Doug Lucie's GAUCHO -- A reading in Washington DC

Doug Lucie is one of the greatest British playwrights of our time. So why aren't we talking about him more these days? And why has his work not found more of an audience in the United States?

As a playwright here in Washington, DC, I'm frankly perplexed by these questions. Lucie is the key figure in the transition between the rich and influential UK political theatre of the 1970s and the "In-yer-face" movement of the 1990s. His works are fiercely literate and polemical and political (see Hard Feelings, his classic play about gentrifying Brixton on the edge of the 1981 riots). Yet Lucie's plays also point forward into the open psychic and physical wounding found in Mark Ravenhill and Sarah Kane's work. The brutality of 1987's Fashion (which explores the squalid alliance of advertising firms and Tory politics), or his prescient savaging of men's movement in Progress (1984) are wonders of concentrated argument anchored strongly in vivid character.

My questions about why Lucie and his marvelous plays are not a central part of our discussion about contemporary playwriting has compelled some action on my part. I am organizing a reading of one of Lucie's greatest plays, Gaucho (1994) in Washington DC on Monday, February 8, 2015.

On its surface, Gaucho is about drugs and the war on drugs,  But the play's plot reunites a group of Oxford classmates and their significant others on a Mediterranean island, Gaucho touches deeply on questions of personal morality, public liberties and the persistence and distorting power of memory. It's one of Lucie's most acerbic and most accessible plays.

I recently asked Lucie to talk a bit about the writing of Gaucho, which takes its title, of course, from the shimmering and drug-soaked 1980 album by Steely Dan.

Lucie mentioned that he started writing the play in 1992 and 1993, right after the Labour Party lost the 1992 election in a swirl of the Conservative Party's kinder, gentler makeover in the person of John Major and a continuing internecine strife within Labour itself. The 1992 election annihilated what was perhaps the last chance to push back against the Thatcher Revolution in British politics. Instead, it ratified that Thatcher revolution in five more years of Conservative rule and the eventual rebranding of Labour under Tony Blair.

"This impacted on every part of society," Lucie writes. "All revolutions create their disenfranchised, and Thatcher's had disenfranchised those in society who had most benefited from the postwar social democratic settlement. Industrial workers, anybody in a low-wage job, the media, academia and the arts.

"In Gaucho, I wanted to express the disillusion and alienation that this restoration of the centuries-old establishment meant to those of us who thought poorly of the new establishment and even more critically of the system they sought to reimpose on us. But the traditional means of expression had been snatched away and now everything was managed by a corrupt media, business and political class that was going to have its way and call it democracy."

The protagonist of Gaucho is Declan Moss, a drug dealer who exists in that shadowy realm of rogue capital, spying and international terror. Lucie adds that Moss is "a bloke who knew this, and through his chosen method waged a sort of war on those who were committing this social and political crime. And on their benighted followers, his former friends. Which made a play that is revolted by the immorality of our society, but can only express that revulsion by depicting a man stepping over the line and becoming an outlaw, because every other course of action is a sell-out."

I am looking for help to put this reading of Gaucho together. If Lucie and his work intrigue you, I invite you to head to the Indiegogo campaign I have set up to help make this chance for Washington DC audiences to hear Lucie's work happen in February.

The Final Five!

So we're finally at the final five shows in the WSC Avant Bard production of Nero/Pseudo and tickets are going fast. Let's just say the The Shop at Fort Fringe will have the feel of the amphitheatre for these last few shows of our run.

There's also been some terrific news about my musical collaborators Jon Langford and Jim Elkington as we head into the home stretch.

Langford capped off a successful nationwide tour for his new Skull Orchard record Here Be Monsters with an article in early May in the granddaddy of all rock publications: Rolling Stone (below).

Elkington is also in the news, picking up a coveted gig as the guitarist on Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy's June solo tour. 

I collaborated with two pretty amazing musicians.

And I was also very honored that my friend Hussein Ibish found time to do an interview with me about the show. We talked political rupture, Bowie and Roxy, and the contemporary resonances of the show's mash up of the classical world and the glitter of glam rock. (Warning: slight spoiler alert.)

Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are on sale here.

Nero/Pseudo: Gods and Emperors

As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo, I have also asked Alan Katz -- the dramaturg of the show -- to share some of his wisdom and wit about the ancient world. This is his third look inside the world of the play. Check out his his first two posts on the world of the Greek taberna and on Nero and graffiti as well.)

Every people have gods to suit their circumstances
-- Henry David Thoreau


When I am dramaturging plays that are from or are set in the ancient world, one of the most difficult concepts to communicate is the ancient view of religion and gods. The problem is that the modern mind has been poisoned against “paganism” by a fire hose of monotheistic religions that have burned, tortured, bought, and conquered their way into domination of the modern mind (Did I say poisoned? I meant “gently influenced.”). Ancient Greek and Roman deities had functions that were significantly different from the way we envision divine beings today.

This isn't to say that ancient Greeks and Romans had no concept of monotheism. For Greeks going all the way back to Plato, various philosophical writings implied or proposed the existence of a single god as we would think of it. This god often came in the form of The One (Τὸ Ἕν for the Grecophiles keeping score at home) who is seen as the creator of the universe: the first cause from which all other causes and effects derive. A god in the “set it and forget it” mold of creators, what today would be called “Deism.” But this view was not wholly satisfactory for many ancient peoples. Behind this dissatisfaction is the reason that humans worship gods at all: we need to think that someone is in control of the things that we cannot control. There’s a reason that some of the first gods that humans created were gods of big natural elements like the Sun and storms, having a god that is in charge of incomprehensible elements gives humans a sense of control over those elements. As society expanded, so did the pantheon, so Romans had many gods for even the human-created woes of the world. In Nero/Pseudo, Richard expresses this attitude beautifully when news from Rome foils the plans of Chrysis and Stratocles, and Stratocles blames Chrysis. She says “Blame Mercury, not me!” Mercury (dealing with man-made phenomena like travel, medicine, news and merchants) was not the lowest god of the pantheon, but he was also not the highest. Gods of phenomena that were bigger and more mysterious were considered more important, with some subservient to others through “family trees,” creating a sort of mini-society of gods. Romans also had a sense of the hierarchy of deities (usually placing Jupiter at the top) in a way which reflected the hierarchy of their society.

That the gods reflect society and that religion was an essential part of the state are the keys to understanding the ancient view of religion. The cult of each god had followers because the worship of that deity helped a wide swath of people feel like they had a place in society: Merchants worshiping Mercury, soldiers worshiping Mars, mothers and wives worshiping Juno. Gods (and the stories of them in lore) told their followers how they should behave, what virtues they should value and what vices to avoid. If you wonder why ancient Greek and Roman gods always act so damn human in myths and don’t have the same insistence on infallibility that certain monotheistic gods have, this modelling for human behavior is one great explanation. The vast pantheon of gods and myths associated with them had lessons for everyone in almost any situation, much like the saints and their stories in the Catholic Church.

