Sunday, November 18, 2007

Donate!

Intentional Theater can accept tax deductible donations through our fiscal sponsor, The Field*. If you would like to donate to us in this way, please write a check made out to “The Field” with “Intentional Theater” in the memo line. Mail the check to Intentional Theater at the address below.


Intentional Theater
175 5th Avenue #26
Brooklyn, NY 11215

*The Field is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the New York City performing arts community. Contributions made to the Field and earmarked for Intentional Theater are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. For more information about The Field contact: The Field, 161 6th Avenue, 14th floor, New York, NY 10013, (212) 691-6969, fax: (212) 255-2053, www.thefield.org.  A copy of The Field’s latest annual report may be obtained, upon request, from The Field or from the Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

Friday, November 2, 2007

The Whys of Intentional Theater's Happy Days

The Whys

I’m producing Happy Days because I need to. I do not entirely understand that need, but I feel it.

I’m producing Happy Days at Wow Cafe Theater because I feel the work needs an intimate space.

Happy Days speaks to our isolation in the world - how some of it is imposed and some of it chosen. Why doesn’t she dig herself out? Her nails? Not wanting to break her nails perhaps. More likely she so disbelievs she can that she cannot even think of it.


In the year 2000, in a workshop with Joe Chaikin, Janet Ward and I worked on the first three pages of the second act of Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. The work was hard and intense as we wrestled with the horror of Winnie’s predicament and her apparent happiness. Yet we found cathartic joy in the rhythms of her speech. This little taste, this little nibble left us hungry for the meal of it, hungry to do the whole play.
As the producer/director of the two of us, I knew it was up to me to start the ball rolling. The play was often in my thoughts, tickling my consciousness, whispering to me to be done. Janet occasionally mentioned it to me and I knew she was hearing the same whispers.

In the summer of 2005 I was finally brave enough to give the push. I told Janet I was ready to produce the play but that I wanted to work on it for a long time. I wanted the ball I was pushing to roll gently. I wanted us to be able to savor, explore, and test without having to run in terror toward an impending opening night. We invited Dale Fuller, who had been in the workshop with Joe, to take on the role of Willie and Alba Gomez to stage manage.

The lead time has become longer than we originally anticipated and I couldn’t be happier about that. We have had time to be meticulous. We have gone page by page through the published notebook that Beckett prepared for his own production of the play with Billie Whitelaw in 1979. We have read some of his novels and have time to read more. We have read biographies, and watched a film which may have inspired him. And we have time to do more.

I have chosen Wow Cafe Theater as our performance space. Wow is this nations only collectively run women and transperson's theater space. It has a rich history which I am proud to join. It is a blackbox theater wherein I can have the small audience close to the action; exactly where I want them.

Please join us at Wow Cafe Theater, in the spring of 2009, for our production of Happy Days, by Samuel Beckett.
February 25th through March 21st
Wow Cafe Theater
59-61 E 4th Street
$18