Filed under: Notes on the Play | Tags: Multimedia, new york, Puppetry, Theatre
“Kate Marks has accomplished what other writers only dream about.”- Ashley Griffin, TheaterOnline.Com
“…a lovely and well-executed fairy tale.” - Will Fulton, NYTheatre.Com
“…full of stunning imagery.” - Amy Freeman, OffOffOnline.Com
“Heidi Handelsman has conjured this fantasy so fully that even though we see the puppeteers through the life-size windows of this hand-crafted bird house (Sara C. Walsh’s set), we remain raptly dreaming ” - Aaron Riccio , That Sounds Cool
Cotton Wright* and Christina Shipp are Louisy and Syl in BIRD HOUSE (photo by Marcus Woollen)
Welcome to the official website of BIRD HOUSE, an impossible new play by Kate Marks. It’s a coming of age story for an age under seige, when everyday what we thought was impossible is suddenly at our doorstep.
Below, you will find the production blog, regularly updated with new developments in the process of creating this singular event. Check back often to keep abreast, or subscribe to our RSS feed.
BIRD HOUSE is an AEA approved showcase opening July 10th @ Theater 3 and closing on July 26th. For more information on ticket sales and directions, click HERE.
Click the TheaterMania button to purchase tickets, only $18.
*Member of AEA
Filed under: Notes on the Play
Somehow, through dedication, will power, brilliance, cacophony, and sheer insanity, BIRD HOUSE is up and running. In fact, it has almost run its course! We close on Sunday! So much energy and beauty and sparkle was thrown up onto that stage, but on Sunday night we need to give the stage back to its owners. It never truly belonged to us; we were just visitors. It’s the true magic/tragedy of theatre. And life itself…
And the culinary arts, in a way. You can spend all day or all week shopping for a fantastic meal. You chop, dice, saute, bake, prepare in however many ways, and finally you plate. It’s beautiful. You eat it. It’s delicious, heavenly, the most flavorful dish ever. And then its gone. And there’s nothing left to do but the dishes. But let us not forget about digestion. BIRD HOUSE, as it turns out, requires a lot of digestion. A smoothy this is not. You probably shouldn’t exercise for at least two hours after viewing.
So before we take this show apart, I thought I’d take you on a tour of how we put it together. A photo tour!
Here is a model of our gorgeous set! Sara Walsh is a genius, in case you couldn’t tell. One idea that the whole design team latched onto was the image of the patchwork quilt, in the script. It’s “made from all the old clothes we grew out of.” Everyone agreed that this was a patchwork world, made of old things and re-appropriated, cobbled-together. The actual set is made almost entirely from found objects — we culled street corners on trash night for weeks! The good people of the New York Metropolitan Area discarded almost everything we could possibly need, and an incredible crew put together Sara’s up-cycled set. Gorgeous!
These are a couple of my favorite images from rehearsals. These women have AMAZING instincts for character and physicality. My favorite memory from the first day of rehearsal was a conversation that went something like this:
COTTON: I don’t think Louisy leaves the house. At all.
HEIDI: Not even to collect flowers and mushrooms from the patch of grass below the treehouse?
COTTON: Well, yes, OK, but she never goes far. She never goes into town.
CHRISTINA: Not even to go to the store?
COTTON: Syl goes to the store for her.
CHRISTINA (AS SYL): What about ice cream? Remember that time I tried to bring an ice cream cone home for you? We had a big melty mess. Don’t you to come out with me for an ice cream cone?
COTTON (AS LOUISY): (Bites lip, contemplative silence.)
The gun. The gun is a genuine replica of a Civil War -era gun (which, we learned, is the sort of gun real cowboys used, in the wild west — verisimilitude!). We had to go through a lot of poses to find ones that didn’t make Christina look like a sexy spy, gangster, or Charlie’s Angel. She’s too sexy for her gun.
Puppets! Here is one of our beloved cuckoo-clock birds, naked and barely out of the womb. But very beautiful!
Here is puppet-designer-extraordinaire Andy with an early prototype of the wild bird. I wish I had taken photos at our first puppet design meeting — we took over a large table at a cute french coffee shop, and covered every available surface with picture books about antique toys and birds, sketches, and puppets. We threw beanbags around, to see how they landed. No one stopped us.
Big Day of Video Magic! Whereas most Americans spent the morning of Saturday, July 4th either sleeping or preparing the barbeque, we joined Alex for a morning of filming. Someday in the future, projection design will be a recognized category at the Tony awards. When that happens, Alex will win one. Above, Alex is filming, Shannon is managing, and Wendy and Kylie are patiently waiting for their big moment.
Shannon and Alex’s trusty associate Jenna make the locket fly.
And here’s Christina and Cotton dressed as the mysterious Ancients, but goofing like themselves.
And here is, perhaps, my most favorite image of all. Here is Cotton at the Tick Tock Diner, where we met up for a Louisy meeting. It’s 9:30 in the morning. Across the table, I am devouring a vegetable omelet. When Cotton ordered, the waiter did a double take.
