whew! it's been awhile since our last post!
Bonnie and I have been hard at work in New Orleans, LA devising our newest piece - Marilyn: a play about our bodies. Scheduled to premier in New Orleans during the 3rd annual Fringe Festival!!
Here's some info to follow up on:

We have our indie-go-go account because - let's face it - you're not Marilyn with out hair, that gorgeous white dress, and don't forget some cute panties?1? These things are very important. And we're very broke. If you loved our work before, you'll love it now :) and maybe feel a little better about your body. So please, help us make magical theatrical experiences!
www.indiegogo.com/marilynnlc


Also check out our newest website! To keep you up to date with what's happening in NOLA!
www.nightlightcollective.moonfruit.com

Guarantee there is so much more to come - but keep sending us all your love (and money)!
xoxo
alison

Marilyn

I know, I know, we've been missing for a while. But that's because Night Lights gone a'travelin to New Orleans, Louisiana where Alison Haracznack and Bonnie Jean have been working on a new production called Marilyn (about guess who). Check out the work in progress on

Saturday July 9 at 8pm at the Contemporary Arts Center

thanks to New Noise's "SOUND OFF!"

More information is available on facebook. And check out the write up in Invade NOLA.

Alice Video Clips

As luck would have it, during one of our preview performances, Brett Zwerdling and Caroline Sumner took some video of the Alice preshow on the porch. Here's a little taste of what they shot (one above and one below this message). More to follow!

Wonderland

Well, it's hard to believe it's all over. Wonderland was indeed a wonderful experience.
This was our first two week run for a show, and considering the fact that every night sold out, I think it worked out all right. Much like our first show, House Of Yes, this one also took place in a house. However, we added an interactive element where audience members could choose to follow Alice's journey through Wonderland, or create their own. It was our most ambitious project to date from cast size to concept to budget, but our directors Bonnie Gabel and Carolyn Boucher navigated the cast and crew to a crazy, creepy, sexy, and very overwhelming final product.
Thanks to everyone who contributed their hard work, and also to everyone who came out to see Alice in Wonderland. It's been a fun trip down the rabbit hole.

ALICE TICKETS FOR SALE

Tickets to see NLC's production of Alice In Wonderland are now available!

SHOWS: May 6-8 and 13-15 @ 8 pm + an IDR Weds. May 5th
PRICE: Sliding scale from $8-$20

WHERE: 2504 North Ave Richmond VA 23222

To purchase tickets, either e-mail nightlightcollective@gmail.com or make arrangements with a cast member directly.

Cash and checks only. Please make checks out to Night Light Collective.

Availability is limited for these shows, so please make arrangements soon.

Thanks!

Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek into the world of Wonderland as it has been developing in our rehearsals. Enjoy!

Cheshire Puss

The Cheshire Cat has decided to share some things about herself. Enjoy...

I am the Cheshire Puss. I come from Cheshire – where master is from.

I am ageless; always young, forever wise.

I can see outside Wonderland (not everyone can).

My profession? Me. Cat. Advisor, direction giver, cuddler, general mischief maker …

My greatest fear … my greatest fear … I’m not entirely sure. Not many things scare me. I’m quite comfortable to be a cat you know. And the Dutchess feeds me – whether she means to or not (she’s quite the slob).

So I do well. Wonderland isn’t really a place for fears you know.

My greatest desire is to lay about all day, singing songs, visiting with friends, spying on wonderland – the things people do when they think no one is watching!

Generally I follow my desire every day. My fancy changes quite regularly, especially when we have a guest! Such as Alice.

I said earlier that my greatest desire was to be everyone at once – this is still quite true, thus the disappearing and reappearing. If I should remove my leg from one scene … it can pop up in another. This allows for some wonderful mischief making! Though it’s hard to keep tabs on what all your extremities are doing! So … I can never truly be everywhere at once. Not to mention the Red Queens threats to cut off my head.

What a jealous old woman. She just wants to travel like me.

My biggest secret is that I want to be like Alice. Her youthfulness is intoxicating. Life was so simple then …

My biggest power is seduction. Most of Wonderland is smitten with me; or at least intrigued by me. They don’t all understand me of course, because I am from Cheshire. I can come and go as I please – they are always stuck. But generally they like me. And I’ve only got to do or say a little to get what I want.

My biggest weakness? Goodness heavens! You do as a lot of questions!

Weakness? Food. Slumber. Mischief. Jokes. Misplaced items.

A bad habit I have is seducing my food.

My likes include: slumber, dreams, sneaking up, slinking, smiling, s words, creating mischief, new experiences, new visitors, disappearing and reappearing, confusing others.

