The Year in Review: 2013
(Photo of the Flux Creative Partners at our Secret Santa party. Post by August Schulenburg.)
How do you measure a year in the life…of Flux?
How about 2 full productions in rep?
How about 4 IT Award Nominations?
How about 5 new Creative Partners?
How about 17 Flux Sundays?
How about 55 new plays developed?
How about…love?
And how do you measure love? In people: in the extraordinary artists and generous audiences who participated in this busy, beautiful year. During 2013, we worked directly on 27 events with over 120 artists and Friends of Flux, presenting work for and with over 1200 audience members.
Thank you. Thank you to everyone who made this wild year possible.
(Photo by Ned Thorne. Pictured: Shaun B. Fauntleroy, Rachael Hip-Flores, Ken Glickfeld, August Schulenburg, Pete Boisvert, in Nat Cassidy’s Goldsboro.)
January: We kicked off the year with Flux Sundays on the 6th and 20th, with a combined Flux Sunday and Friends of Flux SpeakEasy on the 13th. On the 17th, we held an internal reading of Honey Fist, and from the 17th-21st, Heather Cohn and myself represented Flux at the Network of Ensemble Theaters MicroFest in New Orleans. On the 24th, we held a post-mortem for Hearts Like Fists, and on the 26th we held auditions for the rep of Sans Merci and Honey Fist. That night, we held our first rehearsal for the Fo0d:Soul of Goldsboro, which opened to end our busy January on the 30th.
(Photo by August Schulenburg. Pictured: Bill George, Kayla Prestel, Emma Chong, Gary Warren, Kathryn Krull, Kyle Lewis.)
February: We held two more Flux Sundays on the 10th and 24th, and on February 7th, we held our first production meeting for the rep. We announced our casts for Sans Merci and Honey Fist, and also announced our Big Artistic Risk Project (BARP), and paid our first visit to study Touchstone Theatre’s process for our NET/Ten seed grant. But the biggest Flux production of the month was Creative Partner Kelly O’Donnell’s marriage to Kristy Caldwell–hooray!
(Photo by August Schulenburg of a Flux Sunday audience. Pictured: Romy Nordlinger, Nandita Shenoy, Heather Lee Rogers, Mariam Habib.)
March: We held two more Flux Sundays on March 3rd and 24th, and launched our first ever Literary Committee Brunch, which was such a productive hoot! On March 15th, we held our 9th Have Another, which featured scenes from Aja Houston, Lauren Ferebee and our first ever devised scene, bravely directed by Heather Cohn. Most importantly, we began rehearsals (and continued production meetings) for Sans Merci and Honey Fist. Thanks to the League of Independent Theaters’ subsidized rehearsal space, we’re able to afford rehearsing both plays with the room they need–thank you, LIT!
(Photo by Titus Winters. Pictured: Rachael Hip-Flores and Alisha Spielmann.)
April: As rehearsals and tech ramp up for the Rep, we swing down to see Touchstone Theatre’s The Odyssey Project as part of our NET/Ten Seen grant; later, they’ll come up to see both plays of the Rep, and a spirited exchange about all three plays ensues.
And on April 26, the first performance of Sans Merci previews, and it goes on to be one of the most-beloved productions Flux has ever staged.
(Photo by Ken Glickfeld. Pictured: Nat Cassidy, Lori E. Parquet, Chinaza Uche, Anna Rahn, Isaiah Tanenbaum.)
May: Shortly thereafter, we opened Honey Fist, and the two plays ran in rep through May 18th. It wasn’t easy–the change-overs in particular wore us down–but it was definitely worth it (though don’t go looking for a rep in our near future). There is so much to celebrate from both plays, but I do want to make a particular shout-out to Matt Archambault’s performance as Stu in Honey Fist, which was (I think) his finest Flux performance.
(Photo by K. Morgan Sasser of the opening ritual of the NET MicroFest and National Summit in Hawaii.)
