Theatre Novi Most

Rehearsing Failure opens at The Southern January 24th.

Welcome. As we create Rehearsing Failure, we invite you to meet Elisabeth, Helene, and Ruth – Brecht’s lovers and oft overlooked collaborators. We’re also excited to invite you to understand Brecht more deeply, and examine with us the “America” of 1947 he and his partners inhabited, including it’s politics and artistic experiments.

More ways to connect and learn:
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Twitter: @TheatreNoviMost and #BrechtFail

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PRODUCTION BLOG

– Tuesday, 2/17 –

Photo by Bill Prouty

Rehearsing Failure closes this weekend. It’s been a beautiful, wild ride. Thanks to everyone who joined along the way, and those will make the final performances. We have two shows Thur. 2/19 and two shows Sun. 2/22. Tickets are selling rapidly – you can get them here.

As the show’s closing approaches, we invited the newly Doctored Wade Haynes, of the University of Minnesota, to guest blog his take on what we created. Full disclosure: Wade is a friend of the company and a fan of the show. But this PhD Historiography academic’s specialized background enables him to skillfully unpack this densely layered show. From Dr. Haynes – enjoy!:

Domesticity and Theatricality in Theater Novi Most’s Rehearsing Failure

“As I write this historiographic thought piece on Theatre Novi Most’s Rehearsing Failure, I am also washing my laundry. This moment, so the story goes, is made possible by the automatic washing machine, a “modern convenience” that achieved the status of domestic mainstay in the decade following World War II. In my case, one might say that the displacement of physical work by mechanical automation makes possible the intellectual labor that I undertake as I write this. That’s certainly one way to tell the story and, of course, the most popular version. But there’s something missing here: what can be said of women’s labor before the washing machine “revolutionized” domestic life? The Catholic Church has one unsatisfactory answer to that question. On International Women’s Day in 2009, the Vatican newspaper published an article entitled “The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women – Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax” that promotes the controversial claim that the washing machine did more to liberate women than abortion rights, the birth control pill, and the right to enter the workplace. Here, women’s labor is ultimately tethered back to the labor of birth (biological reproduction, as opposed to production) and the “leisure” of domestic life. Of course, the Vatican’s perspective speaks little to women’s intellectual production within the patriarchal social, cultural, and economic order of capitalism, which all too often reduces women’s intellectual labor to such domestic “trivialities” as bookkeeping and editing, assisting and managing, and making “helpful suggestions” with full credit invested in men’s achievements.

Rehearsing Failure has little directly to do with washing machines, though it does have everything to do with domesticity, women’s labor, and Bertolt Brecht’s appropriation of women’s intellectual production. In the annals of theatre history, Brecht looms large as a playwright and thinker of theatre intensely committed to the critique of modern alienation, capitalist exploitation, and bourgeois normativity. Through an array of reappropriated Brechtian theatrical devices, Lisa Channer’s bold direction persistently reframes Brecht as a contradictory, all too human figure indebted to the intellectual labor of his wife, lovers, and female collaborators. Channer’s use of the theatrical space repositions the audience onstage, with the Southern’s proscenium arch (now stage right) and raked seating (now stage left) demarcating boundaries of gendered “offstage” areas that nonetheless invite the audience to peer inside them: male characters retreat beyond the proscenium, while female characters both perform and critically survey from the traditional seats of the audience. Samantha John’s set design emblematizes Brecht’s broken fourth wall upstage by way of a partially sectioned-out panel and remnant frame that both reveals and obscures the domestic scene unfolding within. If Brecht’s epic theatre seeks to stage the encounter between historical event and everyday occurrence, Rehearsing Failure shifts this axis slightly toward a collision of domestic and theatrical scenes.

