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Happy Friday! As the final weekend of Fringe dawns, we hope you can come check out our performances. Yesterday we had tech rehearsal in the afternoon and a show at 7 pm. Tonight we have a show at 5 pm, and Saturday at 4:30 pm!  We’ve been preparing and rehearsing for a long time, and are very excited to finally have an opportunity to share it with an audience.  More pictures and a tech play-by-play under the cut.

step into the light…

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Happy Wednesday! How nice to find a mention of Trojan Women in this morning’s Washington Post’s Fringe coverage. The article points out many of the festival’s female-centric shows, among which we are proud to be counted.

Under the cut: pictures from our director’s triumphant return, and preparing to storm the Source Theater tomorrow. (more…)

T-minus four days…

Well, we’ve managed to drag ourselves through the first hectic weekend of the Fringe. Many shows were seen, many drinks were had. Three of the four Trojan Two-Timers’ shows have closed: Cordelia’s Fool, The Farthest Earth From Thee, and Low Tide Hotel. All three were delightful performances that unfortunately are now only a memory. The last performance of Nutshell is on Tuesday night, 9:45 at Woolly Mammoth - it’s a great silly jungle-y time and I hope that some of you can make it!

Meanwhile, we are gearing up for tech, and have just received communication from our long lost director, on her way back from the untamed hills and valleys of distant Canada! Read more about that under the cut, as well as the unexpected hilarity of rehearsing a tragedy.
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Fringe has officially started!

Hope everyone had a great time at the opening night bash, I missed it but am hoping to see some pictures and read scandalous tales about it online.

You may wonder why I haven’t been writing about rehearsals. We actually aren’t having any at the moment - we’re on a planned break. One of the reasons for having an invited-dress was that we knew that half of us were going to be very very busy leading up to Fringe week. The goal: to have a completed show before the schedule got chaotic. That way we could have a brush-up rehearsal right before tech and go into performance with very few last-minute changes. Also, our director Rachel has been out of town this week - she’s on the annual Canada trip with Round House Theatre. Each year some of the staff and a group of patrons/subscribers travel to the wild north to go to the Shaw Festival.

Also, about half our cast are two timers - people who are involved in more than one Fringe show. It’s an awesome undertaking; we revel in our lack of free time, we scoff at our friends who get proper sleep, our nutritional health has plummeted, and our families are curious as to whether we’ve completely lost our minds. The double-crossing Trojans even have a secret salute/dance move. All of our other shows open today, so read about them under the cut! (more…)

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Trojan Update

The cast and crew have finally gotten our Artist’s Passes (which allow us to see other Fringe shows for a small discount). The eternal struggle has begun: which shows to see? Of course you have to start with the plays that your friends are in, and work out from there, but that doesn’t take into account the out-of-town shows and unexpected buzz. Some of the most interesting and striking work I saw last year happened entirely by chance - I saw 14 shows, and about half of them were complete surprises.

Of course, this year we have several members of our cast who are in other Fringe plays, but I’ll get into that tomorrow. Under the cut: another story from the director, and some lovely photos from the invited-dress. (more…)

Hi there!
This is the first entry for the upcoming Fringe production of The Trojan Women by Ellen McLaughlin, presented by the Referendum: Political Arts Collective. We’ll be performing in the Source Theater the second week of the festival. I’m Gwen, a member of the cast who’ll be acting as the unofficial blogger for this production. In our entries on this blog you can learn about our rehearsal process, the performers, and the show. Thanks to DC Theater Scene for continuing to provide such a great resource for artists!

Director and Cast
Our director, Rachel Grossman, is the Director of Education and Outreach at Round House Theatre. Our performers come from a variety of backgrounds; several members of the cast and crew have been teaching artists or employees of Round House, one of our performers is a dancer with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and several others are highly trained in mime, clowning, and physical theater. Most of us are working together for the first time.

Director’s Thoughts
I asked Rachel to briefly explain her reasons for picking this particular play, and she sent me the following: “I have always been a fan of Greek theatre and mythology. I fell in love with Ellen McLaughlin’s translation of Trojan Women from the first read. It made me cry… twice. I was struck instantly by the classic feel and sensibility but modern strength and power in the language. And all I could think about was the modern connections to the story and show. It just felt right to be revisiting it now. And what better place to present Euripides’ anti-war play than our nation’s capital? Maybe it isn’t a summer tale per se, but what time is the right to explore the effects of mass tragedy and chaos?”

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