Written by: Jamie Hafner

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window - Lorraine Hansberry (1964)

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Along with creating the image for The Sea Voyage also created portraits for each character based on each actor cast in the role in the show. These eleven portraits were also created in a similar style as the graphic created for the show.  Andrew Criss’s idea to incorporate a “meet the cast” component to his vision for the artistic media for The Sea Voyage was extremely unique, and a refreshing take on allowing the cast faces to be a part of the storytelling as well.

“When you do a portrait you really study the person... get to know them and you're also telling the story of their character, so it's a great way to begin character research as well, as well as study the play and think how can I tell the story of this play... the graphics are the first introduction to the play, so that poster that advertisement that postcard, is the very first thing that the audience might see, especially if they don’t know the play, it's one of the first impressions of the play that they have, so there's an important responsibility" - Andrew Criss

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We've worked with a number of tremendously talented photographers over the years -- look no further than David Comdico's stunning images of the men aboard the Tall Ship Gazela in The Sea Plays or his etherial black-and-white portrait of Chris Coucill's Timon of Athens. We've jumped up and down excitedly when collaborating with Kate Raines (yielding images such as our eerie, falling bride of Blood Wedding), and there was simply nothing else to do when viewing Kyle Cassidy's Vanity Fair-style portrait of our actors in Mary Stuart but gasp, and have it framed immediately. 

So photographer Ashley LaBonde had some tall shoes to fill when tackling the promotional shots for "He Who Gets Slapped" -- during which we asked her to arrive at our space, capture images of the actors on a tight schedule after being thrown into makeshift costumes, and document the process. 

Her work continues to astonish and astound us, and some of our favorite images from that shoot are the behind-the-scenes candids of makeup artist Jessica DalCanton hard at work, or the glimmering moment when actor Bob Weick, killing time before his costume fitting, began practicing a hat trick. The decision to photoshop her images into the poster design was directly inspired by the painterly quality that she brings to the table, yielding our oil-painting poster with our actors' faces, perfectly captured by Ashley. Enjoy this gallery of images, and don't miss HE WHO GETS SLAPPED. 

According to theater lore, groundbreaking director Amy Saltz has a mantra: 

“If you don’t think every play is about sex, you shouldn’t be making theater.”  

Is that true?  I mean...  Streetcar is all about sex. And Macbeth kind of is too. But is  Endgame about sex? Is Antigone or All My Sons? Maybe not on the surface, but still this statement rings true to me.  Why is that?

Maybe becaue sex isn’t really about sex. I mean, it is, but the actual getting-it-on part is just a tiny piece of what we mean when we talk about “sex." It’s mostly about the forbidden, about desire, about need and danger. Sex is about posessing and surrendering. And love and destiny and honor. And these are all very big ideas indeed.

The Rover is most definitely about sex. From page one, the characters are plotting to have sex with people they like and avoiding having sex with people they don’t.  It’s funny. It’s naughty.  It’s frothy entertainment:  a spectacle of a play with some very clever, strong willed ladies and some very handsome, smart mouthed boys. 

Just below the surface, it is also surprisingly subversive.  Hellena and Florinda both want to take control of their sexual destinies. And for a 17th Century woman, your sexual destiny could very well be your whole destiny. As the hymen went, so went the whole self. 

And the comedy of the play, the wink it gives the audience, is that we all know it will be better and more fun for everyone if the Ladies get their way and outsmart their brothers and fathers. The playwright expects us to be on their side. Well…they are beautiful young noblewomen, so maybe that’s not such a big stretch. Shakespeare did a lot of that too.

But then there is Angelica, the high priced courtesan, making her independent way in the world in the only way a woman could. She decides she wants to change her destiny, buy into the system, get married and settle down. And for a long while, the play takes her side. Double standards and male treachery are pilloried throughout. The triumphant ending, we expect, will bring Angelica her 
victory too.

Except it doesn’t.

She doesn’t get her man. She's told very clearly to get back to work instead. It’s a deliciously dark note in the frothy “everyone is getting married” end of this madcap comedy. Aphra Behn knew very well what it took for a woman to survive on her own in a world where she had no inalienable rights. In her own sly way, she turns her viewers' gaze directly towards that deep injustice.

