SOSEblog+news
Adam S. Oct 18
Dara Weinberg from LAist caught up with Preludes & Fugues playwright John Glore and SOSE Artistic Director Matt McCray for a fun Q&A on living and breathing theatre in LA. Here's a snip:
SOSE as a company is noted for its experimental, cutting-edge theatre. How did you find this original group, and how do you continue to find new members? Matthew: The company was founded by 11 people who wanted to work together because there was a level of mutual respect since many of us had worked together for years in college. In the very very beginning we weren't experimental at all.... We didn't know what we were. But we started to figure it out pretty quickly. We all sort of gravitated to experimental-type work. As for membership.... we don't add new members often, mainly because there is so much more to being in SOSE than our productions. It is difficult to find people interested in not only our "style" but also all the other things that go along with membership like administrative work. And, in terms of recruitment.... it is more likely for a prospective member to find us than it is for us to find them. Artists of a like-mind will often find each other --- it is all very mind-meld.
Link to the full interview on LAist
Link to the P&F review on LAist
Adam S. Oct 14
Today Dara Weinberg from LAist reviewed Preludes & Fugues:
Glore's writing puts a great burden of precision on the actors, and director Edgar Landa has blocked his actors as exactly as a composer writes his notes. Every gesture, every hesitation, seems perfect, and the actors behave more and more like dancers as the play progresses. The writing is difficult and sometimes obscure, but the actors are so passionately committed to the text that it is always emotionally present. This ensemble brings a difficult piece into clarity, with the substantial aid of Barbara Kallin's lighting and scenic design, and sound design by Sara Huddleston. Ryan Poulson's original score gives this production musical blood.
Link to the full review on LAist
Adam S. Oct 12
In the October 12 issue of LA Weekly, reviewed Preludes & Fugues. Here's the review:
Steven Leigh Morris
Four actors (Kristen Brennan, Jeremy Gabriel, Sharyn-genel Gabriel and Ray Paolantonio), playing testy musicians in a string quartet on the evening before a stressful concert, leave the rehearsal for various points of departure into personal reveries in the middle of the night. In their dream-state, the characters transform into Biblical personages and those from musical works, such as Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” while playwright John Glore treats language as music — toying with phrases and words, separating them from their meanings, for reasons having as much to do with their sound as with the drama they spark. Edgar Landa directs avery elegant production on a stage decorated in faux mahogany, and suspended screens cut into the torso shape of hanging, grand pianos. Brennan is particularly appealing as a precocious imp named Celia, having dropped in through the looking glass. She appears about 13 years old, speaks with an English accent and describes her “topsy-turvy” world to a trucker named Lewis, as in Carroll (Gabriel), with whom she’s just had sex. Glore’s wispy divisions between drama and music, and between life and literature, are abstruse elements in a bubbly literary experiment that’s both provocative and a provocation; any unifying idea eluded me.
Adam S. Oct 08
In the October 5th issue, BackStage West selected Preludes & Fugues as a Critic's Pick! Here's the review:
by Jennie Webb
As with listening to the fascinating, compelling, and sometimes disturbingly unwieldy elements within a piece of modern chamber music, it may take awhile to get into John Glore's new theatre piece while watching--and listening--to it. Then again, the connection to its distinctly musical passages of imagery and language and raw emotional modulations may never happen. But if it happens to you, you'll be hooked.
Read the rest of the review after the jump.
Continue reading "Backstage West chooses Preludes & Fugues as a Critic's Pick"
Adam S. Oct 08
On October 7th, The LA Times reviewed Preludes & Fugues. Here's the review:
F. Kathleen Foley
Worldly wise moppet Celia — anagram for Alice — has been forced out of her ideal looking-glass existence into the miserable "real" world. Sad, wise and ageless, she pines for her lost life during a one-night stand with a far older lover.
Curiouser and curiouser. That's an apt way to describe "Preludes & Fugues," John Glore's world-premiere play at Son of Semele in Silver Lake.
Read the rest of the review after the jump.
Continue reading "The LA Times review of Preludes & Fugues"
Adam S. Aug 30
Preludes & Fugues, by award-winning playwright John Glore, is an evening full of music, imagination, shared dreams and leaps of faith. The world premiere of this play, presented by Son of Semele Ensemble (SOSE), will run from September 29 through October 23, 2005, at Son of Semele in Silver Lake.
