Polarity Ensemble Theatre Blog

G Riley Mills and actor Turk Miller in rehearsal

Creating and developing a new work is never an easy task for a playwright but it is hardly any easier for a theatre or producer. It can be risky business and it takes a special commitment on the part of a producer or artistic director to take a chance on a play that has no brand name or built-in audience.

Which is why the work that Polarity Ensemble Theatre does with its Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays is so extraordinary.

I had the great fortune of having my newest play, Deaths and Devils, selected as one of the four scripts chosen for the 2010 Dionysos Cup. To me, new plays are like lonely little orphans in the world, wandering through the wilderness looking for someone to take them in and give them a home. In Polarity and the Dionysos Cup, I found just the warm safe place I was looking for.

I first came across the inspiration for Deaths and Devils a few years back when I read a blurb in a magazine about John R. Brinkley, a curious and colorful character from the 1920s who made $12 million during the Great Depression by claiming he could cure impotent men by replacing their testicles with the healthy glands of the goat! Of course, being drawn to history and historical figures, I was immediately intrigued and began reading every book and article I could find about Brinkley. What I discovered was amazing. Not only had Brinkley been a wildly successful doctor in his lifetime, he was also a politician, a filmmaker and a pioneer of early radio (as well as a serial killer, of sorts)! I immersed myself in the world of John R. Brinkley, researching and sketching out the bones of what would eventually become Deaths and Devils.

Every playwright’s process is a little bit different. For me, I start writing the scenes that come to me first (the low hanging fruit, as it were). This meant, in the case of Deaths and Devils, that I began with the final courtroom confrontation between Brinkley and his nemesis. After about a year or writing and rewriting, I had finally completed the first draft of the script. Now (as any playwright knows) the most painful and difficult part of being a playwright really comes after the play is finished. There you are (at last!) with this exciting new work. But where do you go now? What do you do with it?

The sad truth is that few theater companies have the resources available to dedicate to the staging and development of completely new works. Also, new plays don’t generally come in neat little packages like the crisp, new scripts ordered from Samuel French. By their very nature, new plays are flawed, ugly little beasts—often overwritten, with characters that are underdeveloped and scenes that drag on too long or are simply extraneous. Of course, these are negative aspects to some, but for me, these are the attributes that make a new play so beautiful. New works need to be developed, read out loud and given the opportunity to be rewritten. It is this essential refining process (just like with diamonds) that makes a new play sparkle.

I have been fortunate enough over the years to have had plays commissioned and produced by such theaters as Lookingglass, Prop, Timeline, Emerald City and Chicago Children’s Theatre, among others. Each development process is a little bit different. With the Dionysos Cup, we had only four rehearsals before presenting the play to a paying audience at Polarity. Not a lot of time. Plus Death and Devils is a big show, with a large cast, that sweeps through time, much the same as a movie like The Aviator or There Will Be Blood. So the pressure was on from the start.

Fortunately, in Darren Callahan and Polarity, I had some very ambitious partners.

As anyone who has attended any previous Dionysos Cups knows, these are not run-of-the-mill play readings with actors sitting around a table. These are ambitious staged readings with lighting cues, sound cues, costumes and props. Darren Callahan—our brilliant and talented director—was a machine, pushing not only the cast, but also me as a playwright to go further in these four rehearsals then I had probably ever gone in any other new play development process. What was also exciting and inspiring, was that Polarity (specifically Richard, Ann and Laura) allowed us to do the work we needed to do while supporting us every step of the way. Add a scene? Go for it! Cut a character? Why not!

The process of the Dionysos Cup allowed me to continue to refine the script even between the first public reading and the second one. After each reading, there was a brief talkback. Though painful in some instances, talkbacks are essential in the process of new play development. To be able to hear firsthand what audience members took away from the story and characters (that for so long have been living only inside of your head) is invaluable. Audience feedback can be very eye opening and can provide a playwright with entirely new ways of thinking about a scene or character that might never have dawned on them before.

I am extremely grateful to have been a part of the 2010 Dionysos Cup New Play Festival. Death and Devils took enormous strides forward because of its inclusion—becoming a tighter, richer, and more exciting play in the process. There are few theatres in Chicago that display the level of commitment that Polarity does to the development of new works (especially new works not written by a company’s ensemble member). For that reason, we should celebrate by raising a glass to both Polarity and, more specifically, the Dionysos Cup itself. Without the support of incubators such as these, where would the great new plays of tomorrow come from?

–G. Riley Mills
June 2010

Richard Engling, Artistic Director

Artistic Director Richard Engling: I am pleased to announce that Keith Anwar has won the Dionysos Cup for his script, Kabulitis, a truly touching, human drama with great characters, innovative story-telling and wonderful dialogue. The award will be presented at our June 19 Benefit and Season Preview. Congratulations to Keith and to Kabulitis director Laura Sturm, dramaturg Ann Keen, and a stellar cast including Susan Monts-Bologna, Brent Barnes, Ashley Moret, Rachael Proulx, Kamal Hans, Tesh Malhotra, Glenn Stanton, Adam El-Sharkawi and Zach Overstreet. Together they put on a staged reading that had the emotional impact of a fully-staged play. And thanks to the insightful audiences who gave Keith such great feedback after the performances to assist him with future revisions. Your input is invaluable.

