The most wonderful time of the year

Michael Forden Walker and Sophia Kaufman in Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs

We've just finished our first week of performances of Underground Railway Theater's Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs. We're excited for the reviews to start coming out, but mostly for the holidays to truly be upon us. As Shirley Abramowitz says in Act 1's The Loudest Voice, "Goodbye Thanksgiving... Hello Christmas!" Next week, that is, when we finish digesting our turkey (or Tofurkey) and enter those high-anticipation weeks leading up to December 25th.

This is such a lovely set of stories to bring to life onstage. During the holiday season our thoughts often turn to our childhoods, and these short story memoirs are entertaining and moving explorations of their authors' formative years.

The youth ensemble of The Loudest Voice

In The Loudest Voice, Grace Paley's memories of growing up in a Russian Jewish household in the Bronx in the 1930s spring to life through our cast of youth and adult actors. The set features the most imaginative, fanciful uses you may have ever seen for basic materials like cardboard, evoking a humble but colorful Depression-era landscape.

Michael Forden Walker and Debra Wise in A Christmas Memory

In A Christmas Memory, we find Truman Capote, nicknamed Buddy by his dear older cousin, Sook, remembering the best days of his childhood in rural Alabama in the 1930s. He and Sook reenact their sweet, simple Christmas traditions, from baking fruitcakes to exchanging homemade presents. This is a real heartstring-tugger, underscored by piano accompanist Evan Harlan, who designed the arrangements for both plays.

With the holidays upon us, it's time to create new traditions. Why not make one of yours a trip to see Tru Grace at Central Square Theater, now through December 27th!

Want to make the experience even richer? Choose one of the performances that's followed by a special event, our holiday treat for you.

From the RSC to CST

Last Friday and Saturday we hosted a special event, There, I've Broken My Neck! An Evening of Theatrical Disasters, in collaboration with North Cambridge Family Opera. The show's writer and solo performer, John Kane, is a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and author of more than 200 BBC comedy scripts. He played Puck in Peter Brook's famous staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Ben Kingsley, Alan Howard and Frances de la Tour (flashback to college theater history class!).

There, I've Broken My Neck! weaves together a hilarious assortment of stories reflecting the best and worst of times for actors and the theater.
This picture comes from the performance's final moments, when John reveals the origins of the play's title. The audience's response to the piece was rousing and it was a treat to have such an esteemed classical actor in our theater. Moreover, his generosity in donating his performances to benefit both Central Square Theater and North Cambridge Family Opera was above and beyond.

Sneak peeks of Tru Grace in progress

November already! Where does the time go?

Thank you to everyone who came to see The Caretaker over the last five weeks! We received such tremendous feedback about the production, from the actors' performances to the direction and designs. We were very proud of the work ourselves, and the press also showered the play with praise. Did you see the review on WGBH? Check out the video here.

After changing the black box theater into a new seating and stage configuration this week and enjoying some rehearsal time on the stage after that, we'll be opening Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs on November 19th. This is a charming double-bill event, inspired in part by director Wesley Savick, who adapted the two short stories that comprise the production.

After working closely with author and activist Grace Paley on States of Grace (2007), Underground Railway Theater was interested in staging one of her short stories, The Loudest Voice. The Loudest Voice is the first act of Tru Grace, featuring a trio of seasoned Boston actors - Debra Wise, Michael Forden Walker, and Ken Baltin - as well as two rotating casts of youth actors who underwent a 6-week training program through Underground Railway Theater's Education program to prepare for the project.

The Loudest Voice tells the story of Shirley Abramowitz, a young girl growing up in the Bronx in the 1930s. Although she and many of her peers are Jewish, her school puts on a nativity pageant, in which she plays a very important role. Here are some scenes from rehearsals:





In just a couple of weeks you can see the play in its full glory, onstage with its imaginative and interactive set and actual props (as opposed to Elmo, who has dutifully filled in as Baby Jesus for rehearsals). Then, after intermission comes the touching second act, Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, featuring Debra Wise and Michael Walker in the holiday classic. Don't know it? You can read the story, watch a TV version narrated by the author himself or listen to Capote's radio reading to get ready.

Jet-setting

Last Friday and Saturday, Catalyst Collaborative@MIT presented its first public readings of From Orchids to Octopi: An Evolutionary Love Story at MIT Family Weekend. The readings were designed to give playwright Melinda Lopez a chance to hear her new play in front of audiences and receive their feedback as she continues with script development. The readings were very well attended and Melinda benefited from all of the comments in the post-reading discussions. This new work is well on its way!

But it doesn't end there, no sir: Today, the group of actors and the director, playwright, and dramaturge headed Washington, D.C. (well, Bethesda, MD, more accurately), to read the play at the National Library of Medicine on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). From Orchids to Octopi is a commission of the NIH, and feedback from the D.C. contingent will provide Melinda with additional perspectives from the science community. The cast will share a brand new draft of the script, containing revisions resulting from MIT Family Weekend, and then David Carlini, a molecular biologist at American University, will lead the post-reading discussion.

