This is the fourth post in a series of guest blogs about our upcoming production, The Ravagers, which will be presented atTarnish and Gold on March 4th and 5th. See the first post by playwright Blake E. Bolan here , the second post by director Sarah Teich here, and the third post by actor Rachel Nelson here.

Today's post is from Heidi Jedlicka, an actor and member of Seoul Players.

Beep Beep! Bump. Honk! KoreantalkingImosltydon’tunderstand. Bump. Beep. Stairs. 45 minutes of Novel or 2 games of Scrabble. Stairs. Beep. Walk up hill. There. Rehearse. Reverse. Wake up, Work. Repeat.

Living outside of your home turf is generally harder than living at home. Everything takes just a little more effort. Buying toothpaste. Ordering pizza. Renting Rehearsal Space. General Communication. Not only are you straddling two different cultures but the language barrier can kick your ass when you least expect it. For example, I now know to always let an Adjuma (Older Korean Woman) have the right of way--they may look frail but they will knock you out of their way with the grace of a linebacker. Or how about that one time I found out that one misspoken vowel sound can mean the difference between a $2 cab ride and a $40 adventure. True Story.

So making English theatre in a non-English country can be sticky-tricky. We foreign workers have weird hours making rehearsals tricky to schedule, trying to secure English rights to plays in a non-English speaking country is a constant confusion to the folks at Sam French et al, and finding spaces and sponsors when you don’t speak the native language is a CONSTANT challenge and by challenge I mean ohemgee *pullsouthair*.

So why the heck do I ( and the rest of the talented artists living in Seoul) spend the wee bit of spare time I (we) have zig zagging across Seoul to rehearsals, rallying the troops for meetings and sending out more email per day than can possibly be normal?

Because when it works (and thankfully it so often does) it is MAGICAL. To put everything into a piece of work that literally has never been done in this place (or within thousands of miles of this place). More than anything, it’s saying the arts matter. This story matters. And it matters so much I’m going to do every thing I can to do it, and do it well. Damn.

So this presentation The Ravagers. Started with One, then two, then 40. Then, it zipped around the world bouncing between email, skype, studio spaces in Sadang and theatre spaces in Minneapolis.  Rockin’ my world the whole. damn. time.

You want it to rock yours?

Heidi

This is the third post in a series of guest blogs about our upcoming production, The Ravagers, which will be presented at Tarnish and Gold on March 4th and 5th. See the first post by playwright Blake E. Bolan here and the second post by director Sarah Teich here.

Today's entry is from Rachel Nelson, an actor, Savage Umbrella member, and  participant in the US workshops.

"So for this next exercise, I want you guys to improv a wedding night. Here's the twist: the woman is supposed to kill the man. He's supposed to rape her. Who knows what actually happens, but start there. Got it? Ok, let's get started." Welcome to your first rehearsal of The Ravagers.

This kind of stuff isn't exactly easy improv, especially with a room full of people who just met each other. In my relatively short time working with Savage Umbrella, I've figured out this is just how they do things round these parts: intense, straight to the point, and full of risks.

I find my partner, and we retire to the corner. We start talking about The Suppliants, the Greek myth this scene is pulled from. This leads to a conversation about relationships, about power, about submission, about intimate propaganda. It's an odd sensation to discuss these kinds of hot button issues two minutes after shaking hands. In a culture obsessed with boundaries, there is something intensely cathartic about this kind of conversation with strangers. There's a kind of relief in just letting intimacy not be weird.

As I write this, the members of Savage Umbrella are trying to hash out our mission statement, and the conversations around that process have made me realize that this sense of intelligent and relevant risk-taking is at the heart of how many of the company members think about theater-making. Our world is changing constantly: reality is being renegotiated and altered every time we turn on the TV, fight with a loved one, lose a parent, move to another city, and the list goes on and on. Increasingly, we are part of a global awareness, a tangled web of identities that leaves easy conclusions in the dust.

"An artist can show things other people are terrified of expressing," wrote Louise Bourgeois. No shit. The Ravagers is a perfect example of this: we are making a play about everything that I've always been terrified to directly address in personal relationships. There is something powerful about that. Even this early in the process, I find myself returning again and again to the concept of catharsis. A cleansing. A dramatic change in emotion. A purification.

