The Oncoming Fringe Storm

Hey!

Guess what!!?!!

Hotlanta, land of fluffy biscuits and beautiful graveyards and occasional freak ice storms is F-I-N-A-L-L-Y getting a Fringe Festival. And I'm a part of making it happen.


And it's happening this May. We have 29 artists, some from our own back yard, some from all over the country, even one from Italy (and it's opera! Classy!) And, extra exciting, partner in crime Ben Egerman is bringing DO NOT KILL ME KILLER ROBOTS! I can't wait to see his cardboard robotic fury unleashed on this city. It will rock.

Right now, we're in the middle of our big crowd sourced funding campaign through Indie Go-Go, and we can use all the support we can get. So give if you can, and spread the word so Atlanta can become a supportive hive for artists, and we can all see Ben's awesome robot show! Click the nifty widget below to go to the campaign page:

Plus, as an extra incentive, there's a significant chance the doodles, poems, and tear-stained love letters will come directly from yours truly, as resident doodler of the steering committee. And yes, I take requests. Especially that involve unlikely animals. Like, say, if a velociraptor had a baby with a muffin:


It doesn't get more fringe than that, right?

Philly Fringe Continues!

The Rep Theatre in Philadelphia is producing my short play "Supplies" in their Fringe show, as part of "Girl on Gurl" - a, quote "pairing 6 female playwrights with 6 female directors in an estrogen-induced salute to GURL POWER." When they asked for submissions, they wanted plays to encompass all aspects of the female experience, so I sent one about murderesses and one about ponies. They picked murder, so take from that what you will.
(image source)

We got a nice shout out in the City Paper -

"Pair female playwrights with female directors and what do you get? One wifebeater, one torched husband, and one boyfriend shown the door for violent behavior (including fly-swatting). And that’s just in the first 30 minutes."

The torched husband? Totally my play. It always makes me happy when my piece gets into the tag line.

"Supplies" came out of an exercise in the Horizon Theater Apprentice Company where we took inspiration from "News of the Weird" pieces. Supplies stemmed from two pieces, one detailing an Autralian woman's accidental burning of her husband (it's okay, she only meant to torch his junk), and a Texas man who let his "friends" set his prosthetic leg on fire. "Supplies" is about a hardware store that caters to exactly that clientele and what happens when a possibly innocent bystander steps in.

Hmm. I wonder why most of my ten minute plays end in murder. Comic murder!

Yikes.

Anyway, apparently it's working, because Shelterbelt Theatre in Nebraska has picked up "Supplies" for their Shelterskelter Halloween show in October. Hooray! My Cornhusker state debut!

In the meantime, the Philly Fringe show has a few more performances this weekend, and for those of you not in Philadelphia, you can hear a podcast with some of the other playwrights involved, or catch a video of "Fly Away" another ten minute play in the show. It's all the phun of philly phringe, but p(h)ortable.

Then there was a Hurricane

It's very cute to look at how excited and naive I was several days ago. Because pretty much immediately after I posted that, Hurricane Irene was upgraded from "eh, whatever" to "a big giant deal." All Fringe events over the weekend were cancelled. All events over the weekend were cancelled. Many flights were cancelled, including my flight and back-up flight.

So, I rolled into town Tuesday afternoon, instead of Friday night, giving me 2 and a half days instead of a glorious weekend.



But, I got here in time for this!

The First Annual Truffle Hunt New Play Festival!

That I opened!

With my play!

That I wrote!

About Mastodons!

And I had some lovely friends come out of the woodwork, both Lynbrook and Carleton people, and had a lovely time with them.

And I get to see it again tonight.

So, take that hurricane! You can't ruin everything.

Truffles and Mermaids

This is going to be an awesome week.

Not only do I get to see The Average-Sized Mermaid and several other cool shows in the New York Fringe Festival ...

(awesome mermaid photo by Joe Wehry, by the way)

.... but I ALSO get to see one of MY OWN shows at the first annual Truffle Hunt New Play Festival. I am tremendously excited. I've had some great emails with the director, the other playwrights look awesome, and the readings are taking place at a super-delicious looking gastro-pubby place called 61 Local. Microbrews, new plays, and fun young artists who call themselves "Piglets" - I am so in.

They've been doing a series of blog posts profiling playwrights in the festival, and I've finally made it on!

A Few Highlights:

What are you most proud of in terms of your work as an author?

I'm most proud of the fact that I'm still working. I've written at least a play a year since I was 15. Not all of them are super awesome, but I learn something new with every story I take on. I think there are a lot of people who have wonderful, beautiful ideas, but they don't always follow through with them. I do not want to be one of those people, so I try to keep something on the back burner of my brain all the time. I think a little part is terrified that if I stop working, I won't be able to start again, so I try and keep that little part busy so it doesn't scare itself. And because of this fear-driven, shark-like impulse for motion, I've written politically charged sex farces, violent short plays, semi-autobiographical storytelling pieces, children's plays, romantic comedies, post apocalyptic speculative fiction, and this delightful piece about a misfit mastodon. I can't wait to see what I get to do next and the great people I'm going to work with.