Cory Hinkle’s epigrammatic stage script locates Rehearsing Failure against a backdrop of the German exile’s experience in Hollywood, U.S.A. during the postwar historical moment of Red Scare blacklists and testimonies before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Hinkle takes as his source material excerpts from letters between Brecht and his wife, a lover’s memoir, as well as critical insights from John Fuegi’s controversial biography Brecht and Company. Hinkle’s play presents Brecht’s experience as blacklisted exile through the moral (but decidedly not moralizing) gaze of the women who loved him, who actively participated in writing and staging his works, and who managed his household and financial life. Rehearsing Failure positions three women intimately and professionally involved with Brecht as its chief protagonists: actress, wife to Brecht, and artistic director of the Berliner ensemble after his death Helene Weigel (Barbara Berlovitz); writer and dramaturg Elisabeth Hauptmann (Annie Enneking); and actress, director, photographer and writer Ruth Berlau (Sara Richardson). The play situates the experience of these exiles not merely in geographic displacement from homeland, but also in their collective experience of cultural alienation in America and through the various inter-/intrapersonal conflicts that arise from their domestic and professional interactions. The female protagonists remain distinct and stable entities, even as they sometimes speak together as a group, while Brecht stands consistently divided against himself: the staged embodiment of contradiction that his own work sets out to examine. Rehearsing Failure doubles the figure of Brecht on the stage in expressionistic confrontations between a brazenly misogynistic Young Brecht (Billy Mullaney) and the aging playwright (Pearce Bunting) relying extensively on the women around him to help prepare and rehearse his HUAC testimony. The director and playwright thus also steps in and out of the role of Galileo’s protagonist, whose testimony before a Vatican tribunal and subsequent excommunication from the Church find historical analogy in Brecht’s own experience as exile and accused communist. The action of Rehearsing Failure generates its primary conceptual movement in an oscillation through various roles within the traditional theatrical division of labor. In thus underscoring the necessarily collaborative process behind Brecht’s work and especially women’s contributions to that process, Theatre Novi Most accomplishes both necessary feminist critique and a crucial revitalization of Brecht’s Marxist legacy.”

Bio:

Dr. Wade Haynes is a newly minted PhD in Theatre Historiography from the University of Minnesota, where he first developed a friendship and professional relationship with director Lisa Channer. He also holds an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Minnesota and a BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin. He has researched various topics within the areas of Euro-American modernism and avant-garde aesthetics. His dissertation and current research seek an encounter between sound/music studies and theatre/performance studies in a materialist historiography of the tape recorder.

– Monday, 2/2 –

If you’ve seen Rehearsing Failure’s already, you undoubtedly heard some familiar tunes played on the record player run on the side by Dan Dukich (who plays live music the entire show, and is co-composer along with Annie Enneking). Audience goers who have yet to attend have something to look forward to. During Saturday’s postshow talkback, someone asked about how the record player ended up in the show, and how the songs played on it were selected. Dan re-tells the story here, upon request, for your enjoyment and posterity:

“Lisa found a recording of Brecht’s HUAC trial somewhere in the depths of the University’s vinyl collection. She knew she wanted the recording in the show, but didn’t have anything to play it on. After some discussion, we decided we wanted a record player that was small enough to be carried in with the rest of the company’s objects during the opening song.

So I started looking around on Craigslist for a small “suitcase” style record player. I found one that was built in the early 1940s and bought it for $10 from a man with cleft lip at the Spyhouse on Hennepin.

I was on my way to rehearsal to show everyone the new purchase, when I realized I didn’t have a record with me in which to test it out. So I stopped at Cheapo and picked up a Roberta Flack 45″ with Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow on the A side. When I got to rehearsal and played the record, everyone sang along passionately — seeming to have a personal history and emotional understanding of how the song related to Brecht’s world and what we were doing inside of it. So it was settled that Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow would be in the show.

But the record player, being as old as it is, was giving out a lot of nasty hiss and static — more than the aesthetic could allow. I thought my grandpa might know a thing or two about repairing the machine so I called him and asked if he would take a look at it. He opened that bad-boy up, and I’ll tell you what, about eight minutes later he was dancing around the kitchen with my grandma to a pristine sounding rendition of Sailcat’s 1972 hit Motorcycle Mama.