My dislikes include: obnoxious animals, boring people, missing something important.

Alice

As our version of Alice in Wonderland develops we will be giving you updates from our cast and crew. Jasmine Coles who is playing Alice wrote a blog about her discoveries while exploring the character:

I have lost count of the many "walls" I have hit while discovering Alice. I hit my very first "wall" when I was asked to read Alice during the auditions. I thought to myself, " I don't know what they want, I don't know how to be Alice and myself." I only knew Alice "the stereotype". However, stereotypes are blown up and generalized, yet contain truth. Understanding the root of the stereotypes and the judgment that comes with the stereotype helps me to recognize my own judgments. So as I rehearsed the reading before entering the audition room I promised myself that I would not attempt to figure out what kind of "Alice" they wanted to see, I was going to give them the Alice I had to offer, and although I did not know what that was, I trusted in my work (This was a big moment for me). I was a colorful experience to discover Alice slowly as I was auditioning, and once I was cast I began filling my head with movies and stories and again I was faced with Alice's stereotype. My first instinct is to detach myself from it because she is a white girl in a blue dress and I am a black girl who wears black clothes everyday for theater class lol. ( but that is my stereotype) So I have decided to start with my stereotype and her stereotype and slowly peel off the layers. And slowly I see, that she is me.

Who are you?

Night Light Collective welcomes the cast of it's upcoming production of Alice in Wonderland!

Alice- Jasmine Coles
Caterpillar- Nicole Carter
Cheshire Cat- Alison Haracznak
Dormouse- Kait Ziegler
Duchess- Ryan Asher
Ensemble- Sara Schmatz
Ensemble- Virginia Fields
Humpty Dumpty- Slade Billew
Mad Hatter-Dallas Tolentino
March Hare- Tori Hirsch-Straus
Red Queen- Kerry McGee
Red King- Eben Kuhns
Tweedledee-Elizabeth Venz
Tweedledum- Elyse Thaler
White Rabbit- Jenny Hann

And the Technical Team:

Stage Manager- Elizabeth Popp
Lights-Andrew Bonniwell
Costumes- Ashphord Jacoway
Masks- Becca Bernard

So many new collaborators! Thank you to all who auditioned. All of the talented people made casting very difficult. Now on to the hard, but exciting part- rehearsals. Stay tuned in for updates!

Bonnie

Snow Delay

As some of you may already know, our second day of Alice in Wonderland auditions were cancelled due to the snow storm. We'd like to announce that they have been rescheduled for Tuesday, January 5th from 4-8 pm in room B-72 in the Performing Arts Center on VCU's campus.
Please e-mail us at nightlightcollective@gmail.com to set up a time. All are welcome to audition.

Please see our previous post for information about the show.

Thanks!

Down the Rabbit Hole

Auditions for night light collective's Spring production of Alice in Wonderland will be BOTH December 12 from 6-10 and December 19 from 12-4pm. You can come to one or the other.

The show will be performed in the spring (location to be announced). The ensemble will be devising around situations in the novel by Lewis Carroll to create a walk through environmental experience for the audience.

Auditions will consist of one minute of a monologue, song, dance or movement piece (pick one), and ensemble movement exercises. Please wear clothes that allow you to move.

To set up a time slot email nightlightcollective@gmail.com

Rehearsals will run from April 5-May 6 and performances will run May 6-8 and 13-15

Directed by Carolyn Boucher and Bonnie Gabel

Welcome!

Night Light Collective would like to announce a new addition to their creative team. Alison Haracznak, who has worked with us from the beginning has agreed to join our board. She's contributed so much already to our process, that it will be a great pleasure to have her input in every other aspect of our company. Welcome aboard, Alison!

Sneak Peaks

Night Lighters are all busy bees this fall! As the seasons change Suzanne is at grad school in Tennessee, Kerry is at grad school at VCU, Andrew is designing lights all around town, and I am in my last year of college at VCU. All of this busyness has not stopped us from having projects in the works. We are currently securing a space for a devised piece exploring the virgin/whore dichotomy. It should be an exciting performance entirely written and performed by Night Lighters. Look for it this spring. We are also in contact with a guest director for an early summer piece, and are in the process of choosing a script for our late summer piece. Check back soon for a complete season announcement.

Light up!
Bonnie

Aloha, Aftermath

Well, Aloha is over, and us Night Lighters have been doing our own things in the meantime. However, it's never to late for a recap of the show! We had wonderful attendence all three nights (plus the preview, of course), and the audience seemed very receptive of it all, so: Success! Of course, success is due in large parts to both Henley St. and Gallery 5, who's help was absolutely invaluable. In addition, the numerous individuals that gave lots and lots of their time to the production: Thank you! And to tide you over until the next post, here are a couple production photos.

