Update: 2014-2015 Links and Highlights

Please note, due to an artistic and exploratory transition I'm undergoing currently with the Idylls, Poets Theater, and Poetics Theatre, I rarely update this blog - as you've surely noticed (last update last summer)! For more frequent updates related to all of my writing, please check out www.magusmagnus.com

& yet, as evidenced by the activity listed below, the march for Poets Theater and Poetics Theatre goes on. Plus, as a crucial component of said transition, I've been working on a new set of Idylls, evolving the form and techniques in mind of what theater and acting can uniquely do, and how perennially vital "the poetic" is to live performance. Idylls stalwart Harlie Sponaugle has been with me all the way, working at the level of the actor's spoken line to construct a first new Idyll, tentatively titled "Can't Let the Crazies Derail Us."

Harlie Sponaugle

Here's what's been happening since last summer, 2014:

An excerpt from my conceptual theater/performance piece
drone: poetic monologue for monotone
(“Cognitive Machine Learning”
& CRS Poems for the People 1 &2)
appeared in Nerve Lantern: Axon of Performance Literature Issue 9

In my last entry dated 2 August 2014, I posted pics from the Nerve Lantern show at Medicine Show Theater in New York, where I performed the same selection. Now you can see the Video of that performance.

In that same post, I gave details on the then upcoming Boog Poets Theater night it was my pleasure to host and curate for the Welcome to Boog City Festival of Poetry, Music, and Theater 2014. Here are the vids from  that event as well:

Part of my ongoing artistic exploration is to continue to try to define the qualities and practice of Poets Theater and Poetics Theatre, the latter understood as a subset of the former - purist definitions don't interest me, but the distinctions can make a difference when it comes to inspiration and creative urgency. Poetics Theatre consciously applies contemporary so-called "innovative" poetics concerns and issues to the interactivity of performance and language, with an affinity for the materiality of words and for the abstraction of "voice" and character. drone, as conceptual theater (as well as being a continuation by other means of the art of the monologue), might fall into this category more than the Idylls do so far, just as conceptual writing takes its place amidst "innovative" poetries for its next degree of abstraction from text.

As an outdoor voice "installation," my collaborative piece, CANAL PARK AMOEBAEAN SINGING, probably falls into the realm of poetics theatre as well; but again, the definitions don't seem to matter as much. Each of my collaborators fall into a different tradition of contemporary poetry. (& I consciously use the word "tradition" even when discussing innovative forms - since styles quickly congeal).

 Performance/Performance curator:  This Place Has a Voice
CANAL PARK AMOEBAEAN SINGING: Are Pastorals Idle in an Age of Corporate-Civic Structured Spaces?
(Magus Magnus voice composition for outdoor speakers)
eckClog 1: Nothing Missing Here But Song                 written and performed with Tony Mancus
eckClog 2: Corydon on the Street Corner                     written and performed with Casey Smith
eckClog 3: Rubber Snake in the Grass                         written and performed with Gowri Koneswaran
Plus, Performative Eater Jon Lee (curated by Magus Magnus)
Canal Park      Canal Park Event Day
Washington, D.C.        September 20, 2014

This piece will be published as chapbook from Furniture Press later this summer, now to be titled  eckClogs.

Meanwhile, I still have the impulse to make the distinction when I describe another poetics theatre piece of mine emerging from immersion in very mainstream poetry and theater conceptions (this experience wasn't even poets theater, but theater theater of old school verse plays):
"Farce Rorschach Illumination"
came out of my being Valentine’s Day Poet in Residence, for "Poets Are Present"
during Shakespeare Theatre Company’s The Metromaniacs
a French farce in verse adapted and translated by David Ives
Lansburgh Theatre
Washington, DC         February 14, 2015

“Farce Rorschach Illumination” appears in the Poets Are Present Anthology
published nicely by Shakespeare Theatre Company; and again, the distinctions fall apart; the piece is experimental poetry in form, yet I consider it - like drone - on a continuum with my Idylls work.

