Welcome media, theater fans, and others (hi, Mom!) to SOSEnews central. Here's where you'll find the latest information on Son of Semele Ensemble's groundbreaking productions and new company initiatives. While our creativity explodes out of SOSEblog, SOSEnews is the left brain of the company: announcements, media releases, reviews, and the like.

For those of you whose in the media whose job may include keeping tabs on us, we've provided a seperate RSS feed just for SOSEnews (to your left). Of course, you have the option of really getting inside our heads by subscribing to both SOSEnews and SOSEblog. This is the first step in our forthcoming digital press kit, and should make it easy to keep up with everything at Son of Semele Ensemble. Look for more handy tools in the near future.

"Iphigenia..." nominated for 6 LA Weekly Awards

Son of Semele Ensemble's production of IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART (A RAVE FABLE) has been honored with six LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations.

SOSE's six nominations include:

Production Design
Lighting Design
Sound Design
Puppets
Masks
Multi-Media / Projections

Congrats to all the creative team members of "Iphigenia".

The awards are scheduled for April 9th, 2007, at 7:30pm. More information and a complete list of nominees can be found by clicking here.

Iphigenia Showcased in FITLA

Son of Semele's production of Iphigenia Crash Land Falls On The Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (A Rave Fable) by Caridad Svich is proud to be showcased in the 2006 International Latino Theatre Festival of Los Angeles (FITLA) ! Read the complete story about FITLA from the LA Times below or click here to read it on the LA Times website.

THEATER

Latino theater in limelight

Once a long shot, the FITLA festival turns 5, and it's broadening its reach and aspirations.

By Reed Johnson

Times Staff Writer

October 28, 2006

When the International Latino Theatre Festival of Los Angeles began in 2002, it was an ambitious, low-budget operation dependent on the kindness of strangers and countless volunteer hours.

Five years later, the festival (known by its Spanish-language acronym, FITLA) is still an ambitious, low-budget outfit that relies on sweat equity to cover its costs. But there's a difference.

FITLA started out as a long shot in a city where theater for many years existed in the film industry's long shadow. Top-drawer Spanish-language stage works were particularly hard to find, despite the region's vast Latino population.

Those conditions posed a steep challenge to FITLA's mission of bringing quality troupes and solo performers from throughout the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds to L.A. audiences, such as Malayerba of Ecuador and Peru's superb Yuyachkani ensemble, which has presented two signature works, "Antigone" and "Santiago," in Los Angeles.

"We thought we would last many years, but we had no idea how long we'd last," says Esther Maria Hernández, who was born and raised in Cuba and is a founding board member of FITLA and professor of theater and Spanish at Claremont McKenna College.

Gradually, however, the festival has boosted its odds of long-term survival by gaining sponsorship from the likes of Target Stores, the James Irvine Foundation, Ralph's Food 4 Less and Washington Mutual, as well as support from the California Arts Council and the National Performance Network. Meanwhile, its aspirations have continued to grow, even as FITLA recently has weathered the loss of some key artistic personnel, including former executive director William Flores, who resigned to pursue other projects.

Perhaps most significantly, this year's edition, which runs through Nov. 18, shows how FITLA has extended its reach beyond Southern California Latinos to a variety of L.A. audiences and venues. For example, the 2006 festival will close with the Los Angeles premiere of "The Fifth Commandment" (Nov. 16-18) at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles. In the performance piece, Costa Rican American artist Elia Arce and two locally recruited U.S. Marine veterans will use theater, music, film and video to examine the conflict between personal morality and the brutal imperatives of wartime.

FITLA also is partnering with Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica for a return engagement of "La oscura raíz" ("Dark Root") by the Mexican body-movement ensemble Teatro Línea de Sombra. Earlier this fall, as part of FITLA's "Mexico en Los Angeles" initiative, performances were held at two smaller venues in L.A., the 24th Street Theatre and the MET Theatre.

