Tag Archives: solo theatre

Jul22

A LETTER FROM EMILY JORDAN AGNES KUNKEL, TO THE ACTORS THEATRE APPRENTICE COMPANY

Posted on by
Standard

A LETTER FROM EMILY JORDAN AGNES KUNKEL TO THE ACTORS THEATRE APPRENTICE COMPANY:

Hi guys!
How’s the year so far?????  Can’t wait to meet you all during Humana. 

So now you know all about magic and love and bravery from Annie Lanzillotto. And now you get to write.  and rehearse. and re write. and perform…SOLO MIOS! 
Go forth!  She loves you guys, told me so herself. All sparkly eyed.

She asked me to write to you guys to put the experience into context.  And I had forgotten (the way we blessedly forget how frozen with terror we were to do things after they go well) how confusing the whole idea was to me. Does it have to be a story?  Does it have to be true? Does it have to be (da da daaaaaa) PERFORMANCE ART?? I know it seems like they are speaking Greek when they say “You can do whatever you want.” but you really can. And that’s hard.  Limits help.  But you do have limits.   Remember 7 minutes is very short.  Annie helped you all generate material, right?   Look back at your notes, at your caves, you’ve all done a solo mio already with her. 

Write as long a damn first draft as you please, and then go back and try and see what you are maybe trying to say. Mine was an off the cuff tiny story.  I came into her class having NOTHING. Thinking, I’ll do a heart wrenching piece about love and loss or something.  Nope, Annie took one look at me and said I was free and funny and needed to be sexy.  So from there I told a story in class about a silly thing I did once while distracted on public transit.  I got into it and jumped around, I cracked myself up, I realized this little story told everyone exactly where I was at for the last year in my life. And the story stuck with me becasue I didn’t know it was a story until I told it.  So I wrote a 4 page draft, then took a (literal) red marker to it, and cut and cut, then used my director and dramaturg, (and use them!!!  The directors loves you and won’t have the tunnel vision you may get stuck in, the dramaturg has listened to it over and over, and Jess’ gentle feedback changed the course of my piece…and she also pointed out some (shameful!) grammar issues with my tenses.)

And you know what?  I got nervous, but I was nervous as a playwright.  And that had never happend to me before.  I was thinking “Can this actress get this right?  Can she tell my story as well as it deserves to be told?”  Well, can you believe it,  the actress was me, so after lots of talks between us, I convinced my selves I could.  But the discourse was kind of thrilling.  And made me believe in my abilities as a writer and performer. At the very least, it was a new thing for me. 

Guys, It’s great to do your solo mios now because you can do anything after you do your solo mios.  And this year demands a lot of you.  I hope you’re all eating right and sleeping (and knowing how fabulous you are for landing this gig).  Have you joined the Y?  Do it.  And take Dance Fitness with Sonny on Wednesdays.

So just go balls out, tell a story that can live in 7 minutes from start to finish.  Break our hearts, make us laugh, or just make us cock our heads.  Figure out what tiny little thing you’d like the audience to do, get um in the palm of your hand, and do it.

Side note: On a whim during Humana (you’ll be most productive when busiest and stressed out, I found) I submitted a DVD of my train story (Ask Phil or the media Intern to cut your solo mio from the whole night DVD for you) and it got picked for this women’s solo festival in New York next month.  Annie is gonna help me tweak it.  They just asked me if I had any tech, and I was so happy to say NOPE! So keep it simple.  It’s more bad ass that way, anyway.  And submit it for festivals when you’re all done.

If you want I can send you my first draft then my final draft so you can see how much it changed, but what stayed the same.  Or for formatting?  I love formatting.  It’s a story in itself.

PLEASE call me with questions, email me with questions, facebook me with questions.  Facebook me anyway.  We’re family now, we should be facebook friends.  Even though being facebook friends with your family is awkward.  My dad keeps posting on my wall that he loves me and I’m like DAD. THIS IS PUBLIC.  IT’S NICE, BUT COME ON. 

Listen to Amy and Michael.  They love you.  Sheesh thanks for reading this far down.  I should undertand how busy you all are and written less.  Oh well.

HAPPY SOLOING!!  I was getting nervous about my show next month and Annie said to me “You have to do it, Em. You have to show them your magnitude.”

So… show them your magnitude, guys.

