My colleagues and I at the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers have been experimenting with making videos. Take a look at behind the scenes footage with artists and theater makers below. Then follow Twin Cities Theater Bloggers on Facebook so that you know when we are live on Facebook with your backstage access.

Laura vanZandt of One Girl, Two Cities interviews Jason Ballweber and Emily Wrolson from Four Humor's The Importance of Being Earnest which plays at the Southern Theater February 17-25, 2017. Laura even asks a couple of my questionsin this Q&A! I'm so honored. <3

Get your tickets and learn more.

Learn why and how you can support the arts! In this arts chat I speak with Sheila Smith from Minnesota Citizens for the Arts and Robert Thompson from Main Street School of Performing Arts (MSSPA).

Sign up for Arts Advocacy Day, which is on February 28, 2017.

For Halloween last year a group of my friends and I listened to scary Victorian ghost stories at the James J. Hill House in Saint Paul. This year I'll be in that same historic building, but I'll be surrounded by a small theater audience walking the halls and experiencing an immersive murder mystery theater performance of Bluebeard's Dollhouse, created by Combustible Company.  I encourage Twin Cities audiences to join the Halloween-esque fun and journey through the James J. Hill House to enjoy puppetry, dance, and live music.

A big thanks to Combustible Company for providing me two tickets. While I wouldn't attend a haunted house like the Soap Factor's Haunted Basement, because I'm a big ol' scardey-cat, I am terribly excited to try my hand at this [possibly terrifying] site-themed work. Ticket prices start at just $17 and support the nonprofit event, but space is limited to approximately 35 tickets for each show since the audience moves around the house with the actors, so get your group of friends together and grab your tickets fast.

In the following artist interview with Erik Hoover from the Saint Paul-based Combustible Company, you can trace the development of this collaborative work through Minnesota and Wisconsin. Erik also shares the inspiration for merging components of the two classic literature pieces Bluebeard and A Doll's House. At the end of the interview I have included some social media links so you can engage with the artists before or after you attend the piece.

Once performances begin, you can watch for reviews to start appearing from the other Twin Cities Theater Bloggers.

What arts or organizations in the Twin Cities inspire you?
Erik: Ten Thousand Things always does good work and their mission is important.

How did Combustible Company come about? Can you tell us a little about the organization?
Erik: Kym Longhi [the other co-artistic director of Combustible Company] and I met while we were both members of Kari Margolis' Adaptors Company and I’ve always trusted her insight. Herocycle was our first collaboration and I knew she was the one to help develop the seed of my idea. We both did the freelance thing for a while in between, but we’re both at a point in our careers where we want to collaborate more seriously to produce our own unique work.

Bluebeard's Dollhouse was developed with help from Red Eye Theater's Works in Progress (emerging artists program) in 2014. Can you tell us a little about how the production has morphed since that time?

Can you talk about how the stories of Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House play off each other in your piece and how you decided that you wanted to combine them together?
Erik: Both of them in their own ways are captivity tales and both contain a measure of violence. However, in one story it’s physical and in the other it’s emotional. At the center of each story is a terrible secret that poses a threat to the heroine and changes her forever. Our goal is to contextualize the emotional abuse in A Doll’s House through the lens of the physical abuse in Bluebeard so the audience can better understand the pain constricting gender roles in our society can impose on all of us. In our story, the struggle to escape is universal.

Bluebeard's Dollhouse will be performed at the James J. Hill House. What has been the most challenging part of adapting a theater piece into a site-specific piece?
Erik: So far, I’d have to say it’s been the simple logistics of moving the audience from location to location without compromising the momentum of the performance.

What's next for Combustible after this project?
Erik: We have a few more ideas that are under development. Ideally, I think we’d like to be able to produce work about once per year but it may take us some time to get there. We’ll also be offering Margolis Method classes.

More Ways to Engage:
Follow Combustible Company on Facebook for behind the scenes photos and up-to-date performance info.

You can connect with @jjhillhouse on Facebook and Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS), which maintains the site, is active on many social media sites including Twitter (@mnhs) and Instagram (@minnesotahistoricalsociety.)

Suggested hashtags: #CombustibleCompany #BluebeardsDollhouse #TCtheater

Le Switch is a new play by Philip Dawkins that was workshopped in the 2014 PlayLabs festival at thePlaywrights' Center. He is a Chicago playwright who is making a name for himself in the Twin Cities. Dawkins' Charm recently graced the stage of Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis this spring. He also has adapted the Dr. Seuss book The Sneetches and Other Stories, which has its premiere at Children’s Theatre Company in 2017. 

Read a short interview with Philip Dawkins from the Playwrights' Center 2014 PlayLabs.

The play follows David, a New Yorker who is a professor of library science and a categorizer of all things. He is challenged with the possibility of categorizing himself as married. He's a commitment-phobe, yes, but his barrier to evolution is his non-traditional, strange, and queer identity. He isn't into the idea of marriage, it's too traditional. He points to his parents' failed marriage as reason not to jump in with both feet. Will David take the leap and learn to compromise? Will there be hilarious and heart-breaking moments? You'll have to experience the show to find out for yourself.

This was my first Jungle Theater experience and I was so thrilled to take in a show during artistic director Sarah Rasmussen's first season at the Jungle. I look forward to seeing what her tenure here will bring to our arts community.

2016 HIGHLIGHTS:

ENTERTAINMENT – Over 300 dancers and musicians perform on three stages throughout the Festival; all free with festival admission.

CULTURAL EXHIBITS – Community members will showcase their distinctive cultures through 40+ special exhibits. Festival visitors can pick up a Festival of Nations Passport to be stamped at each stop.

