WAM Theatre

WAM’S AD goes to Stratford

Kristen — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:16:34 +0000

WAM announces that Artistic Director, Kristen van Ginhoven, has been selected for a spot in the Stratford Festival of Canada’s Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction. While at Stratford Kristen will assistant direct 42^nd Street, directed by Gary Griffin. Link to Stratford Press Release: http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/media/media.aspx?id=646

“The WAM Theatre Board congratulates Kristen on this prestigious opportunity”, says Nick Webb, President of the Board. “We look forward to all she will bring to WAM from her time in Stratford.”

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WAM’s Gift Presentation to Berkshire United Way’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative

Kristen — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:31:10 +0000

The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls, November 2011

Kristen — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:21:07 +0000

Reviewed by J. Peter Bergman

“I know this sounds Freudian, but. . .”

Analyzing the interactions of sisters is a bit like striking a wooden match on velvet: if there’s a spark at all, you lose it instantly only to be left in dark confusion. With the three Fine sisters, Jojo, Jayne and Jelly, it would be a waste of energy and time to even remove the match from its waterproof camper’s box. These three women, from giddy girlhood to masterly maturity, move, talk, caper and plop so quickly that it would take five stenographers capable of accurately jotting down dialogue at 135 words per minute to even approach maintaining a record of what was said by whom to whom about what and from which perspective.

Jojo and Jayne spar verbally and physically. Jelly and Jayne converge physically and mentally. Jelly is often out on a limb, with a confession hanging off her lips, unnoticed by the other two. Jojo is easily insulted and vaguely dangerous when wet. Jayne is on the fence about her personal life and her sexuality and is building a fence around her professional life. When these three come together in the family manse to attend the death of their father and then have to throw him a party as a wake all hell breaks loose in a ninety minute one-act extravaganza with a cast of over ninety people we never see but we meet in our imaginations thanks to the Fine girls.

Under the superb direction of Kristen van Ginhoven the three actresses portraying the current generation of Fines have a superb cocktail shaker and salad tosser. Van Ginhoven keeps them rattling, shaking and tossing with so much verve and vigor that the vinegar thickens with the oil and the vodka melds with the olive juice. The result on stage at Barrington Stage Company’s Stage 2 is an intoxicating melange of ingredients that are so rich and fulfilling that it really doesn’t matter that someone left the cake out in the rain. Though the play covers a week in the current time (and incidents in the past), the space never seems unoccupied and we are never left without something to ponder at the ends or beginnings of scenes.

Deann Simmons Halper plays Jayne, the middle sister, the intellectual troublemaker whose business sense is sharper than a whale’s tusk. Jayne’s interpersonal skills with her sisters is a mixed bag and Halper manages these quixotic changes of attitude with a reality that is honed and painful. She has mastered the ironic head-toss; she is in control of the one-beat pose; she can batter with her voice and caress with her smile. There seems to be little unavailable to this actress as she portrays a complex woman whose career and sexuality (straight, gay, gay, straight) are bobbing around in a tub of over-ripe apples.

She has sharp competition in the life-changes from Barbara Cardillo as older sister Jojo. Cardillo plays within the confines of the written role by stretching her words into aggressive assaults on her siblings. Her sweetness is less appealing than her bitterness and that leaves you gasping for breath. She takes Jojo to extraordinary psychotic places with ease and grace, then brings her back to a softer, safer space, an island of Jojo, a magical spot in a desert sea. It is a remarkable adventure when she reconnects with her wedding dress and a carving knife simultaneously. Both of these actresses, with all of this going on, manage to convey a picture of sisterly love that would make Chekhov’s three sisters blush with embarrassment at their own reticence in their relationship.

Taking an unusual turn in a dynamic career of outlandish characters, Karen Lee portrays the baby of the family, Jelly, with a light touch and a sweetness that may mirror a side of her she rarely exposes publicly. Here is a woman confronting the demons of a difficult childhood, the passions of a young adulthood that is unsupported by her older sisters. Lee works hard at not working hard here and the gentleness she brings forth in this character makes her the standout in a cast of superb character actors. This actress makes more out of little than anyone I’ve seen in a long while. When Jelly loses her composure and freaks out, it is with the greatest of personal pleasure tamped down with perfect humility and just a touch of shame at her own needs being revealed. If you like this actress, see this play; this is the role you will remember and measure her future work against.