This year’s Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays was our best yet, featuring wonderfully staged readings with terrific casts and attracting our largest audiences for the festival ever. All four scripts were fascinating works for the theatre, and each received an extensive development cycle beginning in February. The playwrights are in the last stage of that now as they prepare their final revisions to submit for consideration in our 2011-2012 season. 

Keith Anwar, Playwright

Playwright Keith Anwar: No sooner had the Dionysos plays been announced than I received a note of encouragement from David Alex, a well-known Chicago playwright who had been through the 2008 Dionysos Cup, telling me it had been “a great experience”: “The company members are great; you and your play will profit from the process.” Was he ever right!

In the critique process with director Laura Sturm and dramaturg Ann Keen, and in a table reading about six weeks into the program, I tried to concentrate on the most fundamental of the criticisms. At times the revisions were severe–I think I might have frightened my collaborators that I was setting out to write an entirely new play. At one point Laura was casting for a main character that I had decided to do away with! But remarkably, despite major cuts, additions and alterations, Kabulitis remained true to the vision that had nourished the script from the very start.

In its current form, in fact, Kabulitis is very much the play I’ve been trying to write for four years. And for that I am deeply indebted to the Polarity Ensemble Theatre and their terrific program of new play development.

I submitted my play last fall to the Dionysos Cup without high expectations. Despite many drafts and several table readings, the script was still in rough shape. Its strengths were a compelling back story, which managed to be historical and topical at the same time, and the unforgettable character of Mildred, a fighter to the end. Attached to these elements were a number of half-sketched characters, confusing plot lines and a load of expository dialogue. In selecting Kabulitis for development in the Dionysos Cup, the Polarity Ensemble was able to recognize the inner power of this story and insist on a script that would give it its due credit.

Ann Keen, Dramaturg

Dramaturg (and Managing Director) Ann Keen: When I read Keith’s script, I immediately wanted to be dramaturg. The script was already so powerful when I first read it – but there were times it read like a novel. On my first meeting Keith, I wanted to know where he had gained his inspiration. I wanted to understand his process to this point. He simply replied “the inspiration is real life.” The story was based on true facts and stories of his parents and their journey. It is true that sometimes Real Life is better than fiction, but sometimes life does not give us the “best highlights strung together in 2 hours.” So the next steps seemed clear.

Once we started working on it, we wanted to make sure that we preserved the story but occasionally heightened the drama. The script took on a whole new journey. Not just the story of Afghanistan, but treatment of the elderly–painful decisions that we sometimes have to make for our parents, the sad truth of Alzheimer’s, and so many others. Keith approached this story as a testimony to the lives of his parents and their journey. Through the Dionysos Cup process, I think we all realized that the testimony is now much more far-reaching. Keith was so open to the process, and for me, as his dramaturg, it was a pleasure to watch him take our input into the world he created (with the help of his parents) and creatively forge new paths.

Please join us as we present the 2010 Dionysos Cup (hand-crafted by Polarity patron and blown-glass artist James Hobart) at our June 19th Benefit.

Artistic Director Richard Engling interviews playwright Jaimie Lee Wise about Fertile Lies, Jaimie Lee’s entry in the Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays. It may takes a few moments to load, depending on the speed of your connection: Fertile Lies Podcast

Part one of a great podcast interview between director Darren Callahan and playwright G. Riley Mills about Death & Devils, part of the upcoming Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays: Death & Devils Interview, Part One.

Part two of the podcast: Death & Devils Interview, Part Two.

Darren Callahan

Darren Callahan, director and playwright, filed this report from the front lines of the 2010 Dionysos Cup festival, coming this May 13th through May 23rd from Polarity Ensemble Theatre.

Death! Devils! No, this is not a posting about one of the horror plays that I’ve sorta-kinda gotten known for in the Chicago theatre scene (such as Horror Academy or The White Airplane.) In fact, this isn’t one of my plays at all – I’m just the lowly director. But, don’t worry, as P.T. Anderson once famously declared: There Will Be Blood.

G. Riley Mills, Justin Cagney and Zach Uttich

Death & Devils is G. Riley Mills’ exceptional true-life drama about early 20th century charlatan John R. Brinkley. Settling in Kansas with his wife Minnie and his faithful shill Dwight Osborne, Brinkley made millions during the Great Depression. He sold snake oil, built a hospital, published, traveled, ran for Governor, and, not to be overlooked, became known for a suspect medical procedure that cured nearly every ill, a procedure that was particularly known as a cure for male impotence. It’s an absolutely terrific fall-from-grace story in the big tradition of Citizen Kane or All The King’s Men.

As the Dionysos Cup has many dozens of scripts submitted, I was lucky enough to read Death & Devils early in the process and nominate it up. I was absolutely thrilled to snag it when it made the final four. Old fashioned, muscular drama was always something I favored, and I couldn’t ask for a more dynamic and professional script to helped develop.

And the cast. Oh, I got lucky here, too.

