Adrienne Campbell-Holt DIRECTOR

RECALL

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:12:00 +0000

I love how the nerves-and-excited feeling of starting a new play hasn't worn off. It's especially fun/scary when it's a world premiere because there's still a lot of figuring things out, major changes, (characters living or dying, for example), and the feeling that for three weeks its our secret-- and then, the thing is born and it's not just ours anymore. We have a ridiculously perfect cast for this show, an amazing design team, and Ms. Eliza Clark is the absolute best. Since she usually lives in LA we've been having some playwright-director sleepovers which has been great for insta-bonding and late-night talks in the dark. The other night we realized we both love Linda Ronstadt's DIFFERENT DRUM and we lay awake singing every word of it a capella. It was one of my first (and only) records. Good song. Good process.

All the Kids Are Doing It & CoCo Kids Week

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 01:45:00 +0000

The past couple weeks have been incredible-- I got to direct the staged reading of Joey Contreras & Kate Thomas' ALL THE KIDS ARE DOING IT thesis musical at NYU with a ridiculous cast including Colin Hanlon, Emma Hunton, Carrie Manolakos, Zak Resnick, Matt Roscoe, & Taylor Trensch. Also, Colt Coeur just finished our 2nd annual free week-long workshop with Brooklyn middle school students. We made and staged 18 original plays by some very fresh young voices. It was so fun. And so exhausting.

We also finished the video for Colt Coeur's new Kickstarter campaign. We shot 30 amazing people in more than 25 locations... and the video turned out really well. I'm so excited for people to see it.

March Madness

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:35:00 +0000

I love my collaborators so much.

This month includes:
Will Eno (FLU SEASON), Adam Bock (MARCY), Steven Levenson (IMMORTALITY/TECHNOLOGY Project with Colt Coeur), and Eliza Clark (we start casting for RECALL next week!).

I feel very, very lucky.

FLU SEASON in San Francisco (doesn't feel like Flu Season at all)

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:34:00 +0000

In the first week of rehearsals for Will Eno's Flu Season at ACT and having a spectacular time. I love this play (it's very hard! it's funny! it's heartbreaking!) and the whole ACT team has been phenomenal. Great actors. Wonderful designers. A beautiful rehearsal studio... and the hotel suite I'm staying in has a view of the Bay. It's pretty dreamy.
We're still at the table and enjoying heady, philosophical conversations about parallels to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and other loci of metaphysical/meta-theatrical thinking. I had the pleasure of getting to know Will a little bit before leaving NY to come out west and since there is a 'playwright' in this play (embodied by the characters named Prologue and Epilogue who do their best to compose and re-compose the narrative)-- I feel a little bit like a private eye searching the text and the man for clues. I often feel like that when I'm working on a play, (or reading a novel or a poem or watching a movie I guess), but it's heightened because of the explicit 'force' of the playwright in this play. Also, I have never met/gotten to know a playwright at the same time I was getting to know their words so closely. It's interesting. I like it.
[Thom Paine is one of my all-time favorite plays. I carried the library copy around with me so much in April of 2008 I had to buy the LAPL a new one.]
Also, here is a link to some of the visual research I've pulled together for the play. I love pictures.

happy new year!

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:38:00 +0000

Had a great rehearsal with Kate Ferber yesterday in preparation for next week's One Child Born performance in Philadelphia. The show returns to World Cafe Live on Wednesday, January 25th-- click here for more information and tickets. A new character will be premiering in the piece next week-- a Rolling Stone journalist who's lobbying Jann Wenner to nominate Laura for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Prior to our rehearsal I was not aware that while hundreds of people vote-- less than five have the power to nominate. Interesting I thought. I love this new woman though and I'm anxious to hear how her appearance affects the work as a whole.
Colt Coeur has been super busy as well-- we spent two weeks diving into the Immortality/Technology Project with Steven Levenson, received two of the grants we applied for, and are otherwise in the thick of fundraising now... Want to make a donation?!
Next week I head out to San Francisco to start working on Will Eno's Flu Season at ACT. So excited. For so many reasons.

