We had a read-through of the latest script on Wednesday night (10/23/19), following a loooooong hiatus from seeing most of the ensemble face-to-face! Finally. At LONG last. 

Much has changed since we made the decision to postpone the show last fall - lots has changed for many folks in our company over this past year - marriages, break-ups, deaths and recovery from illness and surgery - new jobs, new living situations, replete with the same old worries, anxieties...the cycle of beginnings and endings remains as true in life as it does in our show, and it's touched all of us in one way or another.

Our country is hanging in the balance, feels like the world is falling apart, and our story of what happens 120 years in the future has never felt more relevant and inevitable...to the point of wondering what does art even matter in times like these, when there's a very real threat of human extinction looming on our (maybe not very distant) horizon?

I will confess, I've felt extremely ambivalent about producing this play over the last couple months.  Haven't really said anything to anyone - I'm one of the playwrights, one of the producers, one of the actors, I'm not sure anyone's prouder of this show than I am, and thus, am the last person who should be having doubts: Shakespeare's "Scottish Play" is rumored to be cursed. I was in a production of the Big M several years ago, and it was DEFINITELY cursed. Apparently, The Bard put in actual, ritual language into his play, and people say this is one of the reasons why.

A Series of Small Cataclysms has been plagued by some chaos over the past year as well, and one of my good (and woo-woo) artist friends told me to be sure to create an altar to Eris during rehearsals, to hold the space and keep boundaries. I've been thinking about it for awhile, but especially over the past month or so, when our company has had, in very quick succession, several distressing events occur. My own energy around the project has been one of, to be frank, resignment and a little dread lately: NOT the best way to start a rehearsal process. 

I clamored around my house half-heartedly on Wednesday before the reading, trying to find appropriate objects for some sort of rudimentary altar. Even stopped by the supermarket beforehand, to pick up a fresh, Lady Alice Apple of Discord for Eris. As soon as I got to TPS, I set this alter up and did a small blessing by intuition, with the four elements and the apple. I felt a little foolish, but placed the altar in the center of our table nonetheless.

Pretty soon after, our first auditioner appeared for the chorus member slot we still had to fill. She came early, before the rest of the group, as her schedule didn't allow for her to stay past 6:30pm. Since no one else was there, I ended up reading from the script with her for Ralph (our new director) to see. She had a great audition, and just that bare minimum reading, for me, made me feel an energy around the work I hadn't felt in awhile. I felt it immediately, and began to relax...this is, after all, what I've dedicated most of the last 30 years of my life to. Whether or not the Seattle theatre community has chosen to embrace me, I KNOW MY SHIT. 

After this early audition, the rest of our ensemble - cast AND crew, began to slowly trickle in - some of whom I hadn't seen in over a year! - and whom it was so, SO good to see. As well as one of our other auditioners. There was a BOUNTY of snacks (Ralph went a little overboard), and we had Jen (still recovering from back surgery) as well as Kristin (our PR person, in North Carolina) Skyping in remotely. 

The reading itself? Totally balm on my weary soul, and I felt the rest of the ensemble tingle with electric energy as well, both during and after the read-through. It reminded me of this: we're telling the story Eris wanted us to tell about her - she's the one who crashed through that metaphorical wall of my psyche that long-ago day as I was writing, like the angel in  Kushner's Angels in America, and basically inserted herself into the plot...and when the Goddess of Chaos walks in and says she's in your play, you GET OUT THE DAMN WAY and let her reveal her story.

The read-through reminded me she is on our side, in her way, and we will continue to honor her during our rehearsal process, and are telling a part of her story that men, vilifying & belittling all things female and matrilineal, buried or twisted eons ago. 

Our play kicks ass. It is powerful. Our ensemble is powerful. And even if the world is headed towards a slow (or faster than we'd hoped!), inevitable end, I will still continue to love those I love and make art until I have breathed my last breath. Come experience A Series of Small Cataclysms in 2020. I think you will find it worthwhile. 

(copied from You, Me and The Postapocalypse, 10/10/2017, by Carolynne Wilcox)
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The title? It’s the name of my play. Well – not just mine – it is co-written by one of my besties and tribe member Jen Smith Anderson, and we’ve been working on it since summer 2013. There were many, MANY meetings where we just sat in my living room, building our world while eating delicious foods and consuming copious beverages.

A quick disclaimer: this post is less about any impending or fictional apocalypse and more about the journey of our play, so if that’s not of interest, feel free to skim or ignore. But, it does illustrate that my interest and investment in this topic goes far beyond being a fan of the genre when it comes to pop culture. I’m interested as an artist, as an explorer, as a historian. And I’m interested as a human being who might have to put survival strategies in place at some point soon, given the perfect storm of critical events swarming our little Earth at the moment. So read on, if it might interest you!

