Buddy Zinn "Work in Progress" at Dixon Place Feb. 16

Very excited to say that we've been excited to present "Under a Scar-Filled Sky" at Dixon Place on Feb. 16!


Well, now there's work to do! We'll begin filling out the cast in January. Rewrites, working with music director Charlie Waters, rehearsals ... very exciting.


And of course we'd love to see you at the show! What better belated Valentine's Day gift is there than a one act play about a muttering, half-baked zen noir detective stranded in a purgatory of his own devise! Man, you will get some!

Under a Scar-Filled Sky: The Buddy Zinn Mysteries

Saturday, February 16, 10 PM

Dixon Place Theatre

161A Chrystie Street

(between Delancey & Rivington)

NYC, NY

Tickets $12 advance, $15 door. For more info, keep on eye on the Dixon Place site and watch this blog!

Another Great Workshop 11/29/12

Thanks to Mahayana Landowne, Tyler Gore, Nilla Watkins, Tyler Gore, Charlie Waters, and Peter Guarraci for participating in another Buddy Zinn workshop on 11/29/12.  Also thanks to Davis Brody Bond and Spacemith for the use of their space.

Feeling

Another playwright testifying in court - before which he had been summoned by an aggrieved theatergoer who felt himself denigrated by the playwright on the stage of the Bochum theater, which the playwright, even in front of the court, kept referring to as the Bochum lunatic asylum, in which, he stated, there were really no actors but only fools sustained by the director of a lunatic asylum who was merely pretending to be a theater manager, performing throughout the year to an uncomprehending audience - stated that he enjoyed such great success only because, in contrast to his unsuccessful colleagues, he was honest enough to pretend that his comedies were always tragedies and his tragedies comedies. When he had, on one occasion, actually called a tragedy a tragedy, he had suffered a tremendous failure. From that time on he had stuck to his principle of pertending a comedy was a tragedy and a tragedy a comedy, and he was assured success on each occasion. Because he had become so famous in the meantime that he could afford to do almost anything he wanted, the court, to which he had been summoned by the aggrieved theatergoer, acquitted him because he had called the theatergoer just as stupid as all the other theatergoers in the world, who are numbered in the millions. After the proceedings the playwright maintained that the presiding judge had acquitted him because he, the presiding judge, hated the theater and everything connected with it more than anything in the world, which he, the playwright, could well understand because that was his own feeling.

From The Voice Imitator: 104 Stories by Thomas Bernhard

Illustration by Espen Terjesen, borrowed from A Piece of Monologue.

Excerpt from "Why I Like Detective Stories" by Gertrude Stein (1937)

"I tried to write one well not exactly write one because to try is to cry but I did try to write one. It had a good name it was Blood On The Dining Room Floor and it all had to do with that but there was no corpse and the detecting was general, it was all very clear in my head but it did not get natural the trouble was that if it all happened and it all had happened then you had to mix it up with other things that had happened and after all a novel even if it is a detective story ought not to mix up what happened with what has happened, anything that has happened is exciting enough without any writing, tell it as often as you like but do not write it as a story. However I did write it, it was such a good detective story but nobody did any detecting except just conversation so after all it was not a detective story so finally I concluded that even though Edgar Wallace does almost write detective stories without anybody doing any detecting on the whole a detective story does have to have an ending any my detective story did not have any."

Pictures from Workshop with Director Mahayana Landowne on 10/9/12

Thanks to all of the actors and non-actors who participated:

Tyler Gore
Peter Guarraci 
Kevin Pinassi
Ariella Stok
Nilla Watkins

And thanks to Davis Brody Bond and Spacesmith for allowing us to use their space.

Lush Valley Excerpt - Project Involving Director Mahayana Landowne

Lush Valley Excerpt - Project Involving Director Mahayana Landowne

Next Script Reading October 9th with Director Mahayana Landowne

Excited to have our third "get up on our feet" reading with director Mahayana Landowne, composer Charlie Waters and actors and readers Kevin Pinassi,  Nilla Watkins, Tyler C. Gore,  Ariella Stok, and Peter Guarraci.

Nice Fan Video for John Zorn's Great "Spillaine"

Charlie Waters - Satan & Sax for Buddy Zinn

 

Second Read Through

Great second read through yesterday.  Very excited to begin work-shopping the script.  Thanks to Charlie Waters for his great ideas for the script and score and the wonderful actors who read and brain stormed with us: Ephraim Rosenbaum, Craig Chesler, Nilla Watkins and Ariella Stok.  Your input was amazing and very helpful.

Radio Mysteries!

Rather than working on revising the script, we have found a wealth of old radio mysteries - including Philip Marlowe and Manhattan at Midnight (along with lots of comedies, musicals and other shows) right here. Are you in need of procrastinating?

Raymond Chandler Evening

Production meeting tonight.  Very excited, submitting a grant application...fingers crossed.

Gearing up for second read through of play in March!

Welcome to the world of Buddy Zinn, the story of a hard-boiled yet inert detective, mixing elements of parody and zen parable with an interplay between musical and theatrical improvisation.  Adapted from  a book of short stories by Kurt Gottschalk, "Little Apples", Buddy will go from the page to the stage in 2013.