Monday, February 20, 2017
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Artspower's Laura Ingalls Wilder- National Tour
Best of luck and safe travels to my terrific LAURA INGALLS WILDER cast as they head out on a national tour.
It was a pleasure directing and getting to know this very talented group of actors!
Friday, December 30, 2016
Time Out New York Review
TIME
OUT NEW YORK
Theater review: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey will
surely draw you in
By David Cote
The men onstage know each other
intimately but maintain a respectful, almost shy distance. They range from
college-aged to senior citizenry. Yet as they trade observations on childhood,
first loves and the pains of growing old, little gestures of affection emerge:
a reassuring pat on the shoulder, a hand resting innocently on a knee during a
juicy bit of gossip. They might be chatty relatives or an odd trio of
roommates. In fact, they are phases of Edward Gorey (1925–2000), the genius
illustrator and writer who produced nearly a hundred books over 47 years. Each
was meticulously drawn in his signature style of dense cross-hatching,
depicting Edwardian gentlemen and neurasthenic feather boa’ed society ladies,
plus the occasional menacing urn, smug cat or creeping creature. If, in this
fictional portrayal, the man who created that tremulous, midnight realm keeps
his own self at arm’s length, it makes sense. “Why be one person when you can
be…hundreds?” Gorey 1 (Andrew Dawson) queries. Like Whitman, the camp-gothic
bard contained multitudes—and was perfectly happy to be lost in the crowd.
Travis Russ’s lovingly crafted 75-minute play is less concerned with the nitty-gritty of Gorey’s publishing career or his approach to drawing (lots of grumbling and self-criticism) and more with his breezy evasions and elliptical musings on an eccentric, solitary life. A dandyish student at Harvard (his roommate was poet Frank O’Hara), Gorey moved to New York in the 1950s, working in advertising while shopping his weird, cryptic portfolio to magazines. His black-and-white world of tweedy figures and sere landscapes, often captioned with nonsense verse, eventually gained a cult following—a fandom that increased when his art was used in the credit sequence for PBS’s Mystery.
Never married and self-admittedly asexual, Gorey spent the last 14 years of his life in a rickety ex–sea-captain’s home on Cap Cod. The play, which costars Phil Gillen as a twentyish, moony Gorey and Aidan Sank as the artist in bearded, relatively confident middle years, takes place in an imaginary version of that house, crammed floor to ceiling with all manner of rusty tools or antique toys that Gorey obsessively accumulated. It’s Grey Gardens with a better work ethic. The mood flits gently from whimsical to melancholy and dryly bemused.
For the proud owner of the anthology Amphigorey and its sequels, The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey is a visit to an old friend who always amuses and sometimes surprises. Newcomers, take care: Gorey’s macabre, intricately detailed universe can addict and overwhelm. The man himself was an object lesson.
Sheen Center (Off Broadway). Written and directed Travis Russ. With Andrew Dawson, Phil Gillen, Aidan Sank. Running time: 1hr 15mins. No intermission. Through Jan 14. Click here for full ticket and venue information.
Travis Russ’s lovingly crafted 75-minute play is less concerned with the nitty-gritty of Gorey’s publishing career or his approach to drawing (lots of grumbling and self-criticism) and more with his breezy evasions and elliptical musings on an eccentric, solitary life. A dandyish student at Harvard (his roommate was poet Frank O’Hara), Gorey moved to New York in the 1950s, working in advertising while shopping his weird, cryptic portfolio to magazines. His black-and-white world of tweedy figures and sere landscapes, often captioned with nonsense verse, eventually gained a cult following—a fandom that increased when his art was used in the credit sequence for PBS’s Mystery.
Never married and self-admittedly asexual, Gorey spent the last 14 years of his life in a rickety ex–sea-captain’s home on Cap Cod. The play, which costars Phil Gillen as a twentyish, moony Gorey and Aidan Sank as the artist in bearded, relatively confident middle years, takes place in an imaginary version of that house, crammed floor to ceiling with all manner of rusty tools or antique toys that Gorey obsessively accumulated. It’s Grey Gardens with a better work ethic. The mood flits gently from whimsical to melancholy and dryly bemused.
For the proud owner of the anthology Amphigorey and its sequels, The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey is a visit to an old friend who always amuses and sometimes surprises. Newcomers, take care: Gorey’s macabre, intricately detailed universe can addict and overwhelm. The man himself was an object lesson.
Sheen Center (Off Broadway). Written and directed Travis Russ. With Andrew Dawson, Phil Gillen, Aidan Sank. Running time: 1hr 15mins. No intermission. Through Jan 14. Click here for full ticket and venue information.
Gorey: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey- The New Yorker
Nice mention today in The New Yorker...
The New Yorker- GOREY:The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey
The New Yorker- GOREY:The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey
Gorey: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey
The writer and illustrator Edward Gorey specialized in locating humor in peril and gloom;
in his life, he could accurately be labelled a hoarder and a loner, yet his personality brimmed
with inspirations and enthusiasms. The playwright and director Travis Russ has devised a
brilliant solution for dramatizing this contradictory and solitary man: three actors, all of
them excellent and in perfect tune with one another, play the artist simultaneously at three
different ages, delivering a collective autobiographical monologue, sometimes delightedly
affirming each other’s accounts, sometimes gently contradicting them. Gorey may be the only
character onstage (unless you count his overstuffed old house on Cape Cod, which is evoked
in such loving detail that it deserves its own billing), but presenting his life in triplicate is like
taking a familiar melody and assigning it an unexpected set of chords.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Sunday, December 18, 2016
GOREY- Opening Night !
What a great opening night with this extraordinary group of people that made this show a reality. I am truly awed by everyone's talent! Bravo.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
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