Not only were there many gods that addressed the behavior of people and their place in society, but each major gods had aspects, expressed through different names (called epithets), that brought diverse occupations and locations into the “mainstream pantheon.” Individual cities have their own versions of the main gods, so a city or tribe might have their own Zeus with different aesthetic representations or purposes than other Zeuses. More importantly, because the main gods covered so many aspects of life and nature, each god had incarnations that reflected that gods function. For example, Apollo was not only god of the Sun, but also a god of music, and his incarnation Apollo Citharoedus (“plays the cithara”) is seen on many statues carrying his stringed instrument. Nero was often depicted as Apollo Citharoedus, since he also played the instrument and was a god. Wait, what?

Woe is me! I think I am becoming a god!
-- Roman Emperor Vespasian while dying

Wait, what? Nero was a god? Today, it is more likely that a political leader will be portrayed as Nero than as a god. But Nero was portrayed as a god all the time by both his propaganda and by common people who ascribed to the “imperial cult.” The imperial cult began with Julius Caesar, whose dictatorship made the Roman emperor the embodiment of the state. Either just before or just after Julius’ death (probably after, but it is hard to tell since sources are, well, 2000 goddamn years old), he was called Divus Julius, with giant statues erected to him, his birthday made into a public festival, and Augustus, his successor, even building a temple to him. The Roman Senate declared him an official god after his death at the strong (read: violent) urging of the populace.This official deification was very important. He was the first historical figure to be deified and put into the same pantheon as the other gods of the Romans. He became the patron of the imperial order that stabilized Rome after the civil wars that followed his death.  Augustus took advantage of the populace’s fervor and found the imperial cult useful in establishing control. He would portray himself as godlike without ever coming out and saying that he was a god. (People would be all “Hey, Augustus, are you, like, a god or something?” and he would be all, “No, no, I’m just another senator who sends people to be crucified, but I only do that to people who ask too many questions.”)

While officially turning into a god was reserved for an emperor post-mortem, the emperor was practically a god in life and was crucial to the state religion because now the state had its own representative in the pantheon. And now everyone was forced to treat the emperor basically like a god, making sacrifices to him, criminalizing open dissent, and reliance only on the emperor’s self-control to prevent a megalomaniacal dictatorship. Some of the emperors had that restraint. Tiberius and Claudius were efficient administrators, but not beloved of the populace or too big in the head.

Speaking of big in the head, perhaps now is the best time to talk about Caligula and Nero. Caligula was Nero’s uncle and,  famously, fucking nuts. He took the imperial cult more seriously than any of his predecessors, and often portrayed himself as the incarnation of several different gods. Most devastating to his reign, however, was his deep and abiding love of pissing off anyone who had a significant amount of power.

Nero was an emperor in Caligula school.  He not only portrayed himself as a god, but all evidence shows that he firmly believed that he was one. He didn't want to wait until after death to enjoy being a god, so Nero did all of the god-like things he wanted to do, like make senators commit suicide, set up elaborate spectacles that showed him bringing the sun to earth, and take the stage to play the greatest heroes of legend. There was no equivocation about Nero’s god-status; he mandated that people address him as Apollo because of his music playing ability, that coins displayed him as Jupiter, and that he was a charioteer equal to Sol (who drove the Sun around in his chariot). This is the equivalent of having a president who portrays himself as the world’s greatest rockstar, NASCAR driver, and king of all religions and governments.

It’s no surprise then, that the Roman world went as nuts as he was when he died, leaving the greatest power vacuum in the past hundred years or more. None of the elites (who had been seriously repressed by Nero) had the charisma or the claim to fill that vacuum, and the common people who had loved and worshipped Nero couldn't believe he was dead.

He couldn't be dead; not a god like Nero. After all, Nero had survived so many conspiracies and assassination attempts that this must just be another false alarm. Nero must have escaped this time. Maybe he would do what he did as emperor and disguise himself, playing his music in taverns to get by. And, as Nero/Pseudo opens, there is a mysterious stranger from far off who enters the Taverna Imperial, offering to play the songs of Nero, who else could it be?

(Image: The Apotheosis of Claudius, via Creative Commons.)

Nero/Pseudo is now open at The Shop at Fort Fringe. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: The Playwright Answers

I hope readers of Balkans via Bohemia have enjoyed meeting the cast and members of the creative team behind WSC Avant Bard's world premiere of Nero/Pseudo.

I am extraordinarily proud of the show you'll see officially starting with tonight's opening -- and I'm sure that my intrepid and talented collaborators Jim Elkington and Jon Langford will be proud as well. Our director, Patrick Pearson, and musical director John-Michael d'Haviland, have done an amazing job with a piece that stretches out the concept of the traditional musical. And our cast? Bradley Foster Smith, Gillian Shelly, Lee Liebeskind, Alani Kravitz, Ryan Alan Jones and Brian McDermott rock!

I wrote a program note for the show so I won't recapitulate that here. (Come see the show and read it!) But I do want to acknowledge a few people who have helped make Nero/Pseudo happen.

Plays don't have to be produced. At many moments, people help the playwright keep the momentum. Actor Gwen Grastorf, writer Jim McNeill and director Jessica Lefkow gave the play constructively critical early readings. And one of D.C.'s finest actors -- Sara Barker -- took the play to WSC Avant Bard and helped convince artistic director Christopher Henley to do a reading at Artisphere in May 2012. Sara is the guardian angel of Nero/Pseudo. Period.

That reading was a tremendous success -- thanks to the Colin Stanley Hovde's expert direction and the talents of not only Bradley Foster Smith but also Kari Ginsburg, John Tweel, Nathaniel Mendez, Mundy Spears, James Finley and Heather Haney reading stage directions.

The momentum only grew thanks to the indefatigable Kathleen Warnock -- who convinced Paul Adams and the Emerging Artists Theatre to give the play a New York City Reading in February 2013.

That's where the amazing Melisa Annis comes in. Melisa took the whole reading on her shoulders and cast a terrific group of actors: Nesha Ward, David Omar Davila, Shad Olsen, Allyson Pace, Christianne Greiert, Ashley Grombol, Deanna Henson and Michael Cortez. That reading led to the addition of new songs and a tighter faster snappier script.

It was that version of the play that WSC Avant Bard artistic director Tom Prewitt selected for this season. I am grateful that he has taken it from development to this production.

Throughout this process, the playwright has been asking the creative team three questions about antiquity and glam rock -- the twin foundations of the play. As we embark tonight, I will answer them as well:

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

The character from antiquity and myth that has haunted me the most since childhood is Persephone. Abducted, tricked, forced to spend three to six months in the underworld each year. How is any of that her fault? And yet she lives the double life. The perpetual leavetakings and returns. It is a story that touches me deeply.

