Seat Of The Pants Productions examines BACH AT LEIPZIG

Itamar Moses, the American playwright, author and of BACH AT LEIZIG, now being staged by Seat of the Pants Productions, is best known for his 2018 Tony Award winning book for the Broadway musical THE BAND’S VISIT.

BACH AT LEIPZIG, which was first presented at Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY, in 2002, was subsequently presented Off Broadway.  It is a tale of aging, betrayal, death, politics, and religion.  

The two-act, over two-hour long historical comedy is, according to the author, based on a 1722 true story, set in Leipzig, Germany, precipitated by the death of Johannn Kuhnau, the local cathedral’s revered organist. This is a prestigious position and questions arise as to not only who will replace him and but the kind of antics the candidates will undertake, including blackmail, bribery, and lying, to win the position.

Written in a fugue-like, structured format, though he never speaks a line, and we never see him, per se, Bach is the play’s central character.  

Interestingly, though he was finally hired, in an interview the play’s author, states, “Absurd that anyone was hired over Bach for a musician’s job, but, in reality, he was the 3^rd choice.”  Some of this may be due to the fact that “Bach's St. John Passion was considered controversial and rarely performed because its libretto — the words Bach set to music — come from Martin Luther's idiosyncratic translation of the Gospel of John, which characterizes Jews as enemies of Jesus (conveniently overlooking that Jesus was a Jew).”

The Seat of the Pants production has moments of humor, though not as fun-filled as reviews from other productions advertise.  Filled with some overacting, and farce rather than comedic line interpretations, the cast at times didn’t seem completely sure how to interpret some of the lines.

Though written for an all-male cast, this production is composed of five females and 2 males.  

Interestingly, the word “he” is used to describe all the candidates in dialogue.  In reality, though by societal prescription of the time required it, there would be no reason for all the candidates be male.  

The cast, Heidi Harris, (Cleveland Critics Circle and Broadwayworld.com-Cleveland Outstanding Actor) Scott Esposito, Kadijah Wingo, Luke Wehner, Molly McFadden and Carolyn Demanelis each develops a consistent character. 

Director Michael Glavan has added some creative staging touches.  George McCarty II’s costumes are era correct.  

Franklin Circle Christian Church’s facility adds an intimacy and “holy” presence to the production.

Capsule judgment:  Seat of the Pants Productions has a purpose of “selecting plays which raise potent questions - some specific to today and others that speak to human nature across the ages.” BACH AT LEIPZIG fulfills that mission. Though it makes for a long sit, the play will be of interest for those interested in historical biographies, classic music and unusual play scripts. 

March 22 - April 7, 2024
Fridays and Saturdays--7:30 PM / Sundays-2:30 PM
NO PERFORMANCE on Sunday, March 31st Additional 2:30 PM Matinee on April 6^th

Franklin Circle Christian Church
1688 Fulton Road
Cleveland, OH 44113

For tickets go to www.seatofthepants.org.

 

TROUBLE IN MIND, is a rich experience that is disturbing and thought-provoking!

 

The late-Alice Childress, the author of TROUBLE IN MIND, now being staged by Seat of the Pants Productions, was an American novelist, playwright, and actress, who was acknowledged as the only African-American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades.

Childress described her work as “trying to portray the have-nots in a have society.”

As she explained, "My writing attempts to interpret the 'ordinary' because they are not ordinary. Each human is uniquely different. Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvelously-intricate in thought and action. Our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne."

Billed as “a moving and heartbreaking look at racism, identity and ego,” TROUBLE IN MIND is a scathing indictment of racism in America and American commercial theatre.

It tells the story of Wiletta Mayer, an African-American actress cast in a supposedly “progressive” play about racism by a white male author.  

The script and the job turn-out to be anything but progressive, both in terms of its script and rehearsal environment.

TROUBLE IN MIND had a strange route to Broadway.  The original Off-Broadway production was sponsored by the Village Presbyterian Church and the Brotherhood Synagogue in 1995.  In 1957, a Broadway transfer had been planned, renamed SO EARLY MONDAY MORNING, but the production was cancelled when the author refused to subdue its content.

TROUBLE IN MIND finally made its Broadway debut on November 18, 2021. The limited run closed on January 9, 2022, after 58 performances and 20 previews. The production was nominated for four Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Play.

“Set during rehearsals for a major Broadway production, TROUBLE IN MIND illuminates the inner life of a Black actress struggling with her career.  As Wiletta grapples with how she's treated, the role she's being asked to play, and what the production says (or doesn't) about race in America, her growing discomfort sets off a chain of events that reveal fissures within the acting company — and bring her into conflict with her director.”

