"Clybourne Park" Director Francesca McKenzie

“I really believe things are about to change for the better.  I firmly believe that.” – Bev, Act II

We hope you can join us for tonight’s premiere of “Clybourne Park” at the Shadowbox Theatre. Work on this project started a year and a half ago, with me sitting in bed reading a script that made me laugh and cry at the same time. What seemed a far-fetched dream has become a fully staged production, a partnership with an exceptional local non-profit, and a process of transformation for Cripple Creek. We knew this show had to be ours because of its artistic merit, its alignment with our mission, and its inherent strength as an extremely entertaining piece of theatre. Most importantly, “Clybourne Park” explores issues that are relevant to and extremely controversial in New Orleans.

Cripple Creek’s mission is to create works of relevance in order to provoke social action. “Clybourne Park” has compelled us to ask difficult questions:  Why are we here making theatre in New Orleans? Are we making work in New Orleans or for New Orleans? What was here before Katrina, and what have we displaced by our presence? How does our amazingly creative and inventive theatre community honor what was here before, as we create now? Almost eight years after the storm, we are coming to terms with the fact that we are intimately rooted to these grounds; this production is our Company’s exploration of what our responsibility is to that truth. We have many questions, and by living in these questions, our Company has discovered pillars of certainty to anchor to: We gather our Comrades at the same time three nights a week to engage in our questions as a community. We create an intentional space to be entertained and to catalyze change of habits and thought. We cannot provoke social action unless we, as a company and as individual artists, demand it from ourselves first.

RSVP ONLINE: Purchase advance tickets for “Clybourne Park”

This show exposes us to issues that can be uncomfortable: racism, our country’s legacy of systemic oppression, white privilege, gentrification.There is a lot to be pessimistic about in a country, supposedly “post-race” because we have a black President, where people equate dark skin with dark motives and a nervous 17-year old boy in a hoodie is seen as a threat. When speaking to the issues in “Clybourne Park,” the playwright Bruce Norris said, “I think there’s something essentially rotten in human nature that will not allow us to resolve those problems.” Cripple Creek likes to think more like Bev in Act I. We do have hope for a better future and we strive to create work that paves that way. We invite you to enjoy the production, look around our lobby and the neighborhood outside, and share what you think.

Production Coordinator Andrew Vaught

The creation of a world is the challenge that faces designers in any production. How does the confluence of light, sound, wood, steel, and found objects create a whole? We have produced over twenty-five productions each world unique and specific. Cripple Creek has built the Acropolis of Ancient Greece, a gateway to Hell, and a small Norwegian town. One of the most exciting aspects of any production is how to set the scene with just the right amount of detail to be noticed, but to stay out of the actors’ way. Clybourne Park presents one of our greatest challenges.

For Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize winner, we take on the task of creating a house in two separate states of existence. The place stays the same but the time and condition alter drastically. The first is a well-cared-for middle-class home in 1959. There are boxes stacked along the walls because the family is moving away. It is a warm spring day. There is a church bell in the distance. We see a house in transition because the people who made it a home are leaving it. This draws the attention to the objects that they possess and are arranging to be taken to another home, creating the threat of emptiness. Like the house, the community around it is carrying this threat. A community, like a home, functions on security. And when that security is threatened the shells of a domicile and the shells of society appear to be very weak. It is a thrust into the unknown. A picture of an environment teetering on the edge of a new experience that it has not been constructed to confront. Just as we cling to the last remnants of a particular memory when moving, people cling to the traditions and patterns that they were taught were correct. But just like that special object from that wonderful day, its time has passed, and its future is a blank canvas.

Act II takes us to another scene of transition. The house we have seen has aged some fifty years, and all the strains of time, exposure, poverty, and struggle can now be seen in its tattered walls. Conditions have made it unlivable, and the people who own it would rather remove it entirely than deal with the faultiness of its present state. Trash is strewn about., holes in the walls, doors off their hinges, it is a home stripped of veneer and the effort to keep it together. What is “now” is only memory. And what is a memory but a personal recollection of a time. It is hard to communicate it to others, and even harder for those people to empathize when they were not there. The unseen life of the house of Clybourne Park is the past of this country. Vitally clear yet awkwardly muddled. The difficulty of transition clouds the collective consciousness so necessary to preserve a legacy.