ETHNIC CAFÉS – Enjoy fare from all over the world at over 35 ethnic food cafés:  from Palestinian falafel to Colombian tamales to Tibetan mo-mos and Norwegian lefse; Lebanese tabouli and Nigerian Moi-Moi (bean cake) to Vietnamese Banh mi (Vietnamese-style sandwiches). Proceeds from each café benefit local non-profit organizations.

ETHNIC DEMONSTRATIONS – Community members will showcase their distinctive cultures through interactive exhibits. This is a fun and interactive activity for the whole family! Many folk artisans practicing crafts passed down through generations and interactive, educational demonstrations will be featured in over 30 booths, including a Mongolian Yurt, a Viking Ship Replica, Indian Henna, and Italian Bocce Ball.

INTERNATIONAL BAZAAR – Shopping from around the globe with booths representing 68 countries, with imported gifts including clothing, jewelry and artifacts from many cultures.
 
Visiting Taiwanese Circus Performers:  FOCA. -  Formosa Circus Arts
The members of Formosa Circus Arts- FOCA come from different artistic worlds including: acrobatics, stunt, dance, or theater and combine all these arts to create a new style of performance, while keeping in mind to develop modern circus and actively promote Circus culture in Taiwan.  Since the beginning, FOCA has combined traditional and modern elements, dance and acrobatics, street culture and theatrical works. FOCA continually implements new concepts and pushes their creativity to develop a unique physical language and an original vision – exploring the relationship between the performers and the public. Performance:  Friday, May 6 at 6 p.m. on the World Stage in Roy Wilkins Auditorium.
 
Guthrie Theater Workshops
The Guthrie Theater will be hosting open performance and storytelling workshops throughout the Festival.

General Public Hours:
Friday, May 6, 4:30 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Saturday, May 7, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Sunday, May 8, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
 
ADMISSION:
At the Door: $13.50 Adults (18+), $8 Students
Ages 5 and under FREE with adult admission

Do you think folks should watch the film or read the book before seeing the opera? Have you? Were you a fan of either?
I have read the book, but I've never actually seen the movie. I'm not a huge horror fan historically, so I read the book in preparation for the opera, knowing that there are some differences between the book and movie and that our production is very definitely based on the novel. I LOVED the book, and would highly recommend everyone read it before, during (only for expert multi-taskers), or after they see our production.

If you could describe the production in three words what would they be?
Potent, gripping, and memorable.

What inspired you to become a singer?
I have always loved to sing, and I was particularly inspired by some vocal greats including Ella Fitzgerald and Barbara Bonney. You can HEAR the emotion in their voices. I am moved by the purity of the voice as well as its incredible communicative ability, and I strive to be vulnerable and strong at the same time in my singing.

What is next for you after The Shining?
Actually, another horror show of sorts! I'll be performing the role of Johanna in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd with Mill City Summer Opera in Minneapolis. Johanna is almost ghostly in a dreamy way, although hopefully she'll make out of that show alive, unlike Mrs. Grady.

This show has sold out due to popularity! Minnesota opera released some standing room only tickets, so please contact them to see if you might be able to experience this for yourself! Standing room tickets are $28 and can only be purchased by calling the Minnesota Opera Ticket Office at 612-333-6669, Monday–Friday, 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

And to learn more about The Shining, please visit mnopera.org/the-shining. There you will find a full synopsis, artist biographies, background notes, audio clips, set and costume renderings, and other company information.

Also on the Artfully Engaging Blog:

• Hector Chavarria premieres his playwrighting debut with 20% Theatre at Intermedia Arts . . .
• Costume Feature: Beauty and the Beast interviews with Chanhassen cast members . . .
  

Has your education prepared you for the work that you are currently engaged in?
I went to school for acting and I can honestly say I had a great education. I learned how to move and present myself on stage. What my education program did not teach me was the harsh reality of the theater industry. I wasn’t taught the hardship of being a bigger built, flamboyant actor of color.  When I started auditioning is when I realized I wasn’t going to make it in this industry as an actor.

How do you keep your skills fresh?
As a singer I keep my skills fresh by singing every day. I sing in my apartment when I’m alone; sometimes I add some dancing to it. A year ago I started taking ballet lessons because I never had the chance as a child but as an adult I now have the option. My goal is not to become a ballet dancer, but it has helped me with my movement in performance. I go see theater and performance art constantly. I like to know who other artists are out there.

Are there any arts organizations or venues in the Twin Cities that inspire you?
Open Eye Figure Theatre is huge inspiration of mine. They produce some of the most intricate work. They use various art forms such as music, dance, and puppetry and create fascinating work! Mixed Blood Theater Company is another theater I respect for their choices of plays dealing with issues of race and sexuality.

Can you tell me about a recent arts collaboration that went well? What made it so successful?
In February, I was asked to be part of a cabaret at Patrick’s Cabaret. Scott Artley, the execute director, had asked me to submit a proposal for a cabaret titled, “My Horrifying Love Life,” which dealt with the struggles of dating and relationships. Around the time Scott had contacted me, I was already working on a piece, just for fun, about my relationships with men. It almost felt like it was fate that I was to perform this piece that I was already working on. What I love about Patrick’s Cabaret is that it collects a group of artists who may or may not know each other to create pieces in various art forms, all possessing a specific theme. I was truly honored to be part of the Horrifying Love Life group.
 