Through the generosity of Barrington Stage the fine set by Juliana Von Haubrich gives these women everything they need to show the lives of these characters. Arthur Oliver’s clever costumes aid and abet the work of the company as does Ryan Winkles fight choreography. Jeff Roudabush and Nick Webb have done a beautiful job lighting this play and the superb sound design work by Brad Berridge fills in those other ninety roles without missing a trick.

WAM is still new on the scene but this current production should assure them a place in the pantheon of top-drawer theater companies in the Berkshires. Their productions have both artistic and philanthropic goals which makes them unique. Their focus on women in the arts is not exclusive but in this production no man could make much of a mark on stage against this triumphant triumvirate of women. The play is Canadian, by the way, but there is no northern exposure in this set of characters. Instead there is the hot-blood of frighteningly real women who can stand on their own six feet without the aid of Freud, Jung or Ghandi. You’ll be glad you left your therapist-ears-and-eyes at home; you’ll get more than you bargained for at this show.

◊11/05/11◊

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Berkshire Eagle previews ‘The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls’

Kristen — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:15:56 +0000

Fateful journey in new WAM play

By Jeffrey Borak, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Friday October 28, 2011

PITTSFIELD

For Berkshires actress Karen Lee, playing Jelly in the upcoming WAM Theatre production of “The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls” cuts close to the bone.

Jelly is the youngest of the three Fine sisters, an artist with a passion for boxes who thinks outside the box, an eccentric who is consistently misread and underestimated by her older siblings.

“It’s like that for me in my own family,” Lee said during a pre-rehearsal interview at the Spectrum Playhouse in Lee. “I’m the youngest of three. I’m free-spirited and I’ve always been underestimated.”

“It turns out that Jelly is the straightest of the three,” says Kristen van Ginhoven, the play’s director and artistic director of WAM Theatre.

The other two are Jojo (Barbara Cardillo), the oldest, a university professor obsessed with German playwright Bertolt Brecht, and Jayne (Deann Simmons Halper), a bisexual predatory corporate exec.

The production — which explores the dynamics among the estranged siblings as they come together in the attic of their recently deceased father’s house to sift through his belongings and memorabilia — officially opens next Friday evening at 8 at Barrington Stage Company’s Stage 2, where the comedy is scheduled to run weekends through Nov. 20. There’s a preview Thursday, also at 8 p.m.

In keeping with WAM’s mission, a portion of the proceeds of the entire run will be donated to a local service organization, in this case Berkshire United Way Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative.

Collectively written by Jennifer Brewin, Leah Cherniak, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Alisa Palmer and Martha Ross, “The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls” was a big hit in the writers’ native Canada when it premiered in 1995 at Theatre Columbu in Toronto.

“It had productions all over the country,” said van Ginhoven, a Canadian by birth. “It was all the rage when I graduated theater school in Canada.”

Van Ginhoven had all but forgotten the play until she found it by chance on her bookshelf. A play she says she’s wanted to do, it seemed the perfect contrasting choice, she said, to follow WAM’s inaugural production, “The Melancholy Play,” earlier this year.

The intermissionless “The Attic ” shows the Fine sisters as both their younger and adult selves.

“The transitions are very quick,” van Ginhoven said. “There are no set changes. They go quickly between their younger selves and their adult selves.”

It’s a fateful journey for the Fines.

“As children, being raised under the same roof, they naturally were always together,” van Ginhoven said. “As adults, they have virtually no contact with each other. But there are some things you can’t change in a family. They still know how to push each other’s buttons.”

One of the major challenges for Halper has been to clarify the differences between her character, Jayne, as an adult and as her younger self.

“I’ve been looking at her repression, her relationships, especially with her sisters, how those relationships have changed [or not changed] over the years,” Halper said.

Among the issues in the play is the tension between Jelly and Jojo over which one was dad’s favorite.

“I know I’m not,” Halper said of Jayne, “and that’s what’s so frustrating.”

“I’ve always believed I was his favorite,” said Cardillo, whose Jojo shared a love of books with her father, who was a physics professor.

