Michael Markham

Lunar Energy Productions presents a play by Matthew Minnicino. A Play. A Party. A fundraiser.

As a member of Lunar Energy Productions, a New York-based theatre company dedicated to transformation and re-imagination, I was proud to be cast in the main entertainment for our Annual Fundraiser. We staged Troy is Burning by Matthew Minnicino. It’s a tragi-comic re-telling of the fall of Troy with a modern voice that pays homage to the size and weight of the classic stories that inspired it. I played Menelaus and Aeneas, two men who are having issues with their wives.

The event was held at the Gibson Baldwin Showroom on 54th St. This is the recording studio that used to be The Hit Factory, where artists such as Stevie Wonder, Talking Heads, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and Beyonce at one time or another recorded major albums. The unique space provided an opportunity for unique staging with the Greek and Trojan scenes played on either side of the sound proof glass. (Obviously mics were used so the audience, who were spread throughout the space, could follow the action.

The event was a great success. With a crowd over 50 strong we stormed through Mr. Minnicino’s play with terror and lightning excitement that comes with being rehearsed just enough to be dangerous. With just over 2 hours of rehearsal per scene and never a complete run through till the night of the show the company delivered a performance that kept the audience riveted like only live theater can do. And being hones there were a few moments when truly no one in the room knew what was coming next. If you missed it you missed a one of a kind theatrical event.

Lunar Energy was raising money for our 2013 season. This fall, we will be presenting our very first musical – the 20th anniversay production of Michael John LaChiusa’s Hello Again – and next spring we will present a world premiere tentatively titled Short Life of Trouble. We will be creating this play in workshops throughout the year exploring Shakespeare’s Hamlet through the lens of Southern Gothic Literature.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in supporting the work we are doing at Lunar Energy Productions.

I am proud to announce that I have joined Lunar Energy Productions as a company member. Lunar Energy is a New York-based theater company dedicated to ​transformation and reimagination. We play with perspective and context in order to discover and illuminate the unexpected in the familiar, the mythic in the mundane.

I first worked with them last year on christopher marlowe’s chloroform dreams. I am excited to continue working with is energetic new company and we have some exciting offerings for 2013.

You can find out more about the work we are doing and our quarterly new play reading series ‘Moonshine’ at www.lunarenergyproductions.org

THE KINGDOM

Presented by Ashes Company & Mabou Mines/Suite

A non-devotional theatre production encountering a pillar of Western culture: Judeo-Christian mythology. A fragmented narrative reverberates with echoes of Genesis, destruction of the Temple, and a messianic figure. The tradition’s cycles of appearance / negation explore the crisis of form: the impossibility of containing what is infinite within word, image, or body. More than a theological problem, this a universal query. Almost entirely without spoken text, a production of actions, design elements, and presence.

Performers: Charles Baran, Joshua Isak, Hugo Job, Philippa Kaye, Daniel Levitt, Michael Markham, Michael Propster, Adam Roper, Doug Rossi, Shacha Temirov, Regina Vorria

Writer, Director Jonathan Vandenberg Scenic Design Erik Grathwohl, Jonathan Vandenberg Lighting Design Joe Novak Costume Design Nina Bova Visual Artist Sam Hill Dramaturg Erik Grathwohl Producer Regina Vorria Stage Manager Allison Anderson

January 18-19, 8pm
January 20, 7pm

FREE ADMISSION

For more information visit ashescompany.org

ToRoNaDo Studio
150 First Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York City

Here Are some shots I have taken at rehearsals. Enjoy!

So blessed this weekend to be reunited with the cast of Civil War Voices. This is such a delightful group of people. We got together at PPI Studios at 19 Mercer Street to record a demo album for the show. It was my first time in the recording studio and I have to say I was a little terrified. I haven’t been in a musical since CWV closed 2 years ago. Fun was had by all.

I count myself luck to be a part of an exciting new piece of theater.  The Pandora’s Box Project was created by Jess Smith and Dante Smith (no relation) as a theatrical response to the “war on women.” It’s best describe in their own words from their Indie GoGo page:

Our plan of attack is to build a play–not a variety show, not a series of scenes–a play wherein the words of one writer will be juxtaposed against what others write. We are aiming for a collage that examines, elucidates, and honors this complex interchange of women, reproduction, subjugation, sex, power, and politics in Western thought. We are going to weave our combined words together and speak to a larger story. We may put Eve, Pandora, Salome, and Nora Helmer, or whoever else we feel needs to speak in the same room together. The point is to really dig into the issues, and to do so from as many perspectives as possible.

The play includes hundreds of submissions from playwrights and artists all over the country sharing their views and experience on/in this complex issue.

Today we had a first read of the collated material and began a discussion on what is working and what isn’t and why. This is what I want art to be about; engaging culture and dealing with the mess that is life in a true and illuminating way.

More updates on this project as they progress.

You can read more about the project at the following links

https://www.facebook.com/PandorasBoxProject

http://www.indiegogo.com/pandorasbox?c=home

As you may or may not know I have been working on a project for the past month at Columbia University with MFA Directing Candidate Tyne Rafaeli. We have been devising a play inspired by the life and marriages of Harold Pinter. We used his plays and a memoir by his second wife Antonia Fraser, Must You Go, as a starting point to explore relationships, the devastation caused by adultery, and what and who people will sacrifice for love and happiness. This has been a process that I have thoroughly enjoyed and I hope you can make it because I would love to share the work with you.

The show runs approximately 45 min and it’s FREE

Here are the details:

Saturday Dec 10th 7:00 and 9:30 pm

Sunday Dec 11th 2:00 pm

Columbia University Shapiro Studio Theater

615 West 115th St.

Just west of Broadway on the North side of the street

Take the stairs behind the security guard down to the theater.

We have an invited dress Friday Dec 9th at 8:00 pm. We want to keep this audience small so please if you can make another showtime go that one.

Directed by Tyne Rafaeli

Movement by Rachel Garis

Cast: Cameron Perry, Patrick Davis, Erin McGuff, Amanda Boekelheide, Ben Fisher, Justin Perez, Quincy Ellis, Nika Ezell Pappas, Allison Minick, Michael Markham

I was lucky enough to read the role of Lt. Ehrenberg in David Ian Lee’s The Curing Room at Manhattan Theater Source Monday, August 22nd.

The Curing Room tells the true story of seven NKVD officers who were imprisoned nude & possession less in the basement of a monastery in Nazi occupied Poland. It’s a tense, taut thriller, and not one for the kiddies. This is a play about human beings put in an incredible situation, dealing with it in a variety of real human ways.
The fantastic ensemble included Gus Schulenburg, James Comtois, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Stephen Heskett, David Crommett, Brian Silliman, Kristen Vaughan and Myself. The reading was directed by Pete Boisvert.

We packed the house down at the Source and found a very warm reception to this chilling material.

This is a play I believe in very strongly and hope will have a life in full production soon.

I will be performing with Spark and Echo Arts this Friday night, July 15th at 7:00 pm
@ Calvary/St. George’s Episcopal Church 277 Park Ave. South (at E. 21st St.).

We will be performing a new play Sing by Nick Stokes. It is a meditation on several verses from Psalm 22. The performance will be a part of Redeemer Presbyterian’s InterArts Fellowship: The Artist and Beauty. You can get more information about the evening and register for the event HERE. Registration is not required for attendance, but it is encouraged.

Please visit Spark and Echo Arts at their site: http://www.sparkandecho.org/