FURY Factory Performance Dates!

Join us June 14 & 15 for the first performances of Satellites!

We'll be at NOH Space at 7:30pm on that Tuesday and Wednesday night.

For tickets, stay tuned here and at foolsfury.org.
(...or pledge $50 to our Kickstarter campaign and get two free tickets to either night!)

Writing Collaboratively: The Process

When I think of writing a play, I picture Euripides, Shakespeare, Miller, Churchill- one person at a desk, empty ink (and liquor) bottles surrounding them, pushing themselves until they have a final product. This is how I've approached writing plays (minus the bottles, substituting them with an extra computer battery and empty mugs with soggy tea bags.) until recently.

Working with Inkblot opened my eyes to the different approaches to writing a play, and the huge revelation that: You Don't Have to Go It Alone

In the summer of '09, when Inkblot was still Antistrophe, I co-wrote All's Fair with Jess Thomas. It was my first full length, serious collaborative writing experience (haven't we all stayed up late with some friends and wrote a ridiculous one act?) and while there were bumps along the way (panic, procrastination, landing on a tone, etc) it was a refreshing take on writing a play.

Part of Inkblot's core mission is collaboration, and we stand firmly by that as we all tackle writing our next piece, Satellites. We had several brainstorming meetings, and would go home and separately write scenes that were inspired by one another. We compiled them, and met this past weekend to put our jigsaw pieces together.

First, we put the title of each scene on an index card.

We then went through each card and decided which scenes were in the piece, and which were to be 'mined' for the editing process.

Then the trickiest part: the order.

After finally landing on a (working) order, we all felt a bit drained, but so so proud. Our joint effort is showing buds, and soon will bear fruit. And we can't wait to drink that sweet juice!

Satellites at the 2011 FURY Factory

We're on our way to creating, developing, and producing the first work-in-progress presentation of Satellites! This June, join us at the FURY Factory, foolsFURY's festival of ensemble theater.

Click here to support the project!

Performance Alert!

Breaking news:

Inkblot Ensemble's new play Satellites will be presented as part of Fool's FURY Theatre's fourth annual FURY Factory festival in June 2011!

Stay tuned for more details, performance dates, and how you can help make it happen!

Leda and the Swan by William Butler Yeats

Tonight's research took an interesting turn, from orbital patterns of moons
to symbolist poetry.

The Greeks and Romans were not too terribly interested in Leda's story -
Helen and her war were much more heavily featured in their arts and
story-telling traditions. But later, especially in the Italian Renaissance,
painters and poets took up the tale, romanticizing the rape, eroticizing
the swan-on-lady action, and exhaulting (?) Leda's place in history, as the
mother of Helen.


Exhibit A:

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
                    Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

- W.B. Yeats


PS, "vague" is from a Latin word meaning "wandering." How could Leda's
hands, trembling and unable to get a firm grasp on any feathers, push
away a god in all his forceful glory?

"...before the indifferent beak could let her drop?" Does Yeats imagine
all this happening IN THE AIR, with Zeus holding Leda's neck in his beak,
beating his wings the whole time?

This is What The Universe Looks Like

I never realized until today, how unable I was to visualize space.

Despite being an avid fan of Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, I have always pictured a black velvet canopy with little white specks whenever I heard the word "space." Science Fiction uses more imagery than simple stars and emptiness, but I had always assumed that these beautiful giant nebulas were the stuff of, well, science fiction.

But today I visited the NASA website - they have a great Astronomy Picture of the Day archive - and look what I found. Much more than "Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are."

There is the most beautiful dust and fire you have ever seen.

And only 4% of the universe is made up of matter we are able to perceive.
96% of the universe is missing. It's nothing. We can't find it.

And it's always getting bigger.

Space. Wow.

"Holy Shit Theatre"

What an inspiring article from Lauren Gunderson of the Huffington Post.

Holy Shit Theatre: An Urgent Age of Badassery.

What is Holy Sh*t Theatre? At the risk of sounding like a 1920's carnival, Holy Sh*t Theatre is a live thrill that might be racy, terrifying, shocking, surprising, bizarre but is definitely riveting, engaging, and high quality. You will feel this theatre. You will sense the performance. It might make you laugh or gasp, but it will make you do it. You'll see something unusual, risky, bold, wild. The boldness will be in the acting, directing, design, music as well as the text. Holy Sh*t Theatre is an electric collaboration of quality, artistry, and intelligence. It needn't be expensive or highly technical. It is no place for irony or nonchalance. It must make you say, think, or yawp: "Holy sh*t, that was awesome."

Holy Sh*t Theatre does not want you to just remember the show - it wants to re-feel it. Every time you think of the production of Blasted your stomach will clench and you will take a fresh breath in honor of what you experienced. That. Is badass, charged-up, Holy Sh*t Theatre.



This is what theater truly is about - making people think and feel until they swear.

Let's do it.