But it’s Jelly who tended their father — virtually alone with the exception of Hospice — in his final months. It’s Jelly who ministered to him, cared for him, was given power of attorney.

“This play really has resonated for me,” Cardillo said. “I have a brother. We have separate viewpoints, differing world views. We’re redefining ourselves, our relationship and that’s the principle issue among the Fine sisters.”

“The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Sisters” is the result of three years of writing, rewriting, tweaking, fine tuning, improvising dialogue, much of which wound up in the finished play, according to van Ginhoven, who discussed the play with one of the writers as she was beginning work on it.

While the five collaborators have since gone on to individual careers in theater and performance, there is talk among them, van Ginhoven says, of writing a sequel that would pick up the Fine sisters 10 years after the events in
this play.

Van Ginhoven is hopeful the play will resonate not only with female and male siblings but also with those who have never had siblings.

“My father used to say that family feuds are a waste of time,” van Ginhoven said. “The play talks about our ability to see the other side, to find the lightness.

“I’m hoping that people who see our production will feel they’ve been invited, included, made part of a communuity; that they’re not just observers, witnesses. They are participants.”

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WAM featured in SCENE, ISTA’s Magazine for International Theatre Educators

Kristen — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:57:35 +0000

SCENE Magazine, September Issue, 2011

The Story of WAM Theatre

By Kristen van Ginhoven

I am a freelance director, actor and educator, coordinator for a local arts center and since 2005 I’ve been an ISTA staff member. My main passion outside of ISTA is being Artistic Director of WAM Theatre.

Inspired by the book “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, I co-founded WAM Theatre (Women’s Action Movement) in 2009 with Leigh Strimbeck, a fellow theatre professional. Our primary two objectives in founding WAM Theatre were to address the lack of gender parity in theatre and, as inspired by ‘Half the Sky’, to take action for women and girls worldwide.

“Half the Sky” invites people to ‘join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts’. The book’s thesis is that oppression against women is the seminal moral issue of our time, as slavery was in the 19^th century. The agenda laid out in ‘Half the Sky’ focuses on Kristof and WuDunn’s belief that change can occur if we address three major issues: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape and maternal mortality. They lay out a solution that includes girls’ education and microfinance. Reading that book happened at exactly the right time in my life. I put the book down and knew instantly that I wanted to use theatre as my philanthropy.

I called Leigh, a like-minded colleague, and said ‘Do you want to start a theatre company that benefits women and girls’. Immediately she said yes. Not only did we want to take action for women’s issues in general, we also wanted to take action for women theatre artists. Between Leigh and I we have over 50 years of working professionally in the theatre! Like many other theatre artists, we remain concerned about the lack of gender parity in the theatre.

American playwright Theresa Rebeck quoted the following statistics during her Laura Pels Keynote Address in March 2010: “Over the last 25 years the number of plays produced in the United States that were written by women seems to have vacillated between 12 and 17 percent.” [The complete speech can be found at: http://womenandhollywood.com/2010/03/16/text-of-theresa-rebeck-laura-pels-keynote-address/] In my own region of Western Massachusetts, 39 of the plays produced in 2010 were written by men, 13 were written by women.

Interestingly a recent study conducted by Emily Glassburg Sands, currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at Harvard University, showed that plays and musicals by women on Broadway (where women write fewer than 1 in 8 shows) sold 16 percent more tickets a week and were 18 percent more profitable over all. [To download the study: http://www.emilysands.com/emilysands.com/Media.html]

WAM Theatre’s mission focuses on what we call a ‘double philanthropic model’, which addresses two seminal issues.

1) To produce theatrical events for everyone, with a focus on women theatre artists and/or stories of women and girls

2) To donate a portion of proceeds from those theatrical events to organizations that work to benefit the lives of women and girls in our communities and worldwide.

Since launching in early 2010 WAM Theatre has produced three events, each with it’s own beneficiary, and we are planning our fourth. So far we have collaborated with over 40 theatre artists from our two regions, over 80% of which are female and we have donated over $3000 to our beneficiaries.

Our goal is to produce two professional theatrical events a year, one with an international beneficiary and one with a local beneficiary. That way we are able to do a little bit for both our local and global communities.

