Platonov, or the Disinheritedweb.mit.edu/jscheib/Public/platonov/platonov_proposal_v14_comp.pdf · Platonov, or the Disinherited. ... Chekhov. as a live-cinema immersive performance

Table of Contents

Table of Contents page 1

Synopsis page 2 - 3

Character Description page 4

Story Design Document page 4 - 6

Brief Dramaturgy page 6

Existing Work / Time Line page 7

Artist Bios page 8 - 9

Brief Essay / Recap page 10

Jay Scheib & Co.http://[email protected]+1-917-612-2137

Platonov, or the Disinheritedfreely after the play by Chekhov as a live-cinema immersive performance experienceadapted and directed by Jay Scheib

Platonov, or the Disinheritedfreely after the play by Chekhov adapted and directed by Jay Scheib, Associate Director Laine Rettmer, Assistant Direc-

tor Kasper Sejersen; Stage Design Jay Scheib and Josh Higgason, Sound Design Anouschka Trocker, Video Design

Josh Higgason, Live Camera Jay Scheib, Costumes by Alba Clemente; with Performances by Sarita Choudhury, Mikeah

Jennings, Rosalie Lowe, Jon Morris, Ayesha Ngaujah, Laine Rettmer, Jay Scheib, Natalie Thomas; Produced by ArKtype

/ Thomas O. Kreigsmann in collaboration with Jay Scheib & Co., La Jolla Playhouse Without Walls Festival, Massachu-

setts Institute of Technology, and The Kitchen in New York.

Developed in collaboration with La Jolla Playhouse as part of their new environmental theater initiative: Without Walls. The site above is located on the UCSD Campus.


“Platonov, or the Disinherited” is Jay Scheib’s remix of the traditions of Shakespeare-in-the-park, the ribald nostalgia of

the drive-in-movie, and the unpredictability of live-on-location-broadcasting to create a new live-cinema performance

based on Anton Chekhov’s unfinished, first full-length play. The work is currently in progress and will begin as a site-

specific motion-portrait of a society on the brink of foreclosure in partnership with the Without Walls Festival, La Jolla

Playhouse in Fall 2013, followed by an indoor theatrical performance event at The Kitchen in January 2014 with live

(televised) broadcast. At The Kitchen, I intend to experiment with and intervene in a few conceptual models like

the MET’s Live HD Broadcasts. In this experiment, Platonov, or the Disinherited premieres indoors at The Kitchen

as “Platonov” but also indoors at a movie theater near you as “The Disinherited.” One production thus results

in two simultaneous events, each with unique points of view each unfolding in wildly different mediums—re-

plete with wildly different demands. This Live Cinema Performance intervenes in the usual discourse about the

death of the theater by actively seeking a unique televisuality that challenges, under the bright light of Chek-

hov’s inimitable humour, our assumptions about liveness and reality both on stage and on the screen.

page 2

Summary / Synopsis

Found after Chekhov’s death in a safe deposit box, “Platonov” is an unfinished comic text about an emotionally

bankrupt society of “anti-heroes” who are less hilariously losing their homes. Tailor-made for the age of foreclosure,

the project will be staged in two unique but equally vibrant environments: 1) an outdoor presentation in a vacant lot

converted into a makeshift drive-in movie theater complete with a small house, snack bar, swimming pool, sauna,

and one-room schoolhouse; and 2) an indoor performance for a standard proscenium or black box with limited

on-stage seating designed to be performed for a live audience in a theatrical setting while simultaneously 3) be-

ing broadcast as a live-action film to a movie theater near you or to the television in your very own living room. The

action of “Platonov” is filmed and projected live onto a screen that looms above a conceptual hybrid of affordable

(cheap) theatrical architecture while one particular point of view from “Platonov” is broadcast live as a film under

the title “The Disinherited.” This conceptually scalable project is experienced as a live performance, as a live-feed,

drive-in-movie for an audience in cars, or in bleachers or at the bar, and as a live-broadcast film.

Working with a revolving group of independent performers, designers and producers from various disciplines in-

cluding dance, film, nouveau cirque, experimental and traditional theater this ensemble in its various configurations

is known for their daring physicality and rigorous handling of complex and idiosyncratic texts. While new individu-

als enter, leave and return to the ensemble depending on schedules and project makeup, the current configuration

includes performers and designers such as Sarita Choudhury, Rosalie Lowe, Jon Morris, Mikeah Ernest Jennings,

Ayesha Ngaujah, Laine Rettmer, Natalie Thomas, Josh Higgason, Amith Chandrashaker, Anouschka Trocker, and

