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Stephen Chipps Mime Theatre
Chipps will perform his extraordinary and eclectic fusion of mime, masks and movement
theatre at the Just Off Broadway Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri this March 26th, 27th and
28th, of 2004. This highly theatrical and mesmerizing performance is suitable for all ages and is
presented through Byrd Productions. Stephen Chipps Mime Theatre highlights include ‘Dragon
dance’- an epic struggle of opposing forces created using a dual mask and the hauntingly
beautiful Sea of Hands, a gorgeous exploration of movement and life in the ocean depths using
black light theatre. The Cleveland based artist has toured for over 21 years in 45 states
throughout the US, Japan, Korea, Okinawa and Canada. The show features elements of
modern and corporeal mime, mask work, black light theatre, the original music of Mark Kmit
and the smooth solo guitar of Pete Cavano. Stephen has studied with mime masters and artists
from around the world including Marcel Marceau, Stefan Niedzialkowski and The Goldston &
Johnson School for Mimes and The Saskatchewan Seminars for Mime and Movement
Theatre. He is a faculty member of The School for Mimes held each summer at Kenyon
College in Gambier, Ohio and is a member of the Ohio Arts Council’s Arts-in-Education
Program. Stephen also tours as part of Kapoot Clown Theatre, a three man comedy show he co-
wrote with partners Dan Griffiths and Jim Williams which appeared at the Just off Broadway
Theatre this last October. Stephen Chipps Mime Theatre recently appeared as part of the Fall
for the Arts Series at the Bristol Valley Theatre in Naples, New York.
Chipps will perform his extraordinary and eclectic fusion of mime, masks and movement
theatre at the Just Off Broadway Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri this March 26th, 27th and
28th, of 2004. This highly theatrical and mesmerizing performance is suitable for all ages and is
presented through Byrd Productions. Stephen Chipps Mime Theatre highlights include ‘Dragon
dance’- an epic struggle of opposing forces created using a dual mask and the hauntingly
beautiful Sea of Hands, a gorgeous exploration of movement and life in the ocean depths using
black light theatre. The Cleveland based artist has toured for over 21 years in 45 states
throughout the US, Japan, Korea, Okinawa and Canada. The show features elements of
modern and corporeal mime, mask work, black light theatre, the original music of Mark Kmit
and the smooth solo guitar of Pete Cavano. Stephen has studied with mime masters and artists
from around the world including Marcel Marceau, Stefan Niedzialkowski and The Goldston &
Johnson School for Mimes and The Saskatchewan Seminars for Mime and Movement
Theatre. He is a faculty member of The School for Mimes held each summer at Kenyon
College in Gambier, Ohio and is a member of the Ohio Arts Council’s Arts-in-Education
Program. Stephen also tours as part of Kapoot Clown Theatre, a three man comedy show he co-
wrote with partners Dan Griffiths and Jim Williams which appeared at the Just off Broadway
Theatre this last October. Stephen Chipps Mime Theatre recently appeared as part of the Fall
for the Arts Series at the Bristol Valley Theatre in Naples, New York.
You Can't Do That In A Mime Show
Byrd Production’s Movement Theatre is thrilled to bring Dean Hatton to Kansas City
audiences straight from his triumphant showing in the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. His
performances of You Can’t Do That In A Mime Show have been called consistently clever and
inventive, inspired art and the real thing. Local mime artist and producer Beth Byrd will be
aiding and abetting Dean in this endeavor. Together, they are dynamically trained physical
theater artists that take the art of mime and skillfully make it their own by mixing a variety of
different pantomime and physical comedy techniques into a musical gross-ology that will send
your mind to places it is not allowed.
October 14-16, 2005
Byrd Production’s Movement Theatre is thrilled to bring Dean Hatton to Kansas City
audiences straight from his triumphant showing in the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. His
performances of You Can’t Do That In A Mime Show have been called consistently clever and
inventive, inspired art and the real thing. Local mime artist and producer Beth Byrd will be
aiding and abetting Dean in this endeavor. Together, they are dynamically trained physical
theater artists that take the art of mime and skillfully make it their own by mixing a variety of
different pantomime and physical comedy techniques into a musical gross-ology that will send
your mind to places it is not allowed.
October 14-16, 2005
GEOMETRIES:
A Performing Arts Experiment By A Not-So Mathematical Genius
A sometimes wacky, sometimes beautiful mix of mime and monologue theatre,
GEOMETRIES follows the multiple alter egos of, Rick Wamer as he journeys through the
landscape of everyday stress. GEOMETRIES, debuted at the 1994 Fringe Festival in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where it received excellent reviews. Rick Wamer, the creator and
performer of GEOMETRIES, has toured Poland with the Invisible People Mime Theatre and
Puerto Rico with the Alithea Mime Theatre and is currently working with ATOM (A Theatre
of Mime) as a consultant for Universal Studios in Hollywood.
A Performing Arts Experiment By A Not-So Mathematical Genius
A sometimes wacky, sometimes beautiful mix of mime and monologue theatre,
GEOMETRIES follows the multiple alter egos of, Rick Wamer as he journeys through the
landscape of everyday stress. GEOMETRIES, debuted at the 1994 Fringe Festival in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where it received excellent reviews. Rick Wamer, the creator and
performer of GEOMETRIES, has toured Poland with the Invisible People Mime Theatre and
Puerto Rico with the Alithea Mime Theatre and is currently working with ATOM (A Theatre
of Mime) as a consultant for Universal Studios in Hollywood.
Hybrid:
The interaction of unlike things
Created by: Ingrid Andrea Geurtsen and Heidi Stubblefield
Hybrid is a collage of images and characters that orbits around tragedy and comedy, beauty
and the grotesque, cruelty and compassion. It’s set in an ageless world of invention, laughter
and foolishness. Come see it “through the famous red nose – the smallest mask in the world
which would help people to expose their naïveté and their fragility.” – Jacques LeCoq
December 8-11, 2006
The interaction of unlike things
Created by: Ingrid Andrea Geurtsen and Heidi Stubblefield
Hybrid is a collage of images and characters that orbits around tragedy and comedy, beauty
and the grotesque, cruelty and compassion. It’s set in an ageless world of invention, laughter
and foolishness. Come see it “through the famous red nose – the smallest mask in the world
which would help people to expose their naïveté and their fragility.” – Jacques LeCoq
December 8-11, 2006
Producer hopes fortune shines on mime
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Beth Byrd knows mimes have a bad name. But she wants to change that.
Byrd, an Indiana native who has lived in the Kansas City area since 1985, is a skilled clown, mime, artists’ model, living statue and
instructor. But it’s as founder of Beth Byrd Productions that she has nurtured what she calls movement theater to the point where it’s
the focus of an annual showcase.
The Byrd-produced “Fools’ Fortunes II,” featuring both young and established practitioners of physical theater, will be presented
Friday, Saturday and May 18 at the Just Off Broadway Theatre.
In addition to Byrd, the roster includes Stephanie Roberts, a University of Missouri-Kansas City theater professor who will lead the
International Lost and Found Marching Band; Ric Averill, a veteran actor/playwright based in Lawrence; performers Jason Smith,
Jason Reynolds, Kalen Campernolle and Brutus, a handsome Boston terrier belonging to Heidi Stubblefield.
The showcase will include 10 minutes of a new version of “Coppelia” that Stubblefield is directing and plans to stage for the Fringe
Festival this year.
“I knew I wanted to be a clown when I was 7, but it’s because I wanted to be a Red Skelton clown,” Byrd said recently. “And my
favorite parts of his show were when he was the silent clown … because those seemed to have the most creativity and got the biggest
audience response.”
Byrd, 43, said photographs exist of her as young as 2 mimicking Skelton. Over the years she memorized all his pantomime routines.
When the show was canceled in 1971 after a 30-year-run, she was devastated.
It was also at the age of 7 that Byrd won a costume contest on Halloween (her birthday). She was dressed, naturally, as a clown.
“It was purely a costume contest, but I’m sure I performed,” she said. “I’m sure I did something. I would get lost in the grocery store,
and my mom knew how to find me because I had a crowd around me.” The summer after she graduated from high school Byrd signed
up for a mime class in Indianapolis. She majored in music at Indiana State University and in her sophomore year transferred to Ball
State, where she joined a mime troupe whose members never wanted to rehearse. In 1985 she moved to Kansas City.
“My sister, who lived here at the time, enticed me with false stories of a clown college here,” she said. “And what it was, was clown
classes. I think it was Communiversity classes over at Penn Valley Community College. And the clown teaching it was nice enough, but
she wasn’t teaching me anything I didn’t already know because by then I had read every clown book I could get my hands on.”