Then there is Bubo the mechanical owl from the first Clash of the Titans. Neither person nor god but always worth mentioning.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

Our dramaturg Alan Katz told us all that the Greeks so often spun themselves into a ritual frenzy in which they tore apart and then ate fellow citizens who somehow found themselves in the way that they even had a word for it: Sparagmos.

If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree?

An outright ban on the notion that corporations are people and that money is speech.

Nero/Pseudo opens at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Wednesday, May 7. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Composer Jon Langford

(Here at Balkans via Bohemia, I have been introducing readers to key members of the Nero/Pseudo creative team. Today you'll meet the legendary Jon Langford -- who along with Jim Elkington -- wrote the fabulously glamtastic music for Nero/Pseudo .)

In the mid-1980s, I discovered the work of the Mekons -- and the band's key ringleader Jon Langford. They'd already morphed from the DIY punk band that so entranced Lester Bangs into pioneers of alt-country via the 1984/85 miner's strike. (I think the first Mekons' record I bought was The Mekons Honky Tonkin' in 1987 and I worked my way backwards.)

And, of course, I followed the Mekons forward. I was in the generation of rock critics who championed the Mekons because no one was making music as smart, passionate and complex -- and yet it was also music rooted in the blood, sweat, jizz and tears that irrigate all great rock'n'roll. It was the era of Option magazine's "Mekons Watch" -- which treated the band with the same slavish overattention that Creem had treated the likes of Bebe Buell and The Ramones and Debbie Harry and other NYC stalwarts of the 70s. The Mekons were our heroes. (And still are, actually. Their last record, Ancient and Modern, ranks among their best.) They are the band that can get even the most jaded rock critic pogo-ing and singing along -- or weighing in tweedily.

I actually got to know Jon Langford when I came back from my year in Prague in 1991-1992 and eventually moved back to St. Louis. I was the arts editor of the Riverfront Times and in that role I was able to get our newspaper to run a music strip that he created with Colin B. Morton called "Great Pop Things." I went up to Chicago to meet him. (A bottle of Talisker was suggested by a mutual friend to break the ice. Or, wait. No ice. It's single malt. Just water please.) Since then we've been running into each other in various places through the years, and I've been supportive and written about a number of Langford's projects -- including the Waco Brothers and Skull Orchard.

When I had the idea to incorporate glam rock songs into Nero/Pseudo (it had started as a drama), I knew that Jon and his abiding love for glam rock made him the first and only choice. So I flew out to chilly Chicago in January 2011 to ask him if he'd do it. He eventually said yes and brought the amazing Jim Elkington along for our ride. And you can see the results of our work over the next month in Washington, DC.

I still have to pinch myself that I am collaborating with one of my personal heroes. Because aside from being talented, Jon is one of the kindest and funniest people who has ever donned a guitar. (His commencement speech at UIC last year is a stone classic.) And he just keeps going from strength to strength, as his new Skull Orchard record Here Be Monsters amply demonstrates. I'm so proud to work with him and so proud of what our mighty Langford/Elkington/Byrne triumvirate of words and music has accomplished thus far.

I asked Jon a few questions about glam rock and his personal relationship with the genre:

1) What's your earliest glam memory? When did glam first come to your attention?

T.Rex on the Top 40 countdown in my Mum's kitchen December 1971... something about "Jeepster" stirred me in a way no music had stirred me before... then Slade, then Bowie's "Starman," then Roxy Music... Glam took pop music back from the hippies and gave it to the wannabe football hooligans

2) What elements of glam rock did you find particularly appealing and/or useful when writing the music for the play?

We tried to capture the atmosphere of all the best stuff... Glitterband, Ziggy Stardust, Alvin Stardust, anything shiny really. There's an anthemic element that I really like.

3) Glam rock was predominantly British phenomenon. (To the extent that The Sweet were bigger in the US than even T. Rex.) And it didn't last all that long. Why has it remained such a memorable UK cultural export despite its brevity?

Music plunged into a sad trench of seriousness and virtuosity after glam... Punk reclaimed the goofy panto spirit and added swearing and spitting. No punk without glam and punk didn't last long either. The Roman Empire would have been better briefer methinks....

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale.

Nero/Pseudo: Composer Jim Elkington on Glam

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to key members of the creative team of the show. Today you'll meet Jim Elkington -- who along with Jon Langford -- wrote the fabulously glamtastic music for Nero/Pseudo .)

Writing music with Jim Elkington has been one of the highlights of my creative life. 

Not only is Jim a sublimely talented guitarist, percussionist and producer -- but his songwriting has tremendous wit and substantial depths lurking beneath his fiercely melodic surfaces, 

Like Jon Langford, Jim is based in Chicago. If you're not familiar with his solo projects, speed to your iTunes or eMusic or what ever you prefer and have a listen to his four records as leader of elegant and whipsmart band The Zincs: Black Pompadour (2007); dimmer (2005); Forty Winks with the Zincs (2004); Moth and Marriage (2001).

Jim is also involved with a number of other projects. He's made two records as The Horse's Ha (Of the Cathmawr Yards in 2009 and Waterdrawn in 2014) in collaboration with Janet Bean of Freakwater. These are amazing records that really capture and renovate the sounds of English folk rock from the Fairport Covention, Nick Drake, John Martyn period. He as also recorded a guitar duet record with Nathan Salsburg title Avos (2011), and he co-wrote and produced a number of tracks on Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab)’s record Silencio (2012).

To give Nero/Pseudo audiences a little peek behind the musical process, I asked Jim a few questions about his own relationship with glam rock:

What's your earliest glam memory? When did glam first come to your attention?

I'd love to say it was Sparks, who got to #1 in England in 1974 with "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us," but I have a much worse feeling that it was The Bay City Rollers when I was about 8 years old on an English TV show called Cheggers Plays Pop.  I was born in 1971, which means that I grew up knowing nothing other than glam rock: I remember thinking that The Police looked weird because they weren't wearing lipstick.

What elements of glam rock did you find particularly appealing and/or useful when writing the music for the play?

ALL OF IT!  Jon and I are huge fans of that musical era and I think it plays a part in some of the things I do musically anyway, so being given the opportunity to really let our glam flag fly was very appealing.  The bigger problem was not what to use, but what to leave out, so the songs have ended up as composites of more than one band or style. I think "Saturn's Return" starts out sounding like Roxy Music but switches to Slade in the chorus because we were desperate to get both bands referenced.

Glam rock was predominantly British phenomenon. (To the extent that The Sweet were bigger in the US than even glam pioneers T. Rex.) And it didn't last all that long. Why has it remained such a memorable UK cultural export despite its brevity?

