Read the reviews!  

Shirley, Vermont – A Real Fictional Town

In Circle Mirror Transformation, playwright Annie Baker paints a rich portrait of life in Shirley, a small town in Vermont. The vivid description of Shirley as expressed by the play’s characters brings out the complexities and nuances of life in this particular town.  Yet in truth, no such town exists. Baker has created a community from the ground up, a community that plays a major role not only in Circle Mirror Transformation but in three of her other works: Body Awareness, Nocturama and The Aliens.

Like any true town, Shirley, Vermont is not without its own peculiar features and quirks.  Found within Windsor County, just off Route Seven, Shirley is home to a chapter of the state college. 14,000 citizens call it home, including a small pocket of Cambodian refugees. And before Baker put Shirley (literally) on the map, its largest claim to fame was the Annual Gourd Festival.

To create the subtle nuances of life in Shirley, Baker looked to her own hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts.  Amherst, a mid-size university town (home to Amherst College, Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), blends small town life with the culture that university life brings. Offset from any major city, Amherst still holds a strong liberal-minded and artistic element. “Write what you know,” the old adage goes. For Baker, she knew Amherst, and by extension and imagination, Shirley.

 “I have such an extensive map of this imaginary town in my head, and I’ve imagined so many of its residents,” Baker explains. “When it’s time to write a new play I always remember the teenage girl who works in the bakery or the recently-divorced carpenter or the Cambodian refugee couple and I can’t help wanting to write a play for them.”

 Reviews for Circle Mirror Transformation

The Washington Post | Washingtonian | Metro Weekly | DC Theatre Scene | Washington Life

The Washington Post

'Circle Mirror Transformation': Studio Theatre's revealing class act
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The games people play to open themselves up in acting class can sure look idiotic. Practicing greeting rituals, chanting nonsense words, embodying inanimate objects, the participants often seem engaged in delusional navel-gazing. I mean, really: Is there a nanosecond of self-discovery to be gleaned in the impersonation of a baseball glove?
Ah, but this is where the imaginative intervention of a cunning dramatist can work wonders, as with the eminently satisfying outcome in "Circle Mirror Transformation," Annie Baker's comically insightful merging of brittle epiphanies and adult education.

Presented in a wryly funny, crisply designed and confidently acted package, the production marks the beginning of the new age at Studio Theatre under David Muse, who succeeds company founder Joy Zinoman as artistic director. If the quality of his first show is any indication, the dawning of Muse will represent a seamless segue out of Zinoman's twilight.

It was Zinoman who put this piece on the schedule, but it's Muse who sits in the director's chair, and he stages "Circle Mirror" with the sensitive antennae for psychological authenticity he's shown on previous evenings at Studio, with such shows as "Blackbird," "Frozen" and "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow." Although the play adheres to a time-tested dramatic formula -- the unfolding, week by week, of a class filled with characters radiating need and insecurity -- Baker gives the familiar format a fresh varnish, with a blackout-sketch narrative style and personalities that defy facile definition.

The casting of Baker's gallery contributes to the vitality of the classroom, a mirrored all-purpose room in a gleaming Vermont community center, wittily realized by set designer Debra Booth down to the immaculate wood floors and slowly rotating ceiling fan. All five actors make you feel you're eavesdropping on people you might be standing behind in a supermarket checkout line.

While it's impossible to rank the performances, two characters come across as such nuanced beings, the actors must be specially noted: Jennifer Mendenhall as Marty, a touchy-feely, cloyingly controlling instructor, and MacKenzie Meehan, whose endearingly accurate portrayal of standoffish, 16-year-old Lauren is the evening's revelation.

Marty's summer course -- "Adult Creative Drama" -- is the sort you might expect would attract a group with varying goals and levels of commitment in a small New England town. (The moments when "Circle Mirror" threatens to take on sitcom mannerisms are fortunately few.) Lauren, who may or may not have the money to pay for the class, has shown up in hopes of heightening her skills at auditioning for the autumn high school musical; Theresa (Kathleen McElfresh) is an actress taking the class to indulge her exhibitionist tendencies; Schultz (Jeff Talbott), exiting a failed marriage, seems to have matriculated as an alternative to Match.com, and James (Harry A. Winter) is here mostly because Marty is his wife. (Perhaps the instructor needs a minimum of four students, in which case James is a saint.)