Admittedly, a particular occasion induced me to develop some of these distinctions:

 “8 Phases of Staring at the Sun," performance and presentation
for AWP panel Poetics Theater:a Textual and Theatrical Performance and Discussion
moderated by Kaveh Bassiri, with fellow panelists Rodrigo Toscano, Joyelle McSweeney, and Patrick Durgin
AWP 15 at Minneapolis Convention Center
Minneapolis, Minnesota            April 10, 2015

Plus, please check out
“Type Bleeds Tentacles” a mesostic poem with recording 
at Really System’s Really System Labs
which emerged under the direct influence of
 “Polyphonic readings and harmonic listening of Cage texts”
my 3 hr performance installation in Litmore Library
with Christophe Casamassima and Chris Mason
for States & Drives II: Responses to John Cage
Litmore
Baltimore, Maryland             March 28, 2015

That polyvocalic performance brings us full circle back to eckClogs, for one event to announce here at least (after so many listed after the fact), CANAL PARK AMOEBAEAN SINGING redux for an upcoming Litmore fundraiser, June 13th:

Happenings at the Harman, Wednesday 3/20 at Noon

 If you're near downtown D.C. during the week, please join us (and bring your lunch)!

"Perfect place to set up shop."

"Have you seen the bloom of late?"

"Sort of thing we did for instants on the beat during that jazz number."

Mindscape spills into the theater space 
as actor and audience collaborate to create “a shared imagining,” 

something uniquely possible to live theatre.

Idylls Showcase

Happenings at the Harman Lunchtime Performances
 hosted by Shakespeare Theatre Company

Wednesday, March 20th at Noon

Stephen Mead, “A Street-Merchant Imagines his Riches to Come”

                                    (After an anonymous author of The Arabian Nights)

Harlie Sponaugle, “A Mother Feels her Estranged Daughter’s Labor Pains”

                                    (vide Colette)

Genna Davidson, “A Dancer Stretches her Legs”

The Forum in Sidney Harman Hall at  610 F St. NW, Washington, D.C

"Happenings lunchtime performances start at noon.  
Bring your lunch and we will bring your shot of culture!"

Remember:  All performances are FREE and reservations are not required. Performances will last less than an hour.

Happenings at the Harman 

 Special thanks to Hannah Hessel at STC for having us.

Starring

Stephen Mead/Street-Merchant
"just a tray of glassware..."

Stephen Mead trained as an actor at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Besides appearing in many stage productions, he has worked as a drama adviser to Goldcrest Films UK and written for Channel4 (TV). Stephen has made a specialty of DRAMATIC RECITATIONS (from memory) from the works of DICKENS, EDGAR ALLAN POE and other 19th-century authors. These bring poems and prose by these writers to vivid life without costume, make-up, lights or scenery. Most 19th-century literature was written to be heard as well as read, and Stephen Mead’s enthralling renditions of these pieces have gripped audiences in the UK and the US since 1987. Stephen has worked for London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Arts Collection Fund, the National Trust (UK), Richmond Adult College, Missenden Abbey Buckinghamshire, among many other venues. He has appeared on the bill of the world-famous Player’s Theatre in London singing Victorian music-hall. Stephen had the honour of being invited toperform his one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” at the Dickens Festival in Dickens’ home town Rochester, Kent, in the historic Guildhall three years in a row. He also performed a tour of Switzerland under the auspices of the Anglo-Swiss society. His appearances in the Washington DC area include All's Well that Ends Well for the Maryland Shakespeare Festival, Romeo and Juliet for Vpstart Crow Theatre Company, and Medieval StoryLand, a hit at the 2012 Capital Fringe Festival;  he is also as an entertainer at local hotels, and has performed programs of his Dickens recitations including his one man show version of A Christmas Carol to acclaim at venues in DC and Virginia.  With the Idylls and SiGiLPAL, he's on his way to CapFringe in summer 2013 with Murder on the Bare Stage (see October entry).

Harlie Sponaugle/ Mother
"Quietly, but it's begun."

