call for submissions [BoCoCa]

Another week, another summer festival looking for submissions. Our now-familiar summer stomping grounds, the BoCoCa Arts Festival -- where we presented The Third Seat and the COI podcast (live) in years past -- is looking for some new friends:

Calling all Theater, Music, Visual & Performing Artists!

Husky Dog Productions is accepting Applications to the 2011 BoCoCa Arts Festival! HDP is seeking innovative and energetic participants for the Festival whose works will be staged in unconventional venues located within three of Brooklyn's most unique communities. Artists from all locations and disciplines are encouraged to apply for this collaborative effort to bring exceptional life to their work! Apply now at www.BoCoCaArtsFestival.com!

[Festival Site]

the COI podcast returns this weekend

After an unanticipated summer break, the COI podcast will return this weekend with part three of Jason Andrew Updike's "Avalon." The final episode of that original work will follow shortly thereafter, and after that -- what you've all been waiting for... the COI podcast live recordings from this summer's BoCoCa Arts Festival.

Yup, get excited.

Also, some housekeeping -- if you're a regular visitor to the podcast page, you might notice som gaps in the episode list. Well, the reason for that is hosting fees -- the files are expensive to maintain, so we're reverting to a "greatest hits" format...after a few weeks, we'll only be leaving up the most popular episodes for download.

If you want to keep a complete set on your computer, your best bet is to get on iTunes and subscribe now!

live podcast pics

Some snaps from the live podcast recordings we did as part of the second annual BoCoCa Arts Festival in Brooklyn in June. These shots are all from opening night; the reader is Katie McKenna.




Why yes, we do produce the podcast on Garageband. Why do you ask?

(New episodes of the COI podcast return this weekend. Maybe.)

BoCoCa Arts Festival profiles

In all the bustle of closing down our show in the Planet Connections Festivity (only 8 days left!), we forgot to shout break a leg at our producing brethren (and, er, sistren) in the BoCoCa Arts Festival, which got underway in Brooklyn on June 18.

To celebrate and introduce them to you, we've posted a podcast episode (live now) that profiles three of the productions [you can see all of the productions listed here] --

The playwright/producer and director behind Alice [opening Wednesday, 6/23 @ the Archip Gallery Theater]

The playwright, director, and producer of The Interrogation Room [playing through Thursday, 6/24 @ Ceol Irish Pub]

The playwright behind The Purple Plays [although going through Thursday @ Ceol]

Go over to [conflicttheater.podomatic.com] and hear them describe their shows -- better yet, just use the links to pick up some tickets now.

the COI podcast goes live this month

Hey! Look at this! We have the lineup for the live COI podcasts as part of the BoCoCa Arts Festival!

We'll be presenting at the Archip Gallery Theater, 498 Court Street, Brooklyn. Buy your tickets here (they're cheaper in advance...)

We'll have a more detailed description of each program, but here's the whole thing at once:

Wed (6/23) @ 8.00p | Looking When You Have to Look

How to Get Run Over by a Truck by Katie McKenna (performed by the author)
Featherbugs by Chandler Rosenthal (performed by the author)
Passower by Kayla Hertz (performed by the author)
The Boy from the Mountain Movie by Kayla Hertz (performed by the author)

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke (performed by James Shapiro)

The Question by Stanley Ellin (performed by James Bentley)

Thurs (6/24) @ 6.00p | Spouses and Other Monsters

The Sausage by Friedrich Durrenmatt (performed by Jason Updike)
Corinthians by Sam Schreiber (performed by Tatiana Gomberg)
Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavoratory by Orson Scott Card (performed by Sergei Burbank)

Friday (6/25) @ 9.00p | Looking When You Don't Want to Look

Doll Baby by C.H. Sherman (performed by Jessica McVea)
My Name is Immaculee by Immaculee Ilibagiza (performed by Iriemimen Oniha)
Seeing Them by Darrell Schweitzer (performed by Sergei Burbank)