The play hinges on an inside joke, that the drama of "Adult Creative Drama" has nothing to do with Anton Chekhov or Arthur Miller. Marty, whose outlook is frozen circa 1970, is all about using acting exercises to free the body and spirit, and so the students rehearse nothing except games out of Marty's psychic script. A recurring one has them arranged on the floor like spokes of a wheel, attempting collectively to count aloud to 10, without any two people shouting a number at the same time.

It's left to Lauren to pose the obvious question: "Are we going to be doing any real acting?" she asks midway through the summer. The games -- many of which seem to be drawn from actual curricula -- can become a bit tedious to sit through; points are reached in the play when they are not revealing vital new dimensions of the characters' lives. But Baker does find her way back to incisiveness. Eventually, Marty introduces a game that compels the anonymous divulging of deeper forms of pain and doubt, and provides the evening with a more profound rationale for all the actory frivolousness. And as a bonus, Baker's moving epilogue fascinatingly blurs the line between what transpires in the classroom and what happens to these people later on.

Resonantly, too, the playwright has constructed a comedy about acting that gives actors terrific moments. Everybody gets at least one: The state of Marty and James's marriage, for instance, comes coursing to the surface in a sharply rendered scene in which Mendenhall and Winter reveal their characters' mutual resentment while role-playing another character's parents. The expertly played sexual tension between Talbott's Schultz and McElfresh's Theresa supplies another swell undercurrent for the evening.

And best of all, Meehan's reserved, refreshingly honest portrait allows us to see what's really happening in a class that, in the end, is not all about pretend.

Circle Mirror Transformation
by Annie Baker. Directed by David Muse. Set, Debra Booth; lighting, Colin K. Bills; costumes, Alex Jaeger; sound, Neil McFadden. About 1 hour 50 minutes. Through Oct. 17 at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. Visit http://www.studiotheatre.org or call 202-332-3300.

Back to top

Washingtonian

Review: Circle Mirror Transformation
The new Studio Theatre director debuts with a look at acting classes and self-revelation

By Leslie Milk    Published Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Star rating: *** (out of four)

Annie Baker’s play about an amateur drama class in rural Vermont is a clever look at the way people reveal themselves while doing incomprehensible exercises that purport to teach acting.

It’s easy to see why Circle Mirror Transformation won the 2010 Obie Award for the best new American play. Baker capitalizes on the often absurd aspects of acting classes that demand students “become” inanimate objects, communicate emotions using only nonsense syllables, and use telepathy to prove they’re aware of their surroundings and their fellow actors.

And she increases the comic possibilities by enrolling an unlikely foursome in the acting class: Theresa (Kathleen McElfresh), a New York transplant recovering from an unhappy love affair who can’t resist seducing every man in sight; Schultz (Jeff Talbott), a carpenter wounded from a recent divorce; Lauren (Mackenzie Meehan), a sullen teenager who hopes the class will help her snag the lead in her high-school play; and James (Harry A. Winter), who’s in the class only because his wife, Marty, is teaching it. Marty (Jennifer Mendenhall) puts her students through their paces with hilarious intensity—there’s a madness to her method and her refusal to be deterred even when Lauren asks, “Are we ever going to do any real acting?”

This is the first production for David Muse, Studio Theatre’s new artistic director, and he pulls it off with aplomb. Muse deftly exploits the physical comedy of the play, particularly when it comes to the contortions required by the acting exercises.

We watch as the group meets for six weeks. Meehan is perfect as the skeptical kid who picks up far more undercurrents than the adults do. As Schultz, Talbott is delightful as he blossoms when Theresa smiles upon him and wilts when she doesn’t. Mendenhall has some delicious moments, including portraying a stuffed snake in a reenactment of Schultz’s childhood bedroom.