Alba Clemente. Regular relationships with artistic directors, managers and producers such as Thomas O. Kriegs-

mann of ArKtype, Chris Ashley of La Jolla Playhouse, Matthew Lyons of The Kitchen, and Didier Fusilier of Maison

des Arts, Creteil (Paris), complete a charged constellation of like-minded collaborators. Unique to more traditional

new play development processes, Jay Scheib and Co. spend weeks improvising with image and text, sound, video

and scenic design materials. Everything evolves simultaneously from the first days in the studio. Operating from the

assumption that the organizing principle of a scene (as a theme or a particular type of rhythm) or the motivating

force for an entire play could reveal itself at any moment, the rehearsals bristle with energy, designers respond in

real time to the improvisations of performers and vice versa. Importantly, the process stays dynamic through the

closing night. They rehearse every day while in production.

“Platonov, or the Disinherited” is designed as the alternately comic and lyric evening that Chekhov envisioned—a

tragic comedy–laughter spat-up from unmistakable humanity. Difficult moments exact terrible tolls such as the hu-

miliation of bankruptcy and loss of a home, farm or business that has been

in the family for several generations. Chekhov was a doctor, and though his

plays feel sometimes like unrelenting chronicles of societies on the threshold

of loss, they are also a kind of salve. “Platonov” is envisioned as a salve for

out-of-control emotions leading up to and away from loss on a grand scale.

The suffering is horrible, but those midsummer-night affairs in the blinding

heat could not have seemed more invaluable or exciting. Coaxing this work

dramaturgically from the arms of nights we wish would never end to morn-

ings hung over sweetly or sick with regret is exactly where we are headed. To

face the truth of what happens at the county fair, drive-in, farm auction is all

a part of experiencing the tragic with the salve of being fully alive.

In summer 2013 the ensemble will convene in New York City to develop a full

prototype for the outdoor production. In the Fall 2013, Scheib & Co. will en-

ter the final phase of rehearsals and production leading to the outdoor world

premiere produced in partnership with La Jolla Playhouse. Then, the ensem-

ble will then return to the studio to re imagine a production that holds the

rhythm and energy of the outdoor production intact but transfers its force

into the frame of an intimate and classical understanding of text and action

for a premiere in January 2014 at The Kitchen in New York City.

Platonov, or the Disinheritedfreely after the play by Chekhov as a live-cinema immersive experienceadapted and directed by Jay Scheib


Developed in collaboration with La Jolla Playhouse as part of their new environmental theater intitiative: Without Walls. The site above is located on the UCSD Campus — just across from La Jolla Playhouse and next to a public sculpture known as Stonehenge.

Ground plan layout.

page 3

Summary / Synopsis (cont.)

Characters

Platonov is thirty something years old, like Hamlet or Jesus. At a crossroads. Fed up with working full time as a country school teacher and still unable to afford that extra chord of firewood that would transform the damp cold living quar-ters into something that would at least be warm. Life has passed him by or he was just sleeping it through and he can feel it brutally inside of him like a boat steaming doggedly against the all too powerful currents of want not, want not.

Sasha is different. Sasha is content, in part, and able to be happy just taking long walks in the forest or bathing in the many cold clean streams. She has no need for fame and doesn’t fear she’ll pass without having been written about sufficiently or photographed enough.

Something of a contradictory personality, Sasha’s brother Nicholas Triletsky is a disillusioned family prac-titioner with an unmatched sarcasm who tends to drown his insecurities on most days first with coffee and then with vodka.

Anna Vengerovich is an arrestingly or asymmetrically elegant woman in her late forties. She is the unrea-sonably attractive widow and owner of a soon to be bankrupt estate. Anyway up for an affair, Anna’s sexual frustration shows in her every smile—she’s a super intelligent, soon to be homeless woman who finds her-self painted into a corner by a society whose evolution will thoroughly exclude her.

Sergey laughs like one who will not survive being cuckolded. Like precisely the inferior that will implode like a lesser satellite. He is not much younger than his stepmother, Anna, and secretly loves her madly—though she treats him like an imbecile and in truth she enforces passively that he remain, sadly, a real imbecile.

Jacob is really the only individual here with a job. She is the only one who really knows what it means to work. She is a housekeeper, and a caterer, and a musician and will do any odd job that comes her way. Oh and eventually she will own the place. She is also recovering from years of bad decisions and years of having had her self-taught capitalist talent blown sidewise and without an education, and without concrete prospects she finds herself right where she wants / needs to be—at the bottom of the food chain where the slate is clean and her host of odds jobs brace her against radical memories of loss.

