Flynn Center Blog

by Kayleigh Blanchette, intern at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts.

Contemporary composer Phil Kline, returns to FlynnSpace this Friday with an exclusive selection of song cycles, chamber music, string quartets, piano pieces, and new choral works. Performing the compositions are five members of the prestigious American Contemporary Music Ensemble and Kline’s longtime vocal muse, Grammy nominated singer Theo Bleckmann.

Phil talked about the show and his life as a composer over the phone.

What will audience members see at your show on Friday, March 23?

Well, over the last ten years or so I’ve written a lot of songs for different projects and this is a selection, several songs from Zippo Songs, a few choral works called John the Revelator, and a few songs from a show we did in Philadelphia a few years ago that hasn’t been performed since. So there will be some songs that have not been recorded as well as some brand new ones. A few of them come from a cycle called Out Cold, which will premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the Next New Wave Festival in October. And a little bit of chamber music is in there too. I think we’re going to play two movements from one of my string quartets, as well as piano pieces, so it’s sort of an evening of mixed stuff. The songs themselves go in a lot of different directions. I see my work as being old school and new school at the same time.

What is your relationship with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and Theo Bleckmann?

I first heard Theo when he was working with Bang on a Can. I just remember thinking “Wow! What a voice!” He has this very smooth, silky, legato voice. I don’t want everything I ever write to be for such a voice, but I’m content to write a few hundred of them. The first piece I wrote for Theo was Zippo Songs. And then a couple of the songs from the show that I mentioned that was only performed once—that show was called Locus Solus—I wrote that for Theo. More than half the music in the program is written for Theo.

ACME is just great. There is this whole wave, just an avalanche of musicians who are around 30 years old coming up all over the place. We hear of a fair amount of the young composers, but what I think is even more amazing is the young performers. Part of the reason you can have all of these young composers is because there are people out there to play our music.

How did your academic work in the English Literature program at Columbia lead you to music?

I had really cool teachers at Columbia. One of them, my favorite teacher ever, was this guy David Shapiro. There are going to be a couple of songs in the show that are his lyrics, because I admired his poems so much as a kid and I studied with him at Columbia. Two of his poems are in John the Revelator, one in Zippo Songs, and one in Locus Solus. David always taught us, “Don’t just study about poetry and don’t just read about poetry. Study everything. Your poems should be informed by what you ate or what you just read in the Scientific American, or anything, just the whole world.”

I remember that even at that time, David pointed out that my poems were full of allusions to music. Sometimes I even wrote poems that described musical performance. So I thought, “Well, maybe this indicates something.” Now I mostly write essays about music and I’ve been getting more into writing my own lyrics. Out Cold will probably be two-thirds or maybe 90 percent my own lyrics. I’m also working on an opera, and that’s one where we’re writing the entire text. There was probably a decade where I didn’t write anything as far as text or words. It came back to me, especially in the last few years as I’ve been doing more work with songs and choral pieces. There are only so many poems and texts out there that jump at the chance to set to music, so suddenly it went through my head: “Why don’t you write your own, dummy?”

How do you define yourself?

I’d say I’m a composer, lyrist, and writer. I’m a performer too, but I no longer perform that frequently. I may again. I play guitar. I was in a band in the early ’80s called Del-Byzantines [with Jim Jarmusch -ed.], and we were somewhat successful, but we only stayed together for two or three years and that’s not quite enough time to have a great career.

What are your hobbies outside of the music world?

Other than helping raise my 4-year-old daughter, who takes up about a third of the day? I really like to listen to music, go hiking and watch birds, and cook.

Has your daughter inspired your music at all?

I don’t know about directly, but in a broader more spiritual sense, absolutely. I mean, I had a child late in life. I wasn’t 25; I was like double that. There’s this “Oh my goodness. Will there be enough time left for me?” Then you realize, somehow, I got bigger and stronger and that there’s not less time, instead there’s more. Like the world is bigger.

What brings you back to Vermont?

This will be my third time at the Flynn. My first time at the Flynn it was 2000 or 2001, it was in February and the temperatures at night were around thirty below. I’d never experienced anything like it. I suppose I prefer the green Vermont to the white one but it’s just such a beautiful place. It’s one of those states that’s like its own little world. People from Vermont are a bit different. There’s a certain kind of Vermont guy and a certain kind of Vermont girl…there is a certain kind of freedom in Vermont that I find particularly inspiring.

Has the growing influence of technology helped or hindered your music?