Well, like ancient Rome, you can't really consider glam rock without considering the excess of it and the fact that excessive situations tend to have an in-built time limit - I think that's why it didn't last that long.  It seemed to be inviting punk along in opposition, although the musical difference between punk and glam isn't really that huge. I think its memorable as a UK export because I'm not sure it could ever have happened here in the States. English culture has an interesting relationship with gender and cross-dressing (its evident from Shakespeare's era and before), but glam put those questions on a street level in the UK for the first time, as far as I know. It was actually considered masculine for a man, at the end of a week of bricklaying, to perm his hair, put on some eyeliner and hit the clubs. It terrified the previous generation in the UK, and I'm not sure the US was ready for that kind of shift at the time.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Bradley Foster Smith

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia. I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show. Today it's Bradley Foster Smith, who plays Pontus.)

When Nero/Pseudo had its first ever reading at WSC Avant Bard in May 2012, director Colin Hovde asked Bradley Foster Smith to play the role of Pontus. It was an inspired choice. Bradley is an accomplished actor, singer and musician and his interpretation of the role won him not only the admiration of the playwright, but also the writers of Nero/Pseudo's music: Jim Elkington and Jon Langford.

In fact, my collaborators loved Bradley so much that they'd ask about him regularly as the play wound through the development process and ever closer to casting the first production.

"He's a good lad," Langford said on a few occasions.

So all three of us are delighted that Bradley is playing Pontus in the world premiere.

Bradley is a company member of Keegan Theatre where he has performed in Golden Boy, The Crucible (2011 Ireland Tour), Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Twelve Angry Men, All My Sons, the Helen Hayes-nominated production of Cabaret, A Behanding in Spokane, and A Few Good Men. His appearance as Mr. Pippet in 1st Stage's Suite Surrender garnered him a 2013 Helen Hayes nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor.

He has also appeared around the DC area in From Here To There and Inside Out (Imagination Stage); Scapin (Constellation Theatre); The Tempest (Prince George County Shakespeare in the Park); But Love Is My Middle Name! (2011 DC Fringe); Stage  Door (TACT); and The Making of a Modern Folk Hero (2011 Source Festival). His regional theatre credits include Noises Off (Totem Pole Playhouse); A Christmas Carol, Romeo and Juliet, and The Taming of the Shrew (North Carolina Shakespeare Festival); and numerous community and dinner theatre roles in his hometown of Johnson City, Tennessee.

Bradley already has a busy slate coming up, including A Midsummer Night's Dream with Prince George County Shakespeare in the Park) and Marie Antoinette at Woolly Mammoth. He kindly offered answers to the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

I remember my father telling me the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth and of Daedalus and Icarus, and those made a deep impression, especially the flight of Icarus.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

David Bowie suffers from an eye condition that makes his left iris incapable of contracting.  It's perpetually dilated.

If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

Before this millennium is out, we will land a centurion on Phoebus.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday, May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Gillian Shelly

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show. Today we meet Gillian Shelly.) 

I first met Gillian Shelly when she was helping DC film and stage director (and marvelous actor) Joel Santner and Yellow Bow Tie Productions produce his independent film Bare Knuckle  (I helped Joel a bit with the script.)

Gillian had an extended stint with Joel in DC's neverending run of Sheer Madness at the Kennedy Center -- but it was when I saw her as the Gypsy in Dizzy Miss Lizzie's Roadside Review's wonderful cabaret musical The Brontes that I knew I wanted to work with her as a playwright. The Brontes was a big hit at Capital Fringe and Gillian rode along with the Dizzies to the New York Musical Theatre Festival and the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage

I finally got my chance when we cast Gillian as Chrysis in Nero/Pseudo, where our production is getting all the benefit of Gillian's voice, smarts and wicked sense of fun.

Gillian's other regional credits include Private Lives (Sybil) at Olney Theatre; A Man of No Importance (Lily) at Bay Theatre Company; Rapunzel (The Witch) at Imagination Stage; Seussical (Gertrude), Grease (Rizzo), ...Charlie Brown (Lucy) and The Wizard of Oz (Wicked Witch) at Toby’s Dinner Theatre (Columbia), as well as the area premiere of The Rough Guide to the Underworld (Rita/Stacy/Medea) at Riverrun Theatre Co.

Her NY/DC Fringe appearances include: Landless Theatre’s Diamond Dead (Pussy), ClassiqueNouveau’s One Thousand and One Days (Scheherazade), and the award-winning premiere of Super Claudio Bros. She also played Helen in the original concept cast of Night of the Living Dead (The Musical).

Phew. And when Gillian's not doing all that, she is also the Managing Director for Factory 449. But busy as she is, Gillian could not escape the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience:

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

I always thought my favorite was Tyche (also known as Fortuna), the goddess of fortune, chance, and fate. The concept that no matter how bad you have it there is always the chance that good things will come your way. For me she stood for hope. It wasn't until I started working on Nero/Pseudo that I realized that she is considered a counterpart of Nemesis -- a goddess who believed no one should ever have too much good fortune and if judged thus she would tilt the scales in the opposite direction to keep you honest. That is when I realized that all this time I have been focusing on the wrong goddess: Nemesis is MUCH more appealing to me. The fact that you will be rewarded for your labors but also the fact that you have to stay honest and grounded or she will straight up eyeball gouge you. Yeah. I go with Nemesis. She's badass and fair. I'll take it.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

Well, it isn't strange, but it was something I never really thought about. Glam rockers -- the ones whom we consider the true pioneers of glam rock -- are all male. I suppose I should have known that considering that I have listened to their music my whole life, but it wasn't until I started researching, trying to find a few women to help me shape my role, that it really became apparent. (Yes, there were some women breaking in but it was definitely a David Bowie/Gary Glitter kinda world.) Something learned about the ancient world? That the Roman army drank something called Posca made of herbs, water, and sour wine because it wouldn't cause drunkenness or cholera. One of those is a good reason. One is just a waste of a good wine buzz.

If you were Empress for a day, what would be your first decree? 

That we adopt the siesta and a big family/friends meal in the middle of the afternoon all across the country (so good for so many reasons), that we figure out a way to even out salary disparities and how we judge which jobs are the most important, that Alzheimer's and dementia are no more, that we spay and neuter our pets, and that I get my teleporter. (That counts as one decree because I used commas. That's the rule. I decree that too. Because I can.)

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Sarah Ripper

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show. Today it's our amazing movement coach Sarah Ripper.)

So much of the joy in watching a play you've written take shape is watching actors move and make the words and gestures real.

Nero/Pseudo director Patrick Pearson asked Sarah Ripper to be the production's movement coach, and her talent and positivity and energy are rippling through our production.

Sarah earned her M.A. in Educational Theatre from NYU, and received her B.F.A. in Musical Theatre from Sam Houston State University. In 2008-2009 she toured Asia in Cinderella (Ensemble), starring Tony Award Winner Lea Salonga. Her original work credits include Looking For Billy Haines (Swing), Forward Flux's production of Robot Songs (Woman #1) at Theatre Lab in NYC, and the world premier of Deborah Zoe Laufer's META (co-choreographer) at NYU Steinhardt. Sarah is also a teaching artist at Acting Out! in Brooklyn, NY.