All these wonderful things! And now, we’ve got to pack it up and fly away. Prepare for lift-off…
-Heidi Handelsman
BIRD HOUSE director Heidi Handelsman, playwright Kate Marks, and the 3 lady-producers of The KNF Co partook in a lively discussion about the play and women in theatre with award-winning podcast interviewer MARINA.
http://www.marinaonline.com/marinakamen/marinaspodcast.php
Filed under: News
Your vote matters! The New York Innovative Theatre Award is Independent Theatre’s answer to the TONY. Audience vote counts towards 25% of the total score towards nomination. Just a few minutes of your time will help these artists get the recognition they deserve. http://www.nyitawards.com/vote/
Outstanding Production of a Play
Outstanding Ensemble Performance
Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role: Cotton Wright
Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role: Christina Shipp
Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role: Ora Fruchter
Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role: Anthony Wills Jr.
Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role: Kylie Liya Goldstein
Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role: Wendy Scharfman
Outstanding Full Length Script Kate Marks
Outstanding Director of Play: Heidi Handelsman
Outstanding Set Design: Sara C. Walsh
Outstanding Lighting Design: Rebecca M. K. Makus
Outstanding Sound Design: Quentin Chiappetta
Outstanding Innovative Design: Andy Toad, Alex Koch
Outstanding Costume Design: Jessica Pabst
Outstanding Original Music: Quentin Chiappetta
Filed under: Uncategorized
Director Heidi Handelsman and Playwright Kate Marks stopped by Casting Director Destiny Lilly’s place to talk about the process of casting BIRD HOUSE and more! Listen to the podcast HERE.
Last week, the three lady-producers from The KNF Co were interviewed by The Broadway Bullet. You can listen to it Thursday, July 9th @ 10am. Or check back after the fact, and we’ll have the proper linkage for you.
Filed under: News
The lovely trio behind The KNF Co we recently interviewed by Rochelle Denton at NYtheatre.Com.
Highlights include:.
Heberling: I feel like the name of our company is the inside joke that will never die, despite my many, many efforts to kill it.
Haydon: I sometimes tell people it stands for Karl’s Nantucket Flapjacks.
Kaplan: I know that I’m weird, but there’s nothing quite like completing the complicated Tetris of a perfectly scheduled load-in.
Filed under: Uncategorized
New images and graphics released, the results of a spectacular photo session with the talented photographer, Marcus Woollen.
Filed under: Casting | Tags: Auditions, BIRD HOUSE, Casting, Multimedia, new york, Puppetry, Theatre
Rehearsals for Bird House are about to start! Everyone keeps saying to me, “I can’t wait to see how you’re gonna do all that stuff!” And I always reply, “Neither can I!” Time to dig in, and discover how it all goes.
We’ve already started on these impossible happenings, in fact, thanks to two fantastic groups of people.
First of all, our design team is stellar. Seriously. These people are creative geniuses.
And, of course, our actors are amazing. We gathered ourselves together a few weeks ago for a workshop, and our theatrical experimentation proved quite fruitful. We tried out some new vocabularies, solved some challenges, and unearthed challenges we didn’t even realize we were facing.
One challenge that the Kate, KNF team and I managed to conquer last month, pre-workshop even, was casting this thing in the first place. The caliber of actor who showed up to audition was through the roof! It was like an embarrassment of riches. The whittling-down process caused long meetings and sleepless nights. But it all paid off, because we definitely landed on the right folks for the job. The magnetic Christina Shipp, the sparkly Cotton Wright, the high-spirited Wendy Scharfman, the sprightly Kylie Goldstein, and the nimble Anthony Willis and Ora Fruchter are already rocking my socks off.
Oh, we had so many wild ideas about how to cast this play! Back in April, we brainstormed a few versions of fantasy casts. Not really “this is how we should cast the play” casts, more like, “wouldn’t it be funny/awesome if…” casts. My favorites:
The Big Name New York Actors cast: Mary Louise Parker as Louisy, Cynthia Nixon as Syl
The 80s sitcom cast: Betty White as Louisy, Bea Arthur as Syl, Rue MacLanahan as Rita, and Estelle Getty as Myra
The SNL cast: Amy Pohler as Louisy, Tina Fey as Syl
The sure-to-bring-in-a-big-audience cast: George Clooney, in every role. Naked.
OK, full disclosure, there was wine present when we came up with these ideas. We were at my apartment, reading the script out loud, just for ourselves. It was a great way to reconnect with the script, and it hurtled Kate into a massive rewriting adventure. In case you’re curious, casting in my living room was as follows: Heidi as Louisy, Tzip as Syl, Kelly as Myra, Kate as Rita, and Katherine as everyone else.
But enough of dreaming up these wild dreams from the confines of my apartment, or coffee shops with brilliant designers! Time for the rehearsal alchemy to begin!
