Repertory Theatre Company

ANW’s  ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ Makes for Uproarious Entertainment

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 20 October 2016 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, Monrovia Weekly, and Sierra Madre Weekly

Moliere’s ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ opened at A Noise Within (ANW) over the weekend, a fitting final production of the fall in the repertory company’s 25th anniversary season. Long-time resident artists, Apollo Dukakis as Argan, and Debora Strang as Toinette, face off in this raucously hysterical play. At the helm is ANW co-producing director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott.    

On stage until the 19th of November, ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ tells the story of Argan, a man obsessed with his health and the lengths to which he will go to ensure that he will have a doctor to diagnose and cure his ailments. It’s a high comedy that calls for much sparring among the characters which the resident artists pull off with dexterity and aplomb.           

Rodriguez-Elliott says of working on the show with resident performers, “It usually isn’t until the third week of production that people begin to have a sense of each other and by week five it’s over. But here, we get right down to the task on the very first day of rehearsal so that the work becomes so much richer. I’ve observed guest artists begin to relax as they see the vocabulary of the place.” 

Strang immediately pipes in, “Apollo and I have played opposite each other on the stage so many times but as I look back on them I think we’ve had the same kind of relationship every single time.”

“It’s part of being in a company, as long-time colleagues we have such a familiarity and that instant connection. We’re there for each other,” Dukakis adds.

Dukakis has played ‘The Imaginary Invalid’s’ lead character, Argan, four times previously; the first one was 16 years ago. This time around, he was originally cast as the doctor but the actor who was to have played Argan had an emergency medical surgery one week into rehearsal.  Without too much preamble, Rodriguez-Elliott asked him to replace the lead and Dukakis graciously agreed.

ANW has produced Moliere and Shakespeare plays more than any other playwright’s.  

Molière as Argan in his play ‘Le Malade Imaginaire’. Illustration from Liebig collectible card series (‘Auteurs dramatiques comme Acteurs’/ ‘Famous Actor Playwrights’), 1921. M: (Real name Jan-Baptiste Poquelin) – portrait. French dramatist, comic playwright, and theatre director, 1646 – 1673 (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Rodriguez-Elliott rationalizes, “Moliere’s characters are people who are extremes; watching what happens when we’re obsessed fascinates me. His works give us the opportunity to play the characters with a humanity. It’s the same with Shakespeare when he writes ‘a street’ and you have no idea what that looks like and you have to create what the language of that particular production is going to be.”

“I find it interesting that both Moliere and Shakespeare wrote for repertory companies,” observes Strang. “I think every single character in their plays is rich and full-bodied because they had particular actors in mind. The fact they had repertory companies made them much stronger writers.”

Interjects Rodriguez-Elliott, “Even if Moliere and Shakespeare just had a sketch, they throw it to the repertory and they fill it out. That’s the power of having a company. It’s in that same vein that I was able to ask Apollo to fill in for the original actor playing Argan; I was very confident that we have resident artists who can handle the role. It was seamless, we moved the different actors to play the various characters. We didn’t have to scramble around to find someone.”

Rodriguez-Elliott says of ‘The Imaginary Invalid’, “This individual is in the throes of mental illness. The brilliance of Moliere is that he’s turned this destructive isolation into a sparkling, effervescent romp! So much of the comedy is about how oblivious Argan is to the vultures that are taking advantage of him, and the lengths in which people in his life navigate his neurosis.”                             

“It’s slapstick hilarity to watch the characters go right to the brink of insanity, but there is an underlying basis of reality – we are all blinded by our own behaviors,” Rodriguez-Elliott observes. “At the end of the play, Argan overcomes it all. What’s most interesting to me is his trajectory and his journey. It’s up to the audience to figure out if he ultimately finds enlightenment and takes ownership of his life as he becomes a doctor himself.” 

“I can have some high and mighty notion of what I think the audience should take away with them. But given what’s going on in the world right now it’s really great to be in a room with everyone just laughing hysterically … being together and having a really good time where we’re not dealing with complex issues, or things that are taxing and stressful,”  Rodriguez-Elliott concludes.

