Word for Word presents "Food Stories"

Klea McKenna in The Bold Italic

The Bold Italic just published a great interview with Klea McKenna. Her work is featured in the Z Space gallery. Come by and check it out. The Z Space gallery is always free.

You can see a slideshow of the exhibit HERE.

Behind The Scenes: "KMLZ: Holidaze"

Interested in a behind-the-scenes look at Killing My Lobster and Z Space joining forces to take over the holidays?

Well, HERE YOU GO.

The Bengsons Kickstarter Campaign

Hover Space

Check out these twenty seconds of HOVER SPACE from the Printz Dance Project courtesy of Jenni Bregman on Vimeo.

The Dog Show

Read all about it.

American Tripps Photos

Thank you everyone that came out last week to American Tripps, a Berlin-style ping pong tournament. You can see photos from the Z Space part of the event HERE.

If you're curious, you can read more about the (semi) weekly event, usually held at The Secret Alley, HERE.

Stop and Go Rides Again (but closes on Friday!)

Your last chance to check out Stop and Go Rides Again, showing in the Z Space Gallery, is this Friday. After that, it's gone! Gallery hours are 1pm - 5pm. Come check it out.

"Defining the Playwright"

At a time when interdisciplinary art and devised work are becoming increasingly popular, where does the more traditional playwright fit into the ever-evolving theatrical landscape? Z Space's Executive Artistic Director Lisa Steindler joined a panel of distinguished theater leaders at the Playwright's Center to examine the critical issue of how we define the word "playwright" … and its ramifications that extend far beyond semantics. Check out the archive (including video) of the discussion HERE.

American Tripps at Z Space

Z Space is excited to host the largest American Tripps yet. What is American Tripps, you ask? Well, The Bold Italic just published a great article explaining it HERE. You can RSVP HERE.

Stop And Go Rides Again

Paz de la Calzada working on her charcoal wall drawing for Stop and Go Rides Again.

ROMP from LEVYdance and Z Space

It's over a month away, but the art for ROMP is just so captivating we have to share it now. Click here to read about this co-presentation of LEVYdance and Z Space.


Photo by RAPT Productions / Kitfox Valentin

The People: San Francisco

Click here to check out some photos from last Friday's performance of "The People: San Francisco."

Youth Arts Represents at the APASF Fair

The Z Space Youth Arts Program Coordinator Director, Valerie Weak, set up the Youth Arts booth at the Arts Providers Alliance of San Francisco Fair.

Big Art Group: Hybrid Body / Simultaneous Presence Workshop

A Free Performance from The Bengsons

Big Art Group

This September, Big Art Group brings their latest project to San Francisco.

The People: San Francisco is a site specific, outdoor extravaganza that combines live theater with large scale, real time video projection.

Sounds fun, doesn't it?

The Blunder Years

All you ever wanted.

Word for Word Presents "Julia"

Make your reservations now for the July 25th performance of "Julia" by Word for Word.

Click here to reserve tickets.

KMLZ: Ninjas of Comedy

Samantha Toh, Z Space intern extraordinaire, fills us in on the behind-the-scenes on-goings of KMLZ rehearsals:

Moving chairs, sorting light gels and drilling seven-foot planks into steel beams aside, my time at Z Space so far has pushed me into yet another brand new experience – this time, of comedy. Having worked on depressing shows on and off during my college career, it has been the best of changes observing this week’s Killing My Lobster show. From radio DJs with multiple personality disorders to swashbuckling chess pieces, narcissistic opera singers to men waxing lyrical about their taints, the show does the funny bone tickle like a pro.

To be honest, I was initially a little intimidated being thrown into such a dense concentration of talent. I watched rehearsals turn from cold readings to off-book performances in a matter of days, and loved quietly from my corner the fantastic (also, twisted) minds of writers. As I watched last night’s cue-to-cue, Gina – one of the Bardi Twins, a writing duo – put finishing touches to a giant worm suit created from a bright green kid’s sleeping bag. So much creativity jammed into a small space has made every single evening of one girl’s week.

So, what’s up, Saturday night. Killing My Lobster and Z Space are ready and waiting to open the show, ninja knives in hand.

-- Samantha Toh

The Lobsters are in the building!