Kevin Stark plays the charismatic Brinkley. I saw him in How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found and was blown away. He was one of those actors you can’t stop watching, and you miss when he’s not onstage. I had hoped for a chance to work with him and I’m just glad it came about so soon.

Then there’s Kaela Altman, playing Brinkley’s wife, Minnie. Kaela was in Horror Academy and literally kicked ass. She shot someone with a pistol with her hand stuck in a desk. She shot through a desk, my God! Through a desk! While crying! (Very believably, I should add.)

G. Riley Mills and Turk Miller

Ryan Ben as Dwight Osborne is the perfect mix of everyman appeal and dark humor. He was in my slasher film, Spikes, and is very adept at scaring the crapola out of people, should it come to that.

Turk Muller and Justin Cagney play the dueling lawyers who handle the climactic courtroom showdown with the same intense magic as Inherit the Wind, or Anatomy of a Murder. I love a play that ends in a courtroom – did I mention that? (I even enjoy Bob Clark’s late 80s film From The Hip, with Judd Nelson, for that very reason. So sue me.)

Charley Jordan, longtime Polarity Ensemble Member and Polonius in their acclaimed revival of Hamlet, rocks as pig farmer Bill Stittsworth, Brinkley’s first patient.  I basically needed someone who looks like he could intimidate Kevin Stark, and I think I found ‘em.

Alex Meyerchin and his banjo

Zach Uttich is new to Chicago and hasn’t stopped working. That dude is cast in everything. That should tell you something. He plays a multitude of roles here. Lauren Fisher was in acclaimed The Hopper Project for WNEP. And Alex Meyerchin plays one hell of a singing cowboy.

Now, onward!

John Walski as Davis and Mary Nigohosian as Joan

Playwright Darren Callahan conducted interviews and filed this report:

What is it like to act in a stage production that centers around a tough topic, yet present that topic with enough shades that an audience will respond, not just to the central theme, but to each character’s point-of-view? For Polarity Ensemble Theatre’s World Premiere production of Lisa Rosenthal’s original work The Good Harvest, the cast doesn’t aim for a bulls-eye – it’s more of an explosion that scatters in unexpected directions.

In a pre-show chat with actors Mary Nigohosian (“Joan”) and John Walski (“Davis”) both were candid how the material has played with audiences in the show’s early performances.

“There’s so much drama in the script,” says Ms. Nigohosian, “if the crowd is quiet, you know they’re engaged. There’s not a lot of shuffling in seats. They’re trying to figure out these people.” In a play that, in summary, sounds like a very simple story (woman tries to carry a successful pregnancy after her ideal adoption candidate is killed), there is an immensely complex set of relationships between Joan, Davis, and their triplets.

Continues Mr. Walski, “Davis’s relationship with the triplets is more a part of the story than fertility, or selective reduction, or any of the other controversial topics. Just as with the characters, five different perspectives can bring out five different connections with the audience. One audience member would pick up on a line or an emotion and think, rightly so, that this was the meaning of the scene, whereas for someone who identifies with another perspective would see the outcome completely differently. Lisa’s script is rare in that way.”

When asked about choosing a point of view, an important part of the actor constructing the character, Ms. Nigohosian adds, “Marriage, abandonment, birth – these concepts are so different for people, all depending on where they’re coming from. Our experience has to be the experience of our character. What people have told me about the show, or written about the show, can be very striking, very insightful. But it’s also just as surprising, because sometimes it reflects more of their worldview than the worldview of my character.”

Mr. Walski adds, “Even the funny moments – and there are many good ones – get a different reaction every night. Each audience has its own experience, but what’s important is that they’re paying attention to all the information in the play.”

“There’s no roadmap in the program,” says Ms. Nigohosian. “They have to figure out the story’s backward and forward in time, the ‘who is who’ of it, and it’s our job, along with Richard and Lisa’s, to keep things in place.”

When director Richard Engling’s name is raised, it gives the two actors a chance to comment on his style. “He’s very different from other directors – very positive, but always pushing,” observes Ms. Nigohosian. “He’s made a safe place for us to open our hearts, be vulnerable.” Mr. Walski agrees, “He’s firm with his own choices. He’s known from Day One how to tell this story. It’s the most ‘framed’ script I’ve ever worked with. Lisa’s been working alongside us the entire eight weeks of rehearsals. That’s a testimony to how well this cast and crew works together.”

Performances of The Good Harvest take place at the Polarity Ensemble Theatre in Wicker Park at the Josephinum Academy, 1500 N Bell, Chicago, through May 2, 2010. Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Regular performances: $19. $15 seniors over 65. $10 students with ID. All tickets are general admission. Tickets may be purchased by calling 1-800-838-3006 or visiting BrownPaperTickets.com.

The Good Harvest team prepares for an audience event

Playwright Darren Callahan conducted interviews and contributed to this report:

“We have the most exciting audience in town,” says Richard Engling, Artistic Director for Chicago’s Polarity Ensemble Theatre. “That’s why we’re able to do the things we do. There is a risk in bringing new works to the stage. But our audience embraces the adventure of it. They believe that there’s no place like Chicago for theatre. They want to take part in the latest work from our local writers produced by an exciting ensemble of artists who take the time and the care to perfect the vision. That’s why right now is such an exciting time at Polarity. We are in the final weeks of Lisa Rosenthal’s deeply emotional new play The Good Harvest. We are rehearsing the four amazing new plays of the Dionysos Cup, which will open two weeks after The Good Harvest closes. And we are casting Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, the great American classic in which our distinguished guest director Susan Padveen will breathe new life.”