Jesus Castaños-Chima, a Los Angeles actor ("Quinceañera") and director who will direct the play "El jardín de los reyes" ("The Garden of the Kings"), says that the 24th Street Theatre, which is located in a heavily Latino-ized neighborhood near USC, has sought to expand its Spanish-speaking audience over the years.

Castaños-Chima says "El jardín," which will be performed by Project TLAUAS of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico, simultaneously speaks to Mexican immigrants' nostalgia for their homeland while also addressing the traumas that have afflicted their country: civil war, drug-related violence and domestic strife.

This has been "a critical year" for FITLA, Castaños-Chima says, as it had to cope with personnel and structural changes. Some even feared that the festival might be canceled. But "new blood" and energy have come into the organization, he asserts. "I think the people have redoubled their effort," he says, citing more sponsorships and an increased investment in publicizing the festival to give it more of a personality and identity.

FITLA, he believes, gradually has raised the level of cultural awareness among L.A.'s Latino community, which historically has included large numbers of immigrants with little formal education or exposure to the arts outside their native communities. "I think one of the premises of theater is to educate," he says.

In keeping with that goal, FITLA attempts to present a spectrum of theatrical styles, from conceptual and experimental pieces to the full-blown pageantry of "El oro de la revolución mexicana" ("The Gold of the Mexican Revolution"), which will be performed by another Sinaloan company, TATUAS, at Rancho El Farallon in El Monte. The spectacle, complete with horsemen, sword battles and flaming torches, re-creates a Sinaloan tradition in which performers re-create events from the Mexican Revolution on the banks of the Culiacán river in the state of Sinaloa.

Other festival events include the conceptual pairing of two plays with complementary themes, performed by Azar Teatro, from the Spanish city of Valladolid. In "La ultima noche de Giordano Bruno" ("The Last Night of Giordano Bruno") by the Italian playwright Renzo Sicco, science battles the necessity of dogma as a condemned man awaits execution by the Roman Inquisition, in a work reminiscent of Bertolt Brecht's "Life of Galileo."

The other piece, "El cruce sobre Niagara" ("Crossing the Niagara"), is based on the real-life exploits of the French tightrope artist known as Charles Blondin, whose breathtaking high-wire treks across the Niagara River are used in the play to explore questions of artistic illusion and moral truth.

And, there will be a twist on the classical Greek story of Iphigenia, the daughter and would-be sacrificial victim of the Greek king Agamemnon. In the English-language production by LA.-based Son of Semele Ensemble, Iphigenia becomes "the pampered daughter of a ruthless Latin American dictator" who flees her grim fate into "an Alice-in-Wonderland-style trip" in which she encounters the ghosts of the murdered women of the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez, and the atmosphere approximates that of a rave party. Pumping up the volume at the Nov. 3-Dec. 3 show at The Studio Space, 1238 W. 1st St., will be an "original techno-rock score," projections and "a virtual DJ."

It's all part of what Hernández characterizes as FITLA's continuing effort not only to bring the best of Latin theater to L.A., but to show that Latin culture is more than "mariachis in sombreros and salsa festivals."

"We are diversifying this vision of the Latino community," she says, to show that it is not "monolithic" but "a very diverse one, and very creative."

Iphigenia Opening at SOSE November 3!

SON OF SEMELE ENSEMBLE PRESENTS

THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF

IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL
THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART (A RAVE FABLE)

OPENING AT THE STUDIO SPACE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3

IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART (A RAVE FABLE), by Caridad Svich, receives its West Coast Premiere production with Son of Semele Ensemble (SOSE). IPHIGENIA hurls one of Greek tragedy’s most compelling sagas into a modern netherworld of mass-media overload, sex, drugs and mind-thumping trance music. IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) will run from November 3 through December 3, 2006, at The Studio Space in downtown Los Angeles.

