Mr. Emery, thank you for agreeing to meet with Glossy, I’m a big fan.
Me too.

You’ve been called the Voice of your Generation.  Do you feel that title comes with a sense of responsibility?
Well – sure.  To be the voice of your generation is always a responsibility. It’s just– you know.  How responsible can one be?

You’ve already experienced amazing success at such a young age.  Where do you see yourself twenty years from now?
Dead.
(Laughter)
You find that funny?

Not optimistic for a long career?
Well, I mean, look at whose died. Great talent has died young. And with the lives that they’ve lead – how does that make me any different, y’know.

Sounds like you believe this is something you were meant to do.
Yeah.  It’s not something I want to do, but it’s something that… Clearly… (a pause.) What magazine is this again?

Glossy.
Pretty girls on the cover? Yeah, I know that magazine.

Do you think of yourself as primarily a singer or as a poet?
(long pause) Neither.

What do you think of yourself as?
I’m gonna leave it at that.

How would you classify your music?
I’d say it’s pretty good.

Could you tell us a little bit about your creative process?
(pause.) No. (pause) My creative process is mine.

Plans for your first European tour are in the works.  How do you think your reception will be different in Europe than here in the States?
I can’t wait for that. They love us. Back over in Europe, they’re very appreciative of um – American music.  I’m very excited to go there.  Plus there, I could y’know, have some beer maybe over in Germany because–

Right.  You’re not even twenty-one yet.
Shh!

Are you currently seeing anybody special?
No.  No I’m not.  Why, are you interested?
Who, me?
Yeah.
Hey I’m just doing my job here.
That red dress you have on is very stimulating, I have to say.
“Stimulating”?
A little bit.
Okay.  Well that’s actually the last question I have for you, so–
No! Come on–
Thank you for your time.

[ANDY TAKES A HUSBAND premiers this weekend at The Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Studio 6.  Friday, July 30th @8:00PM, Saturday, July 31st @8:00PM, and Sunday, August 1st @ 2:00PM and 6:00PM. All performances are free. Email reservations@icbins.com for your tickets.]

By Betty Dempsey

Spotted: hopping into a car in TriBeCa, strolling the Rue Etienne Marcel, splashing in St. Barts, and on and on. Though tips keep on coming, none have been confirmed as the country asks, where in the world is our Andy?

It’s been almost 48 hours since headliner Andrea Hart was a no-show at the Walk for Water charity fashion show in New York. This month’s Glossy cover girl (her record-breaking 12^th cover for the magazine) was last seen in public the night before the show causing a tiny ruckus at Minetta Tavern as “America’s Sweetheart” was inundated with drinks from would-be suitors.

No explanation has been given for Ms. Hart’s absence by her management team, but the Walk for Water show was apparently just the beginning. Andy has canceled several other appearances this month, including a shoot with Colton Messa scheduled this week.

“I really, truly, definitely have nothing more to say than yes, we had something scheduled and I was canceled on,” Mr. Messa confirmed.

Until we get a  sure sighting or word from Andy all we can do is speculate and wonder. Could it be that “The Face of America” is hiding a few cracks?

Oh Roman, Oh Roman, Oh Roman

Now, this is my first experience directing a piece of my own writing, and attempting any sort of neutrality of perspective as a director can be a sort of preposterous thing to ask.  A writer often feels they want to communicate so much with a piece, but a director must focus on what they want to say with this production.   Through rehearsals, I am reminded again and again that discovering this focus comes through a process of open collaboration.  Thank goodness for my assistant directors Lauren and Manuel, and thank goodness for my amazingly open and creative cast of Stella Adler actors.

It can be a scary thing for a writer to watch characters that they’ve seen so vividly in their mind’s eye to take shape through the imagination of an Actor.  The characters you felt you knew so well are transformed before your eyes into sometimes radically different, often more complex, and always more exciting people than those you’ve imagined.  Finding those surprising moments in rehearsals has been absolutely exhilarating.  This is what the theater really is; the script is nothing more than a blueprint for a real piece of art constructed in the rehearsal studio, and born on opening night.  Two weeks away from Friday!  Hope to see every one of you there the weekend of July 30th.

- j.

I am thrilled to announce that I Can’t Believe It’s Not Shakespeare has been working on a very (a)rousing new project by our always fruitful writer (not to mention the artistic director of ICBINS), Julia Rae Maldonado.

ICBINS is collaborating with the Stella Adler Studio of Acting for this workshop production of Andy Takes a Husband, a new comedy about a troubled young American sex symbol.

