Interview with Mike Daisey – The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

At Woolly Mammoth Theatre
Jordan Wright
Special to DC Theatre Scene dot com
March 9th, 2011

MIKE DAISEY - the master storyteller - Photo credit to Daisey Web

Mike Daisey looks like an everyman, but don’t let appearances fool you. He’s a man with a plan and an agenda to boot with a powerful spotlight on workers’ rights that uses comedy and truth-telling in his latest monologue, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” playing at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre. As both author and actor of his scriptless theatre verité, he has traveled to China and the South Seas and come away with a firsthand knowledge and what he feels is an obligation to share his story with his audiences. His one-man construct rips the veil off the industry as he rails against “the rise and fall and rise of Apple, industrial design and the human price we are willing to pay for our technology.”

Where are you from?

I grew up in Northern Maine and live in New York.

Where does your storytelling tradition come from?

I’ve been a monologist for the past 13 or 14 years and it has evolved in a way that is a living form of traditional theatre and I am actually communicating on stage so that it is unique experience.

Would you say you’re the Michael Moore of contemporary theatre writers?

No, I don’t write the pieces. They are created extemporaneously. In a better world there would be lots of proactive people that display that sort of citizenship.

Who were your influences? Who is looking over your shoulder when you create your plays?

I am strongly influenced by all sorts of extemporaneous performance. I’m really interested in public speakers, black speakers, and standup comedy. The naked singularity of the theatre is the heart of what I’m compelled by. So I learn a lot by listening to other people. I believe that non-fiction is going to assert itself, and I think that is important for American theaters.

Since your monologue speaks to workers’ conditions in China, would you like to comment on the current challenge to workers’ bargaining rights in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio? Do you think it’s any different?

Well it’s quite similar in some ways and widely in different others. What’s similar is of course the people in Michigan are fighting for the rights that people lived and died for 100 years ago. The local government is trying to turn back the clock. Since those battles were fought, we forget what was sacrificed to bring us out of those times. In China the conditions look the same as they always have. It is a place that has never had protections and rights.

Do you see the future of theatre as a socially responsible forum to address current topics?

Certainly the future and present of my theatre! We all have a responsibility to be social citizens. I think it is deeply unnatural to divorce that from our art. It’s bad for art and the theatre to divide those things. There is a drive to believe that the arts should be apolitical and to keep the arts pretty.

Do you consider yourself a radical or a social commentator?

I don’t know the difference.

Would you prefer writer Terry Southern or Tom Wolfe at your dinner table?

I think I would say Tom Wolfe. Ahh, those white suits! I have an affinity for characters.

Where do you eat when you’re in DC?

It’s challenging. I love dim sum in Chinatown and also Teaism and Busboys and Poets. I’m hoping to find a few more restaurants that I feel strongly about this time around.

Do you cook?

Inconsistently and fitfully. My wife [Jean-Michelle Gregory, his longtime director and collaborator] is an excellent cook and I am happy to cede control of it. Recently I cooked a successful dinner and I plan to branch out in the future.

Why is it important to you to perform “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” in DC?

I’m happy that we’re bringing the show to downtown DC. We are trying to get as many politicians from The Hill to attend because we’re trying to bring attention to the workers conditions in Shenzhen. I feel responsible for telling the story well and I hope I am up to the task of serving the people whose voices are not generally heard.

At the Woolly Mammoth from March 21st through April 17th. For tickets and information visit www.woollymammoth.net.

Director Matt August on Liberty Smith

March 31, 2011
Jordan Wright
Special to DC Theatre Scene

Matt August (Photo: courtesy of Ford's Theatre)

Matt August returns to direct Ford’s Theatre’s world premiere of the musical Liberty Smith following up on the popular run of his direction of A Christmas Carol, that played at Ford’s from 2004 through 2008. His previous directorial credits include the Broadway production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2006, 2007) and subsequent national tours (2008-2010). Off-Broadway credits include Sixteen Wounded, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Judith and Meet John Doe. August has served as a Killian Fellow for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a Robert Wilson Watermill Directing Fellow, and was a recipient of a Drama League Fellowship.

Continue reading Director Matt August on Liberty Smith

And The Curtain Rises – A Wild and Crazy, Everything-But-The-Kitchen-Sink Musical Delight At Signature Theatre

Jordan Wright
March 29^th, 2011
Special to The Washington Examiner

Nick Dalton as Wheatley. Photo Courtesy of Show Producer

Why Signature Theatre changed the name of this production only a few months before its opening is a question I continued to ask myself throughout this lively musical. Originally entitled, Wheatley’s Folly, referring to the central character’s blustering determination to mount his playwright friend’s dreadful drama about a simple Midwestern family after the Civil War, the meaning for the change-of-heart title is not revealed until the end of the play. Well, no matter, it is still Wheatley’s folly, notwithstanding, and in spite of it the audience is taken on an uproarious, frequently slapstick, somewhat quirky and occasionally romantic adventure about theatre life and the whimsical twists and haphazard turns that emerge from the writing, re-writing and mounting of a new production called, “Return to Black Creek”. Based loosely on real events when the first American musical was born in the period following the Civil War.