When asked what makes an audience exciting, Engling says: “It’s about the connection they make. It’s a network. They find us because they want to be part of this dialogue. They take part in this ensemble ideal we have that means creating and keeping connections among an ever-widening group of actors, writers, designers, directors and audience. They become an integral part of creating this art. Audience members participated a number of times along the way in shaping The Good Harvest, for instance. And that makes it yet more important to them to see the results. And we continue the dialogue. This Friday (April 23) I’ll host a talk-back event after the performance with playwright Lisa Rosenthal and others. We’ll discuss The Good Harvest and the process of writing and mounting a new play. We’re even going to a Cubs game with our audience.”

What made him interested in this particular play? From Mr. Engling’s perspective, the playwright can sometimes come before the play. “I love the connection Lisa has with us as much as I love the play.” Impressed by Chicago playwright Ms. Rosenthal as a person, as a force, and as a writer, he became committed to developing a partnership that would result in a world premiere.

In 2006, Polarity began its Dionysos Cup Festival of New Plays, a series of staged readings where four plays from Chicago playwrights receive development and two performances each—one of the events in which the audience has a profound and direct influence on the work of the ensemble. Ms. Rosenthal’s Retreat was one of the hits of the festival. This started talk from Polarity about a possible collaboration.

Polarity continued to produce works, such as new takes on Hamlet, Othello in mask, and A Streetcar Named Desire, and also original works, such as the surreal mystery The White Airplane and the genuinely creepy Ghost Watch.

When the 2008 Dionysos Cup rolled around, Ms. Rosenthal’s The Good Harvest made an even more favorable impression with the company. “The play itself is a wonderful portrait of relationships,” says Engling. “But it also has the added drama of obsession that disturbs the characters in the play at the point where it twists all their lives.”

A story of artificial insemination, multiples, and the lost child of Joan, a dead woman who appears in flashbacks, The Good Harvest uniquely refines the family drama to the sharpest point.

“Chicago Dramatists Resident Playwright Lisa Rosenthal’s wonderful new play The Good Harvest paints a compelling and highly original family portrait,” adds Russ Tutterow, Artistic Director of Chicago Dramatists and another champion of Ms. Rosenthal. “She is a ferocious worker who always has more new projects in the works than you would think would be humanly possible – and she somehow manages all of them with great care and detailed attention.”

For instance, Ms. Rosenthal is founder of the international grassroots organization, the Vet Art Project (vetartproject.com). She was inspired by hearing a radio interview with Edward Tick, Ph.D. author of War and the Soul speak about the healing power of storytelling for veterans beyond the peer group and counseling setting. This initiative offers creative arts opportunities for veterans and their family members to learn techniques from artists to explore their stories of war and service, sometimes for public performance. Since beginning this project Rosenthal refers to herself more as a social artist because she says “she can only make art that makes a difference.”

When asked if The Good Harvest, a play that was written before the creation of the Vet Art Project, is still representative of her changing worldview, she thinks for a long moment. “My playwriting is now more connected to war and service, it’s true. But this play speaks to the journey that many experience involving childbirth and again helps us realize there is a community of others who travel our path with us.” The play has undergone quite a few changes since the Dionysos Cup: new scenes and changed order and I’ve eliminated quite a bit of extraneous text. Richard has been a great resource in this refining process, too.” She remains excited by the story and feels that Mr. Engling, who also directed the production, really understood what’s required. Rosenthal also mentions her gratitude to Laura Sturm who directed the reading of this play for the Dionysos Cup and Ann Keen for her helpful feedback, too. Says Rosenthal, “Polarity is a great company of diverse artists and I feel that Richard really is a great collaborator.”

Engling is asked if the play might have a life beyond this production, maybe even a life as long as some of the classics Polarity has taken on. “When we do a new play, we really like to take the playwright’s intention as far as it will go, so it becomes, as much as possible, the definitive version. We go into it with great hope and with great engagement with our audience. There’s not much we can do for Shakespeare that hasn’t been done, but we have a lot of fun doing him. But when we take a new play, we have to give it its absolute best shot at a life beyond that first production.”

Performances of The Good Harvest take place at the Polarity Ensemble Theatre in Wicker Park at the Josephinum Academy, 1500 N Bell, Chicago, through May 2, 2010. Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Regular performances: $19. $15 seniors over 65. $10 students with ID. All tickets are general admission. Tickets may be purchased by calling 1-800-838-3006 or visiting BrownPaperTickets.com.

Ashley Ann Woods and Stephanette Smith

“The best lighting in the world is the kind you never hear about in reviews,” laughs Stephanette Smith, “but it takes a lot of time and collaboration to make that sort of hypnosis happen.” Smith is the lighting designer for The Good Harvest. Smith, in partnership with Ashley Ann Woods, scenic designer, collaborate again after their phenomenal work on Polarity’s Fall 2009 production, an acclaimed revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.

