You Are Here:
“I’m going to use another word that the kids like these days, “meta”.You Are Here is theater piece made up of theater pieces that adds to the conversation about identity of not only it’s characters but of what a full length play is and can be. By definition this is experimental work but manages to feel like a well made play.
Each story line is rooted in naturalism and minimal settings allowing performers to move swiftly from scene to scene. Most importantly, characters are relatable. Each performance touches on universal needs, while much of the writing brings up interesting themes of gender, culture, love and belonging. In Great Plains we go on tour with a troupe of drag performers, including a female drag queen who aspires to be as beautiful as her male female impersonator counterparts. Tokyo takes us on a honeymoon to Tokyo where a husband of American ancestry and wife of Japanese ancestry explore their new role as a couple as well as their individual beliefs about cultural identity. London is a refreshing take on immigration as an American business woman applies for citizenship in London.
The process of making this work began during summer workshops through The Field’s Far Program with all the writers in the room and has developed into the piece that is being presented through November 20th. It’s exciting to see these kinds of collaborative conversations beginning as we all try to determine new ways to be intercultural.”
from New York Theatre Review Blog
The Tutor:
“BOTTOM LINE: The Tutor is a contemporary, creepy comidrama about sex, education, and power. Sure to be part of the creme de la Fringe’s creme.
Kate Mulley’s The Tutor takes a darkly comic look at the different ways we commoditize ourselves and at the balance of power across gender in different male/ female relationships. Meredith (Olivia Gilliatt) has put aside her Ivy League education to work as an SAT prep tutor by day and an underwear entrepreneur by night, but her fiancé Josh (Valence Thomas) only knows about the first gig. Meanwhile things get complicated between Meredith and a family that employs her; she becomes too familiar with both the teenage boy she is tutoring (Ian Way) while his father becomes too familiar with her (Bradford Cover, Broadway’s A Thousand Clowns). She gets an ear full of marital problems from his mother (Valerie Lonigro).
Directed by Ben Gougeon and Doug Spagnola with projections designed by the former, The Tutor is a clever, intricate investigation of people, power, and profit. Mulley parallels selling your intelligence against selling your sexuality, and also explores the dynamic of marital relations, the teacher/ student relationship, and the struggle for control in an imbalanced business relationship. Gougeon and Spagnola employ an ambitious use of real-time and prepared media throughout the play to illuminate situations and to support and explore the internet-heavy plot.
There are beautiful moments in The Tutor, including a heartbreaking speech questioning how nostalgia will be affected for the text message teens. And the final moment of the play is a brilliant catch, snapping the script to a tight, unsettling close.
Although the casting isn’t exact to age, etc, the five actors of The Tutor make a strong ensemble. Olivia Gilliatt is confident, ironic, and sexy. Bradford Cover exudes self-assured ease. Ian Way charms with his charisma and boyish exuberance. Valerie Lonigro buzzes with suburban discomfort. And Valence Thomas’s performance marries jovial good humor with stony control (and sex appeal). These five nuanced performances create a unified, enthralling world.
This is a smart, quick, and casually complex play which eXit Productions brings to life with grace and invention. Mulley unites the wit and worries of a generation, and Gougeon and Spagnola bring an internet drama to life on stage. This is certain to be one of the strongest, most thoughtful plays in the festival.”
-from Theatre is Easy
“Most of The Tutor is performed in a quiet, subdued manner, with the sexual tension bubbling underneath, rising slowly until it boils over into turmoil. The play is overall entertaining and provocative enough, and has its engrossing moments. The actors give good performances all around: Olivia Galliant as the young woman whose two lives may belie a resistance to fitting into conventional young adulthood; Ian Way as the boy who uses Meredith as a social or romantic crutch; Valerie Lonigro as Sandra, the concerned mother who confides to Meredith her dissatisfaction with her marriage (and who is prettier than the actresses usually cast in this kind of role); Bradford Cover as Jake, the father with ambitions for his son and needs of his own; and Valance Thomas as Josh, the too-distant fiancé (who is using too low a speaking voice on stage).
Theater, a millennia-old medium, has the challenge of presenting our 21st-century technological world on stage, and The Tutor handles this brilliantly. Although we human beings have had our secrets and shames since time immemorial, this production deftly incorporates the PC, Skype, IMs, and how they have impacted our behavior. A couple of technical glitches showed some widescreen images a minute too soon, but this wasn’t a major mishap. Graphic designer Faith Crawford, projection designer Ben Gougeon, and scenic designers Gougeon and Doug Spagnola deserve credit for blending technology with the storytelling.
Overall, The Tutor shows us how technology tempts us to expose more than we might have dared, and how sexual frustration taints our lives.”
-from nytheatre.com
“What BVEW Members Might Like: Great writing and punch lines. Good performances and a fluid play that moves well.
Bottom Line: This is a great take on a subject that I haven’t really seen a play about and moves into great subplots of love and miscommunication.”
-from Big Vision Empty Wallet
“The dramatic tension of Kate Mulley’s seriocomic take on modern life hangs on an intriguing juxtaposition. The characters that populate the play are bright, comically human, and rendered in three dimensions. But the plot reads like something you’d find on Showtime After Dark. The trope creates a lens through which Mulley examines the struggle for self-definition faced by a rising generation of educated young women. In the age of equality, is it bad to be sexy? Fun to be bad? Which costume is more empowering: the corporate suit or the Victoria’s Secret intimates? The troubled protagonist of The Tutor doesn’t quite find the answers, but attracts plenty of fun and trouble as she embarks on her quest.”
-from California Literary Review
Sezze Sun:
“In an era of reality television, it’s rare that a stage play addresses the topic in an interesting or subtle way. And while projections – live and pre-recorded – are seeing more use in the theater, it’s also rare that a play employs them effectively. Sezze Sun does both.
At its best, Sezze Sun resembles a well-produced Chekhov play, with unspoken tensions constantly threatening to bubble over and intimacy often proving more dangerous than comfortable. The cast is very strong all-around, bringing just the right level of understatement to the dialogue.
Sezze Sun is not a theatrical tour-de-force; its pleasures are more subtle. It doesn’t shy away from irony, but remains generally sincere. Most of all, there are some beautiful moments of raw humanity to be seen in this production – the sort of thing you won’t see in any reality show, as only strong writing and committed acting can produce them.”