I just wish playwright Baker had given equal attention to all of her characters. Marty reveals details about Lauren’s home life and his own night terrors both in class and during breaks. Schultz has ample opportunity to bare his emotions and give a valedictory speech in which he predicts his future happiness. But when the play ended, I wasn’t sure I knew Theresa and James much better than when it started.

As part of a final acting exercise, each character writes down a secret. They’re revealed anonymously, leaving the characters and the audience guessing which person has which secret. It seemed like a gimmick onstage, but my husband and I talked about it all the way home—a sign that we’d been far more intrigued than we realized when leaving the theater. Baker had charmed us into her circle, forced us to look into her mirror, and transformed our impressions.

At Studio Theatre through October 17. Click here for tickets ($35 to $65).

Back to top

Metro Weekly

Imposter, Muse and a False Note
Round House's Ripley is darkly alluring, David Muse makes a great first impression at Studio and Falsettos flounders

by Tom Avila
Published on September 15, 2010

SET IN A COMMUNITY center in the fictional town of Shirley, Vt., Circle Mirror Transformation tells the various stories of the students and instructor of an adult theater-games class. This series of beautifully drawn vignettes is a clever and smart season opener for Studio Theatre and provides an excellent opportunity for David Muse to make his debut as the theater's new artistic director. While Muse has directed shows at Studio previously, this is a rare instances where one has a second chance to make a first impression.

With Circle Mirror, Muse has taken full advantage of the opportunity, building on playwright Annie Baker's melancholy tinged comedy (meaning it's a play that has the feel of real life) to create something quick, engaging and brilliantly executed.

Helping to make Muse's introduction is Circle Mirror's cast, a collection of actors whose remarkable sense of collaboration and ensemble is clear from the play's opening moments.

As Marty, the class's touchy-feely instructor, Jennifer Mendenhall offers a performance full of nuance and gentle warmth. She is well-joined by Kathleen McElfresh's eager and bubbly Theresa, and Jeff Talbott doing an outstanding turn as the fragile, recently divorced Schultz. The ensemble is brought to satisfying completion by Harry A. Winter as Marty's not-very-long suffering husband and MacKenzie Meehan who, as Lauren, becomes the most enjoyable sullen teenager you may ever meet.

Circle Mirror Transformation marks an auspicious start to artistic director David Muse's tenure at Studio. It also signals great things ahead for the theater's audiences.

Back to top

DC Theatre Scene

Circle Mirror Transformation
September 16, 2010 By Ben Demers

If you were to see your life played out onstage, would you like what you saw? And if you didn’t, what would you do about it? Studio Theatre’s poignant, arresting production of Circle Mirror Transformation begs this question, among others, as five characters explore the emotional underpinnings of drama, including the concept of acting as a vehicle for self-reflection and personal growth.

Circle Mirror Transformation follows the five members of an acting class in the fictional town of Shirley, VT through the arc of their theatrical and emotional development during the six-week course. Led by instructor Marty, participants James, Schultz, Theresa, and Lauren engage in a series of games, exercises, and reenactments, sharing their unique stories with each other in order to mold the drama of everyday existence into rewarding theatrical experiences. As romantic feelings and deeply held secrets surface, plates grind and shift, opening rifts deep below the seemingly calm surface. The actors come to depend on each other for support even as their continued involvement in the class roils emotions and throws previously tranquil lives into disarray.

 Playwright Annie Baker has penned an unconventional, challenging text, one that emphasizes halting, overlapping conversation and a meandering storyline over structured speeches and driving narrative. The dialogue feels more natural, and even somewhat improvised, which speaks well both of Baker’s writing and the skill of the performers. It’s refreshing to watch the characters stumble over their words or simply find themselves at a loss as they deal with the vicissitudes of daily life.

The text also features lengthy, sometimes uncomfortable stretches of quiet. In her own notes, Baker details her fascination with silence in theater, extolling in particular its power to rattle audiences and roust them from their comfort zones. Director David Muse and his actors have clearly taken heed of Baker’s intentions, and in the long expanses between conversations, the performers’ emotive body language and facial expressions speak volumes.

