Einstein’s Dreams – first workshop presentation

Posted on May 25, 2007
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A congenial crowd of supporters and well-wishers gathered at the Arts Bank theater tonight for the first public presentation of the “Einstein’s Dreams” workshop that has been my principal endeavor for the past three weeks (and more). Next Wednesday, we’ll do it again in New York City, but one could scarcely hope for a more congenial and enthusiastic group than the one that attended the show tonight. Albert gave a charming curtain speech in which he gave a bit of the backstory of Einstein in 1905 and Lightman’s novel – inoculating the crowd, as it were, against the potential ambiguities in the performance that was to follow. All listened attentively and applauded enthusiastically as the ensemble of UArts students held the stage for the next hour. Praise from colleagues, students, friends and family after the presentation was most welcome. Meanwhile, my fellow creators and I remain aware of how incomplete the piece is at this point — even as we marvel at how far we’ve come and how much we’ve discovered about it in the past three weeks. When will we continue this exciting work? For the next few months, Gemini the Musical must be the principal focus for me and Albert, and Whit has already crammed his dancecard with freelance gigs for the coming months, the result of his annual campaign to stave off poverty for him and his family. I think it will take a commission or a commitment of resources from a sponsoring organization to mobilize us once more. That prospect doesn’t seem too far-fetched at the moment.

UPDATE: The New York presentation on May 30 is apparently sold out, and playbill.com recently ran a short article on the presentation.

Something to Blog About – Gemini at NYMF!

Posted on May 20, 2007
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I’ve been sitting on this news for a couple weeks, waiting for the news releases to come out, but at last it can be told: Gemini the Musical is going to the New York Musical Festival! Albert and I submitted the show for consideration for their “Next Link” program months ago, and out of over 300 submissions, our show was one of 18 chosen. You can read the full list in the press release that appeared in Playbill, TheaterMania (their release features an antique photo of Innaurato), BroadwayWorld, and the New York Daily News. D’Arcy and I just returned from the Next Link launch weekend, a series of seminars and mixers hosted by NYMF. We both came away impressed with the energy and intelligence of the organizers and the high esteem they seem to have for Gemini the Musical. A lively discussion with a staff dramaturg from NYMF was one of the high points of the visit – plenty of excellent ideas for revisions are on the table. We won’t know show dates and venue til mid-June, though I do know we get a minimum of 6 performances in the festival in a small (99 to 199 seat) house. More – aye, much much more – to come between now and the Festival, which opens September 17 and runs through August 7.

Gadgets in the woods

Posted on May 7, 2007
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Debtor's Inheritance D’Arcy and I trekked out to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education for the opening of Greenmachine, an exhibition of three works which investigate the intersection of nature and technology. This isn’t our typical scene, but the draw was an installation entitled Debtor’s Inheritance, which was created by an artist named Katie Murken working in collaboration with the punks of P’unk Ave, an interactive design firm in South Philly where our son Alex has been working for more than a year. The spectacle at the opening was a curious one: a small horde of urban hipsters (and a few of their progeny) prowling the trails, armed with Treos and Razrs. You see, the exhibit designed by Katie, Geoff and Alex consisted of a series of installations tucked into the woods along the trail, each of which had a sign instructing the observer to send a specified text message; over the next few minutes, a series of short poetic messages were sent to your cell phone, creating a provocative, somewhat ambiguous narrative. The site is a spectacularly beautiful one – I must admit I’ve never been to this corner of the city before, and it was wonderful to feel so removed from the urban landscape. The installations were made of gourds, each of which was cut and painted and some of which contained mirrors, piled in artful arrangements amidst tree roots and floating on ponds and streams. However, the tranquil sounds of nature were punctuated by bleeps and chimes from the spectators’ phones, signalling the arrival of each new message, and each time I peered at a message on my tiny screen, I felt a mixture of annoyance, amusement, incongruousness, and – well, all those things that the artists who created the exhibit no doubt wanted me to feel. I resolved to come back when I could experience the exhibit without the social distractions that accompany an art opening, and give both nature and the artists’ work their contemplative due.

Einstein’s Dreams – first workshop presentation

Something to Blog About – Gemini at NYMF!

Gadgets in the woods

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