- Kerry

Video Preview

Richmond.com was kind enough to put together this video for our show. Check it out:

Check out our interview in Style Weekly!

Home Entertainment System
by David Timberline

More Mincks, Please!

Adam Mincks steps out of his comfort zone to give us a little insight into rehearsals:

I should preface this blog post for Night Light Collective's production of ALOHA SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS by saying I've never set-up a blog or written up a blog post before. For some people, being able to meticulously type up a few epic length paragraphs about whatever, later to be seen by millions upon thousands upon hundreds of people on the internet, ain't no big thing. I am not one of those people. But I am going to "give it the old college try," as the cliche goes.Even as far as unique rehearsal processes go, I can safely say that I have never been a part of a more unique rehearsal process than the rehearsal process for ALOHA SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS. Foremost amongst the many unique qualities of this rehearsal process is the intense, often hour and a half to even an hour long viewpointing sessions at the beginning of rehearsal. It's very difficult to explain in words to someone if they were to ask me flat-out, "What is viewpointing?" I would have to give up after explaining fruitlessly for a minute or so and just say, "You just have to DO it and take part in it to fully understand it." Which is sort of what viewpointing is, I suppose: you don't think about it or try to explain it while it's going on; you just have to do it, and THEN have your realizations and epiphanies come to you AFTER all is said and done. But I will do my best to explain viewpointing, in my own words, anyway.Viewpointing is spontaneous, wordless improvisation, based solely on movement and physical activity, with your fellow actors, with the rehearsal space, with objects in the rehearsal space, and with yourself. Just because it is wordless does not necessarily mean it has to be completely silent. You can create natural organic sounds from the use of objects in the space, from using your own hands and/or feet, even from using the sound of your breathing. It helps you to explore the environment in which you are performing, the actors with whom you are performing with, and explore, within yourself, your own natural ability to just give in, not to think, and just play. Often times, when we enter into the viewpointing exercises, we will become the characters we are playing in the show, and the relationships we have with other characters in the show will show up in the viewpointing sessions. Whether we are close or distant, in a love or hate co-existence, or are completely unfamiliar, we will interact in these viewpointing sessions as our characters in the show. Often, this means we end up having joyous group celebrations, or tense group rivalries, or, as seems to be the case most of the time in these sessions, we end up in a mass mock orgy. I don't know how properly I've explained the viewpointing sessions in my own words. Hell, I may have even confused the hell out of anyone who might be reading this all the more. But at least I've tried.

The viewpointing is a great exercise. Not just in the fact that it really is a great warm up before the rehearsal of the show itself begins; but also that it can be a really helpful key in helping you to unlock whatever doors were closed, in terms of discovering a character. It's also a great way of helping you to get closer to your fellow actors. One could say it's the most intense trust exercise there is. And this is one hell of a cast to put your trust in and just let yourself go with. I have had the pleasure of working with a few members of this cast (Kerry McGee, Rebecca Anne Muhlemann), and being familiar with the other members of the cast, but have never worked with before. I certainly would like to think that being involved in a very intense, intimate process such as this one has brought all of us, familiar and previously unfamiliar, a LOT closer together. And it certainly shines through in the work we put in in the show itself. We work REALLY WELL together, and are able to trust one another should we want to try something that might be a little weird and off-the-wall.

Kudos, most of all, goes to Bonnie, for being a sort of ringmaster to the weird, often animalistic circus that goes on around her in this rehearsal process (These viewpointing sessions tend to bring out our animalistic side quite a bit): giving us the freedom to roam about in the wild, but having the ability to see when we get a little out of control with our freedom to do what we want, and reining us in. I can say that I am very happy with the work I am doing so far in this show, and ECSTATIC about the work everyone else in the cast is doing in this show.

And I guess, on that last note, that's pretty much all I've got to say. I'm not really a master of my blogging domain. It's my first time, and I'll promise to do better next time, should I decide there should BE a next time for me to blog. I guess I'll just finish up by saying: please come out and see ALOHA SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS at Gallery 5 on 200 W. Marshall St., Richmond, VA 23220. It is running from Thursday July 23 through Sunday July 26 at 8 PM. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students. Come on out and support unique, interesting, new theatre in the Richmond community. You aren't going to see ANYTHING like ALOHA SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS elsewhere in the Richmond theatre scene.

-Adam Mincks.