The seasoned performers bring a careful balance of humor, vulnerability, and inner strength to the proceedings, and the result is a group of wonderfully fleshed out characters that share in each other’s happiness and pain, serving as both confiders and confidants. Jennifer Mendenhall and MacKenzie Meehan stand out among the strong group of actors.

As the spirited Marty, Mendenhall brings an infectious enthusiasm and hippie charm to the stage. Later in the show, she trades her buoyant energy for a haunting mask of grief and betrayal, as she realizes a terrible truth. As Lauren, Meehan nails the role of the awkward, guileless youth, cutting through the sidestepping and politeness of her four adult classmates and producing some of the funniest and most revelatory moments of the show.

The unique structure, humor and quiet dignity of the text, and marvelous cast add up to a very special production indeed. The show’s key design element, a long horizontal mirror concealed by a curtain, anchors the acting studio set and, more importantly, turns the audience’s gaze back on itself. Every laugh, every frown, and every tear shed provides a fourth wall-breaking backdrop for the action unfolding onstage, and, at show’s end, the mirror revealed a theater full of delighted, thankful faces.

Circle Mirror Transformation

By Annie Baker
Directed by David Muse
Produced by Studio Theatre
Reviewed by Ben Demers

Circle Mirror Transformation is scheduled to run thru Oct 17, 2010.

Back to top

Washington Life

Performing Arts: Circle Mirror Transformation

Posted on 15 September 2010
Annie Baker explores the difficulty of human interaction at Studio Theatre.

By Julie LaPorte

The lives of five Vermont locals cross and are changed forever during a six-week creative drama class. Funny, awkward and emotionally revealing, Circle Mirror Transformation was written by Annie Baker and is directed by David Muse. It is playing at Studio Theatre through October 17.

Leading the first adult creative drama class through acting games is Marty (Jennifer Mendenhall), who has had success with her creative drama class for children, but who seems in over her head with the adults who walk in the door with fully formed neuroses. James (Harry A. Winter) is Marty’s husband – boyish, friendly, happy-go-lucky – taking the class to support Marty, but who is also on a journey seeking self-awareness.

Teresa (Kathleen McElfresh), enthusiastic and eager, has just moved to town, fleeing the dog-eat-dog nature and hypocrisy of New York, not to mention a domineering, mentally abusive boyfriend. Schultz (Jeff Talbott) is recently divorced – vulnerable and hesitant – whose doomed infatuation with Teresa draws laughs of painful recognition. Sixteen-year-old Lauren (MacKenzie Meehan) is an aspiring actress/veterinarian – full of angst, withdrawn, uncomfortable in her own skin.

“It’s the most charming, intelligently written play I’ve encountered in a long time,” said Muse. “What’s really bold about Annie’s writing is that she wants the conversation between the characters to feel as excruciating as she thinks a lot of human conversation is. That we’re uncertain about what we want to say. That speaking is often a miserable thing to have to do. That we all want to connect with each other but are really bad at it though we try so hard.”

There is no intermission during this 1 hour 45 minutes production and the pace is incredibly quick, dozens of scenes fade in and out, small slices of time that heighten the tension and reveal honest attempts at emotional connection. Debra Booth created a set that acts as another player in the drama – though it is a silent observer to the action – the small community center with hardwood floors, a wall length mirror, and random paraphernalia like yoga mats, stools and cubby holes. This is where the games take place – the counting game, the gibberish game, explosion tag, picture frame – game after game that symbolize the connections and mis-connections that these people experience in real life.

“It’s also a play about how these experiences that seem passing and a little bit silly – like taking an acting class at the community center – can change us,” Muse said. “It’s also about the surprising ways, turns that life takes. And how seemingly insignificant things can actually be in many ways life changing.”

David Muse has recently experienced a turning point in life himself – long-time Artistic Director Joy Zinoman recently retired and handed control of Studio Theatre over to Muse. He describes his current status as being on a listening tour, getting to know the institution, the staff and the Board. And as he moves Studio forward his focus will be on two things – courting new works and international plays.