The characters, remember the actors are actors (are you still with me here?), are so appalled by the badly-written and novicely-directed play that they plead with both Wheatley, the play’s manager and backer (played by Nick Dalton), and his friend Charles Barras, its playwright (Sean Thompson), to change it. “It’s foul! It stinks! Disgustingly cloying!” they revolt, in the song “Someone Must Be Told” after Barras insists, “Everyone must stand still while delivering lines!” They implore the reluctant impresario and his know-nothing playwright to save the play by making full-scale changes.

After disappearing for days on a mission of rewrites Barras returns with a single solution…to add a cough to the dialogue. The jaunty song “Cough” with the line, “If mucus be the food of love” is the cast’s retort.

The intransigent Barras, challenged by Wheatley in a Money versus Art argument, deserts the production, and the showbiz neophyte adopts every hare-brained suggestion the cast and crew throw at him. Whole scenes are discarded, characters re-invented, even tree silhouettes replace stalks of Kansan corn, cabins become
mansions, and more performers (after a fire next door an entire French ballet company is taken in and pressed into service) are added in this topsy-turvy play-within-a-play. Cue the swordfights, dry ice and small dog!

Leading lady, Millicent Cavendish, played affectingly by Rebecca Watson

Leading lady, Millicent Cavendish, played affectingly by Rebecca Watson, is an over-the-hill ingénue. She is in her 30’s. She has played Juliet 30 times. “One bad role and down it goes,” she sagely remarks as she reflects on the imminent demise of her career should the show fail in the song “House of Cards”. When Wheatley urges her not to desert him in one of the show’s most heartfelt numbers, “Stay”, Dalton has the audience in his thrall. Her reply, “Enter Love”, is a ballad whose sheet music will no doubt be in short supply when it is discovered by hordes of cabaret performers.

Other cast notables are Brian Sutherland as Roman Korda the Hungarian concert master, Kevin Carolan as mild-mannered aging funnyman C. H. Morton, Erick Devine as Jeremiah Burnett who evolves into the lyricist Hertzog, a Dr. Faustus type, Anna Kate Bocknek as Marie Bonfant the coquettish ballerina, and Alma Cuervo as Madame Grimaud, the Ballet Mistress, who convinces Wheatley in order to succeed he needs, “a little more glamour, a little more magic” in the engaging tune, “A Little More Pretend”.

The acting is top-notch all around and the music (by Mark Campbell and Joseph Thalken) is luscious. Dozens of sets pivot seamlessly (designed by Beowulf Boritt) and a 17-piece live orchestra framed by lush red velvet drapes, anchors center stage to great dramatic effect. Director Kristin Hanggi, who has worked with the Pussycat Dolls, Gwen Stephani and Christina Aguilera, puts an over-the-top play-it-for-everything-its-worth dynamic into this crazy wild burlesque and the audience is the better for it.

With nineteen songs, chorines performing everything from ballet to high-kicking can-can, and more insider theatre jokes than a cat has lives, “What’s next? Locusts?” carps Rose Morton delightfully played by Jennifer Smith, And The Curtain Rises is a riotous send up of theatre – warts and all.

Now through April 10^th at Signature Theatre, Arlington, VA. For tickets and information visit www.signature-theatre.org or call 703 573-SEAT (7328).

Meet Pioneering Chef Bryon Brown – He’s Ready to Rock Your World with Sensorium

Jordan Wright
March 3. 2011
Special to The Washington Examiner

Bryon Brown is a high-flying chef, alchemist and showman whose extravagant theatrical bent has thrust him into a new paradigm, one that will feature exotic performance artists, molecular gastronomy and world fusion music, all in one 12-course dining experience that caters to all the senses. His latest venture, housed in a specially designed Buckminster Fuller-inspired geodesic dome constructed near Nationals Park, will please his legions of adoring foodies that have been tracking him through Twitter to the DC art galleries where he has been hosting his secret food plus art plus music events.

His highly original concept of juxtaposing cutting edge culinary techniques with the arts could elevate him to the vanguard of today’s most experimental and exciting chefs. But can he pull it off? If he does, and I’m betting on it, it will be a spectacular achievement.

“I actually come from the higher education world. My background is in research methodology and statistics, ” he let on. But his early culinary training was at Jaleo and minibar under José Andrés; and Cork under Ron Tanaka.

