Father Comes Home and the EST Marathon (part B)

Last week I had the honor of being on book for Suzan-Lori Park's new play, Father Comes Home, at the Public for the final two days of rehearsal and subsequent shows. Just being in the room with Suzan-Lori Parks was so inspiring- she really epitomizes a love for art and a willingness to just go for things. Director Jo Bonney is also incredible, I really wish I had gotten the chance to actually meet her, but what would I have said? Turns out she directed Universes' SLANGUAGE, a play I read in "Social Protest Drama and the Politics of Hip Hop Performance" and looooooved. Father Comes Home Part 1 is a beautiful, intimate piece of theatre, and if you're in New York you should really go see it in it's final week in the Shiva at the Public. I am excited to be in the audience next Saturday so I can actually see Part 8, which happens on two screens on either side of the stage. My favorite part of the show is that Suzan-Lori Parks herself is onstage underscoring the entire piece with guitar. And she bookends the piece with two songs that she wrote. It gives the piece a really beautiful rhythmic base that is used in the text in addition to the live presence that having the playwright onstage, playing music, gives to the show. I also got to be present for the ONLY performance of Father Comes Home Part 9, which is another beautiful piece that Suzan-Lori saw the heart of that night and decided it needed to be entirely re-written. I am excited to see where that finally goes.

Yesterday I went to see the Ensemble Studio Theatre's Marathon Part B, which consisted of five new one-act plays with five completely separate casts and was REALLY well done. The range of material was fantastic, as well as the arrangement of the material, which I've always seen as a very important element of a "one-acts" event. This show went Funny, Moderately Serious, Hilarious, Intermission, Very Serious, Light, and I walked away feeling very satisfied. It was a really exciting place to be, because I felt that all of the work was in progress and yet also polished, and the acting talent was pretty amazing.

In short:
"Carol and Jill" was a piece about two middle-aged women who each imagine themselves with the other in their futures- a cute story with a lot of dry wit.
"Little Duck" was a hilarious slapstick sit-com about a children's TV show studio
"Blood from a Stoner" was a touching piece about a father from Brooklyn and his high-achieving daughter
"Daughter" was a beautiful, sad piece about a mother whose daughter is disfigured in Iraq
"Sundance" was a light Western about the psychology of killing as told by Jesse James, Bill Hickock, The Kid, a barkeep and Sundance.

One thing that really impressed me was the skill with which they pulled off the comedy. It seemed like the creative process was really fun- and I would love to seek out a way to become involved. Of course, the one artistic person I knew of (who had done the curtain speech) wasn't around after the show, but I think I'll e-mail him. The only issue with it is that it's on the very-west side of Manhattan, so I had to take a subway to a bus and still walk 6 street blocks and most of an avenue block to get there. :-P

Time to finish my reader reports then off to The Public for the next EWG reading and then The New Group for Groundswell.