air travel

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:19:00 +0000

From one 3-day workshop to another-- I really love the luxury of getting to spend this time with a group of actors and a playwright and their nearly-newborn baby. The playwright is Max Posner and the play is The Thing About Air Travel, which is Colt Coeur's 2nd Play Hotel of the 2011-2012 season.
Our cast is: Teddy Bergman, Katya Campbell, Erin Felgar, Maya Kazan, Kate Roberts and Matt Stadelmann and Katya is doing double-duty as the 'hostess' of the evening: she's making mulled wine and frosted sugar cookies... and we found some very comfy chairs on our last Materials for the Arts run. See you there.

THIS ROUGH MAGIC

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:44:00 +0000

Had a great first day of a three-day developmental workshop with playwright Richard Manley on his wildly-plausible but also stunningly disturbing alternate-present drama, This Rough Magic. We have a great cast including Katya Campbell, John Henry Cox, Simon Feil, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jason Kravits and Peggy Scott, with Amy Groeschel stage-managing. Since Colt Coeur is also deep in Technological Singularity/Futurism research for our upcoming Immortality/Technology project-- it was very fun to enter the world of this play today. In the someone's-running-late-wheels-spinning-bagels-and-juice chunk of the day we talked a lot about humans' propensity towards anthropomorphizing everything. Chairs. Cars. Computers. Reminded me of this undertaking... which will BLOW your mind.

working with one of my idol/heroes.

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:31:00 +0000

I think I played it cool.
It was really fun though.
I think I reference Waiting for Guffman in some way or another at least once a day, usually to myself, but still. In my notes on Jonathan Marc Sherman's script for this Playwrights Horizons Benefit play I even wrote, and I quote: = 'we know the terms.'
Christopher Guest and everyone in that movie is a genius. Especially Parker Posey.
I love my job.

october rushes

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:46:00 +0000

September flew by in a haze of grant deadlines, research and new play reading. After almost three years of back-to-back rehearsal periods my brain was very grateful to have time and space to re-charge and feel open-ended and expansive again. I spent an incredibly restorative and imagination-stretching weekend in Vermont and have been enjoying fall in NY so much. I also just got Final Draft as a gift from a generous and "believe-in-you" friend and am excited to be playing with screenwriting. And Colt Coeur is super-busy. More on that soon...

This week I have been in rehearsal a bit though-- One Child Born: The Music of Laura Nyro goes up at the Estherwood Mansion in Dobbs Ferry, NY this evening, and this weekend I get to direct Parker Posey and Josh Hamilton in a wildly charming little play by Jonathan Marc Sherman for Playwrights Horizons 5 Stories on 5 Stories Benefit. I am so in awe of all three of those talented folks, I'm truly going to try and just stay out of their way. Well, maybe I'll make a few suggestions. I think it would be amazing if Parker's character wore a giant fascinator or hat (a la those Brits at that British wedding) since she is playing a woman who is doing her laundry. I love the idea of running out of all of your normal clothes and being FORCED to wear something extremely fabulous to the laundromat. Or the theater as it were.

A great thought to remember.

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:46:00 +0000

"How can you tell when it's really good? I honestly don't know. If you look at rushes cerebrally, staying outside it, you can be wrong. If you 'root it home' you can be wrong. So it comes down to what I live with from the moment I've decided to do this picture: I can be wrong. So what? That's the risk. Critics never take it. Nor do audiences, except for the $8 they put down. I try to look at it the other way: What if I'm right? Then I might get another job. And that gives me a chance to be right or wrong again. And to go back to work at the best job in the world." — Sidney Lumet, Making Movies.