 “It is true that Studio has not been a place that has worked on developing and premiering work by new writers,” Muse said. “Work by new writers happens here all the time…but they’re not the originating productions, they are second or third productions. I am in interesting in seeing what it means to open the door to new work. And I also do think that Studio has historically been – and I hope it will continue to be – a theatre in town where the most number of plays by international writers happen. We’re going to build on that tradition.”

For more information and to buy tickets to Circle Mirror Transformation, visit Studio Theatre.

Back to top

Actors

Jennifer Mendenhall (Marty) has most recently appeared at The Studio 2ndStage in A Beautiful View and Crestfall. For The Studio Theatre, she appeared in Playing for Time, The Slab Boys Trilogy, A Common Pursuit, When I Was A Girl... and The Women. She has been a company member at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company since 1988; shows include Clybourne Park, Measure for Pleasure, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Grace, Lenny and Lou, Homebody/Kabul (with Theatre J), Cooking With Elvis, The Day Room and many others. Recent productions elsewhere include Angels in America at Forum Theatre; Legacy of Light at Arena Stage, Woman and Scarecrow at Solas Nua, The Accident at Theatre J; Ambition Facing West, The Monument, You Are Here, Slaughter City at Theater Alliance and Major Barbara at The Shakespeare Theatre Company.

Harry A. Winter (James) appeared previously at The Studio Theatre in The Slab Boys Trilogy, The Birthday Party, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and others. He has toured nationally in Gigi and Jolson: The Musical. His local credits include Allegro and 110 in the Shade with the Signature Theatre and Pins and Needles and Bringing up Amy at the Washington Jewish Theatre. Mr. Winter has been working in the Washington DC area since 1978.

Jeff Talbott (Schultz) is making his first appearance at The Studio Theatre. He has appeared on Broadway in Sly Fox and Fortune’s Fool, and Off Broadway. Recent roles include Ralph in A Christmas Story, David Frost in Frost/Nixon, Father Flynn in Doubt and Vice Principal Panch in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His extensive regional theatre credits include roles at Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Geva Theatre Center, Pioneer Theatre Company, Paper Mill Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Yale Repertory Theatre, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, among many others. His film and television work includes Julie & Julia, The Sopranos, all three Law & Orders, One Life to Live, and As the World Turns. Mr. Talbott has written several plays and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

Kathleen McElfresh (Theresa) makes her Studio Theatre debut with Circle Mirror Transformation. Recently she understudied on Broadway in Present Laughter and performed Off Broadway in Greek Holiday and The Frugal Repast at the Abingdon Theatre. Other regional credits include The 39 Steps at Weston Playhouse; Slight Hitch with New York Stage and Film (workshop); The Women at The Old Globe; Brendan with The Huntington Theatre Company and Pride and Prejudice at the Dallas Theater Center. Her television work includes Law and Order: CI and Royal Pains. Ms. McElfresh earned a B.F.A from Florida State University and an M.F.A from the Yale School of Drama where she received the Herschel Williams Acting Award.

MacKenzie Meehan (Lauren) is thrilled to be making her Studio Theatre debut. Her New York theatre credits include Candle-Light and The Devil Passes with The Actors Company Theatre; The Sacrifices for the 2009 Summer Play Festival at The Public Theater and The Green Manifesto at the 2009 New York Fringe Festival. She has also performed in Out Of Orbit at the Sundance Theater Lab; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Six Degrees of Separation; The Three Sisters; Journey of the Fifth Horse; The Constant Wife with New York University’s graduate acting program and Caviar on Credit at The Guthrie Theater. Television credits include Mildred Pierce on HBO. Ms. Meehan trained at The Guthrie Theater’s A Guthrie Experience. She received her B.A. from California State University, Long Beach and her M.F.A. from NYU’s graduate acting program. She is a proud member of The Actors Company Theater.