One of her first jobs was modeling for life-drawing classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. She still models for artists and
photographers but these days prefers to do it in character and in costume.
“There’s a lot of art out there of me,” she said. “I modeled nude for years, but I don’t really want to do that anymore.”
She found that her clown training was a big asset for modeling. She manipulated her body so efficiently that she could provide anything
an instructor requested. If they wanted to see a rib cage, she gave them a rib cage. If they needed to draw hip bones, she gave them
hip bones.
“I was a popular model because I could hold poses a long time,” she said.
The year she arrived in town she discovered the Renaissance Festival, where she performed as Sparrow the Court Jester from 1985 to
2002. In 1993 she was able to go to the Goldston and Johnson School for Mimes in Gambier, Ohio, and study with the patron saint of
modern mime — Marcel Marceau.
“He’s known for his illusions, but he doesn’t start with illusions,” she said. “And if he sees you do an illusion for illusion’s sake, he
throws you off the stage before you’re done. One day he got so disgusted with everybody. He started off the day so full of energy, full
of vim and vigor. And then he saw one too many pieces … and he deflated right in front of us. He said, ‘That’s it! Everybody just go
to bed.’ And the poor girl who was the last one … was mortified. But she did some really classically bad mime. And that was the only
day Marceau lost his energy because of bad American mime.”
And where did bad American mime come from?
“Poor Shields and Yarnell,” Byrd said. “Shields and Yarnell were a couple who were on all the variety shows back in the ’70s. A lot
of Americans saw them do like robot characters in robes, dressed for breakfast. It was funny at the time. And it was real simple. They
would do things like pour orange juice on each other’s heads by accident. …
“And then a lot of Americans over-simplified what they did. So what happened is there were a lot of untrained people on the street just
doing basic mime exercises and putting their hat out.”
Besides, Byrd said, mime artists are taught to perform on stage, not on a sidewalk.
“Mime is acting, and it’s supposed to be performed on stage with lights and sound effects and everything else that theater gets,” she
said. “It’s theater. But it’s a silent form of theater, and because it’s silent it gets to be more universal and it gets to cover bigger or
deeper subjects when you don’t have to use words.”
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Beth Byrd knows mimes have a bad name. But she wants to change that.
Byrd, an Indiana native who has lived in the Kansas City area since 1985, is a skilled clown, mime, artists’ model, living statue and
instructor. But it’s as founder of Beth Byrd Productions that she has nurtured what she calls movement theater to the point where it’s
the focus of an annual showcase.
The Byrd-produced “Fools’ Fortunes II,” featuring both young and established practitioners of physical theater, will be presented
Friday, Saturday and May 18 at the Just Off Broadway Theatre.
In addition to Byrd, the roster includes Stephanie Roberts, a University of Missouri-Kansas City theater professor who will lead the
International Lost and Found Marching Band; Ric Averill, a veteran actor/playwright based in Lawrence; performers Jason Smith,
Jason Reynolds, Kalen Campernolle and Brutus, a handsome Boston terrier belonging to Heidi Stubblefield.
The showcase will include 10 minutes of a new version of “Coppelia” that Stubblefield is directing and plans to stage for the Fringe
Festival this year.
“I knew I wanted to be a clown when I was 7, but it’s because I wanted to be a Red Skelton clown,” Byrd said recently. “And my
favorite parts of his show were when he was the silent clown … because those seemed to have the most creativity and got the biggest
audience response.”
Byrd, 43, said photographs exist of her as young as 2 mimicking Skelton. Over the years she memorized all his pantomime routines.
When the show was canceled in 1971 after a 30-year-run, she was devastated.
It was also at the age of 7 that Byrd won a costume contest on Halloween (her birthday). She was dressed, naturally, as a clown.
“It was purely a costume contest, but I’m sure I performed,” she said. “I’m sure I did something. I would get lost in the grocery store,
and my mom knew how to find me because I had a crowd around me.” The summer after she graduated from high school Byrd signed
up for a mime class in Indianapolis. She majored in music at Indiana State University and in her sophomore year transferred to Ball
State, where she joined a mime troupe whose members never wanted to rehearse. In 1985 she moved to Kansas City.
“My sister, who lived here at the time, enticed me with false stories of a clown college here,” she said. “And what it was, was clown
classes. I think it was Communiversity classes over at Penn Valley Community College. And the clown teaching it was nice enough, but
she wasn’t teaching me anything I didn’t already know because by then I had read every clown book I could get my hands on.”
One of her first jobs was modeling for life-drawing classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. She still models for artists and
photographers but these days prefers to do it in character and in costume.
“There’s a lot of art out there of me,” she said. “I modeled nude for years, but I don’t really want to do that anymore.”
She found that her clown training was a big asset for modeling. She manipulated her body so efficiently that she could provide anything
an instructor requested. If they wanted to see a rib cage, she gave them a rib cage. If they needed to draw hip bones, she gave them
hip bones.
“I was a popular model because I could hold poses a long time,” she said.
The year she arrived in town she discovered the Renaissance Festival, where she performed as Sparrow the Court Jester from 1985 to
2002. In 1993 she was able to go to the Goldston and Johnson School for Mimes in Gambier, Ohio, and study with the patron saint of
modern mime — Marcel Marceau.
“He’s known for his illusions, but he doesn’t start with illusions,” she said. “And if he sees you do an illusion for illusion’s sake, he
throws you off the stage before you’re done. One day he got so disgusted with everybody. He started off the day so full of energy, full
of vim and vigor. And then he saw one too many pieces … and he deflated right in front of us. He said, ‘That’s it! Everybody just go
to bed.’ And the poor girl who was the last one … was mortified. But she did some really classically bad mime. And that was the only
day Marceau lost his energy because of bad American mime.”
And where did bad American mime come from?
“Poor Shields and Yarnell,” Byrd said. “Shields and Yarnell were a couple who were on all the variety shows back in the ’70s. A lot
of Americans saw them do like robot characters in robes, dressed for breakfast. It was funny at the time. And it was real simple. They
would do things like pour orange juice on each other’s heads by accident. …
“And then a lot of Americans over-simplified what they did. So what happened is there were a lot of untrained people on the street just
doing basic mime exercises and putting their hat out.”
Besides, Byrd said, mime artists are taught to perform on stage, not on a sidewalk.
“Mime is acting, and it’s supposed to be performed on stage with lights and sound effects and everything else that theater gets,” she
said. “It’s theater. But it’s a silent form of theater, and because it’s silent it gets to be more universal and it gets to cover bigger or
deeper subjects when you don’t have to use words.”
Review: 'Fools' Fortunes II'
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Clowning is an exacting art.
Or so it would seem judging from the opening-night performance of "Fools' Fortunes II," a showcase of clowns, actors, illusionists and
others whose disciplines can be grouped under the umbrella term "movement theater."
Clowns, for the purposes of this review, refer to artists working in the European tradition, not birthday-party clowns. So you'll see no
balloon animals or squirting lapel flowers. You will see theatre performers striving to create art, even if some of them are a little
under-rehearsed.
The inherent weirdness of an agreeably ridiculous performance by an ensemble called Boom! An International Lost and Found Family
Marching Band got my vote for highlight of the evening on opening night.
Led my Stephanie Roberts, who teaches physical theater at UMKC, the group proves, among other things, that it's possible to perform
Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" in a loose -- very loose -- arrangement incorporating ukulele, bass drum, trombone, clarinet and
melodica. Roberts, adopting the persona of a Germanic disciplinarian, is a stone-faced exclamation point in her white plastic boots and
red bodysuit/hot pants outfit as she barks instructions to her musicians.
Jason Reynolds, performing as a clown in love named Chauncey, demonstrates nuance and impressive physical performing skills in a
very funny bit called "All By Myself."
Beth Byrd, who produced the show, performs several numbers in which she demonstrates real acting ability. The crowd favorite on
opening night was "What's in the Box?" performed by Byrd and a talented Boston terrier named Brutus.
Brutus, who happens to be the pride and joy of local actor Heidi Stubblefield, also makes a big impression in a routine with juggler
Jason Smith, in which Brutus eventually captures one of the juggling balls and runs off stage with it clamped between his jaws.
Stubblefield presents a 10-minute excerpt from "The Coppellia Project," which she conceived and directed and will stage in its entirety
for the KC Fringe Festival this summer. Veteran actor Ric Averill plays the grizzled old doll-maker opposite Kalen Compernolle as the
doll who comes to life. The piece is rough around the edges but charming.
Indeed, it's fair to view "Fools' Fortune II" as a preview, at least in terms of spirit, of the Fringe Festival in July. If so, the festival should
be a lively affair.
"Fools' Fortune II" will be performed at 8 p.m. Saturday May 17 and 2 p.m. Sunday May 18 at the Just Off Broadway Theatre.