I was delighted that Sarah was willing to answer the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience:

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

The Goddess Demeter. She was the nurturing, protective, and agricultural goddess...basically mother Earth. I find it fascinating that when her daughter was held captive by Hades four months a year, she took her vengeance on the world and created winter. Don't mess with Demeter!

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

When doing some research of female glam rock artists, I came across the name Jayne County, who was rock's first transsexual singer. I find it strange that I never heard of Jayne until now. Check out her song and performance of "Are You Man Enough to Be a Woman?"

If you were Empress for a day, what would be your first decree? 

My first decree would be that everyone would love and treat others as they would love to be treated. Love, peace, and rock 'n roll!

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday, May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Laura Schlachtmeyer

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show. Today I feature stage manager Laura Schlachtmeyer.) 

Nothing really happens on a production without the stage manager. Our production of Nero/Pseudo at WSC Avant Bard is extraordinarily fortunate to have landed Laura Schlachtmeyer -- a recent arrival in DC -- to make our chariots run on time.

This is how fortunate we are: Laura received the 2011 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Stage Manager. It is the only such award for stage managers in the United States.

Laura has worked from coast to coast as a stage manager, from Tony N' Tina's Wedding (Chicago) to Killing My Lobster sketch comedy (San Francisco) to a position as a technical collaborator with the New York Neo-Futurists.

Laura is also a playwright whose short plays have been featured in the EstroGenius and InGenius festivals at Manhattan Theatre Source. She has also produced several independent sci-fi feature films. (Yes, they are on Netflix and iTunes!)

Even closer to the playwright's heart, however, is that Laura has translated plays by two of his favorite German dramatists: Georg Büchner (Woyzeck) and Ernst Toller (Masse Mensch). Both translations were also produced at Manhattan Theatre Source.

Would Laura consider a trifecta and translate Odon von Horvath's late (and still untranslated into English) play Pompeji: Komödie eines Erdbeben? I haven't asked her yet. Perhaps she's had enough of Rome. But she did answer the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

I like all the monsters, as a general group. It would be awesome and scary to live in the same world as all those Scyllas and Charybdises and Hydras and Sirens and Gorgons and Minotaurs and Sphinxes.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

Auguries are neat. It's such a natural human urge to want to predict the future and get guidance for our choices. And there's something beautiful about the idea that all life is connected, to the point that human events can be connected to natural events like birds in flight. I can't exactly think of a glam-rock equivalent. But I think we all know the feeling when that certain song comes on the radio, and we interpret it as a good or bad omen. (People still listen to the radio, right? Sometimes? In the car maybe?)

If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

See, the hardest part of being a supreme ruler is to feel sure that your decrees are really helping people. That's why as Emperor I would make keys illegal. (I wouldn't concern myself with what keys are replaced by, if anything. Biometrics. Voice recognition. Abolition of property ownership. Whatever.) That way I would be sure that everyone gets at least 5 minutes back in their day -- the time they would have otherwise spent looking for their keys. People would get where they were going on time, productivity would go up, and the welfare of my Empire would be secured.

Nero/Pseudo: Dress for Success

(One of the terrific things about writing a play that gleefully mashes up the ancient world and the age of glam rock is that it really encourages the designers on team let their imaginations run wild. That's been true for Nero/Pseudo costume designer Elizabeth Ennis, who has provided a special guest post for Balkans via Bohemia on her process in designing the costumes for the play.)

I love anachronism. I really do. When used intentionally, I think it can inspire a lot of creativity. So when I get a chance to do a "mash-up" of time periods when costuming a show, I run with it. This is actually my second "mash-up" show for WSC Avant Bard (back in November I costumed King John as a cross between Medieval England and Cold War America), so I've taken this approach before -- looking at the Ancient world through the lens of the 20th Century.

In the case of Nero/Pseudo, we're imagining how a 1970's glam rocker might have interpreted Roman history. For my research I looked at movies and TV shows that were produced in the late 60's to early 70's and that were set in Ancient Greece or Rome. My favorite material actually comes from Star Trek: The Original Series. I've been a Trekkie since middle school, and I especially love the costume designs by William Ware Theiss. He did some incredibly imaginative work. There were several episodes when the Enterprise crew encountered worlds and characters from ancient history, and that's where I got a lot of my inspiration. Theiss made all these gorgeously draped dressed in psychedelic prints and shimmering lamé fabrics. And of course, over-the-top hair and make-up. That's what I'm aiming for in Nero/Pseudo.

Elizabeth also cheerfully answered the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience:


Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

Themistocles. One of my favorite things I learned in 11th grade World Civ was the story of his victory over Xerxes at Salamis during the Greco-Persian War. It involved strategy, subterfuge, and the exploitation of Xerxes' ego. I remember thinking it was the coolest, cleverest, most inspiring piece of history I had ever heard. Somehow I don't think 300: Rise of an Empire did it justice.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

For me personally, the strangest fact is that I've made it this far with out becoming totally obsessed with David Bowie. It was overdue, and now I can't stop listening to "Life on Mars." And what a fashion icon he was! I want this suit. Who doesn't?

If you were Empress for a day, what would be your first decree?

More sequins. FOR EVERYONE.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: Meet John-Michael d’Haviland

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show.) 

One of the real pleasures of the Nero/Pseudo process has been getting to know our music director John-Michael d’Haviland. He's got a terrific ear and has worked with the actors closely to get them as a glam as possible before we start our previews.

John-Michael holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Music from George Mason University. Since 2001, he has received twelve WATCH (Washington Area Theater Community Honors) Award nominations for “Outstanding Music Direction.” In 2011, he received a WATCH AWARD for “Outstanding Music Direction” of Rent and again in 2013, for A Little Night Music. Also an active actor and musical theater performer, some of his favorite roles include Coalhouse Walker, Jr., (Ragtime), Noah “Horse” Simmons, (The Full Monty), Jake (Side Show), Eddie Mackrel (The Wild Party, LaChiusa) and Tom Collins (Rent).

John-Michael also has worked at the Keegan Theatre, Arena Stage, and Round House Theater as a musical theater and vocal instructor. He trained at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut.

His answers to the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo process are succinct but deep. Very much like JM is in the rehearsal room.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

Haha...random one -- the 100-handed ones, the Hekatonkheires. Been fascinated by those giants, since I was a kid.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

How musically diverse glam-rock is and the outrageously awesome fashion that emerged from it.

If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

Teachers and artists would, forever, be paid in the same salary range as professional basketball and football coaches.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: The Writing on The Wall

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I have also asked Alan Katz -- the dramaturg of the show -- to share some of his wisdom and wit about the ancient world as guest posts on the blog. This is his second look inside the world of the play ]. If you missed his first post on the world of the Greek taberna, it's here.)