This performance will be FREE to the public!

Our Stella Adler actors include:  Jesse Barrera, Isabelle Zufferey Boulton, Julian Conde and Nao Dobashi.

Performances will be the last weekend in July! More details and reservation info to come later this week!

So we don’t know the title of Manuel Perez’s new comedy yet, but the author tells us the new draft is HOT (capital letters).  We do, however, know that its next up for our reading series on Oct 17.

Collaborators include: Grace Aldridge, Sophie Aung, Ronit Aranoff, Jeremy Ferdman, Lauren B. Ferrel, Theresa Giacopasi, Erik Gullberg, Julia Rae Maldonado, Manuel F. Perez and Kire Tosevski.

"That's it kitty, breeeeeeeath"

Recently I’ve started an acting conservatory program at Stella Adler, which includes a round of classes including a voice and speech class – a technical aspect of training that any actor will tell you is unthinkable to neglect.  Early in the term, voice and speech class has mostly consisted of my classmates and I lying on our backs and breathing deeply.  As I stared at the ceiling and imagined my intercostal muscles spreading apart, I couldn’t help but consider how this strange work to playwriting:

It’s been my feeling that playwriting and songwriting are sisters – perhaps more closely related than that reoccurring pair, playwriting and screenwriting.  I’ve come to believe that any good playwright is as conscious of the Sound of his or her work as any songwriter, and unfortunately I feel that this is an aspect that many aspiring playwrights neglect.  Although an emphasis on storytelling for a young playwright makes perfect sense, an almost equal emphasis could be placed on the aspect of lyric.

In the poetry world, before printing became widespread and affordable, poetry for the masses was primarily a spoken art.  But in the Renaissance, poetry also became a visual art and poets became conscious of how their work appeared on the page as well as its sound.  They were aware of their readers in their homes with books in their hands.

But here plays and poetry diverge. Play scripts are not a visual medium.  And yet too often today they are treated as such – scripts in development are passed around via email to be read by a collaborator in silence – a convenient practice, and a necessary one -  but one I think could actually be detrimental to the development of new work if relied on too heavily. Plays must be heard out loud – even in the earliest stages of their development.  The actor is our instrument.  And the closer our relationship is to our actors, and the deeper our collaboration and our understanding of what they do, the better our plays will be.

-j.

Next up in our reading series will be Trailer Park Special: A White Trash Black Comedy by Alicia Frank.  Collaborators  on the project will be: Michael Abourizk, Ronit Aranoff,  Matt Berger, Stacey Bone, Alicia Frank, Lauren B. Ferrel, Melissa Lusk, Julia Rae Maldonado, and Manuel Perez.

Schedule to begin work September 26th, 2009.

Occasionally, my facebook wife and fellow ICBINS business partner Julia will invite me along to some off-off-off production or workshop and I’m usually skeptical and almost always half-dreading it in the days preceding.  But one thing remains constant: I am ALWAYS proven wrong and end up enjoying the hell out of the performances.  Never again will I doubt her.  This past weekend Julia asked if I’d come see NYNEO’s workshop performance of William Shakespeare’s Henry VI.  To be honest I had never read this play or seen a production of it before and I was a little unsure of how I’d receive it.  You see, a few years ago Denzel Washington shot me with a tranquilizer gun, wait no – I saw him in an excruciatingly soporific Broadway rendition of Julius Caesar, and since then I’ve been afraid of falling asleep through Shakespeare.

This however, was not the case with Henry VI.  I can tell you that the play was brilliant and so were the actors, who could not have been better cast.  The NYNEO ensemble is a relatively new theater company like ICBINS that is dedicated to producing Shakespeare’s work and they are damn good at it.  For those not so well versed in Shakespeare, Henry VI is a three part series chronicling the history following the death of King Henry V.  What would normally be over a 6 hour performance, the director Bill Griffin put together a solid abridgment that ran about 2 hours.  All of the actors, clad mostly in all black, were exceptional.  I was particularly impressed with the performances of Margaret, played by Maya Erskine, and Henry VI, played by John Kurzynowski.

So far I have seen two performances by the NYNEO ensemble: Twelfth Night and Henry VI, and both were exceptional.  Never again will I let the painful memory of Denzel’s lackluster portrayal of Marcus Brutus deter me from seeing Shakespeare again.  Sometimes Broadway doesn’t always get it right, and who needs them when you’ve got a group like NYNEO that cranks out great Shakespeare with a fresh philosophy?  If they are any indication of what Gen Y is bringing to theater then we all have a lot to look forward to.