In order for theater to to serve as an active discussion and response to the world, we have to be willing to redesign the format, to find new ways of making meaning. For Savage Umbrella, this means a lot of talking. It means a lot of reading. It means a lot of challenging (and sometimes conflicting) viewpoints. It means reexamining the hierarchy of theater companies. And sometimes, it means improvising your way through a doomed wedding night with a complete stranger.

So eventually everybody gets up and does their scenes. Many of them are excruciatingly intense: this is every kind of subject matter that is theatrically stomach turning. Beautiful moments and ideas are exposed, dutifully noted and recorded to send to Blake in South Korea to eventually (maybe) find their way into our final script. Eventually, a couple scenes emerge that are funny. There isn't any way to improv sex without it eventually getting hilarious. This room full of semi-strangers rolls around laughing for a while, and I'm reminded how cathartic that can be. There it is again: this idea of release, of changing the emotional status quo. Maybe it's possible that the theater of the future isn't just radical and emotionally wrenching and raw: maybe it's full of laughter. Maybe sometimes, it's just really, really funny.

This is the second in a series of posts about our upcoming show, The Ravagers, which will be presented on March 4th and 5th. Today’s post is from Sarah Teich, the director of the US cast.

It’s 7:30 in the morning. Admittedly, it’s not the crack of dawn, but I definitely sound groggier than the energized voice coming out of the computer. Then again, it’s 10:30pm in Seoul, so Blake’s day is wrapping up as mine is beginning. I try to sip my tea faster in order to get my brain up to speed, but the excitement of collaborating internationally with an innovative and talented writer seeps in quicker than the tea, and we’re off to the races.

My early morning Skype companion is Blake Bolan, who is currently living and teaching in Seoul, South Korea. She is deep in development on a piece titled THE RAVAGERS (for better-written-than-mine details on the origins of the piece, read her blog post here). THE RAVAGERS will be a full-blown production in Minneapolis this fall, and Blake is in the throes of generating material for her script. I am on board to help with this process, from over 6,000 miles away.

I fell in love with Blake’s work here in the Twin Cities at Bedlam’s 10-Minute Play Festival in 2008. I loved the sense of streamlined simplicity in her work that also had this capacity to arouse complex emotions. We worked as collaborators the following year for a Fringe show, LOVE ME OR DIE!; she as a writer and I as a performer. I found the process unique and invigorating – we all worked from the same source material, generated a variety of ideas, and she cultivated scenes and characters that were rooted in our findings as an ensemble.

Her process for THE RAVAGERS is similar, but with a twist (like a good drink, yeah?). There are workshops happening in Seoul and Minneapolis throughout the month of February. We are both using Aeschylus’ THE SUPPLIANTS as source material, with the politics of North Korea and South Korea informing the narrative. Each week, Blake brainstorms what material she wants to work on (ex: What is the backstory of the rift between these brothers? Is there an early-on romance that we see develop between two characters? What do the daughters dream about? What would be a terrifying quality that 50 brothers could possess?), and divides it between the two groups. We each work with our talented cadre of brave and creative actors, and then discuss our findings.

I am amazed by all the barriers that are instantly removed by technology. Workshops are documented in three ways – notes, photos, and video. At no cost (and who doesn’t love free?), everything is uploaded online, and we can basically sit in on what the other workshop group worked on, discussed, and created. Sometimes it’s actors pairing off and creating a scene through improv, other times it’s a larger scene living in Blake’s head that is staged. Sometimes it’s just sitting and discussing characters and plot points. Notes taken from these discussions are uploaded to Google Docs, and everyone is instantly on the same page (no pun intended).

It has been so informative seeing the work they are doing in Seoul; at our rehearsals we are able to take some of their ideas and build off of them, even though they workshopped those ideas across the country 14 hours earlier.

I am lucky to be working with an insanely skillful and inventive team of actors here in the Twin Cities, who show up every Sunday night ready to dive into whatever material is given to them that evening. They have been instrumental in bringing this story to life. We’ve had some great brainstorming sessions generating materials and questions, and now will be focusing on areas we want to bring to an audience.

We are really looking forward to sharing our work with a new group of people. We will be at Tarnish and Gold Gallery in NE Minneapolis at 8pm on March 4th and March 5th. Please come and give your feedback – we’ll even throw in some food and wine! Blake will be joining us as well, through the power of the Internet.

Let’s get Ravaged, y’all!

