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It’s The End Of The Year…Time For A Brain Dump

12/29/2014

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PictureJohn Greiner-Ferris, along with Kevin Mullins, is the co-founder of Boston Public Works Theater Company.
Just like the end of every year, with 2014 there’s the compulsion to sing a round of auld lang syne, and Boston Public Works Theater Company is no different. It was an extraordinary 2014 for us as we took the first steps to build a company then proceeded to launch our first season. Web sites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, digital launches and launch parties, Indiegogo campaigns were just some of the tactical projects that overlapped and gave credence to our fondness for saying that we are laying track in front of an oncoming locomotive. All of that will be covered in an email that will arrive in your mailbox tomorrow.  In the meantime, I have a few things on my mind.   

The Year That Really Was Two Years
While we’re ending a calendar year, it was two years ago—January, 2013—when Kevin Mullins, Max Mondi, who has since moved to New York, and I were talking in the Kitchen across from the BCA and got the idea to form a theater company based on 13P.  That January, we started meeting at the Green Street Café in Cambridge a couple of times a month, and I don’t think we ever had any doubt that this—a new company composed of playwrights who produced their own work—wouldn’t happen. I bring this up only because maybe from the outside it looks easy to start a theater company. In truth, it’s an incredible amount of time, hard work, and sleepless nights, and while I maintain that self-production is a viable alternative to the traditional route to production, it isn’t for everyone. But for those playwrights who have the vision, tenacity, and passion, the rewards are incredible.

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You Were The Reason For Our Successful Year
We had the passion, drive, and vision. But that took us only so far. If that were all we had, we would have failed miserably. The people who actually are responsible for the success BPW enjoyed this past year are the more than 400 family members, friends, and organizations who believed in what we were trying to accomplish and supported us. They donated hard dollars in a bad economy to fund our first season.  Something I learned was that it’s very easy to get hits on a blog or likes on Facebook (clever headline writing from working in ad agencies works wonders!) What is really tough to do is convince people to finance your project, and our mission seemed to strike a chord with people: take control of your art, help other playwrights do the same, pay artists for their talent.  The same goes for the people who came to our inaugural play, Turtles. On any given night, they could have gone anywhere, but they chose to see a new play produced by BPW. They responded enthusiastically to the work, and we want to continue our relationship with everyone who came throughout the rest of our season, consisting of From The Deep and Three.

PictureEugene Delacroix's La Liberté guidant le peuple
BPW’s Not The First In Boston. We’re Not Even Close.
I would love to take credit for being a ground-breaking revolutionary in Boston, a la Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, leading playwrights to freedom through self-production. But, the fact of the matter is, I’ve been sitting in theaters for many years admiring other theater artists in Boston produce their own work, thinking, “Man, I want to do that, too.”

There is a tradition in Boston of self-production starting, for me at least, with Ryan Landry and his Gold Dust Orphans who has been producing his own work for at least a decade. Then there is Dawn Simmons and A. Nora Long at New Exhibition Room, John J. King and his Vaquero Playground, and Charlotte Meehan and Adara Meyers at Sleeping Weazel, all putting out their own work. This past October, three Boston playwrights self-produced full-length plays: my script, Turtles, by BPW, Pete Riesenberg and his Office of War Information produced his play, J.A.S.O.N. and Bill Doncaster produced his play, Two Boys Lost through his company, Stickball Productions.  This isn’t a fad, and I would love to see seven or eight other companies like Boston Public Works producing original, full-length plays by Boston playwrights, along with individual companies like the ones Nora, Dawn, John, Ryan, Pete, Bill, Charlotte, and Adara have started.

For some reason, playwrights have been relegated to a rather impotent role in the traditional theater. While I’m certainly not discounting the traditional theater model, and I especially support the theaters in Boston too numerous to list here who do produce new work by local playwrights, my hope is that, through Boston Public Works, more playwrights can see the possibilities presented by self-production and simply see it as a viable alternative to the traditional method.


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Announcing: AUDITIONS For THREE

12/18/2014

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Boston Public Works Theater Company is excited to announce auditions for Three by Emily Kaye Lazzaro, directed by A. Nora Long! 

Auditions will be held at 281 Huntington Avenue on Sunday, January 11th- 3:00p to 9:00p, and on Monday, January 12th- 7:00p to 10:00p. Callbacks, if needed, are scheduled for Tuesday, January 13th – 7:00p to 10:00p.

Rehearsals will be May 11th through May 31st.  Tech  and Previews from  June 1st to June 5th. Performances run June 5th to June 21st.

Three is a coming-of-age story about finding validation, struggling against loneliness, and losing everything. We are looking for three 20-something women of all body types and ethnicities to cast in the following roles:

Jenni: Extrovert. Attractive. Funny. Messy.
Sam: Type A. On top of it. A little mean.
Diane: Emotional. Maybe gay.

