Author Archives: Joseph Lavy

The Maids/Vexations Premieres October 24th!

  By Joseph Lavy • October 1, 2018 - 9:00 AM , , , , , , ,

Seats are available now for our upcoming production, The Maids/Vexations, a simultaneity of performance
Running Oct 25 through Nov 24.

This is the latest APL production to follow our distictive chamber drama format (pioneered with our 2015 The Glas Nocturne), produced in the APL Downstairs Studio for audiences of no more than 10 per performance.

Request your invitation at https://goo.gl/forms/0fQP4vmfKucwLkLP2

"The game is dangerous. I'm sure we left traces." ~Solange "...it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities." ~Erik Satie

“The game is dangerous. I’m sure we left traces.” ~Solange
“…it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.” ~Erik Satie

Featuring:
The Maids by Jean Genet ~ Annie Paladino, Catherine Lavy, Emily Testa
Vexations, by Erik Satie ~ Zhenya Lavy, piano

Direction and Scenography ~ Joseph Lavy
Production Assistant ~ Kyrie Dawson
Technical Direction ~ Tomas Campomanes

By bringing together Genet’s The Maids (original English translation by Joseph Lavy) and Satie’s Vexations in independent but concurrent performances within a shared space, APL seeks to challenge the notion of unified event – Satie’s brief, infinitely expansive experimental piano piece being no more accompaniment to the theatrical performance than the play is dramatic context for the musical performance.

The confluence of Genet’s erotically-charged rite of desire, identity, fantasy, and power with Satie’s notorious durational composition – reported to induce hallucinations in the performer – will prove illuminating, confounding, and potentially mind-altering!

Each performance is limited to 10 attendees. Come to see The Maids. Come to hear Vexations. Come knowing both will happen simultaneously!
All performances are by invitation only and PWYC ($30 suggested).
To request your invitation follow the link
https://goo.gl/forms/0fQP4vmfKucwLkLP2

*NOTE: The Maids contains mature language and physicality. Not recommended for audiences under 14.

Akropolis Performance Lab productions are made possible in part by 4Culture and the generous support of individual patrons.

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Newsflash: Performance Dates Announced!

  By Joseph Lavy • September 2, 2018 - 9:00 AM

Mark your calendars! Performance dates are set for our current project, Jean Genet’s The Maids:

October 25 through November 24, 2018

The Maids – our second fully produced Studio Production – follows the model of APL’s acclaimed The Glas Nocturne (2015 – 2017) and features the talents of long-time Artistic Associates Emily Testa, Annie Paladino, and Junior Artistic Associate Catherine Lavy, in a new English translation by director Joseph Lavy.

As with The Glas Nocturne, audiences will be strictly limited to fewer than 15 per show and tickets will be by invitation only. Watch for details on how to request your invitation, coming soon!

Welcome New Artistic Apprentice Kyrie Dawson!

  By Joseph Lavy • August 30, 2018 - 11:59 PM , ,

Please join us in welcoming Kyrie Dawson into our ensemble as our newest Artistic Apprentice!

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Kyrie Dawson, 2018-19 Artistic Apprentice

Kyrie began working with us during our Summer 2018 Open Training Sessions and we figured out pretty quickly that she is a great fit with our ensemble. She’ll spend her first few months with APL focused on fully integrating into our physical & vocal training and taking on the responsibilities of Production Assistant for The Maids, where she’ll be introduced to our distinctive approach to performance making.

A Northern California native, Kyrie recently transplanted herself to the Pacific Northwest and is thrilled to be putting down roots here.

She first discovered the beauty of the Northwest during her time at Lewis & Clark College, where she earned a BA in Mathematics in December 2017 at the age of 20. Alongside her studies in math, Kyrie remained dedicated to theater, actively participating in the L&C theater department. Highlights of her college career include performing in Mud, Antigonick (directed by Rebecca Lingafelter, Lady Macbeth in APL’s 2001 inaugural production), and The Arsonists, as well as studying Linklater vocal work, Suzuki physical training, and directing.

In Summer 2017, Kyrie took an internship at Sonoma Valley’s Transcendence Theater Company, where, she worked as a part of the team bringing live performance to the stone ruins in Jack London State Park. She also spent four consecutive summers in Sonoma with the Avalon Players, performing Shakespeare under the Stars at Buena Vista Winery.

Kyrie is passionate about fostering community, using performance to encourage reflection in the audience, and finding unique ways to tell familiar stories.

Summer 2018 Open Training Sessions!