This is the first in a series of posts about our upcoming show, The Ravagers, which will be presented on March 4th and 5th. Today's post is from Blake E. Bolan, the playwright and a founding member of Savage Umbrella.

So, here I am in South Korea.  It was my initial intention to stay here for a year, teach kids, pay some bills, and see what it was like not to do theater for awhile.  It had been about 12 years since I had taken any kind of extended break from making theater - I can count the number of weeks I didn’t have a project on my plate on one hand.  Being consumed by theater for all of that time made me think that I couldn’t get a good perspective on what I loved about it, what my desires are all about.  I didn’t know if I wanted to be a performer, a writer, a director, an administrator.  I didn’t know what it would be like to have my evenings completely wide and free, no all-consuming extra-curricular activity detailing every moment not spent at work or asleep.  I wanted to see how other people live - hobbies, dates, television.  So, I went to the other side of the globe with no intention of connecting with theater other than perhaps viewing it if the opportunity arose.

Can you guess how that experiment ended up?  On one hand, I began to enjoy life in Korea more than I ever thought I would - the people, the FOOD (get yourself to a Korean restaurant as fast as you can and order … pretty much anything), the work, the living.  On the other hand, it took me all of 3 months to know, once and for all, how much theater is an integral part of my life.  The chance to look both farther outside myself than I am wont to do on any given day and also inside myself to the deepest regions.  The sense of ownership in making something that really exists in this world.  The delight of doing something that is fleeting and potentially interesting, funny, beautiful.  The community that is built between the people who work on a project, and also with the people who take time out of their lives to experience what you’ve created, whatever their experience ends up being.  Yes.  Yes.  YES.

I learned in those months whiling away the hours watching NCIS and eating too much fried Korean meat that every inconvenience, every frustration, every moment spent grumpily in a tech rehearsal really has been worth it.  My sense of self is built upon my involvement in the theater, and I am reticent to imagine the self that I would have built without it.  I am glad for the person that theater has helped me to become.  It has taught me to appreciate the world at every turn - from dance to philosophy to the elocution of Korean 1st graders.

So, what does that have to do with The Ravagers?  Once the lightbulb reached full brightness and I was ready to fully embrace the theater once again, I knew it was time to end my hiatus from Savage Umbrella.  So, how does one get started working with their company again if they’ve just signed a contract to stay another year on a peninsula with 14 hour time difference to Minneapolis?  She works with her cohorts to develop a long-term plan.

So, we decided I would write a show that I would direct in the 2011-2012 Savage Umbrella season.  We had some discussions about how long the writing process would take, and what material I would be working from.  I previously developed a short piece for the Minneapolis Pinter Studies based on the myth of Oedipus, and Laura and I talked about expanding that work.  That got us talking about Greek plays, and Greek myths, and we realized that revitalizing an ancient play would be an excellent addition to the Savage Umbrella repertoire.  We left Oedipus for another season, but landed on The Suppliants, the first known Greek play.  It’s part of a trilogy, but while the entire myth survives, the text doesn’t. 50 brides, 50 grooms, and a lot of unanswered questions.  A lot of room for exploration.

With that in our minds, a few days later, Laura asked me, “What’s the first thing that comes into your mind in connection with the play?”  And I said, “The Chinese actors North Korea hired to be fans during the World Cup.”  I think we were both puzzled by that for a bit, but as we discussed this connection gained some momentum.  The 50 brides of The Suppliants act under the direction of their father at every turn, from begging for mercy from the people of Argos to entering into wedlock with the instruction to murder their husbands on their wedding night.  They follow each and every edict set out by their father, who rules them and later rules Argos, their nation of refuge.  All but one woman never waver, never question their father’s guidance.  So, how can that be?  How can you build a family of 50 daughters, no sons, no mothers in sight, and know that they will obey you?

Right here, right now, in my close geographic proximity lies the most secretive nation in the modern world.  And there are similar questions.  How does a father-figure leader cultivate the unwavering devotion of his country?  How does a man convince the people of his nation to accept the assistance of others but to believe they are the only truly good, clean, pure people on the Earth?  How far can charisma and a sense of filiall duty take an entire nation, an entire race?

Right now, Savage Umbrella is embracing the distance between playwright and company and embarking on an international collaboration.  The idea for simultaneous workshops developed in order to engage artists in both my community here in Seoul and the community in Minneapolis with the questions of the play, the questions of politics, and the questions that arise in between.  It’s just beginning, and it’s already one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever had the pleasure to work on.  There’s so much to explore, and there are amazing people on both ends diving in.  Let me tell you, this is how to make a play.