He sent me away with that recording and when I played it for the cast the following day, they too were dancing around the room (except not with my grandma). So it was decided that there would be a sequence where young Brecht had a dance with each of the women to Motorcycle Mama. The great thing about the record player is that it plays three different speeds: 78s, 45s and 33s. So for each dance a different speed is used. It’s still very exciting for me to think of all the decisions and strange information that came from that record player.”

– Sunday, 2/1 –

Thursday, Minnesota Playlist published Sophie Kerman’s thoughtful, engaged review of the show. She said, “This is an intellectually rich play with none of the academic coolness that you’d expect from a biography. Like its characters – who are playwrights and directors themselves – it is a hot-blooded and sexually-charged play, driven by the urge to create socially relevant art.”

Late Saturday just before Rehearsing Failure’s third performance, Todd O’Dowd’s favorable review went online with l’étoile. He says – among other things – “this production is filled with some of the most inventive staging I’ve seen in a long time.” Well we’ll take that!

What a great way to kickstart the second weekend! Crowds turned out again and we had another SOLD OUT performance, complete with Annie Enneking’s parents in the audience.

Thanks to all the great press and packed houses, we decided to add TWO MORE SHOWS to the performance calendar. You can now also get tickets for: Thursday 2/19 @ 9:30pm & Sunday 2/22 @ 5:30pm. Get your tickets here.

Annie’s parents were, with others, sitting in The Southern’s actual theater seats. Our stage is oriented sideways so most of the audience is actually sitting onstage, and we’re using the real chairs as overflow seating, even though it’s sort of restricted viewing. This has come in handy, since we’ve sold out twice now, and the seats actually offer a pretty neat view, though. We snapped a couple shots of the amazing women in our cast – Barbra Berlovitz (playing Helene Weigel, Brecht’s wife), Annie Enneking (playing, Elisabeth Hauptmann, a writer), and Sara Richardson (playing Ruth Berlau, a director).

Last but not least: a friendly reminder to those who’ve been to previous Novi Most shows (and an invitation to those who are new to our company)… We have a fun little tradition. Doors open an hour before each show. Please come early and nibble on Russian Theater Sandwiches. You can wash them down with a tasty adult beverage from The Southern’s fancy new bar.

Our next performances are Tuesday and Wednesday, February 3rd and 4th, at 7:30pm both nights. See you there!

– Wednesday, 1/28 –

So far, two shows in, Rehearsing Failure has been very warmly received.

Today director, Lisa Channer, was on air at KFAI for Mary Morstad’s show, Art Matters. With them was also Annie Enneking, co-composer and performer in the show. You can hear the entire half hour segment here. The conversation starts with how the show got its name, goes into how they collaborated with playwright Cory Hinkle, and touches on how Brecht’s model for creating theater is still in use today. Lisa says something lovely in the middle of their interview that speaks to the Novi Most process, “If everyone is equally, then we can all be each other’s muses.” Check out the show!

A nice review also came out today by Ed Huyck in the City Pages. (Thanks, Ed!)

– Monday, 1/26 –

Matthew Everett’s review in TC Daily Planet is glowing – check it out!

From the article, “When the performance of Rehearsing Failure was over, my theater going companion turned to me and asked, “How do you write about something like that?” Excellent question. Because you can’t describe a production like Rehearsing Failure literally. Even though it’s only about an hour long, the thing is so rich and visual and non-linear and strange and sexy that it’s like trying to explain a joke and killing the humor.”

The next show is on Saturday (1/31), followed by a postshow talkback. For those who like to engage more – we’re excited to discuss the show with you! Bring your questions – what are you most curious about?

– Friday, 1/23 –

Photo by Jim Walsh

Last week we were thrilled to have Jim Walsh from MinnPost visit rehearsal at The Southern Theater. Jim’s also stalwart music scene mover and shaker, and author of “The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting“. He seemed to enjoy himself, and playwright, Cory Hinkle – who lives in L.A. – had a good time during their phone chat.

