George Roland, Paul Burt and Anna Baumgarten read “Eldritch” at Fountain Theatre.
Monsters Are Made by Hannah C. Langley was voted by audience members as the Round 2 winner in last week’s 5th Annual ‘Rapid Development Series for Young Writers. In Langley’s play, Ricki is faced with a difficult set of questions when Hunter, her rapist and former friend, forces his way back into her life a year after he’s declared not guilty in the court of public opinion.
As the winning script, Monsters Are Made will receive a professional staged reading at the Fountain Theatre later this month.
Langley explains the journey of writing Monsters Are Made:
After years of telling the story of my own “bad experience” with a former friend in a hotel room as a short comic anecdote, I realized that it was anything but funny. It was terrifying, but the only way I could process that level of betrayal for a long time was by rewriting it, sanitizing it, making it into something you could talk about at a party. What I really needed to do (and what I’ve tried to do with this play) was keep rewriting it—researching and raising the stakes—until the story wasn’t about what happened to me anymore. It needed to be someone else’s. It needed to be Ricki’s and it needed to be Hunter’s. And, I hope, even though it’s no longer my story, it’s a more truthful one.”
Playwright Hannah Langley outside the Fountain Theatre.
Hannah C. Langley is an emerging playwright, screen and television writer from Valencia, California. Her plays approach political topics on a personal scale. With a mix of magic and modern technology, Langley creates protagonists who are young, female-identifying, and on the verge of finding themselves. Her USC thesis play, Losing My Religion (in 140 Characters or Less), received a workshop production at USC, staged readings at Cypress College and the Pasadena Playhouse, and was recorded as a podcast by At the Table: A Play Reading Series, featuringBroadway’s Abby Church, Max Crumm, Aneesh Sheth, and Tony nominee Isabel Keating. The play has since earned semifinalist status in both The Road and Sanguine Theatre NYC’s summer play festivals.
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Created and produced in 2014 by James Bennett and Jessica Broutt, The Fountain Theatre’s RapidDevelopment Series is designed to showcase the work of previously unproduced, Los Angeles-based playwrights under the age of 30.
You be the judge: the audience will determine which play gets a professional staged reading at the Fountain Theatre in Round 2 of the company’s 5th annual competition-style reading series, set for Thursday, May 9 at 8 p.m. Admission is free.
The contestants are Eldritch by Michael Herman, a dark fairytale set in pagan Ireland that explores human monstrosity, adolescence and, ultimately, love — vs. — Monsters Are Made by Hannah C. Langley, in which Ricki is faced with a difficult set of questions when Hunter, her rapist and former friend, forces his way back into her life a year after he’s declared not guilty in the court of public opinion.
The Fountain’s Rapid Development Series is designed to showcase the work of previously unproduced, Los Angeles-based playwrights under the age of 30. In Round 1, each of four playwrights presented a section of a new play currently in development, and the audience voted to determine which two would continue to Round 2. In Round 2, audiences will see the entire first half of each of those two plays, followed by another vote. The winning play and playwright will be announced at the end of the evening in the Fountain’s upstairs café, where complimentary refreshments will be served. The prize: two professional staged readings of the entire play on the Fountain stage at the end of May.
Garret Wagner, Kelley Mack, Michael D. Turner and Chops Bailey.
By Catherine Womack
“It’s beach week, baby!” A tall, handsome college athlete cracks open a cold beer as he flops onto a worn sofa. The semester is over for Shane and his friends, and the stress of final exams is quickly fading into a blur of sun, sand and mojitos served in red Solo cups.
Onstage at the Fountain Theatre in East Hollywood, six young actors fall easily into the rhythms of day drinking and banter inside the fictional rented vacation home. The set is sparse, but the inside jokes and casual flirtations between its occupants feel so real you can practically smell the salty air and taste the PBR.
But there is an elephant in this living room.
Perched on a tall director’s chair in the middle of the stage, seemingly invisible to the revelers, sits a silent female lifeguard. Only when she’s left alone with Jesse, the play’s central character, does the lifeguard begin to speak.
“Are you sure you want to be wearing that?” the lifeguard asks, peering disapprovingly over her sunglasses at Jesse’s short denim shorts and tank top. “Are you trying to get laid for attention or validation?”
