Awesome ICE HOLES photos

Now playing (through July 2nd) as part of Source Festival in Washington DC, some OUTSTANDING photos are surfacing of my 10-minute play, Ice Holes.

Admiral Robert Peary and Erik the Red

Awesome work by C. Stanley Photography.

There have been three performances already of the 10-minute program, "Heroes & Villains", of which Ice Holes is included. Two performances remain-- Saturday June 25th at 1:00 pm, and Saturday, July 2nd at 4:00 pm

Admiral Peary, Erik the Red, Ponce de Leon, and Sir Francis Drake

I will be in attendance for the closing performance, these photos make me even more excited to see the slammin' work going on.

Ponce de Leon (background) and Erik the Red

Big thank yous to the good folks at Source Festival!

rock on,

ROMERO

DALLAS selected for Deep Wireless Festival and CD Compilation

My collaborative project with Mike Vernusky, Dallas, continues to get lots of wonderful attention (which is awesome).

Most recently, the 11-minute electro-theater collaboration was selected to be part of New Adventures in Sound Art's (NAISA) annual Deep Wireless Festival of Radio and Transmission Art. As part of the Toronto-based festival, the recording of Dallas is also published on their website and included in a CD compilation with other selected works.


You can listen to the recording HERE, and learn more about the CD compilation HERE.

I am thrilled to be able to continue sharing this project in many different forms and for many different audiences (and in many different countries!).

Big thank yous to Mike Vernusky (for continuing to be so awesome), to actors Cody R. Kirk, Michael Kranes, and T. Lynn Mikeska, whose voices continue coming through the walls of the diner/memory, and to Dianna Marino, for whom the piece was originally written (as part of American Potlatch Road-trip: The Travel Plays).

rock on,

ROMERO

Podcast of DANDELION MOMMA from New Leaf Theatre in Chicago

The awesome people of New Leaf Theatre (Chicago) have posted a podcast of the plays from their play development program, "The Treehouse Reading Series". Included in this series is my play, Dandelion Momma, which is presented beautifully by this talented and sensitive creative team.


You can go HERE to listen to the play in a high-quality podcast of the reading from March 30, 2011 at Chicago's Lincoln Park Cultural Center.

Big thank you to director Jessica Hutchinson, dramaturg Josh Sobel, and performers Lona Livingston, Claire Kander, Gabe Franken (whose voice sounds eeirly like my own), and Mary Winn Heider.

rock on,

ROMERO

UNDER MY COAT to be Revealed in New York City

My short play, Under My Coat is the Truth, will play for one night in New York City, at 7:00 pm on Sunday, March 20th, 2011. Produced as part of the One-Minute Play Festival by Adaptive Arts Theater Company, the piece will go up at the IRT in the West Village, along with 32 other one-minute works.

The play is directed by Adaptive Arts's Artistic Director, Marielle Duke, who I worked with previously as part of Boomerang Theatre Company's crazy awesome workshop production of The Travel Plays (October 2009).

I'm thrilled that this short play is now in its third production (and will go up in a fourth during April in Philadelphia), originally produced as part of Specific Gravity Ensemble's Elevator Plays and, most recently, as part of the Don't Blink Short Play Marathon produced by Three Wise Moose in Anchorage, Alaska (October 2010).

This New York presentation will be unique in that it is the first to cast two females (instead of two males) in the roles of "John" and "Harrison".

Big thank you to Marielle Duke, and the good folks of Adaptive Arts Theater Company (an off-off Broadway Theater company dedicated to raising awareness of Autism) for the opportunity to share my work again in the Big Apple.

For more information about the event, please click here.

rock on,

ROMERO

DALLAS at the Annenberg Center

On Saturday night, March 12th 2011, my collaboration with electronic music composer Mike Vernusky, DALLAS, took the stage of the Montgomery Theater in the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

Aaron Oster (Clinton Hill) and John VanZelst (Man Behind the Counter). Photo by Jules Victor.