‘The Imaginary Invalid’ provides the perfect last fall production of ANW’s ‘Beyond our Wildest Dreams’ 2016-2017 season. It’s a blast of a play!

A Noise Within Unveils 25th Anniversary Season

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 21 April 2016 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, Monrovia Weekly, and Sierra Madre Weekly

A Noise Within (ANW), the classical theatre repertory company based in Pasadena, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Founders and Producing Artistic Directors, Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, still find it amazing that they have reached that milestone. 

“If someone were to tell me a decade ago, when we were still in the cold, leaky Masonic Temple in Glendale, that I would be standing here in front of you today, I would never have believed it. I would have loved to hear it but I could not have imagined it to be the case. And yet here I am;  it’s simply beyond our wildest dreams,” Elliott humbly confessed before an audience of theatre supporters, artists-in-residence, and a few members of the press. 

On Tuesday, April 19, ANW officially began its 25th year celebration and unveiled its growth plans as well as the slate of play offerings for the 2016-2017 season. Michael Bateman, Managing Director, who opened that evening’s event described how the company plans to build on its success and thrive in the future. He also revealed how ANW will get the funding to support its grand initiatives.

The company’s ambitious growth plans include: continuing to invest in the artistic company – actors, designers, and directors; providing flexibility for ANW’s creative artists through ‘freedom funds’; maximizing educational outreach by providing additional transportation and ticket scholarships to underserved schools, and deeper engagement opportunities for teachers and for students, including sequential learning options and curriculum development assistance.

Continued Bateman, “While that sounds challenging, it is totally achievable. We are getting support for our initiatives through gifts and pledges. A single gift of $250,000 has been pledged by John and Barbara Lawrence, with $600,000 having been pledged overall. Jeanie Kay has pledged a bequest gift of $2.5 million; we are also hoping to find 25 new individuals, like Jeanie, to include ANW in their estate plans.”

After Bateman talked about the business of producing memorable plays,  Elliott and Rodriguez-Elliott took to the stage and announced ANW’s 2016-2017 season offerings. Amidst  

enthusiastic cheers from members of the company and theatre enthusiasts, who have been eagerly anticipating this announcement, they outlined each play – Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia; The Maids by Jean Genet; Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, adapted by Constance Congdon based on a new translation by Dan Smith; Shakespeare’s King Lear; Ah Wilderness! by Eugene O’Neill; Man of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion; and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted for the stage by Geoff Elliott.

Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott | Courtesy Photo

“Four of the plays we are announcing for the 25th anniversary season speak loudly to us now from our history – The Imaginary Invalid, King Lear, Ah, Wilderness!, and Man of La Mancha. Arcadia and The Maids are new for us. Together, our actors, artists, and audience will take a journey through and beyond our wildest, and sometimes simply wild dreams – the same journey that Julia and I have taken over this past quarter-century,” Elliott pronounced.

And it has indeed been a journey that has surpassed all their expectations as they look back in time. As Rodriguez-Elliott remembers it, “In 1991 we were struggling students, fresh from American Conservatory Theatre, and we used our last $3,000 to produce Hamlet. It was a big success and we learned a lot very quickly – that Los Angeles was filled with well-trained talent, that there was an audience hungry to see plays of substance, that there were people and resources willing to support this effort, and that there was a press corps interested in writing about this work.

“All of this added up quickly to the beginnings of a community,” continues Rodriguez-Elliott. “In the nurturing of this idea of community, we found ourselves on a path that led to our next productions, the use of the Masonic Temple in Glendale, a 501(c)(3) designation, an administrative staff, and so on. We had suddenly built an organization, including a robust education program, which enabled us to share our love of the classics with local students.”

As ANW gained following, it also outgrew its venue. In the middle of the 2008 recession the company somehow managed to raise the $13.5 million needed to build its new home on 3352 East Foothill Blvd. in Pasadena. It is a three-story, 30,000 square foot facility with rehearsal space, scene and costume shops, classrooms, administrative offices, and a student learning resource center.