“If the lighting and the set don’t work together,” says Woods, “a whole layer of the performance will be at risk.” Beginning the process with a groundplan, sketches, and a white model, the two have devised a set of great depth for multiple changeovers—moving between harsh reality of the present, to the murky remembrances of character’s pasts, to even dreams. To achieve this effect, the set is being built as a series of scrim-like walls whose translucent quality allows light to reveal new worlds behind them.

“(Main Character) Joan had this whole life before she had triplets. She puts on a front that masks everything. When designing the set, I wanted the true essence of her character is visible behind these walls,” says Woods. Smith echoes this approach: “The realistic scenes are more ‘opaque.’ We’re using practical lights such as lamps to give concrete reference points to past versus present. The dream scenes are abstract, but behind the scrim.”

Woods prepares with drawings and 3D model

When starting the process, both took a look at what kind of a world this fictional family inhabits – what kind of house, what kind of environment did Joan and her triplets grow up in? Concrete concepts are done first, then secondary ones with more abstract approaches. This allowed for the manipulations of the perception of things and is “a journey and a definition of what’s possible,” remarks Woods.

What’s possible was often restricted by the space that currently serves as home for Polarity Ensemble Theatre. The Good Harvest is their fourth full production in the Josephinum Academy, a comfortable storefront space with much to offer, but not without limitations.

“I knew when I started work in that space that there were basic things to consider, like limits on electricity,” says Smith on creating her lighting schema, “a lot of the more robust equipment we don’t have there. We were limited to clip lights and I would have to consider, instead of one light or two lights, we need six clips in one area and 6 colors in another.” Smith, who has an MFA from Illinois State’s technical theatre program, has even done lighting for productions as broad as 300-seat houses with swimming pools onstage, 400 lights in the air and disco balls. Woods has a BFA in Scenic and Costume Design herself and is used to more available resources. “Considering the space,” she says, “it’s a healthy budget for set construction and painting the set.”

“It’s a challenge,” concludes Smith, “but not impossible. We feel we have and can again create a remarkable, pro set, and light it well, even within the parameters.”

Woods and Smith proved to be a potent combination on Streetcar—the set prompted “wows” from the audience. The lighting, too, heightened the emotions of Tennessee Willliams’ sexually charged Southern melodrama.

For The Good Harvest, the women raised the bar with a simple, yet evocative set that perfectly matches Rosenthal’s potent story. “I do two kinds of research,” says Woods. “First comes practical research to time and place, second comes metaphysical research to present a response from the audience with color and form.” Smith compliments this approach by saying, “I’m not a very technical designer, I think more in terms of color and movement – I say, this scene looks very blue to me as I structure the cue.”

“We definitely had the potential to make this as or more spectacular than Streetcar,” concludes Smith. “This is not straightforward realism. This is something that takes all of our imaginations.”

Performances of The Good Harvest take place at the Polarity Ensemble Theatre in Wicker Park at the Josephinum Academy, 1500 N Bell, Chicago, through May 2, 2010. Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets may be purchased by calling 1-800-838-3006 or at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/98824

Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter

I finally got to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. (Directing a show like The Good Harvest means your free time is at a premium until it opens). By the time I saw it, all the critics had had their crack at it. One of the major complaints was that this classic story had been put in service of a conventional feminist be-all-that-you-can-be theme. The movie begins and ends with scenes in the “real” world. Alice is a young woman who is expected to accept the marriage proposal of an unattractive young Lord. Before her return to Wonderland, she is ill-equipped to face her challenges. Afterwards, she can. To focus on the wrapper, however, is to miss what’s been added to the delicious inside.

Much is made of Alice’s identity when she arrives in Wonderland (called Underland in this sequel). She is mistaken at first for the “wrong” Alice, but as the story progresses, we find that she is not the wrong Alice, but an Alice who has lost a great deal of herself. She cannot remember her earlier visit when she was a child, when she mistakenly called the world Wonderland. She has been daunted by the death of her father, a man of epic imagination, as well as a loving father. She has been overwhelmed by her place in the world and the expectation that she marry the young Lordling, who clearly has no appreciation of Alice.

The Mad Hatter tells her: “You used to be much muchier before. Yes, you were much more Alice the last time we met. You have lost your muchness.” Parts of her bravery has died. The story of this Alice sequel is the story of Alice regaining her muchness. Here the filmmakers touch on a truly universal theme. Who among us has not been diminished by life? From the minor assaults of criticisms, insults, difficult co-workers or bosses, to major family troubles, rejections, loved ones’ deaths, career failures and failed marriages, we get worn down. Parts of us die, and we become diminished.

In the Underworld, Alice wakes up to this diminishment of herself for the first time in her young life and musters the will to restore herself. She takes it as a challenge to overcome. “Lost my muchness, have I?” she says in a wonderful scene in which she uses the severed heads in the Red Queen’s moat as stepping stones to attempt to save The Mad Hatter. The heads are a perfect representation of the personal deaths she must overcome in order to become fully alive once again.