Initially we reached out to Jim because he’s a fan of Annie Ennekings’s music with her band, Annie and the Bang Bang, and Annie not only performs in the show, but co-composed the music with Dan Dukich (who also does his own work as Daniel Bonespur). We figured he’d cover the music angle and that would be that. And that would’ve been fine.

But instead, Jim covered pretty much all the story angles in a really thorough preview article for the show, which is heartening on the eve of our opening. (Get your tickets now!)

Read Jim’s article here, and enjoy the sneak peek photo he shot, showing how we’ll use vintage cameras onstage to project 16 mm film.

We want to highlight one quote from Cory that Jim grabbed, though, commenting on the work/life dynamic of the Brecht household. For those not following along or are new to the story – our show is about Brecht living and collaborating with his wife and two lovers. Can you say [ripe for] drama??? From Cory: “When I started reading about Brecht, and all these relationships he had with these women, what I really got into was these really dark, sexy, weird, [messed]-up relationships that hopefully come out in a lot of the scenes,” said Hinkle. “I mean, the scenes that I wrote for the play, there’s the political backdrop, but they’re really about how these people worked together, how they lived together, how they collaborated.

“These women ran his life for him. I think he was just one of those guys who couldn’t have done it alone, and he never would have wanted to do it alone. Helene Weigel ran Brecht’s life like a business. I think Ruth and Helene were definitely muses, and I think he had a different relationship with Elisabeth, because Elisabeth was such an intellectual and they had a sexual relationship when he was very young into most of their adult lives.”

So just chew on that for awhile. See you at The Southern!

– Thursday, 1/22 –

Ed Huyck gave the show a generous preview piece in the City Pages.

One sweet quote from his article from Sara Richardson, “I love working on a piece with a director who has a very clear vision and a playwright who I really admire. I have been part of many collaborative and devised things, and it is lovely to have a playwright as one of the divisors.”

Chris Hewitt from the Pioneer Press did a preview in the Pioneer Press. Director, Lisa Channer, described the Novi Most process: “We do have roles — director, playwright, actor — but if you walked into the room, it would be hard to know which was which,” says Channer, who notes that Brecht owes his collaborators a lot for the strong women who appear in his works, including “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” and “Mother Courage and Her Children.” “But it’s presented by Theatre Novi Most, so it’s all of us.”

ALSO (today has been so exciting!): Heidi Halvarson (of Savage Umbrella, one of the 15 resident ARTshare companies) did an Art Hound for Rehearsing Failure. We couldn’t be more pleased with the support of a fellow company. (Thanks, Heidi!) You should know, Savage Umbrella’s show, Freaks, opens the week after us on Wednesday, January 28th!

– Wednesday, 1/21 –

The set finally in The Southern’s space…! Can you figure out the orientation?

Photo (and set design!) courtesy of Samantha Johns.

– Saturday, 1/17 –

Left to right: Barbra Berlovitz (playing Helene Weigel, Brecht’s wife), Annie Enneking (playing, Elisabeth Hauptmann, a writer), and Sara Richardson (playing Ruth Berlau, a director).

Rehearsing Failure playwright, Cory Hinkle, shares about his love/hate relationship with putting history on stage, and how the Novi Most ensemble came to settle on Belau, Weigel, and Hauptmann – Bertolt Brecht’s lovers, and overlooked collaborators:

“I am scared to write about history. I love history. But I don’t want to write plays that feel old, or “historical,” or that don’t feel rooted in the present, that don’t feel relevant. I don’t want to write history lessons for the stage.

Luckily, all of my collaborators on Rehearsing Failure didn’t want to create a history lesson either. So, very early on in the process for this show, we talked about the challenge of creating a show based on history – if we didn’t put our own contemporary spin on that history, then, what was the point?

So we kept going back to the question, why are we doing this show? And often, our conversations led to power, the always shifting power within collaborations and how in the early 20th century women like Ruth Berlau, Helene Weigel, and Elisabeth Hauptmann worked to gain some power within the context of the Brecht process, even though they were never able to own that power publicly. In other words, they did all the satisfying and fulfilling artistic work, but they didn’t get any of the credit. And within our own process, there was a great tension between the history we were working from – these real women – and our own take on these women.

