A Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody of The Breakfast Club

Collaborative Stages

Presents

A Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody

of

The Breakfast Club

One Night Only!

Friday, June 25^th @ 9:30pm

Conceived and Directed by

Brian Letchworth & Griffin Parker

You’ve seen the movie.  You can quote the Lines.

Now come check out everyone’s favorite 80’s teen classic…with a twist!

Claire, Andrew, Brian, Allison and Bender find themselves forced together again at

New York’s famous Duplex Cabaret Theatre.  Find out what happens

When this fantastic five stop being polite and start getting FIERCE!

Featuring:

Megan Sass

Jordan Levin

Tim Williams

MacKenzie Mott

Jeff Greenberg

Griffin Parker

Advance Tickets $15.00 + 2 Drink Minimum

Day Of Tickets $20.00 + 2 Drink Minimum

Must be 21 or older to attend

To purchase tickets please visit http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/113204

The Duplex Cabaret Theatre

61 Christopher Street @ 7^th Avenue

Take the 1 train to Christopher Street

www.collaborativestages.wordpress.com

Breakfast Club Contest! Only one more week to enter to win a Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!!

A Shamelessly Unauthorized Quiz Contest : All About The Breakfast Club!!!

ONLY ONE MORE WEEK TO SUBMIT YOUR ANSWERS!!

ALL ANSWERS MUST BE IN BY MIDNIGHT JUNE 5TH, 2010!

ORDER YOUR TICKETS FOR THE SHOW NOW!!

HERE!!!

A Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody of The Breakfast Club

June 25th, 2010 @ The Duplex (9:30pm)!

So I thought it might be fun to do a little contest to get everyone geared up for our next show, A Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody of The Breakfast Club.

At the bottom of this post is a little quiz made up of 15 questions about the movie. Answer all the questions correctly and you could win a $15 gift card to Barnes & Noble!

Here’s how it works:

1. Copy and paste the questions into an email.

2. Answer all the questions in the list.

3. Make sure to list your full name and email address in the body of email!

4. Email answers to SIMMON@COLLABORATIVESTAGES.COM!

5. Please email your answers by Midnight on SATURDAY JUNE 5th, 2010 to be eligible.

And that’s it

What happens after you submit?

I will review all the submissions. Anyone who answered 5 or more questions correctly will be entered in a drawing. Two people from that group will be randomly drawn to win a $15 Barnes and Noble gift card.

Winners will be announced JUNE 15th 2010!!!

Get your thinking caps on – Stick Stickly style – and show us what you got!!! I hope you all will participate!!

QUESTIONS:

1. What is Claire’s last name?

2. What is Bender’s nickname for Andrew?

3. Carl has been the janitor for how long?

4. In the beginning of the movie, a famous singer is quoted. Which singer is that?

5. Which character writes the essay?

6. What song is the movie most famous for? And what is the name of the band that performs the song?

7. Name 3 items in Andrew’s lunch?

8. Why is Allison’s character in detention?

9. In what city and state does the movie take place?

10. How long did John Hughes take to write the screenplay?

11. Why does Brian have a fake ID?

12. What did Bender get for Christmas?

13. How long is the essay supposed to be?

14. What is written on Bender’s locker?

15. How many years has Vernon been a teacher?

‘Til we meet again,

Simmon

PS – Did I forget to mention you should order your tickets to see the show right now? No time like the present. Go to Brown Paper Tickets!

The Breakfast Club : Collaborative Stages Contest!

A Shamelessly Unauthorized Quiz Contest : All About The Breakfast Club!!!

ORDER YOUR TICKETS FOR THE SHOW NOW!!

HERE!!!

A Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody of The Breakfast Club

June 25th, 2010 @ The Duplex (9:30pm)!

So I thought it might be fun to do a little contest to get everyone geared up for our next show, A Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody of The Breakfast Club.

At the bottom of this post is a little quiz made up of 15 questions about the movie. Answer all the questions correctly and you could win a $15 gift card to Barnes & Noble!

Here’s how it works:

1. Copy and paste the questions into an email.

2. Answer all the questions in the list.

3. Make sure to list your full name and email address in the body of email!

4. Email answers to SIMMON@COLLABORATIVESTAGES.COM!

5. Please email your answers by Midnight on SATURDAY JUNE 5th, 2010 to be eligible.

And that’s it

What happens after you submit?

I will review all the submissions. Anyone who answered 5 or more questions correctly will be entered in a drawing. Two people from that group will be randomly drawn to win a $15 Barnes and Noble gift card.

Winners will be announced JUNE 15th 2010!!!

Get your thinking caps on – Stick Stickly style – and show us what you got!!! I hope you all will participate!!