We're not the only ones excited about the upcoming Killing My Lobster and Z Space co-production: KMLZ. Check out what SF Weekly has to say.

Exciting performances coming in June

Be sure to join us in June as we present a month of outstanding performance!

Izzy Award winning choreographer Sara Shelton Mann and Z Space's own David Szlasa kick off the month with ZEROPOINT, a world premiere multi-media performance event.

Philadelphia's Pig Iron Theatre Company returns to San Francisco for the first time in seven years to present CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN, which was hailed by the New York Times as one of the Top 10 Theatre Events in New York in 2008.

FRESH MEAT, America's first and only transgender arts organization of its kind, is having its 10th Anniversary Festival with special performers Vogue Evolution (of America's Best Dance Crew fame), among others.

Critically acclaimed comedy group Killing My Lobster and Z Space will present KMLZ, a special, one-night-only sketch comedy/variety performance created by some of the Bay Area's most ingenious artists.

Tickets for all events are currently on sale, don't miss out!

A Secret History of Love: Part 1

Come check out the newest work from the Bay Area favorite Sean Dorsey Dance. The world premiere of A Secret History of Love: Part 1 plays this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 8pm.

Leveraging Social Media: Becoming a Networked Arts Nonprofit

This Monday, April 18th, Z Space welcomes a conference from Theatre Bay Area. The conference, "Leveraging Social Media: Becoming a Networked Arts Nonprofit", is a comprehensive training, peer learning, and coaching program designed to help Bay Area nonprofit arts organizations create an effective social media strategy and put it into practice to get results.

Othello 11: Second performance date added!

Z Space and the Cultural Services of the French Consulate have added a second performance of the one-weekend-only deconstruction of Shakespeare's classic Othello! Don't miss this amazing show which features French and American theater all-stars L. Peter Callender*, Astrid Bas,
Manoel Feliciano*, Emilie Gruat, Camille Bertrand, Peter Kybart*, David Mendelsohn*, and Ryan O’Donnell.

April 22 & 23 at 8pm. CLICK HERE for more details about the show and to reserve your seats.

*member, Actor's Equity Association.

Victor Cartagena in the Z Space Gallery

Join us this Friday, from 6:00 to 8:00pm, for the opening of Burro-Cracia & Anatomy of La Mentira: an exhibition from artist Victor Cartagena.

Start your Friday off right-- have a drink at the Z Space bar, and catch some great art.

Youth Arts performances at Tam High

Youth Arts (Z Space and Word for Word's educational theater program) and The Conservatory Theatre Ensemble (CTE) at Tamalpais High School present Fitting Out: Two Twisted, Contemporary Tales. Go support these amazingly talented high school students through Saturday!

Shows are at 7pm at the Caldwell Theatre at Tam High in Mill Valley. Tickets are $5 for students/seniors and $12 for adults.

Fitting Out is a pair of short contemporary works of fiction adapted for the stage in the Word for Word style and performed by high schoolers participating in Youth Arts. The vibrant worlds of The Healer by Aimee Bender and Schotzie by Jim Kniepful invite the audience to explore differences and question convention, while blurring the line between real and surreal. Fitting out is intended for high school age audiences or older.

Vote for Z Space as Best Theatre Group in the Bay Area

Z Space has been nominated for SF BayList's Best Theatre Group in the Bay Area! Click HERE to vote for us!

Flash Forward 2011

This Thursday, the 24th of February, join us for a night of informal presentations and analog social networking with some of the Bay Area’s best.

An amazing group of artists will show excerpts, sketches, and concepts about their upcoming works destined to premier at Z Space in the upcoming year.