Hypercritical, judgmental and disparaging, the lifeguard is a constant presence throughout Amanda Kohr’s 80-minute, one-act play, “The Lighthouse.” As the winner of the Fountain’s competition-style Rapid Development Series, the play received two nights of free semi-staged readings last week — all part of an effort to give a louder voice to playwrights under 30.
Jessica Broutt and James Bennett, co-creators/producers of Rapid Development Series.
One of several surrealist elements in the show, the lifeguard plays the part of Jesse’s darkest inner voice following a traumatic sexual assault at the beach house. “The Lighthouse” is Kohr’s indictment of rape culture and the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses. Kohr said the play was inspired by the 2015 case of Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, and was informed by Kohr’s own experiences.
On two printed sheets of folded white office paper that served as the program for the evening, Kohr, 27, wrote candidly about her own story:
“I grew up accepting sexual assault — the act was so prevalent that it swam below the radar under the perception as normalcy. By 16 I had been manipulated into unwanted sexual situations, assaulted and catcalled.”
As an undergraduate at James Madison University in Virginia, Kohr said in an earlier phone interview, she “heard about, witnessed and experienced so much sexual assault and harassment among college-age students that it just become normal.” At times, she said, she felt like it was “harder to find had.”
Kohr wrote “The Lighthouse” in summer 2016. She had read Jon Krakauer’s reported narrative, “Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town,” and she closely followed the Stanford case as it unfolded. She was appalled by the leniency of Turner’s sentence — six months, reduced to three months for good behavior — and was inspired by the letter that his victim read at the sentencing hearing.
“I am a firm believer that entertainment can help educate,” Kohr said, “so I really strove to draw my audience in through comedy and then bash them with the truth.”
Kohr wrote the play more than a year before the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, sexual assault and harassment became a national cultural conversation, and #MeToo became a movement. That’s one reason Jessica Broutt, 25, the co-founder and co-producer of the Fountain’s Rapid Development Series, found Kohr’s play so compelling.
Broutt, who interned at the Fountain as a college student and worked briefly as the company’s box office manager, came up with the idea for the series with Fountain associate producer James Bennett four years ago.
“We noticed that there weren’t really a lot of young people going to the theater,” she said. “We would go to all these awesome reading series at other theaters, but it was never young people who were playwrights, and they generally weren’t L.A.- based.”
Jessica Broutt, Kieran Medina and Amanda Kohr at Fountain Theatre.
Broutt and Bennett pitched the idea to the Fountain’s management as a sort of theatrical battle of the bands. Broutt would select four plays by L.A. playwrights under 30. The theater would provide the actors and the space, and each play would receive a “snapshot” reading at which audiences vote for their favorite, drawing them more actively into the experience.
The actors and directors are volunteers, and the performances are free.
“We were trying to rule out all the reasons why people our age don’t goto plays,” Broutt said.
This year marks the series’ fourth season. Broutt says that when she read “The Lighthouse,” she knew immediately it was special.
“I just felt like, wow, this is a play that is taking on rape culture and breaking it down in a way that is educational and provides a surrealism and a humor that will engage people,” she said. “It’s very rare for me to see something that is doing all of those things effectively. And then as we were going through development last fall, the Harvey Weinstein stuff came out.”
In just a few months Kohr has been able to work with Broutt to polish the play, have it receive two short readings as it progressed through the competition, and watch it performed onstage in its entirety for the first time.
“When I was in college I had a lot of shorter things staged,” Kohn said, “but this is my first thing that’s like borderline professional.”
Audience members on Wednesday night were racially diverse and younger than what’s typical in most
L.A. theaters. They laughed out loud as Jesse’s rapist, Shane, was presented as a hero during exaggerated, game-show-style court proceedings. And some wiped tears from their eyes when Jesse found the strength to silence her inner-critic lifeguard and rediscover her own confident voice.
At the end of the “The Lighthouse,” the house lights came up dramatically as Jesse called for people to speak out and shine a light on sexual misconduct. In the front row, Kohr hugged her friends. Her #MeToo story had found an audience.
This post originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
They came. They listened. They watched. They partied.
A packed house of young playwrights, colleagues and friends filled the Fountain last night for the final round of our Rapid Development Series (‘Rap Dev’) play reading series. Part new play development program, part social event, Rap Dev offers playwrights thirty years old and younger the opportunity to have scenes from their plays read by actors on stage at the Fountain. Audiences then vote for their favorite play each night, through a series of rounds, culminating in the winning play being awarded a fully staged reading of the entire script.