Porfiry Glagoyev is a real protagonist. He is very wealthy investor. He’ll suffer a mild heart attack in act two, because his ability to feel is too great to ever possibly endure. A lesser human being would have exploded a long time ago. He’s the last person on the planet who capable of truly selfless love. But when his heart is broken, and when his dreams are dashed—he exacts the most painful revenge imaginable. Not out of malice but because another’s acts reflected back redouble in severity and cause world altering pain.

Sonya thought to herself one day, oh shit. Everything has been a blast but life too has blasted or is blast-ing its way past. She settles for a stable, unthreatening man who’s sure to inherit a beautiful estate so who cares I guess—she’ll start a family. Maybe it’s better he’s a bore if there’ll be kids. But then that ache never really went away and here she is, encountering an old flame, encountering the flame that once burned so bright between them that she had to shield her eyes from its glare—and run away. Now that she sees it again, she’s loathe let it slip once more. Her laugh is a death rattle deep, deep in her chest.

Osip is a self-described scoundrel, thief and garden-variety lowlife. He or she is lynched by the townspeople in the end but she, or he, is also the moral backbone of this otherwise valueless society.

Jay Scheib & Co.http://[email protected]

page 4

Story Design

World — Phase OneBeginning site-specifically as part of La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls

Festival, “Platonov, or the Disineherited,” is an immersive, live-action,

drive-in-movie-inspired performance that is staged to be partially seen

and partially screened. The audience is invited to experience the work

from seating in bleachers, or on picnic blankets with box lunches, or by

sitting at the bar where they can watch the action unfold on television

monitors—much as one might watch a basketball game at a sports bar.

Choreographed for the lenses of two camera operators, the action travels

from living room to kitchen, from kitchen to sauna, and from sauna to

swimming pool and back, eventually, to the bar. The staging will make use

of all of available “locations.” Partially staged and partially screened, the

work is to be understood both as a live theaterical performance and as a

cinematically/semantically intact feature film. This developing approach

is something that I have called Live Cinema for over ten years. Other, like

efforts have used terms like Real Time Film, or Live Feed Theater etc. My

concerns differ in part other efforts in so far as I am not interested in

decorating or improving or even destabilizing the dynamic of a theatrical

drama but rather, to amplify the expressive potential of live performance

by entering into dialogue with a largely cinematic culture through a new

(remixed) theatrical idiom: LIve Cinema.

Video Tools — A partial listSome of the video technology in use includes wireless SDI HD transmitors from two HD SDI Cameras following the action. Live video signals are passed thru an HD mixer to a computer where the footage may or may not be processed before being projected onto a screen or broad-cast to a theater off site. I intend to experiment with other image capture devices such Google Glass, remote controlled pantilt cameras units or cameras on helicopters or balloons.

3D Rendering of proposed scenic design.

Built for a society on the brink of foreclosure, “Platonov, or the Disinherited” endeavours to innovate with storytelling by multiplying the genre of the stage with the genre of the drive-in-movie. More than the sum of its parts “Platonov or the Disinherited” begings as an immersive live-action film in the spirit of the drive-in movie, complete with a small house, a snack-bar, a Russian sauna, a one-room school house, and a small swimming pool. The images above show the 3D renderings of the work as sited on the grounds of La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California.

This first phase of the project will premiere in October 2013 followed by an in-door presentation at The Kitchen in New York as a live broadcast-ready produc-tion in January 2014.

The second phase of the production is slated to premiere at The Kitchen and borrows conceptually from the MET’s live HD Broadcasts. Following the out-door production of “Platonov, or the Disinherited” at La Jolla playhouse, I am endeavouring to premiere an indoor, Live Cinema production of “Platonov” and to broadcast the live mixed signal either via television or live to movie theaters under it’s second title: “The Disinherited.” Thus, “Platonov” plays in the theater while the “The Disinherited” plays

on the television in your home, or across town (across the country?) in a movie theater. I am proposing a single production process resulting in two remark-ably different points of view, each expressing potentially radical shifts in our understanding of both the content of the story as well as the process of cultural production itself. Performance works take on lives of their own. They change focus and meaning. Rarely do we have the opportunity to take a theatrical production back into the studio once it has been realized. Even more rarely do we have the oppor-tunity to reshape meaning following the premiere of a work. My commentary on the relationship of artistic process in the face of market pressures and cultural production mirrors Chekhov’s own discourse in “Platonov” on issues surrounding the rampant redistribution of wealth and the necessary rethinking of what it will mean to “work” in a new world.


page 5

First phase of Story Design

First conceptual sketch for a live drive-in-movie to be sited at an actual drive-in movie theater.

Photograph of a functioning drive-in movie theater and originally proposed site for “Platonov, or the Disinherited.”