For our local beneficiaries, we compile relevant local data about organizations doing work that suits our mission and choose one as a beneficiary for a WAM production based on the issue we would like to help to address and the ability of our donation to make a difference. For example, the beneficiary for our November 2010 production was The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts. Their mission is to advance social change philanthropy to create economic and social equality for women and girls in Western Massachusetts through grantmaking and strategic initiatives. Due to the success of that production, ‘Melancholy Play’ by Sarah Ruhl, we were able to donate $1500 to the Women’s Fund. The Women’s Fund then used that $1500 to fund another project focusing on empowering women and girls. Our mission in action!

For our international beneficiaries we begin with the organizations vetted in ‘Half the Sky’ and do our own further research. For example, in Spring 2011 we wanted to help address maternal mortality. Our research led us to Edna’s Hospital in Somaliland (Edna is also featured in ‘Half the Sky’), a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. We contacted the hospital and learned that for $980, we could train one community midwife. So, we produced the ‘O Solo Mama Mia Festival’, a festival of solo works written and performed by women. We were able to raise enough funds to employ six solo female theatre artists and a stage manager plus donate $650 to Edna’s Hospital towards the training of one community midwife.

A feature of WAM Theatre is that it straddles two artistic communities. Leigh is a resident of the Capital Region of New York State and I live in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Although these communities are only about 45 miles apart, collaboration is scarce. Leigh and I wanted to try to help bridge that gap by hiring theatre artists from the two regions and producing our events in both regions. With our recent O Solo Mama Mia Festival we collaborated with a local Art Gallery in the Berkshires, The Storefront Artist Project, to transform part of the art gallery into a pop-up theatre and had an art exhibit of the same name accompany the theatre festival. In the Capital Region of NY we collaborated with Russell Sage College in Troy, NY, where Leigh is assistant professor, to present the festival in one of their theatres.

Another way we attempt to bridge the gap between state lines is by holding collaborative events. In March 2011 WAM was a co-producer for the first Capital Region/Berkshires 24hr Theatre project. Together with two other organizations, the Mop & Bucket Improvisation Theatre Company and the Arts Center of the Capital Region, we created an ensemble of five female playwrights, five directors, five stage managers, twenty actors, three sound designers, one lighting designer and one scenic designer who worked for twenty-four hours to create five original short plays. Over fifty professional theatre artists from both regions crossed that invisible state line to gather for what we hope will become an annual event. The event sold out quickly and the feedback from the artists, the audience and the press showed that more events like this in the future would be welcome. I’m delighted to say that plans are already in the works for a second 24hr Theatre project in 2012.

WAM Theatre has been an incredible journey thus far. Our successes have been many, as have our challenges. I always tell people that I feel like I’m in continual 101 classes; Non-Profit Organizations 101, Strategic Planning 101, Fundraising and Development 101, Marketing and Social Media 101, to name a few. The learning curve continues to be steep and we have learned valuable lessons along the way. For example, we realize that while we do want to continue to be part of bridging the gap across state lines, we do not yet have a large enough infrastructure to support presenting our main productions in both regions. Therefore we will focus on producing our main events in the Berkshires while continuing to co-produce collaborative smaller events, like the 24hr Theatre Project, in both regions.

We keep going thanks to our own deep passion for the project and the enormous amount of support from those around us who believe in the project. We have an extensive network of helpful friends and family, including husbands who are our resident lighting and sound designers and in my case, also serve as President of the WAM Theatre board! We also know professionals in the fields of theatre, non-profit and philanthropy who are happy, and indeed eager, to help. All we have to do is have the courage to ask.

The overwhelming times are balanced by the knowledge that by creating these theatrical events we are providing opportunities for at least one woman or girl somewhere in the world. I often remind myself of the starfish fable Kristof and WuDunn quote in ‘Half the Sky’:

A man goes out on the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up on the tide. A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water.

“What are you doing, son?” the man asks. “You see how many starfish there are? You’ll never make a difference.”

The boy paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean.

“It sure made a difference to that one,” He said.

To learn more about WAM Theatre and to support our 2011 Fundraising campaign, the 100×100 Campaign, go to www.WAMTheatre.comJ Please also fan us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/WAMTheatre) and follow us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/WAMTheatre).