How do you promote your artwork and creative projects?
I use social media primarily.  Another passion of mine is creating photo art. I may be kind of narcissistic when it comes to my selfie count, but what I like to do with my selfies is I like to add a bit of flair to them by using different filters and Photoshop applications and turning pictures of myself into what I think are works of art. Word of mouth is also the best way to promote, so I try to go to as many theater events as I can and not only do I get to meet amazing people, but I also get to inform them on my work and upcoming events.

Images provided by Hector Chavarria 

Could you share an event or two that you have coming up that you are excited about?
The Big Gay Mexican Show is the current project I am working on. This work is part of 20% Theatre's 2016 Q-Stage: New Work Series. I have been working on The BGM Show since November. Through comedy, song, and dance I present stories from my past that have paved the way to becoming the person who I am today. Life hasn’t been easy for the BGM but he is ready to present his story with class, sass, and merriment!

Can you describe the show in three words?
BIG, Gay and Mexican.

How has the rehearsal process been so far? What has inspired you? What has challenged you?
Rehearsals are going great!! My two actors, Jennifer Buckhout and Donn Saylor, are a dream come true. They have been the inspiration for my characters in my show. I did the unconventional thing of casting actors before I knew what they were going to be playing.  It all came together once I knew who I was working with. Their characters came to life in my head and then on paper, and then Jen and Donn brought them to reality. It has been magical. The biggest challenge was finding a rehearsal space. Currently we are rehearsing in a space in Uptown that was provided to us by 20% Theatre Company, so we got lucky. We also do a lot of rehearsals in my lovely living room, which is my primary rehearsal space. My living room has been the birthplace for most of my previous pieces.

Working in the arts field can certainly have its advantages, like opening night parties and champagne receptions, but my favorite is getting to meet artists that I truly admire.

I was invited to "kick it" with the performance artist and comedian Kristina Wong at a meet and greet  called, "Getting deeeep inside Kristina Wong." Sassy, right? I would be out of my mind to turn down an opportunity to meet an honest to God Jezebel writer and self-described "subversive, humorous, and endearingly inappropriate" artist.  And as a fellow feminist and social justice advocate, I adore her ability to take on serious issues with both comedy and compassion.

Soberfish in Seward Minneapolis was the venue for folks to welcome Kristina. She walked right up to me and introduced herself. I snapped some shots to share:

Photo: Kathy Mouacheupao (L) & Kristina Wong (R)
Kristina shows off her handiwork, a felt vagina puppet,
that she creates and then donates the proceeds to Volunteer Action Network.

Photos: Sha Cage (L) & Eyenga Bokamba (R)
Artist Sha models one of the dresses that Kristina sells for charity and poses for a few shots with Eyenga who is the new Executive Director of Intermedia Arts.

And even if you don't work in the arts you will feel like a VIP at the Friday night reception (with snacks and music) following opening night of The Wong Street Journal. Just make sure to get your show ticket ($15 in advance/student/senior or $18 at the door) because Kristina is only in town for the weekend.

The Wong Street Journal 
Written & performed by Kristina Wong
Directed by Emily Mendelsohn

A new solo theater work combining self-skewering personal narrative with a hilarious interrogation of America's legacy on the rest of the world. Critics are calling The Wong Street Journal “extremely entertaining,” “hilarious,” and “deeply thought-provoking.”


DATES:
7: 30 on March 11, 2016 | Friday
7:30 on March 12, 2016 | Saturday

Jenna Papke is an arts administrator and theater artist who  is currently the Executive Director at Arts' Nest in Uptown Minneapolis. Her organization opened their space at 2605 Hennepin Ave in November of 2014 at the the previous home of the Brave New Workshop (before BNW moved to downtown Minneapolis.)  The space has been branded Phoenix Theater (or just Phoenix) and includes a cafe, office space, and rehearsal/classroom spaces. Arts' Nest supports new work and assist emerging artists and also facilitates space rental at Phoenix. As you will read in the following interview with Jenna, the organization has ambitious goals that have already created a a multi-genre community art space.

Kendra: Tell me about yourself and your arts background.

Jenna: I was born in Minneapolis. I attended South High which is where I first got really into theater. I've always been a storyteller. I thought maybe I would go into creative writing but that is not necessarily where my skill set lies. I was 15 and I fell into theater and I never fell back out again.
 
I went to the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. My dual interests have always been administration and directing. There were some amazing teachers and people I took one-on-one classes with, but the directing Master of Fine Arts program had been disbanded a couple of years before I got there.  Instead, I got some experience through the student theater, which might not have been a bad thing. Directing is such a personal thing; there is only a certain amount of it that can be taught. Most of it you just kind of have to figure out through practice.

The best thing that happened to me in college was the internship semester I spent in London with a West End producer and I just learned everything. The six months hands-on in London were worth more than the three other years combined.

After college I spent a couple of years making work on my own, producing and directing, followed by a few years working together with former classmates under the name Six Elements, where we did some great work.

Two weeks after I parted ways with Six Elements I was approached by a guy I knew who legitimately said, "I'm going to buy a theater but I don't want to do the boring business stuff." And that is where I am today. It is really the perfect melding of the artistic and business sides. Plus, I get to do some directing.

The mission of Arts' Nest is to work with emerging artists, giving them access to space, connections, and the information necessary to be successful. The Phoenix Theater, which we call a project of Arts' Nest, is our physical location but Arts' Nest is the legal entity. I knew in order to make this work financially we'd also have to be a rental venue and we couldn't use every week to just do Fledgling Projects. I wanted a clean space that had a neutral identity so that many groups could come in and use the space. There have been many points in my time here in the Twin Cities where I've been to a theater three or four times before realizing, "Oh, there's a company here with the same name. I didn't know that." I wanted to avoid this by having separate names for each, which may confuse some, but I still stick by the fact that it was a good idea.