The designers in this show are tasked with evoking the unseen and almost forgotten. They must channel the physical properties at their disposal to help us confront the difficulty and pain of remembering. They cannot live in the past, and in theatre, the future  is always extremely murky. They must exist in that strange present that we all wade through: that necessary alchemy of remembrance, existence and forethought. They are actors in the production as well. I hope you come to see their work.

Artistic Director Andrew Vaught

In Cripple Creek, we pride ourselves on the stories that we tell. Not just the what, but the why. We tell stories about individuals in positions of duress; people who are confronted with obstacles and antagonists bigger, richer, and more established then they are. Our stories explore the consequences of when individuals choose to fight against these larger powers. April 19th, we will continue that tradition, and we will continue it with new friends.

In December 2012, Cripple Creek began a collaboration with the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (GNOFHAC) as an artistic extension of their program entitled “Bringing Gender Home.” GNOFHAC works tirelessly to bring awareness and initiative to the residents of New Orleans, a city where discrimination is a frightening present as opposed to a painful past. This collaboration offers Cripple Creek the chance to engage our community with an immediate, relevant dramatic work, and to employ performance to provide our community with a platform for constructive dialogue, transformative reflection, and positive social change. That opportunity happens on April 19. It is called “Spirit House.”

RSVP: “Spirit House” Reading April 19th at Dryades Theater

In December 2012, company members Francesca McKenzie and Selena Poznak led a workshop with community members with the goal of defining what home means to them. The workshop featured singing and movement, and saw individuals from both the theater world and the New Orleans community-at-large share images, words, and physicalities that gave different perspectives on a very large subject. This was only one of several workshops sponsored by GNOFHAC in order to merge first-person narrative with the laws and standards of housing in modern America, and these workshops provided the groundwork for what has become “Spirit House.” The information had been compiled, and now GNOFHAC sought someone who could synthesize it into a narrative.

That’s when we met Dr. G.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have collaborated with Dr. G on this project. She is a champion of the underdog, and mixes progressive politics with traditional philosophy. She is a healer and an activist; she is the type of citizen New Orleans needs. Our conversations started with history… we discussed the history of displacement in this country. The situations and issues that GNOFHAC deals with today are not new. They began when the first pair of leather boots touched the sand of this nation. The history of inequality began early in this country. But so did a history of rebellion. Individuals defying the odds and defending a fast disappearing culture or territory is as ingrained in this country as what they fought against. This is an old and expansive story. So expansive that it could not be contained in a traditional narrative.

We spoke about the Federal Theatre. The time when things in this country got so bad, they actually had to start paying actors. In that brief period of nationalized drama a wholly unique form called the Living Newspaper emerged. The Living Newspaper used headlines of the present day, simple stories, and visual effects not only to entertain its audience, but also to inform them of the current state of their country. The Living Newspaper served as our clearest model for the project both in form and precedent, but sources from all over flooded into the piece. The chore poem became a valued tool. The pageantry of our own city coursed through the work. And most of all, our country’s attachment to land; a clear struggle for territory and property that sparked the many conflicts of race and class which are screaming and flailing today. It was shaping up to be a truly unique and rewarding experience. But to quote Dr G. quoting someone else, “plays are not written they are re-written.” The rewriting was going to be hard.