Second phase of Story Design

Anton Chekhov 1860-1904

notes and quotes

On Chekhov “The greatness of Chekhov lies in being anti-ideological and anti-pedagogical. His characters hurry in the search for answers which they never find.” Mikhalkov (director of Unfinished piece for Player Piano—after Platonov)

“Audiences, expecting to be sucked into a plausible and gemütlich world of bygone gentility, react angrily to productions that are more abstract, more physical or more surrealistic than what they expected. Quite unlike Ibsen or Beckett, the traditional Chekhov generated an affection in the playgoing public, which in turn bred a sentimentality he would be the first to deplore.” Laurence Senelick, The Chekhov Theatre

“For chemists there is nothing unclean on the earth. The writer must be as objective as the chemist.” Anton Chekhov

“The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk. . . I would like to be a free artist and noth-ing else and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one. I hate lies and violence in all of their forms. . . Pharisaism, dullwittedness and tyranny reign not only in merchant’s homes and police stations. I see them in science, in literature, among the younger generation. That is why I cultivate no particular predilection for policemen, butchers, scientists, writers, or the younger generation. I look upon tags and labels as prejudices. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable-freedom from violence and lies no matter what form [they]. . . take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.”Anton Chekhov, Letter to his publisher.

“When a woman destroys things like a man, people think it natural and everybody understands it; but when, like a man, she wishes or tries to create, people think it unnatural and cannot reconcile themselves to it.” Anton Chekhov, Notebook

“Women deprived of the company of men pine, men deprived of the company of women become stupid.” Anton Chekhov, Note-book

“You are right to demand that an artist should take a conscious [social] attitude to his work, but you are confusing two concepts: answering [social] questions and formulating them correctly. Only the latter is required of an artist. There’s not a single ques-tion answered in [the novels] Anna Karenina or Eugene Onegin, but they are fully satisfying, simply because all the questions they raise are formulated correctly. It is the duty of the court to formulate the questions correctly, but let the jury answer them, each according to his own preference.” Anton Chekhov

“There are doctors in all [Chekhov’s] full-length plays except The Cherry Orchard [Nicholas Triletsky is the doctor in Platonov]. All but Lvov of Ivanov are in one or another stage of withdrawal from conscientious practice. What are we to make of that?” Richard Gilman, Chekhov’s Plays: An Opening into Eternity

“[Chekhov] wrote a long play (Platonov) and took it himself to the Maly Theatre, hoping to hand it personally to the famous actress Maria Yermolova. Whether he saw Yermolova or not is now know, but the play was returned to him by post. For once he betrayed his great disappointment by tearing of the manuscript of the play which his brother Michael had copied out for him. The rough copy of the play, however, has been preserved. It is very long and unwieldy, but it shows Chekhov’s first attempt to deal with the new social forces which were just then coming to the fore in Russian and contains many themes which he used in his great plays.” Chekhov, a Life by David Magarshack

chronology

1860 Anton Chekhov born to the son of a former serf (now a grocer)1879 Chekhov enrolls in the Moscow University Medical school1879 Chekhov begins to write stories for humor magazines1879 third of six children, Chekhov becomes the chief breadwinner for his family1881 or 1882 Chekhov writes Platonov. The play was rejected by the Maly Theatre1884 Chekhov completes medical school1887 Chekhov writes Ivanov, and it is successfully produced1887 Chekhov’s volume of short stories awarded the Pushkin prize for literature1891 Famine/cholera epidemic force Chekhov back to medical /public health activities1892 Chekhov buys a country estate, Melikhovo, and serves as local doctor1895 Chekhov writes the short story “My Life”1896 Chekhov writes The Seagull1897 Chekhov writes the short story “Peasants” which created a sensation1897 Massive hemorrhaging— Chekhov to seek medical help for his tuberculosis1899 Chekhov writes Uncle Vanja1901 Chekhov writes Three Sisters1901 Chekhov marries Olga Knipper, an actress with the Moscow Art Theater1903 Chekhov writes The Cherry Orchard1904,Chekhov dies of tuberculosis at the health spa in Badenweiler, Germany

A very partial History of Platonov

1920 an Untitled play (often called Platonov) is found in a Moscow safe-deposit box [or desk drawer]1929 The untitled play produced as Der Mensch Platanoff Vinohrad Theatre in Prague1940 Produced as Fireworks on the James by the Provincetown Playhouse1954 Produced as Don Juan in the Russian Manner at Barnard College, NY1954 Produced as Poor Don Juan in Stockholm, Sweden1956 Produced as Ce fou de Platonov, [The Folly of Platonov], Bordeaux and Paris1957 First Russian production, produced as Platonov 1958/59 Produced by Piccolo Teatre di Milan1960 Produced as Platonov by the Royal Court, London1976 Adapted as Unfinished Piece for Player Piano by film director Mikhalkov (USSR)1977 Produced as Platonov by the Williamstown Theatre1984 Adapted as Wild Honey by Michael Frayn, National Theatre, London1987 Unfinished Piece for Player Piano adapt. Mikhalkov Theatro di Roma, Italy. 1990 Adapted as Piano by Trevor Griffiths, Cottesloe Theatre, London1991 Adapted as Without Patrimony, Sibilev Studio, Moscow

page 6


Brief Dramaturgy

3D Rendering of proposed scenic design and sight-line study.