As part of the MERGE program produced by the Annenberg, me and Mike's 10-minute electro-theater piece shared the stage with six other short works, most of them created by Philadelphia artists. The "merge" theme comes from producer Brian Grace-Duff's interest in creating an evening of theater that collides local professional work with student-driven work as well.

With DALLAS, we even "merged" within our project, as it was performed by a mix of Philadelphia-area professionals Darin J. Dunston, Haley McCormick, and Aaron Oster with Drexel University students Laurel Hostak and John VanZelst.

John VanZelst (Man Behind the Counter), Darin J. Dunston (John F. Kennedy) and Haley McCormick (Jacqueline Kennedy). Photo by Jules Victor.

The event as a whole was a success in many ways-- the performances played to a near sold-out house of 110 seats, with each of the 7 events showcasing strong, original work. The event was well organized, enthusiastically received, and offered the opportunity for new friendships among artists of the seven different groups who merged together for one night.

Aaron Oster (Clinton Hill), John VanZelst (Man Behind the Counter), and Laurel Hostak (Waitress). Photo by Jules Victor.

The DALLAS project itself was its own reward. This was the piece's first full-production, and it was, as always, a gift to see the work come to life through the creative choices made by brave, talented actors. This process, though a short one (we rehearsed for a total of 10 hours over 4 meetings), was committed, creative, and full of discovery. Also the director of the piece, it was completely satisfying to work with such a smart, thoughtful, and enjoyable group of artists.

Haley McCormick (Jacqueline Kennedy) and Darin J. Dunston (John F. Kennedy). Photo by Jules Victor.

Big thank yous to Brian Grace-Duff for organizing, producing, and inviting me to participate in this event; to Drexel University for its continued generosity (especially Nick Anselmo who picked up the tab for a caravan of supportive Drexel students to attend the performance and then helped me carry two 3 foot by 3 foot tables across West Philadelphia after the event!); to the Dragons who showed up to support their classmates; to Michael Kranes and Cody Kirk whose voices (as Arlen Specter and Clinton J. Hill) continue to come through the walls; and to Dianna Marino, for whom the play was originally written.

Aaron Oster (Clinton Hill), John VanZelst (Man Behind the Counter) and Laurel Hostak (Waitress)

HUGE thank yous as well to Jules Victor, for all of the amazing photographs.

rock on,

ROMERO

THE BABEL PROJECT at Drexel

Sunday evening, March 6th 2011, seven Drexel University students and I shared the discoveries we made during our 8-week laboratory workshop on THE BABEL PROJECT.

Emily Kleimo (Worker 4) and JuliAna Nawn (Worker 3). Photo by Jules Victor.

Staged in the Filbert Space/URBN Center Annex, and presented as an "open rehearsal", the performers and I were greeted by a supportive and friendly group of 40-45 fellow students, friends, and family for this hour-long event, which included scenes/moments from the play colliding with live music/rhythms created by the actors, colliding with structured interruptions/activities and electronic music. Together, we experienced the first-ever public viewing of this particular collaboration between me (script, direction) and Mike Vernusky (electronic music composition).

Allison Brobst (Office Worker 1), Emily Kleimo, JuliAna Nawn, and Grace Buttery (Office Worker 2). Photo by Jules Victor.

It was a wonderfully fun learning experience for all of us, and it was incredibly enjoyable to be with these talented, creative, enthusiastic young actors for roughly 40 hours of rehearsal time. A true ensemble project/process, the actors all contributed considerably to creation of the work, and to all elements of production and design. I am very proud of all of them for the commitment, bravery, sense of humor, and willingness to explore the unknown, and feel privileged to have worked with all of them.

Katie Lynch (Worker 5), Laura Calderone (Worker 6), and Nikki Zusman (Bartender). Photo by Jules Victor.

Big thank yous to Nick Anselmo and the entire Drexel University family for their continued support of my creative projects, and to all the lovely people who participated in this evening of discovery.

rock on,

ROMERO

BELIZE'S PLACE Rehearsal Photos, Day One

Currently directing BELIZE'S PLACE by Tav Keyinde, I am working with an exceptionally creative and brave ensemble of actors who are blowing this play up.