In last night’s final round, the winning selection was from the play Before and After by Nicholas Pilapil. The scene was directed by Miranda Stewart, and featured Audry Cain, Rosie Narasaki, Nasi Nassiri, Kelsey Peterjohn, Jose Picado, and Julian Yuen.
After the play readings, the crowd gathered upstairs in our cafe for the announcement of the winner and to enjoy the beer and snacks. The cafe was energized by the raucous laughter and chatter of young people mixing and networking. The social aspect of Rap Dev is an important element to the program’s success.
Rap Dev is curated and hosted by its creators, Fountain Associate Producer James Bennett and Jessica Broutt. Check our Fountain website for future dates. Join us for the next round and party! New play development has never been so fun.
The battle is on! Round One (Group A) of The Fountain’s Rapid Development Series (“Rap Dev”) for young playwrights was launched on Friday, Feb 12th. Part new play reading series for young people and part social gathering, Rap Dev squares off scenes from new work that is then voted on by the enthusiastic audience. The two plays doing combat Friday night were You Belong With Me Because You’re So Vainby Heider Tunarrosa and the winning play, The Kennedy Experiment by Amy Thorstenson.
As always, a lively party followed upstairs in our cafe. The dollar beers and buzz chat proved almost as popular as the plays.
Two other plays compete in Round One (Group B) Friday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. The two winning playwrights get to show off a little more of their plays in Round Two, on Friday, March 4 at 8 p.m. The single surviving play wins two performances of a staged reading on the Fountain Theatre stage: Friday,March 18 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 19 at 2 p.m.
Get a first look at the work of young, up-and-coming playwrights at Rapid Development (“Rap Dev”), the Fountain Theatre’s free, competition-style reading series designed to showcase the work of previously unproduced, Los Angeles-based playwrights under the age of 30.
Round One takes place over the course of two evenings, Friday,Feb, 12 at 8 p.m. and Friday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. Each evening will feature one scene from two different plays, with the playwrights choosing the scenes they feel best represent their work. At the end of each night, the audience votes. Kind of like TV’s The Voice or America’s Got Talent.
James Bennett & Jessica Broutt
Created and produced by James Bennett and Jessica Broutt, the Rap Dev readings are free, rowdy, informal, and followed by a lively party with food and plenty of drinks. Who says new play development can’t be fun?
No wonder the Rap Dev events have been sold-out successes.
“We’re looking to find new plays and playwrights in the LA area,” says associate producer James Bennett. “And provide a fun and vibrant venue for others to experience them too.”
The Round One (Group A) plays squaring off this Friday, Feb 12, are:
You Belong With Me Because You’re So Vainby Heider Tunarrosa. When a neurotic songwriter accidentally falls in love with his best friend’s ex-boyfriend, and he must decide between losing his best friend or the love of his life, he receives help from the imaginary versions of Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga to resolve this romantic dilemma.
The Kennedy Experiment by Amy Thorstenson. Aboard the International Space Station, a young cosmonaut faces an impossible choice. With the lives of his family, his patriotism, his complicated relationship with his war hero father, and World War Three all hanging in the balance, the last thing he needs to deal with is a ghost.
Two other plays compete in Round One (Group B) Friday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. The two winning playwrights get to show off a little more of their plays in Round Two, on Friday, March 4 at 8 p.m. The single surviving play wins two performances of a staged reading on the Fountain Theatre stage: Friday, March 18 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 19 at 2 p.m. Free admission to Rounds One and Two; tickets to the staged readings are $5.
Rap Dev turns new play development for young writers into a fun social event. Join us this Friday night. Check it out for yourself. Party down with some plays!
A packed house of excited and eager young people filled the Fountain Theatre last night with lively energy as the Fountain launched its new play reading series, Rap Dev, serving playwrights thirty years old or younger. Created and produced by Fountain Associate Producer James Bennett and Jessica Broutt, Rap Dev (short for Rapid Development) is an informal, fast-moving evening that combines play development with social mixing.
