They're Actors. They're Living in New York City. They Rest Their Case
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BY SUSAN SELIGSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY BETH PERKINS They’re actors. They’re living in New York City. They rest their case. Last fall the Wall Street Journal published a story JOINED AT THE HIP: COLLABORATIONTOWN about a surge in opportunities for struggling actors in New York City. Unfortunately, the opportunities were for actors willing to work as bedbug hunters. Their friendship (CFA’03) and a friend found It’s brutal out there, and it’s most brutal in the sealed over four years of an affordable, rambling most expensive city in America. But the Big Apple a theater education that place hugging the Brooklyn- still beckons, topping other cities in the number nurtured ensemble work, Boo Queens Expressway in of actors who actually work as actors, according Killebrew, Jordan Seavey, and Greenpoint that became a to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Like Holly- Geoffrey Decas O’Donnell refuge for BU graduates and wood’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams, New York City knew by junior year that they their pets. It was full of soot: is simmering with hungry overachievers, dreamers, wanted to take their act on mushrooms grew on the and dilettantes. the road together after they floor and ceiling. He stayed And with an apparently inexhaustible sup- graduated from BU. “We were there seven years. “It was a ply of imagination, resilience, and chutzpah, BU working together on new really, really big apartment,” graduates are defying the odds. In the following plays and really clicking,” says says O’Donnell, who won a pages, Bostonia takes a look at three of several Killebrew (CFA’03). With FringeNYC playwriting award alumni-founded theater companies that have made fellow alum T. J. Witham for CollaborationTown’s names for themselves in New York City. Commit- (CFA’01), they cofounded production of The Deepest ted professionals with passionate artistic, and in the defiantly democratic Play Ever. Forgoing sleep to some cases social, agendas, they’ve each carved CollaborationTown. “We finance their rent and their out separate turf, from the Dominican enclave of knew starting the company art, the three traded off jobs Washington Heights to the hip venues of lower anywhere other than New and put in time as waitstaff Manhattan. Their College of Fine Arts roots keep York would be cheaper, and and dog walkers. These them entwined. They get to each other’s produc- it was feasible to get space in days Killebrew manages the tions and readings and trade wisdom about fund- a million other places,” says Bubble Lounge in Tribeca. raising, which is as crucial to their survival as it is Killebrew. They moved to Not only is it the best of her confounding. They act, they write, they direct, they New York anyway. string of “money jobs,” but the serve their communities, they work “money jobs,” An energetic brunette owners are huge supporters and they apply for awards, romance donors, and whose Mississippi upbringing of CollaborationTown, which jockey for grants. coats her voice with a slight holds its fundraisers there. All of these alumni attest to the fact that their bayou drawl, Killebrew The city’s pioneering career paths are often frustrating. But they’re hav- could barely afford her first artists grab rehearsal space ing the time of their lives. Sustained by paltry earn- apartment, an when they can, and ings, cheered on by their families and former pro- East Village Members of their definition of fessors, and buoyed by tireless senses of humor, share so minus- Collaboration- that space can be they are grateful to be in the game. Of the uncount- cule that when Town (from broad and slippery. left) Jordan ed thousands of young people who have longed for the bathtub Seavey, T. J. CTown owes much a stage, here are three companies that have found was covered, it Witham, Boo of its vitality over one: CollaborationTown, Stage 13, and the People’s doubled as the Killebrew, and the past few years Geoffrey Decas Theatre Project. A fourth group, Theatre of the kitchen counter. O’Donnell. to so-called space Oppressed NYC, can be found at bu.edu/bostonia. O’Donnell grants from the 28 BOSTONIA Fall 2011 28-33_BostoniaFall11_03.indd 28 9/20/11 12:33 PM What They Do for Love Fall 2011 BOSTONIA 29 28-33_BostoniaFall11_03.indd 29 9/10/11 11:22 AM The Stage 13 ensemble (clockwise, from left) Noah Bean, Bjorn Thorstad, Sarah Saltzberg, Ariel Shafir, and Charissa Chamorro are all full-time actors. Lower Manhattan Taratula (CFA’04). act,” adding that Cultural Council, a Over coffee one Killebrew “largely post-9/11 initiative June morning in pulls it off.” turning tumble- the Deco splendor “I always wanted down commercial of Chelsea’s Ace to write a play about properties near Hotel, Killebrew where I’m from,” Ground Zero into and her compatriots says Killebrew, temporary rehearsal are particularly