Belize (Jerry Rudasill) cuts up meat (Jim Jackson) with a cleaver. While a cigar (Jake Blouch) hides in the corner.

In development of the play, and in preparation to share this work with a small audience at The Painted Bride Art Center on Wednesday, December 15th, the actors and I (and dramaturgs Wally Zialcita and Jason Tremblay) are attempting to learn the play by rehearsing it (rather than by reading it).

Our goals include staging as many of the impossible moments of the play we can, to see how the play can move most theatrically through space, and to see what kind of wild creativity the play inspires.

So far we are learning a lot, and I, for one, am having an incredibly fun time witnessing the deeply powerful imagination of this ensemble.

Belize (Jerry Rudasill), Rollergirl (Samantha Tower) and a Cigar (Jake Blouch)

Dubkid (Mary Tuomanen) gets a horrible idea (Jerry Rudasill, Jake Blouch, and Jim Jackson)

To see more of this work, please join us at the Painted Bride Art Center (230 Vine Street; Philadelphia PA) on Wednesday, December 15th at 7:30 pm.

rock on,

ROMERO

Romero Plays (in photos from) Alaska

On October 8th and 9th (2010), Three Wise Moose and TBA Theatre staged two of my works, Under My Coat is the Truth and New Orleans, in the frozen tundra of Anchorage, Alaska.

Brett Gillam as "The Trumpeter" in New Orleans

Unable to make the performance, the good folks of Three Wise Moose and TBA Theatre generously sent me some lovely photos from the production, Don't Blink One-Page Play Marathon, which gives me an idea of some of the nice work they did with the plays.

All photos taken by Jamie Lang Photography (thank you, Jamie!).

Jaron Carlson and Billy Worthy in Under My Coat is the Truth

Billy Worthy and Jaron Carlson (Under My Coat is the Truth),
directed by Ryan Buen

Brett Gillam in New Orleans, directed by Erin Dagon Mitchell

Big thank yous to all the artists who worked on this project and to Dawson Moore for asking me to send the Moose some of my work to consider for production.

rock on,

ROMERO

Statement of Disaster

In celebration of my recent selection as one of three playwrights chosen for the inaugural PDC/Plays and Players Playwriting Residency, I'm posting the statement of purpose I wrote for my original application.

I re-post it here also to become my reminder and watchdog for those days when I don't live up to my own pronouncements.

Big thank yous to the selection committee of Wally Zialcita, Daniel Student, and Rebecca Wright for their trust, and to Philadelphia Dramatists Center and Plays & Players Theater for offering their vision and the opportunity to grow.

===========================================

PDC Playwright-in-Residence at Plays & Players

Statement of Purpose

Greg Romero

My goal is to ignite an explosion of possibility for at least the next 100 years.

To explain—I ask:

What is more exciting than a disaster on stage?

I don’t know, so my plan is to continue to create the possibility for them, knowing that disaster is often a doorway to the profound.

And maybe the disaster becomes more interesting if we remove (take the stage away) or re-move (shift where our idea of the stage is) it? Is the disaster is more glorious if the audience participates? How many languages does a good disaster consume? How is this danger theatrical? And how can I make these disasters go from the live event into your bones?

And is this a play?

These are only a few of the questions that haunt me.

For the past ten years I have worked tirelessly as a playwright, creating live works that explore memory, imagination, pain, dreams, rites of passage, transformation, transportation, and the flawed and fascinating guts and souls of human beings. My characters are troubled, resilient, scarred, searching, trapped, tied to chairs, historical icons, lovers, killers, magicians, ghosts, beauty queens, animals, musicians, children, time travelers, dreamers—all bravely taking on impossible, necessary journeys. They speak to each other through time, dimension, ocean waves, black holes, gesture, lines in their bodies, holes in their chests, silences, holograms, and their deepest regrets. I have created work performed in theaters, elevators, porches, warehouses, loft apartments, punk stages, museums, sidewalks, hotels, basement crawl spaces, and public bathrooms in New York, Philadelphia, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Louisville, as well as in Toronto and Zurich.

