Photo by Kyle Cassidy

Slaughterhouse Five Promo

Promo By Brian Siano.

Inside Slaughterhouse-Five

I’m very excited by the work that Curio has done this season. In the Fringe, the company produced Lord of the Flies in Clark Park, the bravest and best outdoor theatre I’ve ever seen. Then came the hauntingly beautiful Eurydice, and Accidental Death of an Anarchist, which made me laugh and get fired up about today’s politics at the same time. I am very honored to be a part of Curio’s upcoming production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, adapted by Eric Simonson and directed by Jared Reed. This will be the Philadelphia premiere of the play, which originated at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In that original production, 25 actors played nearly 50 characters. When the play was produced in New York, the cast size was reduced to 10 actors. Curio Theatre Company is performing Slaughterhouse-Five with 7 actors (Steve Carpenter, Josh Hitchens, Paul Kuhn, Ken Opdenaker, Jerry Rudasill, Jennifer Summerfield (who plays all of the female roles), and Ryan Walter.

It seems very appropriate that Curio is producing Slaughterhouse-Five. It’s one of the few theatre companies in Philadelphia that maintains a permanent company of actors, directors, designers, and crew. Many people have been with Curio for years, working together on stage or watching from the audience. We get to know each other’s work, we grow together. When we started rehearsing Slaughterhouse-Five, we started putting the play together almost immediately, and these past few weeks have gone by so quickly. The main part of the scenic design consists of a raked platform, 6 sections of which can split apart and move in different configurations. The show moves constantly back and forth in time, from place to place, and this set allows us to make those transitions easily. I can’t wait to see what the lights, costumes, and sound add to the world of the play, and I’m dying for the platform and backdrop to be painted. When I saw the renderings for the set, my jaw literally dropped. It going to be awesome. And wait till you see how we’re doing the aliens from Tralfamadore . . .

I have to admit that I had never read any of Kurt Vonnegut’s work before being cast in Slaughterhouse-Five. I enjoyed the novel very much, and I like that it’s subtitled The Children’s Crusade or A Duty Dance with Death. There’s a science fiction aspect to the work, it also has times when it’s extremely funny, and many moments that are deeply moving. When I read the play after reading the book, I was struck by how incredibly faithful Eric Simonson’s adaptation is to Vonnegut’s original work. I think fans of Slaughterhouse-Five will be very happy with Curio’s production of the play.

In rehearsal, there is one piece of dialogue that always strikes me:

“There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everyone is supposed to be dead and never say anything or want anything ever again.”

Kurt Vonnegut really was a prisoner of war in Slaughterhouse #5 in the city of Dresden, and he survived the firebombing that annihilated the city in World War II. Even though "people aren't supposed to look back," he had something he wanted to say about it. And that's what Slaughterhouse-Five is.

One week until we tech. So it goes.

Check out this amazing promo video by Brian Siano. Such a funny show!

Snack Days

Two weeks ago, while in the midst of the closing Eurydice, helping coordinate the showcase for this year's Fall Saturday Theatre Classes, and putting in hours at my day job, I somehow found time to bake a batch of chocolate chip and oatmeal bar cookies for the the first rehearsal of Accidental Death of an Anarchist. I ran out of time to handcraft individual cookies, so the dough went straight into a pan and became bars.

I made these Tuesday, and they lasted a little under a week. How do I know that? One, I was there. Two, the cast of Eurydice found the final remnants of the bars around Friday night and expressed their feelings of abandonment.

Last week I baked again. Having the time, I made actual cookies instead of bars, and because they are (Superintendent) Len's favorite, and because he was super nice to me one rehearsal last week, I made oatmeal raisin. These did not make it through one rehearsal. That's four hours.

How can one snack last so much longer than the other, in the face of starving artists? Our director, and fearless leader, Craig answered this for me. Actors are lazy. Cutting out one bar from a pan is too much effort to extend, even of it means you get to eat a cookie.

This week, after days of pestering and copious amounts of bribery, I've made mini banana nut muffins. Let's see how long they make it.

"What light through younder window breaks?"

Our productions don't always have cameras (although we've had some fantastically creative promotional videos created by Brian Siano), but lights and action we have plenty of. And while typically the lights are pointed blindingly at the actors, we here at Curio thought it might be nice to give them a small break.

Want to see what we're so excited about? Just walk past our entrance on Baltimore Avenue after sunset. If you're feeling lazy, or have had a tiring day, you can peruse the photos at the bottom of this post instead, but I highly recommend seeing this light for yourself. It may just look like some typeface-talented toddler graffiti-ed the sidewalk with glow in the dark chalk, but don't be fooled! Attached to the Calvary roof, through perilous and ungodly feats of engineering madness, is a huge, bazooka-shaped light (as we laymen like to call it) with a fancy, schmancy, glass gobo in it.

Basically, it's like the bat-signal. Only with color. And we pointed it at the ground. And when it's on, instead of crime, there's theatre.

Special thanks to Jimmy Reynolds, without whom this monstrous instrument would not have made it onto the Calvary roof.

Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at Curio? You're about to find out! Here's a video from Eurydice rehearsals and Kyle Cassidy's photo shoot. Video by Brian Siano. Eurydice runs until November 12th.