There are quite a few historical and literary sources (Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio) that survive from the first century, the period in which Nero/Pseudo is set. They describe the reign of Nero with derision, and gleefully recount his fall as the just and popular end of a tyrant’s rule. However, as most historians can tell you, most of what historians write is bullshit.

Historians often project their own opinions (and dare I say, insecurities) back onto history as they write, and are rarely able to capture the true feeling of the time. For gods’ sakes, Tacitus was 12 years old when Nero fell, and he is the historian who wrote closest to Nero’s time as Emperor. Historically, Nero also has the difficulty of being one of the most notorious oppressors of Christianity, who eventually won out as the official religious demagogues of the Roman Empire. And history is written by the winners.

But historians aren’t the only source from which we can draw information about the reign of Nero. Archaeology, especially in Pompeii (destroyed by volcano only a decade after Nero’s fall), has uncovered a great source on Nero: graffiti.

Graffiti was common in Rome and Roman territories, and it expressed exactly that, the common opinion and will of the people. We can learn amazing things about the use of graffiti in Roman culture from what has been preserved through the ages either by being buried and built over or through the preserving lava of Pompeii. Romans used graffiti like Craigslist (“A person interested in renting this property should contact Primus, the slave of Gnaeus”), Tinder (“Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you”), Yelp (“What a lot of tricks you use to deceive, innkeeper. You sell water but drink unmixed wine”), or Facebook (“The man I am having dinner with is a barbarian.”). Graffiti was also had its more traditional use. Namely, drawing penises.

This diversity applies to graffiti about Nero as well. In Pompeii, there were over 100 expressions of praise of various politicians throughout the city, and more than half of them were praise for Nero. But the mob is a fickle beast, and Nero took a hit in popularity when he drunkenly kicked his pregnant wife Poppaea, killing mother and child. After this incident, there is graffiti like Nero Alcaemon Orestes, a play on his name Nero Claudius Caesar, referencing mother-killers of myth, also referencing Nero’s murder of his own mother, Agrippina, after several failed attempts.

In Greece, however, where Nero/Pseudo is set, Nero had a special reason for being popular. A year before he fell from power, Nero took a grand tour of Greece. While he made some unpopular moves, like forcing many of the four-year cycle games (like the Olympics) to happen during his visit while he declared himself the winner, he also was incredibly generous to the Greek people. Nero not only gave allowances of grain away to Greek citizens, but also “gave freedom to Greece.” In this context, “freedom” means that Greece was no longer gave tribute to Rome and its denizens had extra rights. The Greeks, once the greatest power of the Mediterranean, were stoked to be freed from Roman oppression. So stoked in fact, that Greek coins with Nero’s face on them had “Jupiter the Liberator” stamped on the back of them.

But the Romans were pissed. Not only had Nero Greek-ifed Rome by changing the architecture and elevating the status of performers, he was giving rights that once belonged exclusively to Italians to the Greeks! For many Romans, this was the last straw. So while Nero was away in Greece, plots began to solidify against him in Rome, leading to his downfall about year after he came back. When the dust cleared from the civil wars after Nero’s downfall, the new Emperor Vespasian revoked Greece’s free status, a move that the Greeks knew would happen after they lost their beloved Nero.

The Greeks never forgot or stopped supporting Nero, and when they heard rumors of his fall, worry turned to hope turned to desperation. These rumors are flew around at the opening of Nero/Pseudo, when a woman sings the play's opening song, including the lines: “Oh, Greece, once free/Doomed to be/Subject again to slavery!”

So it is no surprise that it was in Greece where more rumors, this time of Nero’s triumphant return to Greece, started to be passed around. Then a lyre-player who looked an awful lot like Nero took the stage…

If you want to see what happens next, you have to see Nero/Pseudo!

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale.

(Image of Nero graffiti from Pompeii from Wikipedia Commons.)

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Ryan Alan Jones

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show.) 

Over the course of the Nero/Pseudo rehearsal process the role of our amazing Ensemble in the show just grows and grows. You've met Brian McDermott and Alani Kravitz -- now meet the third member of this amazing group: Ryan Alan Jones.

Ryan is making his WSC Avant Bard debut in Nero/Pseudo. You may have seen him as Melchior in Spring Awakening (Kensington Arts Theatre), Young Lad/Ben Nicholson in Pitmen Painters (1st Stage), Marquis of Dorset in Richard III (Virginia Shakespeare Festival), and the title character in Spooky Action Theatre’s Helen Hayes-nominated production of Optimism! or Voltaire’s Candide. He's got a website going at www.ryanalanjones.com so you can keep up with all his news.

Ryan gladly answered the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

As a person of the theatre I have undying ties to Dionysus (or Bacchus, depending on who you talk to). The holy festivals of Dionysus celebrated life and were the seeds of theatre. They incorporated dance, song, mask, puppetry, and of course copious amounts of alcohol. There is a Greek word ‘temenos’, a noun, which was a parcel of land dedicated to the worship of the gods. Sometimes this was a great and glorious temple, sometimes a simple grove of trees in the forest. In the case of Dionysus, these were the first theaters. I guess I just love that we are rooted in this sacred tradition. Every time we walk out onstage, we are celebrating life.

That being said, I don’t know a whole lot about Dionysus himself. A god I connect to personally is Anansi, a West African god often personified as a spider. He has this deceitful, mischievous thing going on, but he is also the storyteller of the pantheon. A trickster with a silver-tongue, he can convince anyone to do anything. In fact, he came to be a storyteller by tricking and capturing several other gods and then selling them to the sky god (think Zeus) in exchange for all the stories the sky god possessed. What I really like about him is he is this small, vulnerable spider, but he uses his intelligence and guile to prevail over creatures more powerful than himself.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

I learned that so frequently in Greek mythology is someone torn apart, limb from limb, by a crazed mob that they actually have a word for it: sparagmos. Funnily enough, most of the examples of sparagmos occur during the festivals of Dionysus. So you have this awesome celebration of humanity and life devolving into something animalistic and deadly. Crazy.

If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

I would decriminalize cannabis.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale.

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Lee Liebeskind

As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show.)

If you're involved in DC theatre then you likely know Lee Liebeskind as an actor, director, producer and avid member of the national theatre Twitter community (‏@LeeLiebeskind) We are so lucky to have him in the role of Stratocles in Nero/Pseudo.

Lee played Lord Burley in the truly magical WSC Avant Bard production of Schiller's Mary Stuart. He has also appeared (among many roles) at Rorschach Theatre in Neverwhere,1001, Dream Sailors, and Rough Magic; at Studio Second Stage in Astro Boy and The God of Comics; at Forum Theatre in Antigone; at Constellation Theatre Company in The Marriage of Figaro; and in Dog and Pony DC's Punch: thats the way we do it. He is a two-tour veteran of The National Players.

