The Bardy Bunch

I am thrilled to announce that I'll be directing the world premiere of The Bardy Bunch, Stephen Garvey's theatrical mash-up of "The Brady Bunch," "The Partridge Family," and the works of William Shakespeare. There will be singing, dancing, and buckets of blood. The play is part of the the 15th Annual Fringe NYC Festival and will be playing for five performances in August at the Ellen Stewart Theater. I'll post more info as we get closer to opening. For now, off to watch some Partridge Family episodes while reading Titus Andronicus!

For more info go thebardybunch.com.

Lincoln Center Directors Lab

I had the chance to attend the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab again this summer and I couldn't turn it down. The experience is intense and exhausting, but a very rewarding opportunity to meet directors and theater artists from around the world. It's also a great place for sharing ideas and for a rigorous directing workout. This year I had the opportunity to work on a project; in a mere nine hours of rehearsal, I put together a 23-minute piece, including script, design, staging, and performance, with Veronica Wigg, a fellow lab director the lab director chose to work with me, our designer Craig Napoliello, and five highly skilled and experienced actors assigned to the project. I was far less horrified at the start of the lab this year, as is evident in this photograph. I'm in the light green t-shirt in the 5th row, not nearly as freaked-out looking as I was last year.

The Latvia Project

I'm exploring a project at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. It revolves around a family photograph taken in Latvia in 1905.

The photo was taken on Herman Friedlander's 19th birthday, right before he left for America. He never saw his family again.

The Latvia Project is an attempt to construct stories about what happened to the other nine people in the photograph through letters, family anecdotes, and archival research. There is no real way for us to get to know these people born two centuries ago, but through collaboration with five actors, a musician, a designer, and Russian-English director Veronica Wigg, we will try to incarnate these people who remain lost in the dark history of the 20th century.

Today, Veronica, our designer Craig Napoliello and I gathered in the large rehearsal room at the Lincoln Center Theater and laid out our primary documents on the floor. We went over some possible narratives to explore and also discussed a structure and ways to use the performance space. Tonight I'll be typing up potential text for the piece from primary sources, and during the week we'll hone our material and our approach. On Saturday we'll meet our actors and begin rehearsal.