression with delusions of grandeur and multiple personality disorder. I can trace the origin of these afflictions to a childhood of constant traveling in and out of the country which may explain why I write plays that take me to unfamiliar worlds and feature characters of diverse races and ethnicities from the past and future. For the past ten years New York has become my heart’s home, a great melting pot city where going to the theatre is a way of life. I have new friends and am part of the League of Professional Theatre Women whose members have enriched my hermit’s life beyond imagining.
Tell us about your current project?
The play, Sycorax: Cyber Queen of Qamara, is a comic drama originally intended as a prequel to The Tempest. Shakespeare only mentioned that Sycorax was a witch from Algiers who was exiled to an island where she gave birth to a deformed boy named Caliban. In my play, Sycorax has waited 500 years to tell her side of the story to the widest possible audience: the World Wide Web of the Internet. She does so through her avatars, but I won’t give away the plot except to say that Sycorax feels moral outrage at the continuing gender imbalance of power in a world controlled by men who value their arsenals more than their artists. I’m thrilled that the fearless Ego Actus Theatre Company has taken on the challenge of bringing the play to vivid life by their inspired Artistic Director, Joan Kane, whose vision of the play happily resembles my own. We are blessed with a fantastic cast of actors and theater artists contributing to this production: the scenery, the costumes, the lights and projections are going to be beyond anything I had dared to imagine.
Where are you performing your show and why is it a good fit for your production?
The play is being performed at HERE which has already garnered a following of brave souls who are passionate about innovative (even subversive) theatre. Both HERE and the Ego Actus Theatre Company believe in theatre as a fusion of art forms: with dialog that aspires to poetry, with music, dance and artful costumes, scenery and multi-media projections.
What’s next for you?
The Detroit Repertory Theatre is producing my play, The House on Poe Street, in January of 2019. Another play, Smile Like a Knife, is a current finalist at two theatres sponsoring contests, and I’m currently writing Passing Parades that’s turning into a louche tale of the supernatural about an idealistic woman who undergoes a radical transformation after a bomb shatters the lives of marchers gathered to celebrate the centennial of women’s suffrage. The play leaps backwards to the 1850s when the suffrage and abolitionists movements were aligned, but faced radical opposition. The play will be given a concert reading at the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Julia’s Reading Room series at the Jefferson Market Library on December 11th.
What is the name of the last show you saw?
The Winning Side by James Wallert, a post-modern collage of a play produced by the Epic Theatre about Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi rocket engineer who interacts with his French lover and the Americans who steal him away to help claim the moon and conquer the world.
Any advice for your peers?
Drink wine, read poetry, and try not to commodify yourselves in a world where everything seems quantifiable — even plays are given numerical scores. If playwriting is the literary form that best expresses your passions, then don’t wait for commissions or guaranteed productions. To quote Emily Dickinson, “Be a fire that lights itself.” Also in this age of constant surveillance and identity politics, it’s best to resist definition. If the great evolutionary triumph of our species is the imagination and capacity to reason, then to define ourselves in terms of race, age, gender or ethnicity is to be forever stranded on a smaller planet. When we allow anyone to police our imaginations, to condemn us to writing plays only about people like ourselves, then we’re doomed. The best thing about our capacity for abstract thinking is that it allows us to imagine what it’s like to be someone else (saint or sinner), so we might become more empathetic. I should add that I truly believe there’s a great future for theatre. Perhaps it’s naive, but I think people will attend plays more than ever before, if only to heal their damaged attention spans, and to focus on the perpetual wide screen of the stage where no bullying cameras are telling them precisely where to look, no soundtracks assaulting their ears, where they’re no longer isolated but in the company of other human beings, and where their presence actually matters because going to the theatre is a creative act.
Show Information:
DATES: November 1-18th
VENUE: HERE 145 6th Avenue one block south of Spring Street
TICKET URL: http://www.HERE.org or (212) 352-3101
More info is available at www.egoactus.com/sycorax.html
After a one year hiatus, the New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) returns with a new look. It also returns with an additional moniker called FringeBYOV (Bring Your Own Venue) which opens the festival and audience members to theatre beyond the borough of Manhattan. Unfortunately, the Bronx wasn’t included but kudos to Staten Island for being creative in their presentation of The Ferry Play as a podplay.
So I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t some trepidation around the new format. August in NYC for theatre-makers and audience members comes with an acceptance. There will be 200 shows to read in the program guide (in addition to the other festivals and shows); you’ll only be able to get to maybe ten (2 if you are in the Fringe); and you’ll have to run from venue to venue in 100 degree weather. Honestly, as much as I complained about it, I LOVED it. Even if some of the shows were hit or miss.
This leads me to figuring out my Fringe schedule in October. The days are getting shorter, there are some serious plays being produced at our non-profit institutions, and now there’s the Fringe Hub where we all meet to be taken to our venue. How to see it all?! Yes, a luxury problem, but in today’s climate, the theatrical platform, soapbox, medium, choose your noun, is essential. So when Onaje is the play that kicks off my Fringe viewing, I am intrigued. The show is already sold out in the days prior to its opening.
Onaje uses the Cambridge riots of 1967 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland as a backdrop for a group of people who are neighbors turned enemies due to the race relations. An ensemble of nine tell the story of an astrological hobo, an ex-CIA operative, a stripper, a drunk, an angry cop, a family living a simple life, and hitchhiker as they intersect on the highway (literal and metaphorical). We learn soon that this is the first layer of the onion. Wrong place at the wrong time. Running away from the truth. Money solves all problems. The grass is always greener on the other side. Leaving the world better than we found it. All of these are reflected in each actor as in their insightful and careful expression of Robert Bowie, Jr.’s words.
It took me some time to unpack the 145 minutes of intensity. There were many aspects of the show that left me in thought. The cast was talented, Pat Golden’s direction tight in telling the story within the allotted time (though it felt long at spots), and the writing significant.
My next stop was Jamaica Center for the Arts & Learning (JCal) as part of the fringeBYOV/fringeQNS. On the way to see The Public and Private Deaths of Carol O’Grady, I listened to a new feature of the Fringe called the podplay. I listened to Subway Plays which was simply a pretty cool thing to experience as I rode the 7 train. The good thing about the series is that you don’t HAVE to be on that line if you’re already familiar with the subway. I listened to Damper Felts: N on the bus and had the same experience. If you are a tourist, though, it’s a great companion piece for taking the train. All the conversations you have, don’t have, avoid, overhear, and imagine are in one place. Jenny Lyn Bader, Jessie Bear and Colin Waitt capture those moments. As a native New Yorker, I laughed aloud many times and didn’t care about the reactions of others.
As for The Public and Private Deaths of Carol O’Grady, Frank Murdocco’s solo show was a breath of fresh air on a cool night in Jamaica, Queens. The experience began as soon as I arrived and was treated with a tour of the venue which boasts two artists’ gallery. That prepared me for another surprise – a beautiful state-of-the-art 120 seat theatre. It’s Christmas and something terrible has happened to Carol O’Grady! Murdocco’s tells the story through three characters in the style of Sarah Jones, Anna Deveare Smith and Eric Bogosian. He flawlessly and smoothly transforms into these characters. The only indication of a character change is a click of the lamp (which I loved) which added to the layer of the insanity created by Jessica DiPaola and Lindsey Smith.
My trip to the Fringe is coming to a close due to scheduling but definitely support the artists. We need their voices and their stories. And we need yours too. Start creating!
The NEW York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC + FringeBYOV)
October 1st – 31st, 2018
OCT 12th – 28th
OCT 5th – 28th
OCT 1st – 31st
Malini Singh mcdonald 