Phoenix as a space and as a community has come to mean a lot of things even separate from Arts' Nest. The plan down the line is for more of the weeks to be used for our mission-driven projects and fewer of them to be for rentals, but that will come with time; we are still only a year old.

​Kendra: Can you talk about some of the challenges and the things you've learned creating Arts' Nest?

Jenna: I've taken many jobs that would sort of train me for this experience, but sometimes the price of ignorance is very high, like not realizing that I had to deal with unemployment insurance. But even in those first few months it was all about getting the building ready. We got in here and the electrical and the plumbing had to be redone and all on a very tight timeline. Theater people run on deadlines; there is a show with an audience. I’ve discovered that doesn't work in the construction field, where it's just dealing with the sheer difference in work mentality.

It's been completely worth it, however; just having this place. On a night when everything clicks and the audience is happy and the artists are happy, being able to make things happen, and being able to reach out to a young artist and say, "You know what we don't have enough of in this town? A thing that you do." And they can come in and just have a smashing success, or a moderate success. It's just why I wanted to do it in the first place.

​​Kendra: Tell me more about the Fledgling Projects.

Jenna: There are a number of things we do under the Arts' Nest banner, and Fledgling is our production assistance program where most of the energy goes. It's a very simple application process on the Arts' Nest website: just fill out a little bit about yourself, what kind of artist you are, and an idea of a project you want to do. It's not to say you necessarily need to pitch a project; we also love to get applications saying, "I'm a lighting designer who recently came to town and want more opportunities."

We collect applications on a rolling basis and then three times a year the board sits down and reviews them to pick the ones that seem to fit in with our mission; ones we can help make successful.

​​Kendra: Do you feel like at this point you have a built-in audience for the venue that comes from show to show?

The biggest thing we have going for us is 50 feet of window ads on Hennepin Avenue. We put up posters and there are people walking by who stop to look. We also have a quickly growing Facebook page and an email list of 700+ people.

​​Kendra: I want to ask about your philosophy for building and keeping healthy collaborations, since you work with so many people here.

Jenna: One thing that we have been working to push here is bringing together different kinds of art and rethinking what art is. We work to display and sell visual art, so we are kind of becoming a gallery space. We are trying to do it in a thoughtful way, and it has been a learning process for me. Visual arts is something I always enjoyed and something I would consume as a viewer, but it's a different world. Why should these worlds be so distinct? That's why when we made the sign I pushed really hard to just make it Phoenix. I didn't want "Phoenix Theater." I didn't want to close off the possibilities that exist. The goal, down the line, is to have this place open on a more regular basis. So few performing venues have lobbies the way this one does, and to make it a networking space is a goal of mine.

It all comes down to your collaborators. Finding the right ones, knowing how to communicate with them, respecting them and trusting them. It's why the community can get very closed off, because sometimes it's hard to take the risks to find new collaborators.

​​Kendra: How do you get the word out and the community involved? How do people learn about what's coming up next for you?

Jenna: It has been a slow process. I keep saying yes anytime someone wants to talk. The Minnesota Theater Alliance did a profile on us. We have a bunch of memberships now including Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Minnesota Theater Alliance, and Minnesota Playlist. We are trying to become part of the community so that the word spreads in an organic way. We can't afford ads. We've also started right away with our programming even though we weren't necessarily in a firm financial spot to do all these Fledgling programs. I really wanted to get the word out that this is what we do and who we are. A lot of it is spreading from people we have already worked with and who have had positive experiences. We are definitely seeing an uptick in interest.

Tickets:
$20 or Pay-What-You-Can

About the show:
Cynthia Debrett is a brilliant espionage agent, careless with her safety, fiercely devoted to her country, and quite painfully in love with her best friend, Robin Bell. Robin however, is quite taken with the newest agent in Cynthia’s unit and knowing nothing of her unrequited love, begs her help in getting closer. Fighting fascism is easy. Coping with a breaking heart, much more difficult.

Matthew A. Everett is the playwright in residence at Workhouse Theatre Company in Minneapolis. He is a colleague of mine and for a while now I have been bugging him to sit down and talk to me about his upcoming work. He finally gave in and I am pleased to present this interview that covers a lot of ground including: Matthew's playwrighting residency at Workhouse, the use of show hashtags, his educational path to working in the arts,  and info about his new play in development TV Boyfriend.

Enjoy the interview and support Matthew's work by attending an upcoming free play reading at the Capri Theater in North Minneapolis. He gave me a sneak peek of the script for TV Boyfriend and I am telling you that you do not want to miss your chance to experience the public reading of his engaging "coming out romance!"

If you could describe TV Boyfriend in three words, what would they be?

Matthew: Well, the subtitle for the play is “a different sort of fairy tale” but if I had to hold it to just three words, they would be: coming out romance.

How did you decide that TV Boyfriend was a play that you were going to
write?
Matthew: I tend not to like plays where people talk about theater.  I also have a bias against plays that have writers - or any artists - as characters.  I feel like it shows a lack of imagination.  Come on, write about real people.  The whole world doesn’t revolve around theater.

TV Boyfriend is a play that has both of those things - a playwright as one of the main characters, and a bunch of people who keep talking about theater.  It’s so meta it makes me nervous.  A writer friend of mine laughed and told me it’s almost like this play had to trick me into writing it.