This is what I was missing.

Rehearsals are underway! Director Julia Metzger-Traber and I have started putting the show together, and it's a blast. At this point we are exploring some of the broader themes of the show and figuring out how to articulate each of them. I was also able to give a performance of one of the episodes this week, and the response was quite positive. There was nearly a riot. I had to be flown out by a helicopter. The governor let me hide under his bed in exchange for a clown nose. It's been quite a week.  Happy living!

- Eric F. Avery (performer/creator of The Winter Adventures of Happy, the SAD Clown)

From Leaves composer and arranger, Candace Bilyk:

When Laura and Bryan first asked me to write music for Leaves, I was unsure. The kind of music that they wanted was outside of my usual style and very different from my last project with Savage Umbrella (The Awakening). While not pop music, the aesthetic they wanted leaned much closer to the pop side than to “art” music, or whatever people call it now. Additionally, the timeline would be much shorter.

The script was created by a team of writers, so I suggested having multiple composers as well, thinking it would fit the spirit of the show, help with the time crunch, and hopefully keep my abstract tendencies in check. At the same time, Ben Mattson was asking to do some music for the project, so he and I set out to work together. Some of the cast members also pitched in and wrote two of the songs.

Still, writing for Leaves was a challenge. How do you create a unique feeling melody with ubiquitous chords? How do you break out of the box when your goal is also to get inside of one? How do you keep the audience from being distracted from the fact that the characters are singing now instead of speaking, and keep it natural and smooth when the form of the music is so obvious? Most people think pop music is easy, but the truth is making something poppy, subtle, and creative is really hard.

Usually when I write I start out with ideas for themes and melodies and fill in the chords that work with those ideas. To get more of straightforward feeling in the music I put a focus on chord progressions and then melody, adjusting the melody to work with where I wanted the chords to go instead of the other way around. Other figures in the accompaniment were either adapted from the melody lines or bits from music written by the other contributors to make the score feel more cohesive.

The path that Leaves takes the audience down is one towards hope. While I may have started with reservations, I find myself following right along. While there have been personal successes, I think it has more to do with being surrounded by the characters and their play for the last two months, finding myself in them and letting them find themselves in me. That is the magic ofLeaves--other people may tell you it's about America, but you are America, and it's about you.

There are so many reasons to come to this show. Come to hear the music performed by expressive and talented singers, music that somehow fits together despite being written by four very different people. Come to see strong, rounded characters pitted against each other that have nothing to do with the stock parts you may be accustomed to. Come to be challenged or come to feel self-affirmed. Come to say you saw Savage Umbrella when they were small but already a powerful creator of new and meaningful theater. Come to contribute to a communal hope. But most of all, come as you are and find some part of yourself within.

We just officially announced our 2010-11 Season, including Leaves and info on the Savage Umbrella Hella Happy Hour! You can read the press release here.

You can read Jay Gabler's full review of The Awakening that appeared in the Twin Cities Daily Planet here...

...and here are some juicy excerpts:

"Though I'm used to seeing shows in small venues, every so often I see a show that's so accomplished and absorbing that it's a little astonishing when a scene ends and there's only a small spattering of applause, rather than the thunder you hear at the Guthrie or the Orpheum. The entrancing Awakening being presented by Savage Umbrella and 3AM Productions at Gremlin Theatre is just such a show. It's tart and beautiful and funny and free—the perfect show for this capricious, long-awaited spring."

"It's a premiere production of a script by Laura Leffler-McCabe, who also directed, with music composed by Candy Bilyk and performed by a graceful trio of instrumentalists with singing by the cast...and it's captured brilliantly by the performances, the music, and Justin Hooper's inventive set design."

"Bilyk's music for The Awakening is dark, complex, and thorny. It's often pretty to listen to, but it's never easy listening: as was the case in the music composers like Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss were writing in Kate Chopin's time, Bilyk's melodies are elliptical and challenge the ear's expectations about tonal structures and chord progressions. It's hauntingly apt for this story of a woman who longs to break free of social strictures."