  By Joseph Lavy • June 1, 2018 - 12:00 PM , , , , , , , , ,

We’re delighted to announce that during July and August APL is inviting performers interested in rigorous, practical work engaging essential elements of the performer’s craft to participate in our twice-weekly ensemble training. Performing artists with an openness to embodied exploration are welcome regardless of experience or discipline.

Interested? Sign up here: https://goo.gl/forms/rJR29Gg4L0hflpdu2 or keep reading to learn more!

Our training objective:Living Impulses shaped by Deliberate Form piloted by an Engaged Mind

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Joseph Lavy, Annie Paladino, Emily Jo Testa: Plastiques

 

When:  July 5 – August 16, 2018

Wednesdays – Voice (7:30 pm – 9:30 pm)

  • Listening
  • Impulse, Breath, Tone, Resonance, Shared Voice
  • Harmonic/Polyphonic/Overtone Singing

Thursdays – Body (7:30 pm – 9:30 pm)

  • The Basics: Awareness, Presence, Contact
  • Plasticity: The shape and flow of associations
  • Corporeality: Identifying, owning, and surpassing our personal limitations
  • The Tangible World: Deep play at the intersection of attention, action, and objects

 

 

 

Introductory Intensive: To accelerate participants’ experience we are also offering an 8 hour Introductory Intensive – June 30 & July 1 – during which we will provide a beginner-focused introduction to APL’s core principles, exercises, songs, and activities.

Participation in the Introductory Intensive is strongly encouraged but not required. Everyone is welcome on a drop in basis.

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APL corporeality training

 

Cost: Drop In Sessions: $20 per session or $25 per week if attending both voice and body training sessions (4 hours/week total)

Introductory Intensive: $80

Discounts:Participants in the Introductory Intensive will have a reduced drop-in fee of $10 per session/$20 per week.

We also offer discounts for paid-in-advance, multi-session commitments.  Situational sliding scale rates available

Sign Up: Interested? Click through to this simple form to let us know! https://goo.gl/forms/rJR29Gg4L0hflpdu2

Announcing 2018 New Year/New Play Selection!

  By Joseph Lavy • January 21, 2018 - 1:19 PM

2018 marks the fifth year of our New Year New Play Development Project. Each year we dedicate the first Sunday Salon to new work generated by local playwrights, and this year we are very happy to announce that we have selected, Choices People Make, by Jessica Andrewartha!

  • WHEN: February 11, 2018
  • WHERE: APL Downstairs Studio, Lake Forest Park, WA
  • SCHEDULE:
    4:00pm: Arrivals. Mingling and food/drinks.
    5:15-5:30pm: Reading begins, to be followed by discussion.
    10:00pm: End time is a best guess. Leave when you need to; we allow the discussion to run its course.

this is our 20th Salon in a quarterly series that began in March 2013. For Sunday Salons, APL casts actors not only from within the ensemble but also from the broader Puget Sound community to read new, classic and/or provocative plays we want to engage as thinking artists but aren’t likely to produce. Anyone interested in the play or its context can join us. Each Salon is a unique, dynamic assembly of artists, intellectuals, provocateurs, friends, and family. We read, drink, eat, and — with minimal moderation — let discussion go where it will.

The program is supported, in part, by a grant from 4Culture.

Choices 2018

THE PLAY: Dr. Rosamund Tamayo and her research partner Dr. Harold Cooper have created one of history’s greatest scientific breakthroughs. Her name is Athena. Now Dr. Roz and Athena are showing up at Roz’s mother’s door with a problem. It turns out that just because Athena and her body are bleeding edge technology doesn’t mean they’re not subject to the same questions women have been grappling with for centuries.

THE PLAYWRIGHT: Jessica Andrewartha is a Seattle based writer whose short plays have been produced in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and London. Her full length plays Enter Starlighter, and W.H.I.P. have both received staged readings at Theatre Battery, her play Where Do We Start? was read at Seattle Playwrights Circle, and her play Ready to Start was read at Southern Methodist University. Jessica is an alumnus of SMU and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

For more details, and to keep up with related news (such as casting), follow the event on our Facebook Group

We hope to see you there!

Working as an APL Ensemble Actor

  By Joseph Lavy • November 22, 2017 - 4:50 AM

People regularly question me about what it’s like to be an Akropolis actor.  We talk about ourselves as an actor-centered, process-drive ensemble committed to long-form rehearsal, so what does that look like in practical terms? Aside from the value we place on physical and vocal training, how do we approach the creative process in the rehearsal studio, and what expectations do we have for our actors that differ from those of an actor engaged in the typical process of putting up a show in 4 or 5 weeks. As we near the opening of Crime + Punishment after more than 550 group rehearsal hours I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to share those expectations with you. I’d love to receive your responses and answer any questions.

