Final Bloodworks 2012

Can you hear that? It's not the sound of thunder. It's the clamoring sound of the regret you will feel if you miss the FINAL NIGHT OF BLOODWORKS 2012.

We've got deft Clare Barron at 7 PM, and the incomparable Angela Hanks at 9 PM. And this is your last chance to see an Angela Hanks play at Youngblood.

You know what that means folks? That means you get out your galoshes & you head right on over to EST. 549 W. 52nd Street. We'll be waiting for you with ice cold beers and vodka tonics.

Did I mention there may even be a glamorous late Monday night foot-stomping, theater-shaking dance party? Oh. Well there is that. And according to theater guru, Todd London, American theater could use a few more dance parties.

Masters of Gamecocking: Angie Hanks

Let’s imagine an alternate universe, okay?

In this universe, the members of Youngblood never sat down in front of a keyboard or set foot in a theatre. Instead, they devoted their time and energy to becoming world-class gamecockers.

Every Wednesday they gather in the seedy basement of some dilapidated Hells Kitchen building, show off their latest birds, and proceed to tear each other apart.

Let’s also say that the same qualities that made these people damn good playwrights also shines through in the breeding/training of their gamefowl. So each of their birds is imbued with the same qualities that make their plays really fucking good and distinct. A Ryan Dowler gamecock is a lot different from a Chiara Atik gamecock. Cool?

Anyway. This is probably what that world would look like.

I heard that Angie Hanks has been convicted of a number of minor to major felonies and doesn't dare return to the Dallas streets she once ruled over. Angie must miss the place, though, cause she shoved the state of Texas into the skin of a rooster, and she named that thing Big Tex.

At first, maybe you think Big Tex is a little cute. Because, I mean, look at that crown, and look at all those funny little feathers around its neck, right? And as it’s dancing around the pit, you smile and think: “This is a nice bird. This is a bird I wouldn’t mind sending a postcard of to my granddaughter.” But then, fuck! When you least expect it, Big Tex rears up to its full 14.1 inches and starts launching itself at its opponent! Its spurs are all red; the audience is in shock! And when its opponent’s down, Jesus, it goes right for the crowd! I heard Big Tex broke a kid’s nose once. Seriously.

And after the fight, you wake up at 4 AM thinking, “My God, what kind of monster is Big Tex? That thing is scary as all hell.” Big Tex haunts you, man; it haunts you like a cowboy’s ghost.

Big Tex closed up shop last Saturday; you, sir/ma’am, are a fool if you missed it. More Unfiltered to come! Do yourself a favor and keep up!

Unfiltered 2012: BIG TEX by Angela Hanks Opens January 5th!

It's a new year, people. Shake off the last one. I know it wasn't so bad. But this one's gonna be better. And we've got something for you.


Unfiltered 2012! Four new plays in studio productions. How's it gonna start? It's gonna start big.

Big Tex by Angela Hanks
directed by José Zayas
with William Jackson Harper, Geany Masai, Nedra McClyde, and Shawn Randall

At the State Fair of Texas, a young bus driver trains to become
the voice of the main attraction:
his childhood hero, a 52-foot cowboy.

Come see it: January 5th, 6th, 13th, and 14th at 7pm.
Buy tickets here.

(They're $20.
Get 2-for-1 tickets for the first three performances by using code BIGTEX.)

All shows at Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 West 52nd Street, 2nd Floor (between 10th & 11th Aves).

Coming up:

• The Gratifications by Ryan Dowler, directed by Andrew Grosso (Opening 1/11)
  
• In Memory of Julie Simmons by Erica Saleh, directed by Tamara Fisch (Opening 1/18)
  
• Year of the Rooster by Eric Dufault, directed by John Giampietro (Opening 1/25)

You can! see 2 Unfiltered plays for $30!
You can! see all 4 Unfiltered plays for $40!
Also there are $10 Student tickets and Senior tickets available, just show ID at the door.
See you out there.

Meet Angela Hanks

Last but not least, Ryan Dowler interviewed newbie Angela Hanks. Here's what she had to say on childhood lies, the virtues of Texas, and her various writing habits.

