Barbara Gregson's Book on Community Theatre Arts

Theater Artists Play is a new book by my friend and colleague Barbara Gregson, and for all those interested in Masks, Performance arts, Mime, Storytelling, and perhaps most importantly, creating meaningful and beautiful theatre with all kinds of people and all kinds of communities - this is a book well worth owning.   Barbara has worked with many communities to create theatre, including schools, senior centers, prisons, handicapped - you name it - in the course of her 40 year career.  She has more knowledge and energy about how to help people "tell their stories" than anyone I've met.

Bravo Barbara, for publishing this seminal book!

Theater Artists Play    is  available on Amazon and also from her Website.  If you order from her directly she will send it back signed.  Gregson Theater brings mime, acting, masks, performance/mask making, set design, playwriting and other theater arts training to individuals and organizations of all types from schools to prisons and nursing homes. 

Theater Artists Play is an inspirational guide to creating  your own theater work. The book is for all would-be, used-to-be and wanna-be actors, mimes, storytellers, dancers, musicians, writers, and those who want to heal and tell our stories through the magic of theatre arts.  

The Hidden Sky

The Hidden Sky:  Fibonacci Movie from Cara Reichel on Vimeo.

When I find something I love, it stays with me, revisited over and over again. The Spiral...............the Spiral Dance, the Spirals of Fibonacci, the elegant, eternal, mysterious spiral of time and space.  This video was one of the  "trailers" for a play some 7 years ago that was based on a story by Ursula Leguin called "The Masters" (a story not without relevance today, as it concerns a scientist who is silenced by an oppressive theocracy in a post apocalyptic world.  )   Below I also share the Prologue to the tale.

The Hidden Sky: Fibonacci Video

 http://vimeo.com/8652898  

music and lyrics by Peter Foley

book by Kate Chisholm

based on the short story “The Masters” by Ursula K. Le Guin

directed by Kate Chisholm

The Hidden Sky: Prologue Movie from Cara Reichel on Vimeo.

"Science and religion collide in this sophisticated and mythic new musical. At the center of the conflict is Ganil, a young woman whose passionate longing for knowledge leads her on a dangerous journey in pursuit of lost and forbidden truths. With an eclectic score featuring lush choral singing, this compelling tale of spiritual awakening illuminates the complex dialogue between faith and reason."

“The power of Foley´s score effectively communicates the exhilaration of intellectual discovery… The melodic urgency, rhythmic variety, harmonic invention and orchestral sophistication of his music compel the attention. Foley acknowledges a range of influences from Sufi music to the rock band U2, yet what he has made of them is something uniquely his own.”

— The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Hidden Sky:  Fibonacci Movie from Cara Reichel on Vimeo.

Story Masks: Bast

 I've been wanting to share my archive of not just masks, but stories from the 20 plus years of the "Masks of the Goddess" Project.  Here is the story of Bast, from a 2000 performance directed by Diane Darling.   I think Bast was pleased............

Bast

Her paws whisper on temple floors

Her eyes 

luminous as the moon

Her ears pricked, 

alert to danger

Her whiskers sense currents from the unseen world.

Guardian of cats and women and children

Posessor of the uchat, the all-seeing eye

Bast wards against dangers in the spirit world -

Evil beings, enchantments, nameless things

Visible only to cats.

Daughter of Ra, the sun

Lady of the East, the Moon

Her eyes hold light in darkness 

Listen:

Ra the mighty sun appears at dawn as a baby

At sunset he is dying, and when he dies

Darkness falls.

But Bast prowls the Nile, gazes into the setting sun

Holds his fire in her eyes

Shining in the dark, until Ra is born again.

Bast is Mistress of the science of relaxation,

Bast luxuriates in her sensuality and agility

She plays  with her children:

But leaps ferociously to their defense.

She is The One Who Tears, Little Lion -

Her sharp claws are the vengeance of Ra. 

Those who love Bast honor every cat.

Speak to them with respect

Lay gifts at their paws.

They call to her:

“Mau Bast! Mau Bast!”

Here is her blessing

Her secret wisdom is yours to know:

Sunny spots are best for dreaming.

Never waste a moonlit night,

and accept reality with supreme indifference

To the opinions of mere mortals.

by Mary Kay Landon with Diane Darlilne (2000)

Music For The Mabinogi

Here's something I never thought to find on the Web, but I was wrong, a piece of very obscure music Robin Williamson wrote for a production of the Mabinogion,  in 1984, the ancient tales of the Welsh Pantheon.  In 1984 Robin Williamson and theatre company 'Moving Being' staged a 3 hour production of the tales form 'The Mabinogi'.  Some of the music was later released on an album by Robin Williamson.

I listened to that album (which is also below) so many times for years and years.......

To me, this music transports me to another time, a mythic realm populated with the Fey, with Rhiannon, with Lugh, with Pryll, infused with a kind of haunting bitter sweet magic that calls across the years and from some high, half-glimpsed green place in the calling woods. 


Robin Williamson 1984 Production of 'The Mabinogi' 

Robin Williamson - Music For The Mabinogi (Full Album)