This new facility made it possible for the theatre company to increase its audience considerably, and in the last five years has surpassed its previous box office and attendance records annually. Each year ANW serves over 40,000 patrons from Southern California and elsewhere. It has also achieved the remarkable feat of 85% subscription theatre renewals, 12% more than the national average. And it still is adding new subscribers, increasing its total audience base every year.

The theatre company’s commitment to make theatre accessible to everyone is evidenced by its ‘Pay What You Can’ night for each production. Its Resident Artists also put on staged readings six times a year at no cost to the public.   

One of ANW’s distinguishing hallmarks is its educational outreach program. Thirty percent of its resources are dedicated to support schools, providing transportation for students to come to the theatre. It also offers: reduced ticket costs to attend a live on-stage performance; post-show discussions with the artists; in-class workshops; and standards-based study guides. It has served more than 250,000 students over the years; in the 2015-2016 season, 15,400 youths from 204 schools from 28 school districts participated in this program. Its acclaimed summer camp, ‘Summer With Shakespeare,’ has graduated nearly 900 students since its creation.

So much has happened in two and a half decades. Today ANW is considered one of the most successful theatre companies in the country. But the one thing that has remained constant is their unwavering artistic vision. As Rodriguez-Elliott says, “We focus on timeless works that speak to the human condition. It’s important for us to present these epics in an intimate setting, told with a personal and contemporary perspective – after all, what good are all these grand, sweeping narratives if no one can relate to them?” 

To celebrate its first quarter century, ANW is holding events across their disciplines. There will be a Summer with Shakespeare on July 16; The American Dream: A Resident Artist Reading Festival on July 22- 24, 2016 (an event which is free to the public); a free Open House on September 17, 2016; a Fashion Show featuring costumes the artists have worn in its productions

through the years on January 21, 2017; and a 25th Anniversary Gala at the California Club to commemorate 25 years of classic theatre on April 29, 2017.

Elliott and Rodriguez-Elliott have decidedly come very far from their humble beginnings when they used their last dime to produce Hamlet. And both are keenly aware that a loyal community of artists, students, theatre lovers, and friends will take the next 25-year journey with them to help ensure this art form remains flourishing for generations to come.            

Students Spend Summer with Shakespeare at A Noise Within

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

 

Originally published on 18 June 2015 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, Monrovia Weekly, and Sierra Madre Weekly

Educational? Check! Enriching? Oh, yes. Peppered with a large dose of fun? Absolutely! At A Noise Within, a classical repertory theatre company founded by Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, summer camp is all of the above. But youngsters also gain a great deal of insight and experience about theatre in the duration of the program.

For five weeks starting June 15, students from ages 6 to 18 learn theatre craft from respected professionals in the field, culminating in a performance on stage on July 16 and 17. Trained actors, choreographers and designers introduce students to acting, improvisation, stage diction, text analysis, kinetic exercises, and stage combat in this intensive, conservatory-style program. 

 “We began Summer with Shakespeare in 1993 as a three-week acting camp,” says Alicia Green, A Noise Within’s Education Director.  “ It has been so successful that we decided to expand it to five weeks this year.  Students are assembled by age (6-9; 10-13; and 14-18). The younger kids can choose to join the entire five-week track or attend any configuration of time that fits their schedule. The oldest ones need to enroll for the entire five weeks because they will be putting on a full production of King Lear.  We have 105 students this summer, up from last year’s 45.”

Summer With Shakespeare covers the gamut of the Bard’s works. During their first week in camp, students learn about Shakespeare’s comedies – Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It. In their second week, they study the tragedies – Macbeth, King Lear.  In their third week, they absorb the histories and romances – Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V.

At 10 a.m. on a hot and muggy Tuesday in June, kids make their way into A Noise Within’s home on Foothill Blvd. They carefully set their lunch bags on steel carts, marked with three age groupings, parked against the wall in the large main entrance hall. They then proceed to their respective class, to start the day’s exciting lesson.