Rap Dev offers a platform for young playwrights under 30 who may otherwise struggle to get the opportunity to hear their new work read aloud in a professional setting. At each Rap Dev event, a single 20-minute scene is read by professional actors from 2-3 new and unproduced plays introduced by each playwright. Each scene is selected by the writer to offer the best “snapshot” of the total script. After all 3 scenes are read from each of the 3 plays, the audience votes for their favorite. The “winner” moves on to be eligible to compete with other plays in the series for the grand prize: a fully rehearsed and realized staged reading of the entire play on stage at the Fountain Theatre, with guidance from the professional staff.
Short scenes from two new plays were read last night. Hands by Doc, featuring Verton Banks, Gilbert Glenn Brown and Adolphus Ward. And The Redhead is Coming by Bernardo Cubia, featuring Kirsten Kollander, Whitney Montgomery and Julian Silver.
As last night’s high-spirited gathering proved, Rap Dev is also a good time. The fun, informal atmosphere (not to mention the free beer) makes Rap Dev more than just a night of play readings. It’s a good party.
Director Stephen Sachs shares his vision with the company.
Wicked Fun in New Play About a Mountain Witch
Do you believe witches can be real? We had a delightful one with us at the Fountain this Saturday for the first meet & greet rehearsal for our upcoming West Coast premiere of the new play Broomstick by John Biguenet, starring stage/film/TV veteran Jenny O’Hara. In this funny and poignant new solo play directed by Stephen Sachs, Jenny O’Hara plays an eccentric old woman who may, in fact, be a witch.
Set in Appalachia and written entirely in verse, this charming and mesmerizing solo play is about a wacky old lady living in a odd little shack who just may happen to be a witch. Jenny O’Hara (Bakersfield Mist) returns to the Fountain in this funny, poignant and spell-binding tale of the magic of the human heart.
‘Broomstick’ set design by Andrew Hammer
Jenny O’Hara
First rehearsal was this Saturday, August 23, and a good time was had by all. Director Stephen Sachs spoke about his vision for the play and producer Simon Levy guided the company through the production paperwork. Also present at the first reading were co-artistic director Deborah Lawlor, associate producer James Bennett, designers Andrew Hammer and Misty Carlisle, dialect coach Tyler Seiple, technical director Scott Tuomey, stage manager Terri Roberts, box office manager Jessica Brout, intern William Sachs, and publicist Lucy Pollak. Once the opening business was done, actress Jenny O’Hara read the script marvelously. Jenny, of course, is well known and loved by Fountain audiences for her memorable performance in the smash hit Bakersfield Mist, and recently earned rave reviews in 4,000 Miles at South Coast Repertory.
Preview performances of Broomstick start October 2nd. The West Coast Premiere opens at the Fountain Theatre on October 11 and runs to Nov 30. More info and order tickets.
Let me start my last blog post of the summer by saying that I am not a big fan of change. I love re-reading books, seeing movies over and over, and staying friends with people who I have known a long time. I find sameness very comforting. And now, after sitting at the same desk and showing up to work at the same time for the last ten weeks, tomorrow will be my last day at The Fountain.
Obviously, this being my last day makes me very sad because I love everything about this theatre. I love driving to The Fountain on the 101 and passing Capitol Records because I always feel like I’m in a movie about living in Los Angeles. I love the fact that The Fountain Theatre is not only on Fountain Avenue but there is an actual fountain in the parking lot. I love knowing that no matter what time I come in Scott will always be in the office before me. I love sitting at my pink desk and waiting for my computer to load. I love that when Stephen comes in he always comes to my desk to say hello. I love that Diana thinks I’m a computer genius because I know how to hit the refresh button. I love that our bathroom has a bathtub. I love that after 10 weeks I finally know how to use our printer. I love that James pretended like I wasn’t a complete idiot when it took me a considerable amount of time to figure out how to use the printer in question. I love saying hello to Deborah as she comes in and saying goodbye to Simon when I leave. And I really love writing grants and blogs and e-mails, and whatever else I’m asked to do. But what these little things really mean when you put them all together is that I just love working at The Fountain.
