photos from Radio Mara Mara

We had our first showing of Radio Mara Mara last night. K.L. Thomas came out and took some photos, and here they are.

I was really happy with the work we've done on this project, and what I learned last night is that I want to keep working on it. I want to keep working on it with this cast and director, too. I think there's alot more story that needs be told, and judging from audience response, so do they.

Thank you Christopher Burris, Zoe Metcalfe-Klaw and Ali Ayala, thank you K.L. for documenting this whole thing, and thank you Dave for being supportive of the project.

Zoe Metcalfe-Klaw as the Archivist

Christopher Burris as the DJ

The Archivist transfers decades of reel-to-reels to digital.

The DJ plays eclectic tunes for the remaining populace.

I brought my kid to rehearsal

A few years back I read an article about an actress who'd brought her kid to rehearsal. The kid was a baby, under a year, and she'd wanted to be able to nurse during rehearsal. The gig was not a big money gig, but it was a good role (if memory serves), and she felt that the baby would not be an imposition. At the time, I thought: that doesn't seem real professional Actress, maybe you should have gotten a sitter.

But of course I didn't have one of my own.

Anyone who's worked with me in the past few years has seen my son once or twice at rehearsal. It was easier when he was an infant, because infants are really very simple (they sleep, they eat), but now that he's almost three, well...

It's kind of a different story. He's not so simple. He's got lots of energy and interests and he wants to be involved in what's going on.

I brought my son to Radio Mara Mara rehearsal on Saturday. Dave had to work at the last minute, I didn't have time to get a sitter, and there was just nothing for it, so he came along.

He was pretty good, considering he's almost three, and people were generous and non judgmental about it, which I appreciate.

I also realized something: moms can tune out their kids better than anyone, while at the same time knowing exactly what's going on with them. My son found a hiding spot behind a chair, brought his snack and ipad back there, and settled in. I worked on the show. But I knew he was back there, I knew what he was watching, his general state of happiness, and how long I could anticipate his amusing his own self under these conditions. I knew the proximity of the electrical outlets, stairs, and his rate of speed to get himself to either place.

The awkward truth is:

You can bring your kid to rehearsal and still get shit done... Other people might have trouble though.

I asked Stacy Rock to cover N.W.A.

and she did it.

I love it.

sex kitten Linds Halloway

Sound editing for Radio Mara Mara in the middle of the night. 

Here's the mobile version.

Might be NSFW, depending on where you W.

RMM Collaborators

Meet the Radio Mara Mara cast.

 Christopher Burris (DJ)  REGIONAL THEATER: Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Idiot’s Delight, The Winter’s Tale, Playboy of the West Indies), North Shore Music Theatre (Romeo and Juliet),  La Jolla Playhouse (Blood Wedding, Sheridan), Greenbriar Valley (To Kill a Mockingbird), Shadowland Theatre (Lobby Hero). NEW YORK: The Cell (Baltimore in Black and White), Church of St. Joseph (Murder in the Cathedral), New Federal Theatre/Ensemble Studio Theatre (Jesse), Inwood Shakespeare Festival (Merchant of Venice), Hampton Theatre Company (Six Degrees of Separation), New York Theatre Workshop (Helen's Heart, Neighbors [workshops]), Phare Play (Arcadia), Women's Project (365Days/365 Plays, The Feign'd Courtesans [workshop]), FringeNYC (A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People, Bang! Bang! Bang!, Mankynde, Caresses), Resonance Ensemble (The Lower Depths, Time to Burn). @christopherbnyc

Zoe Metcalfe-Klaw (Archivist) is ecstatic to be working and playing with such a talented group of artists. She has been a part of the blue box world family for years, and is very excited to explore the world of Radio Mara Mara.  She has a B.F.A in drama from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied primarily at The Stella Adler Studio of Acting.  Some of her favorite theater credits include: Cloud 8 (Theatre 80) Pontiac Firebird Variations (The Ohio Theater/Ice Factory Festival), Helpless Doorknobs (New Orleans Fringe Festival), Distant Sex (Trickster Theater/Exit Art), Greendale GP (Eastwind Theatre Co.), Sins Is In Her Skirts (Sanford Meisner Theatre).  She is a member of Papo Colo's Trickster Theater Company and lives in Brooklyn. www.zoemetcalfeklaw.com

The DJ

Here's a monologue from Radio Mara Mara.