Jeff Block and Ryan Luevano, of Maestro & Magic Productions, are conducting charades with the 10- to 13-year-olds on the main hall.  The group is divided into two teams facing off this morning – Keepers of the Blood Pact, or the Red Team, and Totally Awesome Unicorns, or the Blue Team. Using every magician’s accoutrement (white handkerchief, top hat and wand) a volunteer from one division mimes a magic he or she learned from class and someone from the competing group will guess what trick was performed. A correct guess earns the answering team a point.  It’s a very tight race; the two opponents are head-to-head. The game ends in a tie and everyone is happily satisfied with that outcome.

Sitting in a far corner of the main hall is Audrey Halaas-Voorhees, their class assistant, who will be there all day to make sure the children are well-behaved and are following instructions from their teacher. Audrey is also the person who will be walking them from class to class.

Vega, a first time participant in the Summer With Shakespeare camp, got interested in the program because his older brother attended it for three years. When his brother decided not to go to the camp this year, Vega took the spot. His favorite lesson is movement – something vital to one of his interests, which is dance. He is able to apply what he’s learned during his two weeks here with the steps he has mastered from the Pasadena Dance Theatre. Vega likes ballet, contemporary and ballroom dancing.  

Upstairs, Alison Elliott, is leading a very lively class with the six to nine-year-olds. She has them fully engaged in an imaginary situation at a sports stadium. She calls on some students to   come to the front of the class and act out her instructions:  “Watch only with your hands … with your eyes …with your neck …with your knees.” The little kids perform the actions animatedly and vigorously using only the body parts Alison calls for. And then she asks the ‘audience’ what sport the kids are watching and everyone shouts out ‘SOCCER!’

Meanwhile, their teacher’s assistant, Tomas Dakan, watches quietly and intently from his chair a few feet away. A student at Occidental College, Dakan himself is no stranger to the craft. He enjoys performing and has been involved with the Taproot Theatre Company, a professional, non-profit theatre company in Seattle, Washington.

Olivia is a standout in the six to nine-year-old class even when this is her first time here. She is passionate about the performing arts – she sings and dances, and does gymnastics at her school.  She is thrilled at the chance to learn acting and hopes to one day star in a musical. Olivia is also an avid reader and counts The Tail of Emily Windsnap and The Hunger Games as favorites. 

In the theatre, instructor Carolyn Marie Wright is on the stage with the 14- to 18-year-olds reading lines to King Lear, while teacher’s assistant Kenyon Meleney follows the lesson and gives cues to the students. This group has already finished creating the backdrop for the play and they are now in rehearsal. Their work and talent will be on display at the end of the five-week camp when they stage a full production of King Lear for an audience of family and friends.  

Kayla, who has been selected to play the lead role, is on her second year at Summer With Shakespeare. She says attending this camp has greatly improved her acting. She now knows what looks good on stage, and has learned how to reach her audience conceptually and emotionally.   Highly ambitious and industrious, Kayla has been music training for a year and sings in the school choir. She already has plans for college and a post-graduate degree in musicology.

Watching from high up in the bleachers is Megan Farber, another assistant teacher, who helps out with make-up and special effects. Farber, who is 26 years old, interned at A Noise Within in 2012. This is her first time TA-ing, as she gains some experience in the educational aspect of theatre. She hopes to one day teach in this field.

A Noise Within bustles! It is a-brim with energy and sparkle – from the teachers and professionals sharing their knowledge with the acting campers; the students exuberantly participating in class; the staff of the theatre company going about their daily business. There’s something happening everywhere.

For Green, every day is filled with momentous occasions to educate about and celebrate the wondrous world of theatre with children of all ages. Surely this is what the Bard has intended for his works to endure and be enjoyed, by theatre professional, emerging actor, and for-the-fun-of-it camper alike.        