Tickets: $12.
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Clowning is an exacting art.
Or so it would seem judging from the opening-night performance of "Fools' Fortunes II," a showcase of clowns, actors, illusionists and
others whose disciplines can be grouped under the umbrella term "movement theater."
Clowns, for the purposes of this review, refer to artists working in the European tradition, not birthday-party clowns. So you'll see no
balloon animals or squirting lapel flowers. You will see theatre performers striving to create art, even if some of them are a little
under-rehearsed.
The inherent weirdness of an agreeably ridiculous performance by an ensemble called Boom! An International Lost and Found Family
Marching Band got my vote for highlight of the evening on opening night.
Led my Stephanie Roberts, who teaches physical theater at UMKC, the group proves, among other things, that it's possible to perform
Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" in a loose -- very loose -- arrangement incorporating ukulele, bass drum, trombone, clarinet and
melodica. Roberts, adopting the persona of a Germanic disciplinarian, is a stone-faced exclamation point in her white plastic boots and
red bodysuit/hot pants outfit as she barks instructions to her musicians.
Jason Reynolds, performing as a clown in love named Chauncey, demonstrates nuance and impressive physical performing skills in a
very funny bit called "All By Myself."
Beth Byrd, who produced the show, performs several numbers in which she demonstrates real acting ability. The crowd favorite on
opening night was "What's in the Box?" performed by Byrd and a talented Boston terrier named Brutus.
Brutus, who happens to be the pride and joy of local actor Heidi Stubblefield, also makes a big impression in a routine with juggler
Jason Smith, in which Brutus eventually captures one of the juggling balls and runs off stage with it clamped between his jaws.
Stubblefield presents a 10-minute excerpt from "The Coppellia Project," which she conceived and directed and will stage in its entirety
for the KC Fringe Festival this summer. Veteran actor Ric Averill plays the grizzled old doll-maker opposite Kalen Compernolle as the
doll who comes to life. The piece is rough around the edges but charming.
Indeed, it's fair to view "Fools' Fortune II" as a preview, at least in terms of spirit, of the Fringe Festival in July. If so, the festival should
be a lively affair.
"Fools' Fortune II" will be performed at 8 p.m. Saturday May 17 and 2 p.m. Sunday May 18 at the Just Off Broadway Theatre.
Tickets: $12.
| Heidi Stubblefield in partnership with Accessible Arts presents: THE COPPELIA PROJECT A Clown Ballet in Three Acts By Heidi Stubblefield Extended This Weekend! FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 7:30PM SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 7:30 PM SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 2PM (Original Production July 21 - 27, 2008) "“The Coppelia Project” is filled with inventive performances." "With this splendid cast, “The Coppelia Project” looks pretty much ready for prime time." "Undeniably poignant...served in high style...filled with inventive performances." Robert Trussell - Kansas City Star Enter the world of /THE COPPELIA PROJECT: a clown ballet/, which dances among reality and illusion. Inspired by characters from THE TALES OF E.T.A. HOFFMAN, /THE COPPELIA PROJECT: a clown ballet, /follows the quest of Dr. Coppelius-Coppola, a scurvy inventor, who is on the verge of creating the world's first automaton. He creates three spritely and mischevious dolls, remarkable in their own fashion yet still unsatisfactory to the determined Dr. Coppelius – Coppola. In his pursuit of perfection, he casts aside his greatest achievement, and only sees what he wants to see…not necessarily what is. Presented in red nose, this tale is full of foibles and folly, and presents the question of what and where does beauty lie, if the eye of the beholder can not find it… does it exist? *The Coppelia Project* will be performed at the OFF CENTER THEATRE Located on Level 3 of the CROWN CENTER SHOPS FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 7:30PM SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 7:30 PM SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 2PM Tickets are only $10 To reserve your tickets call 816-842-9999 or go to www.ahtkc.com The Coppelia Project is sponsored by the YWCA OF GREATER KANSAS CITY |
| Click here to listen to our radio interview on KCUR |
Kansas City Fringe Festival opens
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Vanessa Severo never thinks about it. But she does.
Her friends never think about it. Except they do.
Audiences rarely notice it. When they do, they don’t care.
When theatergoers turn out for “The Coppelia Project” at this year’s KC Fringe Festival they will see a
side of Severo they’ve probably never seen.
The 30-year-old actress was born with only a thumb on her left hand. In childhood she became skilled at
hiding it. As an adult she became equally skilled at hiding it on stage. The first time this critic saw her
perform, he didn’t notice her hand. All he saw was a good performance.
And Severo has been seen a lot this year — in Steven Eubank’s production of “Hedwig and the Angry
Inch,” understudying all the female characters in “Rumors” at the New Theatre, delivering a riveting turn
in the Actors Theatre KC production of “Desdemona” and now beginning rehearsals for the next Actors
Theatre show, “Taking Sides.”
But as Severo and her close friend, actress/director Heidi Stubblefield, developed “The Coppelia Project”
for the Fringe Festival, they came to a decision: Don’t hide the hand. Make the audience look.
“It’s nonverbal, it’s physical theater and it confronts disabilities, physical disabilities as well as hidden
ones,” Stubblefield said.
Severo won’t use the word “disability” to describe her left hand because she doesn’t think of it that way.
For her, it is what it is.
“I’ve decided to kind of go full-out and make it in your face,” Severo said. “It’s the perfect venue because
in the confines of a clown show you can be as absurd as you want to be … There’s humor in it, and I didn’t
want this piece to be, ‘Oh, poor Vanessa.’ ”
And, yes, a clown show is what it is. Stubblefield was trained in physical theater and is an accomplished
clown in the European tradition. And she’s trying to infuse her show with everything she knows about
performing without speaking. She has subtitled the 45-minute production “A Clown Ballet in Three Acts.”
Stubblefield conceived the show last winter when she was appearing in “Out of Order,” a farce at the dinner
theater.
“I was thinking about it over Christmastime while I was doing the New Theatre production, and I didn’t
have any jobs coming up, and I decided it was time for me to come up with a new show for myself,” she said.
“So I told my story to the girls in the dressing room, and they said it kind of sounds like ‘Coppelia.’ ”
That led her to “The Sandman” by German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, on which Léo Delibes based his comic
ballet, “Coppelia.” In the 1816 story a young man goes to the city and meets a mechanical doll. The
relationship doesn’t end well.
“It’s not a funny story,” she said. “It’s really kind of creepy.”
In Stubblefield’s version, Dr. Coppelius (played by Ric Averill) is a dollmaker who creates a perfect human
likeness. In “The Coppelia Project,” he creates three dolls, but each one is imperfect.
The first doll, played by Marisa Mackay, is beautiful on the outside but not very nice because, Stubblefield
said, “she is repulsed by the inventor.” The second doll (Kalen Compernolle) has a wiring defect that
prevents her from judging spatial distances and as a result is always running into things.
Kansas City Fringe Festival opens
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
The third doll (Severo) wears gloves and looks perfect until a young workshop intruder (Doogin Brown)
breaks her hand. At that point, the glove comes off and the audience will see Severo’s left hand as it
actually is.
Stubblefield said she wanted Severo in the piece from the very beginning.
“Ultimately, it’s about her,” Stubblefield said. “You know, it’s about beauty in the eye of the beholder. I
always thought about her in it because she’s funny and she’s talented and she’s beautiful, and she has one
thing not a lot of people know about unless they look very closely. But she can stand on her hands. She can
walk on her hands. We did ‘BFG’ (at the Coterie) and she manipulated a puppet. She can do anything. That’
s the point.”
As Severo describes it, she approaches most challenges with an iron will.
When she was 7 she began doing gymnastics on the uneven bars. She got blisters on her left hand, but she
did it. In “True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl” at last year’s festival she learned to be a convincing pole
dancer.
Once, when she lived in San Francisco, she was cast as the maid in “A Secret Garden.” The director didn’t
notice her hand until two weeks into rehearsal. He ordered that deep pockets be added to her costume and
considered rewriting dialogue so that someone on stage might say, “What’s wrong with your hand?”
Severo walked.
“It’s quite a triumph to do a show and have no one recognize it because they’re taken away by the
performance,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve ever just held it out in front and let the audience get an
eyeful. In a way this is a turning point.”
Stubblefield said the piece was created by everyone in the cast. At first the individual dolls rehearsed
separately with Brown and Averill, who will provide some of the music with live performances on banjo,
mandolin and fiddle.
“It’s been very much an ensemble piece, although under her strong guidance,” said Averill, the veteran
actor/director/composer and founder of the Seem-to-Be-Players in Lawrence.