Participants are likely to include
and are equally likely not to include
But will include some of the following:

Laura Arrington
Paul Dresher
Sean Dorsey
Christy Funsch
Jesse Hewitt
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Sarah Klein
Ben Levy
Sara Shelton Mann
Hope Mohr
Mel Prest
Stacey Printz
Sins Invalid
David Szlasa
Amy Tobin
Paris Wages
Nina Weis
Kat Worthington
Yuri Zhukov
and more... (subject to change)

Where: Z Space, 450 Florida Street
When: Thursday, February 24th. Doors at 6:30pm, show at 7pm
How much: $5 suggested donation, and bring money to spend at the bar

France's Next Top Designer

I originally blogged this on another site the day after arriving in France with the intention of a few installments, but it just happened that this was the most exciting and fruitful day. Check back in March when things really get rolling for Word for Word's tour of The Islanders by Andrew Sean Grier:

Well, here I am back on the other side of the world working that whole theater thang! That’s right your trusty Theater Manager and resident Lighting Designer has once again flown to France, this year the first of 2 trips, to conduct workshops with design students who will hopefully build part of our set, saving us the cost of shipping it to France. Though I’m only here for 10 days and only 2 days in so far, it has been amazing.

So let’s start with the plane ride, I don’t know if anyone really cares about this part of my trip but I like writing about it so you can skip a few paragraphs or you can indulge me, whatever.

Woke up at 9a on Sunday, the plan was to hit the gym to get some exercise, but as I realized that I had yet to pack I thought hitting the Wii Fit might be a better choice. Though I hadn’t hit my weight loss goal the regular gym visits were definitely helping my strength and balance and I managed high scores in all my Yoga poses (don’t ask me how you score Yoga poses). Then it was off to the airport and a nice little 12 hour flight to Paris. Fortunately, the flight wasn’t very crowded and I was able to stretch out in my row. I didn’t get much sleep, I think I’m still too excited by plane rides, but I did rest a bit. And of course I watched a few flicks on the way.

Dinner for Schmucks: should be called Movie that Sucks, come on Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, you are two of my favorites and this was just bush-league you can do better (plus I discovered Paul Rudd’s gem performance in Veronica Mars but more on that later). Un-Stoppable, for those of you who don’t remember this film it’s not a surprise it is about Denzel Washington driving a train to catch another train and yep its about as entertaining as that sounds, should have been called Un-Eventful. I suppose on a larger screen the fast trains whizzing by would be really exciting but when you reduce the action to 5 inches you need a story to back that up, Ridley Scott should know better. The constant reminders that the film took place near Pittsburgh didn’t help as I knew I was missing the SuperBowl which I was happy to learn went to the Cheeseheads in Green Bay. I didn’t know the score until a fellow American in the Paris train station saw the Ravens sweatshirt I was wearing and as a true football fan recognized that it was indeed a protest for the hated Steelers getting a trip to Dallas told me of the glorious result, congrats Aaron Rodgers, the Favre era is officially behind you.

I finally submitted to watching The Other Guys, the movie where Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg play reject cops who eventually save the day. It turned out to be much more amusing than I expected. After landing at 11a Paris time (that’s 2a SF time) I met up with Sue, Word for Word’s AD who got me situated with my plane ticket and pointed towards the right platform. Then it was a quick 3 hour train ride to Nantes which managed to round out something like 36 hours of travel (that could very well be an exaggeration but it certainly felt that long and my brain can’t do all that time conversion in one sitting).

The next day had me at a 6a wakeup to head to the Design School in Nantes which is where the true excitement really happened. Students there, who are mainly based around spacial/interior design, have been working on designing their own vision of the play we are bringing to France. This is a very interesting task for interior designers as approaching a set design poses many different considerations. It very much reminded me of my pre-CounterPULSE days when I met, now CP Board Member, Ed Grant for the first time when he helped build a few walls for a set. He built them like he was building a friggin house and it took forever to knock them down, I had to explain that the objective in theater was the illusion of solidness not necessarily withstanding an earthquake.

The parameters that the students were given were that the set had to be taken on the train with us everywhere we travel and of course it had to fit with the play in some way. I then got to meet with each student individually to discuss their models that the constructed out of their ideas. First of all can I say how jealous I was that these student are just given an 8 hour day and an empty room in which they get to play with all their materials and try out different ideas, it’s like a designers dream and makes me yearn for grad school. The students had such fascinating design approaches but more importantly I was amazingly impressed with their deep thought and comprehension of the story. Nearly every student was able to relate the connection between their design and some important aspect to the story, whether it be the strong but chaotic relationship between the two lead women, or the impending fear inherent in the ending, they all commented so exquisitely on these aspects and the result was better designs. I also found out later on from their English teacher that she had shown them Lars Von Trier’s Dogville as an example of minimalism, which is essentially how we describe our touring set. I felt bad that they had to sit through that film as I struggled with it myself, don’t get me wrong I love Von Trier’s work but that film is ridiculously self indulgent, I love it as an experiment, but three hours with nothing to look at is for a designer somewhat of nightmare I believe. I definitely saw this influence reflected in a lot of their work but I did need to explain that the film was an extreme version of minimalism and that minimalism does not necessarily mean not realistic for in fact our sets tend to be very much based in realism, but when we say minimal we simply mean we can’t carry everything and the kitchen sink.