Harlie Sponaugle has been a singer all her life and several years ago was guided to study acting in a serous way. Her singing voice has been described as the Steinway of sopranos, seamless powerful, warm and full on the top and bright and clear on the bottom. Whether performing opera or art songs, or a play or musical, she strives to stir the souls of her audience by painting compelling pictures that speak straight to the heart. Her roles in plays and musicals include the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet (VPStart Crow); Grandma in Claudie Hukill (Venus Theatre), King Duncan and the Medicine Woman in Macbeth (Impossible Theatre Co.); and Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir (for the Young Hearts Foundation). Operatic and other singing roles include Amelia in Un ballo in maschera (Repertory Opera of Washington), ensemble in Regina (with Patti LuPone at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theatre), Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (Riverbend Opera), and the Washington area premieres  of John Kander’s The Letter from Sullivan Ballou and Ricky Ian Gordon’s Orpheus and Eudice for soprano, clarinet and piano. She earned her Masters of Music at George Mason University  and completed the Honors Conservatory program at the Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts. Her next appearance will be as Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s opera Macbeth with the Riverbend Opera Company in late May of 2013, a challenge she looks forward to with great excitement and wonder. More info at www.HarlieSponaugle.com.

Genna Davidson/Dancer
"turning and swirling, veiling, unveiling..."

Genna Davidson is a professional actress in Washington, DC. She was most recently seen in dog & pony dc's A Killing Game; the Hub Theatre's Big Love (ensemble/fiddler); and Tattooed Potato's The Nightmare Dreamer. In addition to acting, Genna has been flirting with puppetry for a number of years and is producing and collaborating on a Wit's End Puppets original: The Amazing and Marvelous Cabinets of Kismet. Look for it at the Mead Theatre Lab in April and May, 2013. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2008 with a BA in Theatre Performance. 

About the Show...

All three pieces showcased today represent the development of a theatrical approach based on poet and playwright Magus Magnus’ years of engagement with the form of the Idyll - poetic monologue designed for performance. Such a practice comes out of interpreting the Idyll, originated by the ancient Greek poet Theocritus, as a “shared imagining” (with reference to its roots in earlier Mime and its etymology related to words such as Idea, Ideal, Idol, Images, and Eidolon). The actual medium of the Idyll form is imagination, and the performer works in cooperation and with the goodwill of the audience to foster the imagining of the piece.  Indeed, audience members themselves are encouraged to become conscious of this process, whereby they notice themselves engaging a communal mental space – together, we enter a landscape of the imagination.

A full treatment of the Theocritean Idyll as reconceived in its relevance and possibility for contemporary theater (not least with respect to what theater and theater alone can still do amidst the worldwide sensory bombardment of screens and media) forms the introduction to Magnus’ Idylls for a Bare Stage ( twentythreebooks, 2011).  This introduction was republished just this month as an essay titled “Imagination and Performance” in the journal Nerve Lantern: Axon of Performance Literature.  Nerve Lantern

Deepest gratitude to the three featured performers, Genna Davidson, Harlie Sponaugle, and Stephen Mead, all of whom have given a great deal of sustained time and effort to engage the process, and contributed their theatrical creativity, insights, experience, and expertise in collaborative development of a performance style effective for the Idylls form.

Laurel Arts Festival Photos

Idylls in Action at the C Street Arts Festival in Laurel, Maryland              

June 9th, 2012

              The following are pics by Lew Lorton Photography, taken during the midday Idylls Sequence featuring Stephen Mead and Sue Struve.

Stephen Mead in "A Bandit Plots a Murder by the Road"
Sue Struve in "A Native Chief's Captive Woman Guards One Freshly Caught" 

(vide Jorge Luis Borges)

Stephen Mead in "A Reveler Walks Home to his Family by Moonlight"

              On that Saturday, I had the somewhat strange pleasure of being two places at once, for the first time.  In the flesh, in Philly, doing a reading for Furniture Press, publisher of my Heraclitean Pride and the forthcoming book-length poem, The Re-echoes.  Also, here at the Laurel C Street Arts Festival, in spirit, and through the presence of wonderful performers who've given great time and energy towards mastering the idylls form.

Sue Struve

                Sue introduced the set;  with a copy of Idylls for a Bare Stage in hand, she conveyed to the Theatre Tent audience her experience of the book, the theatrical piece, and the overall concept of the idyll as a form, and as an approach to acting and theatre.