We sometimes think of feminism and feminist thought as ideas that sprang fully formed from the brow of Mary Wollenstonecraft, but the truth is much murkier.  Throughout history and around the globe, exceptional women have seen through the structures of the society around them and become well aware of their place in that society. Aphra Behn used that insight to make us laugh.... but while we were laughing, she spoke right to “the double standard, which limited her female peers’ sexual desires to the realm of convent, brothel, or home.”  (Ellen T Goodson)

I’m delighted that PAC is giving me a chance to dive into this complicated play. While it’s true that none of my American contemporaries are worried about being forced into convents by their brothers,  I still see a whole lot of angry men fighting over who gets to make decisions about our vaginas. 

Maybe The Rover's laughs hit closer to home than we thought.


Tickets to the Venture Reading Series are always free!

The Rover | Monday, November 9th | 7 pm | Broad Street Ministry 
Directed by Kittson O'Neill

For a brief time at the PAC, we tossed around catchy, quippy phrases as a way to market ourselves. Mostly as a joke -- but one of those jokes where we're only half-serious! -- we toyed with the idea of making t-shirts with the slogan "Philadelphia Artists' Collective: Dead playwrights, living classics." There was something kitschy and funny to us about pointing out a certain reality: that on some level, the work we are doing -- breathing new life into very old plays -- relies upon the fact that the playwrights are mostly a bunch of old, dead dudes. 

Meet Ian August. Playwright, actor, artist, all-around good guy -- and most definitely alive and well. We are thrilled to be working on his newest play, The Moor's Son, as a part of our Venture Reading Series in 2015. A new play that fits into the mission statement of the PAC? Yup. 

We sat down with Ian to chat Shakespeare, history, and what it means to be the guy who says, "I think I'd like to write a sequel to Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus." 

Hi, Ian! First of all, I just want to say that we're thrilled to have you as our first (living!) playwright collaborator with the PAC! Can you talk a bit about the inspiration behind "Moor's Son"? What drew you to this particular material? 

I'm just as thrilled as you are!  I've been a huge fan of PAC for years now--my husband and I have seen nearly every PAC show since The Dutchess of Malfi, and I can't imagine working with another company on The Moor's Son! 

The Moor's Son is written as a sequel to Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus--arguably the Bard's bloodiest play.  I fell in love with Titus after seeing Julie Taymor's brilliant film adaptation, which starred Anthony Hopkins as the titular Roman general and Jessica Lange as the evil queen, Tamora.  Even though it was Shakespeare's first play, you can see echoes of MacBeth, of Hamlet, of Othello--characters with true moral ambiguity and questionable motives and complex psyches--but the world of Titus Andronicusis a world that is unapologetically violent.  For nearly all of the characters in TA, the solution to every problem is revenge, which perpetuates the violence in all of it's gory glory.  But there is a moment where one of the characters breaks that cycle, and that's the moment that got my wheels turning.

It happens towards the end of the play: Lucius, Titus' son, is raising an army to bring down Tamora and the Emperor, when he is approached by Tamora's servant and lover, the moor Aaron.  Aaron, who is often described as one of the most evil characters in the canon, has fathered an illegitimate child with Tamora, and fled Rome to hide his newborn son.  He offers to reveal to Lucius all of the terrible things he's done to the Andronicus family if Lucius will protect the baby.  Lucius agrees, and it is this act of kindness by Lucius that breaks the cycle of violence.  By the end of the play, when (spoiler alert!) everyone else has died gruesome deaths, Lucius becomes the new Emperor of Rome.  

The Moor's Son takes place twenty years later: Lucius is now the Emperor, and in failing health, and that baby--multi-racial, son of the most reviled villain of Rome--is now a young man, raised in the court of Rome, and named after his father.  I wanted to explore the experience of that man, and at the same time, revisit the ramifications of the violence of Shakespeare's play, and work out, for myself, what it was all about.  The Moor's Son is a story about legacy and birthright; and also about politics and discrimination and forgiveness and self-acceptance.  

How long have you been developing this work? 

I had seen the Public Theater's production of Titus Andronicus in 2011, a stirring, bare-bones production (very similar to the work PAC does!) and spent the car ride home chatting about it with my husband (set designer Matthew Campbell, of PAC's recent production of Blood Wedding).  We kept coming back to the end of the play: whatever happened to that baby?  Did Lucius raise the child alongside his son?  And what must it have been like to be a mixed-race child growing up in the court of Rome? Especially with the legacy that Shakespeare's Aaron left behind!  

I called Damon the minute we got home, and I pitched him the basics of The Moor's Son.  I told him I had an idea for a sequel to Titus Andronicus, and would he, would PAC, be interested in taking a look at it?  In order to sweeten the deal, I told him that I would write the play completely in iambic pentameter--even though Shakespeare didn't write TA in iambic pentameter--I would do it, and it would be good, and would he take a look at it when I finished a draft?  Fortunately, he said yes; unfortunately, I now had to write a sequel to a Shakespeare play in iambic pentameter!

