Going Out and Coming Back

So first I saw this, and thought it was just a cool pattern

until I leaned in, and saw that it was full of actual people, and that the people were in a marching band

and I fantasized about an epic play with a cast of hundreds about all the little lives in a marching band. 

And then, later, after I'd been listening to a bunch of marching band music, someone sent me this

and I peed a little, and realized that if this sedentary majorette could do all that from her chair I didn't need a cast of hundreds to do what I wanted to do. And maybe I just wanted a play that was a big ol' construction paper heart with a doily trim magic marker dedication to John Philip Sousa. 

And that's the back story, pretty much.

Obviously, this all happened during summer. So there was a beach in the picture. And fireflies. 

And so I wrote this weird little play. About brass instruments, and patriotic music, and what can happen when nothing is happening. 

Two summers. A women's trombone ensemble. Fourth of July. The Mid-Atlantic Sousa Festival. 

Spoiler alert:

They go pick blueberries! Someone loses a sandal!

I hope you can make it.

The director is nice, the cast are well-groomed, and the stage directions have a beautiful moustache. The play itself will not overstay its welcome (75 minutes), and will write you a thank-you note afterwards, on tasteful stationery with a patriotic stamp.

Bring sparklers and watermelon.

Going Out and Coming Back

by Alex Borinsky

directed by Colleen Sullivan

with Clare Barron, Kathryn Dickinson, Paola Irun, Deb Margolin, Mary Neufeld, Danielle Slavick, and Stephanie Wright Thompson

stage directions by Justin Perkins

Wednesday, May 23rd @ 9

6th Floor Theater, EST

(The marching band art above is by Bruce Davenport, Jr., btw.)

Creating an artistic home

In the spirit of Borinsky's Defense Mechanisms series, here's an excerpt from a post by Todd London from the Howlround.

What makes an Artistic Home?

A place to rest, think, find common language and family feeling. You can help shape environment in your artistic home, or at least decorate the space. You’re a host there, not a guest. You can invite friends, colleagues, maybe your own audience. People sense your belonging. And you can sometimes lose your shit there, and know there’ll still be food on the table and some loving looks when you sit down to it. And they have to take you in. That’s baseline; you don’t question your welcome. You don’t have to earn it again and again. They take you in, or you’re already in. Probably you’ve got a key. You are, say it again, a host not a guest. No pleading through the crack in the door, no applications through the slot.

The whole post is available here.

Youngblood's ideal artistic home would have Legos, weekly cockfights, picklebacks, and may or may not be the HMS Youngblood.

Plays/Bands at Cake Shop Tonight

Dear Internet,

Are you enjoying your fall? Is it a little too chilly, or just right for sweater weather? Are you listening to the crooners on WNYC with a hot cup of coffee? Mmm, I hope so.

Tonight my company Pony Show Presents is throwing our next plays and bands show, this time in the lower east side's Cake Shop. Our goal as always is to bring indie rock audiences to indie theatre audiences and vice versa. Sometimes when people here this on the music side, a well justified look of skepticism crosses their faces. "Short plays? Eh..." The initial thought of someone who doesn't regularly attend new theatre is that these pieces are either going to be corny, boring, or laughably avant-garde. More often though, people are psyched because they get to see new plays by young writers with similar sensibilities and senses of humor to them, and get to see three killer bands they'd be seeing on a Saturday night anyway. All for 7 bucks. By the end of the night we've surprised and converted the skeptics.

New York theatre's ever existing problem, attracting young audiences, comes from people not knowing what to see, where to see it, and if they do they're too broke. That's old news. So just fucking put it in front of them and do it. We like to think it's easier done than said.

Tonight we have three shorts by Youngblood alum and recently wed, BEN ROSENTHAL, with "For the Love of Brandon." A group of friends is hosting an intervention for their friend Brandon, concerning certain distractions to the group's activities. Orgies. It also features EST favorites Megan Tusing, Will Harper, Dave Gelles, Risa Sarachan, Youngblood member Alex Borinsky, and Erica Lutz. Now imagine them all having sex with each other.

Current Youngblooder Leah Nanako Winkler's Asking For Trouble hit, "I Don't Want to Read Your Blog" returns, taking on a problem everyone has, internet stalkers.

And Brian Otano has "Henley" about Fleetwood Mac's crisis on the night "Rumours" hits Billboard's number 1. Lots of cocaine and women who do it with Don Henley.

and the bands...


SLOW ANIMAL --> http://slowanimal.bandcamp.com/

HEAVEN'S GATE --> http://heavensgate.bandcamp.com/

PERFECT TEETH --> http://tinyurl.com/44alo8g

Doors are at 8, Leah kicks it off at 9.
$7 Cake Shop 152 Ludlow Street


See. You. There.