But Severo said it was Stubblefield’s idea to make Severo’s hand an integral part of the show.
“She came up with the glove and took that first step forward and said, ‘He’s going to break you, and we’re
going to show it. It has to be 110 percent out there, no apologies,’ ” Severo said.
Severo said that in a way she feels liberated, but she rejects the notion that the performance is a special act
of bravery.
“I think anybody who is different and is willing to put up with rejection every day and still try to do what
they want to is brave,” she said. “I’m just being who I am.”
Amid a splendid cast, Severo shines in ‘The
Coppelia Project’
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Do this job long enough and expectations set in.
You expect certain directors to deliver the goods. You expect certain theater companies to hit you with
challenging material. And you expect certain actors to turn in exceptional performances because that’s what
they normally do.
Vanessa Severo is just such an actor and in director Heidi Stubblefield’s delightfully comic “The Coppelia
Project” she delivers a singular performance that is so inventive that you have to marvel at her creative
resources. That’s saying something, because “The Coppelia Project” is filled with inventive performances.
Subtitled “A Clown Ballet in Three Acts,” this Fringe Festival entry from Byrd Productions and Accessible
Arts unfolds with minimal spoken dialogue but with plenty of music, some recorded, some performed live.
The costuming and performing styles are influenced by a European style of clowning that goes back
hundreds of years.
Ric Averill is Dr. Coppelius-Coppola, an inventor whose specialty seems to be life-sized mechanical dolls.
Wearing a red nose, a frock coat and shoes that squeak when he walks, Coppelus-Coppola communicates
only by playing his violin. A running gag has Doogin Brown as “The Poet who has a day job delivering stuff”
(that’s how it’s printed in the program) bringing deliveries to the workshop that require the doctor’s
signature. Each time Averill “signs” with his violin bow, sometimes making a simple “X,” sometimes filling
up two or three pages with an endless scrawl.
This is really the story of an inventor who can’t get it right and his rebellious mechanical dolls who
eventually make a break for freedom.
His first creation is a pointe dancer, played by Marisa MacKay, who wants nothing to do with her creator.
When the bumbling Poet suddenly appears he first believes her to be real but quickly figures out she’s
artificial. Normally tongue-tied around girls, he sees her fakeness as a good thing. Everything goes wrong
when he tries to adjust her limbs, which have a way of thwacking him on the head when he least expects it.
Eventually Dr. Coppelius discovers the Poet in a “compromising” position with the dancer and chases him
from the workshop. Coppelius realizes that he has created an imperfect doll and brutally consigns her to the
trash can.
Brown, by the way, turns in another superior comic performance, and MacKay’s deadpan stage persona
works perfectly in this show.
The doctor’s next creation (Kalen Compernolle) careers around the room in a wildly uncontrolled way,
wrapping her arms around anyone who happens to be present. The Poet reappears and once again things go
wrong. Compernolle’s physical performance is consistently impressive.
At least we come to his third creation, the one played by Severo. Costumed in elegant gloves up to her
elbows, Severo initially looks like a dream vision. But when the Poet returns he mucks things again,
“breaking” her left hand by removing the glove.
Severo was born with only one fully formed digit on her left hand and this reality becomes central to the
final sequence in the show. In a dazzling physical performance, Severo “duels” with Brown using
paintbrushes, shoves him around the room and shows us a doll that seems filled with an irrepressible human
spirit.
Coppellius returns, depressed by his failures, and puts “for sale” signs on each of his dolls. What he doesn’t
count on is their willingness to rise up and claim their freedom, and here Severo’s devilish gleam clearly
identifies her as the ringleader.
Stubblefield directs the proceedings with a delicate sense of balance. It’s served up in high style, but often
with an underlying gritty reality. That may be why the image of the mechanical dolls leaving the workshop
and venturing out into the wide world is undeniably poignant.
Stubblefield calls this a work in progress but it’s hard to say what needs to be improved. With this splendid
cast, “The Coppelia Project” looks pretty much ready for prime time.
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Vanessa Severo never thinks about it. But she does.
Her friends never think about it. Except they do.
Audiences rarely notice it. When they do, they don’t care.
When theatergoers turn out for “The Coppelia Project” at this year’s KC Fringe Festival they will see a
side of Severo they’ve probably never seen.
The 30-year-old actress was born with only a thumb on her left hand. In childhood she became skilled at
hiding it. As an adult she became equally skilled at hiding it on stage. The first time this critic saw her
perform, he didn’t notice her hand. All he saw was a good performance.
And Severo has been seen a lot this year — in Steven Eubank’s production of “Hedwig and the Angry
Inch,” understudying all the female characters in “Rumors” at the New Theatre, delivering a riveting turn
in the Actors Theatre KC production of “Desdemona” and now beginning rehearsals for the next Actors
Theatre show, “Taking Sides.”
But as Severo and her close friend, actress/director Heidi Stubblefield, developed “The Coppelia Project”
for the Fringe Festival, they came to a decision: Don’t hide the hand. Make the audience look.
“It’s nonverbal, it’s physical theater and it confronts disabilities, physical disabilities as well as hidden
ones,” Stubblefield said.
Severo won’t use the word “disability” to describe her left hand because she doesn’t think of it that way.
For her, it is what it is.
“I’ve decided to kind of go full-out and make it in your face,” Severo said. “It’s the perfect venue because
in the confines of a clown show you can be as absurd as you want to be … There’s humor in it, and I didn’t
want this piece to be, ‘Oh, poor Vanessa.’ ”
And, yes, a clown show is what it is. Stubblefield was trained in physical theater and is an accomplished
clown in the European tradition. And she’s trying to infuse her show with everything she knows about
performing without speaking. She has subtitled the 45-minute production “A Clown Ballet in Three Acts.”
Stubblefield conceived the show last winter when she was appearing in “Out of Order,” a farce at the dinner
theater.
“I was thinking about it over Christmastime while I was doing the New Theatre production, and I didn’t
have any jobs coming up, and I decided it was time for me to come up with a new show for myself,” she said.
“So I told my story to the girls in the dressing room, and they said it kind of sounds like ‘Coppelia.’ ”
That led her to “The Sandman” by German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, on which Léo Delibes based his comic
ballet, “Coppelia.” In the 1816 story a young man goes to the city and meets a mechanical doll. The
relationship doesn’t end well.
“It’s not a funny story,” she said. “It’s really kind of creepy.”
In Stubblefield’s version, Dr. Coppelius (played by Ric Averill) is a dollmaker who creates a perfect human
likeness. In “The Coppelia Project,” he creates three dolls, but each one is imperfect.
The first doll, played by Marisa Mackay, is beautiful on the outside but not very nice because, Stubblefield
said, “she is repulsed by the inventor.” The second doll (Kalen Compernolle) has a wiring defect that
prevents her from judging spatial distances and as a result is always running into things.
Kansas City Fringe Festival opens
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
The third doll (Severo) wears gloves and looks perfect until a young workshop intruder (Doogin Brown)
breaks her hand. At that point, the glove comes off and the audience will see Severo’s left hand as it
actually is.
Stubblefield said she wanted Severo in the piece from the very beginning.
“Ultimately, it’s about her,” Stubblefield said. “You know, it’s about beauty in the eye of the beholder. I
always thought about her in it because she’s funny and she’s talented and she’s beautiful, and she has one
thing not a lot of people know about unless they look very closely. But she can stand on her hands. She can
walk on her hands. We did ‘BFG’ (at the Coterie) and she manipulated a puppet. She can do anything. That’
s the point.”
As Severo describes it, she approaches most challenges with an iron will.
When she was 7 she began doing gymnastics on the uneven bars. She got blisters on her left hand, but she
did it. In “True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl” at last year’s festival she learned to be a convincing pole
dancer.
Once, when she lived in San Francisco, she was cast as the maid in “A Secret Garden.” The director didn’t
notice her hand until two weeks into rehearsal. He ordered that deep pockets be added to her costume and
considered rewriting dialogue so that someone on stage might say, “What’s wrong with your hand?”
Severo walked.
“It’s quite a triumph to do a show and have no one recognize it because they’re taken away by the
performance,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve ever just held it out in front and let the audience get an
eyeful. In a way this is a turning point.”
Stubblefield said the piece was created by everyone in the cast. At first the individual dolls rehearsed
separately with Brown and Averill, who will provide some of the music with live performances on banjo,
mandolin and fiddle.
“It’s been very much an ensemble piece, although under her strong guidance,” said Averill, the veteran
actor/director/composer and founder of the Seem-to-Be-Players in Lawrence.
But Severo said it was Stubblefield’s idea to make Severo’s hand an integral part of the show.