What’s the best way to put it? I’m not a gearhead and I’m not proactive with technology. I’m not one of these guys who wakes up and checks out what’s new at the Apple store. I write music on a computer, but I began years after I could have. Early on I was really well known for what I did with hundreds of boom boxes. Boom boxes are already almost obsolete pieces of equipment, so I guess I like to work with junk.

But really, the computer does nothing but help especially with things like copying and correcting. I cannot express how much easier it makes all that. In a way, I feel very lucky that the computer was there at the right time to help me make a couple of leaps in my composition. After the first couple years, when everything I wrote was performance piece for a boom box, I wanted to write pieces for a regular ensemble. Using sequencing software and digital audio has really helped.

As a matter of fact, this year we introduced our first iPhone app for my piece Unsilent Night. There’s also a piece that I’m doing for Lincoln Center this summer for the Out of Doors Festival that commemorates the 100^th Anniversary of John Cage’s birth. This is a piece that will exist on several simultaneous levels, and one of those levels will be as an iPhone app. You’ll be able to hear parts of the piece walking around Lincoln Center using the app. Parts of the piece will be triggered by your positioning on the Earth. So there are a lot of things going on simultaneously. Some of them will be absolutely low tech with live musicians hitting things with sticks and people reading aloud and other elements will be entirely in the air; all with a global positioning application.

You’ve been involved in a lot of different types of musical projects from musicals, to rock bands, to sound installations. What direction do you see yourself going in next?

I don’t know. I guess, in a way, I’ve done different things that seem to point in different directions and though I can’t follow them all—well actually, I was going to say I can’t follow them all at once, but I can’t prove that that’s true. Maybe I can. I like to think that I can follow them all. For example, the Cage piece at Lincoln Center, it’s sort of a large audience participation work involving electronics. At the same time I’m writing a song cycle for one singer and a chamber ensemble, as well as writing an opera. You know, I’d like to be able to follow all of those directions, but I don’t have a master plan for putting them all together to make a gigantic work of art. I probably like the idea that I don’t know where I’m going.

VSA Vermont presents Engage, a juried exhibition featuring Vermont artists with disabilities. February 26 – April 29, 2012 at the Amy E. Tarrant Gallery of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts.

Over the course of this multi-year project, chosen artworks will be exhibited in a variety of cultural venues. Participating cultural venues are physically accessible and the exhibit, Engage also  provides accessible program and communication features. The Engage initiative offers participating artists opportunities to be featured in statewide publicity, to build larger audiences for their work, and to receive technical assistance in the professional documentation and presentation of their work. VSA Vermont’s exhibit will bring people with and without disabilities together to Engage in the experience of art.

by Josie Leavitt, stand-up comedian, FlynnArts teacher, and owner of Shelburne’s Flying Pig Bookstore.

Don’t miss Joan Rivers on Thursday, April 26 at 7:30 pm on the MainStage. Visit www.flynncenter.org for details and ticket information. The winner of “Win a Date with Joan Rivers” stand-up comedy contest opens the show. See the contest in FlynnSpace, Thursday, March 22 at 7:30 pm. Visit www.flynnarts.org to learn more about Josie’s FlynnArts stand-up comedy classes.

When I was growing up in the late ‘70s, I found myself making excuses to stay up late to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Not for the whole show, just for the comics. It always seemed to me that the comics were mostly men, until I saw Joan Rivers.

Her style was unique. Her rough New York accent was a comfort for this bedtime-defying kid from Long Island. I loved how shocking she was on stage. While the male comics I listened to swore mostly for shock value, Joan said things that were spot-on, yet somehow no one had dared to say in public before. That was where her genius lay. You would be laughing really hard, but also a tiny bit stunned that she actually said that on TV.

She would also make fun of herself, a lot. For an awkward teenager, this was a revelation and a relief. Her delivery was also unlike anyone else’s, an almost staccato barrage of zinging one-liners about celebrities that sometimes were mean, but always hilarious. As a kid, I always felt like I’d learned something after hearing Joan perform. I also loved that she never seemed to hold back. She went for it every time. She wanted to shock, but intelligently.

The thing about Joan Rivers is this: she loves what she’s doing. It’s clear she’s having fun on stage. She’s one the reasons I tell my comedy students to smile and enjoy themselves. A comic who laughs at her own material is having fun, and that’s contagious for an audience. Joan embodies the rare mix of a comic who writes great material and performs it conversationally because there are things she just has to tell you. Her classic line, “Can we talk?” embodies her need to share. She could be performing for a thousand or having dinner with you; I don’t think it would matter. I’m just so glad she’s coming, and I can’t wait to hear what’s she’s going to say.

by Kevin Titterton

This spring, Flynn Director of Education Christina Weakland is directing Titanic: The Musical for longtime Flynn partners Lyric Theatre. Christina talked about the show, which runs on the MainStage from April 12 to 15, closing on the actual 100th Anniversary of the disaster.

