City Life Report with Stewart Lewis WCBS880

The Hive and the cell

A Theasy Interview with The Hive’s Artistic Director and co-founder, Matthew A.J. Gregory, the cell’s Artistic Director, Kira Simring, and the cell’s Founding Artistic Director, Nancy Manocherian

by Molly Marinik

This summer, The Hive and the cell join forces to present “The Summer of Lust,” which includes A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Bad Evidence playing in rep through July. The bill might encompass one old play and one new play, but both fit under the subhead “smoldering portraits of contemporary relationships.” Insert sexy cat noise here.

We sent some questions to The Hive’s Artistic Director and co-founder, Matthew A.J. Gregory (who is also directing Midsummer), to the cell’s Artistic Director, Kira Simring (who is also directing Bad Evidence), and to the cell’s Founding Artistic Director, Nancy Manocherian, to learn more about the joint endeavor. Here’s what they had to say.

THEASY: What are your missions? What are your companies all about?

NANCY: the cell’s mission is to incubate and present new works of art. We are an artist run arts organization dedicated to creating opportunities for artists in all disciplines by providing a nurturing space for individual and collaborative work among the many diverse artists who work in our space.

MATT: The Hive’s mission is about breaking down the traditional theatre hierarchy and empowering all of the artists involved to collaborate on a level playing field. We aren’t at all top down as a company. It’s truly a collective, where actors feel free to make suggestions and to work with set designers on scenery, and a lighting designer can feel comfortable in making a suggestion to an actor about a moment they are playing on stage. While many of our members fall into traditional disciplines, there aren’t the kind of rigid boundaries between roles as there often is in other theatrical endeavors. The Hive firmly believes that if we get the right artists in a room together, someone involved will have the creative solution to any problem that comes along. It is the second half of our mission, “building and serving the community through play,” that I think makes the Hive unique however. We believe in play in every sense of the word, and we are all about our community. We don’t just produce plays, we also host bar nights of drinking and merriment, themed one-night events, and a variety of other programming that falls outside of traditional theatre. Play is the unifying factor in all that we do, for audiences and for ourselves. We want audiences and artists alike to use plays and play as a way to grow into an ever enlarging community.

THEASY: How long have your organizations been around? How did they begin?

NANCY: the cell been around five years and has had the current space for three years.

MATT: The Hive just celebrated its first year in existence in March 2011. The Hive was actually born at the cell. About two years ago at the cell, I directed and co-adapted a modern reinterpretation of Moliere’s The Hypochondriac, which exposed the ills of America’s pill-pushing, dysfunctional health care system. Many of the members of the Hive were the cast, crew and designers in that show. We all had an extraordinary experience working together on The Hypochondriac. We found ourselves in a uniquely joyful and ego-free experience where everyone involved were able to contribute to creating a fantastic show. That production garnered fantastic reviews, and since [then], other theatres and schools have expressed interest in producing the adaptation we all crafted. In fact, a high school in Colorado did our adaptation in May, and we couldn’t be happier that the work is inspiring communities elsewhere in the U.S. Quite simply, everyone involved in The Hypochondriac wanted to continue to play and expand our community of artists and audiences. So far, it’s been a wild and exciting ride!

NANCY: the cell welcomes innovative theater, such as the Hive has brought to the cell. We hope their residency with us will lead them to even greater horizons to which their company aspires.

THEASY: This summer you’re presenting A Midsummer Night’s Dream in rep with Bad Evidence. We’re probably all pretty familiar with Midsummer, but what is Bad Evidence about?

KIRA: Bad Evidence centers around a married couple struggling with the essential closeness and isolation of marriage. A truth-telling session explodes first in their bedroom and then in their social circle.

THEASY: Since the productions are together titled “A Summer of Lust,” can you elaborate on how the shows complement each other under this theme?

KIRA: Both shows deal with the themes of marriage and power. In Bad Evidence, imploding marriages lead to exploding secrets. In our production of Midsummer, secrets lead to an explosion [of] conventional values.