I spent most of 2012 working out the basics--the plot, the characters, what was going on in this world, and how The Moor's Soncould be a story independent of it's inspiration.  I began writing at the end of 2012, and finished a draft by the following April.  Luckily, a friend who is an acting professor at Rider University offered up his students and his talent to help me develop the play further--and I was able to work on a staged reading with some exceptionally talented Rider students in May of 2013.  After that, I handed it over to Damon and to PAC.   

Have you collaborated with Damon before? Talk to us about the relationship between your work, this play's source material, and the PAC ... what is it like to create a new play based upon classical themes? 

I had the pleasure of meeting Damon through the Passage Theatre Company in Trenton, NJ.  He and his wife Charlotte had been acting with the company for some time, and I was searching for a director for a reading of my play, Donna Orbits the Moon, at the New Jersey Repertory Company.  Damon accepted, and that began one of my favorite collaborative relationships.  

What I love about Damon is his insightful ability to analyze text--whether it's a contemporary or period play, whether comedy or drama or something in between.  More than that: his ability to appreciate text.  Damon understands that every word I write is included for a purpose, and he is able to find that purpose through his direction.  

And what better home to do it in than PAC?  Every show I've seen with PAC has a company of artists just as eager and excited to dive into language--to tear it apart and find out what's inside of every line!  I mean, I wept at Changes of Heart--I was crushed by The Rape of Lucrece!  Did you see Mary Stuart?  I'm still shaking!  

Writing The Moor's Son was intimidating--it still is!  But I learned early on that I couldn't pretend to be writing Shakespeare--this play had to be it's own animal.  And although the themes of my play are inspired by many found in the Bard's plays, I think they are just as prevalent in contemporary works: The desire to honor the legacy of one's parents?  Sure, that's Hamlet, but it's also Proof.  The longing to fit into a world in which one feels he (or she) doesn't belong?  It's Othello and Henry IV Part One and Six Degrees of Separation and Venus and Les Miserables.  The motifs of The Moor's Son are adapted from classic drama, yes, but the themes are still relevant today.


Is there anything that you're hoping the audience will take away after the reading? 

A close friend of mine once told me that a great play can do three things:  It can entertain us, it can make us feel something, and it can make us think.  A good play, he said, will do two of those things--but a great play will do all three.  I hope that our audience will be able to look at this play and find moments to have all three of those experiences.  Even though the play is not in it's final stages (I learn so much in a reading about where my next revision should go), if the audience is able to share those moments with each other, with the actors, with Damon and I, then that's a successful reading in my book.

Anything else you'd like to add (or plug, even!) 

I can't express how grateful I am to Damon and Dan and everyone at PAC for embracing this play.  I've never written anything else like it, and I'm so eager to visit the world of the play with this talented group of performers!  But if anyone is interested in seeing more of my work--work that is far less Shakespearian, I promise--the Passage Theatre Company will be producing my play The Goldilocks Zone in May of this year.  And it will be directed by (you probably guessed it!)  Damon Bonetti!  If anyone is curious, go to www.passagetheatre.org to find out more information.  We would love to see you there!

Well, there's no formal announcement or one Monday proclaiming its official start...  but we are nearing the end of that special time in the Philadelphia arts scene where theatres announce their seasons.

It’s a magical and tense time of year.  It’s the time when you, as an artist or a producer say: “Wow!  That’s great they are tackling that.” Or: “Huh.  Really?”  Or: “Ummm…again?” Or: “Dammit, I wanted to do that one.”  Or: “Godspeed.  That’s a beast.” 

That feeling of possibility: all those yet-to-cast shows (“Might they pick me?”), all those yet-to-be-designed shows (“How big will the fabric budget be?”) – all that POTENTIAL reminds me of that amazing knot of excitement I get walking into an office supply store.  “Oh man – there is so much POSSIBILITY here.”  All these new pens and notepads and highlighters.  (Ok, I can’t be the only nerd about office supply stores here, can I?)

Because theatre is so ephemeral, so fleeting ... that time of year where it’s still YET TO BE DONE feels a tad more magical than even the most anticipated opening night.

But it’s also grueling to pick a season.  So many things go into it.  Texture, casting, budgets, the FEEL of the piece.  How does it stack up to the other shows?  Does it fit the mission?  Will it excite our audience?  Will it excite us and our artists?  Why do this show, above all others?

