"Chaos is come again"

Last weekend, I saw Atlas Shakespeare Company's production of Othello, starring William Oliver Watkins in the title role.

Watkins was one of the actors I worked with when developing my adaptation of Moby-Dick, and he does a wonderful job as Othello, an authority figure who inspires awe in all who meet him.

His undoing, of course, is Iago, played by Clayton Hamburg. He and Watkins had great chemistry in Atlas's previous production of William Shakespeare's Henry VI plays. As Warwick and the Duke of York respectively, they made a great team. In Othello, we get to see their team disastrously torn asunder by Iago's lies.

Desdemona is played by Charlotte Blacklock, who grew tremendously in the role of Margaret throughout Atlas's productions of the Henry VI plays and Richard III. One of Desdemona's foils is Emilia, who pushes back against her husband even as Desdemona endures shame and abuse from the man she loves. Leah Schwartz, who played Joan of Arc in the first part of Henry VI, sparkles as Emilia.

The rest of the cast is game as well, and Adriana Alter's direction is fresh and original, especially in the final act. The murder scene is shocking, and the final moments get the audience to question if the cycle of violence will ever end.

Othello is playing through June 28th, so make sure to see it while you still can.

Fringe Preview '15

The New York City Fringe Festival opens on Friday, and this year there were quite a few plays I wanted to see. Yesterday I went down to Fringe Central and picked up my tickets. Here are the shows I plan to see, in the order I'll be seeing them:

The Waste Land

This performance piece is a collaboration between two brothers from Austria, actor Christopher Domig and painter Daniel Domig. The Waste Land presents T.S. Eliot's classic poem... with the aid of a giant puppet head. What could be better than that? The Domig brothers have been developing this piece for years, and now New Yorkers are going to get a chance to see it. Though the poem was written by a man, the speaker is (by Eliot's account) the Countess Marie Larisch, so it will be interesting to see the text performed by a man. Fiona Shaw probably did the most famous dramatic performance of the poem.

Lady Macbeth and Her Lover

This play by Richard Vetere (The Engagement) tells the story of two writers who make a suicide pact. One of them lives, while the other posthumously wins the Pulitzer Prize. The dead woman's daughter then demands that the survivor become her literary mentor. Sasha Brat directs this new drama, starring Maja Wampuszyc (Foggy Bottom) and Jenny Ashman (Romance Language).

Fuente Ovejuna

The wicked commander is found murdered. And who committed the crime? "Fuente Ovejuna did it, sir!" Ducdame Ensemble (which was founded by graduates of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) presents this classic play by Lope de Vega. Previously seen in London, the production plays up the parallels between the 15th-century historical incident in Castile that inspired Lope and the Occupy Movement of recent memory.

The Merchant of Venice

This FREE outdoor production by the Hip to Hip Theatre Company is currently touring the outer boroughs, but it will be settling down in Tompkins Square Park for a Fringe Al Fresca run at the park's bandshell. Hip to Hip artistic director Jason Marr and dramaturg Adriana Alter have adapted Shakespeare's classic comedy as a parable about how not to live in a multi-cultural world. David Mold directs a cast that includes William Oliver Watkins (of Moby-Dick fame) among others.

The Broccoli Murder, DiCaprio Dance and Other Stories From My 20 Years as a NYC Cop

The title says it all. Peter Michael Marino directs this one-man play by Mark DeMayo, a retired NYPD detective with an arresting past. Now a comedian, DeMayo previously worked at the 26th Precinct in Harlem. The New York Post recently cited him in a snarky article about fanny packs. Though this one-man show might not have the gravitas of Freight, it is precisely the type of show the Fringe loves to do.

Venus and Adonis

In this production by Los Angeles-based New Circle Artists, Misha Bouvion adapts and performs Shakespeare's erotically charged poem with the help of director Daniella Caggiano. The show got good reviews in California, and a similar project, a one-man performance of Shakespeare's other long poem, The Rape of Lucrece, recently took Philadelphia by storm. (But Shakespeare's twist on the sexy story from Ovid is probably easier to take than a tale of rape and suicide!)

So there you have it! The Fringe Festival is always hit or miss, but I'm hoping this year my selections won't leave me disappointed.