-Lauren B. Ferrel, Producer, Denzel Survivor

but you know what? you know what, College?  i’m glad it’s over.  turns out things are pretty all right here out here in the cold.  and by cold i mean my 90+ degree non-airconditioned convent cell that I’m forced to live in because i had to pay for you and now i have no money.

just so happens lots of us NYU-exes are keeping busy this august.  this friday, I’m planning on catching Dan Moyer’s play Winnemucca at The Fringe which has been getting great reviews.  especially looking forward to this because last october, icbins had the pleasure of hosting a reading of an earlier draft as part of our reading series.

also, our pals at new york neo classical continue to be the shit.  Yesterday, i saw their workshop of Henry VI (abridged) directed by our favorite, Bill Griffin.  i love these guys.  even as it continues to evolve, Henry VI was every bit as much of a pleasure as their spring production of Measure for Measure.

more good stuff from us ex-tischies to come in 2009 i’m sure, even as we welcome the freshly dumped class-of-2009 into our comforting open arms.

- j.

You got one more chance to catch Winnemucca at The Fringe – Friday, August 28th at Venue #5, The Lafayette St. Theatre @ Theaters at 45 Bleeker.   Performances by Jenni Putney, Grayson DeJesus & Will Brill, written by Dan Moyer & directed by Wren Graves. Buy tickets here.

fuck yes

there are few good feelings like the exhilaration of finishing a draft of a play but this time i feel tremendous relief to be moving on to other projects – some short form, completing that screenplay, etc.. And although i have little justification for feeling this way, i’ve been scolding myself for months for taking too long and doing too much work on what is essentially a first draft. my gut is telling me that i must have done something wrong to be trudging along in the mud and obsessing over and incessantly tweaking this silly draft in a way i’ve never obsessed or tweaked before.

Am i being a little mean to myself?  To expand on some themes Chiara touched on in her last post…  How can a young writer ever measure how successfully they are doing their job? by the number of completed works? by hours spent plugging away? cups of coffee consumed? What?

as unanswerable a question as this should be, there are always those with strong opinions indeed:

when you are a writer first learning your craft, there is never a shortage of people available to give you some advice on the topic of productivity:  you should get up early. you should set goals. you should let it happen naturally.  you should write in solitude.  you should write in cafés. you should take criticism.  you should listen to your own voice. you should not worry if you’re not producing work.  if you aren’t writing every day you aren’t a writer at all.

Mario Fratti, badass playwright

while at NYU, i had the good fortune to meet Mario Fratti – a playwright who was a guest speaker in my renaissance drama class.  he was pro-structure, pro-discipline, pro-craft and big into the de-mystification of the writing process – no “muses” no mysterious natural “voice”, just hard work and craft. And if I really needed more proof that this guy had it all figured out, the gentleman is a master of productivity. according to his website, Fratti has written nearly 70 plays and his work has been produced in over 600 theaters. what the fuck.

the time i had to question Mr. Fratti on his incredible success was sadly limited. I squeaked in just one question: “Mr. Fratti,” I asked. “You must work on multiple plays at once, am I correct?”

“Never,” he said.

Never?! You gotta be kidding me, sir! Like many college students it was in my very nature to be a multi-tasker.  How could such an extreme level of focus be possible by a mere mortal…? But this was Mario Fratti talking. Mario Fratti, my newly adopted Hero of Playwriting. It had to be true.  The only conclusion to be made was that I was on the wrong track and I needed to seriously rethink my process if I was ever going to amount to anything at all.

Three years later I am not yet the Perfect Playwriting Machine – and I’m afraid I’ve even let other more loosey-goosey, hippy-dippy writing philosophies infiltrate my otherwise robotic mind.  Sometimes… I even let writing happen all on its own.

I figure probably 95 per cent of why I have been discouraged with my progress on this piece has nothing to do with not feeling productive – but rather that I am disturbed that this piece has been the sole, primary focus of my heart and mind for nearly a year.  Where does that come from?  I got the idea somewhere along the line that as a young person I should be a certain kind of writer. I have the enormous expectation of having dozens of projects, one after the other… simultaneously — dozens and dozens of projects until damn, you can’t believe I’ve got so many projects because really – that’s a lot of projects. But this year – my first year out in the real world as a real writer – that just hasn’t been the case.

If I can put forth my own self-serving platitude for the ermging writer, I believe that the most difficult thing that (s)he will have to learn is when to stop listening to all the damn advice about what a writer is supposed to be – and just allow his/herself to be a writer of whatever kind that works.