WATCH: Vintage newsreel footage of the Federal Theatre Project

Dr G and Lakeesha in "Spirit House" rehearsal

Dr. G, faced with a play quickly beginning to encompass the entire history of the United States, brought in her friend and business partner Lakeesha Harris. Lakeesha brought to the table an understanding of family and its importance, specifically in times of duress that was both deeply personal and broadly applicable. With Lakeesha’s influence, the focus of the play began to take shape. I watched as these playwrights shifted between zeroing in close and blowing the doors wide open. Interweaving the plight of many of our citizens today and the history of disenfranchisement that characterizes so many of the chapters of our history. GNOFHAC’s research and education showed us how policies looked upon favorably today, like the G.I. Bill and the Urban Renewal Program, only served the interests of some, and excluded African Americans at a criminal rate. What GNOFHAC illustrated, and what Dr. G and Lakeesha have shown in this work, is that a system of governance and regulation has been in effect for generations that keeps the same people without property, without influence, and ultimately, without freedom.

“Spirit House” seeks to address this and show that pockets of resistance exist even now.

The greatest hurdle to creating the type of society we wish to see is an understanding and acceptance of the history of our country. As citizens of the United States, we are responsible for what our country does. We are responsible for its triumphs and tragedies. We are responsible for the discrimination and inequity we see around us, and we are responsible for changing it.

I would ask everyone reading this to join us on April 19th. “Spirit House” welcomes everyone willing to sit at the kitchen table that will listen, learn and act.

The nominations and awards are drawn up by the Big Easy Theatre Committee, whose lifelong commitment to experiencing all that New Orleans performance has to offer every year  speaks to an appreciation and a rigor that Cripple Creek both deeply respects and appreciates as essential for the forward momentum of New Orleans’ performance work.

Kerry Cahill and her mother Joleen - Photo Jose Garcia

Emilie: From the moment that we selected Lysitrata for our 6th season, I knew Kerry Cahill was the woman to bring the role to life. Lysistrata portrays the divine woman in all of us who trumpets birth and creation in the face of death and destruction. Kerry’s dedication to exploring the honest ins-and-outs of a country wrought by war triumphantly led our 18-member ensemble through a challenging and poignant journey with strength and passion.

Mark Routhier - Photo Jose Garcia

Emilie: While in rehearsals for Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mark approached Cripple Creek and NOLA Project with a proposal for Lanford Wilson’s Balm in Gilead, a comedic and heart-wrenching depiction of society’s outcasts. For the show to work, it would require a woven, precise storytelling structure, and ask 24 actors to exist simultaneously on the stage. It was too challenging to pass up. One year later, Mark demonstrated the finest skills a director can possess: patience, spontaneity and a belief in the simple power of listening.

Ian Hoch - Photo Jose Garcia

Emilie: This is a first Big Easy nomination and win for Ian Hoch, a dynamic performer that Cripple Creek has treasured in seven productions and -

Ian, knock it off. We’re trying to talk about how proud we are of you and how much

… working with Ian in Balm in Gilead was truly

Oh, come on. Now you’re not even trying.

This is why we don’t let you write your own blog posts.

Let’s move on.

Emilie Whelan, Best Director of a Comedy, Lysistrata

Emilie Whelan - Photo Jose Garcia

Emilie: There is no better company, there was no better cast, and the crew was as mighty as they come. Let’s all cover ourselves in dirt and parade some togas again sometime, yea?

Ian:

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners! And to our beloved audience – thank you for all you do!

Cripple Creek shows and staff have cumulatively received 10 Big Easy nominations at this year’s Awards. The Ceremony will be at Harrah’s Casino on Monday, March 25th. Tickets purchased before March 8th are $100 and proceeds will benefit the Foundation for Entertainment, Development and Education (FEDE), which awards grants to support arts education and development. For more information or reservations, call Jon Broder at (504) 483-3129.

Emilie Whelan and Ian Hoch in "Balm in Gilead." Photo by John Barrois

Our April production of Lysistrata married humor, war and sex in a way that delighted audiences and enjoyed a sold-out run at the Allways Lounge. Then, even before the city had fully managed to settle itself after Hurricane Isaac, we launched Balm in Gilead at NOCCA in co-production with our very talented (and multiple-nominated!) friends in the NOLA Project. And under the steady hand of Aimee Hayes and Southern Rep, we worked alongside Mondo Bizarro, Skin Horse Theater, The Allways Lounge and others on The Lily’s Revenge to help a simple flower smash through barriers to find love.