In 2009, he developed an iPhone application – “Wine Picks by Sommeliers”, which was purchased by over 80,000 subscribers. Last year it was named one of Apple’s “Staff Picks” and was a highly ranked Lifestyles app.

As a writer on food and theatre I was particularly interested in your project? How do you combine art, theatre, dance and music with food?

Artisa Kitchen started out as a nomadic super club in various art galleries in DC. We used The Fridge Gallery, the Hamiltonian and the Long View Gallery. People would sign up and submit their appetites to me. And what we learned from doing those dinners was that people really enjoy the intimacy of an informal setting. We wondered how we could take that a step further to enhance their experience with art music and food. Although the emphasis is on theatre, our goal is to heighten the culinary senses.

How does “Sensorium” unfold?

The premise is that your taste experience dissipates the fastest. So we connect it with the visual experience since your visual perceptions memories last longer.

For example in this dinner we make what we call a ‘Mimosa Grape”. It’s a spherified mimosa cocktail shaped like a grape that we add pop rocks to. For the theatre part we emphasize the sound of pop rocks exploding and at the same time the performers act that out. We strive to connect internally with our guests in order to reinforce their taste memory.

Why do you host these events in a geodesic dome?

To bring people out of their normal everyday experience. And, more practically, since it is the most secure and green of structures.

What technical aspects of the event lend excitement to the evening?

We build theatrical lighting into each course. We make a Cloud Nine Salmon Salad. We create a cloud from liquid nitrogen and use it as a plate. And the lighting makes it feel as though you’re going down a rabbit hole into a new universe.

What sort of music and performance is in the project?

We create music with a sound designer so that each music component enhances the culinary perspective. With our sous vide-prepared rockfish course we bring people underwater as they are eating and at the same time the performers pluck blue light out of thin air to the sound of roaring water. Lighting mimics the underwater feel and a school of fish appears on the set.

Salmon is served under a box with smoke pouring out. For the poultry course we create two birds conversing on a porch, deciding whether they want to eat duck. It’s really playful and connects the theatre with the culinary world.

How do people find out where your dinners are held?

They follow me on Facebook and Twitter through my catering company Artisa Kitchen. But we are holding off on our gallery dinners while we are doing Sensorium.

How did you put your team together?

I met my team through my supper clubs where I met a lot of artists. My creative director works at The Fridge Gallery. Back then he was training as a magician. We talked about how those two worlds merge – taking people out of their schema and asking how they experience and know food – similar to how a magician creates an illusion. We asked ourselves what it might be like to take magic and illusion and mash them up together. We already had a following and now people were looking to us for the next big thing. Our challenge was how to transcend the supper club. We think that theatre and foodie people can be different crowds but we feel we can we can bring them together.

How do you use molecular gastronomy during the dinner?

There is a whole segment on making a sorbet with liquid nitrogen. We create a monster water slide for liquid to travel into a bowl and become a giant pudding pop. We asked ourselves “How do we enhance that as a ritual?” I saw it in action when I worked at minibar where the whole ritualistic experience is behind it. While I was there I learned how the entertainment side of food is important. I think the Japanese do that best with their tea and food rituals.

Does the dome travel with you?

Yes. It’s made out of steel triangle rods and fabric and takes about a day to put up and a day to take down. After Washington we plan to go to Miami, Philadelphia and New York and then the West Coast. But we wanted to have it here first since DC is our home.

Where was your most exciting dining experience?

At Mario Batali’s Posto restaurant in New York City with my aunt. They knew it was her first time and they took great care of us during a 12-course authentic Roman meal.

Who was your greatest culinary influence?

Actually my cooking was most influenced by chef and author, Heston Blumenthal, and his “The Fat Duck Cookbook”. When he started out he took what little money he had and traveled around to the best restaurants in the country to taste what they were doing before he wrote his book.

Who would you most like to see attend one of your dinners?

I want President Obama and the First Lady to come and bring their daughters, Sasha and Melia!

I understand you are conducting scientific research in developing Sensorium.

Joshua Foer, author of “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”, is collaborating with us on a research methodology project about how to reinforce the idea of connecting visual memory with taste memory. We will be documenting our work and tweeting people’s reactions and experiences to see if what we’re doing actually works.

How do you select the wines to pair with the dishes?

I meet with Tom Freidberg twice a week and he brings seven to ten wines for me to taste. He is my professional catalogue. He’s been with me for my supper clubs and he knows what I do and where I want to take it. I’m exploring how to take these instinctual components and reinforce them.

We understand that beer and wine are contextual. We do four wine pairings with dinner plus cocktails in the foyer that are served on customized tables with ‘geoscopes’ in them. We like to mix up perceptions of reality. The goal is to break people’s game up. Whatever you think a signature cocktail is – that’s not what’s its going to be.

What do you hope guests will come away with from this special evening?