The trick was initiated by Red Theater in Chicago. They do a writing challenge in the month of November each year. They post a prompt each day, and you can either write to the prompt or not, but you have to write something and post it in their online forum by 7am the next morning.  So you not only write it, but everyone else is also going to be able to read it.  Everyone puts $15 in the pot, and Red Theater takes percentage off the top as a mini-fundraiser. The remainder of the money is split between however many of the writers who sign on make it all the way to the end of the month writing something every single day.  I figured it would be a good way to get me to refocus on my writing and blast past my internal censor.  Plus I might get raw material for a new play or two. There were 57 writers participating this year, 31 of us, made it to the end writing every day. So I got a new play, and a $22.06 payout, out of it. Not bad.

Halfway through the month of November they posted this:

“Writing Challenge – Treat Yourself - Write something that only you understand and that probably only you enjoy. If you're not giggling to yourself or blushing you're doing it wrong. Listen to your Id. Be naughty! Be coded. Be fun. Comment on your work as you do it. Break and forget any and every rule except that writing can be FUN. F-U-N! Crack yourself up. Fall in love with yourself again. Masturbatory writing can unleash some wonderful creative energies. Treat yourself.”

That’s where the first half of the first scene of the play came from, and it’s stayed essentially the same.  Four days later I thought, “I think I know what the scene between the writer and the sister looks like.”  So instead of writing to that day’s prompt, I wrote that scene instead. For the next twelve days, every day I ended up writing a new scene for TV Boyfriend. That got me almost to the end of the month.  And when I looked up, I had almost 130 pages of dialogue. There’s gotta be a play in there somewhere.  So I started putting it in order and giving it some structure. Then I realized I needed some bits between the scenes to allow the actors to change their clothes if nothing else, and also to allow the audience to mentally make the transition from present to past and back again. One of those things was journal entries from the character of Jake. The other was a song written by the character of Ken - who, like me, is learning to play the guitar. So it didn’t need to be a great song, it just needed to be a song. Which I’ll be playing at the reading in the different sections where it appears in the script.

So in a lot of ways, TV Boyfriend decided that I was going to write it, rather than the other way around.

What's your favorite line from the play...right now, of course, since the
play is still being developed?
Matthew: There are so many I really like, that’s a tough one.  Also I’m not sure how much sense any of them make out of context. But if I was forced to choose, it’d probably be: “As far as I’m concerned, you are the prize in this box of Crackerjack.”

Just because it’s almost unbearably sweet in the context of the scene. So it’s the line that always makes me happy.

Who do you think will appreciate this play? Who is this show for?
Matthew: Anyone who appreciates a good love story, but I think anybody gay looking for a positive story dealing with love, relationships and coming out will have a special connection to it. And theater junkies and writers will have a lot they can latch onto as well.

What inspired you to become a Playwright?
Matthew: I’d been writing almost as soon as I could read when I was a kid. I even had a little red, white and blue plastic typewriter (remember typewriters?) as a birthday present at a young age. When I got involved in theater, which was inevitable since my mom was heavily involved in the local community theater, I realized I had a facility for dialogue. Prose was never my strong suit, so playwriting was a perfect fit.

What was your educational path and did it prepare you well for a life in
the arts?
Matthew: I got a fantastic hands-on liberal arts education at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana - a double major of Communications (Radio/TV/Film) and Theater. I was accepted there and at a bigger name school but the difference between the campus tours is what sold me.  At ISU, they took us into TV studio and got our hands on the cameras and the control room. The other school pointed out the building the TV studio was in up the hill as we walked past, essentially saying that if we also went to grad school here, we’d eventually get a chance to play with the toys. While attending ISU I got to do a little bit of everything - acting, writing, directing, design, stage management, shop, and tech crew.  (I started as just a Theater minor but after my first year, I’d spent so much time at the theater that I figured I might as well make the double major official.) I learned what my strengths and weaknesses were, and I also learned to appreciate the role everyone plays in getting a script up on a stage in front of an audience.

My grad school focus at the Yale School of Drama was in stage management, which gave me an even greater appreciation of everyone’s role.  But the writing was always there. My best friends in grad school were the playwrights. I just didn’t trust myself enough as a writer yet. I moved to Minneapolis after grad school and got a job as a stage manager. Finally, I’d spent one too many days in rehearsal saying to myself, “I can write better plays than this.” So I sat myself down and figured, either shut up and do your job, or get out of stage managing, take a desk job and focus all your creative energy on writing. I gave myself five years until I’d start to worry if I’d ever get a play on stage. I got my first production in three years. I like to think my background means I always have an eye on how the story can be told, and what I’m asking the creative and production teams to do - writing for the way actors speak, understanding what set and costume changes require in real time, etc.

What are some upcoming projects that you are excited about?
Matthew: Of the ideas for scripts I’m noodling over at the moment, first in line is a trilogy of short plays following the same set of characters through their 20s, 30s and 40s, using an ensemble where each of those age brackets takes prominence in one story, and serves as the supporting players for the others. The whole thing pivots around an atheist and a minister meeting and falling in love, and having to deal with the notions of how religion, faith and belief factor into their life together. Various manifestations of God make cameo appearances. The overall working title is The God Trilogy. The goal is to design them in such a way that they can be done separately or presented all together, interwoven and reflecting off one another thematically in a fashion similar to the way Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy of films does.

There’s also a riff I’m doing on Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in which all but one of the characters are women, called Autumn Roses.

Also I’m trying to revisit and finalize the script for Love’s Prick my modern day riff on Shakespeare’s As You Like It that I workshopped back in 2007.

I don’t have any other readings or productions in the pipeline at the moment, but I’m pushing to get more of my scripts out there in the world so with luck that will be changing soon.