QUESTIONS:

1. What is Claire’s last name?

2. What is Bender’s nickname for Andrew?

3. Carl has been the janitor for how long?

4. In the beginning of the movie, a famous singer is quoted. Which singer is that?

5. Which character writes the essay?

6. What song is the movie most famous for? And what is the name of the band that performs the song?

7. Name 3 items in Andrew’s lunch?

8. Why is Allison’s character in detention?

9. In what city and state does the movie take place?

10. How long did John Hughes take to write the screenplay?

11. Why does Brian have a fake ID?

12. What did Bender get for Christmas?

13. How long is the essay supposed to be?

14. What is written on Bender’s locker?

15. How many years has Vernon been a teacher?

‘Til we meet again,

Simmon

PS – Did I forget to mention you should order your tickets to see the show right now? No time like the present. Go to Brown Paper Tickets!

A Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody of The Breakfast Club

A brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel, and a recluse.

Otherwise known as great fodder for comedy in Collaborative Stages’

Shamelessly Unauthorized Parody of The Breakfast Club!

More info coming soon! Check back often!

Until then enjoy the classic movie trailer!

‘Til we meet again,

Simmon

Deflowering Waldo : The Sound Off

Hey there!

I know it’s been a while since my last post and you have been having daily emotional breakdowns due to the lack of updates, but dry your tears. I have returned.

So this new update is all about Collaborative Stages’ production of Deflowering Waldo by Adam Szymkowicz, playing March 18, 19, and 20 at The Drilling Company Theater (following performances of Somewhere in Between)! We are so excited to be mounting a production of this very unique play. For those of you who don’t know anything about the show, here is a little blurb to give you a taste:

Waldo is having a bad day. He’s afraid of crowds, spiders, skyscrapers, flowers, brown soap and sex. His father won’t stop being Scottish. His therapist wants to seduce him. His ex-girlfriend could spontaneously combust at any moment. And the new woman in his life seems to want something else completely. Will he manage to find true love—or at least mow the lawn? (Provided by Dramatists Play Service, Inc, http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3728)

This very interesting play offers a lot to be considered for both the creative team working on the play and the audience. Discovering the nature of a play’s characters, how they operate, and how they relate to one another is one of the first steps a director or an actor would take in putting together any show. However, sometimes trying to verbally describe a character can be difficult and, in some ways, limiting. Words can only take you so far and it can be helpful to attempt to discover a character in others ways, e.g. through physical and/or vocal exercises. And that’s exactly what we asked the cast of Deflowering Waldo to do! In the video posted below you will see what happened when I asked the cast of the show to pick one sound they felt typified their characters. The results were quite intriguing! Check it out:

To see these characters fully come to life, buy your tickets for Deflowering Waldo at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/101570!!! The show runs March 18, 19, and 20 at The Drilling Company Theater (236 West 78^th Street at B’way, 3^rd Floor). All performances begin at 10pm, following performances of Somewhere in Between (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/100252).

Hope to see you all there!

‘Til we meet again,

Simmon

Collaborative Stages Presents Deflowering Waldo

Deflowering Waldo
by Adam Szymkowicz

Directed by Jeff Crosley

Produced by Sarah Jane Arnegger

March 18th, 19th & 20th @ The Drilling Company Theatre

(Formerly known as the 78th Street Theatre Lab) 236 West 78th Street @ Broadway, 3rd Floor.

Waldo is having a bad day. He’s afraid of crowds, spiders, skyscrapers, flowers, brown soap and sex. His father won’t stop being Scottish. His therapist wants to seduce him. His ex-girlfriend could spontaneously combust at any moment. And the new woman in his life seems to want something else completely. Will he manage to find true love—or at least mow the lawn?

Featuring:
Erin M. Callahan
Cheryl Lynn Crabtree
Heather Dudenbostel
Robert Eigen
Jordan Levin
Megan Sass
Danielle Strauss

Production Staff:
Artistic Director – Brian Letchworth
Production Stage Manager – Jon Mark Ponder
Lighting Designer – Michael Megliola
Costume Designer – Jeni Ahlfeld
Scenic Designer – Elyse Handelman
Sound Designer – Jillian Marie Walker
Property Master – Nicole Gaignat

Performance Schedule:
March 18th – 10pm
March 19th – 10pm
March 20th – 10pm

$12 tickets are available by visiting http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/101570. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door one hour before each show. CASH ONLY AT THE DOOR.

For any additional information please email info@collaborativestages.org.

Collaborative Stages is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Collaborative Stages may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Please visit http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=2618 for more information.

Somewhere in Between : Brother’s Keeper

For me, one of the best parts of working on a play is all the things it makes me think about, all the connections I make to things I’ve already studied, and all the new ideas I stumble across while researching the play’s material. Making new connections and widening the artistic scope is one of the fundamental elements of any artistic endeavor. I think in some ways it helps to simplify and ground a play’s central ideas, as well as gives those ideas dexterity.