Love,
Chris/PSP

Physics of a Pie-angle

1. Attend Death of American Centaur at Ars Nova featuring Youngblood luminary Alex Borinsky. 
2. Do not leave the theater when an actor announces that he will pay you back for your ticket if you’d prefer to take a walk outside.
3. Enjoy the scene where the company uses two whipped cream pies to induce tension into a heart to heart between Biff & Happy (seriously, the other brother in Death of a Salesman is named Happy?). Realize that every play could probably be better with two actors standing by with pies waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
4. At intermission, when the actors lay down a tarp and announce that the audience is welcome to pie actors or each other, turn to RJ Tolan and newly minted YBer Clare Barron and nod in unison. Attempt to convince Meghan Deans. Fail.
5. Clamber onto that tarp and stand in a rough triangle.

6. On the count of three, smash that pie into your assigned person’s face.

7. Realize that the whipped cream is actually shaving cream when you accidentally taste some.
8. Try to clean your face. Fail.
9. Turn back to see Meghan Deans from her pie-free seat in the audience with a Cheshire cat grin and an absurdly clean face.
10. Watch the rest of the play knowing that this evening was well worth that crumpled ten dollar bill.

Meet Alex Borinsky

In true tit-for-tat fashion, new Youngblood member Darcy Fowler now profiles fellow freshman Alex Borinsky.

So sayeth Darcy:

Alex Borinsky. I walked into Grey Dog. He was sitting at a small table, scribbling away in his notebook, black coffee by his side. He looked focused, thoughtful, calm. A hint of a smile on his face. It made me smile. I think I figured out why. There’s a light that emanates from him.

The Place

He grew up in Baltimore Maryland, home of John Waters and The Wire. Baltimore, he says, is a very dear but troubled city. Never too big for it’s britches, which was something that Alex seemed to appreciate. Maryland’s also known for it’s jousting. Alex doesn’t joust. Not even a little.

The People

Some of Alex’s favorites include Chekhov, Beckett and to my excitement, The Muppets. He resonates with Gonzo, the strange and kind hearted Muppet that may or may not be from outer space. Favorite Muppet moment: “There’s a skit where Zero Mostel talks about his fears, and all these scary looking Muppets appear.” I you tubed it. It’s incredible. [Ed: link here.  Plus, check out what Zero gets up to behind Sam the Eagle around 5:30 of this one.]

The Playwright

Alex found his love for writing through poetry. But that was really just for himself. He found his love for playwriting at Yale. He talked about one particularly amazing teacher whose very being “oozed the pleasure of making plays and using language.” She always put emphasis on the joy of the process.

Also while at Yale, Alex (who is also an actor) worked with an experimental theatre group called the Control Group. They stretched themselves, experimented and explored. They made plays in houses, and backyards, and lit fires on rooftops during performances.

At school, Alex wrote his first play: The Polish Egg Man, and he didn’t look back.

The Present

He is currently part of the theatre company American Centaur, a group that puts playful twists on Shakespeare (americancentaur.weebly.com). He’s also a huge fan of dance, and his serious obsession with American Puritans is just starting to reemerge.

Alex presently lives in Harlem, amongst many picturesque dilapidated buildings.

Meet Darcy Fowler

As profiled by fellow newbie, Alex Borinsky.


Darcy Fowler laughs very generously and her whole face lights up when she smiles. She was one of the first people I met in Youngblood, and I liked her from the start. I’m looking forward to seeing one of her first plays, The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight, when it goes up this winter at E.S.T.

The Place

Darcy grew up in Massachusetts, on the Marblehead-Salem border. The town is sea-shantyish, she says – lots of lobsters and lobstermen. It’s witch country, too: here and there, a few people still claim to be witches.

The People

Darcy names Nicky Silver, Adam Bock, Aaron Sorkin, Laura Wade, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers, and Tina Fey when I ask her about her influences. Then she adds, “And my mother.” It becomes clear that we share a deep, aching love for the Muppets. Of the lot, Darcy identifies mostly with Fozzie Bear, the hard-loving comedian with a heart of gold. Her favorite play of the moment: The Pavilion, by Craig Wright.

The Play

The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight tells the story of a girl who comes home after death of her mother to act as the glue that will hold her family together. She finds a mysterious parcel on the front porch that seems to be her mother’s notebook. The play unfolds around the ways in which this notebook moves the girl through her grief.

Later I asked Darcy how much her plays emerge from her own experience. She answered that they start with her own experience, yes, but that the process of shaping the play involves a growing confidence in a structure and set of characters that draw the play away from the impulse that inspired it and towards a life of its own.

Darcy says that she enrolled at Syracuse to study acting, but that the faculty encouraged her and her classmates to make their own theater, to find confidence in their own voices. The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight came out of that encouragement. It was the project on which she says she discovered that “I had this voice I didn’t fully know I had.”

The Present

These days, Darcy writes, performs with the Story Pirates, and develops a webisode with friends called “You Make My Dreams Come True,” about a group of girls who start a Hall and Oats cover band (http://www.youmakemydreamscometrue.com/. Seriously good.). Though the majority of her roommates are musicians, Darcy at first denies any musical skill of her own. “If I could I would play the drums,” she says, and pauses. Then: “I play the drums when I’m drunk. It’s a great way to get out excess energy.”

She is an ardent apostle of the Ditmas Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.