June: We catch our breath, as I represent Flux at NET’s MicroFest and National Summit in Hawaii. A number of conflicts keeps this a surprisingly quiet month for Flux…and we needed it.
(Photo by Jen Kipley at the IT Awards nomination party.)
July: The big news from this month…we’re nominated for 4 IT Awards for Hearts Like Fists and Sans Merci! We don’t win in any of the categories (except, of course, for the dance floor), but it’s nonetheless thrilling to be nominated for our fifth straight year. We also get Flux Sundays back up and running after our summer hiatus.
(Photo by Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Becky Byers, Alisha Spielmann, Anna Rahn)
August: Flux Sundays continued through the month, but the biggest event of August for Flux is always our Annual Retreat, which focused on our usual strategic planning and play development, but also featured some truly adventurous work as part of our Big Artistic Risk Project.
(Photo by Isaiah Tanenbaum from Flux’s 10th Have Another.)
September: We came out of the Retreat with a surge of activity, fueled in part by our new Creative Partners: Becky Byers, Sol Crespo, Rachael Hip-Flores, Alisha Spielmann and Chinaza Uche. We announced this wonderful news at our 10th Have Another, and continued Flux Sundays while planning for some exciting fall projects.
(Photo by Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Emily Hartford, August Schulenburg, Chester Poon, Aja Houston, Sol Crespo.)
October: Now we’re really rocking it, with 4 more Flux Sundays on 10/6, 10/13, 10/20 and 10/27; with an energized SpeakEasy on the 20th, where we discussed the results of our first ever Friends of Flux survey (over 80% of folks think the FoF program is important for their relationship w/Flux). We move into our new storage space, The Sandbox at Bad Sandy Productions, and with our friends Gideon Productions, were awarded the LIT Fund Grant for the Sh.I.T. List. However, the most transformative parts of this month were the rehearsals and conversations that surrounded our Food:Soul Understand our Ground. Beautiful work, difficult conversations.
(Photo by Isaiah Tanenbaum. Pictured: Jen Regan, Sanjit De Silva, Todd London, Monserrat Mendez, Crystal Skillman.)
November: We kept the Flux Sundays going on 11/10 and 11/17, but of course the big buzz was the 4th Annual Flux Family Feud! It was our most successful–and dare I say it, Fluxiest–Family Feud yet. This gave us the forward momentum for our big fundraising drive–please consider giving a donation if you haven’t already!
(Graphics by the amazing Will Lowry.)
December: We closed out the year with three more Flux Sundays on 12/1, 12/8 and 12/15, and our 3rd Have Another of the year on December 16th, featuring scenes from Shaun B. Fauntleroy, Johnna Adams, Nandita Shenoy and myself; and we inaugurated our “feedback as toasts” that came out of our October SpeakEasy.
It was a wonderful way to end what feels like one of the greatest years in Flux’s brief yet abundantly full history. Below is the list of plays we developed, and the artists and Friends of Flux we engaged with directly in 2013. Here’s to 2014!
Programming: 17 Flux Sundays, 2 SpeakEasys, 2 Food:Souls, 2 full productions, 1 Flux Annual Retreat, 3 Have Anothers, 1 Flux Family Feud.