page 6


page 7

Existing Work / Production Plan

Currently Platonov, or the Disinherited exists as a finished manuscript with a con-firmed artistic staff and cast, and confirmed dates for both West and East coast premieres. The West Coast premiere will be as part of the Without Walls Festival, at La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, California and the East Coast premiere is confirmed as part of the regular season of The Kitchen in New York City.

Work still to be done includes the storyboarding of the script; finish work on the physical design of the house, bar, and sauna (art direction of interiors); costume design; sound design; lighting design; production and manufacturing of scenic ma-terials; props and objects and further development of a shooting strategy that will be able to accurately represent the live experience on a 30’ screen in real time.

The second phase of the production will include redesigning the work for a flexible indoor stage or black box theater with the intention of broadcasting the production beyond the theater; identification of broadcasting partners—whether for television or via live stream to movie theaters still needs to be firmed up (interest exists but the details have not yet been set. Similarly the identification and confirmation of interested international touring opportunities still needs to be organized.

The project is currently eighty-five percent funded with commissions from La Jolla Playhouse, The Kitchen, and a generous grant from the MAP Fund.

The current working manuscript may be accessed here:http://www.jayscheib.com/platonov.doc

Timeline

Workshop rehearsals at the Armory in New York 6 August through 23 August (TBA)

La Jolla Arrival in La Jolla 9/9; Rehearsals 9/10-9/22Technical Rehearsals 9/24-9/2910/1-10/2 Preview 1 & 210/3 Opening10/4-10/6 Performances 2, 3, 410/8-10/13 Performances 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The Kitchen11/28 - 12/23 Rehearsals Load in to The Kitchen 12/26Premiere Thursday 1/9/20141/10-1/11 Performances 2, 31/16-1/18 Performances 4, 5, 61/23-1/25 Performances 7, 8, 9

March 2014 - Available for world-wide touring

3D Rendering of proposed scenic design. 3D Rendering of proposed scenic design.

JAY SCHEIB (Adapter, Director, Designer)A 2011/12 Guggenheim Fellow, and 2012 OBIE Winner for best Direction, Scheib is a director, designer and author of plays, operas and live art events. Internationally known for works of daring physicality, genre-defying performances and deep integration of new (and used) tech-nologies, Scheib’s productions include the season opener for New York City Opera of Thomas Adès’ opera “Powder her Face” which played to great acclaim at Brooklyn Academy of Music in February 2013 followed by performances as part of the Festival d’opéra de Québec in Canada. Other recent works for the stage have included a new contemporary ballet collabora-tion with choreographer Yin Mei and the Hong Kong Dance Company titled “Seven Sages,” which premiered in March 2012; a new staging of Fassbinder’s controversial play “Garbage, the City and Death” with the Norwegian Theater Academy in Oslo, Norway; and Scheib’s own original Fassbinder adaptation “World of Wires” which premiered at The Kitchen in New York City for which Scheib was awarded a 2012 OBIE Award for Best Direction. Subsequent perfor-mances of “World of Wires” included presentations in Krakow Poland as part of the KRT Festi-val, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Lieu Unique in Nantes, and Festival d’Automne in Paris at the Maison des Arts Cretéil (MAC), France. Also having toured in France and Boston was the recent adaptation of Samuel R. Delany’s novel Dhalgren, titled “Bellona, Destroyer of Cities,” which played the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the MAC Exit Festival in Paris, following its premiere at the Kitchen. As a frequent director of operas and works for music theater Scheib staged Evan Zipo-ryn’s “A House in Bali,” as part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival 2010; Beethoven’s “Fidelio” at the Saarländisches Staatstheater; and an original collaboration with punk band World Inferno titled “Addicted to Bad Ideas,” and toured eight cities internationally. Named Best New York Theater Director by Time Out New York in 2009, and one of the 25 theater artists who will shape the next 25 years of American theater, by American Theater Magazine, Scheib is a recipient of the MIT Edgerton Award, The Richard Sherwood Award, a National Endowment for the Arts/TCG fellowship and the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. He is Professor for Music and Theater Arts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he directs the Program in Theater Arts.

