Tuesday, January 30, 2018

FOXING FronteraFest

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018, my short play (with dancing), Foxing, will be unleashed on audiences at Hyde Park Theatre in Austin, Texas, as part of the FronteraFest Short Fringe.

Olivia O'Hare as Beatrice, a fox who is also a human.  Photo by Kelly O'Hare.

Brought to life by performers/movement artists Errin Delperdang, Kelly Hasandras, and Olivia O'Hare, the play features strange exercises, dance numbers, and wild animals.  We are describing it like this:

They start with a dance then exhaust themselves further. They are led by a human who is also a fox named Beatrice. Aaron and Charlie drink water, do burpees, transform into wild animals, and unfold pieces of paper the fox keeps handing them, confronting the most difficult moment they can't bury.

Errin Delperdang ("Aaron"), Kelly Hasandras ("Charlie"), and Olivia O'Hare ("Beatrice").  Photo by Kelly O'Hare.

As always, it is a delight to work with these three artists and I have been moved by their creativity, imagination, intelligence, bravery, and generosity. They breathed into the words on the page, freeing them into the air, shaping them into dance.  They are all three as good as it gets.

Big thank yous also to the excellent staff and crew of FronteraFest, whose hard work is delivered gracefully and with unfailing support.  

Continued thank yous to Deborah Bradshaw and Chris Totora for inviting me to participate in Play in Day at Cumberland County College, and that project's participants for which this play was originally written.


 Errin Delperdang ("Aaron") and Kelly Hasandras ("Charlie"). Photo by Kelly O'Hare.

You can find more information about the performance, including tickets, here.

Best wishes as well to all the participants of FronteraFest, may your experience be magical and memorable.

much love,

ROMERO

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

BULLDOZERS at the Inge Festival

My experimental short play, Bulldozers, has been selected for the New Play Lab at the William Inge Theater Festival in May 2018.

An annual event held in Independence, Kansas, I look forward to the learning experience, to meeting more theater artists, and to getting to know a new place. This year's festival is honoring Carlyle Brown, whose work I admire and respect, and I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to celebrate and meet him.  And I am excited to learn more about my own strange, interactive, unpredictable play.


As for the play itself, Bulldozers was originally written as part of the 5 x 5 Play Slam curated by Gregory Johnson and Montana Repertory Theatre.  Bulldozers has never been presented (or even rehearsed!), and there is a lot to discover since most of the characters are played by audience members.  And there is wolf.

Big thank yous to the Inge Fest for selecting the play, and to Montana Rep for prompting me to write it.  Thank you also to Rand Higbee for his insights into the Inge Fest experience.

Much love,

ROMERO