I think everything that we’re doing is new but for sure there is nothing out there that connects music to the food. I hope people will ask, “What just happened to me!”

For information and ticket purchases: www.sensoriumdc.com

Performing Arts: Top Theatre Picks Of The Week

By Jordan Wright
Posted on 7 March 2011
Special to Washington Life Magazine

Dizzy Miss Lizzie's Roadside Revue (Courtesy photo)

The Red Herring, Paige in Full, and Finn McCool are on our radar for top theatre picks this week. Click HERE

Mystery Meets Metaphysics and the Occult in “Widdershins” at The Little Theatre of Alexandria

Jordan Wright
March 7^th, 2011
Special to The Alexandria Times

Emily Woods (Constance), Lars Klores (Mr. English), Elizabeth A. Keith (Mrs. English), and Elise Kolle (Felicity) Photo by Shane Canfield

When a Welsh family of four vanishes into thin air from their cozy country manse, leaving no other clue save a slip of paper handwritten with the word “widdershins”, we find two detectives hot on the trail to solve the mystery. In a complex and fascinatingly convoluted Victorian plot replete with Druids, faerie legends, French Impressionists and the occult, “Widdershins”, currently at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, connects these seemingly disparate elements with cohesive aplomb.

Underneath the quaint façade of this turn of the century upper crust family there are darker sides to each member that Inspector Ruffing, and his tippling cohort, McGonigle, aim to uncover. Between pours of the family’s finest scotch, McGonigle attempts to wrest the truth from a series of interviews with the family’s only remaining daughter, Annie, their lame servant girl, Jenny, and Betty, the village sorceress.

Mr. English, as the patriarch of the family, is a man in full who fancies himself a painter, writer and intellectual. Yet he is a dilettante holding his family firmly in his thrall. In a self-absorbed metaphysical quest – “To find the truth one must travel deeper and deeper into the abyss,” he declares – he dabbles dangerously in superstitions and Pagan legends. With the aid of a daft local seer and herbalist with a penchant for young boys, he is lured into the places where the “lost ones” dwell, as she goads him on to visit the spirits that have haunted him in his hallucinations.

“The sacred and the damned are the same,” English declares in a delusional dualist attempt to define God. With such a cavalier philosophy it should come as no surprise that he absolves himself of any responsibility towards his family, and we soon discover that everyone including his wife and children, Constance, Felicity, and their adopted daughter, Ann, has dark secrets and their own private demons. When English describes the world as a turf labyrinth or “mizmaze”, with the boundaries of a chessboard as its metaphor, we see his children, Constance and Felicity, toying with the pieces, in a symbolic reference to God toying with our destinies.

Lars Klores (Mr. English), Rebecca Fischler (Jenny) Photo by Shane Canfield

If you’re sensing a dash of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz meets the Addams Family, in a story written by Immanuel Kant and Edgar Allen Poe and directed by Fellini, then you’re on to something. Just remember to stage the fantasy in a comfortable Victorian drawing room with a fireplace.

In this carefully crafted whodunit, playwright Don Nigro reaches beyond a simple missing persons crime scene to explore intricate themes of religion, morality and sexuality in a mystery with cosmic mysteries. “God swims in a mysterious soup,” English divines.

To express that the characters’ reappearances are but visits from another realm as they waft in and out of the misty scenes in a time continuum, their visages are cleverly illuminated, by lighting and special effects designers, Ken and Patti Crowley.

The acting is smooth as a bolt of silk with Mike Baker, Jr. playing the bereaved McGonigle, J. Andrew Simmons as Ruffing the lead detective, Elizabeth A. Keith as the aggrieved Mrs. English, Kat Sanchez as the adopted daughter Ann, and Lars Klores as Mr. English. Gayle Nichols-Grimes plays the combo seer/witch in hoary and hilarious fashion (did I neglect to mention there was comedy here too?), while Elise Kolle and Emily Woods as the younger children exceed our expectations as the playful and mischievous foils whose innocence creates chaos.

Flawlessly directed by C. Evans Kirk, this production is highly recommended.

Through March 29^th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For tickets and information call 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com.

WATCH Awards Reach Out and Touch
Alexandria’s Little Theatre

Jordan Wright
March 6, 2011

Sunday night and the crowd at the Birchmere was explosive. The WATCH Awards, which are to Washington area community theatres what the Tonys are to Broadway, were being presented and it was a pretty amped up crowd. Covering as far East as Annapolis, and south as Prince William County it included Alexandria’s own Little Theatre of Alexandria, which raked in four awards for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for Amy Carson for her work on “Chicago”; Outstanding Achievement in Hair Design for Paul Morton for “Lady Windermere’s Fan”; Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction for Paul Nash for “Chicago; and Outstanding Achievement in Direction of a Musical for Susan Devine for “Chicago”.