New director, new poster for “57 Hours in the House of Culture”
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Uncategorized on March 14, 2012
More news about my upcoming show at Studio Roanoke: We have a new director and a new poster for “57 Hours in the House of Culture,” my dark full-length script about the Moscow theatre siege.
* The new poster isn’t all that new; it simply corrects a typo from the original.
* The new director is Brian O’Sullivan. Sadly, Charlie Boswell had to withdraw due to some unforeseen circumstances. I’m sorry to see Charlie go — I always look forward to working with him in any capacity. But I’m equally excited to have the chance to work with Brian, who I have admired from afar (or not so far) in many productions at Studio Roanoke.
Auditions remain on March 24 and 25; details on those in this previous post.
Video: “Cat and Dog” in competition in Arkansas
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in Uncategorized, Video on March 14, 2012
High school student MacKenzie Bentley performed my scene “Cat and Dog” as a solo piece in a recent “Hi/Di” competition in Arkansas — and took first place.
I have a small series of these “Cat and Dog” pieces.
Video: “The Tin Woman” at the Fincastle UMC talent show
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in Uncategorized, Video on March 9, 2012
A few years ago, Kevin Jones of the Kevin Jones Performing Arts Studio asked me to create a series of scenes for him based on “The Wizard of Oz.” He wanted some new material for his summer camp students to work with.
Conveniently, Oz is now out of copyright, so I was able to oblige — with about two dozen scenes collectively titled “The Other Side of Oz.”
Kevin used many of those in his summer camp. Some have since gone on to be performed elsewhere.
Here’s a video of Katerina Yancey performing “The Tin Woman” at the Fincastle United Methodist Church talent show on Feb. 8, 2012 in Fincastle, Va.
Boswell to direct “57 Hours,” auditions set for March 24-25
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Uncategorized on February 29, 2012
Much news to report on the upcoming premiere of my full-length script “57 Hours in the House of Culture,” based on the true story of the Moscow theatre seige of 2002 where Chechen terrorists held an audience hostage.
* Charlie Boswell has agreed to direct the show. He’s directed several other things at Studio Roanoke. He helmed the very first thing done in that space, a staged reading of my one-act “The Angel of Brooklyn.” He’s since directed some of their full-length productions, including “Nobody Gets Paid,” which opens there March 7.
* Auditions for the show are set for March 24 and March 25; below I’ll copy the email that has gone out.
* Finally, there’s a poster, shown above. Sharp-eyed observers (such as myself) will notice one small error. My last name is misspelled. That’s being corrected. When there’s a new one, I’ll post it as well. That aside, it’s a marvelous poster. The artist researched the event (as did I, of course). The image is that of the actual theatre — the House of Culture of State Ball-bearing Plant No. 1. Billowing out of it are smoke and poison gas.
As you can see from the poster, the show is at Studio Roanoke May 16-27. It’s a dark, grim, spooky show, quite unlike any of my other work.
The audition release from Studio Roanoke: Read the rest of this entry »
Video: “Q Downsized” at the Liminal gallery
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Productions, Uncategorized, Video on February 29, 2012
The Liminal Alternative Artspace in Roanoke, Va. hosts a monthly reading. It is geared toward writers of all sorts, though attracts a lot of poets and short storywriters. I’d never been to one of the Liminal readings, but the organizer, Cara Modisett, invited me to participate so I did.
The theme for the December 2011 reading was “downsizing.”
This shows my limited imagination: To me, spending my day in the business world, downsizing only meant one thing. Layoffs. A reduction in force. Job losses.
Conveniently, I had a piece that fit perfectly: “Q Downsized,” in which the letter Q is “let go” from the alphabet. Cara helped me find two students at Community High School to perform — Lilly Carr and Karl Kaiser.
To my amazement, everybody else at the reading that night had a very different take on “downsizing.” To them, downsizing meant . . . moving into smaller living spaces, downsizing lives, dreams, and so forth. There were some very powerful — and very sad — pieces read.
Then, at the end, came this piece, which was quite different indeed.
Fortunately, the audience howled with laughter.
The video for this is just now going up online, so that’s why it’s out of order. I had another reading in January at Liminal, “White Goes First” to match the Martin Luther King Jr. Day theme.
