Figures of Speech Theatre

Mask of the Grandmother (in progress) for the little match girl passion, our theatrical setting of David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composition. Workshop open rehearsal coming soon–June 19 and 20!

We are thrilled to announce that the Davis Family Foundation has awarded FST a $15,000 grant to help fund our upcoming production of little match girl passion. The funds will be used to purchase the scrim, rear projection screen, four digital projectors, scaffolding, and myriad other hard goods we’re employing to create the largest scale production in our 33-year history.

Look for the workshop premiere of the performance in late June, 2016, and a full premiere in January, 2016. Both performances will be graciously hosted by the Bates College Department of Theater and Dance.

Thank you, Davis Family Foundation!

John demonstrates the Little Match Girl’s right arm and the problem solving that made it work.

Sunrise in Saguaro National Park

I returned February 4 from a very full ten days in Tucson, Arizona, as a guest of The Rogue Theatre.

Beyond the opportunity to shirk snow-shoveling duties (I departed from Logan Airport in blizzard conditions that delivered over 50 inches of snowfall during a well-timed absence), my time in Tucson offered a chance to deepen a relationship with The Rogue’s artistic team that stretches back to 1986, when Cindy Meier, now The Rogue’s Managing and Associate Artistic Director, invited Figures of Speech to perform our signature piece, Anerca, at the Tucson Arts Festival.

In the intervening years, Cindy sagely married Mainer Tom Wentzel, which opened the door to annual meetings here in Freeport that sustained our friendship. She also teamed up with actor/director Joe McGrath to found The Rogue Theatre, and together they set out to stage innovative productions of classic works of literature. Now in its tenth season, The Rogue is an artistic standout in Tucson’s theater scene, a robust ensemble-based company with a “seize-the-day” approach to creation.

It was my pleasure to participate as an audience member in The Rogue’s sly and compelling production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, a piece I had never seen performed before. I joined the cast, crew and board of directors for a spectacular post-strike buffet dinner on the stage, and then sat in the next day on the monthly board meeting. Within 48 hours of my arrival in Tucson, I was ready to enlist! Not only have Joe and Cindy assembled a fantastic ensemble of actors and an excellent production staff, they have woven the community into the theater’s life, and created a culture of kindness, generosity, integrity and warmth that bowled me over.

That experience of The Rogue’s culture carried over into the workshop in puppetry I conducted with members of the ensemble, and into the rehearsals I observed for their upcoming production––Cindy’s adaptation of seven Virginia Woolf short stories.

The Rogue Theatre ensemble members exploring FST puppets.

One collective goal for my visit in Tucson had been to explore ways in which The Rogue and Figures of Speech could learn from each other, and to get to know each other’s aesthetic well enough to know if sometime in the future collaboration on a piece might be in the cards. The wheels are turning….

We also scheduled a performance of Four Quartets for The Rogue audience, and I performed the poems to a sold-out house. Cindy later wrote, “It’s a rare experience to sit in a full theatre and hear absolute silence. When John performed T.S. Eliot’s great poems at The Rogue, there were many moments of this rapt silence. It was as if the audience was holding its breath, clinging to each word.”

We look forward to Cindy and Tom’s next visit to Maine, and hope it will coincide with our workshop staging of the little match girl passion at Bates College on June 20.

T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets
The Rogue Theatre in Tucson, AZ

Sunday, February 1st at 2:00pm
Tickets available for $20

An unquestioned masterpiece of 20th-century literature, T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is a complex, deeply moving meditation on time, memory, and human striving toward the divine.

John’s recitation of Four Quartets affords audiences an opportunity to immerse themselves in these gorgeous lines of poetry, spoken from memory, and renew their understanding of one the 20th century’s most exceptional poets.

To purchase tickets:
(520) 551-2053
http://theroguetheatre.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=711711

 For More Information:

http://www.theroguetheatre.org/news.htm
The Rogue Theatre
300 East University Boulevard, Suite 150
Tucson, AZ 85705

FIGURES OF SPEECH THEATRE PRESENTS

FOUR QUARTETS

A RECITATION FROM MEMORY OF T.S. ELIOT’S POETIC MASTERWORK

Performed by John Farrell
Flute Interludes by Carl Dimow

Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 7:30 PM
Portland Ballet Studio Theater
517 Forest Avenue Portland, Maine

tickets $20 • reservations suggested
207-865-6355 or quartets@figures.org

“John’s recitation was both technically flawless, and poetically stunning, astonishing in the sheer impressiveness of speaking aloud from memory a piece of poetry that is known for its philosophical riddles, its paradoxes and reversals, and its deeply contemplative and ruminative tone.”

