Almost a Fantasy

My student, Mike Aguirre, has a play (Almost a Fantasy) in rehearsal for this summer's Fringe Festival.  He developed the play in my advanced playwriting class.  The press release follows. 
For Immediate Release
Contact: Patrick Avella at 646-691-0576

Chelsea Rep LAB Presents
ALMOST A FANTASY

The New York International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC
A production of The Present Company
August 10th – 26th
Tickets: $15-$18. For tickets visit www.FringeNYC.org

Chelsea Rep LAB is proud to present Almost a Fantasy as part of the 16th annual New York International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC. A new play written by Mike Aguirre, and directed by John Grabowski, Almost a Fantasy is a two-person play, which will debut at this year’s New York International Fringe Festival in August.

Almost a Fantasy maps the sometimes ardent and often turbulent relationship of an immigrant piano teacher (Dolores) with her young student (Youthney) over a ten-year period of piano lessons. Their time together forces them to cope with their past and learn to survive the present. The piano on which Dolores and Youthney play out their fantasies is an important element in the production, which should make this a must-see for classical music lovers as well as for lovers of new plays.

This show is being produced by Chelsea Rep LAB spearheaded by LAB members Patrick Avella and Greg Cohan, along with other members of Chelsea Rep LAB.

Michael Aguirre (playwright) is a graduate from Indiana University with a B.A. in Theatre and English. He is a suburban Chicago native, and has worked with the Windy City Players, First Folio, Steppenwolf, The Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), and the Hexagon Theatre (South Africa). Since arriving in New York, he's worked with the Pearl Theatre (City Centre), Wide Eyed Productions, Chelsea Rep and Lab, Coffee Black, ReniGraef, and he is a company member of Rising Sun.

John Grabowski (director) is the associate director of The Acting Studio, Inc. and has directed numerous productions including Stage Door (Ferber and Kaufman) Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare); One Flea Spare (Wallace); Getting Out (Norman); Moonchildren (Weller). He also wrote and directed Knoxville, 1915, adapted from James Agee's novel A Death in the Family, and The Loves of A, based on Arthur Schnitzler's The Anatole Plays for Chelsea Rep.

Chelsea Rep LAB is an on-going workshop environment intended to encourage experimentation in the creation of theatre and the formulation of a non-traditional methodology to help actors realize their potential. The LAB is comprised in large part of graduates of The Acting Studio, Inc. headed by director, James Price (http://actingstudio.com/). The LAB sponsors a developmental writing workshop under the tutelage of Anne Phelan (http://www.annephelan.com/). Besides the Fringe Festival production of Almost a Fantasy, the LAB is currently at work on a series of one-act plays based on news accounts and stories about NYC’s Stop and Frisk policy.

Almost a Fantasy was featured in the LAB’s Emerging Artist Festival in the summer of 2011. The LAB’s work has been previously seen at the Fringe in 2010 in a co-production with Brava Company of By Hands Unknown, for which director Kym Gomes won a FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award for direction. The original material that comes from the LAB’s playwriting seminars reflects sensibilities not often heard from in the established venues of New York Off-Off Broadway theatres, perhaps because the LAB makes a concerted effort to draw its writers from outside the usual mix of university MFA program and established regional theatre playwrights. This results in the presentation of unique and diverse voices in our staged readings and festival productions.

Find out more about the production at: http://www.almostafantasy.net/.

Stage Door

George S. Kaufman wrote a lot of plays, with several collaborators, Moss Hart and Edna Ferber among them. Other than The Royal Family and The Man Who Came to Dinner, they are rarely revived, I assume because the casts are so large.
But this August, you get a chance to see one of Kaufman and Ferber's less revived plays, Stage Door. I have never seen it produced; I've only seen the movie (with an incredibly young Eve Arden cracking wise), though many years ago I used a monologue from it for auditions. Chelsea Repertory Company (I teach playwriting in their Lab) is reviving Stage Door at Shetler Studios' Theatre 54. Directed by John Grabowski, it runs August 4-6 and 11-13 at 8, August 6 and 13 at 2, August 7 at 3 and August 10 at 7. Tickets are $20 at the Door (I already have mine), or $18 through Smarttix (link above). It features a cast of 31 (!- when was the last time you saw 31 actors on stage in a straight play?), among them my playwriting student Gregory Cohan.
Here's the plot summary: The Footlights Club in New York City provides a home for the struggling stage actresses who meet the challenges of surviving the Depression and the ups and downs of the Broadway theater with charm and grit. Terry Randall, a headstrong and witty girl from the Midwest, is determined to become a leading actress on the Great White Way. While pursuing her career, she becomes involved with two completely different bachelors - the left-wing arrogant playwright Keith Burgess and David Kingsley, a well-groomed elegant film producer. Also residing at the Footlights Club is Jean Maitland, who lands the Holy Grail - a seven-year film contract; Kaye Hamilton, whose lack of stage success leads to suicide; Pat Devine, a nightclub dancer; and Linda Shaw, a society girl who shocks her mother by having an affair with a wealthy married man. Terry sticks to her guns and wins both the leading role in a Broadway play and the affections and respect of the man she loves.

Learn to Write Plays With Me

I'm teaching a playwriting class this fall as part of the Chelsea Rep Lab at The Acting Studio (link to their website above). Our first class was yesterday, and it is undersubscribed. We could easily take four more students. The class meets for ten weeks (not this coming weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, a chunk of December and the weekend of New Year's) on Sundays, 1-4. For various reasons, it is really cheap. The remaining classes would cost you $180. It is held at Shetler Studios, near 54th and Broadway in Manhattan. Though you don't have to be an actor to take it, it is geared toward teaching actors to write.
The Acting Studio Director is James Price, whom I've known for decades, and the Associate Director is John Grabowski, who directed my first reading in New York, at Chelsea Rep when I was playwright-in-residence there. This is the second class I've taught for James and John. It's a treat to work with them, and with such engaged students. Actors you know of like Julianne Margulies and Lauren Velez (we watch "Dexter" devotedly) have studied there.
If you're interested in the class, please email me at anne at annephelan dot com, or leave a comment here.
Photo is from Chelsea Rep's production of "The Plough and the Stars."