I have worked many times with electronic music composer Mike Vernusky on live performance projects including The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting (with choreographer Ray Eliot Schwarz, 2004), The Eulogy Project (with opera-trained performer Jorge Sermini, 2005), Radio Ghosts (2008), and, currently, The Babel Project, in a form we are calling “electro-theater”, a performance limbus between written text, recorded electronic sound, and live performance.

My work has been honored as a finalist for the Heideman Award, a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award, and a nomination for the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theater Artist in Philadelphia. In 2008, I was selected as the first-ever Resident Writer for ArtsEdge, a year-long residency created by The Kelly Writers House and the University of Pennsylvania.

However, I have now reached a place in my creative development where I’m trying to further explode the framework of what I call a play, and to create something that more deeply blurs the boundaries between what is real and what is make-believe, what is performance and what is experience, what is a gift, and what is the point. I am searching the flashpoint for the most dynamic, most powerful, deepest- cutting performance vessel for humans to connect to one another and to themselves—or, to borrow from Zeami, I want to create live events that help us all awaken the flower.

For these reasons, I am applying to be the PDC Playwright-in-Residence at Plays & Players.

Specifically, these two stated gifts offer me seeds for the fire:

· The providing of a safe space for experimentation

· The focus of this program is artist development, not the development of an individual work.

It is through these offerings that I intend to continue to explore the ideas of performance as gift-exchange, the depth of expression without using words, the impression and intimacy of memory (individual and shared), the complexities within the creative use of space and place, the volume of a gunshot, the limits of transformation, a further (and with your help, an assisted) self-education into artists I am inspired by (Meyerhold, Artaud, Grotowksi, Foreman, Oliveros, Bausch, Wilson) and deeper exploration into forms I am seduced by but not completely familiar with (Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku, Kathakali, and the Circus).

Specifically, I would use the 13-month residency to continue work on at least three boundary-stretching projects already in-progress (The Babel Project: a collaboration with an electronic music composer exploring language through the real-time construction of a present-day Tower of Babel made up of words, quarry stones, gestures, and lost memories; Tugboat Headache: a non-narrative about a Mermaid’s journey through loss, bodily voids, and 10,000 flying arrows while traveling up The Traum River; and the on-going development of Material v. Memory: a site-specific performance experience in which audience walks through a gauntlet of perishable writing events, each of which is non-replicable, intentionally ephemeral, and disappears while being viewed) all while exploring things I love but don’t fully understand, risking everything all the time, as well as beginning work on whatever new obsessions consume my listening process.

In short, I expect to use the next year (and beyond) having as much fun as possible creating the most exciting live projects imaginable, all while deepening my skills, understanding, awareness, and sensitivities as an artist. It is my hope that I will be able to have fun listening, growing and creating with you.

=====================================

ROMERO

Romero Plays Alaska

Two of my short works, Under My Coat is the Truth and New Orleans, go up in performance on October 8th and 9th in Anchorage, Alaska as part of TBA Theater and Three Wise Moose's annual project, The Don't Blink One-Page Play Marathon.

The only thing that would make this event even more awesome is if I had the means to travel there and party with the moose (wise or not), elk, caribou, and foxes of Anchorage.

Big thank yous to Dawson Moore for inviting me to send in my work, and for all the fun people who make Don't Blink an annual, fun event.

rock on,

ROMERO

Transported

Last night I walked through:

A birthday memory on an airplane; an exhausting of Kelly Writers House; a shared memory of water, chalk, and bodies; an offering of grapes; a continual search for family and trains; a stranger picking up a cougar; a dream-filled trolley with the best martinis on the beach; a message written in pennies/wishes, stolen from a bridge; a cigarette-filled rant full of gods; a candle-lit dance in the gravel and under the stars; and a message written in sand, leading to wine underneath my feet.

Thank you, Material v. Memory artists, for transporting me.

And thank you for those of you who took the journey with me.