Video: My team’s film entry in the Marginal Arts Festival
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Uncategorized, Video on February 23, 2012
In 2009, videographer Hank Ebert and I collaborated on a short film that was shown at the Grandin Theatre: “My Kid Could Paint That.”
In the years since, Hank and I have talked about working together again, but our schedules have never matched up — until now.
A few weeks ago, Hank contacted me. The annual Marginal Arts Festival in Roanoke, Va. this year included a Sweded Film Festival (a “sweded” film is a short spoof of the original; name comes from the movie “Be Kind Rewind”). Hank asked if I’d sign on to his team as a writer. I said sure.
It turns out, Sweded films don’t really need writers, but that’s another story.
The festival was the film equivalent of a 24-hour play festival (and I’ve been involved in three of those.)
There were eight teams entered. We gathered at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18 at The Shadowbox and were given our assignment: Do a Sweded version of “Back to the Future.” Conveniently, I had already lined up actors.
The crowning touch to our version, I think, was finding an actual DeLorean. We figured we’d be stuck using matchbox cars but Blair Peyton said he remembered seeing a DeLorean in last year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, so there must be one around. I Googled “DeLorean and Roanoke” — indeed, I found a name of a guy — then I found his number. And lo, he was home! And more than happy to bring his DeLorean out for a spin.
We were the only team that had the actual car! When the car appeared on screen for the first time at Monday night’s screening (packed house!), there were “oohs” and “aahs” and a ripple of applause around the room.
The car scenes were shot at the Greenfield Center in Botetourt County, the clock tower is from the Botetourt County Courthouse, the Libyan terrorists are circling around in The Roanoke Times parking lot, and the rest of the scenes were shot in and around actress Hannah Whitt’s house in Salem. (Roanoke is a small place; two of other entries both shot scenes at Pop’s Ice Cream shop, and at least three of the entries were shot in the Grandin Village neighborhood.)
You can see some of the other entries in this post on arts writer Mike Allen’s Arts & Extras blog.
“Deanna Dupes the Devil” set for staged reading at Studio Roanoke March 24
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Uncategorized on January 31, 2012
Chris Shepard — who produces the “Big Idea” show at Studio Roanoke — asked me to put on a staged reading of a one-act for the March production.
I’ve picked “Deanna Dupes the Devil,” a light comedy about a woman who outwits Satan himself.
Here’s the poster.
The show is March 24, 8 p.m.
“Hamlet on Spring Break” to be produced in New Jersey in July
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Uncategorized on January 24, 2012
Got word today that the Port Republic School District in Port Republic, N.J. will produce my one-act “Hamlet on Spring Break” sometime in July.
The district has booked two performances.
The script is published by Playscripts.
Unless other productions come along, this will be the 22nd production of the script.
Here are photos from a previous production at Highland Park High School in St. Paul, Minnesota and a brief video from a production at North Forsyth High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
“White Goes First” at Martin Luther King Jr. Day reading
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in Uncategorized, Video on January 19, 2012
A few years ago, I read a wire story in The Roanoke Times about “street chess” in Washington, D.C.
The style of “street chess” among African-American players in the nation’s capital is apparently nothing like the version we know from international competitions — faster and louder, for one thing.
The story noted that the chess rule that the white players always go first quite considered quite ironic. That led to this piece “White Goes First.”
It’s been performed several times. This staged reading was at an event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2012 at the Liminal Gallery at Community High School in Roanoke, Virginia.
Bryan Hancock plays “black,” Chad Runyon plays “white.”
Poster for “The Christmas Goat” at Studio Roanoke
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in Photos, Uncategorized on January 19, 2012
Here’s the poster that Studio Roanoke (in Roanoke, Va.) used for a collection of my short Christmas pieces, which played under the title “The Christmas Goat and Other Inappropriate Holiday Tales” on Dec. 11, 2011.
This was part of Studio Roanoke’s “underground” Guerrilla Playhouse program.
The four pieces were:
* “The Christmas Goat,” a 10-minute piece.
* “Joy to Other Worlds,” a 5-minute piece.
* “Me and Mrs. C,” a 5-minute piece.
* “Joe’s Women Trouble,” a 5-minute piece.
These were directed by Ashley Byrne of Lynchburg.
dwayneyancey 