His credits as a director and producer are just as impressive. Lee is a founding member as well as the producing director of The Inkwell, and was recently a company member of Rorschach Theatre. He has directed for both The Source Festival and Rorschach Theatre.

Impressive as Lee is, however, he did not escape the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

 My favorite person/god from antiquity is any of the trickster gods. Anasi, Coyote, Loki, Monkey King, Puck.  I like the gods that played tricks on other gods and let them know that being all powerful didn't mean they weren't untouchable.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

The strangest fact about Glam Rock that I learned is that it was such a short period in music.  That it really only lasted for about 5 years but effected music for about 15 years after.  That the influence left its mark on everything from pop music to punk to heavy metal.

If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

If I was Emperor for a day, my first decree would be to fully fund the arts and that every Friday is Ice Cream Friday.

 Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale.

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Alani Kravitz

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show.) 

Alani Kravitz is one of the members of the ensemble of Nero/Pseudo -- a trio of actors who have completely wowed all of us with their smart, hilarious effervescence. She is a native DC resident who's been back in the 202 for two years after getting a BFA in Musical Theatre from Syracuse University. You may have seen here in DC in Faction of Fools/NextStop's Pinocchio! WSC Avant Bard's Friendship Betrayed, and Infinite Jest's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at Capital Fringe. Her other credits include The Cradle Will Rock and Lysistrata (Syracuse University); Shipwrecked! (Syracuse University/Edinburgh Fringe Festival); and A Phoenix Too Frequent (Unexpected Stage).

Alani was kind enough to play along with our three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

Dionysus (Greek god of wine, parties, debauchery, you get the picture), hands down. He had rabid devotees (almost entirely women) who would follow him and drunkenly frolic. They were also some of the most intense worshippers, as they would tear those who doubted him to shreds in an ecstatic trance. Dionysus was not a god to be denied, as 'frivolous' as his dominion seemed to be. The festivals dedicated to Dionysus eventually involved loose skits, and those skits eventually became plays, so you could say Dionysus is one of the reasons why we have theatre today. Also, he was the god of wine, and I happen to like wine very much.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

I found the worlds of Nero and just-post-Nero Rome and 70s glam rock fascinatingly similar. For one thing, there were similar feelings of political unrest, and a dire need for change (either to stability or anarchy). It's also incredibly interesting to me how Nero as a singer and performer was idolized to the point of deification. The Augustiani (Ryan Alan Jones, Brian McDermott and myself in the show) would be essentially his 'roadies' and actually lock the doors when he performed to keep anyone from leaving, and beat anyone who didn't clap hard enough. In the world of glam rock, you had these crazed teenage fanatics who, in their own way, worshipped their favorites the same way.


If you were Empress for a day, what would be your first decree? 

If I were Empress for a day, I think I would decree a maximum amount of hours per week people can work. I get very disheartened by the amount of people who have told me they don't have time for the things they want to do, because of the things they 'have to do'. That becomes an accepted reality. Sure, we all need to make a living, but I wonder sometimes if the ends justify the means. So, that is what I'd do. Dionysus would back me up, I'm sure.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: The World of the Greek Taberna

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I have also asked Alan Katz -- the dramaturg of the show -- to share some of his wisdom and wit about the ancient world as guest posts on the blog. This is his first look inside the world of the play.) 

In taberna quando sumus, 
non curamus quid sit humus, 
sed ad ludum properamus, 
cui semper insudamus. 
quid agatur in taberna 
ubi nummus est pincerna, 
hoc est opus ut quaeratur; 
si quid loquar, audiatur. 

-- Carmina Burana

“When we’re in the tavern,
We don’t give a fuck for grit
But we rush to gamble
We always sweat over it.
What goes on in the tavern
Where money brings the cup,
If you want to find out
You better listen up”

(Loose translation by Alan Katz)


One of my my main jobs as Nero/Pseudo dramaturg is to help flesh out the context of the production. In this particular case, that context includes the world of first century Greece, the seedy and sexy world of glam rock, the violent and occasionally hilarious antics of  Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, and how this new production fits into (or disrupts) the current DC theater scene. But before I can start digging into the kaleidoscope of influences harmonized in this play, I need to start with the most essential and practical element of the context of Nero/Pseudo: where the hell is the play set?

The first half of Nero/Pseudo takes place in a taverna. As you may know (or hope), the holy tradition of getting shit-housed on beverages made of  fermented grains and fruits has been around for thousands of years. Accompanying peoples’ desire to drink has been the desire to do said drinking  far away from the domestic abode, which is associated with the distasteful responsibilities of things like spouses, children, and laundry. On the face of it, a taverna is exactly that place of escape: just a shop, usually selling wine, food, and a place to fall asleep, perhaps in one’s own vomit.

But, much like Shakespeare’s Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap, the taverna of first century Greece was much more than a place to spend your whole paycheck on some old wreck. Imagine walking down an ancient Roman street. There’s a square cut out of a building on street-level, and from that aperture music, raucous swearing, and the smell of roasted meat float down the street. When you walk in, the floor is covered with chairs and tables, except for a stand in the center that the drunks are trying to knock down by flicking the dregs of their wine (Roman and Greek wine was unfiltered at the time, so the bottom was full of half-crushed grapes and sticks).  The walls are covered with graffiti of a classic tenor with verses like “Here Stratocles puked in my wine jug. He owes me 5 sestertii.” or “Chrysis makes the boys moan like girls.” The ceiling is hung with produce and meat of a far higher quality than ever would be served by the proprietor.

The people are the most interesting thing, though. The taverna is one of the few places where slaves and freemen could intermingle freely, and you might see a slave making a deal to tutor a rich man’s son to earn enough to buy his freedom. Musicians would probably be playing, either amateurs taking a crack at the public or pros brought in by the owner. There will probably be people tossing dice (actual knucklebones around this time), and you could find some of the shadiest and lowest class characters of first century Greece there: actors, hucksters, trickster slaves, low-ranking soldiers, and musicians. It would actually be surprising not to see women, especially ones selling services that only they can sell.

The fact that one of the characters in Nero/Pseudo, Chrysis, is a woman who runs a taverna is a neat touch for this play. We don’t have much information regarding who actually ran taverns, but it is a solid bet that a woman who ran a taverna would have to be a serious badass. Richard takes advantage of this interesting persona by making her essential to the main con of the play, but never letting go of the threat that she is under as a marginalized member of society. Chrysis just wants to preserve the meager place for which she worked her ass off, but the circumstances of the play take her a place she never expected.

Where does she go? Come see Nero/Pseudo and find out!

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

(Image of dice players from Pompeii from Wikipedia Commons.)

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Alan Katz

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show.) 