How did you get involved with Lyric Theatre?

When I moved to Vermont in ‘02 to get a Ph.D in psychology at UVM, Lyric was holding auditions for The Secret Garden which is a hauntingly beautiful piece of musical theater—one of my favorites. I had directed it in college, and just couldn’t pass up the chance to do it again, so I auditioned and was cast. It was completely ill-advised to try to do a show and doctoral work at the same time, but in the end it was serendipitous, because it reminded me how important theater was to my soul, and was the first step on my path back to a life in the arts.

How does your work with Lyric compare with your work with teen students in the Flynn’s Summer Youth Theater productions?

The biggest difference is scale: at the Flynn we work in FlynnSpace (a blackbox) which generally means a small cast, and about 125 audience members max. The actors are always within 15 feet of the audience, so it’s a very intimate environment that calls for a lot of gentle nuance. Lyric’s shows are presented on the MainStage, which allows for a larger cast, but also demands a different approach to staging. Audience seated up close can still catch the nuance, so you can’t abandon authenticity, but you also have to attend to the others in the balcony who can’t see facial expressions at all! So there’s a double awareness: making sure the actors also communicate their characters’ intentions with enough physical magnitude so that it will read at a distance, and using the whole floor space to stage interesting patterns, so that those in the balcony stay visually engaged.

What have been some of the challenges of staging this production of Titanic?

The sheer number of featured characters and interwoven stories! A microcosm of the world was on the Titanic, and the musical follows many of the individual historical characters (unlike the 1997 film, in which James Cameron created a fictional central love story). Most musicals have 2 to 4 leads, 2 to 4 supporting characters, and a chorus—perhaps a total of 6 to 12 speaking parts max. In contrast, there are over 40 featured speaking parts in Titanic! So making sure the characters are distinctly drawn, and the stories are individually effective parts of a cohesive, integrated whole is a real challenge. The number of large roles also creates challenges for the technical teams as well— more costumes, more disguises, and more actors who need microphones than usual. And last but certainly not least, the ship has to sink onstage. That’s an engineering marvel on which our volunteer designer, engineers, and construction team have been working ultra-hard. You’ll have to see it to believe it!

How about a highlight of the process?

Aside from the fun of digging into the history and psychology of the characters, it’s the people. Lyric is run entirely by volunteers. Nobody onstage or behind the scenes is paid, except for two administrative roles. Collaborating with these enthusiastic volunteer actors, artists, designers, and various other worker bees from the community is incredibly inspiring. There’s so much talent and so much generosity of spirit in Vermont!

What should we expect when we come to see Titanic?

Expect glorious harmonies in soaring, almost symphonic music. Expect some remarkable scenic magic and opulent 1912 costumes. But most of all, expect to connect to these people of 100 years past and discover that we’re not much different today: fascinated with money and celebrity, and hungry for the newest, best, and most powerful new technologies. The folks on the Titanic were ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. We share their strengths of character, and their flaws too. Thankfully, we don’t (at the moment) share their fate. But it’s food for thought that our societal philosophies, and the decisions we make individually, can lead to disaster on a massive scale if we’re not careful.

by Marianne DiMascio, VAS Grant Artist

Last Thursday we sat down at our usual time, in our usual place (www.cuppsvt.com) to work. What was different about this day? We had a lot of feedback to discuss and share with each other, many observations from the presentation of the work in progress, but what was really different was that for the first time in weeks we talked about new ideas. The rewriting process is so intensive and so important that we had to totally cut ourselves off from new ideas. We could add them to the spreadsheet, but our time together was dedicated to rewrites and decisions about the work in progress. Generating new ideas felt very freeing, and it reminded us of those first few days of writing together. Eventually, these new ideas will be the very subjects of our drafts and rewrites, but for now they are just sparkly new promises. We’re back at the beginning of the cycle, and there’s still more work to do on the other material.