“She came up with the glove and took that first step forward and said, ‘He’s going to break you, and we’re
going to show it. It has to be 110 percent out there, no apologies,’ ” Severo said.
Severo said that in a way she feels liberated, but she rejects the notion that the performance is a special act
of bravery.
“I think anybody who is different and is willing to put up with rejection every day and still try to do what
they want to is brave,” she said. “I’m just being who I am.”
Amid a splendid cast, Severo shines in ‘The
Coppelia Project’
By ROBERT TRUSSELL
The Kansas City Star
Do this job long enough and expectations set in.
You expect certain directors to deliver the goods. You expect certain theater companies to hit you with
challenging material. And you expect certain actors to turn in exceptional performances because that’s what
they normally do.
Vanessa Severo is just such an actor and in director Heidi Stubblefield’s delightfully comic “The Coppelia
Project” she delivers a singular performance that is so inventive that you have to marvel at her creative
resources. That’s saying something, because “The Coppelia Project” is filled with inventive performances.
Subtitled “A Clown Ballet in Three Acts,” this Fringe Festival entry from Byrd Productions and Accessible
Arts unfolds with minimal spoken dialogue but with plenty of music, some recorded, some performed live.
The costuming and performing styles are influenced by a European style of clowning that goes back
hundreds of years.
Ric Averill is Dr. Coppelius-Coppola, an inventor whose specialty seems to be life-sized mechanical dolls.
Wearing a red nose, a frock coat and shoes that squeak when he walks, Coppelus-Coppola communicates
only by playing his violin. A running gag has Doogin Brown as “The Poet who has a day job delivering stuff”
(that’s how it’s printed in the program) bringing deliveries to the workshop that require the doctor’s
signature. Each time Averill “signs” with his violin bow, sometimes making a simple “X,” sometimes filling
up two or three pages with an endless scrawl.
This is really the story of an inventor who can’t get it right and his rebellious mechanical dolls who
eventually make a break for freedom.
His first creation is a pointe dancer, played by Marisa MacKay, who wants nothing to do with her creator.
When the bumbling Poet suddenly appears he first believes her to be real but quickly figures out she’s
artificial. Normally tongue-tied around girls, he sees her fakeness as a good thing. Everything goes wrong
when he tries to adjust her limbs, which have a way of thwacking him on the head when he least expects it.
Eventually Dr. Coppelius discovers the Poet in a “compromising” position with the dancer and chases him
from the workshop. Coppelius realizes that he has created an imperfect doll and brutally consigns her to the
trash can.
Brown, by the way, turns in another superior comic performance, and MacKay’s deadpan stage persona
works perfectly in this show.
The doctor’s next creation (Kalen Compernolle) careers around the room in a wildly uncontrolled way,
wrapping her arms around anyone who happens to be present. The Poet reappears and once again things go
wrong. Compernolle’s physical performance is consistently impressive.
At least we come to his third creation, the one played by Severo. Costumed in elegant gloves up to her
elbows, Severo initially looks like a dream vision. But when the Poet returns he mucks things again,
“breaking” her left hand by removing the glove.
Severo was born with only one fully formed digit on her left hand and this reality becomes central to the
final sequence in the show. In a dazzling physical performance, Severo “duels” with Brown using
paintbrushes, shoves him around the room and shows us a doll that seems filled with an irrepressible human
spirit.
Coppellius returns, depressed by his failures, and puts “for sale” signs on each of his dolls. What he doesn’t
count on is their willingness to rise up and claim their freedom, and here Severo’s devilish gleam clearly
identifies her as the ringleader.
Stubblefield directs the proceedings with a delicate sense of balance. It’s served up in high style, but often
with an underlying gritty reality. That may be why the image of the mechanical dolls leaving the workshop
and venturing out into the wide world is undeniably poignant.
Stubblefield calls this a work in progress but it’s hard to say what needs to be improved. With this splendid
cast, “The Coppelia Project” looks pretty much ready for prime time.
CYCLOPEDIA pushes the boundaries of theatre, merging the company’s highly dynamic physicality with state of the art multimedia to create the award-winning productions for which Kari Margolis and Tony Brown have earned their international reputations. Come see what the Washington Post hailed as... "so exciting, so original, so unexpected it renews your faith in the artistic future". CYCLOPEDIA explores a phantasmagorical world of endless words, countless symbols, piles of paper, broken pencils and mountainous stacks of books. In this strange and dusty world all the thoughts of mankind have accumulated in to an odd and ever changing room shared by two men -- and a shadow. They find themselves on an unpredictable search for knowledge, for answers to yet unknown problems and of course the greatest questions of all - who are we, why are we here and where are we going. Workshop – Monday, October 6, 7:00 – 9:00 PM – $25 (“merge vocal and physical expression through precise yet organic daily exercises that focus on the actor as central to the creative process.”) Performances are October 9 – 11 at 8:00PM and October 12 at 2:00 PM All take place at the Just Off Broadway Theater 3051 Central, KCMO 64108 |
Beth Byrd Brings Movement Theatre to Kansas City
by Bryan Colley
www.kcstage.com
For years, Beth Byrd has persevered to give mime a good name in Kansas City, and this month she's taking a big step
forward by bringing in the Minneapolis-based Margolis Brown Adaptors Company. Byrd is an advocate for what is
commonly called "movement theatre," a vague moniker for a broad range of acting styles and methods that includes
everything from clowning, mime, silent film acting, and commedia dell'arte—a style of acting that's done with the body
rather than the voice. It's a form of theatre that has long been absent in Kansas City's theatre scene, despite its solid
dramatic tradition and enormous presence in European theatre.
Byrd Productions is currently the only local professional organization dedicated to the art form. Working out of the
Just Off Broadway Theatre, she has produced two works with local actress Heidi Stubblefield—Hybrid and the recent
KC Fringe Festival hit The Coppelia Project. She has also brought notable movement artists such as Rick Wamer and
Kapoot Clown Theatre to Kansas City, produced an annual fundraiser offering a grab-bag of entertainment, and
staged two Fools' Fortunes variety shows, in addition to hosting several movement theatre workshops throughout the
year.
One of the reasons that movement theatre isn't as popular as the traditional form of theatre more commonly offered is
that it requires considerably more time and rehearsal to create a movement performance. Byrd says that movement
theatre appeals to actors who are "looking for more process. It requires more of a time commitment and a more
personal creative contribution. It thrives in cities that have a larger number of professional actors, like Minneapolis.
It's for people who are more interested in the creative process, and it's a process of distillation, minimized economy of
movement, distilled down to the finest quantity and minimal idea."
She points out that she can always spot an actor on stage who's had training in movement theatre. "They're generally
the actor you can't take your eyes off of, even when they're not speaking. They're communicating everything through
movement." She says her workshops attract not only actors, but dancers, playwrights, and people interested in
commedia and mime.
Byrd describes what makes movement theatre vital to her: "As human beings, man's purpose is to know man. Self-
expression is how we get to know ourselves. Movement as self-expression allows us to fully explore ourselves.
Language can be limiting, and limitations are death. Hopefully movement theatre will make us able to communicate
better." Movement theatre's ability to cross language barriers is well known, and Byrd says she finds audiences very
receptive to her work even if English is their second language. She also says movement theatre thrives during hard
times, adversity, censorship, and limitations, noting how the lack of sound in the first decades of film forced a rich and
complex form of visual acting for early cinema. She explains, "It can create a bridge between societies, broaden the
range of how we relate in theatre and in society, and broaden the conversation between ourselves."
There have been others who have presented movement-based theatre in Kansas City, but nothing that has been as
widely embraced as the recent Coppelia Project. Nearly a decade ago, Beth Byrd formed the group Thespianage with
Eric Davis, Nick Miller Scheyer, Alex Kipp, and Martha Locke. Thespianage gave a few performances and then
morphed into the John Brown Clown Theatre before eventually disbanding. During this time, there were several
groups in Kansas City experimenting with movement theatre. Perhaps the most notable organization is the now defunct
Evaporated Milk Society led by Randall Cohn. Their work was as inventive, layered, and precise as well as obtuse,
pretentious, and arch, but they made an impression with their avant-garde staging of Hamlet. Maria Antonia Perez-
Andujar, a native of Spain, produced a few politically-tinged theatre pieces with Theatre of Relativity, drawing heavily
on European theatre traditions. These groups are no longer producing, leaving a movement theatre void filled by Byrd
Productions and the occasional touring show. The KC Fringe Festival is also a place where alternative forms of theatre
are getting an opportunity to be seen by local audiences, including some movement-derived works.