Congratulations to all the nominees and New Orleans theater makers!

Lysistrata has nominations for:

• Emilie Whelan, Best Director of a Comedy
• Kerry Cahill, Best Actress in a Comedy
• Ian Hoch, Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Balm in Gilead has nominations for:

• Best Drama
• Mark Routhier, Best Director of a Drama
• James Yeargain, Best Actor in a Drama
• Kristin Witterschein, Best Actress in a Drama
• Ian Hoch, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama
• Emilie Whelan, Best Supporting Actress in a Drama
• Stephen Thurber, Best Set Design

The Lily’s Revenge has nominations for:

• Evan Spigelman, Best Actor in a Musical
• Jeffrey Gunshol, Best Choreography

Additionally, our dear, dear friends at Goat in the Road Productions are nominated in the category of Best Original Work for Instant Misunderstanding, directed by our own Andrew Vaught. Nice job, y’all!

You can read the full list of nominations here courtesy of Gambit Weekly.

Company Member Ian Hoch was in a state of disbelief at the quality of the by-donation cakes at the Cripple Creek Carnival Carousal.

Did you make it to the Cripple Creek Carnival Carousal last Friday? My goodness, wasn’t that just a ball? Thank you so much for spending the evening with us, and for your generous financial support as we prepare “Clybourne Park” for its six-week run at the Shadowbox Theatre. A special thanks is also in order for our sponsors, particularly Whole Foods and Steins Deli. And there was so much to love about Free and the Bowling Brothers’ revival of heartwarming original music from shows gone by. Aurora Nealand gave a transcendent performance to a rapt audience.  All told, it was an amazing night.

But I really want to talk to you about these cakes.

We asked a few other companies to bake us some delicious cakes in the spirit of their own artistic endeavours. Did they ever! Take a look:

The New Movement

Jesus Christ. Look at how elaborate this red velvet/chocolate cake from The New Movement is. Look at where the slice has been taken out. See that layering? My God. Can you make a cake like this? If so, you should maybe consider baking cakes all the time as a profession because this takes skill that I will open my wallet for 24/7/365 and I know I’m not the only one. The instantly-recognizable red-and-black sunburst really makes this an indulgent treat that appeals to your sense of taste as well as your sense of design. Look at that adorable little Megaphone. Sweet Mary, that is some fabulous cake.

Dancing Grounds

Hey, do you guys like chocolate? Well, I got you some chocolate so you can put chocolate on your chocolate. Oh, here, take some extra chocolate. This uncanny confection comes from the Dancing Grounds company. I can’t even quite find words for it, but I have experienced something like it before at the ballet… have you ever watched a performance and been completely enraptured and then at the end, somehow, for the finale, they blow your mind all over again? Well, that was my reaction to eating this cake. I mean, it was so moist… and those sprinkles so delicate.. it really gave me happy feet.

The Night Light Collective

Whoo-eee!. By now I have had a lot of great cake… but I think there’s probably room for one more slice. Holy Shinto. The Night Light Collective made TWO cakes. What the hell am I gonna do now? Obviously, I will eat them both so hard. This spicy little number comes in the frosting (that’s Chai Cream) and non-frosting models, and both are vegan and gluten-free. This is vegan? How is that.. even.. possible? It’s so good. These dried cranberries taste like they came fresh from a magical bog. This must be what Beyonce eats.

I think I speak for the Company when I say we are firmly in support of cakes of all kinds, flavors and makes, but when a cake is made with that little extra bit of love that one can only have for a fellow independent, local and aspirational theater company, it tastes like the food of gods. When our time comes to bake cakes for our friends, you shall find us!

We will probably also be around to eat the cake when it is time.

Artistic Director Andrew Vaught

Friends,

I’m writing to you to offer your a brief respite from the Super Bowl Madness. The national media is descending on our quiet hamlet in droves; Mardi Gras is being moved around with little or no respect for its spiritual place on the calendar; fried oysters are being served Buffalo-Style.

