Workshop: Site-Specific Creation Lab – Postponed!

This workshop has been postponed due to wildfires and bad air quality on October 27. Stay safe! We’ll reschedule this workshop for early 2020.

Come play with us — outside the box!

Peter Brook famously conceived of the theater as an “empty space,” but in site-specific performance, the space is anything but empty. In this workshop, we’ll explore the rewards and peculiarities of creating performances for non-traditional spaces, both public and private, indoors and out. We’ll offer prompts, provocations and structures for creating new work, and you’ll move, write, reflect, question, and share. Together we’ll build strategies for integrating the rich layers of a space to inform, inspire, and infuse our work.

This all-levels workshop is for performers, dancers, writers, and theater-makers aged 15+ with an interest in creatively exploring the world around us. Whether you’re a veteran of site-specific work or have never heard of such a thing, our explorations will challenge you to try something new.

THE BASICS:

What: Site-Specific Creation Lab
When: Saturday or Sunday TBD 2020, 12pm – 3pm
Where: Port Costa, California

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More details:

Cost is $40, which pays the workshop leader and supports both Idiot String and the Port Costa Conservation Society. Residents of Port Costa, Crockett, or Tormey pay just $10 thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Crockett Community Foundation.
PAYMENT & CANCELLATION POLICY: Payment is due 7 calendar days before your workshop. You may sign up within the 7-day window, as long as you make payment when you register. You may cancel your registration up to 48 hours before the workshop for a full refund; cancellations made within 48 hours cannot be refunded.

This workshop is part of Idiot String’s residency in Port Costa sponsored by the Port Costa Conservation Society.

After the workshop, explore the wonderful and tiny town of Port Costa, where you can hike the hills, relax with a book, or discover whimsical artwork and fabulous antiques — making the whole day an invigorating experience.

We are excited to play with you!

WHAT TO BRING:
  • Water bottle
  • Notebook or journal and pen(cil)
  • Snacks if you need them
  • Closed-toe shoes and clothes you can move in
  • Rain or sun protection (hat, sunscreen, etc) and anything else you’ll need to be comfortable outdoors — we won’t stay outside if rain is heavy, but may be outdoors in a light drizzle.

Rebecca Longworth (workshop leader) is co-founder and artistic director of Idiot String. As a theatre-maker, Rebecca is dedicated to creating original ensemble performances and rich audience experiences. She co-creates and directs each of the Samuel Peaches Peripatetic Players’s productions, and devises original performance with the Hatch Collective. Other directing credits include New Conservatory Theatre Center, Ragged Wing Ensemble, SF Theatre Pub, Boxcar Theatre, Theatre Q, Dragon Productions, El Gato Family Theatre and Jump! Theatre, where she served as artistic director for four years. Rebecca has performed with Ragged Wing Ensemble, We Players, and FoolsFURY, and has also designed motion graphics and projections for Jump! Theatre, Crowded Fire, Custom Made Theatre, and Shotgun Players. Rebecca teaches acting and theater-making to students of all ages throughout the Bay Area, including workshops and residencies with Berkeley Rep, TheatreWorks, and San Francisco Opera Guild. She holds an MA in Text & Performance Studies from King’s College/R.A.D.A. and is a member of the 2009 Lincoln Center Directors Lab.

A Port Costa sneak peek at ELIXIR

Against a backdrop of an ornately carved wooden bar decorated with barren branches, Josephine, dressed in dark lace with a locket at her neck, receives a drop of mysterious liquid from Doctor Vitae, who wears a top hat and gently holds a vial.

On September 30, we accepted the invitation of artist Bethany Carlson Mann to present excerpts from Elixir of Life at the opening of Bethany’s art show, Fairytales for Feral Children, now on exhibit at the Burlington Hotel.

Serena Morelli photographed the event — enjoy! — and don’t forget… Elixir of Life starts October 20!

The Peripatetic Players present a Port Costa Flux Fest

Happening just a moment from this writing, the Peripatetic Players will conclude their 2016 tour of Shakespeare or Space Wars with a weekend-long mini-festival in Port Costa, Flux Fest ’16. We’re just pleased as punch that the Players are now officially fictionally Port Costa’s resident traveling troupe of thespians, and we’re looking forward to creating all kinds of lore and faux ephemera to document our years in that fantastic hamlet.

Here’s a collage from last fall’s performance of Romeo & Juliet in Port Costa, featuring Reece Santos’s fabulous painted proscenium in the alleyway of the Bull Valley Roadhouse:

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Theater Around The Bay: An Interview With Joan Howard and Rebecca Longworth

A behind-behind-the-scenes look at the inspirations for AESOP AMUCK and O BEST BELOVED…

San Francisco Theater Pub

Sam Bertken steps in to guest write and interview Joan Howard and Rebecca Longworth, the producing/directing team behind “Aesop Amuck.”

A few weeks ago, I took some time after a weekend rehearsal to sit down with Rebecca Longworth and Joan Howard, the collaborative force that founded Samuel Peaches’ Peripatetic Players, winners of the 2013 Best of SF Fringe Award for “O Best Beloved,” a devised adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Sprawled cross-legged on the mats at the Main Street Theater in the Excelsior, I got to know more about what drove them to start the company, the source of their passion for children’s theater, and why audience participation might not be something to dread.

SB: What in particular draws you to staging children’s literature, adapting them for the stage?

RL: What draws me to children’s literature… I think, because it’s imaginative and kind of magical without necessarily…

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