"The production is deeply stocked with memorable performances—among them Alexis Clarksean as a lonely woman who speaks in riddles but knows that the right person would catch her drift, Lacey Piotter as a friend who has her own ideas about what's good for Edna, and John Zeiler as Edna's father in a turn that would steal a lesser show—but (Sarah) Teich is the show's linchpin, and she holds fast. The script does not paint Edna as a particularly likable character: she neglects her children, she's rude to her friends, and she entertains suitors despite the fact that her husband, for all their differences, sincerely adores and remains devoted to her. Still, Teich wins our empathy with a brave and nuanced performance; we see her character's complexity, and we feel her pain."

"The Awakening is an amazing show: it had me on the edge of my seat, and on multiple occasions wanting to jump out of it with cheers. "Critics are so cynical," someone said to me after reading my negative review of The Wizard of Oz. I mean, how can you not love The Wizard of Oz? It's because when you're a critic, you see a lot of shows—which means, luckily, that every once in a while you get to see a show like The Awakening, and you see just how rewarding theater can be."

And I just realized we have only 25 days until we open THE AWAKENING, our largest project yet.  25 days, 22 rehearsals and one more day of video shooting.  Oy vey.  So much to do in so little time.

Largest you say?  Oh, yes.  We have 13 adults actors, our largest cast yet.  We cast the show at the first of September and workshopped for four, count 'em, four months.   We're incorporating video into the production for the first time ever.  It's our first time working with child actors;  we have one stage and five more on video.  There are over 50 scenes, making this our first show with an intermission.  We've had original music before, of course, but we'll now have our largest pit ever with piano, clarinet and violin.  There are over 50 costumes - with a costume team of only two, who are working their fingers to the bone.  Behind the table we have 14 - fourteen! - people giving their time and talents to make this show happen.  No, not just happen, but blossom, explode, succeed, soar.

But as breath-taking as that all large-ness is, at its heart, this project is simple.  We're telling a classic story in a new way.  Once again, we're re-imagining a timeless story and making radical choices in both form and content.  For our friends, our peers, our audience.  For you.

At first glance, THE AWAKENING is a simple story.  A woman realizes that her life isn't as fulfilling as it might be, and she sets about to be happier.  It's a scenario that has happened before, and it'll happen again.  But take heed.  The depth and the complexity of the material Kate Chopin (author of the novel our work is based upon) has given to us all is spell-binding yet subtle.  Just tonight in rehearsal, working one of the intimate scenes between Edna (Sarah Teich) and Robert (Carl Atiya Swanson), my mind was blown by a brand new take on words we've been reading for months and months and the implications on the characters we've been creating for months and months.  Bravo to Sarah and Carl, of course and always.  But the real champion here is Chopin.  It's a testament to the intricate tumultuousness of the story she's given us.  Simple it may seem, but do not underestimate.

I probably should've come up with a conclusion or at least a winding down.  But I want to leave this here - unfinished.  Because Edna's tale  is incomplete.  Because the story isn't finished until you fill in the blanks.  So get yourself to the Gremlin in April and help us finish this thing.

-Laura

Helloooooo!

Thanks to Jeremy (our talented, awesome, and extremely handsome new website builder) we have a NEW website for the NEW millenium.  While we're still working out the kinks, trying to get all of our old info in the right places, adding as many pictures and videos and links as we can find, I think things are off to a pretty sweet start.

Did you notice, also, that we're a .org?  Doesn't that seem strangely ... official?  DIG.

Anyway.

GREETINGS FROM SOUTH KOREA!  Our founding members are currently spread across the whole wide world.  We're still in the process of figuring out what that means for us.  The current thought is that we begin to make work under our Umbrella that can play to the home of our hearts and our founding (MN), as well as making work for the homes of our bodies and the homes of our families.  That is to say, since we began in order to explore the ideas of each individual within our group, we hope to continue to do that ALL OVER THE PLACE.  Watch out, world. 

I finally saw a piece of theater here in SK that made me excited, made me move, made me want to make something.  It was a relief to see that it's possible, that it exists.  It has not been easy for me to discover the hidden street or cafe or alley where the performance experiments are happening, but I think I have a lead.  I'll tell tale of the performance I saw at a later date.  I've also been finding all other sorts of artists I'm hopeful I can play with at some point.

I can't believe I'm so far away when all of the good Awakening stuff is happening in the Cities!  I'll be keeping my ears open and my eyes peeled for news on this beautiful new website, just like you.

Okay, time to go watch some vintage films at a cozy little bar with some very swell folks.  Warm wishes.  I'll write again soon.

-blake