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O Solo Mama Mia Festival, May 2011

Kristen — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:45:14 +0000

StageStruck: Crossing the Line

A mini-festival of works by and about women connects two regions.

Thursday, May 12, 2011
By Chris Rohmann

The title alone should be enough to get your attention: How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less. It’s one of five short solo works written and performed by women, comprising a two-state festival with an equally whimsical title, O Solo Mama Mia! And for this straight male, Leigh Hendrix’s fondly satirical swipe at lesbian life was the high point of the festival so far.

O Solo, which began in Troy, N.Y., last weekend and concludes this week in Pittsfield, is part of the continuing effort by Berkshire-based WAM Theatre to “bridge the gap between the two regions and share our work and talents,” according to co-founder Kristen van Ginhoven. WAM itself has a two-sided mission—to foreground work by and about women, while giving a portion of ticket sales to organizations that “lift up the lives of women and girls.” Proceeds from the festival will go to the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Somaliland to support midwife training.

The framing device for How to Be a Lesbian is one of those high-powered self-improvement seminars aimed at “changing your life”—in this case, your sexual orientation. Our workshop leader is one Butchy McDyke (and I promise you that’s the dumbest gag in the show), whose lessons include tips on framing your own coming-out story as an “engaging narrative that will make you stand out in the cutthroat world of lesbianism.” They are interlaced with a delicious sendup of performance art with a self-absorbed radical feminist, and a couple of stories from Hendrix’s own journey of lesbian self-discovery. The magic of this show comes from its seamless marriage of pointed mockery with personal narrative, delivered by a witty and delightfully surprising performer.

Camilla Schade attempts a similar blend of the satirical with the personal in Performing Therapy, with somewhat less success. Here we’re in a group therapy session full of psychobabble, therapeutic exercises and motivational epigrams (“Failure is an opportunity for people not to expect anything of you anymore”) with excursions into Schade’s very real struggles with depression and disappointment. Both sides of the equation are engaging, but don’t quite mesh.

The third piece I saw in Troy, Paris 1890—Unlaced, a multi-character evocation of La Belle Epoque seen through the eyes of two high-society courtesans, won’t be on the bill in Pittsfield since it had a previous run at Ventfort Hall in Lenox. And I missed My Salvation Has a First Name: A Wienermobile Journey, Robin Gelfenbien’s account of her adventures behind the wheel of the Oscar Mayer promotional vehicle.

That one is joined in Pittsfield by Stories from Hell and High Water, which examines the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in a devastated New Orleans neighborhood. Performed by Richarda Abrams, it’s a one-act version of Yvette Jamuna Sirker’s full-length play, focusing on a Latina schoolteacher and six of her neighbors.

This week’s shows, playing in a rotating repertory, are a collaboration with Pittsfield’s Storefront Artists Project, where they accompany an exhibit by 11 visual artists celebrating empowerment and opportunity for women.

O Solo Mama Mia!: May 12-15, Storefront Artists Gallery, 31 South St., Pittsfield. Visit www.wamtheatre.com for schedule and tickets.

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Kristen part of ‘Two Canadian Women Celebrate Strength’

Kristen — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 13:59:40 +0000

Two Canadian women celebrate strength

By Milton Bass, Special to Berkshires Week of Berkshire Eagle

Thursday July 14, 2011

While the town of Lenox is churning itself into incomprehensibility over its impeccableness, two young Canadian women have described the soul of Berkshire County perfectly.

Both Catherine Taylor-Williams and Kristen van Ginhoven have their own theaters, the first The Wharton Salon in Lenox and the second the WAM Theatre in Pittsfield.

What makes them want to live and work in Berkshire County is what they described as “the culture” of the area. They are not talking so much about the regional theaters, the museums and the music and dance centers. Their emphasis is on the people who live here on both a year-round and seasonal basis. Some of them are borners, but a large portion migrated here strictly because of the atmosphere. Their souls could sense something that increased their appetites, that satisfied their hungers, that stretched their minds and comforted their bodies. They make culture a way of life as well as a word.

Taylor-Williams had trained as an actress in Canada and had toured the country forward and back, up and down, until, as she puts it, “I had run out of road. I was 29 years old and needed new places, new experiences.”