There is one other place in Kansas City where movement theatre is kept alive even if general audiences aren't treated
to performances, and that's in the theatre training program at UMKC. A promising newcomer to the UMKC faculty is
Stephanie Roberts, whose ensemble BOOM! recently performed with Byrd Productions and at the KC Fringe Festival
this summer. Largely through the influence of professor Ted Swetz, the university has routinely brought in guest
instructors from Europe who are skilled in movement theatre. Most of them were trained by the renowned French
artist Jacques Lecoq, who received his training from Etienne Decroux, known as the father of movement theatre.
Kansas City audiences perhaps know movement theatre best through mimes—silent performers who create imaginary
obstacles and props with their bodies, often for laughs. The white face popularized by the world's best known and most
imitated mime, Marcel Marceau, is derived from an ancient tradition of masks and face paint. Marceau was also a
student of Etienne Decroux, although he received his training much earlier than Lecoq and it was very different
training. Decroux refined his technique continuously and was able to spawn two separate movement disciplines through
Marceau and Lecoq.
Very late in life, after his technique had evolved even further, Decroux trained two students named Kari Margolis and
Tony Brown. They met in 1975 and later used their training to form the Margolis Brown Adaptors Company in New
York City in 1983, eventually relocating to Minneapolis in 1993. They have produced thirteen large-scale productions
that have toured the world, and they train students in movement theatre year round. Beth Byrd trained with them over
a period of five summers. They're currently building a training school in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
Their technique begins with physics—the laws of nature that govern motion and therefore create conflict and balance
within movement. Their artistic statement further explains, "We see ourselves as visual poets using our bodies to
create living poetry.... We merge other media to create a modern theatre or spectacle and celebration that is rich with
metaphor, one that will grab an audience both emotionally and intellectually and affect them for a long time
afterwards."
Margolis explains that her goal with movement theatre is to "create a compelling, dynamic, total theatrical experience.
I want to discover the most exciting way to tell a story, whether it's with movement, or vocally, or with multimedia,
music, puppetry. I don't want there to be limitations. I want to make it as exciting as possible." The process begins
with by bringing a concept into their workshop where the idea is developed with her students. She explains that, "we
generate the piece from an initial seed, developing it with research, training, improvisation, everything we practice with
the art form until we've created an original work." Text is added from their research, or from improv. Sometimes it
will begin with a short script, or a piece of music or other media.
Margolis Brown's latest work, which Byrd Productions will be presenting at the Just Off Broadway Theatre this month,
is called Cyclopedia. Kansas City is the third stop for Cyclopedia, after a preview in New York City and a premiere in
Minneapolis. Margolis said the piece will incorporate music and puppetry, and she explains the concept: "Cyclopedia
explores a phantasmagorical world of endless words, countless symbols, piles of paper, broken pencils and
mountainous stacks of books. In this strange and dusty world all the thoughts of mankind have accumulated in to an
odd and ever-changing room shared by two men—and a shadow. They find themselves on an unpredictable search for
knowledge, for answers to yet unknown problems and of course the greatest questions of all: who are we, why are we
here and where are we going?"
Of course, explaining movement theatre verbally is inherently a challenge, which may be one reason why descriptions
tend toward the philosophical. It also may be why it's generally difficult to promote, critique, and discuss movement
theatre. It's not so much telling a story as it is performing a story, and what makes it special—the movement—can't be
related in words. Luckily videos of Margolis Brown's work can be viewed online at their website, www.margolisbrown.
org, and at www.youtube.com/user/margolisbrown. This will hopefully give some idea of what they're all about, and
provide a taste for what's coming this October to Just Off Broadway.
by Bryan Colley
www.kcstage.com
For years, Beth Byrd has persevered to give mime a good name in Kansas City, and this month she's taking a big step
forward by bringing in the Minneapolis-based Margolis Brown Adaptors Company. Byrd is an advocate for what is
commonly called "movement theatre," a vague moniker for a broad range of acting styles and methods that includes
everything from clowning, mime, silent film acting, and commedia dell'arte—a style of acting that's done with the body
rather than the voice. It's a form of theatre that has long been absent in Kansas City's theatre scene, despite its solid
dramatic tradition and enormous presence in European theatre.
Byrd Productions is currently the only local professional organization dedicated to the art form. Working out of the
Just Off Broadway Theatre, she has produced two works with local actress Heidi Stubblefield—Hybrid and the recent
KC Fringe Festival hit The Coppelia Project. She has also brought notable movement artists such as Rick Wamer and
Kapoot Clown Theatre to Kansas City, produced an annual fundraiser offering a grab-bag of entertainment, and
staged two Fools' Fortunes variety shows, in addition to hosting several movement theatre workshops throughout the
year.
One of the reasons that movement theatre isn't as popular as the traditional form of theatre more commonly offered is
that it requires considerably more time and rehearsal to create a movement performance. Byrd says that movement
theatre appeals to actors who are "looking for more process. It requires more of a time commitment and a more
personal creative contribution. It thrives in cities that have a larger number of professional actors, like Minneapolis.
It's for people who are more interested in the creative process, and it's a process of distillation, minimized economy of
movement, distilled down to the finest quantity and minimal idea."
She points out that she can always spot an actor on stage who's had training in movement theatre. "They're generally
the actor you can't take your eyes off of, even when they're not speaking. They're communicating everything through
movement." She says her workshops attract not only actors, but dancers, playwrights, and people interested in
commedia and mime.
Byrd describes what makes movement theatre vital to her: "As human beings, man's purpose is to know man. Self-
expression is how we get to know ourselves. Movement as self-expression allows us to fully explore ourselves.
Language can be limiting, and limitations are death. Hopefully movement theatre will make us able to communicate
better." Movement theatre's ability to cross language barriers is well known, and Byrd says she finds audiences very
receptive to her work even if English is their second language. She also says movement theatre thrives during hard
times, adversity, censorship, and limitations, noting how the lack of sound in the first decades of film forced a rich and
complex form of visual acting for early cinema. She explains, "It can create a bridge between societies, broaden the
range of how we relate in theatre and in society, and broaden the conversation between ourselves."
There have been others who have presented movement-based theatre in Kansas City, but nothing that has been as
widely embraced as the recent Coppelia Project. Nearly a decade ago, Beth Byrd formed the group Thespianage with
Eric Davis, Nick Miller Scheyer, Alex Kipp, and Martha Locke. Thespianage gave a few performances and then
morphed into the John Brown Clown Theatre before eventually disbanding. During this time, there were several
groups in Kansas City experimenting with movement theatre. Perhaps the most notable organization is the now defunct
Evaporated Milk Society led by Randall Cohn. Their work was as inventive, layered, and precise as well as obtuse,
pretentious, and arch, but they made an impression with their avant-garde staging of Hamlet. Maria Antonia Perez-
Andujar, a native of Spain, produced a few politically-tinged theatre pieces with Theatre of Relativity, drawing heavily
on European theatre traditions. These groups are no longer producing, leaving a movement theatre void filled by Byrd
Productions and the occasional touring show. The KC Fringe Festival is also a place where alternative forms of theatre
are getting an opportunity to be seen by local audiences, including some movement-derived works.
There is one other place in Kansas City where movement theatre is kept alive even if general audiences aren't treated
to performances, and that's in the theatre training program at UMKC. A promising newcomer to the UMKC faculty is
Stephanie Roberts, whose ensemble BOOM! recently performed with Byrd Productions and at the KC Fringe Festival
this summer. Largely through the influence of professor Ted Swetz, the university has routinely brought in guest
instructors from Europe who are skilled in movement theatre. Most of them were trained by the renowned French
artist Jacques Lecoq, who received his training from Etienne Decroux, known as the father of movement theatre.
Kansas City audiences perhaps know movement theatre best through mimes—silent performers who create imaginary
obstacles and props with their bodies, often for laughs. The white face popularized by the world's best known and most
imitated mime, Marcel Marceau, is derived from an ancient tradition of masks and face paint. Marceau was also a
student of Etienne Decroux, although he received his training much earlier than Lecoq and it was very different
training. Decroux refined his technique continuously and was able to spawn two separate movement disciplines through
Marceau and Lecoq.
Very late in life, after his technique had evolved even further, Decroux trained two students named Kari Margolis and
Tony Brown. They met in 1975 and later used their training to form the Margolis Brown Adaptors Company in New
York City in 1983, eventually relocating to Minneapolis in 1993. They have produced thirteen large-scale productions
that have toured the world, and they train students in movement theatre year round. Beth Byrd trained with them over
a period of five summers. They're currently building a training school in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
Their technique begins with physics—the laws of nature that govern motion and therefore create conflict and balance
within movement. Their artistic statement further explains, "We see ourselves as visual poets using our bodies to
create living poetry.... We merge other media to create a modern theatre or spectacle and celebration that is rich with
metaphor, one that will grab an audience both emotionally and intellectually and affect them for a long time
afterwards."