Nero/Pseudo is very fortunate Alan Katz as the production's dramaturg. He is a librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library. His knowledge of the classical era is pretty amazing (he reads ancient Greek), and he's revved up to speed on the magical world of glam rock as well.  He has previously worked as a dramaturg for WSC Avant Bard on the company's terrific production of Ally Currin's Caesar and Dada and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land.
to have

Alan is also a translator, poet, dog whisperer, house manager and Tweeter (@dcdramaturg). He will contribute guest posts to Balkans via Bohemia in the next few weeks about various aspects of the play, but first he had to answer the playwright's three questions about the Nero/Pseudo experience.

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

The awesomest person from antiquity is totally Diogenes, the Cynical philosopher. He lived in a jar and didn't take shit from anyone. Alexander the Great once asked him what he was doing in a pile of bones, and he said, "I'm looking for the bones of your father, but I can't tell them from the bones of a slave." Also, he took a shit in the theater. What a guy.

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

My favorite fact I've learned is about glam rock artist Alice Cooper. He performed with a freaking boa constrictor wrapped around his body. That's so hot.


If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

If I was emperor for the day, my first decree would be easy: declare war on Canada. Those maple-syrup-chugging hockey-lovers would never see it coming. Plus we could possess all of the poutine. I'd probably make weed legal, too, so we could dominate all of Canada's biggest industries.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: Meet Brian McDermott

(As part of my blogging about Nero/Pseudo here at Balkans via Bohemia, I will be introducing readers to members of the cast and creative team of the show.) 

Brian McDermott is a member of our terrific ensemble for the show. They play a lot of parts and have dazzled all of us -- and cracked us up -- from the first rehearsal.

Brian is a Marine Corps veteran and a student at George Mason University where he studies acting, writing, and directing with big dreams of one day making a payment on his student loans. He's been featured in Molotov Theatre Group's Normal, Quotidian Theatre Company's The Iceman Cometh, and Prince George's Little Theatre's Over the River and Through the Woods. He will sticking around at Fringe this summer, appearing in an opera called A Fire In Water presented by Silver Finch Arts.

Brian says he enjoys studying whisky, music, language, and food in his spare time. He also answered the three questions I'm posing to all members of the creative team:

Who is your favorite person/god from antiquity?

When I first started reaching back and exploring my Celtic roots, I really got into the mythology surrounding the Celtic Sun-God, Lugh. He is often referred to as the King of Celtic gods and is also seen as a master of all arts. I also really dig the mythos around the Greek god Dionysus -- the god of wine, merriment, ecstasy, and theatre. What's there not to love about that résumé?

What's the strangest fact about the ancient world or glam rock that you've learned from this experience?

One of the most interesting things I came across during this experience was that Nero convinced the Greeks to delay the Olympic games for a whole year so that he could compete in them, and to include artistic competitions such as singing and acting. It's rumoured that Nero was so pleased with the experience that he declared Greece to be exempt from paying taxes to Rome, which had been ruling Greece for around 200 years at that time.

If you were Emperor for a day, what would be your first decree? 

Four day weekends. Definitely.

Nero/Pseudo previews open at The Shop at Fort Fringe on Friday May 2. Find out more about the play at WSC Avant Bard. Tickets are now on sale. 

Nero/Pseudo: The Washington DC World Premiere

Well... I can finally announce it. My play. Nero/Pseudo, (with music by the amazing Jon Langford and Jim Elkington) will have its world premiere in a production by WSC Avant Bard (formerly Washington Shakespeare Company) at The Shop at Fort Fringe in Washington DC.

The opening night is Wednesday, May 7. (There will be a number of preview performances starting May 2.) The show closes Sunday, June 1.

It's very exciting to see a play that I started on a hot summer day in 2009 finally hit the stage. The process has been a long but fruitful one, including a May 2012 reading at Artisphere and a March 2013 reading at the Emerging Artists Theatre's New Works Festival.

Balkans via Bohemia is going to be a busy place over the next few weeks. I will be blogging about the show a little bit and introducing you to the creative team that's making it all happen. This will also be the place to look for guest posts from our dramaturg, Alan Katz, who will be dropping some deep classical knowledge. We might also leak a song or two from the production and have a contest or two.

Tickets are now on sale. Hope to see you there!

(Image: Graffiti of Nero from the Domus Tiberiana.)

Uncle Tupelo's No Depression

On Tuesday, January 28, 2014, Sony Legacy will release a deluxe edition of one of the most important records of the past 30 years: Uncle Tupelo's No Depression.

The record was first released by Rockville Records in June 1990, and slowly but surely Uncle Tupelo's hybrid of folk, country and punk took hold on the public imagination over the next three years (until the band's divergence into successor bands Son Volt and Wilco), helping to establish a branch of American music that remains vital to this day.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to write the liner notes for this new edition, largely because of my proximity to the band (as a music writer in St. Louis) during the time before and during the sessions for this record and the demo tape that helped secure the band its record deal (1989's Not Forever Just For Now).

The remastered tracks from that demo alone are worth the price tag for the new edition. Those who saw Uncle Tupelo live before they signed a record deal will likely tell you that they prefer one (or a couple) of the demo versions over the tracks on No Depression itself -- and that the demo captures the band at the moment when it was discovering its power and cohesion.

I'm not going to reproduce the liner notes here. (Ahem. Buy the record.) But one of the highlights of the project was not only talking to all three original members of the band (Jay Farrar, Mike Heidorn and Jeff Tweedy) but to Tupelo manager Tony Margherita, longtime friend of the band Steve Scariano, and to Not Forever Just For Now producer Matt Allison -- who to my knowledge had never been interviewed about his role in crafting the demo that helped launch the band into the American alternative rock scene.

Allison has gone on to an amazing career as the owner of Chicago’s Atlas Studios, where he has produced bands including Alkaline Trio, Less Than Jake, The Methadones and the Smoking Popes, but he still fondly recalls making the demo in an attic studio in Champaign, Illinois:

Allison says that as he and the band put the final touches to Not Forever, Just For Now, “I realized even more how exceptional the songs and the band were. I remember very clearly feeling the emotional power of the songs, and how I would occasionally lapse into temporary periods of true melancholy as I was recording them; this despite the fact that I was probably happier in my life than I'd ever been.”

I am often asked about Uncle Tupelo, and what I make of the band's meteoric rise, messy breakup and subsequent music. I am a fan of the music that both Farrar and Tweedy have made since they went their separate ways, and follow them pretty closely.

But what strikes me as I listen to this early music by both of these songwriters is the restlessness that both of them possessed even in the early days of the band that made their names. They were experimenting with forms and genres throughout the band's short but sweet existence, mixing things up, never staying in the same place. Their manager Tony Margherita put his finger on it precisely in a quote I use at the end of the notes:

Looking back at the band’s journey, manager Tony Margherita observes that the band “never stayed anywhere for very long. They were more a river than a lake.” 

Want to read more? Buy the record. And read this nice writeup in American Songwriter magazine while you're at it.