Shiny Objects Updates

Here it is the middle of summer 2011.  We can’t believe it’s been a whole year since we premiered THE EXILE OF PETIE DELARGE at REDCAT in Los Angeles!

And what a difference a year has made!  The company is now based in Brooklyn, NY.   We have expanded our artistic team to include Co-Artistic Director Jesse Geiger and Artistic Associate Nathan Leigh in addition to founder and Co-Artistic Director Elizabeth R. English.  Jesse joins the company after recently completing his MFA in Directing at Brown University and brings experience running companies in New York and Chicago.   Composer and musician Nathan Leigh originally comes from the Boston area, where he has multiple IRNE awards for sound design; as a composer his work has been workshopped and performed in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, and he is a solo artist and member of the bands A Thousand Ships and Super Mirage (with writer/composer Kyle Jarrow).  Liz received her MFA in Producing from the California Institute of the Arts, is currently a member of the 2010-12 Women’s Project’s Producers Lab, and has produced work in Chicago, LA, New York, and at the Edinburgh Fringe.

We’re very excited to let you know that A Collection of Shiny Objects is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of A Collection of Shiny Objects must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.  To make a donation, click here.

It has been a busy spring and summer for us.  For those of you who are in New York next week, we’re thrilled to announce our participation in the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival, where we will be presenting a ten minute play, THE GOLDEN TICKET, another collaboration with ‘EXILE’ playwright Jennifer Barclay and directed by Jesse.  We’d love for you to come.  The festival runs July 19th-24th, and our presentation will be on the 23rd at 4:30 pm.  For more information and tickets visit: Samuel French OOB website.

And last, but certainly not least, A Collection of Shiny Objects has been given a September residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm to workshop GOODS AND SERVICES, our collaboration with playwright Greg Moss. Part coming of age story and part consumerist fantasia, GOODS AND SERVICES looks at a recent college grad and aspiring journalist who decides to live in a 24-hour Walmart as a 21st century right of passage. We’ll be using our time at SPACE to explore the physical life of our Walmart world, including an object theatre component, choreography and gesture work.  We plan to bring an ensemble of actors, puppeteer, design, and the playwright with us to this fully functioning organic farm in Brewster, NY, for five days of intensive work on the production.  In addition to spending time on the play, we’ll have the opportunity to be a part of the day-to-day working of the farm.  We can’t wait to get in there and get our hands dirty!

So that’s what’s new with us.  If you’d like to see more of the work we’ve been doing, please check out the pictures and music demos of past and current work we’ve got up on our website: www.collectshinyobjects.org  We’d love to keep in touch, you can subscribe to our newsletter on the site, be our friend by “Liking” us on Facebook, or following us on Twitter.

Much love from us,

Liz, Jesse and Nathan
The Shiny Objects Team

'EXILE' featured in LA Stage Alliance blog

Maureen Huskey and I sat down with reporter Ashley Steed from the LA Stage Alliance's blog to talk about 'The Exile of Petie DeLarge'.

Here's an excerpt:

" There comes a time when we must grow up and become an adult. But what does that even mean?

Recent CalArts Master’s grad and founder of the production company A Collection of Shiny Objects, Elizabeth English, realized she had been fed a lot of b.s. about life and what it means to be an adult. This was the impetus for searching for a new script and a new way of storytelling.

“I wanted to produce a project of some of the things I’ve been thinking about. Artistically, personally and politically.”

About a year ago English met up with an old college friend, playwright Jennifer Barclay. “Jen said to me, ‘I wrote this play and it’s kind of a cross between A Clockwork Orange, Peter Pan and Lord of the Flies. And Peter Pan is a girl and I think it’s a musical,’” she laughs. “And I said, ‘Well that sounds interesting, I think that might be my play.’” "

Read the full article at LA Stage Alliance blog

Oh, what a busy girl...

I see a lot of theater. Fancy that. In fact, I even hiked to NoHo today to a rehearsal hall that I would've mistaken for a funeral home if I hadn't been told differently, to see what I thought was supposed to be a workshop of a new musical. No dice, but that's a whole story unto itself.

Anyway, scorecard, the last two weeks:

Friday, April 10: 'Forgotten World' by Deborah Asiimwe, directed by Laurie Carlos, at CalArts

Monday, April 13: 'Much Ado About Nothing' directed by Mirjana Jokovic, at CalArts

Wednesday, April 15: Opening Night of 'Lydia' by Octavio Solis, directed by Juliette Carrillo, at the Mark Taper Forum

Friday, April 17: I participated in the MFA2 Critical Studies readings, as the voice of a rabbit, at Skylight Books

Friday Late Night: Irate phone call re: 'Lydia' at the Taper which necessitated the consumption of alcohol

Saturday, April 18: Trip down to the New Playwrights Festival at UCSD. Saw 'Clementine and the Cyber Ducks' by Krista Knight, and 'Obscura' by my pal Jen Barclay.

Sunday, April 19: 'Land of the Tigers' by Matt Almos and the Burglars of Hamm, at Sacred Fools

And, at intermission of "Tigers" I actually tore a page out of my program to write this list. I was afraid I was going to forget something.

This Friday coming I am going to the Opening of 'The Internationalists' at Poor Dog Group, which I am actually looking forward to. It sounds cool, and ambitious. I admire those Poor Dog Boys, and it was sweet of them to invite me personally. Their plan is to tour it to Eastern Europe this summer. I do want to open up a dialogue. If I can make my grand NY plan work, they'd be a great group to collaborate with.