Working as an APL Ensemble Actor

12.01.16 Devising Duklida 4

December 2016 rehearsal of Crime + Punishment (Joseph Lavy, Matt Sherrill, Tyler Polumsky, Emily Jo Testa, Annie Paladino)

Working as an APL ensemble actor means:

  1. Embracing APL’s signature aesthetic, which:
    1. asserts that the theatrical life of an APL production arises from the tension created between formal discipline and inter-personal immediacy
    2. demands levels of specificity and concepts of spontaneity which may at times seem at odds with dominant contemporary acting approaches
  2. Engaging each rehearsal as a generative artist, making propositions through prepared actions, etudes, improvisations for theatrical material from which the performance text will be created
  3. Recognizing that every proposition—however formal, realistic, or abstract—must be built on a foundation of impulses and points-of-contact with stimuli from external sources (living partners, objects, memories and associations projected outside of the self)
  4. Proposing performative material that is precise, repeatable and iterative
  5. Adapting one’s proposition to changing circumstances (montage with other actors, inclusion of music and/or text, addition of objects, changes of space) without abandoning or destroying the proposition’s originating stream-of-life
  6. Incorporating, retaining, and justifying adjustments made to the proposition in collaboration with the director and any acting partners
  7. Remaining receptive and sensitive to new meanings as they emerge, and embodying them in subsequent iterations
  8. Developing alternate propositions for a subject or scene when inspired or requested, rather than radically changing or abandoning an existing proposition without discussion or collaboration with the director and acting partners
  9. Elaborating with one’s artistic partners the overall performance text composed of acting scores with compound dramaturgical levels:
    1. The original truth, associations and details of the initial propositions
    2. Specificity of form and points-of-contact with acting partners
    3. A living give-and-take with acting partners, which respects and maintains the established physical structure
    4. Precise execution which ensures clear communication of intended information to the spectator
  10. Using one’s acting score as the means to provoke and respond to one’s acting partners and spectators, not simply as a form of choreography or an illustration of a text
  11. Respecting the established details of the final performance text as elaborated through the rehearsal process, and not introducing significant deviations from their score in a moment of on-stage inspiration or improvisation in performance conditions. Once a production is in performance, new propositions are first to be explored and validated in collaboration with the director and other actors under rehearsal conditions before being introduced before an audience

 

20 Principles for APL Design (2017)

  By Joseph Lavy • January 2, 2017 - 12:58 PM , , , ,

 

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Visual design is a critical factor in the composition of every Akropolis Performance Lab piece. We are very deliberate in the selection of each element brought in to enhance both the work of the actors and the experience of the spectators, with particular attention not only to cohesion within the production itself, but consistency to the aesthetic principles we’ve developed over nearly 20 years and which form a foundational, minimalist through-line for our entire body of work.

The Glas Nocturne at CATAC Balch Street Theatre Akron OH (Photo: Annie Paladino, 2015)

For the last 10 years or so – in addition to directing – I have acted as scenographer for our productions, in collaboration with our Artistic Associates; determining the scenic, lighting, and costume designs. This throws off some people, who question why no designers are credited, and who wonder if that means we just pull these things together with less emphasis than we place on the acting and dramaturgy. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Every detail of an APL production is a carefully considered aspect of the dramaturgy, approached with equal importance.

This year, we are bringing in designers once again for 730 Steps, prompting me to put into writing those guiding aesthetic principles, so they can be shared and understood by our new partners. And while they are specifically geared toward design in this form, these are the same fundamental principles which guide all aspects of our creative work.

Ecce Faustus at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Ballard WA (Photo: Mark Zufelt 2016)

20 Principles for APL Design

  1. Use as little as possible, but of the best quality possible
    •  based on money, availability, & time
  2. The space is always what it is. The design happens within and in relationship to the-space-itself
  3. Exploit the difficulties and flaws, don’t try to hide them
  4. Don’t provide the spectator with answers. Give them just enough to recognize the questions and draw their own conclusions
  5. Use Real Objects, unless unobtainable
    • Fabricated Objects should be made with the highest degree of craftsmanship and “real world” permanence
    • Theatrical Facsimiles are not acceptable
  6. Everything on stage should be practical. Question anything that is purely decorative
    • Everything should be able to serve multiple functions
      • As it is
      • As it could be
      • As it has never been before
  7. No electronic or recorded sound effects. All sound created by the performers
  8. No Technical Special Effects (fog, strobe, video projection, etc). Whenever possible “stage magic” should be created by the actor or the architecture
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    The Glas Nocturne at APL Downstairs Studio, Lake Forest Park WA (Photo: Joe Patrick Kane 2015)