I hope we can all travel again together.

sincerely,

ROMERO

Material v. Memory

Which is more real?

Me and 13 other artists challenge this question by creating 11 short events/experiences that are, by purpose, completely ephemeral, non-replicable, and unique to the group of people who live through them on Tuesday, September 28th.

There will be no material residue of this experience, only our individual and collective memory of it.

Is memory located in your brain? In your muscles?
Inside of place? Inside of an event?

Will we remember it?

Is memory stronger than material? Does memory become material?

And what do artists create when confronted with these questions?

The full details from co-producers Kelly Writers House and Philadelphia Dramatists Center:

______________________________________________________

MATERIAL V. MEMORY
a walk through 11 perishable events

with GREG ROMERO

Tuesday, September 28, at 6:34 PM in the Arts Café
Kelly Writers House | 3805 Locust Walk
No registration required - this event is free & open to the public

_______________________________________________________

Organized by playwright and former ArtsEdge Resident, GREG ROMERO, MATERIAL V. MEMORY is a guided walk through eleven perishable writing events, each designed to be experienced by a unique traveling audience for three to five minutes, and then to disappear forever. Site-specific, un-replicable projects created by playwrights, poets, dancers, architects, fiction writers, designers, musicians, and performance artists explore questions of space, place, birth, loss, and our infinite/intimate relationship with memory.

Creative Artists include:

MIKE AGRESTA
BRIGHT LIGHT THEATRE COMPANY
BIDISHA DASGUPTA
PAULA DIEHL
NICOLE GARMAN
BRIAN GRACE-DUFF and WALLY ZIALCITA
CLIFFORD HALL
SHANE HANSON and ALICIA RODRIGUEZ
GREG ROMERO
JEFFREY A. STANLEY
MICHELLE TARANSKY

------------------------------------------------

Big thank yous to the wonderful group of artists collaborating on this project, The Kelly Writers House, and Philadelphia Dramatists Center.

rock on,

ROMERO

tokafi Article on Vernusky/Romero collaboration

International music journal (based in Munster, Germany) tokafi serves up some awesome coverage and contemplation about the work me and electronic music composer Mike Vernusky are collaborating on.

Album cover for Mike Vernusky's Music for Film and Electro-Theatre

Slammin.

You can read the article by Tobias Fischer by going HERE.

Big thank yous to tokafi for the words, and for all the awesome people who worked on "Dallas" and "Under My Coat is the Truth" with me and Mike.

rock on,

ROMERO

Someone Stabs Me While I Explore Space

Earlier this year The Kelly Writers House invited me to participate in the annual "Seven-Up" project, in which seven "experts" gather to discuss/question/explore a common topic. In 2010, the topic was "SPACE", and I posed the question "what is a performance space?".

The video below captures my 7-minute attempt, which, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the people heckling me.

Is this a performance space?

Big thank yous to Jessica Lowenthal and the Kelly Writers House for continuing to offer such a lively, fun community to participate in, to the six other space experts (including Kate Watson-Wallace), and to the friends (Megan Slater, Rachel Gluck, Tyler Woods, and Kate Raines) who came to heckle and stab me.

rock on,

ROMERO

Vernusky/Romero Collaboration on CD

My long-time collaborator and friend Mike Vernusky has just released a new CD, Music for Film and Electro-Theatre, in which lives a couple of projects he and I worked on together.

Within the 9-track recording are two works, "Dallas" and "Under My Coat is the Truth", which Mike and I created together using my text and his sounds. These two projects are part of the body of work we're exploring together under the umbrella, "electro-theatre".

Like all of Mike's work, the entire recording is mind-blowing, space-changing, imaginative and virtuosic. It's a pleasure to work with this guy and I'm totally proud of the recordings we did for this specific project.

You can listen to some of the work here, as well as snag a copy or two if you love it (CD or MP3).

(Mike was also generous enough to give away copies to audience of our most recent public collaboration, The Most Beautiful Lullaby You've Ever Heard).