-Heidi Handelsman
BIRD HOUSE
World Premiere of a New Play
VENUE: Theatre 3
AEA SHOWCASE (APPROVAL PENDING)
SALARY: Transportation
NEW YORK, NY
PLAYWRIGHT: Kate Marks
DIRECTOR: Heidi Handelsman
PRODUCER: The KNF Co
1st REHEARSAL: 6/16
PERFORMANCES: 7/10-7/26
AUDITION INFO:
Auditions will be held in midtown Manhattan on May 6th-8th, 7-10pm each evening. BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. Please send headshot and resume to BirdHouseCasting@gmail.com. Please include your phone number and email address. Sides will be provided. Callbacks will be held in midtown Manhattan on May 9th, 4-8pm.
NOTE: Bird House is a fantastical story of two young women who live together in a tree house, until one decides she must leave home to become a hero out in the world. It’s a coming-of-age fable, and an exploration of how we understand war from what we think is a safe distance. For more info, please visit www.birdhousetheplay.wordpress.com.
Seeking:
LOUISY – Female, 20s-30s, any ethnicity. Full of sunshine, youthful, emotional, excitable, naïve. Needs looking after, and knows it. Positive attitude, shameless in her pursuit of her (very simple) desires and needs. A homebody, yet ethereal. Likes to sing – vocal training is not required, although the ability to carry a tune is essential. Clown training/experience helpful but not required.
SYL – Female, 20s-30s, any ethnicity. Youthful, but tougher and more grounded than Louisy. A sharp-shooter who wants to be a hero. She is concerned about matters of justice, and has a hunger for whatever is out there. Fancies herself more worldly than Louisy, but is still quite naïve. Sings sometimes – vocal training is not required, although the ability to carry a tune is desired. Clown training/experience helpful but not required.
MYRA – Female, 8-13, any ethnicity. Curious, suspicious, likes to be in charge. High-energy, good at pretending. She has no family, so she is on her own and knows how to fend for herself – she’s something of a stray cat. A self-proclaimed authority on the world with a powerful imagination. The character is eight-years-old, and the actor should be able to play that age.
RITA – Female, 55-70, any ethnicity. A born caretaker and authority figure. Warm, fun to be around, knows how to tell a good joke and throw a good party. Knows the old wives’ cures for everything. Wise to the point of knowing the future. Slightly mystical. Mostly unshakable.
Also seeking TWO PUPPETEERS (age and gender unimportant) to bring to life a mischievous pair of cuckoos set free from the clock, an army of ants, a pet inchworm, a flock of ferocious birds with loose morals and poor hygiene, and many other moving things.
When Kate first told me about Bird House the play was so young it did not have a name yet. We had collaborated previously a couple of times, so I already knew her penchant for writing impossibilities. She had already presented me with the challenges of staging a sentient shadow, a woman turning into a tree, and a young couple flying into the sky. I had already come to treasure every curve ball she throws into her plays.
When she mentioned to me that she had begun to write a new play, I was already excited. I asked, “Do impossible things happen?” She giggled and confessed, “A bird flies out of a girl’s mouth!” I replied: “Bring it.”
Bird House is packed with impossibilities, too numerous and fantastic to list. But more exciting still is the story these impossible things spell out and the questions they beg of us. The play explores tragedies wrought by war and by time. It wants to know: what is the best way to grow up? Is there a way to grow up without being hurt and hurting others? How do we reconcile the call of the unknown with our commitments to those we love at home?
Bird House tells the story of a handful of people who, like everyone, have to learn things the hard way. And with lessons safely stowed in a back pocket, all we can do is pick up the pieces and bury the dead, do the laundry and maybe apologize to the neighbors, and reconcile all the impossible things that went ahead and happened just the same.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Set in a mythical world where cuckoo clock birds talk, furniture blows by in the wind, and ants form armies, Bird House is the story of two longtime friends, Syl and Louisy. The play follows their struggle to understand the nature of their relationship and who they are within it (and without it) when the outside world intrudes upon their secluded lives.
The play was written for Sarah Petersiel, a great actress and clown. When I began writing the play I was greatly inspired by the clown work with which she and I were involved. For me, clowns experience the world for the first time, every time. They make no assumptions, so everything is a discovery and nothing is given. I strove to capture this quality in the writing.
In the play, the world is divided into two halves. On “The Bright Side,” Louisy and Syl live in a tiny house nested in a tree. Out the window, the world slopes green and gentle. Clotheslines in the distance remind them that they have neighbors. On “The Lop Side,” the grass turns to gravel. Furniture is caught in the bones of trees with the leaves blown off. Household remnants blow about in the wind. The play is set in war-time and examines the relationship between the place where war is a reality and the place where war is a story. – Kate Marks, Playwright
Filed under: Uncategorized
We asked the amazing comic book artist, Kate Allen, to illustrate her take on BIRD HOUSE. The results are sketches deftly realized through a prism of 1950’s motifs and culture, an era when the sterile happiness of kitchenettes and Chevrolettes was undercut by the looming paranoia of a nuclear age.
More of Kate’s comic books, murals, and illustrations can be found on her blog: kateallenart.blogspot.com and purchased at www.fatback.etsy.com.