  9. Shadow is at least as valuable as Light
  10. Before using gobos or other effects, determine whether the same result can be produced by an actor or the architecture interacting with the light
    • If not, What is the intent?
    • is it indispensable?
  11. Use unusual angles
  12. Use color sparingly, to maximum effect
  13. Use everything sparingly, to maximum effect
  14. Costumes should never dictate what an actor cannot do
  15. Actor insight is crucial regarding costumes
  16. Light, set, and costumes should stimulate the spectator to develop an understanding of people, place, and atmosphere
  17. Light, set, and costumes should stimulate the actors toward always greater awareness and precision
  18. Light, set, and costumes should provoke the actor, not solve their problems for them
  19. No principle is inviolate
  20. Once conceived, question everything
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Seneca’s Oedipus at WSFGC Garden House, Seattle WA (Photo Julia Salamonik 2006)

 

Je Suis le Fils de Quelqu’un

  By Joseph Lavy • December 29, 2015 - 3:55 PM , , , , , ,

Je Suis le Fils de Quelqu’un:
A reflection on touring The Glas Nocturne to Akron OH, November 2015

By Joseph Lavy

“You have the song. You must ask yourself where this song began.” ~J. Grotowski

 

I can’t seem to write the post I want to write.

I want to write a long meditation on heritage and homecomings;
about artistic fathers and family re-membered
over coffee and broken bread;
how the past and the present converged
over wine and rillettes
and how a bottle of aquavit can almost reach the Hour of the Wolf.

I want to write a treatise about the fallacy of linear time

and a Thanksgiving hymn of gratitude
to my colleagues for their faith, talents, and work,
to our hosts for their hospitality,
for artistic homes;

a cry of deep joy
sprung from meeting the challenges of
transforming our performance from one sort of
intimacy to another,
without loss or sacrifice;

a profound parable
of returning and laying it all on the line
before those people–visible and invisible–
who matter the most
and who prove that you are not a vagabond
but that you come from some country,
some landscape
which is still there
and which is you
near or far.

“The Story of the Girl,” segment from Akropolis Performance Lab’s The Glas Nocturne,  Saturday, November 21, 2015, at The Center for Applied Theatre and Active Culture/New World Performance Lab in Akron OH.  L-R: Joseph Lavy,  Emily Jo Testa, Catherine Lavy, Annie Paladino, and Zhenya Lavy.

The Director, The Actor & The Difficult Task

  By Joseph Lavy • December 12, 2014 - 11:10 AM , ,

I often reject during the rehearsal process suggestions and recommendations which arise as quick, easy solutions to perceived problems; usually because they tend to be superficially driven by theatrical practicality and lack authenticity for the moment. Too often, the job of a director seems to be to find solutions to make things easy for the actor. I believe it is sometimes (mostly) the contrary: to present the actor with the difficult task. To create problems that must be continually confronted and confronted, not “solved.” To demand that the actor work through what must be done and not skim over it. Truth and Authenticity are not–and should not be–easy to come by.

Corpus Christi?

  By Joseph Lavy • December 11, 2014 - 11:23 AM , , , , , , , ,

In 2002, APL was about to begin rehearsals on an original adaptation of Pinocchio when the US–exploiting the wake of 9/11– opportunistically decided to wage war on Iraq based on dubious evidence of WMDs. We were unanimously and vehemently opposed to the action, and agreed APL needed to respond artistically, so we tabled the Pinocchio project and picked up Jeanne, The Maid.
Our intent was not to make a 1:1 equivalency between Joan of Arc and modern-day jihadists (Although, they are both religious extremists/zealots fighting wars in the name of God). We were driven mainly by the impulse to interrogate and illustrate the capacity of a corrupt religio-political power structure to manufacture evidence in order to support their desired outcomes and, through immoral & coercive means, actualize their predetermined objectives. And to demonstrate the social complicity of the people who sit there and let it happen, or accept that Ends justify Means.
When we finished rehearsals and were ready to open in 2003, alt-media just began to break the stories of American atrocities in Abu Ghraib prison. Most of the country was in denial that the USA would do anything like that, still pumped up on jingoistic nationalism. If it happened at all, it had to be merely by a few rogue actors. America was certainly on the Moral High Ground.
We were chastised in the Seattle Stranger for “Politics with a Sledgehammer,” even though we never once used a literal reference to Bush/Chaney/Rumsfeld. Now, 11 years later the American Government’s unscrupulous use of torture (ends justifying means) is back in the spotlight.

And our question remains: “Is this the body of Christ?”