Plays & playwrights developed/produced: Johnna Adams (Goblins Go, Sans Merci, Lingua Ignota, World Builders), Becky Byers (Hope Struggle Progress), Katherine Burger (The Hunger Season, The General, Down the Rushy Glenn), Zack Calhoon (Vicious), Nat Cassidy (Breakaway Station, Pierce, Goldsboro), Marielle Duke (Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Six-Figured King), Shaun B. Fauntleroy (Shadow Walkers, The Tony and the Mark), Lauren Ferebee (The Big Sad, Salutario, Somewhere Safer, Reckless Season), Susan Ferrara (Silver Kitchen Plays), Fengar Gael (The Last Lot, The Gifting), Aja Houston (Acirfa, Super Women + Beauty Queens=World Peace?, The Spooks), Larry Kunofsky (Van Gogh Among the Hipsters), Romy Nordlinger (The Feeling Part), Kristen Palmer (Persephone), Lori E. Parquet (Sir), August Schulenburg (Stepping, Dark Matter, He Unshe, The Tunnels of Insa, Honey Fist, Salvage, Encryption, Lightning Walks, Be Happy Be Happy Be Happy, Perfect Children, Earth Rise), Nandita Shenoy (Washer/Dryer), Adam Szymkowicz (Happy Fun Christmas Sexytime, Sarah), Jason Tseng (Apotheosis), Isaiah Tanenbaum (Transcendental Etudes), Roland Tec (Kennedy V, Untitled), C.L. Weatherstone (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes), Anthony Wills Jr. (11 1/2 pieces on Death, Dying, Life and Living (a comedy)), Aaron Michael Zook (Graves), Ensemble developed: devised piece for 3/15/13 Have Another; devised piece for the Retreat; devised piece for 9/19/13 Have Another; devised piece for Understand Our Ground;
Artists and Friends of Flux involved: Johnna Adams, Nicole Aiken, Ryan Andes, Corey Allen, Sarah Amandes, Matt Archambault, Aziza Barnes, Pete Boisvert, Janie Bullard, Katherine Burger, Becky Byers, Zack Calhoon, Leah Marie Carroll, Nat Cassidy, Marc Castle, Gill Charleston, Emma Chong, Heather Cohn, Carissa Cordes, Stephanie Cox-Williams, Sol Crespo, Michael Criscuolo, David Crommett, Tandy Cronyn, David DelGrosso, Kate Dearing, Angel Desai, Neimah Djourabchi, Marielle Duke, Anne Dufault, Alex Engquist, Aizzah Fatima, Lauren Ferebee, Liza Fernandez, Susan Ferrara, Nathalie Frederick, Bill George, Harrison Greene, Ken Glickfeld, John Greenleaf, Adam Gordon, Mariam Habib, Josh Hanson, Emily Hartford, Melissa Herion, Rachael Hip-Flores, Kayhan Irani, Alex Johnson, Candice Holdorf, Jason Howard, Adriana Jones, Bianca LaVerne Jones, Brian Jones, J.P. Jordan, Jen Kipley, Larry Kunofsky, Daryl Lathon, Anna Lamadrid, Katie Lawson, Ricki Lynee, Audrey Marshall, Rocio Mendez, Mike Mihm, Vernice Miller, Stephen Conrad Moore, David Neal Levin, Will Lowry, Patrick Melville, Joseph Merlo III, Marianne Miller, Charles Murdock Lucas, Romy Nordlinger, Heather O’Brien, Kelly O’Donnell, Emily Owens, Jason Paradine, Lori E. Parquet, Ridley Parson, Matt Park, Chester Poon, Anna Rahn, Heather Lee Rogers, Kia Rogers, Ted Schneider, August Schulenburg, Marnie Schulenburg, Laura Jo Schuster, Ryan Shams, Nandita Shenoy, Gabby Sherba, Christopher Shorr, Brian Silliman, Alyssa Simon, Sara Slagle, Tarantino Smith, Alisha Spielmann, Julian Stetkevych, Adam Swiderski, Adam Szymkowicz, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Jane Taylor, Roland Tec, Jennifer Gordon Thomas, Alexis Thomason, Zachary Tomlinson, Matthew Trumbull, Jennifer Tsay, Jason Tseng, Chinaza Uche, Alex Ustach, Kristen Vaughn, Matt Vieira, Jilian Walker, Stephanie Willing, Anthony Wills Jr., Chris Wight, Lauren Williams, Kathleen Wise, Jodi Witherell, Cotton Wright, Mary Wright, Christine Zagrobelny.
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