MMM in the Berkshires, RECALL in LA

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:07:00 +0000

Sad to see Mormons, Mothers and Monsters close this past weekend. And also sad I was remiss in posting more about it. My only excuse is that it was a truly insane past few six weeks. Colt Coeur's second show "Fish Eye" closed, Will Aronson, Sam Salmond and I embarked on the journey of mounting a new musical together (MMM at the inimitable Barrington Stage), I suffered temporary blindness, our lead actress got a throat infection the day after opening and had to be replaced for the rest of the run, and I came to LA and did a reading of a super-sick new play by Eli Clarke called Recall.
Here is a picture of much of the MMM team:

Two people who are not in the picture who really made the show possible, and also helped it become what it grew into... are Bill Finn and Julie Boyd. I was very lucky to get to know them, and collaborate with them. They are geniuses. Also a huge shout-out to Christiane Tisdale who heroically stepped into the massive void left by Ms. Jill Abramovitz when she had to leave the show on doctor's orders.

And a link to the awesome Boston Globe review of MMM.

The cast on this one was: Jill A., Stanley Bahorek, Adam Monley and Taylor Trensch. Creative team was Brian Prather (scenic), Grant Yeager (lighting), Paloma Young (costume) and Ryan Peavey (sound). Vadim Feichtner was our Music Director and Shakina Nayfack, Mr. Fancy Drama League Musical Theater Fellow was our Asst. Dir/Asst. Choreographer. Natasha Sinha was our producer and Rose Marie Packer our Stage Manager.
THANK YOU ALL!!!

Also, here's what I've been up to in LA.

Fish Eye opens tonight!

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:38:00 +0000

Colt Coeur got our first feature article-- very exciting...
Also, here's an image from the show. (Featuring the stunning Betty Gilpin and the strapping Joe Tippett.)

Click here for more info and tickets. It runs through June 18th at HERE in SoHo.
Please come!!!

Huge thanks to everyone in this picture and especially Amy Groeschel (our fearless producer, who is not in the picture because she was out very generously procuring waters for our patrons on the day the A/C wasn't working last week)!

the fruit of our labors

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 03:31:00 +0000

April is JUDAS-time.

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:42:00 +0000

I'm so, so proud of the students I've been working with up at Yale and thrilled with how this production is coming along. Please come check it out!

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

By Stephen Adly Guirgis
Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt

Yale DRAMAT Spring 2011 Mainstage Production
Wednesday-Saturday, April 13-16, 2011 (all performances at 8pm, additional Saturday matinee at 2pm)
University Theater
222 York Street, New Haven, CT

For tickets click here, or email me and I will be happy to arrange them for you.

Stephen Adly Guirgis' THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT is a wildly inventive and irreverent imagining of the trial of Judas, perpetrator of the "ultimate betrayal." Set in a corner of Purgatory called Hope, our courtroom meets the likes of Sigmund Freud, Mother Theresa, and Satan himself. With a jury comprised of souls stolen from Hell-- the trial is only half of the drama. Combining rich religious historicity and radical revisionism, Guirgis' play is deeply moving and relentlessly funny. The play's driving theme-the power of the human spirit-is universal and epic, and this visceral production will inspire audiences to examine their definitions of loyalty, faith, justice and betrayal.

Creative team:
Scenic Designer: John McDermott
Lighting Designer: Grant Yeager
Costume Designer: Sofija Canavan
Sound Designer: Amy Altadonna

Analog & Vinyl

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 02:54:00 +0000

Davenport Theatrical invites you to a staged reading of

Music Direction by Jodie Moore
Featuring Sarah Stiles, Rob Morrison, Peter Scolari, and Vella Lovell

Monday March 14th, 4 pm
Davenport Theatrical Studio, 250 W 49th St, Suite 302
(Between Broadway and 8th)

Tossed amongst the vintage records is Harrison's broken heart--
until a quirky, sexy, Rodeo Girl and a mysterious customer with a little extra soul enter the equation… Will Harrison discover there's more to life than LPs from the Sixties?