Big thank yous to Quiet Design for making this happen, and to the actors (Jeffrey Carlson, Elena DeAngelis, Cody Kirk, Michael Kranes, T. Lynn Mikeska) who worked with me and Mike, bringing the work to life.

rock on,

ROMERO

GOODB(EYE) IN THE SKY: A Re-Post

As Audacity Theatre Lab tools together Episode 3 of their EYE IN THE SKY PROJECT: an innovative experiment in epistolary radio drama, they are re-posting Episode 2, which presents work from myself, Daniel Talbott, and Erin Courtney.


You can go HERE to listen to Daniel, Erin, and my responses to this challenge:

"For one week in the middle of the summer a giant eye appears in the sky over the city. At the end of seven days it disappears as suddenly as it had originally materialized..."

Big thank yous to Artistic Director Brad McEntire for continuing to involve me in ATL's fun projects, and to actors Jeffrey Schmidt and Lydia Mackay for bring my piece, GOODB(EYE), to life via the Internet airwaves.

rock on,

ROMERO

LULLABY at The Rotunda

We don't know yet what will happen.

But on Sunday, August 15th, a talented group of collaborators and I will share our discoveries on our experiment with my play, The Most Beautiful Lullaby You've Ever Heard.

We welcome folks to join us at 7pm at The Rotunda (40th and Walnut) to work on the project with us.

postcard design from world premiere production, City Attic Theatre (NYC)

Some of you may already have seen or read (or worked on!) the play before, but this project aspires to be a new experience as I am working with long-time collaborator (and electronic music composer) Mike Vernusky to explode/explore this piece even further.

In short, we are removing one of the play's characters (The Narrator) and replacing them with a recorded composition, created by Vernusky specifically for this project. We are attempting to get at the heart of this work by removing words and replacing them with sound.

The actors now, in addition to the play's original demands and restrictions (the characters are stuck in chairs for the entire play), will be working with the added challenge of playing within and against a wildly imaginative recorded electronic score, compelling us all to listen more closely than ever.

It is kind of an impossible task and we have no idea if this will work.

But the question excites us, and we have a team of ACE-talented folks who are up for the challenge, digging deep and finding gold.

Our event at the Rotunda is our continued exploration with additional questions (how does this piece work in a performance space? With an audience? With production elements?), and we look forward to discovering/breathing in the piece together.

I look forward to it and I hope you do too.

........................................................

The Most Beautiful Lullaby You've Ever Heard
script by Greg Romero
music by Mike Vernusky
directed by Ken Kaissar
performed by Kevin Meehan and Megan Slater

Sunday, August 15th, 7:00 pm
The Rotunda
4014 Walnut St
Philadelphia PA 19104

Admission: Pay What You Want

.......................................................

Big thank yous to the awesomely talented artists working with me (both in the present moment and in the moments leading up to this one) and the folks who have made this particular workshop possible.

Thank you Gina Renzi, Drexel University (Nick Anselmo, Nan Gilbert, Mark Andrews, Beng Lin Yeo), Jodi Alonzo, Laurence Becker, Hugh Craig, Betsy Currie, Josh Emmons, Jackie Goldfinger, Chris Herdt and Nicola Grissom, Jenny Kokai, Taylor Maddux, Christiana Molldrem, Abby Pudlewski, Dustin Puryear, Don Slater, and Angela Turner.

rock on,

ROMERO

Breathing Fire Full-Time

Beginning September 1st, 2010, I begin a year-long assignment as "Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater" at Drexel University.

NICE!

Me and Mario will be hangin' out on a full-time basis

This is a temporary promotion from my previous assignment as Adjunct Faculty at Drexel (and other universities in the area) and I look forward to the new challenges and rewards of being a full-time college professor.

During the upcoming Fall, Winter, and Spring terms (Drexel uses the quarter system), I will continue teaching a rotation of courses in "Theatrical Experience", "Theater History (I & II)", and "Dramatic Analysis", and will also lead and organize the "Director's Lab" as well as lead the course "Let's Go!" (whose goals are to bring students to Philadelphia-area theater productions/live events).