We need to take a moment to appreciate what it is we love about this time and this season. For us at Cripple Creek, it is the chance for the wild and unruly spirit in each person to shine. It is a time when you scour all the detritus you might have collected over the past year and you turn it into something ridiculous, yet incredibly true. We satirize and farcify (actually a word) and turn a city upside down. We cast down our idols, if only to brush them off and set them back up come Ash Wednesday, but for a brief moment the strange unique flame inside each of us burns and twists as it was meant to do. It is a power that you hold, and thank goodness you get to embrace it. I’d like to invite you to come embrace it for a while with us.

This Friday, February 1st, we hold our Carnival Carousal. We continue in the absurdist tradition of the UBU Trilogy with great food, amazing music, and a humble dramatic trifle we hope brings you joy and confidence. We at Cripple Creek stand firm against the National Football League and all attempts to dislodge the madness of Carnival from it’s rightful place at the center of all our attentions. Join us, friends. Come to the Allways Lounge, bring your wildness, your subversion, and your friends.

We have a lovely evening rebelling against the NFL and society’s woes in general. Here is a sampling of what will happen:

• 7:00 – Doors open. Wine is already flowing.
• 8:00-8:45 – Musical performance by the Bowling Brothers (Will and Peter) playing original tunes and Cripple Creek standards.
• 8:50-9:10 – The world premiere of Metissage! a short play by Andrew Vaught.
• 9:15- 10:00 – The Goddess Aurora Nealand regales us with her siren songs.
• 10:00 – Till – We continue to drink and dance in defiance of the NFL “Clean Zone.”

I hope to see you all there.

Ian Hoch will appear as Steve/Karl in "Clybourne Park" this May

Liberty! Opium! Gunpowder!

Got your attention? Cripple Creek needs to raise a few extra dollars to produce Clybourne Park in May. We are leaving it all on the road for this one – Clybourne will have a larger production budget than any Cripple Creek show to date. We are raising salaries for our actors and production staff, and we are increasing allotments for promotions, materials and space rental. To meet our goals, we need your help to push us over the finish line and help us be all we can be.

READ MORE: “Clybourne Park coming to New Orleans” via Times Picayune

So we’re throwing a party! Friday, February 1 at the Allways Lounge we are inviting one and all to join us for our “Carnival Carousal.” (RSVP on Facebook!) Just like our previous winter fundraisers, there’s a lot to love for just $20…

• All-you-can-drink wine, courtesy of Cripple Creek Theater Company
• All-you-can-eat snacks, courtesy of Whole Foods and Stein’s Deli
• Delicious handmade cakes, courtesy of our friends in Night Light Collective, The New Movement and Dancing Grounds
• Light entertainment from company friends and frequent collaborators William and Peter Bowling, who will be playing some original music as well as selections from Major Swelling’s Salvation Salve Medicine Show, The Future is a Fancyland Place and Possum Kingdom.
• A headline set from Marigny songstress Aurora Nealand
• At long last, a public announcement about where Clybourne Park will run for six weeks and end our 7th season of theatermaking
• A showing of Metissage, an absurd and hilarious new short play by Andy Vaught

Use your credit card to reserve a seat now.

We don’t run from Mardi Gras, we run headlong into it! We take pride in making our fundraisers unmissable events, nights full of laughter and tasty treats and dancing, so we hope you can make our “Carnival Carousal” part of your celebration this year. Make no mistake: even after securing grant money to produce Clybourne, even after enjoying record profits from Balm in Gilead, even after company members kick in their own money… we still can’t do this without help from you. Your $20 makes all the difference.

Thank you to our peers and colleagues for your passion and talent, and thank you to theatergoers all across the city for supporting local theater.

Emilie Whelan

“As I look around and hear about all the performing ensembles who are working, running, and connecting so hard in this “big easy,” I think: How did we all decide it was going to be this important?”

Read my full blog post here at HowlRound.