Meet Iphigenia, the pampered daughter of a ruthless Latin American dictator who learns that her corrupt father is planning to sacrifice her life in order to get re-elected. To escape her fate, she embarks on an Alice-in-Wonderland-style trip through the dark fringes of society to reach a rave on the northernmost edge of the city. On her journey, she encounters the tormented ghosts of the Women of Juarez. IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) exists in a world where Greek tragedy meets modern media, rave culture, androgyny and the oppressed. Featuring an original techno-rock score, projections and a Virtual DJ at the helm, IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) transports you to a place where the bass keeps pumping and the bodies keep throbbing until dawn.

IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) was written by award-winning Latina playwright Caridad Svich. Son of Semele Ensemble’s premiere is the first fully produced work of Svich’s to be staged in her native home of Los Angeles. Her So Cal background includes an MFA from UCSD, the NEA/TCG Resident Playwright at the Mark Taper Forum (1998-1999) and part of SCR’s Hispanic Playwrights Project. Svich’s IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) was a finalist for the PEN USA 2005 Literary Awards for Drama, premiering in the U.S. at 7 Stages Theatre in Atlanta. In 2002, Svich founded the Pan-American Theatre Coalition. She is a member of New Dramatists and her writing has been featured in numerous publications. Svich’s latest play, Thrush premiered at Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin, Texas this fall.

The cast includes Richard Azurdia, Doug Barry, Sharyn-genel Gabriel, Michelle Ingkavet, Edgar Landa, Alexander Wells and Jonathan C.K. Williams. The production is directed by Matthew McCray, stage-managed by Christopher Rivera, with scenic design by Ken MacKenzie, puppet design by Deborah Bird, lighting design by John Eckert, music composed by Ryan Poulson, sound design by Cricket S. Myers and costume/mask design by Hallie Dufresne. The video design is by Shannon Scrofano, with still photography by Barbara Kallir, cinematography by Michael Marius Pessah and editing by Dominic Mah.

Hailed as 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 of 30, 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. Last year SOSE presented the U.S. premiere of The Mysteries, adapted by Edward Kemp, the World Premiere of Preludes & Fugues by John Glore and most recently, King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free! by Aaron Henne.

Performances of IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. There will be no performances on Thanksgiving weekend.

Admission is $20.00. Tickets are available exclusively at www.sonofsemele.org or at the box office one half hour prior to show time. For more information, call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.sonofsemele.org. The Studio Space is located in downtown at 1238 W. First Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026.

Iphigenia Opening at SOSE November 3!

SON OF SEMELE ENSEMBLE PRESENTS

THE WEST COAST PREMIERE OF

IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL
THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART (A RAVE FABLE)

OPENING AT THE STUDIO SPACE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3

IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART (A RAVE FABLE), by Caridad Svich, receives its West Coast Premiere production with Son of Semele Ensemble (SOSE). IPHIGENIA hurls one of Greek tragedy’s most compelling sagas into a modern netherworld of mass-media overload, sex, drugs and mind-thumping trance music. IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) will run from November 3 through December 3, 2006, at The Studio Space in downtown Los Angeles.

Meet Iphigenia, the pampered daughter of a ruthless Latin American dictator who learns that her corrupt father is planning to sacrifice her life in order to get re-elected. To escape her fate, she embarks on an Alice-in-Wonderland-style trip through the dark fringes of society to reach a rave on the northernmost edge of the city. On her journey, she encounters the tormented ghosts of the Women of Juarez. IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) exists in a world where Greek tragedy meets modern media, rave culture, androgyny and the oppressed. Featuring an original techno-rock score, projections and a Virtual DJ at the helm, IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) transports you to a place where the bass keeps pumping and the bodies keep throbbing until dawn.

IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) was written by award-winning Latina playwright Caridad Svich. Son of Semele Ensemble’s premiere is the first fully produced work of Svich’s to be staged in her native home of Los Angeles. Her So Cal background includes an MFA from UCSD, the NEA/TCG Resident Playwright at the Mark Taper Forum (1998-1999) and part of SCR’s Hispanic Playwrights Project. Svich’s IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) was a finalist for the PEN USA 2005 Literary Awards for Drama, premiering in the U.S. at 7 Stages Theatre in Atlanta. In 2002, Svich founded the Pan-American Theatre Coalition. She is a member of New Dramatists and her writing has been featured in numerous publications. Svich’s latest play, Thrush premiered at Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin, Texas this fall.