I know I have said this in most all of my blog posts, but being an intern here really has been incredible. And while I was partly surprised that it has been so wonderful, a part of me knew that it would be from the moment I got the job. After a phone interview with Stephen, I was asked to come in for a face to face interview with Simon, Stephen, and Deborah. I came in and thought it went really well and was waiting to hear Stephen offer me the job. But that didn’t happen. I drove away thinking that it must have not gone as well as I’d thought. Then, about 5 minutes after I had pulled out of the lot I got a call from Stephen, first chastising me for answering the phone while I was driving, and after clarifying that I had blue tooth, he said, “We talked it over and decided that you’re hired.” Right then I knew that any person that would call me five minutes after I left and then question why I would answer the phone while I was driving, was the kind of person I would be happy to work with. And I’ve been so happy these past 10 weeks. I have been spoiled for any other organization because now I know what being an intern should be like, and I can’t wait for my next opportunity to come back.
So while change is not something I’ve ever been too fond of, starting at the Fountain was the best change I’ve ever experienced. And now I can tell you first hand that not only is the Fountain Theatre intimate and excellent because of its space and the theatre produced here, but because of the people who work here as well.
Jessica Broutt is our summer intern from UC San Diego. We thank the LA County Arts Commission and its Arts Internship Program for its support.
As the development intern at the Fountain Theatre, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I was asked to write a grant. Sure, I had done research. Written a few letters of intent. But last week marked the first time I was really on my own.
With everyone else in the office getting ready for previews of our newest play, the US Premiere of Athol Fugard’s The Blue Iris, I was spending my week looking at old grants, a new project proposal, and a very tricky computer program I like to call Adobe.
Now, the first thing you have to understand about filling out a grant is that the most challenging part is figuring out how to use the required computer software. After downloading the latest version of Adobe, I spent quite a few hours filling in tiny little boxes. While this was annoying and terrifying, seeing as how I never trusted my hard work to be saved upon every return visit, it was nothing compared to writing the narratives.
In the narrative part of the grant, it gives the organization an opportunity to talk about its artistic mission, the history of its organization, what new project they propose to embark on if they do receive the grant. This was the difficult part. As much as I love this theatre and feel at home here, I haven’t been around long enough to know a lot about its history. However, my ten weeks here has been enough time for me to see the type of patrons who come here, the kind of theatre we produce, and our artistic mission in practice. I spent days not only trying to articulate how I saw our theatre, but reading up on how we had described our organization in previous grants. And while there was a lot of regurgitating of previous data, there was also a lot of room for me to explain why I felt we deserved this grant and why this proposal was right for the organization to which we were applying.
I know the idea of sitting down and writing a grant may seem tedious and awful. I assume that most creative types would rather do just about anything else than sit at a desk for hours on end, proving that your non-profit arts organization is worthy of funding. But just like I love hearing the mundane details of other people’s lives or re-reading books, I can now add grant-writing to my list of strange fascinations.
It’s kind of wonderful to be a part of the creation of a grant at The Fountain. Think about it. I was able to have this amazing experience as an intern at the Fountain because someone else wrote a grant for it. Now I can pay it forward by writing a grant of my own and ensure that the Fountain gets more funding. Seems too good to be true.
I have spent 10 weeks learning about every part of this theatre. There is no better final exam than writing my own grant, showing what I have learned.
I felt so emotionally attached to this grant. In fact, when it was finally finished, I felt it necessary to hand deliver it despite the assurance from Stephen that it “just had to be postmarked by the 17th”. The idea of putting our possible grant money in the hands of the US Postal Service made me cringe. I have never been more happy to drive to Downtown L.A. in my life.
As I rode the elevator at the Department of Cultural Affairs and approached the desk to hand in my grant, I felt a little sad. But mostly wonderful. I came out with a weight literally lifted out of my arms, and a new passion for grant-writing. Filling in those little boxes may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but the prospect of doing something as wonderful for The Fountain as it has done for me made it well worth it.
Jessica Broutt is our summer intern from UC San Diego. Our thanks for the support of the Arts Internship Program at the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.
They came. They listened. They watched. They partied.
The battle is on! Round One (Group A) of The Fountain’s Rapid Development Series (“Rap Dev”) for young playwrights was launched on Friday, Feb 12th. Part new play reading series for young people and part social gathering, Rap Dev squares off scenes from new work that is then voted on by the enthusiastic audience. The two plays doing combat Friday night were You Belong With Me Because You’re So Vain by Heider Tunarrosa and the winning play, The Kennedy Experiment by Amy Thorstenson.
