The Orpheus Variations Cast Photo

A quick shot of our wonderful cast following the evening’s rehearsal.

The Cast of “The Orpheus Variations”

Kendall Rileigh                          Chris Carpenter                       Zenzele Cooper
as Eurydice                                  as Orpheus                            as Persephone

We’re excited and proud to announce our cast for the world-premeire of “The Orpheus Variations”!

Bookmark deconstructivetheatreproject.org to stay up to date on the cast and their creative process via blog entries, photos, and online videos.

Two Days Until Underworld

You’re probably as excited as I am about Friday’s UNDERWORLD, a DTP fundraiser featuring actual fire-breathing and sky high aerial work. If that’s not enough for you, add great music and drink specials.

You can get your tickets now for just $15, saving a few bucks from buying at the door.

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/117805

This is also your first chance to see Adam (DTP’s Founding Director) flying himself. He’s been spending hours rehearsing for this (as you can see from the picture) and you don’t want to miss it.

All money raised from your tax-deductible ticket purchase goes toward our first New York premiere of “The Orpheus Variations”, coming late August.

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/117805

Thanks for your continued support and look forward to seeing you on Friday,

Ryan J. Davis
Board Member
The Deconstructive Theatre Project

PS: If you haven’t been to the party’s venue, The House of Yes, it’s one of the coolest spots in Williamsburg. Be there.

Underworld

Party Committee
Mitch Dean, Crys Huyett, Arielle Lever,
Nicki Miller, Jon Mark Ponder, Andriana Santiago & Adam J. Thompson

Veritas

Painting for the Orpheus Variations

I’ve been doing a series of paintings inspired by our current project “Orpheus Variations”.  This one is inspired by our attempt to create Persephone in the Underworld during workshop.  We saw Persephone as towering, elegant, and able to see memories by touching and smelling old photographs.

To see more of my work inspired by “The Orpheus Variations”, click here.

Liz Duffy, Core Artist

The Orpheus Variations First Workshop Teaser

Color

We’ve been integrating a healthy dose of talk about color schemes lately, including an exploration of the invention of color TV, and a specific 1950s technicolor palette juxtaposed with black and white imagery.  Here are some inspirational materials of which we’ve taken note:

I have a preoccupation with the use of drenched and saturated color-schemes,
especially as used in early television broadcasts. The documentary “Radio Bikini” is a good example of this.

Jenn was drawn to the reds and blues in the above two images.

Photo Call

A couple of photos from today’s rehearsal:

Jenn Dees as a Nevada Woman and Gabe Levey as John C. Clark,
in a theatrical moment entitled “Morning Coffee”

Jenn Dees, in a theatrical moment entitled “Street Walker”

Triptych

Our rehearsals are birthing material faster than I anticipated. We come together with more research each session, and the greatest challenge will eventually become distilling it all into cohesive context. Earlier last week, I began to fear that a speedy commencement would lead to a burn-out, but my wariness of this has since been squelched as the pile of inspirational material grows ever higher.

Drew shared some great research with the group this week, leading us to begin focusing on a triptych-based structure of interweaving narrative devices. This is exciting for me because it will encourage us to explore ways in which the sequenced narratives can “touch” one another in theatrical ways. What will begin to happen when simultaneously unrelated and interrelated lines permeate, bisect, and influence one another? I think we are on the path to creating a very exciting way of navigating this piece, without falling into the always dangerously-lurking threat of a naturalistic play – “sofa theatre”, a term I love, which Jenn coined.

We continue to return to a potentially beautiful design scheme focusing on saturation v. desolation. I am looking forward to delving into this further as I spend the next week immersing myself in visual art that speaks to the feeling we are looking for this piece to emanate. One of my favorite characteristicsof collective creation – of writing in space instead of on paper – is the way in which design becomes immediately interwoven into the process from the beginning. Instead of imposing design – set, lighting, costume, sound, etc. – on an already completed textual piece, the elements inform one another, creating a tightly woven entity. Following suit, we’ve also been playing with miniatures, and ideas of macro vs. micro – placing worlds inside of one another and watching what happens when the micro and macro coexist in one space.

A couple of photos to enjoy from the rehearsal room this week, featuring Jenn Dees and Gabe Levey:

More to come.