World of Wires opened with one of the most thrillingly witty displays of illusion I’ve ever seen on a stage or a screen — a genuine challenge to one’s fixed notion of reality — and then barreled through another 90 minutes of riveting near anarchy. I’m hereby sending a brain transmission out to some Off Broadway/nonprofit Morpheus: Please, reboot this soon. — Scott Brown - New York Magazine

For the interdisciplinary auteur Jay Scheib mixing media is as much a socio-philosophical statement as an aesthetic one. His “World of Wires” has equal measures of wonder and anxiety (and, thank heaven, a sense of humor).— Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Scheib’s brand of theater always seems to be ahead of everybody else. - Tom Murrin, PAPER

ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann (Producer) Thomas O. Kriegsmann is the producer, manager and curator who founded ArKtype in 2006 toward the long-term development, production and touring of new internationally based perfor-mance work on various scales. His work includes projects with venues worldwide and renowned artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Peter Brook, Yael Farber, Annie-B Parsons & Paul Lazar, Lisa Peterson, Jay Scheib, Julie Taymor, and Tony Taccone. For three seasons he produced the Ringling International Arts Festival in Sarasota, FL and recently premiered Big Dance Theater / Mikhail Baryshnikov’s MAN IN A CASE and the U.S. premiere of Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theater’s

NOT BY BREAD ALONE. Current collaborations include Jay Scheib (Cambridge); Baryshnikov Productions (New York); Denis O’Hare & Lisa Peterson (New York); Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theater (Tel Aviv); Big Dance Theater (New York); Byron Au Yong & Aaron Jafferis (Seattle/New Haven); Phantom Limb (New York); Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen (New York); Sam Green / Yo La Tengo (Brooklyn / Hoboken); Compagnia T.P.O. (Italy); Aurélia & Victoria Thiérrée-Chaplin (France); Joshua Light Show (New York); Dayna Hanson (Seattle); KMA (London); Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra (Brooklyn); Rude Mechs (Austin, TX); and Theatre for a New Audience (New York). Upcoming premieres include Jay Scheib’s PLATONOV from the play by Anton Chekhov (La Jolla Playhouse, September 2013), Dayna Hanson’s THE CLAY DUKE (Summer 2013) Jessica Black & Erik Jensen’s LESTER BANGS PROJECT (Spring 2014).

Sarita Choudhury (Actor) began acting in film with Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala and Kama Sutra. She then joined Cheek by Jowl in the UK and toured with them for a year in Much Ado About Nothing. She continued with theater work at the New Group and The Play Company while continuing film work in Gloria, Perfect Murder, War Within, Lady in the Water. With Jay Scheib she has created roles and toured with This Place is a Desert, Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, and World of Wires. and others and appearing in TV shows including Kings, Law and Order, The Philanthropist, Damages, Mercy, and Homeland.

Alba Clemente (Costumes) studied set and costume design at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Naples, Italy while performing as an actress in many classical and experimental productions in Naples and Rome. After a long hiatus, during which she raised a family, she returned with great enthusiasm to what she loved most: Theater. With Jay Scheib she has designed costumes for World of Wires at The Kitchen and for Scheib’s staging of Thomas Adès opera Powder Her Face at Brooklyn Academy of Music with New York City Opera. In 2009, she designed the cos-tumes and props for Made in Naples by Karole Armitage, and currently she is the ambassador in New York for the Spoleto Theater Festival. In addition, Alba has written songs with Thomas Lauderdale for the band Pink Martini, with which she has also appeared onstage.

Joshua Higgason (Projection and Co-Scenic Designer) With Jay Scheib: Bellona. Joshua has toured internationally with The Builders Association, Big Dance Theater, Sufjan Stevens, Toni Dove, and Jay Scheib. His work has been seen and heard at Carnegie Hall, BAM, The Kitchen, The Flea, HERE, La Jolla Playhouse, Philly Live Arts, and others. Recent projects include Jim Findlay’s Botanica, The Builders Association’s Sontag:Reborn and House/Divided, and Big Dance Theater’s Supernatural Wife. He is a founding partner in Workhorse, a live event media company.

Mikéah Ernest Jennings (Actor) has been seen in Jay Scheib’s World of Wires (The Kitchen, KRT Festival Krakow Poland, Lieu Unique Nantes, ICA/Boston, Festival d’Automne Paris), Bellona, Destroyer of Cities (ICA Boston, EXIT Festival Paris, The Kitchen); Green Eyes (Hud-son Hotel); PULLMAN, WA (Chelsea Ttre, London); The Shipment (Sydney Opera House, The Kitchen, Int’l Tour); S.O.S. (The Kitchen, REDCAT, Int’l Tour); The House of No More (DTW, Int’l Tour); and A Dream Play (St. Ann’s Warehouse). Film credits include Failing Better Now, Things That Go Bump In The Night and The Record Deal. For more information, go to www.mikeahjen-nings.com.