A course taken with Dennis Krausnick, director of training at Shakespeare & Company, opened a new road for Taylor-Williams, and also a new husband, Robert Serrell, a fellow actor. After seven years as an actor-manager at Shakespeare, Taylor-Williams left the company for other pursuits.

One thing she has pursued is restoring theater at The Mount, the former home of writer Edith Wharton. Shakespeare & Company had been doing a series of plays at The Mount, mostly works that Dennis Krausnick had adapted from Wharton novels. The head of The Mount, Susan Wissler, wanted to continue the theater work, and Taylor-Williams wanted a theater company, so she raised her own funds in 2008 and has put on plays the last three years.

By coincidence, Kristin van Ginhoven, also at the age of 29, found herself in limbo while living in Toronto. She had started her career as an actress but lost her nerve and got a teaching degree at Queen’s University which resulted in a four-year teaching stint in Belgium.

“I loved teaching at the college level,” she said, “but I wanted to be a director.”

Then she fell in love with a Britisher named Nick Webb who teaches computer science at Union College, and after their marriage they moved to the Berkshires. Her present career was inspired by reading a book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity,” by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn.

“It was a call to action for women and girls to take action over their own careers,” said van Ginhoven, “and the book made it seem possible to me. Leigh Strimbeck and I formed WAM (Women’s Action Movement) in 2009 to benefit women.”

To raise money, van Ginhoven wrote 100 letters to family and friends, and enough of them contributed to stage the first production in 2010. Theater management chose not to pick a permanent theater site but to do productions in rented spaces that fulfill their audience requirements, which range from 50 to 99 patrons. Three plays have been produced, and they plan a fourth for November of this year.

“We Canadians,” said Ginhoven, with a glance at Taylor-Williams, “learn the rules, but we are both stubborn women who want to live and work in the Berkshires and hire local people and create a ‘Berkshire atmosphere.’”

“We have no theater building plans, either,” said Taylor-Williams. “Right now I just want a Wharton house, a relationship to Wharton’s own home. We may form a board in the next year, but what we are most interested in right now is creating an artistic legacy that will benefit both us and the Mount.”

The new work, “Autre Temps…” has been adapted by Dennis Krausnick from a Wharton short story and deals with “divorce, 1962, American-style.”

As you can see from the picture, both women are as good looking as they are determined, and you can be sure that the determination will only grow.

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Celebrating Spring Success, looking forward to a MOPCO/RBIT Rematch!

Kristen — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:31:04 +0000

Well ladies and gents-it’s been a pretty incredible spring for WAM Theatre!

We have reached 51 (!) on our 100×100 Campaign, co-hosted the first 24hr Berkshire/Capital Region Project in Troy, NY which involved over 50 Berkshire/Capital Region theatre artists, presented the Russell Sage College ensemble piece ‘I’m not a Feminist, but…‘ in Pittsfield, MA as part of the Berkshire March Festival of Women Writers with a portion of proceeds going to Berkshire Women for Women Worldwide and produced the O Solo Mama Mia Festival in both Troy, NY and Pittsfield, MA, which showcased 5 solo works written and performed by women, was produced in collaboration with an art exhibit of the same name presented by Storefront Artist Project, and led to a donation of $650 to Edna’s Hospital in Somaliland to be used towards the training of a community midwife!

Phew!! What an incredible Spring!!

We will be taking a bit of a break in June to deal with some exciting life changes like new houses and new positions but leave you with this…

MOPCO and RBIT will be having a REMATCH in AUGUST!!!

The Capital Region’s Premiere Improv Comedy Troupe The Mop & Bucket Co. (MOPCO) and The Funniest Thing in The Berkshires, The Royal Berkshire Improv Troupe (RBIT) will once face off in a friendly one night only Theatresports Tournament to raise funds for WAM Theatre. This event sold out last summer and we anticipate the same thing happening this summer. RBIT beat MOPCO by a hair last year and they are raring to get even. ‘Down with you frogs’ was recently heard coming out of the mouth of Mopco’s Michael Burns. Three ‘local celebrity’ judges will once again pass down their judgments and we can’t wait for the fun to begin again!

More info on when/where/how to book tickets to come soon….Yeehaw on an incredible WAM Spring 2011 and Happy Holiday Weekend All!

Written by Kristen van Ginhoven, Artistic Director, WAM Theatre.

