DELAWARE MUDTUB Published by YouthPLAYS

While working in the forests and mountains of Idaho, it is somehow fitting that my play, Delaware Mudtub and the Mighty Wampum, went into publication.

Maria Konstantidies as the Old Fox, Tyer Garamella as the Pond, and Katie Croyle as Turtle, as Turtle tells the story of Fox's mother.  Plays & Players, Philadelphia: March 2014.

An interactive, immersive young audiences play, it is now in print thanks to the good people at YouthPLAYS (who also published my previous young audiences work, Of Plastic Things and Butterfly Wings).

Big thank yous to the countless number of excellent artists and people who brought this play to life, and who took such great care in expressing it so wonderfully earlier this year at Plays & Players in Philadelphia.

It is my hope that this opportunity will allow me to share this work with many more people and that the wonderful animals in this play-- Turtle, Fox, Heron, the Otters, Wolf, and Bear-- will continue to live on through the joyful creativity of many more future embodiments.

To visit Delaware Mudtub and the Mighty Wampum at YouthPLAYS, click here.

much love,

ROMERO

STELLAR CELLAR at Charm City Fringe Festival

This week I will be sharing a work, Stellar Cellar, that I've collaborated on with a lovely and talented ensemble of artists for the Charm City Fringe Festival in Baltimore, Maryland.

 Stellar Cellar, as performed at La Petit Salon; November 2013; Baltimore, MD

Scheduled for performance dates on November 5,7,8,9, we will be sharing our work with four audiences at the unique venue, Church and Co. on Falls Road.

This work was originated by Christine Ferrera as a live radio talk show about wine, in which the show's host, Ferrera, traveled deeper into her life of memories and subconscious, echoing through the different wines, taking the audience on a multi-layered wine-tasting experience.

After the piece played numerous places, it was re-imagined to include some of my writing, which introduces a couple of wild animals into the piece (a fox and a bear), adding additional worlds to explore between ground and sky (and beyond).

The full synopsis reads:

Stellar Cellar is a journey through a woman’s subconscious, an evocation of Dionysus and a radio talk show about wine. As the host samples each wine, her memories are conjured: funnel cake and dippin’ dots on the boardwalk, monks in Macedonia, the loss of her virginity in the back of a Honda Civic. Call-in questions, a car salesman from beyond the grave, and a dystopian weather and traffic report move her further into the deep layers of her psyche… until a fox and a bear appear revealing the sorrows of the animals. Expect songs of love, sleep and the apocalypse. 

In all cases, there are some wonderfully talented folks who have created and brought this work to life, and it is a performance that has some size and some lovely theatrical surprises.

The Red Fox and The Great Spirit of the Black Bear, illustrated by Christine Ferrera.

Charm City Fringe Festival Presents: 

STELLAR CELLAR
A radio show about wine leads deep into the forest...

Created & Performed by:
TEMPLE CROCKER
DAN HANRAHAN
CHRISTINE FERRERA
SARAH LLOYD
DANIEL FRIEDMAN
& GREG ROMERO

SHOWS:
11/5 @ 7pm,
11/7 @ 6pm,
11/8 @ 10pm,
11/9 @ 3pm,

AT CHURCH & COMPANY
3647 Falls Road (2nd Floor)
Baltmore, MD 21211

$10 + $3 Festival Button (One-time purchase)

For tickets: https://charmcityfringe.tixato.com/buy/ccf-presents-stellar-cellar

For more info about the Fringe Festival: http://charmcityfringe.com/

Stellar Cellar show page: http://charmcityfringe.com/tickets/2014/9/10/stellar-cellar

More about Stellar Cellar:  http://fiftysevenhundred.org/upcoming-performances/stellar-cellar/

Much love,

ROMERO

Listening in Idaho

Returning to city life after living three months in a National Forest, it is bittersweet to look back through journal entries from my summer working for the Forest Service.  This entry, scrawled in faded pencil on tattered parchment, comes from September 10th, 2014, two days before my assignment ended:

"Reflecting back and remembering some important things before I leave Idaho.  I saw a wolverine and a black bear in the same day-- encountering an aliveneness that I want to always be in touch with.  I climbed a mountain and was humbled to discover how inexpressible it was.

Taken during my hike to Custer Lookout, Salmon-Challis National Forest; Idaho.

And this aliveness and impossible expression is out here, away from the cities, and it is where I want and need to keep connected to.  It is out here that I see the largeness, feel the expansiveness of things, free from the moorings of category, compartments, all creating new understandings.  Because it is out here where things really speak to each other."

Thank you, mountains of Idaho, and all the lovely things that live and breathe with you.

--GR