NANCY: We are truly dedicated to presenting new works and new takes on traditional works. We believe the two shows together will yield some interesting discussions!

THEASY: Your Midsummer offers Hermia and Lysander as lesbian lovers and Demetrius and Helena as a gay couple. Was the initial goal to look at sexual orientation through Shakespeare, or was it to use Midsummer to provoke something socially relevant? In other words, what came first, the desire to do this piece or the angle with which to look at the characters and their relationships?

KIRA: Nancy’s idea was to create “Shakespeare in the Rear” which was the inspiration for the choice to do a new take on a classic.

MATT: The old chicken and the egg question…well, to be completely honest we decided to do Midsummer before any concept was discussed and I didn’t want to direct it. [I wasn’t interested] in directing yet another iteration of the ubiquitous Midsummer everyone has come to expect. I didn’t want to direct a fluffy comedy with cute fairies in butterfly wings. I just felt like Midsummer had been done too often and was so steeped in cliché that I didn’t want to go anywhere near it. The Hive, however, is a collective and the group wanted to do the play this summer at the cell, and they wanted me to direct. So, I re-read the play and it all became clear: Midsummer’s central conflict revolves around choice in marriage and if we were going to produce Midsummer in Chelsea in this day and age then the play’s social relevance had to be through the lens of same-sex marriage. Marriage equality is very important to our community, and it is a very important civil rights issue in the modern day. We couldn’t be more excited that the Marriage Equality Act is now law in New York, and it is such a privilege to be performing this unique take on Midsummer in the wake of that landmark legislation.

READ MORE HERE

SUMMER OF LUST…

A New Play by Terry Quinn

Directed by Kira Simring

A faltering marriage compels a husband and wife to make a pact-to confess searing truths in the heat of passion.  The exposure leads to a confrontation with four of their friends, and even deeper revelations.

with

ARMAND ANTHONY, ANA GROSSE, RYAN LEE*, CARMIT LEVITÉ*,

GARY LEE MAHMOUD, LEN RELLA*

*Performing Courtesy of Actor’s Equity Association. AEA approved showcase.

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July 7,8,1o,12,13,16,21,22,24,26,27,30 @8pm

July 9, 17, 23, 31 @2pm

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Tickets:

$18 – General Admission

$15 – Students / Seniors (password: summeroflust)

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TDF Vouchers for the Performing Arts accepted

Please email: info@thecelltheatre.org  to reserve your seat with a voucher

A modern re-imagining of Shakespeare’s classic, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, casts Hermia and Lysander as lesbian lovers with Demetrius and Helena as a gay couple. This is not your grandmother’s MIDSUMMER, but a MIDSUMMER for 21^st century NYC.

In BAD EVIDENCE a faltering marriage compels a husband and wife to make a pact – to confess searing truths in the heat of passion.  The exposure leads to a confrontation with four of their friends, and even deeper revelations.

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Tickets

$18 – General Admission

$15 – Students / Seniors (password: summeroflust)

__________________________________

TDF Vouchers for the Performing Arts accepted

Please email: info@thecelltheatre.org  to reserve your seat with a voucher

Music by Ben Moore, Libretto by Nahmas Sandrow

Set in New York City in 1949, the opera follows Holocaust survivor Herman Broder. Throughout the war he survived in a hayloft, taken care of by his non-Jewish, Polish servant, Yadwiga, whom he later takes as his wife in America. Meanwhile, he has an affair with another Holocaust survivor, Masha. To Yadwiga, he poses as a traveling book-salesman despite the fact he is simply a ghost writer for a corrupt rabbi. He wanders about New York with a constant paranoia and perpetual desperation, made more complicated when his first wife from Poland, Tamara, who was thought to be killed in the Holocaust, comes to New York. Featuring an all-star cast with stage

Direction by Kira Simring and Music direction by Michael Pilafian

Tickets

click above logo to purchase tickets

$20 – General Admission

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part of the CCO Atelier Series

The Hive Exposed Series presents

AN AMERICAN FAMILY TAKES A LOVER

by Amina Henry

The Hive Theatre Company is pleased to present The Hive Exposed Series; staged readings of new and underexposed plays.