From Orchids to Octopi will celebrate its world premiere as a Catalyst Collaborative@MIT production in the spring. It will enjoy another round of dual-city activity, running from March 31 to May 2, 2010, at Central Square Theater and also touring to the Washington, D.C. area. Stay tuned this season for more updates, and visit our website to learn more now about From Orchids to Octopi.

The Loudest Voice

Photo Credit: Clara Rice

Education Programs at Central Square Theater are up and running this fall, and we're off to a great start! One nice highlight about this seasons education programs is The Loudest Voice Advanced Actor Training program.

This holiday season, Underground Railway Theater will present Tru Grace: Holiday Memoirs, a performance of two one act plays based on stories by Truman Capote and Grace Paley. The first show of the night will be The Loudest Voice, a story about a young Jewish girl growing up in the Bronx, NY, during the Depression, adapted by Wesley Savick from the Grace Paley story of the same name. Wes also adapted the Capote story for the theater and is directing Tru Grace.

The story The Loudest Voice is primarily told from a child's point of view and because of this, most of the cast is young people! Thirteen young actors have begun training for the show in The Loudest Voice Actors Training program. They are currently learning all that they'll need to know to join the ensemble of professional actors when rehearsals for the show start later this month. The young actors meet at Central Square Theater with teaching artists every Tuesday and Saturday for two hours. Each participant in the training will have the opportunity at the end of training and rehearsals to perform in three weeks of the six week run of Tru Grace.

This past Saturday, all three of the professional actors in the show - Ken Baltin, Debra Wise, and Michael Walker - as well as director Wesley Savick, attended the training session to get to know the young actors and do some ensemble building exercises through warm-ups and work with the script. The young actors had a great time getting to know the professionals and said that it was great how the actors really made them feel the emotions and knew how to read the lines. They were delighted to be in the company of seasoned actors.

The ensemble, teaching artists and director chase after one another in a circle while trying to give a friendly pat on the back. Photo Credit: Clara Rice

Michael Walker leads the young actors in an exercise to warm up the body. Photo Credit: Clara Rice

Ken Baltin leads a warm up to explore moving in a way that expresses words such as free, relaxed, beautiful, and whole. Photo Credit: Clara Rice

This Tuesday, Ken Baltin came in again to lead the students in some movement and sound exercises in order to help them develop new ways to be creative, as well as to help them learn to trust one another's energies and actions. We hope you enjoy these videos and photos from the session - everyone had a lot of fun!

The Caretaker opens and events begin

The Caretaker opened last week and we've enjoyed our first week events: a Harvard Night "Talk in the Box" discussion with psychologist and author Lauren Slater, our GLBT Night and Under 35 Night receptions, and our press opening and reception yesterday afternoon. We appreciate the great feedback we've been hearing about the show!

We also got an extensive set of press photos from the final dress rehearsal. Here's a sampling:

Michael Balcanoff as Davies, John Kuntz as Aston, and Joe Lanza as Mick

Aston, Mick, Davies, and the leaky roof

Aston delivers his haunting monologue

Intense! There's no lack of confrontation in The Caretaker.

Photo credits: Elizabeth Stewart

This week we have more Talk in the Box events:

• MIT Night: Wednesday, Oct. 7: Special post-performance discussion guests are Professor Diana Henderson and Lecturer Anne Fleche of the MIT Literature Section, joined by director Daniel Gidron.
• Artists and Audience Night: Thursday, Oct. 8: Meet the cast and director in a post-performance conversation.
• Play it Forward Night: Friday, Oct. 9: A post-performance dialogue with Central Square Theater's leadership. As we undertake next season's planning, what are your visions for our theater?
  

So come out early and experience these additional events - they're a bonus on top of the show, and only occur in the first few weeks.

The Caretaker then and now

It was clear early in The Nora's planning for this season that we wanted to produce one of Harold Pinter's plays, in tribute to his life and career. So we chose the one that put him on the map in 1960, The Caretaker, which was subsequently made into a 1963 film (and retitled "The Guest" for U.S. distribution), starring Alan Bates, Donald Pleasence, and Robert Shaw. Take a look:

Looks a little different than our production - we'll be in color and all - but it's an interesting comparison. Watch the video and then see the show, or vice versa. And stop back to the blog for more Pinter videos from time to time. Maybe we'll feature all 46 minutes of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech one day.

The set was installed today and it looks terrific. And by terrific we mean appropriately derelict and we wouldn't really want to spend a night there. Here are a couple of shots before the set dressing is loaded in, which will make the room delightfully crowded with junk:
More to come as the installation continues...