I was really excited to see that you are using a hashtag for the show!
#TVBoyfriend. Is that something new for Workhouse and what do you see
as the benefit of including that in your show information?
Matthew: Workhouse is trying to figure out the most effective way to generate interest in the different plays that are being presented in The Greenhouse Project monthly play reading series. Hashtagging #GreenhouseProject and #PlayTitle is something we’re playing with, along with trying to pull daily quotes from the play to see if we can pique people’s interest with things that are funny or odd out of context - clues to the play that will only make sense if you come and hear the whole thing.

How did Workhouse Theatre end up doing a reading of your play this February?
Matthew: This wasn’t the plan. Another play and playwright were on the schedule for February, but just a couple of weeks ago the playwright in question contacted us saying he was having health issues and needed to postpone. As we’re still working our way through reading scripts and deciding what to put in our March and April slots on the schedule for The Greenhouse Project, having February suddenly open up as well was a challenge.  “TV Boyfriend” is still very new in its development. It didn’t even exist in October of last year. But I’d banged it into sufficient shape through my writing group and their feedback that I felt comfortable showing it around. Plays in progress is what the reading series is supposed to be for, so to buy us some time to read and decide on other plays for March and April, we decided to put TV Boyfriend on the calendar for February.

We’re really trying to grow the audience for the reading series and help introduce writers and audiences and local artists to each other with The Greenhouse Project. Hearing the words read aloud by actors is invaluable to a playwright. Hearing an audience’s response, both in the moment of the reading and in discussion afterward, is equally invaluable. So the more, the merrier. Come out and support new work and help it grow and get better.

Mn Artists has a well-developed series of discussions and events throughout the year called the 4 X Forum that brings together arts and culture thought-leaders and practitioners for free public arts conversations. These multidisciplinary panel discussions typically last around two hours and tackle tough questions from a variety of perspectives. While most of my personal and professional experience has been in theater and music, having literary, film, and physical art makers and creatives from other industries at the table for discussions has enriched my views and has elevated the understanding of our commonalities.

These well-attended events are often standing room only. The energy in the room can be palpable and the final portion of the discussion is an open-ended question and answer session that I find to be lively and on point. The organizers of the event also encourage taking the conversation online by providing event hashtags and featuring panelist's Twitter handles for quick reference.

If you are interested in the discussions the Walker Channel of the Walker Art Center has a vast collection of art focused dialogues and interviews available as a free resource, including the video  below Art Not Specified about categories of art and genre bending.

Below are some of my favorite highlights from the 1/14/16 4 X Forum Artists as Critics which is a subject that I am increasingly interested in due to my new participation in the Twin Cities Theater Blogger group and my growing arts coverage on this blog Artfully Engaging, which I started in June of 2015. I hope you find these Tweets as useful and inspiring as I did while attending and live tweeting last night at the Walker Art Center. I especially valued the comments about opinion vs. critical thought. Enjoy...

The full audio for this conversation will be available on the MN Artists blog.

Follow the conversation by engaging with MN Artists on Twitter and consider commenting below with your own take on #MnArtsCrit and your experience and hopes for arts criticism.

Did the thought of starting a theater company scare you?

Ben: YES. It still scares me every time we produce, in a way. Five years in, we have a good infrastructure. We have built a reputation for doing good work and for providing the people we work with with a supportive structure and a positive experience. But it always feels like organizing a party with literally no idea if anyone is going to attend, even though we've had consistent audiences since our inception.

I think it's a risk any time you go out there and say, "We're here, we're doing this show, come see it," because people have so many choices nowadays in terms of their entertainment dollar. Add to that the fact that we're doing all new works, which are tougher to get people to come see, plus the fact that we run in rep with ourselves each time we produce, it's a huge undertaking, and it's a huge risk to keep doing every time out. But I actually think that's what keeps us going. It forces us to get more creative and push ourselves every time out, and even if at times it seems crazy, it also acts as fuel. It makes us try something new each time we produce.

Could you share a recent successful collaboration between Freshwater Theatre and another organization? What made the collaboration so successful?

Ben: We have done shows as fundraisers for other good causes a couple of times over, most recently with the Minnesota Innocence Project during our run of The Man in Her Dreams last fall. That show was about a man wrongfully accused (and found guilty) of sexual assault. The show laid bare the inherent issues within our justice system that lead to the kinds of convictions the Innocence Project fights to get overturned.  We raised money for them and we also had a great talkback with them after one of our performances--maybe the best talkback I have ever been a part of. People were passionate about the topic, and I think we all learned a lot from it.

What improvements do you envision for the future of the Twin Cities theater community?

Ben: The changes at a lot of our major institutions have seen women and people of color taking on leadership roles that even five years ago they might not have had. The diversity of the voices in the theater community here is important, because it will more deeply reflect the voices of our audience, and we need to keep fostering and supporting those changes. This is not to say that I don't think white guys like me have something important to give to theater still. If I thought that, I wouldn't be doing it. But the status quo needs to be challenged more.

What's your favorite part about the Minnesota winter?

Ben: I do enjoy the changing of the seasons deep down inside, even if I grumble about it. But it's really good to go through the yearly process of renewal, like the way our seasons do. Our springs and summers get so jam packed as Minnesotans try to pack in all our outdoor living into something like 6-8 weeks. You also have the Fringe in there as well, so that time of year is often incredibly hectic.

The weather in the fall and winter forces us to slow down, which allows us to generate new ideas and recharge our batteries. You find that by the time January or February roll around, people are starting to work on their next projects, so the holiday months really encourage us to slow down and reflect, which can be vital to keeping the creative juices flowing.

What's next for you artistically?