The cast includes Richard Azurdia, Doug Barry, Sharyn-genel Gabriel, Michelle Ingkavet, Edgar Landa, Alexander Wells and Jonathan C.K. Williams. The production is directed by Matthew McCray, stage-managed by Christopher Rivera, with scenic design by Ken MacKenzie, puppet design by Deborah Bird, lighting design by John Eckert, music composed by Ryan Poulson, sound design by Cricket S. Myers and costume/mask design by Hallie Dufresne. The video design is by Shannon Scrofano, with still photography by Barbara Kallir, cinematography by Michael Marius Pessah and editing by Dominic Mah.

Hailed as 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 of 30, 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. Last year SOSE presented the U.S. premiere of The Mysteries, adapted by Edward Kemp, the World Premiere of Preludes & Fugues by John Glore and most recently, King Cat Calico Finally Flies Free! by Aaron Henne.

Performances of IPHIGENIA… (A RAVE FABLE) are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. There will be no performances on Thanksgiving weekend.

Admission is $20.00. Tickets are available exclusively at www.sonofsemele.org or at the box office one half hour prior to show time. For more information, call 1-800-838-3006 or visit www.sonofsemele.org. The Studio Space is located in downtown at 1238 W. First Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026.

2006 SEASON Announced.

Mark your calendars because SOSE is proud to present a compelling season of groundbreaking new plays that you won't want to miss!

"THE LABOR PROJECT"
Devised by SOSE
Directed by Alex Wells
Written by Aaron Henne
In development workshops from January-March.
FREE Public staged reading on April 8 @ 8pm.
At Son of Semele Theater

"KING CAT CALICO FINALLY FLIES FREE!"
Written by Aaron Henne
June 23-July 16
Thurs.-Sat. @ 8, Sun. @ 7
At Son of Semele Theater

"IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART (a rave fable)"
Written by Caridad Svich
Dates: November 3 - December 3
Fri. & Sat. @ 8, Sun. @ 7
The Studio Space, Downtown LA


For tickets, call 1-800-838-3006.

The KING CAT's outta the bag June 23

SOSE is proud to announce the world premiere of "KING CAT CALICO FINALLY FLIES FREE!" by Aaron Henne, opening June 23, 2006 at Son of Semele Theater. "KING CAT" marks the first play ever written by a SOSE company member exclusively for the ensemble. "This work was written with all of SOSE in mind, playing to your strengths, your daring, and your talents," remarks Henne.

"Heidi Hendrickson has an obsession, a compulsion really - she has 150 cats in her eleven hundred square foot apartment, including sixty dead ones in the Frigidare. She has an especially intimate relationship with the alpha cat, one King Cat Calico who keeps trying to escape this hellish tuna filled, feces stained prison, to no avail."

A fun filled exploration of loneliness, possession and the need to claim one's place in this uncertain world. Featuring a cameo by Rush Limbaugh, singing(literally) the praises of Oxy-Contin, or what he lovingly refers to as his "little blues."

Director and cast to be announced by the end of April. Rehearsals begin May. "KING CAT" purrs June 23 through July 16, 2006.

SOSE garners its first LA Weekly Theatre Nod.

Nominees for the 27th Annual LA Weekly Theatre Awards were announced last week and Son of Semele Ensemble's co-production of Hyperbole: epiphany received a nomination for Outstanding Mask Design - Sean Cawelti. Congrats to Sean and The Rogue Artist's Ensemble on this incredible achievement. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on April 10.

LAist interview with John Glore and Matt McCray

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

LAist review of Preludes & Fugues

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

LA Weekly review of Preludes & Fugues

In the October 12 issue of LA Weekly, reviewed Preludes & Fugues. Here's the review:

Steven Leigh Morris

[link to review at LA Weekly]

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.