Love,
Emily

Actors Theatre of Louisville, Apprentice Company 2010

emily.jordan.kunkel@gmail.com

Jul22

WHY I MAKE WRITING CAVES

Posted on by
Standard

WHY I MAKE WRITING CAVES

When I was in college, I climbed a pyramid at Giza.  At the top of the pyramid, scratched onto the stone were names and initials from over the course of the eras.  I remember seeing graffiti carved by Napoleon’s soldiers.  Through all time motifs and messages repeated: “I was here”, praise songs, and stories. This stuck with me my whole life. 

Years later I began to write on oversize paper and I began to write on stage.  I wanted to bring the act of writing out of the shadows of being a private act, and into the public sphere.  So I rolled oversize rolls of paper across the stage.  I got down on the floor and crawled around, and wrote as fast as I can.  Then I got up, full of graphite, and performed recitations of the fresh text.  Often the text started out by reflecting the moment, and then the writing always went deep, wherever it had to go. 

I taught annual workshops at Sarah Lawrence College in the Theater Outreach Program.  One of my mentors, Shirley Kaplan, said to me, “Annie find out why we scratch cave walls. What’s that impulse?”

 

Jul22

Assignment: Suggested Bibliography

Posted on by
Standard

SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

A Little Book on the Human Shadow: Robert Bly, edited by William Booth, Harper, San Francisco

The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell, New World Library, 1949, 1968, 2008  ISBN: 978-1577315933

“Artists are magical helpers.  Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves.  They can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives…     The artist is meant to put the objects of this world together in such a way that through them you will experience that light, that radiance which is the light of our consciousness and which all things both hide and, when properly looked upon, reveal.  The hero journey is one of the universal patterns through which that radiance shows brightly.  What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another.  Over and over again you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons.  Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare?  And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco.  There’s always the possibility of a fiasco.  But there’s also the possibility of bliss.”

The Italian Comedy, Pierre Louis Duchartre, Dover Publications, NY, 1966

The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, Christopher Vogler, Michael Weiss Productions, 2007.  ISBN:  978-1-932907-36-0
Super Heroes: Fashion and Fantasy, Andrew Bolton, 2008, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ISBN: 978-1-58839-279-4

Truth: Personas, Needs, and Flaws in the Art of Building Actors and Creating Characters, by Susan Batson, Rugged Land LLC, New York, 2006

Works of HeART: Building Village Through The Arts, edited by Lynne Elizabeth and Suzanne Young, New Village Press, 2006, Oakland, California, ISBN-13: 978-0-976-6054-0-9

Jul22

Inspirational Quotes, to keep us making our work

Posted on by
Standard

 

“If you bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will save you.

If you do not bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will destroy you.” 

Gnostic Gospels

 ———————————

“What do you want to do? 

What are you willing to give up to do it? 

What are you not willing to give up?”

Sarah Schulman

—————————————–

Jul22

Assignment: GENUINE RISK

Posted on by
Standard

Assignment: Answer these questions:

  1. What’s a GENUINE RISK for you, on stage?
  2. What’s a GENUINE RISK for you, in life?
  3. What GENUINE RISK have you witnessed other artists do onstage?

GENUINE RISK is the name of my favorite Kentucky Derby winner.  She died Aug 18th 2008. A couple of weeks later, I became aware of her.  I was teaching solo performance at The Actors Theatre of Louisville Apprentice Program.  Outside the theater is a statue to Genuine Risk.  I’d walk to work, get a coffee, and pet the statue or just stand next to her.  I went to Churchill Downs to see the horses run early mornings and I’d watch videos in the museum of the old derbies.  Genuine Risk won the Kentucky Derby in 1980, one of the few fillies to do so, ever.  She was a grand champion, a chestnut mare with a bold white stripe down the center of her nose who flew around the track.  Her racing stripe was fierce.  One day in acting class, I was trying to make a point about what was crucial about stage work.  I asked the Apprentices if they knew the name of the horse whose statue was right downstairs.  No one knew.  So they all ran out of class and raced to the statue and came back with the answer: Genuine Risk.  Her name became our call to action.  The core of our work: to identify what would be a genuine risk for each of us as artists, to name it, and take it.  Year after year I’ve instilled this message to the actors as the heart of our work together:  Take a Genuine Risk.  Then I received a photo from three Apprentices: Katie, Chris, and Zoe, who went together and got tattooed on their feet a note I had written: GENUINE RISK.