Jason Unleashed

Gabrielle Cauchon (or rather, the body of Gabrielle Cauchon) has been channeling her character Jason. He's taken some time out of his day to provide an unedited stream of consciousness view of the show and rehearsal process:

Hey what’s up this is Jason doin my little spillage on the proc-ess-ies if you will, hmm, let’s see where to begin. Ever had stuff going on that’s been like good whack? Yeah this shit is good whack. Bonnie is like the director and is leading us on this crazy collaborative adventure. Man, she’s been starting out almost every day with this stuff she learned from Russians that HURTS if you don’t stretch properly. Totally changed my life for the better cause now I have to stretch like really stretch like three times a day. Anyway, yeah, I’ve never been able to jump as high as I can now and like land without making a sound. And my dexterity has gotten kick ass. I’m a freaking ninja and totally scared the hell out of my borrowed bodies’ mom last weekend. Speaking this borrowed CHICK BODY, I’m totally stoked because my hair is growing back in. I felt really girly with the smooth pits and legs and shit. I miss my stach and post. Everyday I have to wrap my chest down and the other night I wasn’t feeling so well and I think I had wrapped it too tight. Bonnie won’t let me cut out holes for my nipples…which sucks cause like if I had my original author imagined boy body then I could have my nipples out but nooooooo. Got some killer pecks though I’ll tell you what. I’m juuust messin I’m glad I got a body at all.
Man, we also have these viewpoint sessions which are awesome cause I get to just like kinesthetically interact with all the other people in my life and even some who I have never even met before! It’s totally rad. Oh man, and the best part is sometimes after we get done playing with each other, Bonnie like asks us to repeat parts of it and then she like infuses them into what we’re doing and totally CHANGES HISTORY.
It’s really magical when people can create life out of nothing but themselves. Dude I’ve witnessed it myself. I really feel a closer connection to the people in my life (psh…probably because I’m living the same parts over and over again, j/k I know it’s because we all love each other!
Man, I really do love them. I love everyone and everything and I mostly really love my dog. I really miss Otis but like I think it was meant to be, I mean, I wish I didn’t have to keep re-living the tragic parts in my life, but I know that I learned a huge lesson when I moved from to New York to Hawaii. Like, how similar catching a wave and catching the A train really are. HAHA I also get to reconnect with my sister over and over again and I like reliving holding Lee, which has got to be like one of the most euphoric moments of my life. Akin to when I free fell from that cliff that one time. A rush man, a straight up rush. Yeah it’s cool. Everyday I learn something more about myself and the place of importance each one of us has in each others lives. Like getting to see your affect on someone is shits ass bats crazy BAHAHAHA Sorry, how profound though right? We still have another monthish before we show our lives to perfect strangers, but I’m totally stoked to freak em out and make them laugh? I’m excited to see what art is shown when we open and what the musicians are going to do. Music is going to be awesome and there are going to be SO MANY PLANTS.
I’m really hoping I get to play the harmonica ‘cause I love it and I really hope that Bonnie puts in another dance number so my sis and I can reminisce about our parents and our carnie days. Love you Viv!
I am currently trying to master the handless front roll. It hurts harder than taking the shore straight to the chin cause like I’m still not quite doing it right. Bah, thinking happy thoughts to get that feeling out of my head lalalalalala. Practice makes perfecto.
Night Light Collective rocks. Man what time is it?

An Actor's Perspective

Carolyn Boucher was kind enough to comment on the rehearsal process for Aloha, Say The Pretty Girls:

Finding myself in the midst of the rehearsal process for Aloha. It's a lot of fun, especially doing View Points with the ensemble every time we meet. I feel like its really bringing us closer together as a group, and I am learning a lot about my character(s) that I simply couldn't do any other way. there is a certain intimacy involved in that kind of work. Now I'm concentrating on applying that same openness and impulsiveness to my scene work. The discussions we have after the sessions as a group are helpful too. I love watching everyone express their discoveries as we all get deeper into this play. Bonnie has a great way of facilitating all of this and creating a warm, alive, anything goes atmosphere. Even when we've had outside people enter a rehearsal, I feel comfortable doing the work without feeling the pressure to 'perform' or behave any differently. I'm loving going to Aloha every night because I never know what awaits me there. We are definitely creating this show together as a passionate ensemble, and I feel very lucky to be a part of that.

**photo courtesy of Matt Cowan**

ALOHA, SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS
by Naomi Iizuka

directed by Bonnie Gabel

July 24-26 8:00 pm
*with a preview July 23
@
Gallery5
200 W. Marshall St.