Director and Designers

David Muse (Director) returns to The Studio Theatre for his fifth production, and first as Artistic Director. He most recently directed Reasons to Be Pretty. His Studio and 2ndstage productions of Blackbird, Frozen and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow earned ten Helen Hayes Award nominations and received four awards. Years before, he performed on the Milton stage in Blue Heart and studied at The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory. Mr. Muse was the Associate Artistic Director at The Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he directed six productions including last season’s Henry V, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. Other recent directing projects include Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at Arena Stage, The Bluest Eye at Theatre Alliance and Swansong for the New York Summer Play Festival. He has helped to develop new works at numerous theatres including New York Theatre Workshop, Ford’s Theatre, Arena Stage, Geva Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. Mr. Muse has also taught acting and directing at Georgetown University, Yale University and The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting. A three-time Helen Hayes Award nominee for Outstanding Direction, he was a recent recipient of the DC Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding Emerging Artist and the National Theatre Conference Emerging Artist Award. Mr. Muse is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale School of Drama.

Debra Booth (Set Designer) returns to The Studio Theatre where she has designed Reasons to Be Pretty, Adding Machine: A Musical, Moonlight, Blackbird, The Road to Mecca, The Internationalist and My Children! My Africa!. Other Studio Theatre productions include The Pillowman, Red Light Winter, Caroline, or Change, Fat Pig, A Number, Afterplay, The Russian National Postal Service, Far Away, The Shape of Things and Privates on Parade. Her international work includes the world premiere operas Marco Polo, composed by Tan Dun and directed by Martha Clarke, and The Hindenburg, composed by Steve Reich and directed by Roman Paska. Regionally, her credits include The Lost Boys of the Sudan for the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company; Rough Crossing and Famous Orpheus for Geva Theatre; Spread Eagle by Jim Luigis at WPA Theatre in New York; Marisol for Hartford Stage and the New York Shakespeare Festival; The Illusion, The Baltimore Waltz, Happy Days and My Children! My Africa! for Portland Stage; Pelléas and Mélisande for Skylight Opera; the New York premiere of Angels in America for the Juilliard School; Game of Love and Chance for the Berkshire Theatre Festival; Broken Glass for the Philadelphia Theatre Company (Barrymore Award nominated) and Moon for the Misbegotten, directed by Lloyd Richards at Yale Repertory Theatre with Frances McDormand and David Strathairn. She also worked on the workshop production of Salomé, with Al Pacino, Dianne Wiest and Marissa Tomei in New York. Ms. Booth was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Designer Grant, is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and is Director of the Design Program at Brandeis University.

Colin K. Bills (Lighting Designer) is thrilled to return to The Studio Theatre where he designed The Year of Magical Thinking, Stoop Stories and Radio Golf. For the Studio 2ndStage, he designed That Face, Autobahn, The Death of Meyerhold, Tommy, Terrorism, Four and Bat Boy. Mr. Bills is an Associate Artist at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company where his designs include The Vibrator Play, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Clybourne Park, Full Circle, Eclipsed, Fever Dream, Stunning, The Unmentionables, Dead Man’s Cell Phone and The Clean House. His designs have been seen at The Berkshire Theater Festival, CENTERSTAGE, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Didactic Theatre, Everyman Theatre, Forum Theatre, Imagination Stage, Intiman Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Maryland Stage, Metro Stage, Olney Theatre Center, Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Free-For-All, The Smithsonian’s Discovery Theatre, Synetic Theatre, Theatre for the First Amendment, Theatre J, Tsunami Theatre, Vermont’s Northern Stage, the Washington Revels, and The Williamstown Theatre Festival. Mr. Bills won Helen Hayes Awards in 2010 and 2008 for his designs of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Dead Man’s Cell Phone. He is a 2009 recipient of the Princess Grace Award and is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