Stephen Mead as the Bandit

Since I wasn't there,  I can only extrapolate based on rehearsals and the suggestion of the gesture, and his facial expressions, where Stephen might be in the piece.  I'd say, near to hearing the screech of an owl. Or, somewhere within the delivery of lines such as "Other people's money.  They'd have me slave and scrape for it all my life's worth, when I can steal it with self-respect."

"...with that dumb, complacent smirk of contentment I loathe - that type deserves to be victimized."

? Maybe?

And then, Sue Struve as the Captive Woman...

"I'm recovering them, these dream words..." perhaps?

"Don't be so scared!"

                Stephen also performed earlier in the day, and Harlie Sponaugle did "A Mother Feels her Estranged Daughter's Labor Pains" (vide Colette) later that afternoon.  Here's a shot of Harlie from one of the many outdoor rehearsals we did along the way.  Photo by Jeanne Cherner.

Harlie Sponaugle

Coming June 9th: Idylls at the C Street Arts Festival in Laurel

Weekend after this!
The Inaugural C Street Arts Festival
 (on C Street, in Laurel, Maryland 20707)


Laurel's new street festival includes a theatre tent, along with artists' exhibitions, music, food, and poetry.


Several Idylls will be presented throughout the day:


11:15 am.    Stephen Mead
in "A Street-Merchant Imagines his Riches to Come" 

(after an anonymous author of The Arabian Nights)

1:30 pm Idylls Sequence
Stephen Mead in "A Bandit Plots a Murder by the Road"
Sue Struve in "A Native Chief's Captive Woman Guards One Freshly Caught" 

(vide Jorge Luis Borges)

Stephen Mead in "A Reveler Walks Home to his Family by Moonlight"


 3:30 pm.  Harlie Sponaugle
in "A Mother Feels Her Estranged Daughter's Labor Pains"

(vide Colette)

Deborah Randall, founder of Venus Theatre, runs the Theatre Tent for this event;  many thanks to Deb for including the idylls in the line-up!

CruMoPoPerFest this Saturday in Baltimore - Idylls Line-Up

Exciting to be a part of this event:

7th Annual Cruellest Month Poetry and Performance Festival (CruMoPoPerFest)

Saturday, April 28th 11am-4pm
Baltimore's National Poetry Month Celebration wraps up
at the Waverly branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library
400 East 33rd Street, Baltimore Maryland 21218  
410-396-6053

Scenes from Idylls for a Bare Stage will be interspersed with open mic sets and a special performance by Outside the Box, an interactive exploration of the Elements of Music through beatboxing, led by Max Bent, Waverly resident and Young Audiences of Maryland Teaching Artist.

Performers Stephen Mead, Sue Struve, Harlie Sponaugle, and Genna Davidson (each profiled elsewhere in this blog - please check out the archives) present individual Idylls throughout the day.  Here's their schedule...

Idylls Line-Up

11:00 am. Stephen Mead
in "A Street-Merchant Imagines his Riches to Come" 

(after an anonymous author of The Arabian Nights)

Stephen Mead

12 noon. Idylls Sequence
Stephen Mead in "A Bandit Plots a Murder by the Road"
Sue Struve in "A Native Chief's Captive Woman Guards One Freshly Caught" 

(vide Jorge Luis Borges)

Stephen Mead in "A Reveler Walks Home to his Family by Moonlight"

Sue Struve

1:45 pm.  Harlie Sponaugle
in "A Mother Feels Her Estranged Daughter's Labor Pains"

(vide Colette)

Harlie Sponaugle

 2:30 pm. Genna Davidson 
in "Antigone Buries Her Brother's Body Against Orders of the King"

(after Sophocles)

Genna Davidson

Here's the complete schedule, with Idylls, Open Mic (sign-ups available throughout the day), and Max Bent's Outside the Box:

In Others' Words: Idylls as Book, and as Approach to Acting

Now that Idylls for a Bare Stage is out, a definite shift has occurred with regard to "releasing" the work:  from creating and doing performances off a manuscript, and towards the publication of the book, to... the book itself, vehicle for the Idyll idea and form, both on the page and in its activation off the page for performance.

Here's how others - interactive with the project along the way - have taken the work...