If you would like to audition, please prepare a 1-minute comedic monologue and follow the link below to sign up for a 10 minute appointment. We will contact to confirm.

Sign up for an audition appointment. 



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A theatre of identity

12/10/2014

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PictureP2, Cassie M. Seinuk
On a blustery cold night in November, in between the early snow season and the late summer season that is so unique to this city, we all met at Boston Public Works Theater Company, to recap our first production TURTLES by John Greiner-Ferris (P1), and also to pass over the Artistic Director Crown (aka a yellow hard hat) over to our new Artistic Director, and that person is me. 

I want to start off by welcoming you to BPW under P2, Cassie M. Seinuk, tell you a little about myself, what I want from our theatre, and share with you some of the excitement around our second show FROM THE DEEP thus far.

Some may know me by my Twitter handle “Jewbana,” I’m a proud Cuban Jewish Woman hailing from Long Island New York, and I have been working as a playwright and stage manager in Boston since 2009. After my BA at Brandeis University, I felt like there was no reason to leave Boston. I was excited by the art going around in this city, and I felt like I understood it and it understood me. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was a combination of the accessibility of the stunning and captivating productions I saw at some of the larger houses like “The Seagull” at the ART where the stage was flooded with water or “Blackbird” by David Harrower at SpeakEasy Stage Co. where I was sucked in by David R. Gammon’s directing and the hyper-realistic acting, and the passion rolling through the Boston fringe scene that made me feel the pulse of this city, and all the young artists that will be the next voice of Boston. It was this combination of big and small and the feeling of community within it that made me think, yes, I can be home here. So I stuck my multicolored Jewish/Cuban/American/Woman flag in this city, and I’m so honored for the chance to be an Artistic Director here, even if it’s just for a few months.

PictureFirst read-through of From The Deep. Director Lindsay Eagle, Playwright Cassie M. Seinuk, Producer Nick Medvescek
So here I am! Your new AD Boston (Public Works). John started a tradition at the first read through of TURTLES and I continued it at the first read of FROM THE DEEP, which was held at the BU Hillel House on November 19th, and generously catered by Chubby Chickpea and DavidsTea. The tradition was to kick off the night by addressing what a theatre company would look like if I were the artistic director. I think I am still forming this idea, and it will probably grow from a mound of clay to a sculpture by the time FROM THE DEEP closes in late March 2015, but I see my mound of clay as a theatre of identity. A theatre where as humans we can explore and celebrate the uniqueness of our own individual identities, while also highlighting how some of the innermost personal moments, stories, and feelings are universal.

I explore this idea in FROM THE DEEP where we can feel the foreign story of an Israeli prisoner of war connecting and relating to the story of a young grad student from rural Pennsylvania. I’m interested in how people from opposite sides of the world, who see life, peace, and freedom under different lenses can be so similar and find that understanding each other is simpler than ever imagined. 

This idea of a collective consciousness was very present for me this summer while the IDF searched for the three missing boys, Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali. It was hard to see my friends and family fighting on the internet about the war erupting in Israel/Palestine, and see the hatred pouring out all over my newsfeed. I too was swept up, affected, even physically sick of how I was so quick to repost and not take a moment to think humanely about it, and by that I mean, think “How does this affect all of us reading it? Mentally? Physically? Will it really change anyone’s mind?” But it wasn’t until I watched the mothers of these boys talk to the world that I really understood the connectivity of all of it. How we can all relate to a mother’s plea for her child. How we should all be able to, and how basic, human, and almost instinctual it is for all of us to connect to that single moment: a mother wanting her son saved. If I were curating a theatre, I would focus on this idea of human connection through identify – connecting people and stories from all over the world together through our basic core needs and humanity. I’d ask the question: What is universal identity?

I felt this the other night, having missed the Creative Witness #BlackLivesMatter peaceful rally on the Boston Commons (due to other artistic commitments), where people of all colors, backgrounds, affiliations, joined together under the connectivity of Art being a voice of peace and change. The artists were fighting for the rights of a people but through a mutual connection the pang for justice. These are the moments I want to share, explore, and put on stage for you, Boston. 

There is so much exciting work ahead of us, connecting with the greater Boston Jewish community, reaching out to local veteran groups, raising new voices, questioning our paradigms, and most importantly is staging a fantastic production. This play has sparked fire under my metaphorical jetpacks; it warms my heart, and also connects me back to my identity, my history, and the people I need to give a voice to –the Ilans of the world and the Andrews of the world too. 

Learn more about FROM THE DEEP here. And here.  And here. 

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

See you soon. Hasta Lavista. Shalom. 

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