Effectively directed by Jeannine Gaskin, the production takes lots of twists and turns, allowing the observer to examine their attitudes toward race, feminism, prejudices and white male privilege.  Don’t be surprised if you find yourself in states of repeated conflict not only by your feelings toward the characters, but by your own attitudes.

Cleveland Critics Best Actress in a Musical award winner, Nicole Sumlin, is superb as Wiletta. Her climax speech, in which she expresses the author’s strong beliefs on the way in which black people, especially African Americans, both women and men, are negated by attitudinal views, and how women, in general, must be all that men are, plus some, just to be viewed as equal.

Tom Woodward, who also has been lauded by the Cleveland Critics Circle, is so effective in his characterization of the “villainous white man” who is unaware of his bullying methods and strong prejudices, that there were times when anything less than hitting him over the head with a two-by-four wouldn’t have been enough to knock some sense into him.  

Strong performances were also presented by Elizabeth Domer (Judy), Andrew Knode (Bill), Madison Ledyard-King (John), Michael Montanus (Eddie), Zyrece Montgomery (Millie), Tom Stephan (Henry), and Darryl Tatum (Sheldon).

Costume design by Marti Coles, lighting design by Ayron Lord, props design by Mia Jones, sound design by Aria Smith, and scenic construction by Christian Sanko all enhanced the production.  The use of an electronic projection on the back wall, was especially effective.

Capsule judgment:  The company’s use of an intensive rehearsal period known as “process driven production method,” paid off.  There is no doubt of clear character development, smooth flow of action, and meaningful stage pictures.  All in all, the show makes for both a rich experience regarding evaluating yours and societal attitudes, as well as a fine theatrical experience!  This is must see theatre!

TROUBLE IN MIND runs November 3-19, 2023 (Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 PM / Sundays at 2:30 PM) @The Pivot Center, 2937 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113.  For tickets: https://seatofthepants.org/productions

OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD @ Seat of the Pants Productions

 

The Seat of the Pants Productions’ mission states that “Our hope is to create theater that challenges minds, moves hearts, and mobilizes hands and feet - in both performers and patrons.”
 
Its choice of British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker’s OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD, based on Thomas Keneally’s novel THE PLAYMAKER, well fulfills the company’s goal.  
 
OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD, which won the 1988 Laurence Olivier Award for Play of the Year, was nominated as Best Play for the 1991 Tony Award, and won the 1991 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for the Best Foreign Play, concerns a group of Royal Marines and convicts in a penal colony in New South Wales in the 1780s.
 
“The convicts and Royal Marines were sent to Australia to set up the first penal colony in what we now know as Australia. The area was selected as it was far from England, the convicts would no longer be a menace to the ‘civilized’ people of the isle, and the territory would become yet another possession in the far-reaching British Empire.”
 
“The play shows the class system in the convict camp and discusses themes such as sexuality, punishment, the Georgian judicial system, and the idea that it is possible for ‘theatre to be a humanizing force’.”
 
Most of the characters in the play are based on real people who sailed with the First Fleet though some have had their names changed. 
 
As the play evolves, we find a lieutenant being tasked with putting on a play to celebrate the king's birthday. The catch? His cast members are the English convicts. Few of them can read, let alone act, and the play is being produced against a background of food shortages and barbaric punishments. Some of the convicts are violent, some are prostitutes banned from England because of their immoral life styles, others are petty criminals sent away for pick-pocketing or speaking against the crown, while others are mentally ill.  They, of course, continue to act out while incarcerated.
 
To make matters worse, several of the soldiers are masochistic sadists, bent on punishing the convicts through starvation and beatings. Others soldiers have compassion for the convicts.  The factions conflict.
 
The cast of ten, Abraham Adams, Scott Esposito, Jeannine Gaskin, Benjamin Gregg, Natalie Sander Kern, Daniel McKinnon, Brett Radke, James Rankin, Meriah Sage, and Lana Sugarman, portray 22 different characters, some playing both convicts and officers. 
Esposito, alone, develops a single character, the pivotal, 2^nd Lieutenant Ralph Clark, a compassionate soul who directs the play within the play, and finds a humanness in each of the convicts who take roles in the production.
 
Craig Joseph effectively directs, with scenic design by Micah Harvey, costume design by George McCarty II, lighting design by Ayron Lord, sound design by Megan Slabach, and properties design by Lisa L. Wiley. Intimacy direction is by Casey Venema and fight direction is guided by Ryan Zarecki. Voice and dialect coaching is by Chuck Richie. 
 