                                                           

A Noise Within Brings the Arts Into the Lives of Young People

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 11 June 2015 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, Monrovia Weekly, and Sierra Madre Weekly

A Noise Within, a classical repertory company in Pasadena founded in 1991 by Geoff and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, aims to produce world-class performances of great works of drama, to educate and inspire the public through programs that foster an understanding and appreciation of notable playwrights, and to train the next generation of classical theatre artists.

Its mission to educate is what led to the creation of the Outreach Program. According to Alicia Green, Education Director, teachers in 19 Los Angeles-area school districts align their curriculum to the theatre company’s scheduled season performances. Students then have the opportunity to experience what they learned in the classroom during the student matinee performance at the theatre, and participate in a post-show conversation with performers. 

Green said, “We care deeply about bringing the arts into the lives of every young person and strive to do so at every opportunity.”  

While it would seem that today’s youth prefers to communicate solely through texting, the reverse is what actually happens once students come in to the theatre. As Elliott put it, “What we found is that young people crave the experience to be part of a live performance. We saw a strange phenomenon – as actors walked by the audience to get to the stage, students reached out to them. They weren’t being disruptive or naughty – they wanted to know that these actors were real, breathing individuals. For some students this is a life-changing event.”

That young people need a sense of belonging and community is evidenced by the exponential growth of their Education Outreach Program since they started bringing them in during their 1993-1994 season.  According to Rodriguez-Elliott, there are now about 12,000 students from 130 different schools, from as far away as Ojai and Victorville, participating in it.

Adults are the typical theatregoers, but A Noise Within’s audience spans generations. Asked how they attract teenagers who grew up reading fantasy books, Elliott said, “Shakespeare is the original fantasy dramatist; he created the most fantastical situations on stage. Students learn his plays in 7th or 8th grade but found them dull and difficult to understand. But his works are not meant to be read, they are meant to be performed. When they are well-done and well-directed, the audience can feel what Shakespeare intended them to feel.”   

Rodriguez-Elliott added, “We have a multigenerational audience – at any given time, about 20 percent of our audience is made up of kids. And kids usually are the ones who have the ability to give themselves into the material, while adults get hung up on words they could not understand.”  

For some students, watching a play is a novel experience. Echoing Elliott’s remarks about the theatre experience as being transformational for kids, Green said, “Many of our students have never been to a theatre before, or seen a live performance. Seeing a page come to life is huge. They can relate to the material in a new, potentially more engaging way. Having the opportunity to interact with the text through on-their-feet study guide activities or in an in-class workshop and then see the show live, followed by a conversation with actors from the show creates an excitement that reading the book in class cannot.”

The 2015-2016 season’s theme of Breaking and Entering, A Noise Within’s 24th, features  protagonists who break down walls, enter unknown realms and search for the truth. As Elliott explained it, “In the context of our new season, breaking and entering can mean getting behind the walls of ignorance, even fear, and summoning the personal courage to step away from old notions in favor of a clear-eyed embrace of a new truth.”

That connecting thread links the six plays: A Flea in Her Ear by Georges Feydeau; Antigone by Jean Anouilh; All My Sons by Arthur Miller; Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare; You Never CanTell, by George Bernard Shaw; and Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello;  and entering its fourth season, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted by Elliott.  

A Noise Within is a true classical rotating repertory theatre which, according to Elliott, is unique in L.A. Three different plays can be on stage so someone can experience three very different and diverse performances within a week to a week-and-a-half period. Having a three-quarter stage so that the audience is closer to the performers and becomes part of what’s happening adds to the theatre experience.  

This brainchild of co-Artistic Directors, Elliott and Rodriguez-Elliott, has seen tremendous success since its inception and Pasadena has fully embraced it as part of its flourishing theatre community. Elliott said, “It has been a fabulous journey and it seems the universe is conspiring to make things happen … to make things right. And we will continue the same mission of ensuring access to a diverse audience. What will change is that we will be better at it. We are now embarking on a Five-Year Plan where we hope to improve our infrastructure and increase seating capacity to make it happen.”

For the thousands of students whose lives will change through exposure to theatre, it’s certainly not much ado about nothing.