Sunday, February 19th, was a turning point for us as a writing team. It was the day we had a chance to put our work up in front of a packed house in FlynnSpace. How many other new artists have this opportunity? The hours of work spent together and individually, writing, researching, and writing again, yielded their rewards. We received so much information, through audience reaction, feedback forms, and conversations, that we absolutely never could have received any other way.  There are some pieces we will change, and there are some pieces we will keep the same, either because they worked the way we thought they would, or because we believe strongly that they are true expressions of our voice. (Yes, a sketch about a support group for terrible Cher impersonator is our voice. We’ll rework it, it may be 95% different, but Cher isn’t going anywhere.)

Then there’s all that material that was never used. So much material, so many hours. Sometimes it felt like learning to bake something without a recipe. We were blindly buying ingredients, mixing them together, and waiting for the result. Sometimes the results were terrible, and sometimes they were good but not exactly what we wanted, so we bought a whole new set of ingredients and tried it all again–sometimes tweaking one small step and sometimes starting from scratch. So we sat at Cupps on Thursday morning, back at square one with some material, well into the process with other sketches, and enriched all the way by the process of collaboration.

Because of this opportunity, we have the information we need to stage a more fully produced piece. Right now we are looking for spaces for a fall performance date and even entertaining ideas for video clips. Thanks to the Flynn and all those who have supported us along the way. There’s more to come.

by Gina Haddock, Director of Development

When the Flynn’s “Stand up for the Flynn: Take a Seat!” campaign kicked off in October, we saw an immediate and inspiring show of public support. By the end of December, we received major support from the corporate community, individuals, and foundations; 280 seats had been named; and an unexpected gift of one million dollars had arrived, assuring our summer 2012 timetable for the renovation.

In addition to the much-needed financial support, the campaign provided something extra: the opportunity to hear your stories as you dedicated seats to loved ones, honored special occasions, and just had fun. The following are a handful of stories we’d like to share with you; stories that describe a community that came together joyously to celebrate friends, family, colleagues, and the importance of the arts in their lives.

Once the campaign was announced at our fall shows, Flynn spirits were the first to come forward. The spirits, our volunteer ushers who staff each performance, are a group who know how important it is to replace the seats after 60 years of wear and tear. Spirit Holly Pedrini and her siblings decided to name two seats in honor of their parents, Jack and Blossom Horowitz. Husband and wife spirit team Bill and Terry Kneen dedicated a seat in memory of their dear friend Al Myers, who was beloved by the local theater community. Al directed shows for Lyric Theatre, Williston Central School, and other organizations. Lyric Theatre also dedicated a row of seats in honor of the Flynn’s 30th Anniversary.

You may remember the sold-out benefit concert this fall with Grace Potter. While performing, Grace reflected on her special times at the theater, which inspired her father Sparky to name a seat after Grace and the Potter family. When Ella Byers, a young Grace Potter fan whose family also purchased a seat, heard the news she sent us a heartfelt request: Could we please place Ella’s seat plaque beside Grace’s plaque? We’re delighted that our young fan and aspiring singer gets her seat plaque—which is inscribed “for our daughter, Ella Byers, with love”—placed next to a singer she admires greatly.

Some of our supporters had great fun with the naming opportunities. Ben & Jerry’s generously named 20 seats in the theater, each a different ice cream flavor. We’re searching for an extra large version for our Chubby Hubby seat! Healthy Living stepped forward with an enthusiastic “Bravo!!” on their plaque and a warm note of appreciation for the Flynn.

Other donors used this opportunity to pay tribute to artists. Erika Senft Miller named her seat plaque for dancer and choreographer Mary Wigman, whose work inspired Erika on her own artistic path. Erika said she imagined that if Mary Wigman were an audience member of the modern day Flynn, she would be amazed at how deeply she’s influenced the performing arts landscape. Erika’s husband, John, paid tribute to Jerry Garcia with his seat plaque. Although Garcia is best known as a member of the Grateful Dead, it was his soulful work in The Jerry Garcia Band that John finds inspiring. “To this day, I still look for these timeless qualities in performers,” said John. “It makes me smile.”

As the holidays approached, we saw a flurry of seats purchased as special gift surprises for loved ones. Laura Zuchowski heard about the seat campaign at the performance of A Christmas Carol. The next day, she called with her story. Laura is the niece of Lucille Jarvis, who owned the Flynn as a movie theater in the 1980s with her husband Merrill. While Laura was in the theater with her young son, she watched him sit on the new sample seats as she reflected on her memories as a young girl visiting “Aunt Lulu’s” theater. She decided that the perfect gift for her father was to name a seat in memory of his sister, Lucille Jarvis. As Laura said, “We want Lucille’s named seat to create smiles and memories for many lifetimes to come!” When Laura’s cousin Merrill heard about the wonderful gift in honor of his mother, he and his family decided to name four additional seats in their name.