Another ongoing conversation was – how much of this historical information should we include? There’s so much history around these people – in the form of poetry, plays, rehearsal journals, letters, a few autobiographies, but in the end, we couldn’t privilege everything. We had to choose which story to tell. Whose story to tell. We landed on three of the women that Brecht collaborated with. But because Brecht is The Man, The Name On The Marquee, there is, of course, less known about these women. So we had to take scraps, bits and pieces, and construct real flesh and blood characters from that fractured historical record.

The characters in Rehearsing Failure are based in historical truth, but they also happen to make up a lot of all of us who created the show – the ensemble who brought them to life. This is where history and the present meet. We had to fill in the blanks. We had to invent. We had to make this history our own.”

Please join us Saturday, January 24th, at The Southern, in celebration of these remarkable women, and the inaugural season of ARTshare. You can get your tickets here. Reminder: there are only 65 seats available for each of the 10 performances! We’ll see you there.

– Friday, 1/16 –

Rehearsal on the eve of tech week…

– Wednesday, 1/14 –

Company humor from the Rehearsing Failure cast on learning their German accents.

– Tuesday, 1/13 –

Digging deeper…

As director Lisa Channer researched Brecht for her 2008 Life of Galileo she became increasingly interested in the stories of his female collaborators.

From Lisa, “Many people know of Bertolt Brecht as one of the most important voices in 20th century theatre. The creator of epic theatre and the alienation effect, the author of Three Penny Opera, Mother Courage, etc. What is not as well known is that Brecht worked inside a fascinating “workshop” of writers, directors, actors and translators, many of them his current and ex-lovers. This is something that has been known and spoken of quietly for decades but mostly from the perspective of Brecht’s work and how it was made, with him at the center and the women as footnotes. I am fascinated by this arrangement and what it meant for the women artists and their work. I wanted to open that story up and examine it out loud. It seems each of the women were bright and talented enough to stand out front but chose – or were compelled – to shadow and support a “great man” instead, often with little reward or compensation and at huge personal sacrifice.

I am focusing on three of his partners: the actress Helene Weigel, the director Ruth Berlau, and the writer Elisabeth Hauptmann. The show takes place in 1947 the last of 7 years they all lived together while in exile in Santa Monica, CA working on The Life of Galileo and also preparing for Brecht’s testimony before the HUAC where he was subpoenaed to appear that October. Rehearsing Failure is about how these women worked with each other and Brecht, what it means to sacrifice your self to another’s fame and how art and life can slip into each other’s porous spaces. It combines music, text, movement and design in unusual ways, helping us see these artists living and creating inside various theatrical frames. It has been a labor of love for me and my gifted and dedicated collaborators.”

Linking the past to the present, we recall the firestorm only three years ago around the 2012 Guthrie season, which was originally announced with an all white, male lineup of playwrights and directors. The scenario was hardly unique to Minnesota, however, and we ask “how far have we come in the near 70 years since Helene, Ruth, and Elisabeth?”

– Sunday, 1/11 –

For those among us equally (and/or) more motivated by live music…

Rehearsing Failure has a serious rock and roll score, co-composed by Annie Enneking (of Annie and the Bang Bang) and Dan Dukich (music moniker, Daniel Bonespur).

On Annie: music writer, songwriter, and Hoot organizer extraordinaire, Jim Walsh, named “Explode With Happy, Man!” one of his top songs of 2014. You can also SEE Annie and the Bang Bang rock it live at the Minnesota Playlist Winter Bash at Bedlam Lowertown Saturday 1/24 after the opening performance of Rehearsing Failure!

Check out Dan’s music on Bandcamp here. Also featured on his last album Dead People (released last January) was Billy Mullaney (also in Rehearsing Failure as Young Brecht) on bassoon.

– Friday, 1/9 –

More background for the history buffs!

Here’s footage of Brecht testifying before the HUAC committee, in a moment embodying both political surrender and theatrical performance. (In all seriousness. Brecht was coached by lawyers for the Hollywood 11.)

While American artists cried foul play against their rights in the government’s hunt for Communists, and resisted by refusing to respond to the question “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?” Brecht made a choice to deny his affiliation.

One of the Hollywood 11 was Lester Cole. After testifying, Brecht reportedly got into a cab ride home with Cole and broke down in tears crying that he had done wrong by the 11 and felt huge guilt.

– Thursday, 1/8 –

#TBT! Rehearsing Failure has roots going all the way back to a 2008 production director Lisa Channer staged at the University of Minnesota – The Galileo Project : Brecht’s Brain,.

From Lisa Channer, “I first stumbled upon the story of Brecht’s time in Los Angeles when I was doing research for a project called “Brecht’s Brain” at the University of Minnesota in 2008. That performance, made with University theatre students, focused on his play The Life of Galileo. Brecht often wrote and spoke about his sense of connection between Galileo, who stood before the Inquisition as a heretic for claiming the earth rotated the sun, and himself who stood before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a suspected communist infiltrator in the film industry. Brecht saw both himself and Galileo as martyrs to causes larger than themselves. That they both ultimately capitulated to their interrogators was my initial interest in the parallel but as I dug deeper I found I was even more interested in the women surrounding Brecht.”

In the cast ~ Keith Hovis : Laura Lechner : Natalie Remus : Molly Dworsky : Shannon Leach : Kate Gunther : Jeffrey Shockley : Nathaniel Nesheim-Case : Jon Bigelow : Andrew Thews : Nickolas Ochs : Jason Snetting : Kalen Keir : Allison Witham : Billy Mullaney : Kelsey Dahlquist : Frank Matejcek

– Tuesday, 1/6 –

Pop quiz: What was HUAC and who were the Hollywood 11? Bonus points if you can name any of the members.

HUAC was the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Their job was to uncover members of the Communist party. The Hollywood 11 was a group of filmmakers, directors, writers, and producers who were subpoenaed to testify before HUAC. And this is the backdrop for the world of Brecht in Rehearsing Failure.

The “Hollywood 11” became the “Hollywood 10” because Brecht DID answer the question “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party”. The 11 had agreed not to answer this question at all on principle, and all but Brecht refused and were jailed. Brecht answered “No no no no never” and the next day left the country.

Here is a 15 minute documentary from 1950 about the Hollywood 10.

– Friday, 1/2 –

Friends and fans of Novi Most are familiar with how the company makes new work. Shows develop in repeated productions spread out over years. Old Story (from 2010 at The Southern) was nearly a decade in the making. Rehearsing Failure made its debut last summer at the Red Eye Theater. Below are program notes from that staging, written by Lisa Channer (director and Novi Most co-founder):

Springboarding off those notes, Lisa shares what returning audiences (and fans of The Southern’s space) have to look forward to:

“Primers are good and useful. They ground us and remind us of things we sort of know but don’t really know, or once knew but forget, or never knew but always wanted to. These notes from last year still hold their own as far as describing what the show is about. But here are two new things I’m particularly excited to share with you about this new incarnation opening in January:

First: We are managing (with Set Designer Samantha Johns, Lighting Designer Heidi Eckwell and Technical Director Vladimir Rovinsky) to turn the Southern Theater on its side. “What does that mean!?” you scream at me over your computer screen. Well… it’s magic and it is helping us carve, out of that epic space we all love, an intimate experience for our audiences. There will only be 65 of you experiencing each performance, snuggled up together and witnessing the space through a variety of diminishing and endless theatrical frames. Get tickets early…

I’m being purposefully obtuse here. But it’s actually as magical as I’m building it up to be and even if you’ve been in or performed in the Southern a dozen or more times, this will give you the gift of new sight. Or at the every least it will settle once and for all what Alienation Effect actually means in the theatre.