The second in this series is a benefit staged reading of Amina Henry’s AN AMERICAN FAMILY TAKES A LOVER.

All proceeds are to benefit the Hive Theatre Company’s mission to foster the creative growth of new and underexposed playwrights.

6:30pm Doors

7pm Show

FREE ADMISSION, Tickets on a first come fist serve basis

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with

ALMERIA CAMPBELL – Justine

BOB JAFFE – Richard David

ELIZABETH MASON – Lady Anne

VICTOR CRUZ – Thomas

An American Family Takes A Lover is the story of a dysfunctional family in modern day America. Richard David and Lady Anne, a loving couple, have a slave named Justine. The three of them are on the verge of celebrating their five year anniversary as a family. A handyman named Thomas arrives to fix a mysterious hole in the wall and while doing this, befriends Justine. This friendship causes to Justine to consider her freedom from her slavery for the first time in a long time. Will cake baking, swimming lessons, Truth or Dare and Obama be enough to encourage Justine to leave the only home she’s ever known and strike out on her own? An American Family Takes A Lover, with wicked humor, examines The Stockholm Syndrome through a racial and sexual lens.

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Matthew A.J. Gregory – Artistic Director

Kira Simring – Director

Amina Henry – Playwright

Show’s website:  www.thehivetheatre.com

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DECEMBER’s FEATURE EVENING:

An American Family Takes a Lover

by Amina Henry

Directed by Kira Simring

with

ALMERIA CAMPBELL – Justine

BOB JAFFE – Richard David

ELIZABETH MASON – Lady Anne

VICTOR CRUZ – Thomas

An American Family Takes A Lover is the story of a dysfunctional family in modern day America. Richard David and Lady Anne, a loving couple, have a slave named Justine. The three of them are on the verge of celebrating their five year anniversary as a family. A handyman named Thomas arrives to fix a mysterious hole in the wall and while doing this, befriends Justine. This friendship causes to Justine to consider her freedom from her slavery for the first time in a long time. Will cake baking, swimming lessons, Truth or Dare and Obama be enough to encourage Justine to leave the only home she’s ever known and strike out on her own? An American Family Takes A Lover, with wicked humor, examines The Stockholm Syndrome through a racial and sexual lens.

RSVP: info@blackboardplays

Reading followed by a twenty – minute talkback, Reception throughout

$10 Suggested donation

visit www.blackboardplays.com for more information

a play by Terry Quinn

directed by Kira Simring

A faltering marriage compels a husband and wife to make a pact — to confess searing truths in the heat of passion.
The exposure leads to a confrontation with four of their friends, and even deeper revelations.

Directed by Kira Simring

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Charlotte Cohn as ANNA

Jim Sands as HENRY

Kyle Haggerty as JUDE

Alenka Kraigher as WOMAN

Wine Reception to follow

Music and Libretto by Susan Hurley

based on the original manuscript by Barbara Kraft

Directed by Kira Simring

Charlotte Kohn, soprano

Daniel Neer, baritone

Inspired by the life and writings of the noted diarist Anaïs Nin, this opera is a psychological drama of obsessive love during the last minutes of life. Anaïs attempts to come to terms with her impending death in the presence of her lover and long-time companion, Rupert Pole. In what amounts to a test of his devotion, she seeks his understanding but also clearly enjoys shocking him as she revisits and reveals some of the strongest memories of her life, her innumerable infidelities, incestuous relations and her violent rejection of motherhood. Rupert is unable to forgive Anaïs for these dark secrets before she struggles out of bed and then collapses, alone, to the floor.

$20

includes post-performance wine reception