-Gabrielle McIntire, Professor of English, Queen’s University

“We come to understand that we’re watching someone who’s been on an amazing journey through the landscape of Eliot’s text and then come back to invite us to venture forth with him. That’s an unbelievably generous gesture – a rare one – and I think the audience understands this and responds accordingly.”

–Norman Frisch, Film and Performance Specialist, J. Paul Getty Museum

“The modesty of the performance belies both its power and Farrell’s prodigious mastery of the poems’ intellectual images and sensual intricacies.”

–Kristin M. Langellier, Professor of Communication, University of Maine

The Distance of the Moon

with opening guests Plains

The Distance of the Moon is a wordless adaptation for puppets of Italo Calvino’s short story, directed by FST’s Director of Education, Ian Bannon. Shadows, puppetry, and actors combine with a sparse, hypnotic musical score to bring to life this surreal tale. Humorous and heartbreaking by turns, the performance explores the beautifully murky depths of pure, unrequited love.

Portland’s Plains is a 5 piece cosmic country folk group from Portland, ME. Their songs are characterized by harmony vocals and hypnotic guitars.

November 14, 2014 at 8:00 PM
Mayo Street Arts, 10 Mayo Street, Portland, Maine

Tickets are $12 in advance; $15 at the door
Buy tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/897403

FOUR QUARTETS

A RECITATION FROM MEMORY OF T.S. ELIOT’S POETIC MASTERWORK

ACCOMPANIED BY BEETHOVEN’S A-MINOR STRING QUARTET

Four Quartets recited by John Farrell
A-Minor String Quartet (Opus 32) performed by
◦ Joel Pitchon – violin
◦ Katherine Winterstein – violin
◦ Ronald Carbone – viola
◦ Volcy Pelletier – cello

Tuesday, December 2, 2014 at 7:30 PM
Helen Hills Hills Chapel
Smith College, Northampton, MA

Free and open to the public

For more information:
415-585-4891 or www.smith.edu/poetrycenter

John Farrell, a principal in Maine’s groundbreaking Figures of Speech Theatre, recites from memory Four Quartets, a suite of poems often considered T.S. Eliot’s greatest. First undertaken in 2011 with permission — rarely granted — from Eliot’s estate, Farrell’s recitation of Four Quartets affords audiences an opportunity to immerse themselves in 1,000 lines of poetry exploring humankind’s relationship with time and with experience itself. One review notes that Farrell “opens the text in ways beyond the ability of the solitary reader.”

In a 1935 letter to Stephen Spender, Eliot wrote of Beethoven’s A-Minor String Quartet (Opus 132): “I find it quite inexhaustible to study. There is a sort of heavenly, or at least more than human gaiety about [it]. . .which one imagines might come to oneself as the fruit of reconciliation and relief after immense suffering; I should like to get something of that into verse before I die.”

Performed alternately, Eliot’s words and Beethoven’s music amplify one another in an infinitely stimulating artistic dynamic. Opus 132 will be played by distinguished musicians Joel Pitchon (violin), Katherine Winterstein (violin), Ronald Carbone (viola), and Volcy Pelletier (cello).

Presented in collaboration with the Smith Music Department’s Sage Chamber Music Society and supported by the Department of English Language and Literature

Pontine Theatre Presents the First Annual PORTSMOUTH PUPPETRY FESTIVAL, 14-15 June

June 14 and 15, Pontine Theatre presents the first annual Portsmouth Puppetry Festival at the West End Studio Theatre.

• FST’s Jester Kings of Java will be performed at 2pm on Sunday, June 15th
• 

The schedule of events also includes:

• Soloman & Ashmedal by Peaks Island Puppets at 2pm on Saturday, June  14th
• Mano-a-Monolog by Andrew Periale at 7pm on Saturday, June 14th
• The Magic Soup and Other Stories by Puppet Showplace Theatre’s Resident Artist, Brad Shur, at 7pm on Sunday, June 15th

Tickets are $15 for a single ticket, or $50 for a festival pass which may be used for four admissions at any show.  Purchase tickets in advance online at www.pontine.org.  Tickets may also be purchased at the door (cash and check only) based on availability. Pontine’s West End Studio Theatre is located at 959 Islington Street in Portsmouth NH.

Contact Pontine:  info@pontine.org / 603-436-6660.

The final episode of Frankenstein is now online, which can mean only one thing…

It’s time to grab a box of tissues and binge-watch this tragic series!