A Day of Rest?

So today I got to pretty much stay home. We (berit and I) have been nuts, running around busy on one thing or another, for days and days now. Between auditioning people for the casts of the four August plays, having individual meetings with the new cast members, having rehearsals with larger groups, and dealing with the administrative stuff, it's been crazy.

On top of it, we were also involved in Edward Einhorn/Untitled Theater Co. #61's presentations for this past week in Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays/365 Days. I directed 2 Writers Digging Bach and Antaeus, and I think they both went quite well. It was Edward's conceit that all the plays had to be finished through audience participation, and it took me a bit to figure out how to make my two plays work that way, but I wound up making it work very well I think. I'm too tired to detail it now. Some other time. I did get a bit lucky that there were actors in the audience I knew could pull it off well - one play needed a man, the other a woman - so I was lucky to have Robert Honeywell, John Hagen, Yolanda Hawkins, and Linda Blackstock out there on Saturday and Sunday.

Also had a rehearsal for a reading of Trav S.D.'s Sea of Love which I'm in this coming Sunday out in Coney Island. Promo for that in a little bit.

Almost done with the casting for August. Still need one or two actors (depending on if one I've asked to be in the show accepts). Two and a half weeks until we open World Gone Wrong and The Hobo Got Too High. Crazy. Well, we can do it. Hobo is easy enough. WGW will be a bear, with all the tech that has to be done well in advance. Think we're okay, though. Luckily, we seem to have a good number of people who can do weekday daytime rehearsals, so I can get plenty done then. Both of those shows are completely cast.


I also got all the press materials out, so in lieu of anything else to put up here right now, I guess I'll put up the releases for each of the three programs. First, here, the cover sheet for the whole month of shows - then I'll do a separate entry for the other releases.


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The Brick Theater, Inc. presents a month of productions from Gemini CollisionWorks, featuring


The NECROPOLIS Series by Ian W. Hill:
NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed
NECROPOLIS #0&3: Kiss Me, Succubus & At the Mountains of Slumberland


The Hobo Got Too High by Marc Spitz


all shows designed and directed by Ian W. Hill


August 4 through 26, 2007
at The Brick, 575 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
one block from the Lorimer stop of the L train / Metropolitan stop of the G train

all tickets: $10.00 -- available at the door (cash only)
or through Theatermania.com: 212-352-3101


July 16, 2007 – The Brick and Gemini CollisionWorks are pleased to bring together, for the first time, parts 0-3 of Ian W. Hill’s The NECROPOLIS Series – a collection of what their creator calls “dubbed, theatrical dream-elegies for dead or dying art forms of the 20th Century.” The productions in the NECROPOLIS series consist of collaged text from unlikely, but thematically-linked source materials, which is then performed “dubbed,” with all dialogue, sound effects, and music prerecorded and played behind the actors, who enact it as a complex, choreographed movement piece.

NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed is a restaging of the acclaimed film noir pastiche that premiered at The Brick in 2005. NECROPOLIS #0&3: Kiss Me, Succubus & At the Mountains of Slumberland are two shorter works, originally from 2000 and 2001, that combine, respectively, softcore-porn and horror films of the 1960s, and then the fantasy literature of Winsor McCay (“Little Nemo”) and H.P. Lovecraft, into a pair of hypnotic, hallucinatory dream-landscapes.

The Hobo Got Too High is a completely different kind of play – a hysterical, romantic farce about a cokehead/rock and roll fanatic who is trying to get clean with the help of his spirit guide, Marvin Gaye – written by novelist, playwright, and music critic Marc Spitz.

Designer/director Ian W. Hill has, with his company Gemini CollisionWorks, created 50 productions in NYC since 1997, including world premieres of plays by Richard Foreman, Mark Spitz, and Eugène Ionesco. He is the former artistic director of the Nada Classic theatre and co-produced several acclaimed festivals at that space, and is now the facilities manager of The Brick.

