Working in the Theatre

Welcome to Marie's Crisis, where show tunes come to die!" Come inside the historic piano bar in the West Village devoted exclusively to show tunes. Erected on the spot Thomas Paine died, Marie's Crisis Cafe has spent the last four decades as an oasis for the musical theatre lover. Whether it's Gershwin, Loesser, Menken or Brown, gather around the bar and belt out your favorite Broadway standard.

MANUAL CINEMA is a Chicago-based performance collective, design studio, and film/ video production company that combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen. Using vintage overhead projectors, multiple screens, puppets, actors, live feed cameras, multi-channel sound design, and a live music ensemble, Manual Cinema transforms the experience of attending the cinema and imbues it with liveness, ingenuity, and theatricality.

Andrew Ondrejcak is a writer, director, and designer of performances, theater, opera and fashion shows. Join us as Andrew moves through the collaborative process of birthing a new work, ELIJAH GREEN. Inspired by August Strindberg's A Dream Play, the piece follows a divine spirit as it wanders through contemporary life, where each individual character is both the center of the world and a part of something larger they cannot comprehend. In development as part of the Park Avenue Armory's Under Construction Series, the final piece premiered at The Kitchen in March 2016, and has received a MAP Grant and a National Theater Project grant through the New England Foundation for the Arts, generously provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Sign Language theatre has recently come to the forefront of commercial theatre through the acclaimed Broadway production of Spring Awakening which is performed simultaneously in American Sign Language and spoken English. However, beginning with vaudeville acts in deaf clubs (in the early part of the 20th century) to the work at National Theatre of the Deaf and Gallaudet University, deaf actors and creative team members have produced incredible theatrical experiences for both deaf and hearing audiences. Follow members of the cast of Spring Awakening, Gallaudet University, and others as they explore the creative process, the history, and the joy that comes from sign language theatre.

In April of 2015, Fun Home opened on Broadway showcasing the life and story of cartoonist Alison Bechdel and winning 5 Tony Awards in the process. In this episode, we follow ensemble member and 2008 American Theatre Wing's SpringboardNYC alumnus Joel Perez before the show as he recounts Fun Home's journey from Sundance to the Public Theater to Broadway as well as his personal journey from Tufts University to originating a role in the OBIE and Tony winning sensation Fun Home.

Double Edge Theatre is an artist-owned ensemble theatre, in which each member is responsible for the art making as well as the business and board leadership. Situated on a 100-acre Farm in the Ashfield Massachusetts Hilltowns, the facility includes two performance and training spaces, production facilities, offices, archives, music and outdoor performance areas as well as hay fields, grazing pastures, a stream, pond, and forestland. On the Farm, the company trains, performs, runs the business of the theatre, hosts programs and guests, and grows food. The Double Edge Ensemble creates original theatrical performances that are highly imaginative, imagistic, and visceral. These site-specific indoor/outdoor traveling spectacles awaken spectators to new possibilities of the human heart and mind. This season's spectacle Once a Blue Moon - Cada Luna Azul is inspired by magic realism and many Latin American stories, including ensemble member Carlos Uriona's memory of home.

What is choreography? It "is a joy of putting movement together, but it's also a craft, and something that is intellectual too," says Camille A. Brown (The Public, NYTW, City Center). "It's less about a slick presentation of bodies on space, and more about the notion of true feeling, true connection, true interpersonal relationships, however that helps tell a very deep and moving story," adds Josh Prince (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Broadway Dance Lab founder). Join Camille, Josh and Sergio Trujillo (On Your Feet!, Next to Normal, Jersey Boys) as they explore the craft of making dance come to life onstage 8 shows a week.

A character on stage is shaped by many factors. An important, and often under-examined aspect to the creation of a character and achievement of a production is created by the magnificent makeup artists on and off-Broadway. But, what does it take to achieve the prefect show-ready look 8 times a week? Makeup Artists Brian Strumwasser and Thelma Pollard share their journey on the creation and maintenance of a character in this episode. Through Brian's work on A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, we delve into the detail and dedication needed for one actor to change their look 17 times in a show. Thelma Pollard's work on The Phantom of the Opera shows how a show's longevity and cast replacement can continue to keep the life of a makeup artist on her feet eight time a week for over 28 years.

THE PLAY YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE IS SEALED INSIDE AN ENVELOPE.... The production White Rabbit Red Rabbit, a unique production at the Westside Theatre, provides us with the basic practices of creating theatre: writer writes, producer selects, actor performs. But, in this instance, the one person show, demonstrates what we often take for granted. The actor about to perform has never seen it. In fact, there is a new actor every performance, and they've only been told what is absolutely necessary. And more, the writer, Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour can not have his work produced in his homeland. Watch as the creators and performers share their journeys and commitment to the unknown through the world of White Rabbit Red Rabbit.

New York Theatre Workshop's Casebook program invites theater audiences with an unprecedented access to observe the evolution of show from rehearsal to production. Watch as we follow the Summer 2016 Casebook class and the creative team members they observe, as they delve into the new production of Hadestown, a folk opera by singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and two-time Obie award-winning director Rachel Chavkin.

Playwright Hilary Bettis's new play The Ghosts of Lote Bravo, one of the newest rolling world premieres from the National New Play Network, follows the story of a young woman who goes missing from the sweatshop where she works in Juárez, Mexico Watch as Hilary travels between Borderlands Theater in Tucson, Arizona and the Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri to engage with two simultaneous productions of her work. As she explores the differences in locations, casts, and productions, we follow two cities sharing in the exploration of the same material in very distinct environments.

"This is the power of the theatre and the promise of our country, so beautifully evident on Ellis Island." Almost 20 years after its opening on Broadway and 100 years after the story is set, the musical Ragtime may even be more relevant now than ever. With its discussion of immigration, racial justice, and the promise of the American Dream, the producers of Ragtime on Ellis Island have taken this incredible work and made it site specific. Watch as we explore the influence of one of the most iconic locations in America where so many families began their American tale.

"If there is someone who is going to reach out, shake your hand and befriend you at the circus, it's going to be the clown." says Big Apple Circus clown Joel Jeske. "Clowns fall down so we don't have to." An ancient form of theatrics routed in physical comedy, clowning transcends language and cultural barriers by finding the absurd in the everyday. Follow clowns Brent McBeth, Joel Jeske and David Shiner through routines. Look inside Slava Polunin's famed Snowshow and his Academy of Fools.