From that moment on, the adventure tale is laden with the story of the girl restoring herself. Part of that is finding the ability to slay the Jabberwocky. Convinced that she is incapable of slaying anything, Alice only finds the strength to face her fate when she has a final encounter with the caterpillar.

What allows her to see past her fear is the caterpillar’s acceptance of the end of one life leading into a transformation to the next. He must allow his caterpillar self to die for the butterfly to live. Alice has been busy reviving dead parts of herself, but the last transformation is to let go the part of herself that cannot possibly slay the Jabberwocky. Her passive self must die—and symbolically (and actually) she must kill the Jabberwocky to progress. Only when she cuts off the Jabberwocky’s head and drinks its blood can she return to her own world transformed and ready for the challenges she faces.

As the critics have said, the challenges she returns to do seem like familiar stuff in contemporary juvenile fiction, but that’s okay. Her journey through Underland touches on a universal story of soul transformation—and that makes it a worthy reimagining of a classic tale.

–Richard Engling

Lisa Rosenthal

Polarity’s Darren Callahan interviewed playwright Lisa Rosenthal and filed this report:

The harvest at the center of Lisa Rosenthal’s new work premiering at Polarity Ensemble Theatre March 25th is not one of wheat, soy, or fruit – it’s one of children conceived using in vitro fertilization.

“When people go for fertility counseling, they’re often desperate and vulnerable,” explains Ms. Rosenthal. “And a fertility doctor attracts patients, in part, by his or her success rate.  How does this equation affect the integrity of this doctor-patient relationship?  Recommended procedures? Numbers of blastocysts implanted?  I took this one step further and thought: what would happen if after too little success, too much success was achieved? What are the unintended consequences of hyper-focusing one’s life on producing children?”

When central character Joan of The Good Harvest finds herself desperate – caught between the reality of several miscarriages and her own obsession with a lost child she considered “her destiny” – she and her husband Davis embark on a too-successful fertilization that results in a high-risk multiple pregnancy.  Shown in flashbacks and flash-forwards between Joan’s life and the lives her surviving children, we learn of the deaths and the guilt that haunt her.  

“Joan makes choices that go badly through no fault of her own. One of these is over the option of selective reduction,” remarks Rosenthal.  “The emotional consequences surrounding a choice like that can be just as devastating as whether or not to end a pregnancy.”

Rosenthal is aware of the likelihood of a real debate following her fictional ones, but is quick to emphasize this is not inherently a “topic play.”  Its inspiration, from the “what-if” scenario, has evolved into a rich character portrait of Joan, her neglected children, and their distant father.  “So many women have faced infertility issues during their lives that many women will be able to relate to the hunger and drama surrounding Joan and Davis’s procreative choices and emotional dilemmas,” predicts Rosenthal.  

When asked about her process or how she is able to find such unique facets in her characters, she admits that her secrets are research and interviews.  “When working on a play that involves a life experience, I pick and choose intriguing facts or choices people make and then create the rest.”

Rosenthal is thrilled to be working again with Chicago’s Polarity Ensemble Theatre, hot off a successful run with A Streetcar Named Desire and named “Best Emerging Theatre Company” by the Chicago Reader in 2008.  Rosenthal herself is two-time participant in the long-running Dionysos Cup, a festival of new plays presented annually by the troupe.  In fact, The Good Harvest took home the 2008 prize. 

Chicago playwright Rosenthal has been a recognized name in the Chicago theatre scene for years, particularly because she founded the Vet Art Project (www.vetartproject.com) and is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists.  Her plays have been produced in several parts of the country and she is the recipient of several playwriting awards and fellowships including an Illinois Arts Council Special Assistance Grant for the development of The Good Harvest, and a Puffin Foundation Grant and Illinois Humanities Council Grant for the Vet Art Project. Artistic Director Richard Engling will direct the production of The Good Harvest. 

The Good Harvest, along with 2007’s Ghost Watch, 2009’s The White Airplane and the Dionysos Cup series demonstrate that Polarity remains committed to the development and production of new works. Polarity’s slogan is “to bring new life to the classics and new work to life.”

Performances of The Good Harvest will take place at the Polarity Ensemble Theatre in Wicker Park at the Josephinum Academy, 1500 N Bell, Chicago, March 23 through May 2, 2010. Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Press Opening ($19) Thursday, March 25. Premiere Night & Celebration ($35) Friday, March 26^th .  Regular performances: $19 . $15 seniors over 65. $10 students with ID. $10 previews March 23 & 24. All tickets are general admission. No performance April 4^th, Easter Sunday. Tickets may be purchased online by clicking here or by calling 1-800-838-3006>

It's time for a celebration. Don't let us drink alone!

We spend a lot of time head down, working, enduring through the days. Once in a while something comes along worth celebrating. I am really looking forward to March 26th, the Premiere Night for The Good Harvest. All the people who’ve supported Polarity truly have something to celebrate that night. Your support, whether though good wishes, work, donations or attending our past shows or events, has made this culmination possible. You have helped create the environment that enabled Polarity to bring together the ensemble of actors, directors, designers, dramaturgs, volunteers and workers of every ilk who have collaborated with playwright Lisa Rosenthal to perfect her script and bring it live to our stage for its world premiere.

