Boneyards EVP Log – 10/20/13

Ghost: “Come to us.” Before proceeding I urge you, gentle reader, to read and view the previous show’s (10/17/13) seance summary as there is a direct carryover with this one culminating in my effort to conduct a “Buddhist exorcism,” for lack of a better description, on the 2-year-old “V,” a recent arrival at the synagogue and not one of the 12 original ghosts at this location that I call the Synagogue Saints.

All caught up now? Great, you may proceed.

1920-SeanceBefore proceeding I urge you, gentle reader, to read and view the previous show’s (10/17/13) seance summary as there is a direct carryover with this one culminating in my effort to conduct a “Buddhist exorcism,” for lack of a better description, on the 2-year-old “V,” a recent arrival at the synagogue and not one of the 12 original ghosts at this location that I call the Synagogue Saints.

All caught up now? Great, you may proceed.  At the show’s climax audience volunteers Eric and Kristen personed the board.   We at first assumed we were speaking with an adult spirit (or subconscious ideomotor impulse, depending on your beliefs) but then it kept spelling MAM, MAM, MAM over and over. At first we thought it was their initials but it told us NO.

Do you know anyone here?  YES. 

Who? LAURA.  

Yep, there was indeed a Laura in the house who looked decidedly freaked at seeing her name spelled out on the Ouija board.  How do you know Laura?

The response was more MAM over and over again.

LAURA: I don’t know anyone with those initials.

ME:  It’s talking like a child saying the same word over and over. I think we’ve got a kid here.

MY USHER SUSAN: Do you mean MOM?  YES … MAM, MAM, MAM.

Indeed the repetition was childlike and rather sad.  We imagined a young child calling for its mother over and over and not sure how to spell it. This is extremely similar to my encounter with young MALA/MALALA 2 years ago during BZ:ABOTD who wound up following me from the Blue Grotto in West Philly to Plays & Players Theatre and taking up residence there but that’s another story.  In short, it seems children who have died violent deaths are particularly frightened and stuck, not sure how to move on. Heartbreakingly, they especially want to find their mothers.

Where’s your real mom? KILLED. 

Who killed her? Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Log – 10/20/13”

The America Play in Philly

Up next at Plays & Players theatre in Philadelphia, from Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks comes THE AMERICA PLAY, a remarkable story of an African-American man who looks just like Abraham Lincoln and can be shot by would-be John Wilkes Booths for a small fee as a carnival attraction. When the black Lincoln-impersonator disappears into the Great Hole of History his wife and son go to find him. Questions of race, family, legacy, and the act of theatre itself play out in a surprising and emotionally stunning journey. Leave it to artistic director Daniel Student and Plays & Players’ unique vision and desire not to do the expected with any play: as a timely opening act to The America Play every night several world premiere shorts commissioned from local playwrights collectively entitled “Other American Cousins” (named for the play President Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated, Our American Cousin) will examine “other” Americans’ places in today’s world. This surrealist depiction of American history lands in Plays & Players’ third floor Skinner Studio as the season’s final production April 4th-21st. As a former PDC @Plays&Players playwright-in-residence and current board member I’m thrilled that P&P keeps bringing it on. See you in the sixth borough.

Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo via tumblr.com.

Up next at Plays & Players theatre in Philadelphia, from Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks comes a remarkable story of an African-American man who looks just like Abraham Lincoln and can be shot by would-be John Wilkes Booths for a small fee as a carnival attraction.

When the black Lincoln impersonator disappears into the Great Hole of History his wife and son go to find him. Questions of race, family, legacy, and the act of theatre itself play out in a surprising and emotionally stunning journey.

Leave it to artistic director Daniel Student and Plays & Players’ unique vision and desire not to do the expected with any play:  as a timely opening act to The America Play every night several world premiere shorts commissioned from local playwrights collectively entitled “Other American Cousins (named for the play President Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated, Our American Cousin) will examine “other” Americans’ places in today’s world.

This surrealist depiction of American history lands in Plays & Players’ third floor Skinner Studio as the season’s final production April 4th-21st.

As a former PDC @Plays&Players playwright-in-residence and current board member I’m thrilled that P&P keeps bringing it on.

See you in the sixth borough.  Tickets.

It takes a village…

THE AMERICA PLAY
Directed by Suzana Berger
Starring Lindsay J. Daniels, Langston Darby, Tanya O’Neill, Kirschen Wolford and Steven Wright

OTHER AMERICAN COUSINS
Directed by Malika Oyetimein, written by Quinn D. Eli and Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon

Set Design by Colin McIlvaine

Light Design by Andrew Cowles

Costume Design by Erica Hoelscher

Sound Design by Toby Pettit

Prop Design by Alyssa Velazquez

Dialect Coaching by Melanie Julien

Assistant Direction by Jeffrey Hyman

Dramaturgy by Lena Barnard

 

 

The Great Age reading on 7/12/12 @7pm in Philadelphia

THE GREAT AGE play reading on 7/12/12 @7pm. I’m thrilled to invite you to Philadelphia’s first public reading of Jeffrey Stanley’s unproduced play The Great Age, a ribald sex comedy about 19th century poet Emily Dickinson.

The Belle of Amherst
Judge Lord

I’m thrilled to invite you to Philadelphia’s first public reading of my unproduced play The Great Age, a racy romantic  comedy — about Emily Dickinson.  Set in Amherst, MA, the play is a time-jumping, supernatural romp about Amherst College undergrad Leah, an Emily-obsessed young writer and idealistic Wiccan who’s having an affair with her married English professor, Michael.

When she and her classmate Ashiq, a young Saudi prince, steal Emily’s famed white dress from the Dickinson Homestead and hold a seance to contact Emily’s ghost they they stir up a heap of multidimensional trouble and incur the wrath of junior English department faculty, Mary Beth.

Mabel Loomis Todd

The reading of this work-in-progress is connected to my current PDC @Plays & Players Artists Residency.  It’s directed by the amazing Mark Kennedy and features an incredible cast including–

Austin Dickinson

Laurel Hostak, outgoing president of the Drexel University Players, as the brazen young Leah

Anthony Adair as Leah’s friend Ashiq

Kaki Burns, most recently seen in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties at Plays & Players, as Emily Dickinson

David Todd

Kevin Bergen as Emily’s randy brother Austin Dickinson

Mike Hagan is Emily’s long-distance lover Judge Otis Lord

Bethany Ditnes as 19th century social climber and Dickinson family groupie Mabel Loomis Todd

Eric Wunsch, last seen as Dadaism founder Tristan Tzara in Travesties, as Mabel’s swinging husband Prof. David Todd

Sarah Schol as the frustrated and desperate-to-land-a-husband-before-she-gets-any-older Prof. Mary Beth Hodder

Tina Brock, artistic director of Philadlphia’s premiere absurdist theatre the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (They Bring Good Nothingness to Life) in a variety of madcap roles.

Don’t miss it! Q&A of this work-in-progress afterward with myself, the director, and much of the cast.

WHEN:  Thursday, July 12 @7:00pm

WHERE:  the 1st floor main stage of Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA

COST: FREE

See you there.

[images via poetryfoundation.org and massreports.com]