While a captivating topic, exposing the viewers to a part of history to which few Americans have been exposed, the experience is generally positive, but not without problems.  
 
While the cast is excellent, most of the portrayals are believable, and the staging creative, the constant moving of the boxes which made up the set pieces, became very distracting and dragged out the play’s length.
 
The script, as written, is over 2-and-a-half hours, with an intermission.  Heavy script cutting not only would have shortened the sit, but brought a clearer focus. 
 
The director is to be praised for insisting on authenticity in accents, but the unfamiliar sounds were often impossible to understand.  As is often done in Shakespeare plays intended for American audiences, it might have been wise to lighten the intonations.  
 
Be warned: Reinberger Auditorium, at least the night I saw the show, was like a frozen tundra. The wearing of warm clothing would have been helpful.   
 
The pre-publicity and program warn: “OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD contains several instances of physical violence and menace related to incarceration, colonialism, and corporal punishment, including discussion of - but no portrayal of - death by hanging. There is also discussion of - but no portrayal of - non-consensual sexual intimacy.”  Don’t let that detour you. There are “horrors,” but not vivid enough to cause strong reaction.
 
Capsule judgment:  OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD exposes the viewer to a part of history not well known to many.   The overly-long script gets a creditable staging by Seats of the Pants Productions.  It is worth the sit for anyone interested in probing theater.
 
OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD runs Friday and Saturday nights @ 8 and Sundays @ 2 through August 21 at Reinberger Auditorium, 5209 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland.  For tickets:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-countrys-good-by-timberlake-wertenbaker-tickets-373024525397

Impressive “WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID” at Seat of Pants Productions

It is appropriate that on March 8, National Women’s Day, which contends to end exploitation and increase equality for females, I saw Seat of the Pants production of Sarah Treem’s “WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID.” 

Treem writes plays that have a high percentage of female roles.  She is noted for coming up with an exciting premise for examining characters of different backgrounds and ideas of what it means to be a woman at this pivotal historical moment in American history.  She conceives plots in which womens’ perspectives are challenged. She is not afraid to use explicit detail, upsetting sexual actions, and strong dialogue to flesh out women.

As one theater reviewer stated of “WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID,” “it is a stark reminder of how rare it is to see such urgent subject matter tackled in mainstream theater.”

It’s 1972, Agnes (Derdriu Ring), a woman with a teenage daughter is running a B&B on Whidbey Island, near Seattle, off the coast of Washington state.  The facility is also a safe space for abused women who find their way to Agnes through a means of silent leads since being off the radar is a requirement for protection from the lady’s abusers.

The latest woman needing advice and protection is Mary Anne (Kelly Strand), a pretty impulsive young lady who has been beaten-up by John, her husband.  

The only guest at the B&B is Paul (Andy Knode), a mild-mannered San Franciscan music teacher, who has come to the island, to mull over his impending divorce.  He becomes infatuated with Mary Anne, and when she has to leave the safe sanctuary because she has called her husband John, thus breaking the code of secrecy that is needed to protect other women, offers to take Mary Anne with him.

Penny (Morgan Brown), Agnes’s “daughter” is an awkward brainiac who has a crush on Tommy, a football player at the island’s high school.  Prom is coming up and though she contends that she isn’t interested in attending, she silently wishes that Tommy would ask her to the dance.  With Mary Anne’s advice, she not only achieves her goal of getting a date, but runs away with the boy for a long weekend.  

Below the surface of Agnes and Penny’s relationship is a secret of the connection between the two women.

Into this complex story of women and their ideas, wants, needs, and society’s expectations for them, comes Mary Anne, a macho, avowed lesbian, in search of her friends who have founded a commune for women where, with a strict rule restricting males from the community, desire to set up a woman-centric society.

Treem nicely develops an intriguing dynamic as each woman’s perspective is presented and challenged.  

Questions arise:  Will Mary Anne succumb to her weakness for danger and slink back to her husband for further mistreatment?  Will she accept the overtures of mild-mannered Paul? If she goes off with Paul, will he be a better option? Will a relationship develop between Mary Anne and Agnes?  Will Penny forget her plans to go to Yale and let her first foray into love set her life pattern instead?  

The Seat of The Pants production is wisely directed by Craig Joseph.  He not only understands the script and how to hone his actors’ performances, but nicely blocks the movements to take advantage of Aurora Community Theatre’s quirky thrust stage which finds the audience not only surrounding the acting area on three sides, but looking down onto the performance area.  