If you could've written any play (instead of the shmoe who did write it) what play would it be (i.e. Glengarry GlenRoss)?

I would love to take on some Chekov, because nothing is as beautifully absurd as Russian misery.

If you couldn't write, what would you most like to do?

I would like to knit a working tank from steel wool and marshal amazing parades around the world. It would probably shoot bubbles.

Yeah. I like to think I walk that fine line between pretentious and crazy. Maybe?

Check out the whole thing here. And if you're in Brooklyn next week, like a wonderfully unexpectedly large number of my friends, come and see the Truffle Hunt at the 61 Local! AND the Average Sized Mermaid, which closes tomorrow!

More pictures forthcoming, I assure you!

Baby Beluga

This completely made my night.



Apparently beluga whales like mariachi, or at least this one has a particular weakness for Yellow Bird, but then again, who doesn't?

"A Watery Delight"

We're a little more than halfway through the run of The Ugly Duckling and the responses have been amazing. As amazing as this photograph of the dancers in the swan pas de troi(taken by Mark Winter)

Wendell Brock at Arts Critic ATL gave us a positively stunning review:
laywright Rachel Teagle infuses her telling with lots of funny business, contemporary references and a streamlined trajectory of the journey of the Ugly Duckling (Andrew Crigler). Ugly encounters a gaggle of wild geese led by a showman named Captain Hooks, who claims to be the “loosest goose this side of the ’Hootch” (Will Shuler). Among Hooks’ entourage is a funny-talking Canadian named Alberta (Emma Jackson). Instead of spending time in the home of an old peasant woman with a hen and pussycat, Ugly is adopted by a snarky Cat (Ben Isabel) and Chicken (Jessica Miesel), loosely based on celebutantes Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Riffing on Hollywood’s penchant for odd baby names, the fashion terrors christen the duckling “Bookcase.” Naturally, they read him the riot act.

Clowdus has said he was moved to do this piece by the national conversation around bullying. Indeed, there is much talk here about Ugly “going through a phase,” something he’ll “grow out of.” Such are the code phrases that society uses to dismiss budding homosexual behavior. In the opening sequence, the narrator instructs us that nature is a mirror of life; when the water grows still, we can see our shapes in it. This story, then, is a reflection of the evanescence of life, a forever-shifting kaleidoscope of vanity, narcissism, shadows, light, trickery, transformation.

And the new Atlanta Theater Fans website loved it too, and even gave me a little nod, namely "Those slightly older (but still young at heart) will enjoy playwright Rachel Teagle’s witty banter and sharp cultural references."

Even the Danish American Consulate gave us a shout-out. The Danes do love their Hans Christian Anderson, as do we.

Speaking of Hans Christian Anderson, Jessica Fleitman's The Average Sized Mermaid" is gearing up for the New York Fringe. If you can't make it to the show, there's a way to support the production with a donation online or by purchasing their MER-chandise. Get it? I've seen a lot of our high school friends step up and support her, which is really wonderful. Go Jess Go!

This week also marks the beginning of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. I'm sure I'll be wistfully paging through the website a lot for the next week. Anyone planning on going? Let me know when you see something wonderful.

And speaking of wonderful things - in September, I'm heading up to New York to see the Truffle Theatre Company's Truffle Hunt New Play Festival featuring my play "The Impracticalities of Modern Day Mastodons." They've got a neat Production Blog so expect some forthcoming cross posting.

Carl Nelson Was Missing

Carl Nelson is nuts.

That's the first thing most people would tell you, and anyone who spent time around him would agree: Carl Nelson is absolutely nuts. He was an inferno of ideas, of energy, of wacky voices, and crazy characters and comics and art and everything. Carl Nelson is nuts. And he's brilliant.

We went to college together, and he was in Minneapolis for a few years after, then he disappeared to one of the Dakotas, and I was afraid I'd lose him, as he was not internet-able, and being both nuts and brilliant, was tough to keep a hold on.

But he has re-emerged. With a beautiful tumblr full of sketches and paintings and comics, and other evidence of a nutty brilliant person working his butt off.

Go see for yourself.

One of my favorites is a short comic called Blind Spot, a lovely little semi-sci-fi tidbit.

Go ahead, you can go read it.

I'll wait...

...

Sigh.

In other news, The Ugly Duckling opens tomorrow. was profiled in the Sunday edition of the AJC with a nice lovely picture of everyone underwater. And, as my mother pointed out, I was the only playwright cited by name, and I quote: "And playwright Rachel Teagle is penning a new adaptation of the classic that will include pop culture references to Brangelina and Neil Patrick Harris, plus characters based on Paris Hilton (a chicken) and Nicole Richie (a cat).*"
(*Although technically, Cat and Chicken are based on the Olsen twins, specifically these Olsen twins, but whatever. Close enough!)

We open tomorrow. I am nervous and excited. I hope no one drowns or gets eaten by fish.