Rosalie Lowe (Actor) is a performer and director who moved to New York City from Portland, Oregon where she earned her BA in Literature and Theatre at Reed College. During her time in New York City she has worked with Jay Scheib on World of Wires (The Kitchen, KRT Festival Kra-kow Poland, Lieu Unique Nantes, ICA/Boston, Festival d’Automne Paris), and at La MaMa E.T.C. and has interned with The Wooster Group. Most recent projects include The Woodshed Col-lective’s The Tenant as an assistant director and performer, and United Broadcasting Theater Company’s Arcane Game as a sound Foley and video operator. She has worked as an assistant

About the Team


page 8

Chekhov and Tolstoy

director and dramaturg for Portland-based theater company Hand2Mouth and has studied film acting at La Fémis in Paris with NYFA.

Jon Morris (Actor) has created and performed with Fuerzabruta, Cirque du Soleil, The MET, Spymonkey, Diavolo Dance Theatre, the Evidence Room, Ken Roht’s Orphean Circus, Fabulous Monsters and Theatre de la Jeune Lune. His company, The Windmill Factory, creates original work from living performance installations to international dance theatre collaborations. Recent works were presented at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, La MaMa ETC, and the Burning Man Arts Festival. For more information, go to www.thewindmillfactory.com.

Ayesha Ngaujah (Actor) performed with Jay Scheib in World of Wires (The Kitchen, KRT Fes-tival Krakow Poland, Lieu Unique Nantes, ICA/Boston, Festival d’Automne Paris) and Bellona: Destroyer of Cities (ICA, Boston, Exit Festival, Paris). Other NY performances include the 2010: ABC Diversity Showcase, The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller, The Wife, American Schemes, Angela’s Mixtape, and Times 365:24:7. Regional theater performances include Eclipsed, Stick Fly, GoDogGo!. Internationally, she’s performed in Diggydotcom 2.0, Made in Da Shade (Am-sterdam), and Spring Awakening, Albatheaterhuis (Den Haag).

Laine Rettmer (Costume design and Co-Adapter) This is the eighth production on which Rettmer has collaborated with Jay Scheib. Recent works as assistant and associate director with Jay Scheib include the acclaimed production of Thomas Adès’ Powder her Face with New York City Opera at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Untitled Mars (This Title May Change), Bellona Destroyer of Cities, A House in Bali, and World of Wires. On-camera work includes roles on the TV shows Boardwalk Empire, Rescue Me, Suits, and Blue Bloods, and in the film Fur with Nicole Kidman. Rettmer recently co-wrote and produced the short, 1901, which premiered at the Lucerne International Film Festival and is now being shown as part of the Schnitt Shorts Festival in Zurich. She is in the process of finishing her first music video for actor Michael Pitt’s band, Pagoda. Rettmer is a graduate of NYU’s TISCH School for the Arts.

Kasper Jacob Sejersen (Assistant Director) has worked as an assistant for Frank Castorf and Sös Egelind at the Royal Danish Theatre. As a director, he has directed Suburbia (Malmö, Swe-den) Paper Flowers (Copenhagen, Denmark) and the upcoming production of Woyzeck (Copen-hagen, Denmark). Kasper graduates in summer 2013 as a director from The Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance.

Natalie Thomas (Actor) has worked with Jay Scheib since 2008; roles include June in “Bello-na, Destroyers of Cities” at The Kitchen and Mannie in “Untitled Mars (This Title May Change)” at PS122. Natalie’s other theater highlights include Lady Macbeth in Sleep No More at The McKittrick Hotel, Natalie in Lucid at The Cherry Lane Theatre and Ellie/Susie in The Wooster Group’s House/Lights at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Natalie’s film highlights include Brie in Month To Month for which she won best supporting actress at the Iowa Film Festival, directed by Wes Hopper, Lauren in Everything’s Gonna Be Pink, directed by academy nominated- Roni Ezra, and Ashley in Amateurs, directed by Eric Tao. She has also been seen on television in Law and Order SVU, Law and Order and The Guiding Light. Natalie was featured in Portraits in Dramatic Time, directed by David Michalek. She also is a writer and producer with the production com-pany An Films. Natalie is a former company member of William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt, Nederlands Dans Theater II and Berlin Komische Oper. Her dance theater credits include Woolf Phrase at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Minus 16 at Lucent Danstheater and Eidos Telos at Sadler’s Wells.