named by parents and studio spaces. upbeat. Killebrew’s enamored of To Kill “It’s free,” says The Play About My a Mockingbird for its Seavey (CFA’03), Dad was winding character Boo Radley. “and you also get a up a run to sold-out The audiences that stipend.” Recently audiences as part filled the 46-seat the ensemble had of an Off-Broadway theater each night a stint at a former festival at the 59E59 sat spellbound as basement vault in Theaters. And they the play, directed by a moribund bank had managed to Lee Sunday Evans, across from the Stock meet the $8,000 gathered ominous Exchange. Other BU fundraising goal for momentum, and alumni have joined the production after they left dabbing up with the troupe an online pitch full of their eyes at the cruel for a performance humor and endearing ravages of Katrina or two, but the desperation. and the tender, roster of those The funny, touch- parallel reunions involved in three or ing play within a play of a flood victim more productions overlays the story of and her son and the is impressively a playwright (named playwright and her long: Sean-Michael Boo Killebrew) and father. Hodge-Bowles her physician father’s “People are, like, (CFA’03), Duke Doyle tormented history you’re the play’s (CFA’06), Rachel with the events of mother and Lee’s Craw (CFA’02), Max Hurricane Katrina the midwife,” says THIS IS MY DAY JOB: STAGE 13 Rosenak (CFA’05), in the playwright’s Killebrew. “And I After graduation, Stage 13 Chinasa Ogbuagu native Gulfport, said, no—we’re like co–artistic director Bjorn Thorstad (CFA’03), John where her father lesbians and this is (CFA’98) went back home to Denver Wernke (CFA’01), ended up spending our baby.” and sold $50,000 worth of cutlery. This Dan Stowell months in a hospital- With O’Donnell pile of cash helped pave the way for the (CFA’01), Julia turned-island as and Seavey nodding enduring Manhattan-based ensemble, Henderson (CFA’01), flood waters rose their heads beside formed almost six years ago by BU Ryan Purcell around it, trying to her, Killebrew de- graduates. (CFA’04), Benjamin stem the damage to clares that in truth The good news about Stage 13 is that Posner (CFA’04), Ava his neighbors’ bodies her play “is by all of all of its members make their living Eisenson (CFA’06), and hearts. us, and the text is by as full-time actors. The bad news is Lee Sunday Evans New York Times me,” and, affirmative that the actors’ colliding auditions and (CFA’06), Noah Starr reviewer Andy Web- nods all around, “we performance calendars make it almost (CFA’03), Carly Cioffi ster calls the play a have worked our impossible to schedule Stage 13 events, (CFA’05), and Phillip “daunting juggling asses off.” says cofounder Kelly Hutchinson 30 BOSTONIA Fall 2011 28-33_BostoniaFall11_03.indd 30 9/20/11 8:34 AM (CFA’98), a busy stage actress who On couches arranged in a nook of titled (The Viagra Monologues) appeared in Stage 13’s maiden effort, the vast loft space, Hutchinson and readings, productions, films, and fund- The Voyage of the Carcass, alongside Thorstad rattle off their adventures raisers asking for people’s support. Dan Fogler (CFA’98) and Noah Bean and complete each other’s sentences. The Stage 13 group got some early (CFA’98), both also cofounders. In a career punctuated by Stage 13 breaks. While Thorstad was touring “We want to thrive because we’ve productions, Thorstad keeps busy the country as Shaggy in a road produc- worked together this long, and we doing voiceovers, improv, and the tion of Scooby Doo, Fogler was help- love working together,” says Hutchin- occasional indie film (Running Funny, ing create The 25th Annual Putnam son, sitting in the company’s unoffi- When the Flower Blossoms). A Jersey County Spelling Bee, which made it to cial headquarters, a design loft near girl, even though “the term scares” Broadway and won him a Tony Award Chinatown owned by cofounder and her, Hutchinson helped the group do for his role as William Barfee. Fogler actor Thomas Sullivan and his wife. a workshop production of Jay Reiss’ went on to land several film roles (Balls “It’s hard because we work so much, Meanwhile, on the Other Side of Mount of Fury, Good Luck Chuck). so the time gets longer in between Vesuvius, a collaboration with Yale Bean starred alongside Glenn projects. But it’s unlike our paying Repertory Theatre. The company’s Close as doomed surgical intern David work—we want to do it for the love quirky production schedule endures: Conner in the FX series Damages and of the game.” interlocking, overlapping, hilariously hopped back and forth from stage Fall 2011 BOSTONIA 31 28-33_BostoniaFall11_03.indd 31 9/10/11 11:22 AM to screen, with one run as randy cow- AROUND AND ABOUT boy Bo in the Huntington Theatre THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Company’s fall 2010 production of Bus Stop, and another a movie role PEOPLE’S THEATRE as a psychiatrist in the psychological PROJECT thriller Stay, with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts.