Field Trip Theatre

Call for plays

daniellemohlman — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:12:22 -0400

Field Trip Theatre is seeking plays and musicals for their 2013-14 season.

Field Trip Theatre is committed to supporting emerging artists through development and production of new plays that engage diverse audiences and reflect the perspectives and identities of The District. We value innovative storytelling and uncensored artistry that serves the diverse community of Washington, DC.

Field Trip will choose four plays and one musical from playwrights who live in DC and the surrounding areas to be workshopped throughout the season (August 2013 - July 2014). Each playwright will be paired with a dramaturg and director and work with professional actors from the DC area. Workshops will culminate in a public reading. One of the plays or musicals chosen will serve as Field Trip Theatre’s 2014 Capital Fringe production. A second play or musical will be produced as a fully staged reading.

Plays should be no longer than 90 minutes and submissions are limited to two per playwright. Submissions should be “works-in-progress” and not previously produced beyond a reading/workshop format.

Email your plays in PDF form to fieldtriptheatre@gmail.com with “Play Submission” in the subject line. Those submitting musicals should also include MP3 demo tracks. Submissions are due June 16 at 11:59PM.

The Will by Adi Stein Staged Reading

harveyinengland — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:56:16 -0400

May 12 @ 7PM

Wonderland Ballroom Bar

1101 Kenyon Street

The Will by Adi Stein

Sunday, May 12 at 7PM at The Wonderland Ballroom

The Whitmans are a conniving bunch, so itʼs no surprise that the patriarchʼs funeral has nothing to do with the deceased himself. What starts as a memoriam quickly turns for the worse. This comedy explores what it means to be a family — one that has to deceive, cheat, and steal to get just what they want. And you thought your family was rough.

Directed by Jacob Janssen

Dramaturgy by Jacob Kresloff

The Wonderland Ballroom is located at 1101 Kenyon St NW on the corner of 11th St NW and Kenyon St NW. Accessible by Metro at Columbia Heights station.

Tickets for Terminals by David Robinson now available!

harveyinengland — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 16:58:00 -0400

Check out our second staged reading of the season: Terminals by David Robinson.

Sunday, April 7 at 7PM

The Wonderland Ballroom

Reserve your tickets

After taking the experimental drug Somniﬂex before takeoff, frequent traveler Scott Sipala starts moving forward and backward in time. During these seven year jumps, Scott must learn to deal with not only the radical time shifts but also his inability to return to his main vector where he can see his daughter and granddaughter.

Directed by Maureen Monterubio

Dramaturgy by Alison Ehrenreich

Scott - Jonathan Feuer

Catherine - Katy Carkuff

Madison/Jessica - Emma Jackson

Medic/Carl - Steve Isaac

Old Man/Edgar - Matt Dougherty

The Wonderland Ballroom is located at 1101 Kenyon St NW on the corner of 11th St NW and Kenyon St NW. Accessible by Metro at Columbia Heights station.

Kickstarter goal achieved!

harveyinengland — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:55:38 -0400

Thank you everyone who has donated! We have met our $3,000 goal on Kickstarter. We still have 17 days left of our Kickstarter project, and we would love for to see this fund grow! Every dollar goes directly to the performance and will help pay actors and designers put on the best production possible. Check out the great rewards we have for our donor levels, too! We have everything from a signed card with a personal message from the cast to a complimentary ticket package to one of our two $500 donors. We greatly appreciate everything our donors, patrons, and supporters do for us!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fieldtriptc/field-trip-theatre-presents-fallbeil-by-liz-maestr

Want to know what Fallbeil looks like through the eyes of its dramaturg? Check out this interview...

daniellemohlman — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 12:51:00 -0500

Want to know what Fallbeil looks like through the eyes of its dramaturg? Check out this interview between Jacqueline Lawton and Amanda Coffin. Read the full article here. The reading tomorrow is sold out, but you can still get on the wait list.

Check out this interview between Jacqueline Lawton and Fallbeil playwright Liz Maestri. Read the...

daniellemohlman — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:26:52 -0500

Check out this interview between Jacqueline Lawton and Fallbeil playwright Liz Maestri. Read the full article here. The reading on Sunday is sold out, but you can still get on the wait list.

Fallbeil by Liz Maestri Sunday, March 10 at 8PM The Wonderland Ballroom Reserve your...

daniellemohlman — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:43:00 -0500

Fallbeil by Liz Maestri

Sunday, March 10 at 8PM

The Wonderland Ballroom

Reserve your tickets

Two 21-year-olds are taking matters into their own hands—at any cost. Sophie has resolved to destroy Nazi Germany from the inside out, while Else faces her sudden and terrifying responsibility as the new head of her family. This historical fantasy examines the relationship between sisters and brothers, young people and war, and deﬁance and triumph in the face of all odds.

Directed by Nick Vargas

Dramaturgy by Amanda Coffin

Else - Caitlyn Conley

Karl - Josh Adams

Hans - Kevin Collins

Sophie - Chelsey Christensen

Fritz - Steve Isaac

The Wonderland Ballroom is located at 1101 Kenyon St NW on the corner of 11th St NW and Kenyon St NW. Accessible by Metro at Columbia Heights station.

Four New Plays by DC Playwrights for 2013

daniellemohlman — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:59:00 -0500

Field Trip Theatre is proud to announce that we’re partnering with The Wonderland Ballroom to present staged reading of four new plays by DC playwrights in 2013. Head over to Columbia Heights, have a pint, and enjoy some local talent.

Sunday, March 10 at 8PM - Fallbeil by Liz Maestri

Sunday, April 7 at 8PM - Terminals by David Robinson

Sunday, May 12 at 8PM - The Will by Adi Stein

Sunday, June 9 at 8PM - Nexus by Danielle Mohlman

The Wonderland Ballroom is located at 1101 Kenyon St NW on the corner of 11th St NW and Kenyon St NW. Accessible by Metro at Columbia Heights station.

Field Trip Theatre is accepting submissions for their 2012-13 workshop season

daniellemohlman — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:52:08 -0400

Are you a DC playwright? Send us your scripts by November 20. More find out more here.

"Stopgap" is a Promising Social Comedy

daniellemohlman — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 21:38:49 -0400

by Peter Marks (The Washington Post)

“Stopgap,” playwright Danielle Mohlman’s promising new social comedy, is a kind of updating of “The Heidi Chronicles,” the tale of a flinty young woman who opts for the concreteness of motherhood when everything else in her life is muddy.

The manner in which the unattached May (Caitlin Diana Doyle), a twentysomething teacher in the Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills, achieves this goal is a pivotal point of the play, well directed by Jamila Reddy and running as part of the Capital Fringe Festival in a tiny basement space of the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. Although at an hour and 50 minutes the piece is wildly overlong — it tends to repeat itself a heck of a lot — the perceptive Mohlman creates a gallery of characters believably engaged in the struggle to shed the solipsism of young adulthood for a life filled with more serious purpose.

Read the full article here.

"So Now it's Convenient to Compartmentalize?": A scenic designer's perspective

daniellemohlman — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:02:00 -0400

By Adrian Rooney

May: So now it’s convenient to compartmentalize? To decide that blood is blood and nothing else has weight?

How do you design a set for a play with seven different and incredibly specific locations? On a budget of $150. My biggest fear going into this project was that the production limitations would make the play look like a college showcase. While you could have the set be just a bench or a few chairs, my instinct was that this configuration would make the space look sparse and unfinished.

It wasn’t until I moved in with my girlfriend, a former high school English teacher, that I started looking at “Stopgap” differently. We moved countless boxes of binders, overheads, graded tests, and lesson plans out of storage and into our apartment. It made me start looking at “Stopgap” as a memory play based around May and Robert. It was then that we ordered thirty Bankers Boxes and started filling them with the countless props this piece relies on. At the risk of sounding pretentious, each box on the set represents a memory, reinforced by the items in it.

In the first iteration of the set design, the boxes were scattered all over the stage. After each scene, the entire cast would flood the playing space and rearrange the boxes into a “new world.” It was not long until this logistical nightmare was scrapped in favor of the set design you see today. Throughout the course of the play, the actors raid the Bankers Boxes for props, pack their lives inside of them, and even sit on them.

So while there’s a pain in the convenience of compartmentalizing for these characters, the storage boxes in the backdrop of this production haunt the play almost as much as the phrase “I don’t know.”

Playwright's Perspective: Writing a Prop 8 play that isn't an "issue play"

daniellemohlman — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 10:01:34 -0400

by Danielle Mohlman

When I started writing this play, it was very much a text rooted in the idea of enemies and friends. The piece was much more political than it is today (you can’t tell that by the playground themes I just described, I know) and it imagined a world in which there was an out journalist in a suburban California town. Somewhere along the way, I changed Robert’s profession to “teacher” and, at the suggestion of one of the other grad students in my workshop, gave this character a boyfriend. Which, through the magic of rewrites, became a partner. And then a husband.

Several people have commented on the fact that this is a play that features a gay couple and isn’t a clear-cut “issue play.” I love that audiences are responding this way. They’re seeing Robert and David as any other couple. The problems that they have are the same problems that every other couple has. There’s a normalcy in their relationship, which is exactly how it should be. Except it’s November 2008 in southern California.

May: Why does her birthday have to be so close to Election Day?

Robert: I don’t have time to decode your subtext right now.

May: We shouldn’t be celebrating anything.

Robert: We got Obama.

May: That was a consolation prize.

The cloud that hangs over this entire play (no matter how subtly) is the fear that Robert and David’s marriage is no longer valid, and the overwhelming necessity to stay together in that uncertainty.

As a native of California, “Stopgap” was born out of a very political place. During the 2008 election, I witnessed many of my friends have their rights stripped from them right in the middle of this incredibly exciting time for our nation. Obama’s “Hope” campaign was a bright light. Prop 8 was a dark shadow.

And calling the LGBT community of southern California “my friends” is really hyperbole. I lived in a conservative pocket of a liberal state. All of my gay friends were closeted. I liked the idea of being an ally. But I was a college student living in a dairy town. The cows outnumbered the people.

So while Robert and David are just like any other married couple, they also aren’t. And while I’m not hitting the audience over the head with themes, there are still implications for the choices of these characters make. Because at the core of it, “Stopgap” is a play about love.

We want to make sure you (and everyone you know) don’t...

ja-mi-la — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:27:14 -0400

We want to make sure you (and everyone you know) don’t miss our production of Stopgap! So do us a favor. Click the link to our Facebook event and invite your friends!

For tickets and passes, click here or call 866-811-4111.

Julie James is a Scorpio: an actor's perspective

truthbstated — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:49:00 -0400

by Eileen Haley

Julie James is a Scorpio and a traditionalist. When I auditioned for the part of Julie, I felt like I was meeting someone that I know. On the surface we have a lot in common: age, motherhood, and sass. While reading the role out loud for the first time, I was afraid that Julie could slip into a sitcom sort of shtick. I didn’t want that to happen to her. She is a complex character who really wants to be nice, but Julie James is a Scorpio.

In the first scene of the play they are celebrating her birthday which is somewhere near Election Day, November 4, 2008. There is sharpness and a sting to Julie. She doesn’t exactly express a full-throated love of her first born son, Matt, who may have “dud sperm.” She speaks ill of her dead husband to her son Robert. She make innuendos about the pretentiousness of Robert’s husband, David, and she alphas her not-daughter-in-law, May.

She is not in many scenes, but she manages to put down both the living and the dead. Scorpios react emotionally to everything they experience in life. Before they take physical action, before they sort out the practicality of what they are doing, and before they reason things out intellectually, they express their feelings.*

Julie James says she regrets taking her husband’s last name because she “hates the alliteration.” Of course this is the least of her reasons. In retrospect she tells May she would have done it differently. But she opted for the traditional route: marriage with with a husband who worked late and two kids. And all this during the height of the Feminist Movement. (Gosh, she’s a smart lady. I bet she read The Feminine Mystique.)

At one point she says, “We are irrational rational beings.” She should know.

