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- Theater Grottesco’s Twelfth Night: A View from Downstairs
In its twenty-fifth year as a group committed to “breathing life into the theatre through the creation of new forms,” Theater Grottesco (TG) and artistic director John Flax take the near sacrilegious position that Shakespeare’s comedies are “dated and silly.” Flax argues that Shakespeare stole characters and conventions “shamelessly” from the Commedia Dell’Arte tradition while ignoring the incisive social commentary that actually thinned out audiences for the Italians. Shakespeare’s comedies are “romantic and light” and focused almost exclusively on the foibles and obsessions of the...
- Scott Harrison and Ironweed Productions
Scott Harrison and Ironweed Productions: A Commitment to Quality American Theater and the Northern New Mexico Community. IP’s spring production of Doubt promises to be another successful and thought-provoking foray into American culture and belief.
- Z Space Studio’s Word for Word: James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”
James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” began life as a short story by James Baldwin. Set in Harlem in the 1950’s, this narrative is a jazz riff on the ersatz relationship between a good brother Brother (a married veteran and long-term high school teacher) and a bad brother Sonny, (jailbird, heroin addict, and inspired jazz pianist) that morphs into a truer, more loving connection when Brother begins to glean what playing and creating music means for his younger sibling.
What the Word for Word Company does is to adapt short stories to the stage without changing or omitting a word of the original...
- Renaissance Woman Lorraine Schechter: The Inner Voice of an Ever-Evolving Artist
A Santa Fe resident for the past two decades, Lorraine Schechter has led a full and varied life as an artist, arts administrator, and teacher of fine arts and yoga. A native of New York City and a rabid Yankee fan, Lorraine lived in the south of France and Northwest Connecticut prior to moving to Santa Fe in 1988. Lorraine first visited Santa Fe in 1969 when she was teaching at Swarthmore College and had just established her first gallery. During that first visit, Lorraine made a promise to herself that took her two decades to fulfill: “I would live and work in Santa Fe some day because...
- From Life Experiences to the Stage
Prior to living on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, Susana Guillaume has touched down in Hollywood, Southern France, and Northern England with a brief foray into the Amazon. From these life experiences, Susana has created a one-woman show— Girl Facing West— about “the pleasures and pains of growing up, while staying human, in a complex world.” This solo performance piece is composed of “my personal choices and the legacy of family.”
Susana Guillaume has an abiding passion for “body-based improvisation where life experiences reside” and, consequently, has taught dance for the past twelve years....
- Santa Fe’s Red Thread Collective (Part 1)
Profiles of Artistic Director Tone Forrest, Resident Playwright and Board Member Craig Barnes, and Clara Soister (Actress and Director).
On January 7, 2008, I met with members of the Red Thread Collective for two hours at Java Joe’s Coffee Shop to discuss the theater company’s history, its vision for professional, quality drama in Santa Fe, and its upcoming performance schedule.
One of my earliest recollections is of my Scots grandparents talking about the importance of the red thread: “If you follow the red thread, you can unravel even a hopeless tangle.” Artistic Director Tone...
- Santa Fe’s Red Thread Collective (Part 2)
On January 7, 2008, at Java Joe’s Coffee Shop, I met with Red Thread Collective members Tone Forrest (Artistic Director), Craig Barnes (Resident Playwright and Board member), and Clara Soister (Actress and Director) on the community needs for the growth of theater in Santa Fe with a schedule of upcoming productions.
Tone, Craig, and Clara all agree that money is needed to create an important and challenging theater community. The irony is that while Santa Fe is an arts town, there is little funding for the drama. All three RTC members see the absolute need for a performing arts center....
- Sallie Bingham
Author Sallie Bingham is known for her novels, short story collections, and memoirs. She has also had a career in the theater that began with backyard reworkings of Shakespeare’s classics at her Louisville, Kentucky, home. She dragooned her fourth grade class girl friends to perform in these productions while she wrote, directed, and acted the leads herself. Sallie heard an adult member of the audience whisper the following: “Shakespeare would turn over in his grave.” Not understanding the phrase, Sallie intuited that it was not high praise. By the sixth grade, her friends rebelled...
- Teatro Paraguas: A Theater for All of Santa Fe
In a recent interview with co-founders Argos MacCallum and Ron Mier, I discovered that the “umbrella” in the Santa Fe’s Teatro Paraguas’s (TP) name is two-fold in nature. One aspect of the term “paraguas” is an attempt to be inclusive in terms of subject material and audience: to reflect the Spanish and Latin traditions, the Chicano experience, of Northern New Mexico as it interacts with the Anglo and Native American cultures. It also refers to the goal of the company to be a collective of individuals who are provided with the opportunity to develop artistically.
- Emerging Artists - Carol Carpenter
Carol Carpenter is a native New Mexican (Artesia) and resident (Madrid) who currently is an administrator and dramatic writing instructor at the College of Santa Fe. She has had a writing career that has spanned publishing fiction in small magazines to Hollywood where she wrote trailers and promotional pieces. However, it is as a playwright that Carol Carpenter shows enormous promise. Her most recent play, Wild Dogs, pits the residents of Madrid against Disney Productions when the mega-company invaded the fiercely independent village to shoot the big budget film,