The Davenport Developmental Reading Series
Producer: Ken Davenport
Artistic Director: Jane Caplow

Seating is limited; to make a reservation please click on the following link
www.analogandvinyl.eventbrite.com
Click here for the Playbill write-up.

spring break

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 21:41:00 +0000

While the Yale students I'm directing in THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT take a break these next few weeks I'll be in NYC directing a bunch of readings I'm excited about.
First up, Molly Goforth's (DON'T) LOOK AT ME for Colt Coeur's Play Hotel reading series. Thanks to fancy-pants Kate Roberts and Erin Felgar... we even got a mention on Playbill.

reading #2

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 14:23:00 +0000

TODAY! --

2011 New Georges Mini-Workshops :
new works development

CECILIA AND THE UNIVERSE (a reading)
by Adrienne Campbell-Holt & Emily Conbere
directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt

Sunday February 13th 4pm

It's 1920s America and Cecilia Payne, a 21-year-old Brit, arrives at the doorsteps of Harvard. Working alongside the greatest astronomers of our time, Cecilia and the "computers" embark on a quest for understanding the nature of the cosmos while navigating the perils of being a young woman and a scientist in the early 20th century.

With: Jon Bass, Katya Campbell, Dylan Dawson, Jonathan Fielding, Darcy Fowler, Meredith Holzman, Gabe King, Maria Krovatin, Maria Elena Ramirez, Kate Roberts, Rachel Rusch, Joe Tippett, Michael Weiser

Presentations are all in The Room
520 8th Avenue(between 36th and 37th), 3rd Floor

how I love you always

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 03:03:00 +0000

Directing the reading of this play we've been workshopping since last fall with Lucas Kavner for Colt Coeur, tomorrow, February 7th.

Here are some excerpts from the Frank O'Hara poem ("Morning") that Lucas was inspired by...
I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

Untitled David Brind Play Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Having fun with David Brind (DARE) on his first play! We're doing a reading tomorrow at Playwrights Horizons.

With:

Ashlie Atkinson
Michael Braun
Adam Fleming
Leslie Kritzer
Lucas Near-Verbrugghe

Wednesday, January 19th, 6:30pm

Playwrights Horizons, NYC.

CLOVEN TONGUES

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:18:00 +0000

Excited to head into rehearsal for this on Saturday.
I got connected with Victor through his girlfriend Janine Nabers, who I did the Tofte Lake residency in Minnesota with this past September. Victor is a really gifted, interesting writer and I'm loving this process.

Come see our staged reading of:

CLOVEN TONGUES
by Victor Lesniewski

Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt

With Curzon Dobell, Ema Lakovic, Michael Wieser & Brenda Withers.

at Primary Stages, Studio B
307 West 38th St #1510, NYC

Monday December 13th at 3pm

When Lela, an immigrant woman with an unknown past, is arrested and held at the Canadian border, she is taken in by Jenny, a social worker, and Ronald, a Catholic priest, who find it takes nothing less than a miracle to unlock her deepest secrets. As Lela's brutal personal history is revealed, Jenny and Ronald struggle with how best to heal her and find that they must also come to terms with their reasons for trying to help her in the first place.

Seating is limited.
Please RSVP by emailing:
NYAC2010@hotmail.com

This reading is a part of 2nd Act Construction
A program of New York Artists' Community

For more information, please visit:
www.NYACarts.webs.com

Analog & Vinyl

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 14:24:00 +0000

I'm so excited to be working on this new musical with the very brilliant Paul Gordon.

Tossed amongst the vintage records is Harrison's broken heart. Cue a sexy, quirky rodeo girl and a visit from a mysterious customer with a little extra soul, and Harrison just might discover there's more to life then LPs from the Sixties. Join us for a first look at this eclectic new work by Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre, Daddy Long Legs, Emma).