Margolis explains that her goal with movement theatre is to "create a compelling, dynamic, total theatrical experience.
I want to discover the most exciting way to tell a story, whether it's with movement, or vocally, or with multimedia,
music, puppetry. I don't want there to be limitations. I want to make it as exciting as possible." The process begins
with by bringing a concept into their workshop where the idea is developed with her students. She explains that, "we
generate the piece from an initial seed, developing it with research, training, improvisation, everything we practice with
the art form until we've created an original work." Text is added from their research, or from improv. Sometimes it
will begin with a short script, or a piece of music or other media.
Margolis Brown's latest work, which Byrd Productions will be presenting at the Just Off Broadway Theatre this month,
is called Cyclopedia. Kansas City is the third stop for Cyclopedia, after a preview in New York City and a premiere in
Minneapolis. Margolis said the piece will incorporate music and puppetry, and she explains the concept: "Cyclopedia
explores a phantasmagorical world of endless words, countless symbols, piles of paper, broken pencils and
mountainous stacks of books. In this strange and dusty world all the thoughts of mankind have accumulated in to an
odd and ever-changing room shared by two men—and a shadow. They find themselves on an unpredictable search for
knowledge, for answers to yet unknown problems and of course the greatest questions of all: who are we, why are we
here and where are we going?"
Of course, explaining movement theatre verbally is inherently a challenge, which may be one reason why descriptions
tend toward the philosophical. It also may be why it's generally difficult to promote, critique, and discuss movement
theatre. It's not so much telling a story as it is performing a story, and what makes it special—the movement—can't be
related in words. Luckily videos of Margolis Brown's work can be viewed online at their website, www.margolisbrown.
org, and at www.youtube.com/user/margolisbrown. This will hopefully give some idea of what they're all about, and
provide a taste for what's coming this October to Just Off Broadway.
| Byrd Productions Presents: Appetizing Artists! Monday, November 10th, 2008 at CALIFORNO's in Westport Enjoy: ~The Incredible Juggling of Brian Wendling with your salad~ www.brianwendling.com ~An excerpt of Princess X-mas by Dan Griffiths and Danielle Conover with your entree~ ~The Miles & Mareske Jazz Duo with your dessert~ |
| Once upon a time in a theater that used to be a castle a group of buffoons, mimes, fools and movement artists gathered to to perform their most amusing, stunning and fascinating stories. Jugglers juggled, fools were foolish, mimes were silent, clown bands played and all enjoyed each others company. Then one day they looked around and said “Hey, we should do this in front of people!” May 11, 2009 Clown Theater Workshop with Dan Griffiths This workshop is for anyone who is interested in creating a context for humor in front of a live audience by having an ACTUAL experience onstage. Not contriving it or acting it but by allowing an experience to affect you. How do you create spontaneity while maintaining truth in the moment? You RISK. This workshop is about you onstage in front of an audience. How are you affected by events? How does the audience affect you? How will you support your partners? How do you remain emotionally and physically receptive? I do not take as sacred the purity of forms or rules about what is and is not clown. In this workshop we will commit to making Clown Theater that is interesting to people through the HOW of storytelling and through our energy and presence. There are lots of approaches to the question "who is your clown?" Some focus on discovering the clown within you, some build it from the outside in, some create it through relationships with people, objects, the world. This workshop will introduce a range of approaches so you can figure out how you work and begin to access your clown presence/character/energy on stage. Dan Griffiths is a performer, director and educator who has been devising original work since1988. Dan has performed in over 45 states and 25 countries and is the Director of KAPOOT CLOWN THEATER. Dan has served as faculty for The School for Mime Theater, Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University and Indiana University Northwest, and is a regular lecturer at The Academy of Art University and The San Francisco Clown Conservatory. Dan has performed with the Klown troupe Die Hanswurste, served as a director, performer and educator with Chicago’s 500 Clown, and has worked as a clown doctor and trainer for The Big Apple Circus. Dan has studied with Marcel Marceau, Polish Mime master Stefan Niedzialkowski, and at The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater. Dan holds an M. A. in Experimental Performance from New College of California and an M.F.A in Interdisciplinary Art from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Locally, Dan is directing the World Premiere of The Miniature Housewife at The Kansas City International Fringe Festival and this October will premiere The Fontina and Gruyere Show, devised and performed with his wife and creative partner Danielle Conover. |
July 19 - 26 at the K.C. Fringe Festival The Miniature Housewife Original Script by Danielle Conover Directed by Dan Griffiths Created and Performed by Danielle Conover and Dan Griffiths as part of the Kansas City Fringe Festival The Miniature Housewife is a multi-discipline performance project using physical comedy, dance, video animation, original music and stream of consciousness monologue to explore the psychological and physical perils of the modern woman inside the home. Drawing on popular images and concepts of the classic 50’s housewife, and slogans from the 1970’s feminist movement this works seeks to bridge the gaps between concepts of feminism, femininity and the real experience of one American woman. In a full-length two act “play”, the heroine -The Miniature Housewife-, is put through a rigorous cultural confrontation by an alter-ego/villain named Monster Chicken- that forces her to explore and overcome all the obstacles of her manufactured identity. Using a make believe landscape of the fully equipped and perfectly mechanized modern house as a metaphor for an emotional soul searching journey, this story seeks to discover a truer and more satisfying meaning of hearth and home for everyone. Danielle Conover Danielle is an interdisciplinary artist who has been making original solo and collaborative performance work since 2000. She has studied extensively with artists in the Bay Area including Jubilith Moore, Joan Mankin, Jeff Razz, Dawn-Elin Fraser and The San Francisco Mime Troupe: Japanese Noh and Kyogen Theater, mask, Commedia, Shakespeare, Clown and voice. During her undergraduate studies at Sarah Lawrence College she studied dance and puppetry with Dan Hurlin. She is a graduate of the Jaques Lecoq International Theater School for physical theater. Recently, she has graduated with an MA in Experimental performance from New College of California and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from California Institute of Integral Studies. Danielle has created and performed over a dozen original performances exploring the themes of domesticity, rites of passage, childhood, Americana and socio-personal decadence using installation, original music, object-theater, puppetry and dance. Danielle is very excited to present the World Premiere of The Miniature Housewife at The Kansas City Fringe Festival, and will be just as pleased (or more) to premiere a new clown performance, The Fontina and Gruyere Show in October with her partner Dan Griffiths, also presented by Byrd Productions. Dan Griffiths Dan Griffiths is a performer, director and educator who has been devising original work since1988. Dan has performed in over 45 states and 25 countries and is the Director of KAPOOT CLOWN THEATER. Dan has served as faculty for The School for Mime Theater, Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University and Indiana University Northwest, and is a regular lecturer at The Academy of Art University and The San Francisco Clown Conservatory. Dan has performed with the Klown troupe Die Hanswurste, served as a director, performer and educator with Chicago’s 500 Clown, and has worked as a clown doctor and trainer for The Big Apple Circus. Dan has studied with Marcel Marceau, Polish Mime master Stefan Niedzialkowski, and at The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater. Dan holds an M.A. in Experimental Performance from New College of California and an M.F.A in Interdisciplinary Art from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Locally, Dan pleased to be directing the World Premiere of The Miniature Housewife at The Kansas City Fringe Festival and this October will premiere a clown performance, The Fontina and Gruyere Show, devised and performed with his wife and creative partner Danielle Conover, also presented by Byrd Productions Mime Inspired By Marcel Marceau - A Tribute Dean Hatton returns to the Kansas City Fringe Festival with Kirsten Stephens, A graduate of the Marceau School in Paris, To perform a collection of their favorite mime skits to celebrate the life and inspiration of their mentor Marcel Marceau. Who: Kirsten Stephens studied for three years with world-renowned Marcel Marceau in Paris, France and graduated from his school in 1997, earning a letter of special recognition and recommendation from Marceau himself. Following graduation from l’Ecole International de Mimodrame de Marcel Marceau, she toured France and Europe with four of her classmates in the company Mime de Rien, and taught mime classes in Paris. Kirsten moved to Minneapolis in 2000 and was thrilled to find a partner equally influenced by Marceau's genius in Dean Hatton. The teamed up in 2002 and together they have delighted audiences in the Twin Cities in the Fringe Festival, Foolfest, and in independent shows. Dean Hatton has been performing mime across the country for 20 years and has delighted audiences in the twin cities for 5 years. He was a hit at Foolfest, Minnesota Fringe and Kansas City Fringe festivals where audiences raved about him in blogs and audience reviews. "Fantastic!, Dean Is Minneapolis's Biggest Secret" - Phillip Low. In the 90's he was very fortunate to study with Marcel Marceau at The Goldston And Johnson School For Mime in Gambier, Ohio and at University Of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It was through these intensive workshops where Mr. Marceau became a mentor to Dean and much of his work is based on the principles he learned. Dean said "He showed me the poetry and meaning behind theater, a very wise and gentle man. I thought of him as my Grandfather". A theatrical production called "Silent Poetry 2", A Tribute To Marcel Marceau. A Collection Of Mime Skits Inspired By work of Marcel Marceau. Part of The Kansas City Fringe Festival. To honor and celebrate the life and inspiration of the world’s greatest mime, Marcel Marceau. Presented In Part By Byrd Productions |