For print-ready photos or additional information about these plays or Gemini CollisionWorks please contact Jeff Lewonczyk at XXX-XXX-XXXX

Press Release: NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed

The Brick Theater, Inc. presents a Gemini CollisionWorks production of


NECROPOLIS #1&2:
World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed


written, designed and directed by Ian W. Hill


Saturday, August 4 and 11
Thursday, August 9 and 16
Friday, August 10 and 17
and Sunday, August 12 at 8.00 pm
matinee: Saturday, August 18 at 4.00 pm


The sheer size, scope and ambition of Ian W. Hill’s vision in World Gone Wrong dazzles and boggles. Who does this guy think he is . . ? . . . laugh-out-loud hilarious, the way the first episodes of Twin Peaks were . . . theatre that delights and challenges and jolts even as it prods and pokes at its audience . . . ultimately form and content collide and then reinforce one another, creating a theatrical experience as dense as it is unique.
-- from Martin Denton’s review of the 2005 production at nytheatre.com


Against the constantly changing backdrop of projected black-and-white stills, the cryptic mix of wisecracking wordplay, melodramatic excess and metaphysical world-weariness achieves a breathtaking effect, amplified by moments of recognition . . . stunning style and tour-de-force text . . .
– from Jessica Branch’s review of the 2005 production in Time Out New York



A world where the leaders lie, cheat, steal and murder. A world where Art and Science and Beauty and Reason are no longer valued. A world where survival means selling out, and trying to do the “right thing” means failure as a human being. A familiar place? Yes, of course, it is the fictional, 1940’s world of film noir, nothing like our own present world at all, right? Right? Or has noir come true, and we’re all living in a world gone wrong?

Combining a cast of 21 in precision choreography with slides and an entirely pre-recorded collage soundtrack, World Gone Wrong (as the long-titled show is known for short) is a celebration of the ability to stay true to, and fight for, one’s own convictions in a land where “moral values” is just a mask that hides greed, hatred, fear, backstabbing, and lies. World Gone Wrong is a film noir pastiche-play consisting of dialogue from over 150 noirs, as well as quotes from our current U.S. Administration and other pertinent sources, combined into an original spellbinding, semiabstract, dreamlike tale of corruption, betrayal, and revenge.

As with all productions in the NECROPOLIS series, this production is primarily made up of collaged text from the original source materials and is performed “dubbed,” with all dialogue, sound effects, and music prerecorded and played behind the actors, who enact it as a complex, choreographed movement piece.

The cast of World Gone Wrong includes Gyda Arber, Aaron Baker, Olivia Baseman, Danny Bowes, Jai Catalano, Rebecca Collins, Bryan Enk, Stacia French, Ian W. Hill, Christiaan Koop, Mateo Moreno, Roger Nasser, Robert Pinnock, Iracel Rivero, Yvonne Roen, Jessica Savage, Alyssa Simon, Ken Simon, Adam Swiderski, Sammy Tunis, and Art Wallace. World Gone Wrong is an Equity-Approved Showcase.


Production and publicity photos from the 2005 production of World Gone Wrong – featuring the actors returning in this production – may be found at:


http://flickr.com/photos/geminicollisionworks/tags/wgwaugust2007/


105 minutes – no intermission

Press Release: NECROPOLIS #0&3: Kiss Me Succubus & At the Mountains of Slumberland

The Brick Theater, Inc. presents a Gemini CollisionWorks production of


NECROPOLIS #0&3:
Kiss Me, Succubus &
At the Mountains of Slumberland


written, designed and directed by Ian W. Hill


Wednesday, August 8, 15, and 22
Thursday, August 23
Saturday, August 18
and Sunday, August 26 at 8.00 pm
matinees: Saturday, August 11 and Sunday, August 12 at 4.00 pm


Two dreams – a nightmare and a fantasy. But which is which? An adult’s dream of sex, violence and cinema. A child’s dream of other, wondrous worlds, monsters, fantastic machines, and heroes. How do these dreams connect? How do our childhood fantasies form our adult personalities?

Here, two early one-acts in The NECROPOLIS SERIES (a collection of what creator Ian W. Hill calls “dubbed, theatrical dream-elegies for dead or dying art forms of the 20th Century”) are being brought back and performed in repertory with the acclaimed two-part film noir pastiche NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed.

In Kiss Me, Succubus, a group of indolent, rich, decadent (yet bored) 1960s jet-setters encounter a group of what they believe to be porn movie actors at a party and invite them home, thinking they will provide at least an evening’s amusement. Instead, their guests prove to have a far more horrible, supernatural intent in mind, and the hosts are soon trapped and fighting for their lives in a strange, hallucinatory world of sex, violence, sexual violence, and word games. Based on the arty 1960s sex-and-horror exploitation films of Jesus Franco, Radley Metzger, Jean Rollin and many others, Kiss Me, Succubus is a tribute to both the over-the-top melodrama and unintentional comedy of those movies, while also attempting to capture the strangeness, visual beauty, and ultimately moving qualities the best of them possess.

