BY SUSAN SELIGSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY BETH PERKINS They’re actors. They’re living in . 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 - still beckons, topping other cities in the number nurtured ensemble work, Boo 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 . 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

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28-33_BostoniaFall11_03.indd 28 9/20/11 12:33 PM What They Do for Love

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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- 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

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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 and of the game.” interlocking, overlapping, hilariously hopped back and forth from stage

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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. The Stage 13 band of alumni has worked in tandem on such It’s a balmy spring night, and the stages as the Peoples Improv Theater neighborhood fruit and clothing and the Upright Citizens Brigade stalls are closing up as Bob Braswell Theatre. (CFA’04) and his wife, Mino Lora, Whether it’s an intimate staged set up shop in the cavernous lobby reading of a new work in the loft or of the United Palace Cathedral at an Off-Broadway role, they say, acting 175th and Broadway in Washington consumes their lives. As Hutchinson Heights. The last of the city’s so- puts it, those in the company are called Wonder Theatres built in committed to pulling “random stuff” the ’20s, the block-long structure out of a “magnificent junk heap” and is the former home of the late turning it into something amazing and charismatic preacher Reverend unexpected. Ike. It’s a lot of theater for Braswell “We worked hard on the name,” and Lora’s modest but thriving says Hutchinson. The number 13 kept People’s Theatre Project, whose surfacing: Sullivan owns the popular reach extends to the edge of the Union Square club Bar 13, a patron Bronx and bumps up against the and the company’s prime fundraising wall of luxury apartments facing venue. There is a 13 in the loft’s zip the Hudson River. code, and 13 Designs is the name of For tonight’s show, PTP has the design studio the loft houses. paid a pittance to occupy 50 or And perhaps most significant, the so seats of the 3,400-seat house 13th (of August) is the birthday of for a staged reading of the family the company’s ghostly muse, Alfred drama Man in Boat, by emerging Hitchcock. Manhattan playwright Kimberly The number proved lucky for the Barrante. The reading is one of a company, which is lately throwing series, the culmination of nearly itself into the casting and filming of a nine months of weekly workshops History of the United States and the Fogler film titled Don Peyote, which with professional playwrights participants’ personal history as bills itself as a marriage of The Wizard working with actors in spaces inspiration for a theatrical collage of Oz and Gandhi. Absurdity, social secured by the People’s Theatre of music, words, and movement. mischief, and pure camp are staples of Project. The venues for the annual A half hour before the Man in the company. A summer 2009 run of spring series include the offices of Boat reading, things are looking a EXPOSED! The Curious Case of Shiloh the Manhattan Times (for a play little too quiet, so Lora sends the and Zahara, by Kate Gersten, attracted about a newspaper), the Malcolm X company’s intern outside with plenty of attention for its futuristic and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial some sidewalk chalk. Soon the paparazzi revelations about the private and Educational Center, Coogan’s pitted concrete along two adjacent lives of two of the Brangelina brood. Restaurant (for a play set, of course, blocks is adorned with arrows and As director, Fogler was credited by in a restaurant), and the Inwood the words “Play tonight! Pay what one critic with creating a Pee-wee’s Public Library. you can.” The ploy may have roped Playhouse feel for the comedy, which Founded in 2008, the itinerant in a straggler or two, but things nytheatre.com’s Matt Roberson called company leapfrogs from venue pick up when friends and theater a “good, fun-filled night at the theater.” to venue for all its productions, colleagues stream in. The group’s talent and drive can’t be often bilingual and largely of The People’s Theatre Project is a denied, but there’s something more—a and about the realities of life in shoestring endeavor that lives on chemistry that keeps them close and on the neighborhood. Admission is donations and a 2010 Union Square course, says Hutchinson. “I don’t know always pay-what-you-can. There Arts Award grant. At first, executive whether BU created that, or whether is, for example, a Shakespeare directors Braswell and Lora were we had it coming in,” she says. “But we program for seniors, and Voices/ told their operation was too small had a remarkable class, and I feel like Voces, a bilingual theater-writing for the $35,000 grant, but after a we grew up together—as artists, and as program for local teens that uses visit to the PTP “office”—their a family.” Howard Zinn’s A Young People’s apartment—the Union Square

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28-33_BostoniaFall11_03.indd 32 9/10/11 11:22 AM Bob Braswell and his wife, Mino Lora, started the representative was won over, says Dominican Republic, People’s Theatre which is 78 percent Do- Braswell, who is managing director. studied theater at Project, whose minican, lacked both a He and artistic director Lora live Manhattanville venues include stage venue and any kind parks, offices, a few blocks from the United Pal- College, and has a and restaurants. of theater. A loftier goal ace Cathedral. graduate degree in of the bilingual project is The pair built the company on a peace studies and “to transform the cul- foundation of four basic values: art, conflict transformation. ture of the community from one peace, dialogue, and community. “I joke that I started this of disconnection to one of peace, Braswell, who could easily pass for company because I’m lazy,” strength, and unity.” The company a teenager, made his Off-Broadway says Braswell. A fluent Spanish has an education director, a literary acting debut in Rebecca Gilman’s speaker from southern New manager, and several teaching adaptation of Carson McCullers’ Jersey, Braswell fell in love with artists specializing in acting, story- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Washington Heights when he telling, and bringing Shakespeare and toured in a national produc- moved there after graduating to public school classrooms and tion of A Christmas Carol. He’s from BU. These days, he and Lora to housing for the elderly. worked with many companies, are fixtures in the neighborhood, Although he’s committed to his including Baltimore Centerstage, where they are periodically inter- solo acting career, Braswell was the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, cepted by admirers offering hugs groomed for cooperative efforts. the Denver Center Theatre Com- and blessings. Like his friend Boo Killebrew, he pany, and the Huntington Theatre Braswell and Lora established credits BU with instilling his re- Company at BU, in Holiday Memo- what they call an accessible, spect for, and embrace of, the kind ries. Recently he was cast in the affordable “theatrical platform” of ensem ble work done by PTP. HBO series Boardwalk Empire. for Washington Heights/Inwood “Every day,” he says, “I think An actor, director, and teacher, after a survey they’d distributed about what I learned from my Lora was born and raised in the revealed that the neigh borhood, teachers at BU.” p

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