Hold that thought

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 04:07:00 +0000

October has been a crazy busy month, here's a little update of what I'm working on:

* Heart Torture Station by Jihan Crowther
Nov 4th Crown Point Festival & Nov 10th-12th at New Georges' JAM ON ICE

*
Dead Man's Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl
Nov 17th-20th at NYU/Tisch
The creative team for this one is stellar...

Scenic design by Daniel Zimmerman
Lighting design by Grant Yeager
Costumes by Paloma Young
Sound design by Daniel Kluger and Brandon Wolcott

* Colt Coeur's PLAY HOTEL reading of a new play by Lucas Kavner
Nov 8th at CoCo Studio, Brooklyn

* A reading of Paul Gordon's new musical Analogue & Vinyl
Nov 19th at SMASH Studios, NYC

Check back for more details coming soon...

time away

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:01:00 +0000

Immediately following my week at Tofte Lake (which borders the Boundary Waters in Northern Minnesota) I spent a week on Ryder Farm in upstate New York. SPACE invited Bekah Brunstetter and I up to work on a new project, and we brought along Vella Lovell and Lucas Kavner who gave generously of their considerable creative bounty. The ghost story play TAKE HER TO SEE THE MACO LIGHTS was born, and we even did a little presentation of it on the last night. Complete with a fire burning in the fireplace and an actual 1795 farmhouse as our set.
Dylan Dawson and Stephen Brackett were up there as well, calling upon the talents of Eric Clem and Lauren Blumenfeld. And Susan Goodwillie, Emily Simoness and Rachel Rusch are responsible for making all the magic happen.
And Birdie. Every rehearsal process should be so lucky to have a dog.
Here's a picture. Look how happy everyone is when they are in the country!

PS Emily-- can we come back now?
PPS Check out Bekah's blog for some truly radical rehearsal footage. It's a short film. Entitled "Chickens."

that back-to-school feeling

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:52:00 +0000

It's starting to feel like fall and the chilluns have their massive backpacks on again and I'm feeling mighty productive. That magical/nebulous end-of-the-summer feeling simply cannot got on forever.
I'm excited to be working on several new plays at the moment; Jihan Crowther and I are collaborating for our New Georges group this weekend, I'm directing a reading of Alena Smith's Plucker next Monday, next week I head out to Minnesota for the Tofte Lake Fellowship to write the second draft of Cecilia and the Universe with the inimitable Emily Conbere. And, there are a few other projects in the pipeline too!

summer in Williamstown

noreply@blogger.com (Adrienne Campbell-Holt) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:59:00 +0000

It's been two months since my last post-- and three plays have gone up in this time!
I'm working as a Directing Assistant at Williamstown Theater Festival, which means I get to direct two one-acts with the incredible Non-Equity Company. It's my third summer at Williamstown (over a span of 11 years!) and I really do love it up here. For a sense of what it's like check out this edition of This American Life titled "Notes on Camp".

My first project was Never Swim Alone by Daniel MacIvor, starring Justine Lupe-Schomp, Ben Mehl and Michael Weiser. Here's a picture...

I also assisted Anne Kaufman on an amazing production of John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation. John was involved in rehearsals and I loved working with Annie so much. The cast was: Candy Buckley, Margaret Colin, Tim Daly, Ned Eisenbeg, Ato Essandoh,John Bedford Lloyd, James O'Neill and Tom Nelis, as well as a host of brilliant non-eqs.
Six Degrees even made it into the estimable New York magazine Approval matrix!

Then, last week, I mounted my production of Steven Levenson's Girls Day . Steven came out for a couple days to work on the script with us and the cast included Jon Bass, Lauren Blumenfeld, Vella Lovell, Lucas Kavner, Gayle Rankin, and Ray Roberts. I haven't gotten the pictures from that show yet but I will post them asap.
Several members of the Colt Coeur company came out to see the show as well and we spent a few days working and playing around a picnic table in Williamstown. More details coming soon about Colt Coeur's upcoming season...