The Good Harvest came through many revisions in the Dionysos Cup process and many more after it was chosen by the company for a full production. I am very proud of that process, and I’m delighted to have led the production with such talented actors and designers. I hope to share the moment of triumph with you, when we raise a glass after the show on March 26th.

Ann Keen is organizing the party for post-show Premiere Night. We’ll have food from the Birchwood Kitchen, Chicago, and Noodles and Company in Evanston, as well as beer and wine and other beverages. And we’ll have the great joy of standing together at the launch of a significant new play onto the Chicago theatre scene. It’s a great pleasure to stand together at moments like that. I hope you can join us. I look forward to being there with you.

My very best,

Richard Engling, Artistic Director

Richard Engling in rehearsal

I’m engrossed in the concept of time lately. Part of it is my own aging and having an increasing number of the important people in my life dead. As we work on The Good Harvest, I’m also writing a play about the legacy of two of my dearest friends, both artists, one a fiction-writer and the other a visual artist and former actor, both of whom died without their work being much recognized by the outside world. What does that mean? I’m drawn in to thoughts of why we do this work.

In my own work as an artist, I’ve gone through long cycles of moving from one form to another. I first worked and trained as an actor, then a playwright and a fiction writer. When you work as a performer, time moves quickly. Your art exists in the moment, and then it’s gone. By the time I was in my thirties, I’d shifted to novel writing and spent decades always working on one novel or the next. To satisfy my need to perform, I played jazz drums. My novels took years to write. As a novelist, it feels like you are building something large and permanent, like the pyramids. You imagine your works sitting on shelves hundreds of years from now, next to Dostoyevsky and Faulkner. (Well, you imagine that when you are a young writer anyway).

For this past decade I’ve been back working in the theatre: acting, directing, writing plays and adaptations, founding and running a theatre company. Why do we do this work? Will it matter after we are dead? Does anything matter after we are dead?

Right now I’m directing The Good Harvest in its world premiere. The process has been exceptional. Last week one of the actors took me aside and warned me that he might have to miss a rehearsal. He needs to have a growth removed and tested. The potential that the growth might be cancerous seemed to bother him less than that fact that he might have to miss rehearsal. “This is my play,” he told me. “I enjoy the work so much, the exploration, I hate to miss a minute of it. It’s been years since I’ve enjoyed a process so much.”

For the actor, it’s always about the process, the moment, and the performance. They are more comfortable in that temporal space. Perhaps actors are more capable of following the command to “be here now.”

Is it my novelist side that draws me to thoughts of legacy? I first conceived of the play I am writing as a tribute to my friend Fern. Even in the moments before she died, before she killed herself, Fern regretted that she would never write a novel she had planned. On the day he died my friend Dean was talking about making arrangements for some of his artwork—different arrangements than the way he’d left it in his will just a week before. Do they care now about the legacy of their work? Will anything I write change it?

Does legacy matter? Or is the only thing that matters the way we live our lives moment to moment?

As artists, we answer a vocation. For most of us, there is something of a vow of poverty involved. Because we devote so much of our time to a pursuit that pays poorly (or not at all) our finances suffer. But we find a value in it. We work at other jobs during the day and give up our nights and weekends to rehearse and memorize lines, design, build and plan. And when the project feels worthy, it feels like a privilege to be involved—even if we spend more on gas or public transportation to get to rehearsals than the pay the project offers.
And when it’s over, all that remains are the memories.

Is that legacy enough?

I asked the actor if he minded being mentioned in this blog. He wrote back a beautiful email. Here is part of what he said:

“I, myself, have struggled with the idea of legacy.  This has been going on for years with me.  Wondering if any one thing would be remembered after I am gone.  Though I have never hit the level that I had dreamed of, or made an addition to society that is recognized, I do know that my legacy exists.  I learned early in life that being true to yourself is a legacy.  All of my adult life, I’ve witnessed people living with something missing or not enough of something.  Sometimes it was as simple as not following a dream, other times it was living with the question of themselves being ”enough” or doing what they do for guilt or necessity or just being ordinary.  My father was a wonderful man that was hard working, poor, uneducated and a bit stubborn on some subjects.   I could talk for hours on what he did accomplish or overcame, though the rest of the world doesn’t know he even existed.  His legacy was simple.  A simple man who didn’t need or take a lot but gave everything.  He was the epitome of a good man.  When he died I knew the world was different for me.  At his funeral I discovered his legacy was bigger than what I even imagined as in the evidence of each person that came to honor him and reveal a personal story about him and/or a shared event.  The word used to describe my father by each person was simple.  It was the word good. 
 
“Through this I learned that fame or awards or a big house or what I’ve accomplished by witness or films or plays, won’t be the important part of a legacy.  It’s that one personal moment for each person that does remember me in years gone by that will be the legacy in either a positive or negative memory.  Shakespeare’s writing, Monet’s paintings, although beautiful, have no effect of legacy to me.  I find their art more of proof of their existence and with great merit but without the personal experience of knowing them I don’t feel the connection of what is important to me.  I know that I will remember a personal interaction with a stranger foremost than the words of Iago from Othello on my deathbed.  So my feeling is that if I can place it on a shelf it is a trophy but if I can remember it in my heart and take it with me, it is then legacy.”

