New York Neo-Classical Ensemble

NYNEO - Projects Lost and Found

Here were are in the middle bit.

The space between having put a show up and launching a new project.

We didn’t begin as a company.  We began as a show.  A single production to enliven our first summer out of school.  Most of us had done The Classical Studio ‘04/’05, and then had gone straight into the Louis directed The Winter’s Tale at the Skirball Center.  We found that most of us would be in the city for the summer and wanted to work, and Michael Bartelle asked Daniel Spector, associate director of The Classical Studio and current director of training for NYNEO, if he’d be interested in directing a Love’s Labors Lost in early September ‘06.  We were cast, rehearsed and performed at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.  Towards the end of the process, we kinda felt that we’d love to do this again, and I cornered Michael at a bar after the show and pitched him Midsummer as a show I could direct. Suddenly we had a second project, and suddenly we were a theater company.

Even then there were productions that were discussed that never happened.  Michael talked about a reduced Tamburlaine; we were wooing Kevin Kuhlke to direct a Romeo and Juliet; I’ve always wanted to attempt Gogol’s The Government Inspector; Teddy and I discussed co-directing an epic 9 hour Henry VI (prior to Bill even joining the company); Beth had her Pericles (which ended up as our Summer Workshop ‘08); this fall we were attempting to put up our interpretation of Brecht/Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. Ideas come and float and for whatever reason never entirely come off. Sometimes it’s what we’ve just done vs. what we haven’t done.  Sometimes it’s what would work outside.  Sometimes it’s what needs work and would benefit from exploration.

We’re probably not going to do another full production until next spring/summer, choosing instead to spend our time building the company’s infrastructure and all those other nuts and bolt-y things we never quite get around to doing.  We did three shows this year. That’s more than many companies three times our size.  It’s time to make this real, make this official, and grown up.  But we still need room to play…that’s the point.  No sense in being all fiscally secure and raising and raising and raising money if we can’t do what we all came here to do: work we believe in on a regular basis.

I have a little theory that we like to do things every 3-4 months.  For whatever reason, we seem to get itchy after a short period, and the dammit-lets-find-a-barn-and-put-on-a-play energy takes over.  It’s hard to sustain, but damn if it isn’t fun.

To keep us working, I’m probably curating a monthly series of rehearsed publc readings, and perhaps another Henry-style workshop (if we can get free/cheap space in January).  In terms of which pieces to select, I’m leaning towards our first forays into non-Shakespearean text.  Perhaps a Marlowe one month, Gogol or Chekhov or Coward the next, and maybe (::gasp::) something new and modern the month after that.

Part of my job is to provide an outlet for the creative energies of the artist’s invested in NYNEO, and after Bill’s Henry we’re all chomping at the bit to go again, to do more, to work work work.

I just want to harness and direct it. Use it. Capitalize on it.  No use feeling artistically charged if you can’t DO something with it.

Henry VI - Where Do We Go From Here?

“Hey” is what Teddy says to me, slight smile on his face and hands clasping the dark hood with a kind of glee known only to the truist of true sadists, when I “wake up” and get kidnapped by Margaret and the Lancaster faction 15 minutes before the end of Henry VI (abridged).

“Hey,” believe it or not, isn’t in the actual script.  Shakespeare didn’t think “unnamed kidnapper with the hood #2 needs something snappy, something with pizazz to diffuse this moment of tension.”  Teddy took the moment and added the capper that it needed to get a release from the audience.

NOW. What went through my head immediately after resembled this:

What-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-that-the-prick-is-going-to-make-me-break-must-not-laugh-must-not-laugh-think-serious-thoughts-and-remember-to-bludgeon-teddy-with-large-wooden-implement-at-some-undisclosed-location-in-the-near-future-fuck-it-keep-moving-think-do something. BREATH.

I quickly mumbled a slightly resigned and sarcastic “Hey” back to him (after all I’m the damn king! even though I’m, in my mind, about 25/26 years old and know that this shuffling of crown and kidnapping/killing/jailing of kings is part of this awful game we play, so screw it I’ll make a tiny acid joke right back to him) just as he slipped the hood over my head and ripped me out of “the bed.”

I can’t tell if anyone heard my “Hey” but as Cale said to me afterwards - “It’s ‘Yes, and…’ he did that so you had to add to/respond to it.”

I trust Teddy, and if he sees that the moment needs this, I damn well better rise to occasion and contribute.  Now, adding to the text isn’t always a great thing, it can be done poorly, without taste, it can even by cheap and tacky.  BUT! I trust Teddy. You buy that trust by knowing that actor’s intelligence and instinct, and trusting that if you follow his impulse, something cool will be discovered.

Saturday felt like that.  As a cast we’d calmed down from the “holy hell we’ve only had three weeks…where am I standing and where did I put that prop and wait what’s my next line.”  We could relax. BREATHE. And listen.

I’m sad as hell to put Henry to bed.  I felt rejuvenated by it, and for the first time, I felt like acting was a flow, the space between having the idea and putting it into practice wasn’t as distant as it’s felt for quite some time, especially with Shakespeare.

The response has been effusive and positive.  I love that a simple notion Bill had while trapped backstage in a particularly torturous (as he’d told me) production of Henry VI, Part 1 came to fruitition and was vindicated in a fanstastically entertaining manner.

As a company, many of us wear multiple hats.  I act/direct/Artistic Direct.  Bill Acts/Managing Directs/now directs. Berger Acts/Composes/Creates Awesome Postcard Images. Etc.  I feel giddy whenever we’re shown another facet of an artist’s creativity that we have not heretofore scene.

It’s a testament to Bill that he could assemble (Ocean’s 11-style) a crack team of specialists to bring a 2 hour version of a 6 or 9 hour long play to visceral, immediate life. Seth’s fights, Kyle’s obscene commitment (and inhaler), John’s emotional transparency, Maya’s ferocity, Jessie’s edge and fearlessness, Marc’s inhuman ability to make the text simple and direct, Travis’s unwavering morality, Michael’s wonderful seediness and trusting demeanor (I don’t think I’ve seen a more easily trusted Richard III), Ike’s playfulness, Doria’s peaceful flowing energy, Matt’s strength and cockiness, Celeste’s balls-iness and wig wearing abilities, Teddy’s heart, Gillian’s cutting wit, Tommy’s simplicity and outrageous impulsivity.  We could’ve taken this town for all it’s worth (and by this town I mean Vegas…we are also a cabal of international thieves who pose as a theater company…verrrrry clever of Bill).

We’re now in the process of figuring out “where-do-we-go-from-here.”  The experience of doing and seeing Henry has brought up a lot of very cool, very new feelings about what and how we should do our work.  We’re discussing, debating, and looking towards the horizon with an energy and vitality that feels as if we’re growing.

To those who’ve seen us before and came out, your support means the world to us and your enthusiasm for our work keeps us going.  To those who hadn’t seen us before and came out, welcome and we can’t wait to have you back.

Psyched to see where it all leads.

—Steve

P.S.

There will also be a large party in the near future. Which. Will. Be. Awesome.