Saturday (6/26) @ 5.30p | How to Say Goodbye

Janet and Keith by Wendy Merrick Burbank (performed by the author)
Poetry by Wendy Merrick Burbank (performed by the poet)
The Incredible Appearing Man by Deborah Galyan (performed by Iriemimen Oniha)
Eeries by Kayla Hertz (performed by the author)
The Eggplant by Chandler Rosenthal (performed by the author)

Poetry by Diane Havens (performed by the poet)

A new episode is ready for download. Something a little different this time, as we chat with Leah Bonvissuto, Felipe Ossa, and Erin Leigh Schmoyer, three of the forces behind Cake, which opens on June 5th at 45 Bleecker, and is part of the Planet Connections Festivity.

This episode's got everything:

• Veiled references to sado-masochism
• Not-so-veiled threats for Ann Coulter
• A music preview from A Silent C, performing later this month at the BoCoCa Arts Festival

As always, there are three ways to listen:

(1) Stream the episode below

(2) Visit our podcast page and listen online: conflicttheater.podOmatic.com

(3) iTunes users can click this link

countdown

One day until War Crimes. [tickets]

Three weeks until live COI podcasts as part of BoCoCa. [tickets]

[Do you miss my rants about things other than upcoming shows? Well I miss sleep. We all have to make sacrifices.]

countdown

One week until War Crimes (it skipped a week because our run has been extended!). [tickets]

Four weeks until live COI podcasts as part of BoCoCa. [tickets coming soon!]

tickets on sale for the COI podcast "live"

We've mentioned before that the COI podcast will be recording "live" episodes as part of the BoCoCa Arts Festival. Well, now you can buy your tickets (and you should, because they're cheaper in advance).

If you want to wait until the lineup is announced, we wont hold it against you -- but why wouldn't you want to come to all of them?

[tickets]

countdown

Three weeks until War Crimes. [tickets]

Five weeks until live COI podcasts as part of BoCoCa. [tickets coming soon!]

new profile of COI online

The NY performing arts examiner has a new profile up of the company, and it's worth a look, if for nothing else the dazzling slideshow at the bottom...

countdown

Four weeks until War Crimes. [tickets]

Six weeks until live COI podcasts as part of BoCoCa. [tickets coming soon!]

live COI podcast has recording dates

As we have mentioned before, we will be recording live episodes of the COI podcast in June as part of the BoCoCa Arts Festival. We now know what dates we will be doing this, if not what time or where (for sure). But for what it’s worth, you can set aside your calendars now for some fantastic storytelling -- June 23 through the 26.

It’s going to be spectacular. Seriously. I’m having dreams about it.

countdown

Five weeks until War Crimes. [tickets]

Seven weeks until live COI podcasts as part of BoCoCa.

countdown

.5 weeks until Captain Ferguson. [tickets]

Six weeks until War Crimes. [tickets]

Eight weeks (we think) until live COI podcasts as part of BoCoCa.

countdown

1.5 weeks until Captain Ferguson. [tickets]

Seven weeks until War Crimes. [tickets]

Nine weeks (we think) until live COI podcasts as part of BoCoCa.

the COI podcast goes live in June

Exciting news for fans of the COI podcast -- and not a prank:

We will be recording live episodes this summer as part of the second annual BoCoCa Arts Festival in Brooklyn!

Dates, venues, and program TBA, but if you're not in the NYC area, start booking your travel now -- come to New York in June and you can see two COI productions in one trip (Tickets for War Crimes are on sale now).

eyes open

Harpers has a hard but important look at probably homicides committed at (in their succinct formulation) "the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base."

Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick probes the willful ignorance we've employed to ignore this story:

Some torture stories are just too horrible to contemplate, while others are too complicated to understand. But Scott Horton's devastating new exposé of the possible murders of three prisoners at Guantanamo in 2006 is neither: It's simply too terrible to allow to be true. Which is why it has been mostly ignored this week in the mainstream American media and paid little attention by the usual crew of torture apologists on the right. The fact that three Guantanamo prisoners—none of whom had any links to terrorism and two of whom had already been cleared for release—may have been killed there and the deaths covered up, should be front-page news. That brand-new evidence of this possible atrocity from military guards was given only the most cursory investigation by the Obama administration should warrant some kind of blowback. But changing what we allow ourselves to believe about torture would change the way we have reconciled ourselves to torture. Nobody in this country is prepared to do that. So we have opted to ignore it.

While it was one of my top reasons when voting for the President, I have not shared my friends' impatience with this administration to undo the crimes of the Bush Gang -- if we rushed in to war and extralegal detention without much concern for the consequences, I thought, surely we'll have to take care to back ourselves out in a well-considered manner.

This prudence is allowing inhumane conditions in Cuba to breed radicalism in those it oppresses, and it may still be costing lives.

Hopefully, part of our offerings in 2010 will add something to the conversations we're not having about the crimes being perpetrated in our name. We've submitted the play "War Crimes/slots" (originally given a public reading by Oracle Theatre Inc in 2007) to our friends at BoCoCa and Planet Connections; if accepted, we'll let you know soon. Otherwise, maybe I'll turn it into a podcast episode...

new COItc company members (same people, shiny new titles)

As announced in an email to subscribers: COItc has grown to six core members --

Coordinating Director: Sergei Burbank
Director of Development: Jessica Hochman
Executive Director, Stage and Film: Adam Karsten
Managing Director, Film: Sara Wolkowitz
Managing Director, Stage: Leah Bonvissuto
Director, Readings/Young Artist Development: Marlene Clary

If you've been to more than one of our shows, you already know that this is familiar bunch. Pretty much everyone on this list has been working with us for months, in come cases dating all the way back to the halcyon days of 2007. I'll try to encourage them each to write something for the blog, and you'll be hearing more in the months to come about what they plan to do, but in the meantime, here's a sampling of what they've already done:

Jessica Hochman
For three years she worked as the assistant to the both the Executive anDevelopment Director for the Partnership for After School Education (PASE), a non-profit organization that networks New York City’s after school programs in order to create best practices in the field in order to set high standards for youth development in the after school hours. During this time, Jessica continued to work in the New York City theater community in various capacities as she had been since 2002. Her credits include a two year run as the light and sound coordinator for “The Belgian Summers Sketch Comedy Group”, a monthly sketch comedy show. For the Fringe Festival she was the light and sound coordinator for “The Great Subway Musical” and “Exploring Demetia.” Jessica has been apart of every Conflict of Interest production , as the assistant Stage Manager for the inaugural show “The Danish Mediations,” and as House Manager for “McReele” and “Timor Mortis.” This summer she was able to assume the position as Assistant Producer for two Festival showcases, “Wrestling the Alligator” (Planet Connections Festival) and “The Third Seat” (BoCoCa Arts Festival). Though she has been known to wander on stage from time to time, Jessica enjoys working off and backstage because there are so many unseen elements that are necessary for a show to run, and she finds this work quietly gratifying.