On the book itself:

Magnus has performed his versions of Heraclitus as multi-voiced, choral readings improvised from texts by performers and audience, as texts to be read with musicians, and as philosophy in his book Heraclitean Pride.   In this volume, he presents “Idylls”, a form originated by the Greek poet Theocritus.   These are not idylls as pastoral, rustic poems, but, as Magnus describes in his introduction:  “street theater for daily life, skits done anywhere, solo performers and small groups of actors as part of the activity of the marketplace.  Scenes of daily life, in daily life.”   These idylls, versions of Theocritus, Sophocles and St. Francis, and stories inspired by Whitman, Colette, and Borges, can be read as poems, or performed as dramatic monologues.    M. brings a poet’s feeling for the texture of language to these dramatic works so that each character speaking a monologue uses a unique vocabulary and unique speech rhythms.   He opens with a sorceress and ends with the mythical inventor of the alphabet, taking us from magic incantations to the magic of writing.   Magnus has given us rich, evocative texts, ripe for private reading or public performance.

                                           - Chris Mason, author of Hum Who Hiccup, member of TheTinklers, Old Songs, and Coo Coo Rockin' Time


And on the Idylls as theatre, along with specific acting approaches tailored for the form and useful for any poetically-charged performances, as described and theorized in the book's introduction, and as developed in hands-on workshops by the author (the performers quoted engaged the workshop techniques with me, and went on to perform the pieces in contexts described earlier in this blog):

The words that Magus has crafted into idylls are so rich and joyous to speak that there are endless possibilities for experiencing their inherent power.

It has been invaluable for me to work without an end in sight and to work so deeply and one-on-one with this text, with Magus, and with myself. It's freeing for me to have a consistent practice and continuous work. Now I'm not just working when I land a job or for the next audition, but towards infinite opportunity to stand-up and perform a poetic monologue for anyone who might be available to watch and listen.

The concept of monologue as performance, not just performance within a larger script or as something to use at an audition, but as self-contained artwork gives me confidence as an actress. I'm not sure I can explain the significance of this idea, but I see sunlight when I think about it. Perhaps reasserting the monologue as performance gives me a sense of creative control over a form of acting that is often termed loathsome, annoying, arduous, and impossible to wrangle.

The technique's emphasis on being present with everyone and everything in the performance space has been supremely important to me.  In my experience "stage presence" is theater vocabulary often given short shrift when learning how to act. It is tricky for the actor to both completely imbibe the surroundings, allowing impulses to enter and leave without blocking, altering or suspending them, and then simultaneously craft a visceral experience fully manifest in a different time & place. A shameless spirit of imagination must takeover and pull the actor from moment to moment without hesitation. And every step of the way, the imagination is fed by the power of the words which given freedom to move will work magic on their audience.

                                                               -Genna Davidson, actress/musician/puppeteer

Working with Magus on his idyll, "A Mother Feels her Estranged Daughter's Labor Pains," has been a revelation for me. Numerous directors have told me that I don't need to "do" so much when I'm on stage, but they never really explained what they meant. Using Magus' approach of focusing on the power and expressive potential of the words, and working with his beautifully crafted poetic monologue, I've learned how to immerse myself in the river of words and let them carry me through a thoroughly honest and moving performance. I've used an excerpt from the idyll for several auditions, and each performance has evoked a thoughtful response from the auditors beyond the usual "thank you."

                                                                               - Harlie Sponaugle, Actress/Singer

  As an actor, working with Magus has opened my eyes to the raw power inherent in the text. When I focus on the sound of the words, I bring life to their meaning. Playing with pace, volume, and emphasis frees up my voice and moves me away from dry analysis. His body and voice exercises calm me and prepare me to genuinely embrace my surroundings and the audience. I find that as the text begins to breathe, my imagination is released and I become open to discoveries about my character. Magus has developed an approach that has transformed the way I work on a role. It will infuse energy and power into any performer's work.

