Flux Sunday, July 12th

What is Flux Sunday?

So much to catch up on! Have Another last night (it went well), a shout out for Infectious Opportunity (go see the extension), an update on the quality discussion and more NET unpacking. But for now, a quick update on our last Flux Sunday!

BACK ON OUR FEET, BUT WOOZY
Thanks to Tiffany, we were back on our feet staging things. While everyone likes the ol’ read around the table, there’s a special alchemy when the right director and rights actors play for an hour and something alive breaks through. The flip side (or in honor of Bird House, the Lop Side) is things get messy, and that was definitely the case last Sunday, as we ran nearly half an hour over!
But good work was accomplished. We read more from Johnna Adams’ Lickpittles, Buttonholores and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens and David Ian lee’s In The Year Of Nothing, or So Goes The Nation; both big cast beasts, one the rhyming hexameter play featured at last night’s Have Another, and the other a gritty cinematic look (or so I think early on) at the trickle down of corruption.

HONEY ON THE HANDS
I then staged two new scenes from an old play of mine, Honey Fist. Finally finished after a year’s hiatus, Ingrid Nordstrom and Candice Holdorf took turns as Gretyl Barnes, the kidnapped pop star maniuplating her hijackers in all sorts of surprising ways. My favorite part was Aaron Micheal Zook’s portrayal of Sul – first time through, he played up what appears on the page like sarcasm, but in the run he played it sweet and sincere – and it landed just as I’d hoped.

PAINT ON THE FINGERS
Next up was Zack Calhoon’s Paint, featuring the recently divorced couple Sarah and Ray trying to work through Ray’s violence against her son, David. As Ray and Sarah, David Ian lee and Karen Sternberg (first timer!) really found both the attraction and ugliness in this relationship, and it was off set beautifully in the youthful rush of David (Brian Pracht) and his girlfriend’s (Caitlian Kinsella) post coital laughter. The legacy of violence raises its head in this scene, as well, and the question of both couple’s survival hangs in the air.

GREEN IN THE EYES
Then we returned to Mary Fengar Gael’s Opaline, another play featured at last night’s Have Another. And much like last night, this scene was playing like gangbusters. A line about a damned horse doctor stopped the scene as the room rocked with laughter, and Johnna’s sudden seduction of Matthew Archambualt’s Hargraves was a delight. More of this play, please!

BLOOD ON THE TRACKS
We ended with the first scene from a new play by Aaron Michael Zook, whose We Are Burning was another Have Another. This scene, Graves and Worms and Epitaphs, started silly, turned a notch of darkness when Jane Taylor as Liz exploded against her ex-husband’s door, and then turned very dark indeed as Mariam Habib as Josh told just how that ex-husband became a shut-in. A lovely way to end the day with a red sun setting of sorts.

We’re back on our feet again, energized from this last Have Another…but more on that anon.