My previous year teaching at Drexel was a good one as I like my teaching partners and I like the students. After getting to know the faculty and student community, I was hoping to become more involved with the school, and the universe heard me.

I look forward to continuing to find my creative abilities as a teacher, to continue developing my listening skills, and to continue learning how my teaching and artistic projects continue feeding each other.

And I definitely look forward to getting to know the students better, and how we can help each other break it open.

Big thank yous to Cecilia Fitzgibbon and Nick Anselmo for believing in me enough to bring me into the fold, full-time, and to the students for making the job so much fun.

Go Dragons!!

ROMERO

Interview on REP Radio

On July 17, 2010, the good folks of REP Radio interviewed me as part of their series "Inside the Writer's Mind". The interview was a lot of fun to do and I'm happy with how well it captures the personality of my work.


We talked about why I was wearing a mask, the strange live event/gift-exchanges I am creating, what it's like to be locked in a pharmaceutical clinic, why I give people toilets for their birthday, how I'm trying to re-create the rite of passage between life and death, and why I juggle ice cream at Reading Terminal Market.

Lots of fun names come up in conversation-- thank you for giving me stuff to talk about: Megan Slater, Andy Merkel, Lucy Walters, Andrew Beal, Sarah Bowden, Christiana Molldrem, The Rotunda, Chris Morse, Working Man's Clothes Productions, Audacity Theatre Lab, Austin Texas, Nicole Garman, and my Mom (and many others).

Big thank yous to Represented Theater Company, and to the intrepid Todd Holtsberry and Krissy Scatton for taking the time to get to know me.

You can access REP Radio's achives here, click on episode 107 ("Greg Romero") to check it out.

rock on,

ROMERO

Awesome Creative Team for LULLABY Workshop

In the ongoing spirit of experimentation and collaboration, Mike Vernusky and I are set to engage in an August 2010 (in Philadelphia) workshop exploring the collision of my play, The Most Beautiful Lullaby You've Ever Heard, with Vernusky's electronic music composition.

Postcard from World Premiere Production in NYC (City Attic Theatre, 2007).

This project attempts to remove one of the play's characters (The Narrator) by replacing them with Mike's music, composed specifically for this work. We have no idea if the experiment will fly, though the early dreaming Mike and I have done has us really excited and it will be a fun learning journey no matter what.

We enter this process with a lot of exciting questions and have assembled a talented group of artists to break it all open. We will work together for roughly 15-20 hours in early-mid August, including an open rehearsal/work-in-progress sharing (more details to be announced soon).

Joining us/contributing to/exploding this project are director Ken Kaissar and performers Megan Slater and Kevin Meehan. I am beyond excited to be working with such a talented group of artists and totally can't wait to get in the rehearsal room with these people.

I have worked with Ken on multiple projects (Dallas, Thirty-Three) and his direction has always been sensitive, imaginative, fun, and highly smart.

Megan Slater and Kevin Meehan are two of my favorite actors in Philadelphia and will, no doubt, bring a lot of their intelligence, brave risks, creativity, and humor to the process.

(OMG this will be awesome!)

HUGE thank yous to the generous friends (Laurence Becker, Hugh Craig, Betsy Currie, Jackie Goldfinger, Chris Herdt and Nicola Grissom, Jenny Kokai, Taylor Maddux, Christiana Molldrem, Dustin Puryear, Don Slater, and Angela Turner) for making this workshop possible by flying Mike Vernusky to Philadelphia.

Big thank yous as well to Drexel University (Mark Andrews, Nick Anselmo, Nan Gilbert and Beng Lin Yeo) for their continued support of my creative work.

And of course-- big thank yous to the collaborative team for their commitment and enthusiasm. I look forward to the discoveries ahead.

................................................................................

The Most Beautiful Lullaby You've Ever Heard
script by Greg Romero
music by Mike Vernusky
director: Ken Kaissar
performers: Kevin Meehan and Megan Slater

.................................................................................

-- ROMERO