At the Mountains of Slumberland features the classic Winsor McCay comic strip character, Little Nemo, who here falls asleep (as usual in the comics) but here finds himself stuck in the universe of H.P. Lovecraft’s horror stories rather than in his usual charming Slumberland. Nemo must make his way through a more nightmarish landscape than usual, with the help of his guide, Randolph Carter, fighting Lovecraft’s dark, squamous gods, The Old Ones, and, ultimately, a surprising human enemy. Performed as a series of comic strip panels, At the Mountains of Slumberland is a study in how dreams affect art, and how art affects dreams.

As with all productions in the NECROPOLIS series, these two shows are primarily made up of collaged text from the original source materials and are performed “dubbed,” with all dialogue, sound effects, and music prerecorded and played behind the actors, who enact it as a complex, choreographed movement piece.

The company of NECROPOLIS #0&3 includes Gyda Arber, Peter Bean, Linda Blackstock, Jody Christopherson, Bryan Enk, Stacia French, Ian W. Hill, Amy Liszka, Robert Pinnock, Jessica Savage, Alyssa Simon, Douglas Scott Sorenson, Sammy Tunis, and Art Wallace. NECROPOLIS #0&3 is an Equity-Approved Showcase.


100 minutes – one intermission

Press Release: The Hobo Got Too High

The Brick Theater, Inc. presents a Gemini CollisionWorks production of


The Hobo Got Too High


written by Marc Spitz
designed and directed by Ian W. Hill


Saturday, August 4, 11, and 18
and Friday, August 10 and 17
at 10.30 pm
Friday, August 24 and Saturday, August 25
at 8.00 pm
matinee: Saturday, August 25 at 4.00 pm


Bug Blowmonkey loves music. Bug Blowmonkey loves a woman. Bug Blowmonkey loves cocaine. Two of these things are good for him, but the other one is messing him up. Bad. Wanna take a guess which one? Bug knows the blow is taking him down a dark path, but can’t quit it on his own. Luckily, he has a spirit guide to help him out of his hole, and towards the “light” he seeks: Marvin Gaye. Granted, Marvin is also a drug-addled paranoiac (and dead for 20 years), but beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to spirit guides, it seems. Will Bug, with the help of Marvin Gaye and a stuffed buffalo in The Museum of Natural History, be able to overcome his addiction and fight the haunting, taunting spirit of the girlfriend he lost to win the heart of a new woman in his life, who may be able to save him from himself? Will he find his “light?” Will he figure out why every person he sleeps with has a tail? Will this whole story be told in a fast, jumpy, non-linear style, full of hysterical one-liners and astonishing situations?

At least three of these questions will be answered in a viewing of Marc Spitz’s play, The Hobo Got Too High, which now reappears in Ian W. Hill’s restaging of pretty much his original production from 2000 with pretty much the original cast. It got so little attention then, it might as well be a premiere now, and Gemini CollisionWorks is bringing it back with the hope of having a few more people falling out of their chairs, laughing, than they did the first time (and that actually was no small amount then).

Spitz – often described, probably to the point of his being tired of it, as “a downtown Oscar Wilde” – is known for his distanced, ironic, comic sensibility in his plays. Hill – often described, with deep inaccuracy, as a “protégé” of Richard Foreman – is known for a stylized, abstracted, presentational directorial style. What do these two share? A deep love and understanding of rock and roll music, and a hidden romantic, sentimental side. Put them together in this play, and you get a production that feels like a great eclectic mix tape, moving from the lugubrious sadness of Leonard Cohen to the jumpiness of The Velvet Underground to the wistfulness of Michael Nesmith to the pure pop of The Lightning Seeds to the deep soul of Marvin Gaye.

The Hobo Got Too High is an hour of sex, drugs, rock and roll, romance, nonsequiturs, vast numbers of curse words, retractable penises, and an appraisal of Diane Lane’s breasts. All for a sawbuck. You may not see better value for your theatrical dollar anytime soon.

The Hobo Got Too High is performed by Rasheed Hinds, Ian W. Hill, Roger Nasser, and Jessica Savage.


60 minutes – no intermission