Directed by Ovation Award-winning director Edgar Landa, Preludes & Fugues explores the interpersonal relationships, dreams, fears and deep-seated yearnings of the musicians of the Morpheus String Quartet. After a frustrating and uninspired rehearsal, the four musicians (1st Violin, Viola, 2nd Violin and Cello) drift off into a fugue state where their dreams take flight from reality and create a piece of word-image-music far more beautiful than anything they had been able to create in rehearsal.
Los Angeles playwright John Glore recently became the Associate Artistic Director of South Coast Repertory (SCR) in Costa Mesa, CA. Glore served as the dramaturg for Center Theater Group from 2000 to 2005 and prior to that was literary manager at SCR for 15 years. As a playwright, Glore has had his plays produced throughout the country including at SCR, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Preludes & Fugues received a script workshop conducted by A.S.K. (Audrey Skirball Kenis Theatre Projects) in 2003. SOSE presented the play's final workshop in April 2004 as part of its RAPID reading series (Readings As Projects In Development).
The cast is comprised of SOSE members Kristen Brennan, Jeremy Gabriel, Sharyn-genel Gabriel, Ray Paolantonio, Robert Seay and Michelle Silver. Assistant direction is by Lindsay Allbaugh, costume design by Laina Annette Babb, lighting design by Barbara Kallir, sound design by Sara Huddleson and original music is composed and directed by Ryan Poulson.
Called one of the "hippest, hottest, most innovative theatre troupes in the U.S.", by American Theatre Magazine, SOSE is a collective of theatre professionals that recognizes emerging cultural questions through the production of new or under-exposed plays. The ensemble company, composed primarily of actors and directors, was featured on the cover of the December 2004 issue of American Theatre Magazine. SOSE was also profiled in the Winter/Spring 2005 issue of TheatreForum Magazine for its production of Carlos Murillo's A Human Interest Story. In November 2002, SOSE was honored with seven Ovation Award nominations for its production of Animal Farm, winning for Best Musical Production (intimate venue) and Best Director of a Musical (Edgar Landa). In February 2005, SOSE was recognized with an NAACP Theatre Award for Best Choreography for its 2004 production of The Tower, which received a total of four nominations including Best Ensemble Cast. Earlier this year SOSE presented the U.S. premiere of The Mysteries, adapted by Edward Kemp. For additional information on SOSE, rehearsal blogs, interviews, and podcasts, visit www.sonofsemele.org.
This production is made possible in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs.
Performances of Preludes & Fugues are Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m., with an additional performance on Monday, October 10 at 8 p.m. There will be no performance on Thursday, October 13.
Admission is $15.00. Tickets are available exclusively at www.sonofsemele.org or at the box office one half hour prior to show time. For more information, call (213) 351-3507 or visit www.sonofsemele.org. Son of Semele is located in Silver Lake, one mile west of Alvarado, at 3301 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004.
Download this media release (PDF)
Ray May 02
Ovation Award winning director, Edgar Landa is set to direct the World Premiere of John Glore's "Preludes & Fugues". P&F focuses on the interpersonal relationships of the musicians in the Morpheus String Quartet. Production marks Landa's 3rd round at the helm with SOSE, having directed Animal Farm (Ovation Award for Best Director of a Musical) and co-directed Film Is Evil; Radio Is Good. Other directing credits include The Ricardo Montalban Theatre in association with CTG, Shakespeare & Company, Vox Humana, Arizona State University and CSU Long Beach. Also, Landa has assistant directed at The Mark Taper Forum. As an actor with SOSE, Landa has appeared in The Mysteries, A Human Interest Story, Somewhere Someone Said, Peer Gynt and LAVA/Breath. Landa is also a fight choreographer and has staged violence at The Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, The MET, Tulane Shakespeare Festival and Shakespeare Orange County (2004 NAACP Theatre Award nominee). He is an alum of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and a graduate of the USC School of Theatre. Landa is Managing Director of SOSE. Rehearsals begin the week of August 15. Show opens September 29.