The DJ
I was visiting my foster mom. She was suffering from dementia and didn't always know who I was, but when she did I knew she was glad. She always taught me you look after your own, and even though we didn’t start out that way, we made each other our own. She took on other kids, y’know it wasn’t just me- but at a certain point it was like it was Us doing it, in a very real way. When I aged out I aged out at her house, and she even let me stay on another year.

I heard shrieking from the nurses station so I ran out into the hall to see what was going on, and this little nurse was collapsed on the floor. She told me what happened, "they shot the President," she said. I picked up her hat but she didn't want it. I went back in my foster mom's room to break the news to her. "They shot Fukiyama," I said. But she just looked at me with her big lost eyes. 

That was the last time I went to see her actually. I knew, if she couldn't remember Fukiyama, then she probably just wasn't in there anymore.

The Archivist

Here's a monologue from Radio Mara Mara.

ARCHIVIST
What I really wanted was for there to be something special about my life. Something meaningful, something powerful. And I worked for years on that. On that special thing.

And then it turns out that all the really meaningful things-- all the Really meaningful things, are the same for everyone. There is no special sunrise that isn't special for everyone who chooses that it be special to them. Do you know what I'm saying?

All the really special things that give life meaning are really special for everyone, they give everyone's life meaning, they aren't just meaningful for me alone.

reel to reel player

Here it is. It's not working yet, but the look is what I was going for, so I'll call it on the road to victory.

For those of you who haven't been following along, this is a key prop for my new play Radio Mara Mara. In a nearly abandoned radio station, the Archivist is transferring decades worth of reel to reel archives to digital in an effort to preserve the history of her country, Leunsa.

We hear interviews from music legend E.G. Fukiyama and his wife Leoni Washington Fukiyama, played by Shawn Randall and Carol London; pop star Linds Halloway and actor/filmmaker Kenny Ikeda, played by Ali Ayala and Imran W. Sheikh, respectively.

The Map

While writing Radio Mara Mara I realized I needed a map of the area. So I drew one, because when you're a playwright you're a cartographer.

Radio Mara Mara: it's really happening

"...the fires are bright tonight, take cover where you can..."

I'd be so glad if you'd come check out this play. 
I wrote it, so that's a bonus, but even better it stars Zoe Metcalfe-Klaw and Christopher Burris.
And is directed by my long time friend and collaborator Ali Ayala.
tickets may be purchased here.

Radio Mara Mara
In an abandoned radio station in the hills around a bombed out capital city,
the DJ and the Archivist come to terms with the world that's left them behind.

by Libby Emmons, directed by Ali Ayala
starring: Christopher Burris and Zoe Metcalfe-Klaw

featuring the voices of:
Shawn Randall, Carol London, Imran W. Sheikh, Charlie B.E. Marcus, and David Marcus

and an original cover of N.W.A.'s F%$k the Police, by Stacy Rock

as part of John Chatterton's Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival
Roy Arias's Stage II
300 W. 43rd St., 4th floor
$15

The show dates are:
Monday 02/18 7:15 pm
Thursday 02/21 8:30 pm

Design your show

My new play has alot of props and sound cues. It takes place in a radio station so there's the DJ booth props, props in the analog archives room, sounds of what's playing on the radio: music, ads, interviews. I'm presenting act 1 in a one-acts festival during the third week of February in NYC.

If I'd been working on this play two years ago, or even last year, I would have hired designers: props designer, sound designer, someone to coordinate the origin music (I need a melodic cover of NWA's Fuck the Police, among other things). But when we started working on it, Ali Ayala directing, I realized that I did not want another set of hands or another set of ideas in my world. The world of the play is a real place to me, I know what it looks like, what it sounds like, and I want complete freedom to control the atmosphere of that world. I wrote (am writing) the script. I chose the director, I cast the roles. I want to design the props, I want to design the sound.

It feels good to have the whole world come together the way I imagine it, to not have to explain to someone, who has their own ideas, what I want. Instead I just do what I want.

A few years ago I would have said "I can't do all the props, I need to focus on the writing. Plus I bet legit props and sound designers are better at this stuff than me."

But now I realize you don't need a masters degree to design sound or props (or write or direct plays for that matter). I can be my own self-proclaimed expert in the world of my play.

Here's a props list:
Reel-to-reels and player
Hard drive
Laptop
Binoculars
Microphone
Head phones
A big fat joint
A sound console for the booth

I've started the binoculars (left), the reel-to-reel tapes (the wheels down front), the mic (center on the table), and the hard drive (far right on the table).