Bil - Farewell "Downward Facing" ...and On To the Next One.

Just like a charming drifter, "Downward Facing" came into our lives and left again before we were ready to say goodbye.  We want to thank everybody who came and saw it.  We hope you enjoyed it.

We would especially like to thank all attendants and participants in our final Friday night gala, where local rockers Tiny Bones put on their mellow caps and squatted on the set for an intimate, acoustic performance.  Here's some video of the night:







It's a funny thing, live performance...it's all so in-the-moment that you forget how much time goes into preparation when you're watching it. (Don't let the video fool you, it really was very in-the-moment.) Tiny Bones plays with such ease that I assumed they just picked up their instruments and instantly knew the songs. It's a band with tightness and chemistry rarely seen, and clustered together on the wooden set in the Dream Theatre space made the audience experience so comfortable that I feel like I've been going to their shows for years. This is a band that loves its audience.

So now it's on to the next show, "The Grisly/Glorious Adventure of Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Billy Moon" – a story about, among other things, imagination. It will be a well-prepared performance by a cast with tightness and chemistry rarely seen, clustered together on the wooden set in the Dream Theatre space, making the audience experience so comfortable you'll forget how old you are.

Again.

We are bursting with excitement!

Natalie B - On Awkwardness

    As actors, we often get questions about how difficult it is for us to embody a character or speak a playwright's language.  In this particular piece many of us (and actually I should say many of my fellow actors, as I have no long poetic monologues - though I do have two "soliloquies", so I guess I can relate) have pieces of text that seem outside normal daily speech.  Fortunately, our cast has a penchant for the abnormal (and I'm pretty sure you'll all agree, but if you don't you can take it up with me in the dressing room...but remember I brought candy).  And actually I think most people do.  

    I often wish that I spoke in heightened language.  That I could attract people rather than drive them away at a bar by launching into my complex philosophical theories on audiences and theater of cruelty...well in truth, it is my only way to test potential friends and more romantically inclined friends out, so maybe I don't wish that everyone were attracted to that.  But, to be cliche, I digress.  

    Back to my belief that we all have the secret desire to be more artistic with our self expression.  It seems to me that most people have a fascination with some kind of fantasy, be it Tim Burton or Star Trek (you're welcome Emily).  We all thirst for something outside the mundane.  This piece of theater gives us exactly that.  And though I am a newbie to Dream Theatre's work, I believe this is what you get from all of their performances.  

    I feel honored to delve into my most vulnerable of states, one in which I leap into awkward joke and total bitch move after awkward joke and total bitch move, just praying one night my scene partner doesn't decide to slap me or not be as forgiving as her character tends to be.  However, often, I feel that if she did, I would completely understand.  So.  Is it difficult to translate Mishelle's writing into staged reality?  Nope, because at least if I fall on my face, I do it knowing that my words came out beautifully. 

Bil - Ever the Student

Fresh from our newly-redesigned website comes some info on Dream Theatre's most ambitious undertaking besides a ten-show season: school.

DREAM THEATRE SCHOOL

Dream Theatre is now offering classes with Artistic Director Jeremy Menekseoglu. Drawing from techniques originally developed at the Moscow Art Theatre, classes cover the basics of the Dream Theatre Style, such as Ground/Grand Gesture, the Four Actions, and more. Students will learn skills from the Russian, Greek, and British theatrical traditions - developing their physical, analytical, and vocal techniques through practice, discussion, and observation.

Enrollment includes one free, personalized evaluation with Jeremy Menekseoglu. Classes are three hours long and held once a month on Saturdays. Individual classes are $20; packages of 6 classes are available for $100 dollars (packages include a student voucher entitling the holder to 10 free shows in our 2011-2012 season*). To enroll in your first class and schedule an evaluation, email dreamtheatreclasses@gmail.com with your name and phone number.

*Does not include Theatre of Women, Special Events, or Opening/Closing.

Having been acting almost exclusively with Dream Theatre since 2008, I can personally vouch for Jeremy Menekseoglu's teaching abilities.  I am 100% certain I'm a better actor because of the Dream Theatre style.  I can't recommend a class with him highly enough.

I also can't recommend Dream Theatre as a company highly enough.  It's a wonderful group of people – hard working and incredibly passionate about putting on a good show.  Any knowledge and experience an actor can get at Dream Theatre will help in any avenue.  I guarantee it.  If you're serious about acting as an art form, take this class.  Jeremy will not just teach you things about the style; he'll teach you how to make your own discoveries, and therefore you will continue to learn long after the class is over.

If there's one thing I want to say about the Dream Theatre style to differentiate it, it's this: acting goes up, not down.  If you want to raise your mind and body up to a higher level of art instead of bringing a character in a play down to a lower state of being, come to Dream Theatre.  This is where actors play.

If you're not interested in acting but would like to see some acting in action, I recommend coming to see a show!  "Downward Facing" is now playing, and will be through February 20.  Audiences have been telling us that this show seems familiar, but – true to the spirit of Dream Theatre Company – also lets them make a discovery or two.

Playwright to Playwright: Mishelle Apalategui (3 of 3)

What do you need your Audience to come away with?

Now? Appreciation. Not for me, but for the human condition. I kinda hate that term, it seems so…so…clinical? But no matter what, looking at us in a social, cultural and personal way is bound to make us realize that we all are so similar. I want to show that we are all capable of the same stupidity, the same bravery, the same clumsiness, and that it is possible and beautiful to just be honest about it. Be honest about the fact that we are all fuck ups, we are all romantics, we are all sometimes leaders and sometimes followers. I feel like I am constantly trying to prove that all emotions are valid and justifiable though they may not be completely understood. And I want people to laugh about it, then unwittingly go home with something in them that they didn’t realize they had inside of them before. But it was always there. It’s never not been there. It just took a bit of unfettered observation to rustle it up.

How does Downward Facing reflect your style?

I wrote it without pretense, plot or style in mind. It just happened. It started with two people simply talking, about what? I didn’t even know and it turned into four amazingly complex relationships that are, albeit modern and possibly passé in a matter of years, honest and real. It is confessional and poetic and made up of literal pieces of my life that I have hidden very very well. Its sneaky and accessible when you want it to be. Like me.