Fresh Off the Set

I have always been told that you never know where life might take you. Today Artistic director Paul and I (your friendly neighborhood Stage Manager) had just such an experience. Paul got a call early in the day from John*, a Curio family friend who works in the Biz. He wanted to let us know that a local, big name movie** set he'd been working on was to be dismantled, and asked if we want any of the scrap.

Now when I say scrap, I mean that everything from a set that the higher-up movie-people want is wrapped, packaged, boxed, and sent on its way to be used somewhere else, and everything else is scrap.

Everything else is scrap.

Desks. Pillars. Spare lumber. Ceilings. Walls. Floors.

Paul and I packed as much neat looking "scrap" as we could into the van, trying not to gawk too much in the process, and drove away into the early evening feeling like bandits.

Pillars for Equus? A bigger desk for the Curio office? New seating for the unnamed New Basement Space?

Who knows. Anything could happen this season!

Stage 2

We're inside of the hanger: that big wooden structure is the outside of the set.

Here are the blueprints for the set.

It's an office!

Another view of the office.

 Paul and John check out the some high quality paneling.

Shorter actors use boxes like these to appear taller in the movies Paul asks: "Could we get away with this on stage?"

Above us, workers were taking down large yellow tubing that was used to pump cool air onto the set.

Those workers from the outside of the set.

"Scrap" that no one wants goes here.

*Special thanks to John for always letting us know when Big Things are happening
**I won't say what movie, because although Paul and John assured me that "nerding out" was OK, and that I could take as many pictures as i wanted, I'm still not sure that I won't be hauled away from my desk should I mention names and places. For now, I err on the side of caution!

Dumpster Day

We finally got our dumpster, and spent the day cleaning out all the junk that has accumulated in the basement. 

It is taller than Beth

Trash!

Cleaning out a theatre is dirty work

Summer Workshops: Episode One: The Ryan Walter Experience

Here are some photos of our first Summer Company Workshop, led by Ryan Walter. We had so much fun playing together - we forgot to take non-blurry pictures! But thanks to Gay and her Iphone, we were able to capture a fraction of the magic for you to see!

Planning a glorious, if short, stage adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood

Woolf and Little Red get into a fist-fight (that's in the story, right?)

Can it be done in 30 seconds? Liam and Harry are at once amused and skeptical.

"Do NOT make me pull this car over!"

Ryan Explains It All For You

A really big 'thank you' to Ryan for kicking our summer off right!

Destruction

Yes, our season ended two weeks ago, and Summer Theatre Camp doesn't start until July - so you might think we'd be sipping margaritas by the pool, but you'd be wrong! Instead, we're building a NEW THEATRE! Also, we don't even have a pool (but if you have one you'd like to donate, it is 100% tax deductible).

Today marks Day Two of our not-so-secret summer project. Located right underneath the theatre space where you're used to seeing Curio shows will be a brand new space.

Complete with our own entrance:

A Lobby:

A Concessions Stand:

(currently the 'trash zone' as our dumpster arrives next week)

An Awesome Staircase:

Even A Stage:

What could be more fun than spending the summer knocking down walls with Paul Kuhn and CJ Keller?

Answer: probably a lot of things. NOTHING!

I'll keep you posted on the progress.

-Liz 

There's a Tempest a' brewing!

Rehearsals are once again underway! We've got a cast; we've got a director; we've got designers. Now it's time to think about putting on a show! If you're wondering what we're doing to get ready for Shakespeare's The Tempest take a gander at the photos below!

First Read
(L/R: Ken Opdenaker, Steve Carpenter, Brian McCann, Isa St. Clair)

Just finished the first read
(L/R: Anna Butler, Liam Castellan, Robert DaPonte, Isa St. Clair)

First day on our feet - Director Dan Hodge blocks the Royals
(L/R: Paul Kuhn, Aetna Gallagher, Eric Scotolati, Liam Castellan, Ken Opdenaker, Dan Hodge)

Set Designer Paul Kuhn contemplates the stage during a break

Pre-Production Shenanigans

With Slaughterhouse-Five drawling to a close, we here at Curio have started pre-production on our final show this season: William Shakespeare's The Tempest.

In preparation, Director Dan Hodge, Set Designer and Artistic Director Paul Kuhn, and Stage Manager Beth Johnson (that's me!) took a trip up to the highest points of the Calvary Center for Culture and Community.

Now, telling you why we did this would be telling, and would most certainly include spoilers and inside information. So while I can't tell you why we went, I can show you what we saw!

Some I-Beams

Some more I-Beams, and Calvary's Chapel Dome

Closer view of Calvary's Chapel Dome

Calvary Center's Bell Tower

Philidelphia Skyline from the West

Gold Standard

  

Baltimore Avenue, and the houses North

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.