The cast, headed by two of the area’s best and most awarded actresses, Derdriu Ring and Amy Fritsche, both Cleveland Critic Circle and Broadwayworld.com best actress award winners, is outstanding.  The rest of cast rises to their level, with each fleshing out a real person.  They don’t act. They are!

In lesser hands than the astute direction and fine performances, there is a danger that the “made for television” writing style and plot development could evolve into a less than satisfying experience.  

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT: “WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND AFRAID” gets a superb production, with high quality direction and acting, thus making it a perfect vehicle to “celebrate” the issues of womanhood in this era of angst.  It is a production well worth experiencing!

Well-conceived “The End of the Tour” introduces CLE to Seat of the Pants Productions

Since 2012, Seat of the Pants, self-referred to as a “band of storytellers,” has been traversing the countryside in various locations around Northeast Ohio, focusing their actions on “sharing compelling narratives in unique spaces and developing an aesthetic rooted in imaginative staging and human connection.”

The company is presently displaying their wares in 216/440.  They are in residence at Trinity Church in Tremont and, this summer, will venture into the eastern CLE burbs.

Using an ensemble concept, in which the same group of actors perform in a variety of plays, their present offering, “The End of the Tour,” combines a cast of Equity and non-Equity actors.

“The End of the Tour” is written by Joel Drake Johnson, who indicates that he is “interested in creating stories with characters who, despite their flaws, their bad decisions, their selfish inhibitions, their awkward/comic interactions and tragic setbacks, push themselves on to an enlightened understanding of their place in the world.”

“Johnson is a master of using seemingly ordinary conversations to yield startling depths. His characters are all at life crossroads, forced to acknowledge that past patterns of living are no longer possible yet unsure what directions to take or even whether they're capable of embracing something new.”

He uses humor, high angst, and relational connections and disconnections to develop plays that are both high in drama, while containing realistic humor.  No slapstick, shticks or prat-falls here.  Realism is front and center.

“The End of the Tour” is Johnson at his best, and The End of the Tour’s production, under the adept direction of Craig Joseph, is theater at its best.

The play is serious, yet funny.  Most of the action takes place in a nursing home where the disgruntled, bitchy, opinionated, controlling elderly mother is recovering.  With her middle-aged, recently divorced daughter by her side, she awaits the arrival of her long-estranged gay son who is bringing his male lover for a brief tour of his hometown and his damaging past.

In a parallel story, which takes place in a newly remodeled kitchen, we find the daughter’s former husband sharing, with his best friend, an emotional breakdown caused by a combination of the conflict with his ex-wife and the issue of a dying cat.

Each well-etched character is grappling with a defining moment in his or her life.  Johnson creates characters so real you wonder what will happen to them after the final blackout.

In spite of an echo in the high-ceilinged, long narrow production space at the church, which causes hearing issues, the acting, pacing, and performances are so top-notch that the venue’s flaws are over-come.

Anne McEvoy clearly creates Mae, the mother, as a closed-minded, manipulative woman, who may be in decline as a person, but remains stolid in her ego-centric ways.

Stephanie Cargill is character-correct as the put-on Jan, a daughter and ex-wife, who can’t seem to earn a break.

Stuart Hoffman is clearly angst and guilt-ridden as the son and lover whose every action illustrates a life not well-lived, a victim of verbal and emotional abuse, who, even in the presence of a loving and caring partner, has fears with which he can’t cope.

Scott Esposito, as has come to be expected from this talented actor, is the pillar of support as David, the understanding lover.

Anaias J. Dixon (Chuck), has a highlight emotional monologue in which he expresses that the travails of his life have all come crashing down and life just becomes too difficult to bear.

Jeff Haffner is compassionate as Tommy, the friend who is there to prop up Chuck, and Chris White shines as a dementia-struck nursing home patient.

Capsule judgment:  The play is well-paced, the characters clearly developed, the acting is of high quality, and the over-all effect is respect and awe for the cast and director.  This is a must see production which had a much too short two-weekend run.

“End of the Tour” ran March 29 &30 and April 5-6, 2019.

Next up for Seat of Your Pants in 216/440: “Smokefall,” a play of magic realism in which a man named Footnote acts as our guide for the evening which includes twin boys, in vitro, discussing philosophy while awaiting their birth, their sister, who eats dirt and doesn’t speak, and Father who is about to drive away and never return, leaving  a pregnant and dreamy Mother alone to live out Grandfather’s notion that “every love story is a tragedy, because its ending is built into its beginning.” (August 2-11, 2019 Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM, Sundays at 2 PM, The Playground at Ensemble Theatre, 2843 Washington Boulevard, Cleveland Heights.  For tickets and information go to www.seatofthepants.org