Have Another #9

(Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Sol Crespo, Rachael Hip-Flores)

Our next installment of Have Another is Friday the 15th from 7PM-10PM. We’ll be returning to the friendly confines of Jimmy’s #43, located downstairs at 43 East 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd Ave. There is no cover, just some of our favorite scenes from Flux Sunday shared over drinks with friends.

We’ll be sharing scenes from Lauren Ferebee’s Somewhere Safer, Aja Houston’s Acirfa, and a devised scene led by director Heather Cohn.

Acirfa: Written and directed by Aja Houston, featuring Harrison Greene, Katie Lawson, Lori E. Parquet, Ridley Parson, August Schulenburg, Tarantino Smith and Stephanie Willing.

Somewhere Safer: Written by Lauren Ferebee, directed by Nat Cassidy, featuring Shaun B. Fauntleroy, Adam Swiderski, Ted Schneider and Matthew Trumbull.

Devised Project: Directed by Heather Cohn, featuring and created by Sarah Amandes, Becky Byers, Emily Hartford, Chester Poon, Nandita Shanoy and Isaiah Tanenbaum.

Have Another gives you a chance to see the plays that Flux is developing at Flux Sundays, all the while tipping back a beer or two and enjoying Jimmy’s great locally inspired food (local theatre pairs well with local food, no?) It’s one of our ways of sharing our development process with you.

The Plays

Somewhere Safer: During a violent outbreak of protest a radical splinter group suicide bombs a peace rally in Times Square, killing many, including presidential hopeful and media darling William Ames. The play explores the three years before and the three years after the explosion, following nine people whose lives and ambitions are dramatically changed by this action, asking the difficult and important questions of what memory does to us, and how times of crisis inspire both greatness and extremism.

Acirfa: Guard your heritage as you would your life. That’s what the black-winged Acirfan people must do against the silver-winged invaders who seek to strip them of not only their land, but their cultural identity. Memories and the ties to their heritage live within each feather of the Acirfan wings. When Princess Aaliyah–the leader of the only queendom yet to fall–has her wings brutally ripped from her, her lover Osi must help her regain what was lost: herself. Shifting through the past and the seemingly futureless present, Acirfa follows Aaliyah’s battle against the madness of not knowing who she is and where she comes from, and Osi’s loving quest to reclaim their identities.

Devised Project: As part of our ongoing Big Artistic Risk Project (BARP), Heather Cohn will devise a scene with actors Sarah Amandes, Becky Byers, Emily Hartford, Chester Poon, Nandita Shanoy and Isaiah Tanenbaum.

The Playwrights and Directors

Heather Cohn is a co-founder of Flux Theatre Ensemble and serves as the Producing Director. Directing credits for Flux include Erin Browne’s Menders, August Schulenburg’s DEINDE, The Lesser Seductions of History(nominated for Best Director, New York Innovative Theatre Awards) and Other Bodies (FringeNYC Excellence Award for Outstanding Direction); staged readings of Jose Rivera’s Sueño and Adam Szymkowicz’s Pretty Theft, August Schulenburg’s Channeling and Bekah Brunstetter’s Miss Lilly Gets Boned. Outside of Flux: David Stallings’ The Stranger to Kindness (Outstanding Overall Production of a One-Act, Planet Connections Theatre Festivity Awards, also nominated for Outstanding Direction Award); Daniel Guyton’s Rosie The Retired Rockette (EstroGenius Festival); Aliza Einhorns’s Blood (EstroGenius Festival); Wayne Paul Mattingly’s The Ballad of Lulu and Dad (Artistic New Directions); and numerous staged readings for companies such as Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Cherry Lane Theatre, The Brick, On the Square Productions, MTWorks, The Platform Group; Crossroads Theatre Project, and CAPS LOCKS THEATRE. Member – Women’s Project Producers’ LAB (2008-2010).

Nat Cassidy is an award-winning playwright/director whose works include Any Day Now (“Genius … a great play for a myriad of reasons,” The Fab Marquee), The Reckoning of Kit & Little Boots (Winner, NY Innovative Theatre Award for Full-Length Script), The Eternal Husband (“Amazing, unforgettable, absolutely electrifying,” Bloomberg Radio), Songs of Love (“This restored my faith in theatre,” The Happiest Medium), and I Am Providence (“The most delightful thing we have ever seen anyone pull off on a stage, anywhere, ever,” Tor; Winner, NYIT for Outstanding Solo Performance). Nat was recently commissioned by The Kennedy Center/Washington National Opera to write the libretto for a new opera and was named one of nytheatre.com’s 2011 People of the Year for his contribution to the NY independent theatre scene. His play Goldsboro was Flux’s last Food:Soul, and he will appear in Flux’s upcoming production of Honey Fist.

Lauren Ferebee is a multidisciplinary Brooklyn-based artist that’s lucky to work with companies like Flux Theatre Ensemble. Somewhere Safer was shortlisted for the Old Vic New Voices 2012 Playwrights’ Exchange and a recipient of Square One Development with On the Square Productions. Blood Quantum (currently in development) has had readings with At Hand Theatre and WET Productions. She is published on indietheaternow.com She is also the creator of Every Voice Empowered Speaks Out (www.EVEspeaksout.org) an organization that creates space for women and girls to be joyfully and imaginatively self-expressed through playwriting.  Her many other endeavors are described in great detail (with photos!) at www.laurenferebee.com.

Aja Houston is an actress and playwright who earned her BA in Theatre Arts from Pitzer College, George C. Wolfe’s alma mater. After college Aja moved to London acting on stages including Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Aja’s New York credits include Flux’s production of Hearts Like Fists and Lipshtick at the NY Fringe Festival.  She studies playwriting at Primary Stages where she developed, Superwomen? It received successful readings at Primary Stages and NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Aja has written two short plays, Labyrinth of Enduring Freedom and Salvation, for Flux’s Fore-play Reading Series. Salvation, was published by Indie Theatre Now! Aja is currently developing her solo show Get Up! At Primary Stages under the tutelage of Judy Gold.