Ben: Freshwater Theatre is celebrating our fifth year by remounting the very first show we did as a company, with a double bill of Table 12: A Play at a Wedding and An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein presented together in one fun night of theater. Table 12 will also mark the first time I will be onstage in a professional production in almost two years, so that's exciting! And as always, we'll have another show running in rep called We Just Clicked, which will be another of our award-winning anthology shows, this time about online dating.

I am also currently in sort of "pre-production" stages for a couple Minnesota Fringe Festival show ideas. And I'm working on a new solo show with Scot Moore called Break Your Heart, which chronicles a breakup that sent Scot on an accidental trip around the world, while examining what happens when we get our hearts broken, how we can put the pieces back together, and why the experience of such hurt and heartbreak can actually turn out to be a positive experience. Scot will likely tour the piece to a couple other Fringes, and we are submitting it for the Minnesota Fringe as well.

I'm also working with Ariel Leaf again for the upcoming Fringe. We're submitting two different show ideas, one of which will be another of her very personal storytelling shows. It's been a lot of fun working with her on those productions and I am excited to get back together with her to dive in a little more. The other idea will raise a few eyebrows if that gets in, so I'll leave that as a little surprise for now.

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What inspires you to create art with Freshwater Theatre?"

Ben: My first love was being onstage and I went to college for theater performance. I enjoyed creatively telling stories and that feeling of entertaining others, and I still do. I like the feeling of live performance; it can affect the audience in very fascinating and sometimes profound ways.

Since starting Freshwater Theatre I have been onstage less as I have found tremendous fulfillment in producing and directing, enabling others to do their best. That is at the core of what we do at Freshwater Theatre. By not only producing theater, but prioritizing the production of new work, we are constantly trying to be a facilitating force for artists in every facet of theater-making: actors, directors, designers, stage managers, and playwrights.

We work primarily on plays by writers located or originally from the upper Midwest so that we can hear our own stories onstage. So many plays are set in New York or Los Angeles, and they're great, but that ignores the experience of the rest of the country.

We really take that old Joan Miro quote to heart: "The more local something is, the more it is universal." That's what inspires us.

How do you decide what programming you include in your season? How does your upcoming musical Pioneer Suite fit into Freshwater's mission and your vision for this year's season?

Ben: Our process is a combination of a lot of things. Sometimes we come up with an idea for a show just from an internal conversation like we did when we created Better (or) Worse, which was an anthology show about marriage that we produced right around the time Minnesota was voting on whether to amend our state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Sometimes we choose something that was submitted to us, like we did for The Gifted Program, which was submitted to us by playwright Ruben Carbajal basically after a random Twitter interaction he and I had about basketball, of all things.

Ruth and I try to read all of our submissions and when we read something we both like we bring it to the rest of the company to do a reading. Then we decide whether we want to include the work in a future season.

We also have a couple in-house playwrights at Freshwater Theatre: co-artistic director Ruth Virkus and company member J. Merrill Motz. The Beacon From Belle Isle was a play we commissioned from Motz a couple years ago, because he had written a few great short plays for our anthology shows. We thought that he would come up with something fascinating if he did a full play made up of a series of short plays around a theme. Given how Michigan is another "freshwater" state and Motz's home state, we thought turning our attention there seemed like a good change of pace that would fit our mission. Then, as America was still reeling from the aftereffects of the Great Recession, and Detroit in particular started making headlines, we found that the play was very timely.

Pioneer Suite is another commission, springing from a piece written by Keith Hovis for our anthology show, Archival Revival. The piece was Mrs. Housel: A Suicide Suite, inspired by news clippings from the late 1800s in Minnesota. Mrs. Housel was amazing and confirmed for us that Keith was a remarkable budding talent.  We had seen his musical Teenage Misery in the 2013 Minnesota Fringe Festival and we were really impressed, so when Housel came along and blew us away, we knew we wanted to see what he could do with a full-length piece. We asked him to expand on Housel and what he came back with was Pioneer Suite. 

There are so many playwrights here, thanks in no small part to the existence of the Playwrights' Center. We are really proud to be a local company that produces good works from local playwrights. We are always accepting submissions via our website and we hope to keep getting more new work from local writers who can knock our socks off like Keith did.

Can you give us an sneak peek into what audiences can expect when they attend Pioneer Suite?

Ben: Bring tissues. Keith's music is powerful and we have an incredibly talented cast. Pioneer Suite features the compelling stories of real women from Minnesota history.

Mrs. Housel is a one-woman musical about a woman who attempted suicide nine times. She witnessed her husband killing a man and went to authorities about it but because of her "reputation" nobody believed her. And incredibly that's just part of her story.

Martha, Who's Happy takes a look at Martha Dorsett, the first woman accepted to the Minnesota State Bar Association, and her relationship with her husband, C.W. Dorsett, who was an incredible partner and champion for her cause. While it's very much a story about a powerful woman who blazed a trail and made history, it's also about how a truly great partnership can make big things happen, and can sustain you, through good times and bad.

The third piece, Melancholia, is about Mary Carpenter, a pioneer farmer's wife whose correspondence with family and friends comes together as a 13-year record of what it was like to live on the prairie and all the hardships thereof. It is also likely that she suffered from clinical depression in a time when there wasn't a term for that. We really don't know how many lives were lost to the hardships and isolation of life on the prairie and it was their struggle to survive that paved the way for the life we live in this area today.

The heart that is at the core of each of these pieces is so big. They're all very human stories about real people. And because it's about women and their struggles against the society they were born into, they're still very relevant, even as life changes with technology and changing norms and belief systems, their struggles are still very relatable today. 