Second: we are adding 16-millimeter film thanks to the help and talent of Kevin Obsatz. The film moments are inspired by Andy Warhol’s “screen test” and will be projected from vintage projectors onto the set and actors bodies. Brecht really wanted to break into the Hollywood film machine, something he detested and criticized endlessly (remember contradictions make us human!) but he failed in this endeavor. Film surrounded them in L.A. and now it will surround them in our performance. Also, the four hours of shooting allowed me to look through the lens at the beautiful faces of my collaborators Sara Richardson, Barbra Berlovitz and Annie Enneking and set up shots and say things like “action!” and “cut!” and I am forever changed and giddy and now I really want to make films.

Thank you for being part of this process by reading this and also by joining us in January.”

– Tuesday, 12/30 –

Novi Most is part of a story in American Theatre Magazine this month about ARTshare at The Southern. Have we mentioned how glad we are to be part of this new experiment opening in January?! Read the article here.

In other news, we have just launched a Hatchfund for the show.

If you haven’t heard of Hatchfund before, think Kickstarter but curated. They hand pick who can use the platform for fundraising to ensure quality. Our goal is to raise $3,000 by February 1st. Everything goes to the artists. We invite you visit our page and consider making a contribution to the show. We have some pretty fun thank you gifts, too – including your choice of CD by co-composers and performers Dan Dukich and Annie Enneking at the $100 level. How awesome is that?

– Friday, 12/19 –

Novi Most Co-Founder and Rehearsing Failure Director, Lisa Channer, works in The Southern with actors Annie, Barbara, and Sara in what will be their new performance space for the piece. Footage to share from the day’s adventure will be coming soon…!

– Sunday, 12/13 –

Novi Most Co-Founder and Rehearsing Failure Technical Director, Vladimir Rovinsky, considering scenic design options with Set Designer Samantha Johns.

Fans of the New Works 4 Weeks staging at Red Eye last summer might be intrigued to see how the show transitions to a new space. We open January 24th – come check out what changes and stays the same!

Check out the full ARTshare calendar for 2015 on The Southern’s website here.

– Thursday, 12/11 –

This week The Southern announced a referral program for ARTshare that we’re excited to tell you about!

If you are an ARTshare member you can earn FREE MONTHS by referring new members. This is really great and easy. Check out the details here. This means so much to small and middle sized companies and to our larger art community. So if you love Novi Most, if you love the theater scene of the Twin Cities, and/or if you’re jazzed by innovative performing arts nonprofit practices (that one sounds nerdy but there’s a niche!) – – we encourage you to get a membership today. For what it’s worth, we also we think an ARTshare membership is a GREAT holiday gift idea…. Just saying.

– Saturday, 11/15 –

Yesterday we had special guests sitting in with us for open rehearsal. You can see more of those photos and more in our album on Facebook. The cast got to try out a new song on them (which we’re still referring to as Tree Song), and see how it landed. Responses included “haunting, lullaby, nurturing, sense of loss”. This will be just one of the new elements when Rehearsing Failure opens in January. We hope you come and see for yourself if it’s indeed all those things.

One song that everyone LOVED from last year’s version at Red Eye is Effigy, which we presented a stripped down version of also at the July ARTshare party at Town Hall Brewery. The Southern captured a bit of footage which you can enjoy here on Instagram.

Remembering that happy (and warm) day reminds us to encourage YOU to get an ARTshare membership. The benefits are absolutely worth it, and every membership goes a long way in supporting the amazing resident companies participating. Go get one today!

– Wednesday, 11/12 –

How much fun does this look like? Well YOU’RE invited to join in by attending an open rehearsal this Friday (11/14) from 5:30-6:30pm!

Brecht and his crew are rehearsing in Rarig Center (on the U of MN campus on the West Bank at 330 21st Avenue S.). There is a parking ramp across the street if you need it.

Inside Rarig, take an elevator up to Studio C and walk right in – don’t be shy! The building and room are wheelchair accessible.

The cast and crew are excited to share their process with you. Please come and bring a friend!