Meet the Crew

Tomorrow, June 1, my adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick will be done as a reader's theatre presentation as a part of the Abingdon Theatre Company's Sunday Series.

The show is at 7:00 pm at the Abingdon, 312 W. 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan.

You can get tickets here:

Sunday Series

Tickets are $20, but blog readers can use the discount code "BigFish" for $5 off.

The production is directed by Dev Bondarin and stage managed by Jodi M. Witherell. I thought you might want to meet the folks playing the crew of the Pequod. Here they are:

Alex Herrald Theater: Please Continue, Carry the Zero (Ensemble Studio Theatre). Just Right Just Now (Lesser America). Life And Times (Soho Rep/Public Theater). These Seven Sicknesses, The Wundelsteipen, Future Anxiety, Just Cause, and #serials@theflea (Flea Theater). Victor Frange Presents GAS! (Incubator Arts). The Consequences (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre). Film: The Conservatory (College Emmy Award winner). Webseries: Wiggles (Channel 101/dir. Kris Knight). www.alexherrald.com

Russell Jordan worked with director Dev Bondarin earlier this year in the Manhattan Theatre Works (MTWorks) staged reading of Fengar Gael's The Draper's Eye. Recent Stage: Dig Infinity! (Planet Connections Theatre Festivity), The Messiah Complex (Downtown Urban Theater Festival). Recent Television: Blue Bloods and Black Box. Russell is an MTWorks company actor, co-owner of The Harlem Camerata reading salon, and an adjunct professor at York College/CUNY where he teaches Performance for Television. Member: AEA & SAG-AFTRA. www.russelljordan.com

Doug Rossi has played such classical roles as Tartuffe, Macbeth, Orlando, Friar Lawrence, Caliban, Orsino, Brutus, Ford, Don Pedro, and Hamlet. In NYC, he's appeared in over 70 productions including several at FringeNYC, Planet Connections (Best Featured Actor winner) and MITF (Best Supporting Actor nominee). MFA from Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

Conrad Schott Regional: Our Town (dir. Les Waters, Actors Theatre of Louisville), Remix 38 (ATL Humana Festival), All's Well That Ends Well and The Atheist's Tragedy (in repertory at Academy for Classical Acting). New York: The Collective (Zoo Theater), King Lear (American Bard Theatre Company). Schott was an Actors Theatre of Louisville Acting Apprentice and trained at The National Theatre Institute and BADA Midsummer in Oxford. BA: Vassar College, MFA: Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting.

Gordon Stanley Seven original Broadway casts, including Joseph…Dreamcoat, Beauty and the Beast, and Ragtime; also Cabaret (1st Roundabout revival). Off-Broadway: Lies My Father Told Me, Iron Curtain, Flamingo Court, White Woman Street, Take Me Along, many others. Movies /TV: Beauty and the Beast, Pocohontas,  Law and Order: CI.  Best credit/longest run: thirty-four years with Renee.

William Oliver Watkins has guest-starred on Nurse Jackie, Law & Order: SVU and Rescue Me. Stage: Jackie & Me and Ruined (Denver Center), Lombardi (Cleveland Playhouse), The Underside of Jackfruit & Papaya and McRib (Abingdon), BIOLIFE (Nuyorican Poetry Club), Snakeskin Suit and Nodding Off (Ensemble Studio Theatre), A Raisin in the Sun (Studio Arena), To Kill A Mockingbird (Great Plains Theater) and Blues for an Alabama Sky (St. Louis Black Rep). William trained at Webster Conservatory.



And what a crew they are! Come out to the Abingdon at 7:00 on Sunday to set sail on a grand adventure!

We have a cast!

I am happy to officially announce the cast of Fireboat Productions' reader's theater presentation of my adaptation of Moby-Dick.

The cast will include:

Alex Herrald*
Russell Jordan*
Doug Rossi
Conrad Schott
Gordon Stanley*
William Oliver Watkins*

*denotes member of AEA

You can get tickets here:

TICKETS

Tickets are $20, but blog readers can get a $5 discount by using the code: BigFish.

If you're a member of the Theater Development Fund, tickets through TDF are also available for $9.

The performance, which is being directed by the incomparable Dev Bondarin, will be at the Abingdon Theatre Company as part of their Sunday Series at 7:00 on June 1st. Hope to see many of you there!