Scene Herd Uddered Workshops 2004-2005

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Scene Herd Uddered
2004-2005 Season

The Uncertainty Principle • November 30, 2004 at the Jewel Box Theatre
			Written by Bethany Larsen Directed by Michael Kimmel Featuring: Alan Jestice, Andrea Judge, Kila Packett, Mark Pino, Brian Reilly, and Jessica Rodwick Producers: Anne Phelan and Nick Moore This new play follows Cassie's journey as she tries to make sense of her life after she loses everything in a fire. Not only does she lose what little she owned, but her tenuous grip on positive thinking is seriously challenged. Aided by a circus ringmaster with a penchant for physics and a potential new love, Cassie takes a walk through her life to see if it really is possible to have it all.
From Bethany... "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle says that on a subatomic level, you can either know how fast a particle is moving, or where it is in space, but you can't know both with any certainty at any one time. Expanding that to life-sized theory, I'm taking it to mean that 'You Can't Have it All.' The play is about trying to make sense of your life. I want the audience to relate to Cassie's issues and her struggle to figure herself out. For me, those moments when physics theory is difficult to grasp are similar to those moments in life when you throw up your hands and say, 'Why is this happening!!' and I think that the answer is that we can come very close to understanding why things happen, but we will never know the answers with any certainty."


The Uncertainty Principle went through a second Scene Herd Uddered workshop process in October 2005.

Kansas Faust • December 14, 2004 at the Abingdon Theatre Complex
Written by Anne Phelan Directed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer Featuring: Alex Cherington, Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum, Daryl Lathon, Michael Raimondi, Kirsten Walsh, and Cotton Wright This play is set in the contemporary Midwest, where Hank Faust is a professor at a small, rural college. After years of experiencing the world primarily through his intellect, middle-aged Faust realizes that he has made a mistake. After he rejects the option of suicide, Mephistopheles offers Faust a pact with the devil, in which Faust will be able to indulge his senses, and regain his youth. Faust agrees, and the journey begins.
	From Anne... "I read Goethe's Faust, Part One when I was in college, and was bored out of my mind; it was part of an effort to finish the reading list for the oral exam for my major, and I suppose my heart really wasn't in it. Then, while I was researching variant versions of Little Red Riding Hood on the internet, I kept running into links about Faust legends. So, two years ago, I began to read versions of Faust and decided that I wanted to write a Faust that somehow intersected with werewolf tales. I was fortunate enough to receive an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship this past July to start this play. Working with several translations, along with the original in German, I got a few days into writing, and discovered that I couldn't bring myself to turn Faust into a werewolf yet. I'd gotten too interested in what Goethe himself was trying to do. So I decided that I needed to write two plays: one with werewolves (which I've started, and is a much looser adaptation); and this one. I want Kansas Faust to be accessible to an American audience. It is set in the Midwest, it's contemporary and in prose, but does not (I hope) lose Goethe's wonderful weirdness and magic. I have tried to retain the images behind the words that Goethe uses over and over again: magic; secret; uncanny; light; and 'in the blink of an eye.' (German: Zauber, Geheimnis, Licht, Augenblick). I have also tried to do what F.W. Murnau's film version does so brilliantly: the audience needs to be on Faust's side from the beginning. He is arrogant, he is selfish, he does not possess a 'raised consciousness' (as it were) towards women. But he is fascinating."



Bound • February 22, 2005 at The Red Room
	Written by Daniel Ho Directed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer Dramaturg/AD: Melissa Fendell Performances by Jeff Broitman, Carolyn McDermott, Kenneth Naanep, Kimberly Felipe Villanueva, Dax Valdes, and Sheri Wang Straddling two time periods, Bound is a new play about shame, identity, family and the idea of home. The ancient Chinese practice of foot binding becomes a catalyst for several generations of women.
From Julie... "The picture is of my great-grandmother, Chia-Chia. You can see her little bound feet. When I first read Daniel Ho's Bound, I was blown away by more than his writing: my own family's journey follows an eerily similar string of events. Not only did my great-grandmother have bound feet, but my grandmother was born at a time when the generations clashed over whether or not to bind. She slept with her grandmother who secretly bound her feet each night. In the morning, the bindings would have to be removed since her father didn't believe in footbinding. To this day, her gnarled toes are a reminder of that struggle between generations. But, the similarities don't end there. Just like the character of Jane, my mother grew up in Illinois in the 1950s and 60s, as one of the only Chinese faces she ever saw. And, like Jane, she travelled to China to find her relatives. The difference there is that Jane goes to Hong Kong (which was open to foreigners in the 1960s) whereas my mother was one of the very first Americans allowed into Mainland China in the early 1970s. So, working on this play is very much a trip into my own history. I suppose that some people might say that the fact that a playwright I'd never met made up this story from his imagination, proves the theory that no story is unique. I prefer to believe that, like my Chinese middle name (Fei-Fan or 'unique'), the baggage that Dan and I each bring to the table, will make this play an original."