| August 10-14 CLOWN THEATER INTENSIVE BY DAN GRIFFITHS PRESENTED IN PART BY BYRD PRODUCTIONS AUGUST 10-14TH AT THE JUST OFF BROADWAY THEATER 5 – DAY CLOWN INTENSIVE WITH DAN GRIFFITHS FOCUS ON CHARACTER, STATE OF PLAY AND CREATION OF NEW WORK CULMINATING IN A FINAL PUBLIC PERFORMANCE AUGUST 14TH. TUITION IS $300. DESCRIPTON: In this week-long intensive we will expand our awareness to include the audience and ourselves in the same breath. We will be responsible, able and willing to respond onstage, to the audience and to ourselves while in a state of true play and discovery. We will risk vulnerability, explore improvisation and discover realms of beauty and grotesquery while devising original characters and new material. You will learn to confront the audience, find your breath, discover your body and play. How do you create humor in front of a live audience? By having an ACTUAL experience onstage. How do you create spontaneity while maintaining truth in the moment? RISK. The action is all for ‘them’ as it occurs to you. It is whimsical and everything is at once discovered and planned. The play is not a previously organized and envisioned set of circumstances unrelated to the audience. The play is pulled from the very desire to show them something, to string a bunch of images together that end up telling a very profound story. Don’t worry about things ‘making sense’. Whatever occurs to the character you are living in is the sense of that moment, and therefore undeniably true and acceptable. How do your partners affect you? How does the audience affect you? How do you remain emotionally and physically receptive? BIO Dan Griffiths is a performer, director and educator who has been devising original work since1988. Dan has performed in over 45 states and 25 countries and is the Director of KAPOOT CLOWN THEATER. Dan has served as faculty for The School for Mime Theater, Columbia College Chicago, Roosevelt University and Indiana University Northwest, and is a regular lecturer at The Academy of Art University and The San Francisco Clown Conservatory. Dan has performed with the Klown troupe Die Hanswurste, served as a director, performer and educator with Chicago’s 500 Clown, and has worked as a clown doctor and trainer for The Big Apple Circus. Dan has studied with Marcel Marceau, Polish Mime master Stefan Niedzialkowski, and at The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater. Dan holds an M.A. in Experimental Performance from New College of California and an M.F.A in Interdisciplinary Art from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Locally, Dan is directing the World Premiere of The Miniature Housewife at The Kansas City International Fringe Festival and this October will premiere The Fontina and Gruyere Show, devised and performed with his wife and creative partner Danielle Conover. |
| October 9 – 11 The Fontina and Gruyere Show Danielle Conover and Dan Griffiths See the great magician Gruyere and his beautiful assistant Fontina, survivors of a tragic accident! Shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean floating on a great piece of luggage, the pair struggles to make sense of their misfortune, reconcile their past, and conjure a way home. This original clown theater production for the whole family is a world premiere and will be presented in Kansas City by Byrd Productions at: the Just Off Broadway Theater 3051 Central (that's 31st & Wyandotte) KCMO 64108. Performance dates and times are: Friday, October 9 at 8:00 Saturday, October 10 at 2:00 and 8:00 Sunday, October 11 at 2:00 Tickets are only $12 |
| November 9 Appetizing Artists at Californos Enjoy: ~The Amazing Juggling & Fire Performance by The Amazin’ Jason with your salad~ ~An excerpt of L’Histoire D’Amour by Heidi Van & Matt Weiss with your entree~ ~The music of Eddie Glenn & Co. with your dessert~ ~The affair kicks off at 6:00 with hors d'oeuvres ~Fabulous balloon sculptures by Oh Wow! Balloons ~There will be an auction of art and artists beginning at 8:30 ~All of the sumptuous food and artists are available to you for only $40. |
| Byrd Productions Celebrates their fifteenth year with another Laid Back Fund Raiser Come join Byrd Productions and friends as they celebrate fifteen years of Physical Theater with their eleventh annual Laid Back Fund Raiser. This year’s festivities include beer by Boulevard Beer, hors d'oeuvres by Moxie Catering, cake by CakeGallery@Studio209 and the best darned silent auction and raffle in town. Enjoy performances of music, magic, comedy, performance art, slam poetry, clowning, belly dance, fire performance, vaudeville and burlesque (whew). So, don’t just sit there! Come on down to the Just Off Broadway Theater, 3051 Central, Saturday, April 10th from 7:00 – 11:00ish. The final hour is adults only – sorry kids. This year’s performances include, Last Free Exit & Friends – The House Band, Brian Wendling – Comedy Juggler, Jazzbo – The One-Man Junk Band, Ryan L. McCord – Performance Artist, Jack Phillips – performing excerpts from his play The Us & Them Reunion, Joshua Staley – Slam Poet, Coy Espinoza - object and fire manipulation, Doug Luther – Guitar Man, Mentoc the Mind Fuggler from bigcircusfuntime, M'chelle DeMars – Danse Du Ventre, Annie Cherry & Bindlestiff Willie – Burlesque & Vaudeville and premiering The Flock – a Company of Clowns. The suggested donation at the door is only $12. For more information call Byrd Productions at 816-305-8188 or go to www.byrdproductions.org (Byrd Productions is a member of the Just Off Broadway Theatre Association, which facilitates the artistic and professional development of performing artists and organizations by providing education and resources though a cooperative association. For more information, visit our website at www. justoffbroadway.org) |
May 10 Clown Workshop By Stephanie Roberts 7:00 - 9:00 PM at the Just Off Broadway Theater 3051 Central, KCMO 64108 only $20! Call 816-305-8188 to reserve your spot “Clown characters are not created, they are uncovered.” Avner Eisenberg In this workshop students will begin the journey of uncovering their personal clowns. This type of clowning uses a red nose and is rooted in the teachings and techniques of Jacques Lecoq, which utilize the actor’s habitual mannerisms, walk, gestures and idiosyncrasies as tools to finding his or her unique clown character. No experience necessary—just an open heart and a brave soul! Stephanie Roberts is Assistant Professor of Physical Theatre for UMKC’s Professional Actor Training Program where she teaches Clown, Commedia dell'Arte, Epic Storytelling, and Mask Technique. She has toured nationally and abroad with companies such as Annex, Tears of Joy, Living Voices and Seattle Mime Theatre, and was also a team member of The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit in Seattle. Ensemble-generated clown plays include Lunacy (Dell’Arte International), Pseudo Omega and 123 Fish Stories (Annex) and La Grande Faim (Cornish College of the Arts). This year she was awarded an ArtsKC Inspiration Grant to develop a one-woman mask play, and was chosen by the Charlotte St. Foundation for a one-year studio residency as part of the Urban Culture Project. She holds a BFA in Acting from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in Ensemble Based Physical Theatre from Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. May 14, 15 & 16 Fool's Fortunes IV Byrd Productions Presents: Fools’ Fortunes IV Byrd Productions Movement Theater celebrates its 15th year with its 4th annual showcase of local Fools, Clowns, Vaudevillians, Jugglers, Musicians, Mimes and (gasp) Actors. It’s children’s theater for adults! This year’s production includes a performance of Samuel Beckett’s Act Without Words I by Coleman Crenshaw, Faces written by Damien Torres-Botello performed by Heidi Van & Matt Weiss, two Vaudeville style pantomimes by Artemus Vulgaris and Annie Cherry, a composite of the Fool from King Lear by Alan Tilson, Excerpts from Cirque du Gay, The Happy Circus by Dennis Porter and Peyton Westfall, Comedy Juggling by Jay & Leslie Cady, Musical Olios by Jazzbo the One Man Junk Band, Mime by Jim Voska and Foolishness by The Flock a Company of Clowns. Performances are May 14 – 16, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 2:00 at the Just Off Broadway Theater at 3051 Central, KCMO 64108. Tickets are $12 in advance $15 at the door. Also – May 10th 7:00 – 9:00 PM: Through the Nose, an Introduction to Theatrical Clowning Workshop. by Stephanie Roberts. Only $20 For reservations call 816-305-8188 Sponsored by KCStage Magazine. |