Ryan Dowler: When you were a child, did you ever tell an outrageous lie?

Angela Hanks: Of course, man. In sixth grade I told this chick, Anna, that I was a twin. I believe Abigail was my twin’s name. I chalk it up to a combination of that Good Ol' Middle Child Syndrome, an impressive imagination, and adolescent yearning. I am one of five. Smackest in the middle. I think I just wanted some person close to me. Since that past infraction, I've been fine with being the middle child. I love my brothers and sisters completely and wholly and have come to understand how incredibly important they are to me and me to them. I wouldn’t be this fine- ass individual without them.

RD: Where do you like to write?

AH: While I sleep with my laptop, I frequent the computer lab over at the New School. I recently obtained an MFA in Playwriting from there. I am not ashamed that I still write at the computer lab. Not ashamed at all. Sometimes my magical computer location is available. I’ve secretly cried in the computer lab because shit sometimes gets real when you’re writing plays. I have slept over at the computer lab. Seriously, I have. It’s the sense of communion, I believe, that attracts me to it. Everyone is there to get something accomplished.

RD: If you could give any book to the fifteen- year old version of yourself, what would it be?

AH: Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood by bell hooks. I had already read Carson McCuller’s The Member of the Wedding by then.

RD: I think we're the only two Youngbloods/ers/ies from Texas. Are you ready for the TEXAS POWER ROUND?

AH: Yes!!!

RD: Okay, here goes:

Have you ever been to Schlitterbahn Waterpark?

AH: I have!

RD: Isn't it the greatest?

AH: Fond memories, yes. While I did not last on the surfing simulation ride, I have not been dissuaded from putting “learn how to surf” on my To Do Before I Die List.

RD: Do you want to dispel any myths about Texas?

AH: I want to dispel myths in general but Texas and its people feature majorly in my work. Here’s some history for you: Texans were once called Texians for a ten- year period after the Texas Revolution which resulted in the Republic of Texas. But then the United States was all “Eff you guys you can’t be your own country, and we’re gonna start calling you Texans, and wait a minute- are you hanging out with both Mexicans and American Indians! What’s wrong with you? Put a border there. Send those Comanches along the Trail of Tears. And listen you immigrants living in the Texas Hill Country: you’re not Czech- American or German- American or Swiss- American. You’re just plain white, but please keep making your delicious, delicious beer. But Okay: assimilate and adjust”. And that’s how all of that happened. And you know what: black cowboys exist. I know this because I’ve been to the Black Cowboy Rodeo at the State Fair of Texas. And you know what else: racism kinda still exists in the United States. It’s just that it exists more openly in some places. Than others.

RD: Do you have a Texas flag shower curtain?

AH: I do not own a Texas flag shower curtain, but my Texas Driver’s License will not expire until 2012.

RD: Isn't Williamsburg just a more snooty, less diverse version of Austin?

AH: Ha! Yes. Poor, poor Willy B. Get with the Progress Program. I do know some kids who live in Willy B and they’re decent people and I wouldn’t be friends with them if they weren’t ‘cause seriously who has time for jerks?

I don't judge the old contingent of artists who sought affordable rents or anyone trying to find affordable anything but [the artist-influx needs to] maintain an awareness and respect for the folks who first lived in those “affordable” areas, and not by choice, but because financial circumstance limits them to these particular neighborhoods.. I live in Crown Heights which is awesome. It’s predominantly West Indian, but there’s a diverse, community-minded crowd developing. An incredibly dynamic mix of people. My favorite bar there is Franklin Park. One of the bartenders plays some awesome Luther Vandross jams. Because he genuinely loves Luther Vandross. And I genuinely love that.

Austin is pretty rad. It’s eclectic. And Austinites work collectively to keep it that way.

RD: Similarly, last question: How has place influenced your work?

AH: It takes many hours to drive across the state of Texas. On that drive, the entire state changes in geography. I grew up in Dallas. 90% of my plays take place in Dallas. I feel like sometimes I write about Texas to get back to Texas because I'm so far far away from Texas. And I want to be near it but I can't. Not right now, at least.

