November 28: "Arlecchino Am Ravenous" at Stone Soup

Monday, November 28 at 8pm at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery:

Just as you are recovering from Thanksgiving feasting Stone Soup Poetry will feature my performance of my one-man play, Arlecchino Am Ravenous a tale of slapstick blasphemy and auto-cannibalism.  Arlecchino is so driven by hunger to ravage both the heavens above and the hells below in search of a meal.  The piece developed out of a series of improvisations inspired by a reading of Italian Nobel-Laureate, Dario Fo riffing on Shakespeare, commedia dell'arte, and Dante. It was last performed at Stone Soup in March of 2009.

The Out of the Blue Art Gallery is located at 106 Prospect Street, Cambridge MA.

A poetry open mic will precede the performance. Stone Soup Poetry is hosted by Chad Parenteau.

Facebook users may choose to RSVP here

"The Conversos of Venice" at Playwright's Open Mic Night

Monday, November 21st, The Small Theatre Alliance of Boston once again presents Playwright's Open Mic Night, a bimonthly presentation of works-in-progress by Boston-area playwrights. This edition, I will be presenting a scene from my play The Conversos of Venice (a response play to Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (another scene had been presented at the inaugural Open Mic Night.)

Also presenting new work will be:

Monica Raymond: Four Riffs for a Sailor: Calypso

Diana Durham: Perceval and the Grail

Ron Pullins : Ice Dancing

Adam Baratz: Two songs from a musical.

This time around, Fort Point Theatre Channel plays host at 10 Channel Center Street, Boston, MA

Actors interested in reading scripts are invited to show up at 7pm. The event begins at 7:30pm.

Facebook users may RSVP here

Review: "One Man, Two Guvnors" in The Arts Fuse

My review of London's National Theatre Live's presentation of Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors a modern adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters, is up at the The Arts Fuse.

Earlier this summer, I reviewed Shakeapeare and Company's production of Goldoni's The Venetian Twins for The Fuse.

How I Spent My Summer, Part 1: OpenAir Circus

This was my seventh summer teaching at OpenAir Circus, a youth circus based in Somerville, MA, working with many of the same students, parents and fellow teachers as in previous years, teaching mime and commedia dell'arte.


Masks and bottacio (slapstick). Photo by self.

I have been asked not to do this anymore since I am supposed to be a role model for young clowns. Photo by Victoria Wolfson.

Demonstrating the lacing technique on my Arlecchino costume. The design is based on the clothing of late-medieval Italian peasants, before belts, buckles, and buttons were common fasteners. Costume by Cherie Konyha Greene. Photo by Victoria Wolfson.

Part of the challenge of this year's theme of "OpenAir Circus in Space" is how to make it work with the commedia dell'arte segment of the show. I opted to have the Dottoressa give a lecture on the solar system with the commedia characters arranged a working model of the planets, essentially a living orrery. Here she is with the sun and the moon. Photo by Victoria Wolfson.

Rotalinda (either the wife of, or female equivalent of Pulcinella) interupts the Moon in his orbit within the Dottoressa's orrery. Photo by Victoria Wolfson.

Ian Thal,Self-Portrait

Gulliver's Travels

One of my gigs this summer has been as a teaching artist at Riverside Theatre Works in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, where I have been teaching and choreographing puppetry for a troupe of young actors and puppeteers who will be performing in Don Fleming's stage adaptation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Maggie Diller directs.

Showtimes are Friday August 19th at 7:30pm, and Saturday, August 20th and Sunday, August 21st at 3:00pm.

This Weekend: Open Air Circus in Space

This is my seventh summer teaching at the Somerville-based youth-circus, Open Air Circus. My mime and commedia dell'arte students will be performing alongside jugglers, unicyclists, stiltwalkers, and other assorted young performers, in Nunziato Field in Somerville, MA.

Show times are Friday, August 5th at 7pm, Saturday, August 6th at 2pm and 7pm, and Sunday August 7th at 2pm. Suggested donation is $3.

The theme is "OpenAir Circus in Space" and yes, there will be a commedia dell'arte scenario about the solar system.

Review: "The Venetian Twins" in The Arts Fuse

Last week I took a road trip to Lenox, Massachusetts to review Shakespeare & Company's production of Carlo Goldoni's The Venetian Twins for The Arts Fuse. Goldoni, of course, had an interesting relationship to the commedia dell'arte tradition:

As a playwright, [Goldoni] saw himself on a mission to replace the commedia with comedy that proffers a more classical form: Instead of actors improvising upon a loosely sketched scenario, Goldoni wrote three-act scripts that adhered to the Aristotelian unities and even wrote librettos for the emerging genre of opera buffa. Still, though he rejected improvisation, Goldoni preserved many of the iconic characters of the commedia for centuries.

The Venetian Twins runs through to August 27th.