As I was considering the major themes of Somewhere in Between, the one theme that remains the most prominent is brotherhood. The definition of brotherhood is flexible in itself. Circumstance and experience can bond people in a way that goes beyond familial relationships. Sometimes connections derived from experience can be the most powerful. In Somewhere in Between, we find two brothers connected very deeply through experience, making their bond unwavering. This kind of fraternity is also found among soldiers, which made me think of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. For those of you who haven’t read the book, here is a short summary courtesy of BarnesandNoble.com:

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and of course, the character Tim O’Brien who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have. We hear the voices of the men and build images upon their dialogue. The way they tell stories about others, we hear them telling stories about themselves.

O’Brien doesn’t spend a lot of time in the book talking specifically about the idea of brotherhood, partially it seems because he wishes to avoid romanticizing the idea of war or the idea of being a soldier, but he makes it clear that these soldiers only have each other in their experience and because of that they are connected forever. Here are these men, boys really, just thrown together. They find themselves in what feels like a different world, with guns in their hands and the weight of war quite literally on their shoulders. Every time I talk about it, it almost sounds like science fiction to me; a world I can never seem to really understand, with a completely different set of rules for survival, thrust into circumstances that seem completely inhumane, and all occurring in what seems like a galaxy far, far away from the life I live. It is that very idea that unites soldiers. Having this experience together, dealing with the physical, emotional, and mental demands of war, they have no other choice but to be connected. Their bond is permanent. Linked by traumatic experience, the soldiers feel little comfort except for that fact that they are in it together. I don’t even mean that as silly and sentimental as it sounds, because it isn’t that way. It’s the simple fact that they are all trying to survive and they have to take care of each other in order to that.

Not such a foreign concept to Somewhere in Between. In the play, the brothers are bonded closely by traumatic experience, trying to support each other to hopefully survive their circumstances. Not always an easy task.

Well that’s all I got!

‘Til we meet again,

Simmon

Somewhere in Between : The Play’s the Thing

Hello everyone! I am Simmon, which is pronounced Sim – in. Don’t worry, nobody knows how to pronounce it I am the Assistant Director/Dramaturg for the new play Somewhere in Between, written by Ryan Sprague and produced by Collaborative Stages. I have been a part of this process since the first reading of the play in May 2009 and I couldn’t be more excited to be part of mounting a full production!

I will be posting new blog spots over the next few weeks as we continue to work on shaping this production and I will be sharing that process with you all. At Collaborative Stages, we are committed to developing an atmosphere of creative cooperation in order to produce the best possible work. Our audience is a crucial part of all the work we do. As we make new discoveries and develop this new work, we would like to involve all of you in that process.

So I hope all of you out there in the mystical void that is the World Wide Web will check back often for updates and post comments! Pretty please!! Below are some pictures from our first rehearsal! Check ‘em out!

‘Til we meet again,

Simmon

Somewhere in Between

Somewhere in Between

presents

Somewhere in Between

Written by Ryan Sprague

(New York, NY) Collaborative Stages is proud to announce the world premiere production of Ryan Sprague’s Somewhere in Between. Directed by Brian Letchworth, this compelling new drama runs March 12th-March 21st, 2010 at The Drilling Company Theatre (formally known as the 78th Street Theatre Lab).

Following the death of their mother, two estranged brothers reunite with a plan to move forward. But when a secret from the past emerges, their inability to assess reality provides a glimpse of what may truly be hell on Earth. Somewhere in Between was developed as part of Collaborative Stages’ Scene & Heard Reading Series and received a reading in May 2009.

“Ryan has written this beautiful play and we are beyond ecstatic that he has entrusted us with its first production,” says director Brian Letchworth. “Throughout the last year of development and rewrites we have continued to marvel at this very special and powerful text. It’s a wonderful challenge for our company.”

Somewhere in Between features an impressive cast of Off-Off Broadway and regional theatre actors: Erik Gullberg as Greg, Jeffrey A. Wisniewski as Joshua and Ariel Woodiwiss as Lissa.

Somewhere in Between is directed by Brian Letchworth and produced by Sarah Jane Arnegger for Collaborative Stages. The Production staff includes assistant director/dramaturg: Simmon Fecho; scenic designer: Elyse Handelman; costume designer: Jeni Ahlfeld; lighting designer: Michael Megliola; property master: Nicole Gaignat; sound designer: Jillian Marie Walker. The production stage manager is Griffin Parker.

Somewhere in Between opens March 12th, 2010 at 7pm and runs March 13th, 16th, 18th, 19th and 20th at 7pm, March 13th, 14th, 20th and 21st at 3pm. All performances will be held at The Drilling Company Theatre (formally known as the 78th Street Theatre Lab). Tickets to Somewhere in Between are $20 and can be purchased by visiting www.brownpapertickets.com. A limited number of tickets will be available one hour before each show at the box office. Discounts and groups rates are available. Please visit www.brownpapertickets.com for more information. The Drilling Company Theatre is located at 236 West 78th Street (at Broadway) New York, NY. You can reach the theatre by taking the 1 train to West 79th Street. For more information please call 631-678-7839 or send an email to info@collaborativestages.org.