Meet Ryan Dowler

Angela Hanks interviews new member Ryan Dowler (the dude on the left, not the chick on the right.)

AH: If you could perform one character from a play, who would it be?

RD: George Deever in All My Sons. Best walk-on ever. Or twenty years from now, Ray in Blackbird. Preferably anyone who’s an asshole and then isn’t an asshole and then still just might be an asshole.

AH: How does music inform your work? Does it? Or do you just like to rock out to awesome awesome jams?

RD: I’m one of those people who listens to one album over and over and over again while I work. It kind of acts as white noise to distract that part of my brain that wants to look all over or daydream or what have you. In high school, it was Weezer’s Blue Album and then a Ben Folds Five album over and over and over, and now lately it’s been Raphael Saadiq. When the album ends and iTunes switches to a new song, my brain goes, “B’wha?” and I have to start the album over.

In general, I always prefer music to no music. My girlfriend Molly and I just moved to NY and we live in this building with all these older quieter people and Molly keeps telling me to turn the music down. I keep trying to explain to her that in the building we’re the Randle P. McMurphy contingent and the Randle P. McMurphy contingent isn’t supposed to turn the music down. If anything, we owe it to them to turn it up. To be fair, it’s all like Ray Charles and Loretta Lynn and its not even that loud.

AH: Where do you like to write?

RD: I just came here from Athens, Ohio where I had the perfect place to write, a place called Donkey Coffee. There are so many places to sit, different rooms and kinds of tables to choose from and every table has it’s own little lamp. What it is, it’s cozy. In New York cozy means small, but in Ohio cozy means smartly lit and warm, with a place to hang your coat. There was a table on the second floor with a big window where you could watch the snow fall and the people walking on the street. There was a couch in a great big room with paintings better than windows, where you could sit and write for hours next to sleeping teenage couples wrapped up in limbs and sweaters and scarves. Not a bad thing to see if you’re trying to write about the better parts of being a human being.

I almost missed out on a year and a half of very productive writing time at Donkey. Athens itself is a place of contradictions as an environment for writing. A lot of great writers – Laura Jacqmin, Dana Formby, David Mitchell Robinson , to name too few -- have come out of Charles Smith’s program at OU lately, but the workload in terms of writing is intense (3 full-lengths and 60 short plays written and staged in 3 years + all the classes on structure and theory + teaching). You’re really getting your Malcolm-Gladwell-10,000 hours- thing, but the location can be very isolating, for good or ill. Winter in rural Ohio can get pretty depressing and I remember I had one of those graduate student therapists because I was having trouble leaving my house.

She said there must be somewhere else you want to go to do your work. And I said there is one coffee shop I like, but I can’t work there anymore because everything I’ve ever worked on there – every essay, every lecture, whatever -- is a piece of shit. It was a pretty pathetic show, but I completely believed it, and walking through the door just brought all that back and it was all very distracting and sad. Finally the thing that happened – Winter ended and I stopped being foolish and in a kind of Saved-by-the-Bell Scheme, I started writing there to get close to another more talented playwright that I had a crush on, who’s now my girlfriend.

I haven’t really found a place in NY yet. A lot of them are lit like a Wal-Mart. I like that Café Grumpy location in Greenpoint, but it’s very far away. Ditto Flying Saucer, but they won’t take any cards. Did you see that Joan Rivers documentary? I want to work in a coffee shop that looks like Joan River’s apartment. That’s what I want. Where you can transition from coffee to beer when the time is right. Also it takes credit cards. And has a little lamp on every table.

AH: You do know that your last name rhymes with another Youngblood's last name, right? How do you feel about that?

RD: Darcy Fowler is actually the first Youngblood/er/y that I met. There shouldn’t be much confusion. She’s much more socially adept and bright than I am. She’s the one I’d choose first to be on my softball team, based on what I imagine leading/being on a softball team might be like.

There’s actually an actress in L.A. with my full name. She’s much more googleable than me. Old friends sometimes contact me to congratulate me on my plays and on playing “Pregnant Girl #2” on The O.C.