*http://www.dailyscopes.com/scorpio-sun.php

When acting is scary: Jen Parker and the high school Megan from the deep

truthbstated — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:49:05 -0400

Stopgap actress Megan Westman tells her story.

megwest:

Over the course of the past 12 months, I have undertaken a variety of incredibly challenging roles, many of which required an unexpected amount of vulnerability. Last semester I spent 8 minutes completely alone onstage, in the round no less, giving birth. Legs splayed open wide to the audience, albeit covered by a sheet, hair out of whack, making horrible faces, literally screaming about dragons, and alternating between hyper-ventilating and doing birthing breathing patterns, I did just fine. Oh, and I did it all over again in St. Petersburg, Russia, four months later. There was a power and a confidence and a strength to being in such a horrifyingly vulnerable situation.

Despite the power I found in my past year of acting, the show I’m doing for Capital Fringe this summer is proving to be an unexpected challenge. Jen, my character in “Stopgap,” should be a pretty easy one to tackle. Jen is 16, smart, naive, and incredibly eager. Her motives are generally clear, and she is dealing with many of the typical problems faced by middle class high schoolers who don’t quite fit it. She is difficult, not because she is particularly far from my frame of experience, but because she is so darn close. Jen Parker feels, in many ways, like high school Megan reincarnated. We first meet Jen when she goes to discuss a book with her English teacher before class, and my mind so quickly shifts back to discussing “Of Mice and Men” with Ms. Cohen after the rest of the class had filed out of the room. Working through Jen’s issues feels acutely like yanking out a tooth that only JUST grew in, and then trying to shove said tooth back into the spot… while wearing oven mitts. How’s that picture for you?

Read More

Tickets for the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival are now available!...

ja-mi-la — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:47:00 -0400

Tickets for the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival are now available! To reserve your tickets to Field Trip’s production of Stopgap by Danielle Mohlman, visit http://shows.capfringe.org/ or call the Box Office at 866-811-4111.

For more information on Stopgap, click here.

Stopgap actor Michael Litchfield (playing the character of...

ja-mi-la — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:25:00 -0400

Stopgap actor Michael Litchfield (playing the character of Robert) shared this video clip with the cast and creative team writing, “If it doesn’t make you think two men should raise their own children, nothing will.”

Mark Your Calendars: Tickets for #Stopgap on Sale Soon!

ja-mi-la — Mon, 28 May 2012 18:40:56 -0400

Tickets for this year’s Capital Fringe go on sale June 18th. Mark your calendars! We can’t wait to see Stopgap on it’s feet, and we’d love to have you in the audience!

Check here for tickets and passes.

#TeamStopgap will be volunteering at this year’s Capital...

ja-mi-la — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:46:38 -0400

#TeamStopgap will be volunteering at this year’s Capital Pride Festival. Stop by the Green Village on Sunday, June 10th between 3pm and 7pm to visit us! Interested in volunteering? Sign up here.

Writing a Mission Statement

ja-mi-la — Sat, 12 May 2012 13:27:00 -0400

By Jamila Reddy

Field Trip Theatre Company is busy at work on Danielle Mohlman’s Stopgap, our first full-fledged production. In the midst of rewrites, production planning, and preparation for our rehearsal process, we’re engaging in conversations about who we are as an emerging company and what we hope to be.

Here’s what we’re clear on thus far: Field Trip Theatre is committed to developing and producing new plays, supporting emerging artists, and engaging diverse audiences. It is our ultimate goal to use our work to serve the diverse community of Washington, D.C.

Part of what we yearn to do is make our audiences a part of the conversation, not just spectators to it, so we invite you to a behind-the-scenes look at how our company members are putting our heads together to clarify and define what Field Trip’s Mission is.

Here’s what we’re reading:

How to Write a Mission Statement by Janel M. Radke
Mission Considered by Gigi Bolt (via TCG)
Being the Change: An Interview with Woolly Mammoth’s Jeff Hermann (via HowlRound)

We’ll be continuing the conversation to clarify and define our Mission Statement, and we hope you’ll join us. Stay tuned!