We didn’t know much about our piece at first, only that we wanted to work on a theatre piece together, and after reading a couple of great already-written plays by amazing authors, decided we really just wanted to make our own thing. We also decided we would not give ourselves any deadline, that we would work until it felt right. I can’t even remember at what precise moment we decided it should be post apocalyptic, but that we were talking a LOT about things like Stephen King’s plague epic The Stand (which we’ve both read multiple times) and climate change. We knew we wanted it to be woman-centric, and talked about the idea of female characters based on the 4 elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water). We talked about there maybe being a wedding, or some kind of event they were gathering for. And we talked about the story encompassing circular time – like, past, present and future are all happening NOW. And Jen brought up the idea that the play’s present did not have to be OUR present…that we could set it in the nearish future…and that may have been why it ended up inching into the postapocalyptic.

Anyway – we spent most of the summer and part of the fall of 2013 just meeting and talking about things. We wrote little blurbs of things we were thinking about. As November began to rapidly approach (you know: November, of NANOWRIMO fame, and also its little-known, red-headed stepchild NAPLWRIMO), I suggested we should just dive right into the actual writing of our play, otherwise there would never be an end to the world-building. So we started, and a tale began to unfold.

It was about 120 years in our future, and we used the soft, climate-change apocalypse depicted in Earth 2100 as our environmental history. At first, it was just four grown sisters (each based on one of the four elements) gathering at the death bed of their mother. It was basically a bittersweet family living room drama taking place at the end of the world.

So, we've returned back to rehearsal - actually a couple of weeks ago, and the most recent time, last Tuesday, with our entire company present, as well as my friend Siobhan O'Loughlin, (in town to perform her OWN provocative solo piece, Natural Novice, at The Pocket last weekend) who volunteered to be on book as we stumble our way back to being fully off!

It is a wonderful and fascinating thing for an actor to return to a role and be able to mine it for previously-undiscovered jewels! The role has a way of deepening in amazing ways. Yes, I speak for myself, and hopefully Jen and Machelle too, finding all sorts of things that never even occurred to me the last time we ran. It's always such a pleasant surprise that instead of getting stale and rote, the character morphs and reveals new secrets, new ways of understanding who she is and why she does what she does. Doubly interesting if you also WROTE one of the pieces you're acting in.

We also had a chance to work Abi Grace into the action - as a goddess who is getting increasingly annoyed that these women who have come to ask her for things keep calling her by the wrong name! - she reminds me a little bit of Carol Kane as The Ghost of Christmas Present in that Bill Murray holiday classic, Scrooged. She is totally the goddess who would kick your ass in an effort to get your head out of it! Can't wait to hear the original music/sound she will be bringing in.

Looking forward to more rehearsals, and then putting this thing up in front of an audience again! We (re)open next month at the Eclectic Theater as part of Seattle Fringe Fest 2014! Hopefully, they will soon give us a ticketing link we can share!

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MythFest runs again on Sept 18 at 6:00pm, Sept 19 at 7:30pm, Sept 20 at 5:00pm and Sept 21 at 2:30pm at the Eclectic Theater on Capitol Hill. We remount the following weekend at The Pocket Theater in Greenwood on Sept 28th at 7:00pm. 

by Carolynne Wilcox

I was so excited by Stephanie's awesome PR photos, Abi joining MythFest and our baby Mythodical Ensemble FB page getting over 100 "likes" in 24 hours that I forgot to announce the MOST EXCITING THING!

We will be performing at Eclectic Theater formerly and fondly the Odd Duck) at 1214 10th ave on Capitol Hill! The gods must've whispered this in one of our ears while we were sleeping, because long before we knew for sure, we procured a couple hours' rehearsal space there this week! 

We were all very happy to get this news - as much as we enjoyed performing in March at the Seattle Creative Arts Center with The Pocket Theater, it was definitely challenging as a theater space, so having a venue with an actual *lighting board* as well as more traditional entrance and exit options (even a center aisle up the audience!) is extremely exciting. Plus, we already performed Fate Demands It there all by its lonesome, albeit accompanied by several other original short plays in June's One-Act Play Festival, so we are definitely hitting the ground running. Yay for us!

