We have come to the end of Synetic Theater’s series of short videos based on Boccaccio’s classic “in-the-time-of-the-plague” entertainments. Like one of those imported Masterpiece Theatre series, it feels that, tucked into one of those massive houses, is a world of people and their stories. I have come to know the family of characters and […]

Boccaccio’s world of The Decameron continues as cyber-theater for two more rounds of short videos by Synetic Theater’s company members and close associates. Imbedded in the program is one of the best short works in the series. Joseph McAlanan has found a nugget of a story to display his stage combat talents. Boccaccio’s third story in […]

In trying to capture the times of our modern plague, the sum of the Synetic artists who have made these short performance works have shown us life as it has been reduced: clowns in cramped spaces, unraveling minds, and chaos. Rachael Small pushes boundaries, creating one of the wackiest of all of the Synetic videos […]

The short videos from Synetic on this sixth day of content give us three worlds and stories through the language of dance. In classical ballet’s repertoire there is no greater or more physically demanding role than the dual swan role of Odette-Odile. Italian ballet dancer Valentina Palladino has used as her inspiration pieces of the […]

Day 5 brings us three new short works by Synetic Theater members as studies on life in the time of Covid. Kat Cárdenas-Cruz put a smile on my face with her short piece, “An Artist Struggles.” She directly links back to Giovanni Boccaccio, the progenitor of ten days, each with ten tales, that we know […]

Day 4 of Synetic Theater’s series of short pieces devised by members of the company’s roster of artists shows much of the same agility and demonstrable translation into forms of physical theater from a classic text that marks the Synetic style.  One has to ask, however, whether the individuals are really going as deeply into […]

”And how shall we entertain ourselves?” the characters in Boccaccio’s 14th century story collection, The Decameron, keep asking, and each in turn tells a tale. In Day 3 of Synetic Theater’s streamed Decameron, three women take a whack at “entertaining” in the time of COVID-19, using a wild variant of means and tones. Elena Velasco […]

In Ronald Harwood’s 20th-century play about the theater, The Dresser, the title character says of his friend who was in crisis due to depression, “What saved him was an offer of work.” Isn’t that the truth and what we artists all need right now? Well, then, God bless Synetic Theater for offering work to so […]