Stebos

Call for Pirandellian Dramaturgies

February 1, 2021June 1, 2021Stebos

PSA, the Journal of the Pirandello Society of America, seeks submissions of short dramatic pieces (5 to 30 minutes of expected performance time) inspired by the theatre and literary works of Luigi Pirandello, for publication in the next or future issues and potential production. Scripts should be previously unpublished and unproduced.

An essential requirement is that proposed contributions both reinterpret and clearly reference a specific work or more by Pirandello, be it a play, short story, novel, or essay. The connection could take several forms: development or updating of an existing scene/play by Pirandello, background on a character demonstrated through monologue or dialogue, theatre within the theatre, transformation for different media or site-specific performance, dramatization of a prose piece, dialogue between characters from different works, alternative endings, alternative casting, engagement with a contemporary issue, etc.

Accepted scripts will be considered for actual production, either digitally or as staged reading/full performance in the context of a post-pandemic Pirandello festival.

Proposals related to Six Characters in Search of An Author should be e-mailed by March 15, 2021 to psa2017conference@gmail.com and, if accepted, will be published on the next thematic issue (XXXIII, 2020); all others will be scheduled for publication in the following issue (XIV, 2021).

Thebes Land by Sergio Blanco

November 19, 2017June 4, 2021Stebos

Continuing my collaboration with LaMicro Theater, on November 19, 2017 I directed a staged reading as part of Escena Sur – Latin American Plays. Thebes Land (Tebas Land) by contemporary Uruguayan playwright Sergio Blanco explores the themes of patricide and homoerotic attraction within a metatheatrical frame.

Whereas Puppies Are Adorable by Tom Reed

September 29, 2016January 5, 2021Stebos

The PIT, NYC

Within the Raucous Caucus political theatre festival organized by Box Wine Theatre at The PIT, I directed Tom Reed’s Whereas Puppies Are Adorable, a scathing critique of the current over-conflicted Congressional atmosphere. Everything is debatable, even the most innocuous bill proposed by a rookie house representative simply arguing that “puppies are adorable.” On stage an ensemble of energetic “political animals” embodied by Charlotte Grady, Mahmoud Hakima, Anthony Paglia, Maya Schnaider, and Dennis Zavolock. With them, I worked on a gradual transition from civil discussion to grotesque physical confrontation when the beastly natures of politicians emerge. Everything, of course, is immediately broadcast through social media as the representatives soon find out.

Fru Mary by Berioska Ipinza

June 24, 2016January 5, 2021Stebos

440 Studios, Black Box Studio, NYC

In my second collaboration with Chilean NYC-based company LaMicro Theater, I directed Berioska Ipinza’s Fru Mary, an exploration of how two siblings use their imagination to cope with being abandoned by their mother. Digging into the potentiality of this play, two talented performers, Daniela Thome and Roberto Sanabria have made rehearsals a true process of discovery. We presented this piece during LaMicro’s Summer Session.

Drunken Ghosts by Juan Radrigán

June 19, 2016June 4, 2021Stebos

On November 19, 2016 I directed a staged reading of a play by Chilean playwright, novelist, and poet Juan Radrigán, for LaMicro’s Escena Sur festival. In Spanish with English supertitles, Fantasmas borrachos is a drunken dream that portrays the confusion felt by the common man confronted with Chilean politics. The Bridge Theatre at Shetler Studios, 244 West 54th St, 12th floor (between Broadway and 8th Ave).

Changing Neighborhoods

May 29, 2015January 5, 2021Stebos

Center for Performance Research, NYC

In April/May 2015 I collaborated as dramaturg and director with three performer-choreographers – Lori Hamilton, J Reese, Sarah Starkweather – and musician Ken Kruper on a dance piece that aimed to capture the spirit of a neighborhood as it changes over time. New people are first attracted and then pushed out in a constant recursive flux that materializes at different times during the exhibition through movement and music.

This dance piece was created during the “Your [_____] Neighborhood collaborate:create residency produced by ForwardFlux.

Your [_____] Neighborhood

May 29, 2015December 29, 2020Stebos

Center for Performance Research, NYC

Between April and May 2015 I was invited to my second artist residency with Forwardflux for three weeks of intense collaborative exploration of how neighborhoods are transformed, gentrified, or even colonized. Through meetings once a week with the whole group of participants and more intimate rehearsals with two smaller groups, for the first time I worked as dramaturg of a dance piece, Changing Neighborhoods. For the exhibition program, click here.

Come Back (Via Five Stage Approach) by Michelle Levy

May 15, 2015June 1, 2021Stebos

For the author and performer Michelle Levy, “Come Back… marks the return to a stalled artistic research project I had been pursuing about my father, named (by him) ‘The Comeback.’ This current investigation has two narratives. The first is the story of Ron “Lucky” Levy, a once successful motivational salesman who has, sadly fallen down on his luck. The second is my process of sharing the story with the help of a tool named (by me) ‘The Five Stage Approach to Creating an Effective Artistic Experience.’ Through a series of small performance ‘focus groups’ organized over the past five months, I have been collectively revisiting a brief ‘comeback'”

In my role of dramaturg I participated to the focus group performances and advised on the overall dramaturgical structure of this biographical monodrama that drew upon archival research and technology to reactivate a dialogue between daughter and father.

The show was presented at the Abrons Arts Center and Theaterlab in May 2015. For the show’s program, click here.

The House of Charity by Andre Fuad-Degas

January 22, 2015June 6, 2021Stebos

One of the readings I directed at the Flea Theater was Egyptian-American dramatist Andre Fuad-Degas’s The House of Charity, a collaboration with the Queens College MFA program in Playwriting. Seven actors of the resident BATS company helped me bring this work to life in a series of lively exchanges. Here’s how the author describes the play:

In a few hours, wealthy donors will come to the House of Charity soup kitchen to sit down for a meal beside the homeless clientele, to determine whether the mid-western shelter they’re financing is fulfilling its mission of love and kindness to all. Back in the kitchen, six newly recovering addict/alcoholics, grudgingly affectionate toward each other but tempted by self-sabotage, prepare that high-stakes meal. Whether they succeed or not will determine the future of the shelter … and their own lives.

Parkour by Eduardo Pavez Goye

November 20, 2014June 4, 2021Stebos

On November 20, 2014 I directed a staged reading in Spanish of Parkour (or a Manual on How to Run in a Straight Line) [Parkour (o un manual para correr en línea recta)] by Chilean playwright Eduardo Pavez Goye. The reading was produced by La Micro Theater in the context of Escena Sur, a festival of contemporary Chilean playwriting.

In the words of the author,

This play is a monologue, it tells the story of an airline company worker who one day sees some boys practicing a sport called parkour. This sport consists of running in a straight line. The protagonist thus begins [to see] an obsessive correlation between the lack of direct actions in people’s behavior and the urgent need to reverse this situation, using only straight lines to achieve whatever we want in life, reaching the roughest extremes, isolating ourselves from the world and devising our own plan to keep going without turning or stopping.

Despite the monologic form, I decided to split the text between two performers, so that one of them could always appear as an interlocutor and aid in structuring the protagonist’s train of thought. I also felt a connection with Kazimir Malevich’s paintings, which became the backdrop to the play’s sections: the images visualized the content and mood of the text but obliquely, without becoming a literal illustration.

For the reading’s program, click here. For more info on Escena Sur and La Micro, click here. For the text of the play, see the author’s website.

Stebos, scholar/artist

Author: Stebos