Anouschka Trocker (Sound Designer) is a sound designer and director of radioplays based in Berlin and Sicily. She made sound installations and sound design for film and theater. Her last radiodrama was at the German Radiodrama Festival at the ZKM Karlsruhe. Currently, she has a sound installation at the Bauhausmuseum in Desssau, Germany. Her radioplays are broadcast on the German national radio, ARD, and the Italian Rai. In theater, she has worked in Germany, France, Belgium, the United States and Switzerland.

Susan Wilson (Stage Manager) is a director and stage manager based in Boston. She is a founding member of The Coalition, an ensemble-based theater troupe. Recent productions include management of Jay Scheib’s World of Wires (The Kitchen, KRT Festival Krakow Poland, Lieu Unique Nantes, ICA/Boston, Festival d’Automne Paris) The Rogers Plan (director: MIT), Bellona, Destroyer of Cities (stage manager: ICA Boston, EXIT Festival Paris), A House in Bali (company manager: BAM, Emerson), and Island (stage manager, video operator: Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co., world and U.S. premieres).

Producing Partners

La Jolla Playhouse is a Tony Award Winning theater located in La Jolla California (just out-side of San Diego). La Jolla Playhouse’s mission is to advance theatre as an art form and as a vital social, moral and political platform by providing unfettered creative opportunities for the leading artists of today and tomorrow. With their youthful spirit and eclectic, artist-driven ap-proach they continue to cultivate a local and national following with an appetite for audacious and diverse work.

The Kitchen is a non-profit, interdisciplinary organization that provides innovative artists working in the media, literary, and performing arts with exhibition and performance oppor-tunities to create and present new work. Using its own extensive history as a resource, the organization identifies, supports, and presents emerging and under-recognized artists who are making significant contributions to their respective fields as well as serves as a safe space for more established artists to take unusual creative risks. The Kitchen has been a powerful force in shaping the cultural landscape of this coun-try for more than three decades. Founded as an artist collective in 1971 by Woody and Steina Vasulka and incorporated as a non-profit two years later, in its infancy The Kitchen was a space where video artists and experimental composers and performers could share their ideas with like-minded colleagues. It thus was among the very first American institutions to embrace the then emergent fields of video and performance art, while also presenting new visionary work within the fields of dance, music, literature, and film. The resulting combination was an envi-ronment uniquely conducive to experimentation and cross-disciplinary explorations that helped launch the careers of many artists who have defined the American avant-garde, including Vito Acconci, Constance de Jong, Gary Hill, Kiki Smith, Charles Atlas, Lucinda Childs, Elizabeth Streb, Bill T. Jones, and board members Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, and Meredith Monk. Today, The Kitchen is an internationally acclaimed arts institution still widely known for its com-mitment to experimental work as it continues to provide instrumental support for the early and mid-career development of the current generation of artists.


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Siberian Bear Hunting Suit circa 1800’s(Osip Proposal)


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Brief Essay/ RecapTo summarize briefly, it is my intention to borrow conceptually from the MET’s live HD Broadcasts of operas, in order to create with “Pla-tonov, or the Disinherited” a Live Cinema Performance event that is presented in two platforms simultaneously: for a live audience in a theatrical setting under the title “Platonov;” and as an actual stand-alone live action film that is either screened live in a movie theater or broadcast live on television under the title “The Disinherited.” One production process that produces two distinct products. Antonin Artaud wrote of the two becoming one—that the representation of the thing and the thing that is represented should be one and the same. He wanted to put life itself on stage and I believe as well in putting real life on stage and much of my career in the arts has been devoted to problematizing liveness and realness in their most fundamental and unpredicatable aspects. I have many agendas with “Platonov, or the Disinherited.” Addressing the production process in particular and problematizing the process and pressures inherent to cultural produc-tion has become a kind of meta-theme in the storytelling. “Platonov,” then, is a play and the “Disinherited” is a feature film—each with distinctly different packaging and publicity efforts, and each with their own rules, each with distinctly different platforms for presentation, and each engaged in challenging basic assumptions about each other. The greatest challenge of this particular work then is in creating a mode of production storytelling that unfolds with equal elegance, dynamic, and necessity on multiple platforms: live in a theater, and as a live broadcast on television or, as with the MET, on a movie screen in a theater near you. I would be forever grateful to have the opportunity of a lab environment to develop a production process and a means of executing, in performance, these two equally engaging modes of sto-rytelling that play to the strengths of each without sacrificing either.

With greatest respect and gratitude for your kind consideration,

Jay Scheib



Documents

Platonov, or the Disinheritedweb.mit.edu/jscheib/Public/platonov/platonov_proposal_v14_comp.pdf · Platonov, or the Disinherited. ... Chekhov. as a live-cinema immersive performance