I felt the same pressure when Damon and I named our son.  No one tells you how big a deal that is.  It’s his NAME for God’s sake (Julian Donato Bonetti, for those keeping score at home).  He will identify himself by that.  He will go into banks and schools and get annoying phone calls from telemarketers who will SAY THAT NAME.  It has to be good.  It has to look good on a towel or gym bag.  The initials can’t spell something rude like Anthony Simon Smith (“ASS”) or Daisy Ingrid Kincaid (“DIK”).  It can’t rhyme with something rude (believe me, kids will find a way) like my name growing up did (“Lotty, Lotty sitting on a potty…”)

And picking a season is like that. Despite its impermanency, the life of that show will live on --  in the hearts and minds of our artists, our audience and our glossy brochures.  It has to feel right.  There’s no guarantees that the shows will be transcendent or magical (although the PAC has a good streak going), but they have to live on in the canon we make for them.  And as someone staring down the barrel of the biggest show I’ve ever directed, I’m plenty aware of this.  (Come visit me in April of 2015 to see how Fair Maid of the West turns out). (Sick of parentheticals yet?)

This year, something has become apparent to me.  Something that validates and strengthens the PAC in ways I didn’t quite realize until I stepped back a bit.  Theatres in Philly are choosing to do classics this year.  Theatres that don’t normally do such classics.  We’re talking the Bard at the Arden and the Wilma, Virginia Woolf at Exile, Glass Menagerie at Act II.  Classics coming to different audience bases.  Classics coming to people who might not see them otherwise but who now have the added incentive of a season subscription to check them out.  I like this.  I applaud this.  It raises the bar and creates a thread that connects us even more. 

And it forces the PAC to get even more creative.  What further dusty, lonesome nuggets can we dig out from history’s vaults?  What sad forgotten playwright can we glorify?

And perhaps the hardest question of them all: How do we find more opportunities for women?

This topic isn’t new, but it has especially come to the fore lately in the social media sphere and in theatre talking circles within the past few months.  Equality for women in the workplace, in relationships, and in artistic job opportunities have been on my radar quite a bit lately. 

The PAC is run by 6 awesome people.  2 are dudes.  4 are ladies.  That’s pretty great, ya?  And I’m not going to sugar-coat it: the classics are full of roles for dudes.  We didn’t pick something that was easy to accomplish.  We are fully aware of that.  In looking back over our past few seasons, I’d say we’ve made strides.  The women in our plays are strong, opinionated, visible and vital.  And we’ve gender-bent and will continue to do so.

However, at a recent talking-heads session I attended on “Shakespeare’s Canon and Women,” a new question emerged: “Where are the plays that reflect OUR idea of what women should be?”  Not women defined by their dowries, their virginity, their heritage as it pertains to their fathers or brothers.  Our idea of what women should be.

And I can’t pretend to have an answer or even the sketch of an answer. 

I sometimes think we don’t need an answer: we are here to tell stories and these particular stories are couched with these ideals.  Other times I think: “Look – look at these women and see how far we’ve come!”  And still other times: “This story is being told from a certain point of view, as imagined by this director and these actors; the underlying message of the play when it was written has a different meaning in this production.”  After all, plays are subject to interpretation.  While being true to the text, there’s always layers of meaning to be mined and examined that can change how we perceive these human beings on stage.

I don’t pretend these are satisfactory answers, but at least the questions are being asked.  And being asked by people who make theatre  We are on the front lines of changing, in increments big and small, how we approach the arts (both classical and non). 

Case in point: I’m directing a show this coming spring (Fair Maid of the West – but I know you already knew that because you’ve been paying attention) that is about a woman whose virtue is one of the central plots in the show.  How do I reconcile that with the questions I just asked?  Because the Fair Maid I’m going to direct is about a woman who betters those around her by her actions, by her intelligence, her cunning, and her awareness that the world she inhabits can be changed.

I may not succeed. But change comes from within, and it comes in small doses.  I’m also not such a hard-liner myself that I can’t see where a show that has pirates, stupid accents, general ridiculousness and a strong, amazing heroine at the center of it all would be a sin.  We live in a world of varying textures and colors.  There is no black and white.  I hope, through the humor, the love story and the silliness, all that shines about the classics and the women in them will come through.

Here’s to Spring in Philadelphia!

Charlotte Northeast
Artistic Associate
Philadelphia Artists' Collective