Hope you will come see the new MythFest next month:

Thursday, September 19 at 6:00pm
Friday, September 20 at 7:30pm
Saturday, September 21 at 5:00pm
Sunday, Septmeber 22 at 2:30pm

by Carolynne Wilcox

I just HAD to toot the horn of our photographer, Stephanie Mallard Couch. I just HAD to. I met her while we were both actors in a reverse-gender production of Hamlet at Ghost Light Theatricals - she was playing Polonius; I played the Ghost. She was not the "official" photographer for the production, but brought her fancy camera in a couple times anyway and got a lot of "just for fun" shots. I loved her work. 

A couple months later, while working on PR for eSe Teatro, we were looking to get a few shots of our staged reading of Don Quixote & Sancho Panza: Homeless in Seattle, but also both publicity and production photos of eSe Oro: Classics from the Golden Age of Spain. I immediately thought of Stephanie, and once again, she delivered. Not only that, but she had lots of fun doing it!

So of course, when we embarked upon getting publicity shots in February for MythFest, Stephanie was the first name that came to mind. She does great work, gets the photos back very quickly, and is really fun to work with during the photo shoot - she's great at incorporating both the ideas we put forward, as well as coming up with many of her own! And the results, of course, are stunning.  Just see for yourself in the gallery below of our most recent shoot! And if you are looking for someone to photograph a show or an event, or even if you need new head shots (she did mine!) - please contact her through her website, SMC Photography, HERE.

by Carolynne Wilcox

Back before in February of this year, before MythFest graced The Pocket's roving stages, my cohorts participated in something of a preview/showcase event of upcoming attractions, where they showed a brief glimpse into the world of MythFest. I was in Mexico on the beach (which was just HORRIBLE and filled with suffering as I'm sure you can imagine).

Also part of this showcase was a singer/songwriter who sang of myth and tale. They all met her, listened to her stuff and thought she was amazing. We considered asking her to be part of our show at the time, but felt it was just too short notice.

Several months later, embarking upon our remounts, we thought it was a perfect time to see if she'd be interested and/or available to join us for our Fringe Fest shows, and maybe the remount at The Pocket...and she said YES!

So without further adieu, I present Abi Grace, singer-songwriter-storyteller extraordinaire! She's been performing since the age of 16, and currently, her music "intertwines elements of mythology and magic in attempt to explore the complicated and exhilarating experience of being human."  Sounds like a perfect fit for MythFest!

We are beside ourselves with enthusiasm to welcome her to our little group of goddesses, and hope you'll come listen to her beautiful and haunting melodies as a part of the show in September!

Learn more about Abi Grace HERE. Learn more about MythFest HERE.

     We had our photo shoot this past Thursday, and the weather somewhat cooperated by at least being dry and dropping by a couple degrees, but it was still pretty hot out, and some of us were in a *mood* for various and totally legitimate reasons that had nothing to do with MythFest and everything to do with things like traffic, technology and transportation issues!

     Location photo shoots, especially in public places, are always interesting, though I felt I'd done a pretty good job of finding a place with less foot & auto traffic, than, say, the column park on the corner of Pike and Boren. However, as we were getting ready to start up, a fitness group came by to do a workout in the space! They were really nice and neither group got in each other's way, but it was definitely an interesting element to work with, i.e. trying to artfully angle the shots so we didn't end up with spandex-clad aerobicizers in the background.

     It took us a little over an hour, but we managed to get most of what we were interested in, especially some fun, stylized shots of us with red scarves over our faces...I feel like a bit of a broken record with this image (having used it now, several times) but I can't help it - it's a striking image. Judge for yourself - I've included a couple of Stephanie's shots below, amid a couple of my *far less superior* phone shots.

by Carolynne Wilcox

AH! The inaugural post of what I *hope* becomes many more, especially as we get cooking here in the countdown to Seattle Fringe Festival - we are eagerly awaiting to hear our times and venue, and will post it and probably scream it all over town once we do know, because that's just the kind of excited we are to remount MythFest!

Towards that end, we have a shoot today for publicity photos, up at...I'm not really sure if it's a park, exactly, or a public area connected with the building next to it (which MAY be a church of some kind - will have to investigate further this evening) - but it's at the corner of 15th and Union up on Capitol Hill and - has four lovely, Greek-looking columns as well as some nice archways. And the weather has cooperated by becoming cloudy and much cooler, which bodes well for us delicate Seattle flowers who positively *wilt* when the temperature climbs above 80 (it has been in the mid-80's/90's for the past two weeks)! Especially since we will be wearing black.

I love "art directing" (if that's what you call it...) photo shoots for theatre - publicity photos aren't meant to be actual show photos, so you can have some fun with them. I'll also be designing the poster from what we get at this photo shoot so have to make sure we've got some great, evocative action shots!

Will elaborate more tomorrow on the shoot itself...

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Carolynne Wilcox is a co-founder of Mythodical Ensemble.