The actor asked to remain anonymous for the moment, but I want to give my thanks to him for allowing me to share his words. And we all look forward to sharing the fruits of our work with you in The Good Harvest.

Best,
Richard Engling, Artistic Director
For The Good Harvest company and Polarity Ensemble Theatre

Bryan Breau as Jonathan, Leah Morrow as Molly and Scott Sawa as Henry

In the next stage of rehearsals, we get the play on its feet. We’ve delved into each scene intellectually and emotionally, focusing on the nuance of every word during the table work stage. Now we start to get physical.

Each day before rehearsal, I spend a couple hours reading and rereading the scenes we will work on that night with the set design and floorplan at my side. I’ve already got notes jotted here and there in my script, but now I go over it again and make decisions about how I think the scenes should look and how the actors should move. The Good Harvest is a play about relationships. What moves the actors around the set are their emotions more than their need to accomplish tasks.

Set Model by Ashley Ann Woods

For instance in one scene, Davis arrives at the house where the triplets are mourning the loss of their mother after the funeral. Davis is their father, but he left when they were infants. They have no memory of him. When we did the table work on the scene, I got the image of a pack of dogs circling and attacking the old alpha male who has returned. That was the image that inspired my initial blocking (the movement that actors make around the stage).

Another scene takes place in the past, with Davis and Joan (mother of the triplets) when they were young. Davis and Joan struggle with making their marriage work. In charting their movement through the scene where they become closer or further apart, I created blocking to match their emotional state.

In every case the pre-blocking I create on my own is our starting point. I describe the blocking to the actors at the top of the rehearsal. They jot it in their scripts. We discuss it. Then we try it out. And then begins the active collaboration on our feet as the actors work the scene in movement. We find ways to improve the initial blocking. We rework the scenes again and again and make many discoveries and choices on the way toward the final shape of the play. Along the way there are moments of both frustration and exhilaration as we work together to bring the script to life.

The triplets enjoy a lighter moment in rehearsal.

In addition, we have Lisa in the room who provides us insight into the playwright’s original intention and who continually gives us revisions to the scenes, improving the script at every step. Lisa is a pleasure to work with because she truly enjoys seeing the other artists discover things about the play that she hadn’t seen herself. Every member of the company is committed to making the play the best it can be, so it’s an exciting collaboration all the way around.

-Richard Engling, Artistic Director

Ashley & Steph discuss set & lights

We’ve just completed the first week of rehearsals for Lisa Rosenthal’s The Good Harvest. (Click here for tickets). After an opening rehearsal that included presentations by the designers on the set, lights and costumes and a read-through of the play, we’ve been doing “table work” all week. This gives us a deep foundation in the meaning of the play and an understanding of the emotional twists and turns, scene by scene. Each night we take no more than 15 to 19 pages of the script and work through it in detail. My biggest job as director at this stage is to ask a lot of questions. My temptation is to do a lot of talking. I’ve been living with the script for a long time, collaborating with Lisa as she has done rewrite after rewrite, and I could sit and tell the actors what I think each moment means and how it ought to be played. But what I really want is to get the most thoughtful participation from each of the artists involved: every actor, every designer, every staff member–and to assist Lisa in getting the most perfect expression of her script.

Gosia displays costume designs

Asking a lot of questions has led to really fascinating insights into the script. It’s been illuminated by personal stories of giving birth, of seeing our children born and of lost opportunities for having children. The actors show tremendous emotional honesty and generosity in talking and dealing with each other. This time spent looking at lines and exploring the emotional territory will give us a rich foundation on which to build the show as we get it on its feet in the next stage.

It’s also been a great pleasure to have Lisa in the room for the full process. As the playwright–who knows the script better than anyone–she has shown tremendous restraint in doing far more listening than talking. In the process, she and I are both discovering that the other artists bring insights into the script that we’ve never considered. That’s the joy of collaboration with a fully engaged ensemble.

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Meanwhile, I’m delighted to announce that Polarity will produce the world premiere of Ephemera by Bryce Wissel Spring 2011. This will be another world premiere of a script that has gone through development in one of our Dionysos Cup Festivals. Ephemera is a screwball comedy in outer space, aboard an endangered space station cut off from contact with the Earth. It’s really fun.

On top of that, this year’s Dionysos Cup playwrights have been meeting with their directors and dramaturgs for the first discussions. The playwrights will now have the next two months to work on revisions of their scripts before the directors take them into rehearsals for the festival in May. It’s a very exciting time!

The plays of this year’s Dionysos Cup include: Kabulitis by Keith Anwar. Director: Laura Sturm. Dramaturg: Ann Keen. Death and Devils by G. Riley Mills. Director: Darren Callahan. Dramaturg: Kaily Anderson. Fertile Lies by Jaime-Lee Wise. Director: Brea Hayes. Dramaturg: Richard Engling. What Makes the Buddha Smile by Jay Koepke. Director: Sean Kelly. Dramaturg: Jamie Bragg. Production managers: Lauren Cerkiewicz and Jamie Bragg.

Best,

Richard Engling, Artistic Director