I was also quite bit surprised to find a lot of students wanting to work with video projection. This too I had to explain is a major challenge for our tour as the size and capabilities of the theaters in which we perform vary so greatly and video really demands a great deal of time and finesse to make it effective, those are too commodities we rarely have on tour. Though I am a video designer as well and I love the moving image I am constantly encouraging artists to really identify the importance of such a choice. Even though technology has reached a place where we can afford to play with these new toys I don’t think we have quite perfected their integration into design work and I would caution anyone considering it. All in all though the designs were quite brilliant and luck me I got to have essentially 25 production meetings in one day. It was certainly a lot for my brain to handle but I greatly enjoyed playing teacher for a day and it has certainly made me consider that option more realistically. I also got the rare treat of sitting down with three of the teachers for a much needed beer at the end of the day and it was also great to get their insights into where the students were in their progress, they have such high standards but it is obvious that they feel the students are simply, to quote a great theater director I had in high school, “too good not to be better.”

After that is was home to Chris Evain’s with whom I am staying while in Nantes. She has been a long time Word for Word fan and advocate and helps us with a lot of the advanced planning. She has three teenage daughters at home, 14, 15, and 17, so you can imagine how I ended up watching a Veronica Mars marathon. But once again it presented such a unique cultural experience as all of us enjoyed the show but found ourselves laughing at very different moments. I of course was very amused by the musical references and jokes about American culture, one of my particular favorites was a jab at Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 fame who also shares the name with the shows writer/producer. I do have to say however, that I was greatly frustrated by the lighting design and if you want an example of some very aggravating color and directional choices this would be a great sample of what not to do. Other than that it was very cute and just what I needed to let the brain unwind after an intense and jet-lagged day. I suppose my desire to write is permeating this too much so I’ll round it out now but check back for more updates in a few days.

andrew

Celebrate Valentine's Weekend at Z Space!

Bring your companion to see The Companion Piece for Valentine's! Use code "valentine" when ordering tickets and receive 2 tickets, 2 beers, and a popcorn for just $20! The Companion Piece must close Sunday--don't miss out on this great offer and your last chance to see the show critics are calling "disarmingly delightful" (theaterdogs.net). CLICK HERE to order your tickets.

Bicycle Coffee Company comes to Z Space

The Z Space Bar is delighted to offer coffee from the folks over at Bicycle Coffee Co. Delivered to us via bicycle, these fresh, locally roasted beans make one of the best cups of coffee the Z Space team has ever had.

Sip it black, with cream, or throw in a shot of bourbon. Delicious.

Pastures of Heaven in DC!

Word for Word and CalShake's staging of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven will be performed at American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage's New Play Festival in Washington DC, January 19-30! CLICK HERE for more information.

'Good Foods Catering' is back!

Last fall we welcomed Good Foods Catering to the Z Space. They served up a delicious mix of pulled pork and smoked tofu sandwiches to our hungry audiences. And now they're back for round two.

With a new menu (pulled chicken sliders, pulled pork sliders, smoked tofu sliders), the Good Foods Catering team will be joining us every Thursday and Sunday during the run of The Companion Piece.

Check out their culinary delights pre-show starting this Thursday, the 20th of January.

Watch the first The Companion Piece Webisode!

Check out this webisode by clicking HERE to learn more about The Companion Piece and devising a play. Featuring director Mark Jackson, conceiver and actor Beth Wilmurt, and actor Christopher Kuckenbaker with behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage.

Popcorn.

That's right. Z Space just got a popcorn machine. Come taste that freshly popped goodness pre-show starting the 18th.