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WAM on WNYT’s ‘Today’s Women’

Kristen — Fri, 20 May 2011 23:37:13 +0000

Click here to see video segment: Local women are helping to change lives of other women

An interview with WNYT’s Elaine Houston:

Two local women concerned about the gender inequalities faced by girls and women in less developed countries have opened a new women’s theater in Troy and Pittsfield. It’s called WAM. The goal is to give women more opportunities to write and produce their own material, and to also use a portion of the proceeds to change the lives of women and girls around the world.

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Berkshire Eagle features O Solo Mama Mia Festival

Kristen — Mon, 02 May 2011 03:34:19 +0000

Women’s stories save lives
By Sharon Smullen, Special to the Berkshire Eagle
Updated: 04/28/2011 12:00:34 AM EDT

Thursday April 28, 2011

(Richarda Abrams plays a New Orleans cast of characters after Katrina. (Courtesy of WAM)

PITTSFIELD — In a creative climate that has seen collaborations form between a number of Berkshire cultural institutions, the directors of WAM (Women’s Action Movement) Theatre and the Storefront Artist Project are planning to show what women can accomplish on stage and in art — to tell women’s stories from Hurricane Katrina to 19th-century Paris — and to benefit a program that saves women’s lives.

A year ago, Co-Artistic Directors Kristen van Ginhoven and Leigh Strimbeck inaugurated WAM Theatre with their production of “A WAM Welcome” at Barrington Stage in Pittsfield.

Now WAM has teamed up with Storefront Artist Project Director Julia Dixon to turn SAP’s new home on South Street next door to the Berkshire Museum into a “pop-up” theater for “O Solo Mama Mia — A Festival of Theatre and Art,” and present four one-women plays from May 12 to 15.

A women-themed art show in the SAP gallery-turned-performance space, curated by Stephanie Plunkett from the Norman Rockwell Museum, will open Sunday with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. Works in a variety of media — painting, photography, video — explore themes such as motherhood and female empowerment. The collaboration is a joint effort to support women and artists here and around the world, said Dixon.

For the theatre side of the festival, the one-act plays will appear as double bills — a range of tales from “Performing Therapy” by Camilla Schade and Kira
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Lallas; “How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less” by Leigh Hendrix, and Robin Gelfenbien’s “My Salvation has a First Name: A Wienermobile Journey,” which WAM excerpted in its inaugural production.

In “Stories from Hell and High Water, or When the Sky Falls,” Jamuna Yvette Sirker will tell her travels. Displaced from New Orleans in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, Sirker found her way to the Berkshires and now teaches at Berkshire Community College.

“I was living a very full life in New Orleans as a theatre professional — writing plays, acting, directing, producing and teaching,” Sirker said. “Katrina hit, and it was an experience of epic proportions. As a therapeutic tool, I just started writing.”

The resulting play attracted considerable interest, and — after winning first prize in a playwriting competition — was produced by Multi Stages Theatre in NYC last April to much acclaim.

To reach a wider audience and make the play more affordable to smaller theaters, Sirker created a one-woman adaptation which will premiere at the WAM festival. Actress Richarda Abrams and director Lorca Peress both come from the original full-length production.

“It’s a great vehicle for an amazing actress to come in and play seven different people,” said Sirker.

The play is Sirker’s first production since she moved to the area.

“I find the Berkshires so healing,” she said.

From the county, Berkshire actress Anne Undeland will perform “Paris 1890 — Unlaced!” — a play commissioned by Ventfort Hall in Lenox from local playwright Juliane Hiam — at Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y., in a second program of plays from May 5 to 8.

“WAM’s intention is to be vagabonds and gypsies in different theatre spaces,” explained van Ginhoven.

The Berkshires is very interested in women’s issues, she added.

In keeping with WAM’s “double philanthropy” vision, not only will ticket sales support the theatre company, but a portion will be donated to Edna’s Hospital in Somaliland to train at least one community midwife in a region plagued by high maternal mortality rates.

“We have a dream to train 1,000 community midwives,” said Edna Adan Ismail, former First Lady of Somaliland and founder of a program that is already saving women’s lives in poor rural villages. WAM’s support, she explained, “will get us one step closer to achieving our dream.”

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