Adam Karsten
As a film director he directed the mid-range feature film, Other Than Emily (2009); wrote and directed the short, Shy of Serenity (Reel Time Film Festival-2008); the television pilot, Miss Swiss (Award Winner Indie Gathering Festival / Gloria Film Festival-2007); the documentary, Ed. L., (New York International Film Festival-2007); and the short, Bored of Education (New York International Film Festival-2006). He has produced and directed numerous corporate and documentary films including: Sprint-Cellphone, HydroTech Environmental, ThomasNet, AKRF, Inc., McKinsey & Co., California Closets, the national store advertising campaign for the Tweety jewelry line, and numerous other company demos throughout New York City and across the United States. As an independent stage director he directed the following original works: Wrestling The Alligator, at the Planet Connections Theater Festival (NYC); The Trouble With Doug with the New Artist's Festival at Goodspeed Opera House; The Danish Mediations (by Sergei Burbank) at the Access Theater (NYC); La Mambopera, at City University (NYC), I Gotta Crow at the Touhill Center in St. Louis; the reading of A True Story Based on Things That Never Actually Happened...And Some That Did, at the Abingdon Theater (NYC); and the premiere reading of Incomplete at the Matthew Corozine Studio Theater (NYC).He is also the Director of Musical Theater at Five Towns College where he directs several main-stage productions each year. He has directed additional New York City productions at the American Actors Theater (Happy Hour), Beckett Theater and Studio Theater (Serious), Sargent's Theater (Much Ado About Nothing), the Theater Studio (Snoop), and at Jimmy's 43, War Crimes (video direction), and the European tour of the musical, The James Bond Story. Graduate of Carnegie Mellon and Lincoln Center's Directors Lab.

Sara Wolkowitz
Sara is an independent filmmaker who has directed both documentary and narrative films. She is the co-founder (and director) of an all-women production company based in Brooklyn, Indecent Exposure Productions. Films she has directed include "Pretty Girl" produced for the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival, and "Chords" which has been shown at a number of festivals including the 2008 Los Angles Womens' Film Festival and the 2008 Hawaii International Film Festival. While at Vassar ('05) she directed a documentary about the organization “City Year”, and her junior year she studied in Prague, Czech Republic, where she co-wrote, co-directed, and edited,"Kinderspiel," named "Best Film of the Year" at the Vassar Film Festival, and seen at a number of other festivals. Sara also has a background in the theater; this includes "Black Comedy" which she directed at Vassar College. In New York she stage managed and assistant directed two off-off Broadway shows with Woodshed Theater Collective. She also directed and co-created a one woman show "Eleanor Is Sibling Challenged" performed at the Magnet Theater. She also had a year and a half stint as the additional Child Wrangler for "Hairspray" on Broadway. Currently she’s directing a documentary, “The Acting Company: Still on the Road 2008-09”. She also just returned from a trip to Kenya filming for a prospective documentary about the organization LitWorld and its work in quality literacy education around the world.

Leah Bonvissuto
Leah Bonvissuto directed Stephen Belber's McReele and Sergei Burbank's The Third Seat, both for COItc. Past credits include Brecht's The Elephant Calf in the late night series at the Jean Cocteau Repertory and A Man's a Man at Mo Pitkins in FringeNYC, both with Giant Squid Productions. Leah graduated from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama. Selected credits include Sondheim's Assassins and A Little Night Music, Eden by Marina Shron at Chashama, Darian Dauchan's Texaco's Last Stand for the Ignite Festival at the Ohio Theater and Secrets Women Share and Out of Control, both for the Midtown International Theatre Festival. Her educational direction includes a production of Fiddler on the Roof with 200 middle schoolers and Cabaret and Anything Goes at Saint Peter's College. She directed Crother Spyglass and The Resistible Rise of Fatlinda Paloka as a double bill at Theater for the New City, George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer at Theater Ten Ten and Monetizing Emma for the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. Leah is a two-time member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.

Marlene Clary
Marlene Clary is an actor, director, and soprano soloist; she has appeared in leading roles in summer stock, Off-Broadway and regional theaters. Marlene is an experienced choir and theater director though her many years of work at Berkeley Carroll School, where she has been honored with the Dexter D. Earle Award for Excellence in Teaching.

that's all folks

A well-earned congratulations to everyone who worked The Third Seat. Thanks to a fantastic cast and crew, the staff of Ceol Irish Pub (Associate Producer Jessica Hochman suggests the shepherd's pie), and the BoCoCa Arts Festival. They've put together an innovative and dynamic new festival--here's to many happy returns.

Please pardon the TS cast and crew (a few of us have been working COItc shows nonstop since last September) as we all face-plant into our pillows for the next 60 days; leave a message after the beep...