Meron Langsner
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On Curating Whistler in the Dark Theatre's Schollah Holla Project

1/3/2013

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As some of you know, I became an Artistic Associate of Whistler in the Dark Theatre in late 2011 after numerous collaborations.  Part of what this means is that I have the ability to initiate projects through the organization.

I'm currently curating two ongoing projects that are near and dear to my interests: the Playwright Incubator Program and the Schollah Holla Project.


I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss the Schollah Holla Project, as it has already had public events, and as we have one more Holla coming up soon as part of our programming for our production of Vinegar Tom (January 27th for those of you intending to come).


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On Behalf of Whistler In the Dark Theatre Company...

6/25/2012

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It is a dark, dark world that we whistle in...

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THE AVENGERS, TROJAN WOMEN, and the Special Features Section of Live Performance

5/25/2012

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This post is largely about backstory.  I will try to avoid spoilers, but lately I am becoming of the belief that there are very few real spoilers out there for those that are aware of plot structure and the societal background of many of the stories we tell.

I bring this up for two reasons.  One: I recently saw The Avengers (which was awesome).  And two: Whistler in the Dark is not only producing Trojan Women, but through them I have put together (and will be moderating) the pilot panel of a new initiative called Scholars' Echoes, in which advanced doctoral candidates and recent PhDs from New England universities will be sharing their expertise with our audiences.

You may be wondering what these things have in common...




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Some Thoughts on Theatre, Business, and the Internet

1/15/2012

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I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationships between social media, online marketing, and live performance.  I use the plural because the internet is now a broad enough topic that the relationship between say, twitter and audience development is very different than the phenomenon of critics with blogs, which again is very different from online ticket sales, which is again not in the same universe as online script sales and licensing.  On top of this, we now have the phenomenon of active audience participation through smartphones in some performances, as well as some theatres now having a "twitter section" where audiences are welcome to use smartphones to tweet their experiences as they're happening.  (There has recently been a whole lot of discussion on this phenomenon, my feelings on it are mixed and I am waiting to see what comes of putting this policy into effect.)

Now, some of you who know me as a scholar know that one of my major research interests is the entrepreneurial imperative of the American artist, or, in more plain English: the business of being an artist.  A great deal of the business end of things is now happening online.

What follows are some (very) loosely organized thoughts on the relationships between the theatre community and the internet.  (I may expand on specific segments of this post at a later date.)

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On Two Very Different Pieces of New Work and Their Development

11/16/2011

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In the past few days I've had three major projects come to fruition: my round table of Burning Up the Dictionary at the Lark Play Development Center, my devised piece, Ghosts of Hamlet in Something Rotten: Hamlet Remixed at the Boston Center for the Arts, and my talk as an alumni speaker at TEX: Tufts Idea Exchange.  In the middle of all of this, I did the fights for The Nutcracker at Stoneham Theatre and continued my work on The Miracle Worker at Salve Regina University.

TEX will most likely get its own blog post some time after the videos are posted online.  So I'd like to discuss the new plays, Burning Up the Dictionary and Ghosts of Hamlet.  One piece is a fairly straightforward full length play, the other is a short piece of devised experimental theatre.

Let's start with the less conventional of the two:


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A Bit Of Fightaturgy

11/5/2011

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    "Be well versed in the arts of pen and sword."  -  Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

I recently joked that on principle,  scholars of John Milton and Paradise Lost should all skydive.  In part because the opportunity to fall screaming from Heaven like Lucifer himself would be wonderful fieldwork.  And also because the study of great literature should be visceral.

This was because not so long  ago I went skydiving to celebrate my graduation from my doctoral program, and also because lately I've been having more and more realizations about what I've come to call "fightaturgy," or, the dramaturgical revelations of the analysis of violence and movement implied in a performance text and their effect on character development in a play.  I brought this up in a recent conversation with my friend and colleague Ryan Hartigan, which led me to realize that I need to write about this if I'm going to keep talking about it. 

A few of my current projects have some great examples:


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Something Remixed This Way Comes...

10/14/2011

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    Words in the theatre are but a design on the canvas of motion. - V. Meyerhold

This is the graphic for a little something I have in the works with Whistler in the Dark Theatre and Imaginary Beasts as part of the Double, Double Toil and Trouble: A Witches Brew of Shakespeare Remixed series that's coming up (this is in addition to  my participation as fight director of Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth, which has been a great time so far). 

I am creating a piece as part of this:

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The Physical Dramaturgy of Metatheatrical Violence

10/2/2011

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I'm posting here to put down some early thoughts about how stage combat that occurs "in quotes" is choreographed and perceived.  Somewhere down the line I'll be expanding these thoughts into an academic paper. 

About a week ago I came into rehearsal for Whistler in the Dark's production of Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth, for which I am composing violence.  Both sections of the script involve a play-within-a-play, (Hamlet and Macbeth, respectively).   In one case it is a group of schoolboys putting on Hamlet at their school, in the other it is famous actors putting up an illicit performance of Macbeth in someone's home in a totalitarian regime.  Both metatheatrical sections include the famous duels of the Shakespeare plays that their characters are putting on.  Which means we are seeing an actor playing one character, who is in turn playing another character, who is in turn engaging in a duel.  The task of a fight director in a case like this is not to choreograph the character of Hamlet per se, but to choreograph a schoolboy playing Hamlet.  The character of Hamlet is an early-modern image of a Danish prince who would have had extensive training and familiarity with dueling.  In a production of said play with professional actors, the fight director would be working to articulate the conflict of the duel within these (and other) parameters.  The character in Dogg's Hamlet however, is a schoolboy playing said prince, which adds a whole other filter to the physicality of the fights.  The movement must be believable for a schoolboy moreso than for a prince.  And of course must remain safe for the actors, engaging for the audience, and continue to advance the story.

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    Taking Note & Taking Notes

    Meron Langsner, PhD

    Playwright, Theatre & Performance Scholar, Fight Director/Movement Specialist, Director, Educator

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