The Hannah Callowhill Stage: Long Overdue Update

It's been four months since we bought 103 Callowhill Street, aka the Hannah Callowhill Stage, and I haven't blogged too much about it, because so much has happened, but there's isn't a whole lot to physically show for it yet. I keep getting asked for updates on the proceedings, however, so here they are, all the boring details I can stand to type.

103 Callowhill cross-section from the west side

PUCK EVERYTHING

Taking a break from jabbering about the Hannah for a while to talk about what's been taking up all of my time since The Cherry Orchard closed a couple of weeks ago: I'm treading the boards again, for a little while.

First I should mention that the last time I was on stage in a purely acting role (as opposed to playing a musician onstage, which is what I did in my Cherry Orchard cameo) was a few months ago in iHamlet, and whaaaaaa it turns out I got a really nice nod for that performance: Play Shakespeare nominated me for a Falstaff Award for Best Principal Performance, Female. I didn't win, but LOOK AT THAT POOL.

Kate Fleetwood (Goneril, King Lear, National Theater) - Winner
Lily Rabe (Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare in the Park/Public Theater)
Michelle Terry (Beatrice, Love's Labour's Won/Much Ado About Nothing, Royal Shakespeare Company)
Melissa Dunphy (iHamlet, Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre)
Annette Bening (Goneril, King Lear, The Public Theater)
Jessica Hecht (Regan, King Lear, The Public Theater)

OK, look, I could pretend to be all cool and professional-PR-flavored here, like this is no big deal, almost like I was expecting it, and gosh how nice it is to be nominablahblahblah. But you know what? SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HOLY CHRIST ON A BIKE.

The Hannah Callowhill Stage: An Overview of the History of 103 Callowhill Street

As I mentioned in my previous blog post about The Hannah, one of the things I did back in July after we first looked at the theater was delve into the history of 103 Callowhill Street. I had never before faced the prospect of living on a property that even comes close to having a well-documented written history going back hundreds of years. I think at least part of my initial excitement was due to how much detailed historical information I could find, thanks to Philadelphia's excellent online property records and searchable databases of old newspapers. There is definitely something to be said for living in a city which, following European colonization*, has had a history of being populated by swarms of lawyers and journalists (a tradition which arguably continues to this day).

The Penn Charter

First, a touch of background from Wiki, for those of you unfamiliar with the basics of Pennsylvanian history:

Music in The Cherry Orchard at People's Light

In rehearsal for The Cherry Orchard with Mary McDonnell. Picture by Emma Lee/WHYY.

About eight years ago, back when we lived in our Downingtown house and I was still actively auditioning as an actor, I heard that there was a professional theater close by holding an open call. I was pretty excited by the idea of potential employment at a theater that didn't involve a 30-mile commute to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, at the time the only monologue I had under my belt that I could whip out at a moment's notice was bloody Juliet and her stupid vial speech. Unsurprisingly, I did not get a callback.

(One day I will write a whole blog about how sick I am of Juliet. Short version: very.)

Fast forward to last year, and out of the blue, thanks to a recommendation, I was finally given my first opportunity to be a part of a production at that same theater—but primarily as a composer and sound designer, though I'm also playing the violin live on stage. Of course, now I've moved to Philadelphia, so I have a wretched 30-mile commute in the other direction.

But it's worth it.

A new addition to the family ... congratulations, it's a theater

I haven't blogged in months, partly because I've been very busy, and partly because I was afraid if I blogged before now, I wouldn't be able to keep from mentioning what I'm about to tell you, and I'd jinx myself.

Let me start from the beginning.

Examples gross as earth exhort me: witness this one-person Hamlet I'm doing for the Philly Fringe

In a little under a week, I'll officially be treading the boards again as a Shakespearean actor, but with a twist: I'll be performing in South African playwright Robin Malan's one-person adaptation of Hamlet, quirkily renamed iHamlet, in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

Hamlet has a habit of showing up in my life at strangely synchronicitous times.

A sampling of work from the O'Neill: Red Fox / White Fox

I am pleased to report that thanks to all that blathering in my last blog post, more than one choir director has expressed an interest in programming It's strange about stars... at some point in the future, so I am hopeful that, even if I don't have any luck with the Twin Cities Women's Chorus competition, it will get a premiere some day soon. This is good, because I would be disappointed if something I've written that I actually like was left by the wayside.

Also: by request, I have arranged it as a viola quartet, for those of you out there lucky enough to know four or more violists: download the score and parts here. I suppooooose theoretically you could also play it with up to three violin parts, but where's the fun in that.

While I'm in a sharing mood, I figure I should give you a taste of some of the musical products of the O'Neill 2014 National Puppetry Conference last month. The following tracks were created for the amazing and mesmerizing and extremely crush-worthy duo Red Fox / White Fox, aka Jordan Morley and Lisi Stoessel. Here they are performing their participant piece with live music created during improvisations in rehearsals with the very talented Diana Sussman (here on melodica):


Red Fox | White Fox @ the O'Neill Puppetry Conference 2014 from Jordan Morley on Vimeo.

L-O-L-A Lola la-la-la-la Lola; or What is my culture?

I started writing this post at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut last month, where I was the very happy music composition director for the 2014 National Puppetry Conference, surrounded by dozens of deliciously creative and crafty people. For eight days, I found myself with more energy and confidence than I had felt in a very long time — a common effect of the O'Neill — although that boost might also have been left over from a sudden storm of inspiration and discovery I had a few days before I left Philly, after months of compositional drought.

Performing (on my new Luis & Clark viola) at the O'Neill showcase. Photo by Richard Termine.

Frustrated with Ayn that week, I decided I might as well set myself a short composition exercise to help open the sluices, the sort of thing I used to do back when I was in coursework. The task: to write a short and relatively easy work for SSAA chorus in response to a competition call from the Twin Cities Women's Choir. The deadline: three days. Step one: find a decent text.

Happy birthday, Mr. Tesla

It's Nikola Tesla's 158th birthday! Along with all the other celebrations and million-dollar donations to museums in his honor, what better day to post the audio and photos from the performance of Tesla's Pigeon by the Secret Opera in New York City recently:

Tesla's Pigeon was sung in this performance by soprano Chelsea Feltman, accompanied by Joseph Yungen. Photos here are by Amanda Aulicino:

The worst part of composing

Everyone has their own damn hell to push through, but here's mine: after months, nay, years, of feeling creatively kind of constipated (refer to multiple posts about depression on this very blog), I go back to a theme I smeared on the page maybe a year ago, and I hate it. It's supposed to be a twisted love theme. It's shit. It's a turd that I have tried multiple times to polish, but all it does is smear into ever more bland and messy stains. I decide to scrap the entire theme and do the whole damn thing over, which is going to affect a bunch of other moments and scenes, but whatever; they're all shit, contaminated by the stink of this stupid theme. They all need to be rewritten. In fact, most of the scenes in question need to be written, never mind the re-, so who cares; I may as well start over. After hours of staring at the newly blank staves while too afraid to move, I finally write a different theme. I think it's better, but I'm not sure. I worry that I'm second guessing this brand new theme. But then, I was second guessing myself by scrapping and rewriting the original theme, so actually, this is at least the third guess. I'm starting to think everything is a damn guess, and none of the guesses are close to the mark.

Sometimes I really wish I could trust myself. But if I do, and the result is a giant smear of excrement, well, that won't do at all, will it?

In conclusion, I hate everything.