An especially moving gesture came from our behind the scenes unsung heroes, the Flynn stage hands. Last fall, this hardworking team lost one of their dearest co-workers, Mike Potashnick. The stage hands decided to name a seat after their beloved friend who spent so many hours helping create the magic of live performance.

Seats can be named until our May 12 community celebration. We invite everyone to mark your calendar and join us for our 30th Anniversary evening. All donations will be used to make capital improvements in the theater and lobby. We thank all who have so generously come forward.

For more information about naming a seat, please contact Gina Haddock at 802-652-4533 or rhaddock@flynncenter.org.

This story originally appeared on Vermont Public Radio.

A new art exhibit opened in Burlington Sunday. Engage is a juried exhibition featuring 35 artists with disabilities. It’s a presentation of VSA Vermont, an organization devoted to arts and disabilities.

VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb stopped by the Amy E. Tarrant Gallery at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts recently to get a preview of the show:

The exhibit was also created with accessibility in mind. The art works feature large print descriptions of the art work and audio narration.

Wertlieb speaks with Judy Chalmer of the VSA Vermont, show curator Paul Gruhler and artist Gwendolyn Evans.

The Engage exhibit runs through April 29^th. You can find more information from VSA Vermont.

Click here to listen to the interview.

by Pamela Polston

This article originally appeared in Seven Days.

An exhibition called “Engage” is a “dream I’ve had for six years,” says Judith Chalmer. The executive director of VSA Vermont is talking about a touring, juried art show featuring 39 works by 35 artists who have “various disabilities.” But more than just a display of artworks, the twofold project is also about bringing access awareness to venues and gallery-goers alike. To Chalmer, it’s nothing short of “a moment of transformation statewide in terms of accessibility in cultural venues.”

Consider the radical notion, for example, that a person with limited sight could enjoy an art show — not to mention make art. “It hasn’t been understood how people with visual impairment could be patrons of the arts,” Chalmer says. “It’s an underserved population.” That’s an understatement. Even for VSA Vermont, whose mission is to pair the arts and individuals with a variety of disabilities, a focus on visual impairment is “a new one,” she notes.

That focus has entailed seeking training from national experts in audio inscription, as well as in ways to make a gallery exhibit more visually accessible. Something as simple as large-print labels, Chalmer points out, is useful to all gallerygoers — people can read them from a distance instead of having to jockey for a close-up position. Larger letters are also easier for those learning to read, or who are new to the English language.

VSA Vermont, with the help of the Vermont Arts Council and its accessibility consultant, Renee Wells, will provide technical assistance to the cultural venues participating in “Engage” — three to five galleries “that have physical access at least,” says Chalmer. The organization will also offer accessibility training to others. “This is growth for us to become a resource for venues around the state,” Chalmer says. “The calls are already coming in from galleries — ‘How can we train our staff to work with audio?’ We’re looking to travel the exhibit and pass along those skills.”

The nonprofit also partnered with Burlington City Arts and the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts to bring about “Engage.” The Flynn’s executive director, John Killacky, was a member of the jury, and the show will open at that venue’s Amy E. Tarrant Gallery later this month. The other jurors were Mickey Myers, director of the Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville; artist Janet Van Fleet of Cabot; and Greensboro-based artist Paul Gruhler, who also curated the exhibit.

Chalmer says the jurors “did not discuss disability”; they just considered the merits of the art, which was presented in a range of two-dimensional mediums. “There are artists who have been working for a long time, and others are brand new,” she says. “All are thrilled at the opportunity.” The process, Chalmer adds, “has connected us with artists we didn’t know before.”

For his part, Gruhler says working on “Engage” has been “a wonderful learning experience, getting to know what the challenges are for the artists every day.” From its electronic call to artists through assistance in framing the artworks, the project has “given them an opportunity to be in an exhibition — in some cases for the first time — and also to be able to take themselves seriously as artists.”

For the art-viewing public, too, “Engage” is likely to offer a twofold experience: bringing the work of artists with disabilities “to the forefront of cultural life in Vermont,” says Chalmer, and increasing awareness of how individuals with physical, developmental, psychiatric or visual challenges negotiate a world the rest of us take for granted.

“Engage” opens with a reception at the Flynn Center’s Amy E. Tarrant Gallery in Burlington on Sunday, February 26, 4-6 p.m. The exhibit remains on view there through April 29, and then will travel to other venues around the state. vsavt.org