Rule of 7x7

I just got back from seeing the latest edition of Rule of 7x7, a showcase for short plays at The Tank held every other month.

Brett Epstein hosts the series, which takes seven playwrights and asks each writer to write one rule all the plays must follow. This batch of rules included that there must be violence, someone must eat something onstage, and there must be a 30-second dialogue-free moment/scene/montage set to a 90s pop song.

With such strict (and quirky) parameters, it is unlikely anyone will write a timeless drama, but the rules help free up imaginations to conceive some wonderfully funny and sometimes surprisingly touching moments. The first play, Rachael Mason's Funny Seeing You Here, was probably the best. Mason takes a simple premise, two acquaintances awkwardly meeting at the same wedding, and skillfully draws it out into some hilarious extremes. By the time the audience sees a flashback to what the two characters did earlier (memorably set to the music of Ricky Martin), they are practically rolling in the aisles with laughter.

Jordan Swisher's V Chill Vampires overcomes an awkward title to satirize our technologically obsessed culture by portraying two "friendly" vampires making a YouTube video about how they're really not scary at all. Just as the audience is getting used to the tension between the bloodsucking habits of the vampiric duo and their calm, reasonable demeanor, Swisher adds a new twist: a human they have kidnapped in order to convince her (in a really nice, non-threatening way) that she would really rather be a vampire... wouldn't she?

The even more awkwardly titled FATFATFATFATFATFATFAT! by James Anthony Tyler lacked many of the laughs of the first two plays, but it did benefit from a memorable performance by Amelia Fowler as Shayla, a heavy-set woman unashamed of her body and unwilling to take flak about her weight from anybody. Rounding out the first half of the evening was Kev Berry's Exit Through the Sock Hop, a send-up of mid-twentieth-century nostalgia featuring increasingly explicit sexual dance moves and a drag performance by Blake Deadly.

One of the challenges of ten-minute plays is they can seem too enclosed, making the audience feel a bit claustrophobic. Rachel Lin's poker drama No Limit Hold 'Em avoids that by introducing on stage a cast of eight (including Lin herself) actors who create a rich tapestry of voices. Following this was host Epstein's own play, The Song Is For Lisa, which has only two characters. However, the play's apparent simplicity (with high school friends playing a game of Mario Kart) gradually becomes more emotionally compelling as the piece progresses. Even if in the grand scheme of things teenage friendships don't seem to matter as much as the life-and-death stakes Lin introduces in her onstage poker game, Epstein convinces us that in fact... they do.

The final play of the evening, Dan Moyer's The Lifestyle, takes place at a Tommy Bahama clothing store, with the wonderful Alex Herrald portraying the mysterious Tommy behind the over-priced aloha-shirt empire. It was a fitting end to a fun night of theatre.

Rule of 7x7 is a regular event at The Tank, so if you're interested in checking out the next installment in a couple months, go to:

Rule of 7x7

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!