About Our Entrée
Penetralia By Stone Soup
May 4 - May 20, 2006 Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8pm
The Actors Theatre Workshop, 145 W. 28th Street, 3rd Floor (between 6th and 7th Aves) NYC
For tickets, call 212.352.3101 or visit TheaterMania.com

The inhabitants of Penetralia live in the secure knowledge that all business is everyone’s business. A communication system, both advanced and ancient, keeps everyone in the know. But the idyll is forever disrupted by a disturbing discovery, as a mild-mannered Professor fully realizes his mind’s potential. Stone Soup’s fifth original production explores secret-keeping, and the frightening consequences in a society that criminalizes it.

A stylistic departure for the company, Just the Front was Stone Soup’s only explicitly historical piece to date. Weaving the lives of four New York transplants during the great depression, the play illustrated the uniting power of work, the city, and the force of history.

Utilizing a taut structure which has been the hallmark of many of the company’s original works, the play interwove the stories of a Russian cab driver, a photographer from middle America, a society woman fallen on hard times and a black woman from Jim-Crow era Mississippi as their lives meet at the dawn of World War II. We then flash back to their personal stories over the past decade, stories of abandonment and redemption which closely mirror the narrative arc of 1930s American history.

Presented in the diminutive Beckmann Theatre, the play allowed audiences to see a historical piece in an unusually intimate setting. The show was scored by both period and contemporary music, arranged and performed by Jesse Ainslie on guitar and Nathaniel Cauldwell on clarinet. Punctuated by haunting photographic projections by Christopher Wild, the play was one of Stone Soup’s most visually stunning as well.

Here at Stone Soup, we always do our best to work with minimal ingredients and leftovers. (The set for our last show cost us $6.) But no matter how many shows we sell out, we still end up scraping the bottom of the bowl to pay inevitable costs. Rehearsal and performance space alone add up to almost $5000, not to mention insurance, performance rights, costumes, props... Please consider adding a dash, a tablespoon or a pound to our pot to keep the soup cooking. We will be forever grateful. We will also write your name in our program.

Keep scrolling for all the information on how to support Stone Soup.

Stone Soup is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts Staff service organization. Contributions in behalf of Stone Soup may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Click here to make a secure online donation on behalf of Stone Soup Theatre Arts.

TheBarkingBeauty.com

Josh Tjaden had a conversation with Stone Soup actor Maria Schirmer to talk about their home state, the state of Stone Soup, and her state of mind.

Josh: Hi Maria, How are you doing?
Maria: Hey. I’m doing good.

I’m not bothering you at work am I? No, I’m at home.

We’re both from Iowa and I just have to ask: were you as bored as I was back home?
I was. I have to admit it: I was. How do I put this without horrifying my family? I was a very creative child growing up, and came up with different ways to keep myself occupied. I would spend a lot of time daydreaming, and also became obsessed with brownstones and jumping rope in the street.

So you must have been just as obsessed with Sesame Street as I was growing up!
Yeah I was! When I first moved to Harlem I joked by saying that I had come full circle by actually moving to Sesame Street!

How did you first become involved with Stone Soup?
I went to Marymount Manhattan College with founding members. Then one day, Nadine Friedman [Artistic Director] called me out of the blue to ask me to be a part of the show.

So you’ve been a member of Stone Soup for how long now? Three seasons; my first show was Just the Front.

Tell me about your past experience workshopping original pieces with Stone Soup. What has been your favorite aspect as well as the most challenging part of this process?
For me they are actually one and the same! There is something really wonderful about being able to create a character from the core, through improv with other actors. But this can also be one of the most challenging aspects of the process because it’s scary to start from scratch!

How has your opinion of this process changed with Stone Soup’s new approach to the workshopping process where there is a separate writing team responsible for creating characters, plot, and dialogue? What was your experience in the first workshop for the current show about privacy?
I thought it was interesting because I knew some of the people in the cast so well! They are all so unique and I could see that the writers had really thought about the actors when coming up with the characters, with glimmers of the actors’ personalities already coming through in their characters. I also like the idea of still being able to collaborate but being able to have a framework from which to start for the character. The writers can then take what we workshop and edit it to make changes throughout the process.

Josh is a member of the Writing Team for Stone Soup’s upcoming show Penetralia, in which Maria will be performing.

Over President’s Weekend, Stone Soup took an enjoyable, enlightening, and occasionally hazy trip to Amsterdam. This was our second international fact-finding expedition, and while the two were alike in their mission, they diverged in their intimacy. In China we were appreciative and humble spectators; in Amsterdam we truly felt part of the scene: what it’s really like to slink through the Red Light District, to stand silent outside Anne Frank’s home, to negotiate "Coffee Shops" (by the end, I really had no idea where to get an espresso).

Amsterdam, a city raved about by liberal Americans for its liberty and licentiousness, seemed the obvious environment to contemplate privacy - the theme of Stone Soup’s fifth season. Considered a city where privacy is neither a privilege nor a priority, it stood in contrast to the current situation in the U.S. (even New York, still a pretty wild city even after Giuliani). But when I returned, I saw new perspectives about decency and deception, and the price of freedom.

The two cities are so similar, not only in their nightlife and exquisite culture, but in their dichotomous natures - the prostitutes behind glass are saying it out loud; but it’s debatable that they haven’t opened themselves up to oppression with their honesty. The United States is the freest country in the world, while the Christian right asserts control over the airwaves. Is Amsterdam’s forthright culture admirable, or is there something to be said for the safety of discretion? What makes a more successful society?

Perhaps all people have the same instincts, feelings and tendencies, and these are unchanging despite era and geography. I have a feeling that we edit who we are, what we want, and what we think due to the world around us - culture, society, government. And it might be hurting us more than helping. Do our actions become more dangerous when we think we have something to hide?

That’s where our experience begins to play a role in the upcoming production - an open society is affected when one person learns to keep a secret. You won’t see moments from our trip; you’ll join us in exploring the questions we asked ourselves afterward.

Nadine Friedman is a founding member of Stone Soup and has been Artistic Director since 2003. She is directing Penetralia this spring.