What's your favorite line from Pioneer Suite?

Ben: There is a line in one of the songs, "you can choose to be happy, or not," which relates to Martha Dorsett and her choice whether to keep practicing law despite all the roadblocks set in front of her or to change careers. That line speaks to me on so many levels. 

We all have to go through those questions at different points in our lives, whether to keep chasing dreams or to shift directions into a different life. We have to follow our heart at times and our head at other times, and that means making really tough calls. Sometimes that means staying the course, but sometimes it means admitting that you're tired of being Sisyphus, or tired of dealing with the same crap every day, or that you need a change of pace, or whatever it is. Sometimes choosing to be happy also means putting down your burdens or your crusades and choosing a different path.

Life is so short. We might as well enjoy it along the way.

Can you explain more about running in rep (repertoire) with yourselves?

Ben: Yes, we run in rep with ourselves on every show, giving us a chance to expand on the conversation started by our "mainstage" offering with smaller pieces that might be good opportunities for younger artists just starting out to get some experience or for experienced artists to try something new and different.

This fall we are presenting a remount of Pocahontas, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mouse, which was chosen as the winner of our fourth Fringe Consolation Remount. We had a great group of applicants for it this year and we are excited to give another young composer a chance to produce their work with us. It's a really funny skewering of our American tradition of cultural appropriation told as a musical.

And we have our Night Swim series, which changes every time out to fit the theme of the shows we are doing. This time, since we are producing in October, we thought it would be fun to invite folks to join us to tell ghost stories again, so we have a night of ghost stories set up for after the performance on October 9. It will be a fun time.

What has been one of the more successful tools you have used to promote your theater work and engage your audiences?

Ben: We have leveraged Facebook quite a bit in promoting our shows. This time around we have a great preview video (below) that has gotten a lot of attention on Facebook, which has been gratifying. People have been watching it, liking it and sharing it. This has helped improve the visibility of our show.

What's your favorite part about being involved with the arts in the Twin Cities?

Ben: It's such a robust community and there is such a variety of work being done. It keeps growing and changing all the time and it does really feel like a community, too. I think most people in the community today truly want to see one another succeed, because that means we all succeed. I know we at Freshwater feel that way, and we've seen that reflected back at us over the years. 

Hope Cervantes plays the role of Cali Hogan in Frank Theatre's production of Things of Dry Hours. In the following interview she shares the challenges she faced during rehearsal, how she spreads the word about her theater projects and her hope for the future of theater in the Twin Cities.

What's your favorite line from the play?

Hope: "We can't study our own mind cause it's broken."

What's the rehearsal process been like so far? What has inspired you and challenged you?

Hope: We definitely had to start with a lot of table work. There are just so many components to excavating this play. First off, I had to do a lot of research on the roots of the Communist Party. (I was totally unaware of Black people's involvement with the Party.) Then, I had to research the times of the play (1932 in Alabama). Cali is a washerwoman and oftentimes they were subjected to sexual assault. A good source for that was a book entitled "To 'Joy, My Freedom." We have also been very lucky to have such great dramaturges, such as Steve Matuszak and Peter Rachleff. We spent a lot of time dissecting Naomi's dense and oftentimes poetic language and trying to make sense of it. It was also important to make it feel natural in our mouths.

Who do you think will appreciate this play? On the Frank Theatre website there is a quote that says, "We're not for everyone." Who is this show for?

Hope: This show is for anyone who wants to be challenged and enlightened. It's for people who are fed up with the status quo and even for those who are comfortable. We want them to get uncomfortable so that they may be able to question their own beliefs, morals, and convictions.

How do you promote your theater work and reach out to prospective audience members?

Hope: I actually often talk to people on the bus, on the street or wherever I may be. Strangers are often drawn to me and I use that blessing to spread the word. I also do some old fashioned canvassing. I hit up my local coffee shops or thrift stores and leave lots of postcards. I am a bit old fashioned. I need to get with the times with Twitter, Instagram or whatever these kids are into these days. Oh yeah, and the Facebook.

What improvements do you envision for the future of the Twin Cities arts community?

Hope: I would love to see more female directors given bigger opportunities to share their gifts. I would also love to see more people of color given opportunities to share their stories. Of course we would not have these stories without gifted playwrights such as Josh Wilder, Shavunda Horsely, Jessica Huang, and Sha Cage, just to name a few. My good friend Jamil just co-founded a festival for black artists (New Griots Festival) and I think that is amazing! Personally, I would like to be more involved in the community. I think theater starts there.

There is power in numbers. The more that we collaborate to improve our surroundings and create opportunities for each other, the better. Let's love and support each other and see each other as collaborators as opposed to competitors.

Stephanie Nevilles is a Minneapolis pianist and composer. She will be featured along with other Black emerging artists at The New Griots Festival, August 13-15, at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown.

Stephanie shared some thoughts about participating in this new arts festival: "I want to create experiences through my music and blend genres. I also want to break barriers placed on people of color and women.

"Having an outlet for emerging Black artists to share their work [is exciting]. There is such a wide range of artists participating in this festival. It's important for the community to see and experience the variety of Black art and artists.  I'm very excited to see everyone's work and to share my work with the community."

As part of the festival Stephanie will be performing original music pieces live at The Lost Souls Room on Saturday, August 15 at 4pm. She will also be teaching a free community class Creating An Experience: Music With and Without Words, which is open to all skill levels.

Find more performances and classes on The New Griots Festival schedule at www.newgriotsfestival.com.

Listen to Stephanie's work on Sound Cloud and YouTube.

Related: Interview with The New Griots Festival co-producer Jamil Jude