Alex Jaeger (Costume Designer) designed costumes for the world premiere of Jon Robin Baitz’s The Paris Letter and Eclipsed for the Kirk Douglas Theatre. At The Studio Theatre he designed costumes for The Solid Gold Cadillac, Grey Gardens, The History Boys, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Caroline, or Change, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Black Milk, The Russian National Postal Service, A Class Act and The Cripple of Inishmaan. Other credits include The Homecoming, Speed the Plow, November and Rock ‘n’ Roll (also at The Huntington Theatre) for American Conservatory Theatre; OR, Oedipus El Rey, Mauritius and Goldfish for the Magic Theatre; Two Sisters and a Piano for the Public Theater; August: Osage County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Romeo and Juliet, Handler, Stop Kiss and Fuddy Meers for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and Servant of Two Masters and Man of La Mancha for Utah Shakespearean Festival. Mr. Jaeger has received a Los Angeles Ovation award, an L. A. Drama Critics Circle Award, three Drama-Logue Awards, four Back Stage Garland Awards, a Maddy Award and a 2005 NAACP Design Award nomination for his work.

Neil McFadden (Sound Designer) has designed many shows at The Studio Theatre, including Reasons to Be Pretty, Adding Machine: A Musical, Radio Golf, The Seafarer, Blackbird, The Internationalist, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, This Is How It Goes, Red Light Winter, Fat Pig, Take Me Out, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Topdog/Underdog and Betty’s Summer Vacation. He was the Resident Sound Designer at Round House Theatre for eleven years. His work has also been heard at Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, The Folger Theatre, Source Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Theatre J, The Washington Savoyards and numerous others. A nine-time nominee, he was the recipient of the 1990 Helen Hayes Award for Sound Design for his work on Heathen Valley at Round House Theatre.

Synopsis

A quirky assortment of Vermont locals come together in a community center’s acting class and learn that acting exercises can create real drama. Marty, the co-director of the community center, finally fulfills her goal of finding enough students to justify offering an adult drama class. The students include her reluctant husband James as well as Theresa, a pretty former actress from New York; Lauren, an awkward high school student and Schultz, a vulnerable divorcee.  The students engage in theatre games and warm-ups, giving monologues from one another’s perspective, creating tableaus of personal memories from one another’s lives, and trying to count to ten as a group, until these once-strangers know each other far better than even they realize. Love triangles, family troubles, personal triumphs and confessions underlie a theatre game as seemingly simple as the circle mirror transformation. 

The Theatre Games of Circle Mirror Transformation:

Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation takes place in an “Adult Creative Drama” class where they play theatre games. Here are rules of some of the games featured:

Counting Game: Actors stand or lie in a circle with eyes closed counting to ten, with only one actor saying a number at a time. The game starts over if two actors say a number at the same time.  This exercise strengthens concentration and intuition.

Space Awareness: Actors walk freely around the room, maintaining their own space. Actors change pace based on direction of instructor. This exercise strengthens both spacial and body awareness. 

One Word at a Time: Actors sit in a circle and sequentially go around the circle, each actor saying only one word at a time, building off the other actors’ words to tell a story as a group. This exercise strengthens spontaneity, intuition, and concentration.

Story Telling: Actor tells a personal story or observation they’ve witnessed, on the spot, in front of group of fellow classmates. He or she should include as much vivid detail as possible. This exercise strengthens spontaneity and communication skills.

Explosion Tag: Played like a regular game of tag, except the person who is ‘it’ must physicalize and verbalize explosions while chasing other participants. This exercise is good for cracking actors’ ‘protective armor’ and strengthens self-expression and spontaneity.

Picture Frame: An actor comes up with a story he or she wants to depict from either personal memory or from published stories. Actor places other participants in poses to create a still-life image, or picture frame, of this story. This exercise strengthens actors’ communication skills and self awareness.

Gibberish: Two actors are given two different gibberish phrases. Using only the gibberish given, the two must try to have a comprehensible conversation. This exercise strengthens actors’ communication skills and intuition.

Circle Mirror Transformation: Actors stand in circle. One actor makes a movement and an accompanying sound, everyone in the circle mirrors the sound and movement until the next actor transforms it into another movement and sound. This exercise strengthens spontaneity and is useful for breaking down personal barriers.

When I go to India: Actors say “When I go to India, I’m going to bring…” The first actor lists one thing they will bring, the next actor repeats the phrase, lists what the actor(s) in front of him bring, and adds his own item. This exercise strengthens concentration and spontaneity.