                                                                                         - Sue Struve, D.C.-area Actor

This approach to acting has been incredibly empowering.  The ideas of embracing the audience and embracing yourself as a performer free you from worrying about naturalism and lets you savor the poetry of powerful language, giving you and the audience a heightened sense of what's possible.  As an actor you can feel the audiences imaginations feeding you and letting you take a fresh journey with the material each time.   So often we want to shut out the reality of the performance, but by embracing it, we are empowered to actually create a greater reality on stage and an exuberant experience for audience and performer.  It has freed me as an actor more than any exercise or method I have ever tried.

                                                                                         - Rachel Morrissey, actress/storyteller

 

Highlights from the Idylls Show, November 20th Launch

All photos by Douglas Mowbray.

Entry into the Athenaeum

 

Opening the Show:  Sue Struve
"A Native Chief's Captive Woman Guards One Freshly Caught"

Sue Struve - "Captive Woman" in Idylls

 "Welcome.  This is your introduction to the wilderness and barbaric life."

 Kimberly Mikec 
"A Sorceress Casts a Spell on her Faithless Lover"

"...and all I'll do is run my fingers over his strong chest."

Kimberly Mikec - "Sorceress" in Idylls

Rachel Morrissey
Anne Ashbaugh's "Leda" and more...   (as in, "More, more, more, more!")

 "Great Car!  Great Car!" (in homage to Richard Foreman)

Rachel Morrissey - "Leda" in Anne Ashbaugh's soliloquy

Harlie Sponaugle
"A Mother Feels Her Estranged Daughter's Labor Pains"
  

Harlie Sponaugle - A "Mother" in Idylls

"Is that your cry?"

Genna Davidson
"Antigone Buries her Brother's Body Against Orders of the King"
  

Genna Davidson - "Antigone" in Idylls

  

"I feel I've gone the uttermost limit of daring..."

Interlude:  Old Songs

Songs of Hipponax

Old Songs - L to R: Rebby Sharp, Mark Jickling, Chris Mason, and David Brumbaugh

"Hermes, blissful Hermes

You  know how to wake the sleeper"

Carol McCaffrey
"A Saint Preaches to the Birds"

"so that you may fill the pure air with song..."

Carol McCaffrey - "A Saint" in Idylls

Margaret Anthony
reading Kharms

Margaret Anthony, reading Daniil Kharms' "An Optical Illusion"

"...showing him his fist!"

Paul Morton
"Palamedes, Inventor of Numbers, Alphabets, and Lighthouses, Muses Upon his Accomplishments"

Paul Morton - "Palamedes" in Idylls

"No more than a seafarer in soul am I..."

The Cast

And so there you have it, the show, this iteration of Idylls, this incarnation of it, November 20th 2011...

and here I am - hosting and welcoming then, and welcoming now and soon to come, next iterations, incarnations...

Magus Magnus

For a look at the full set of photos, click
http://www.flickr.com/photos/buddhakowski/sets/72157628162249269/with/6392465665/

- - -
Don't forget to order the book, Idylls for a Bare Stage 
(http://twentythreebooks.com )
for its three-part offering:  poetry on the page, poetic monologues for the stage, and - through the book's introduction - an old-new theory and practice for Acting and Theatre (with a chewy set of monologues for the actor)...

Through the reinvented form of the Idyll, affirmation of the actor as an independent artist, the audition monologue turned on its head into theatre itself, theatre that can be done almost anywhere.

And please check out my other books as well:   
Heraclitean Pride http://furniturepressbooks.com/books/magnuspride/  
and Verb Sap http://narrow-house.blogspot.com/

Both Heraclitean Pride and Verb Sap can be ordered from SPD Books
http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?AuthorName=Magus+Magnus

Many thanks from M.

Performer Profile: Harlie Sponaugle, on the way to November 20th

It's November now, and the show is less than three weeks away;  time for a close look at another wonderful D.C.- area performer.


Harlie Sponaugle in "A Mother Feels her Estranged Daughter's Labor Pains"

Harlie Sponaugle - "A Mother" in the Idylls

   

     The incident referred to in the title of this piece has its source in the French writer Colette's books Sido and La Maison de Claudine (Sido and Her Mother's House in an English version of the two together), with all marks of its being a real moment in the writer's family life;  though the mother in my Idyll is not "Colette's mother," this piece nonetheless should excite fans of Colette, because of its embrace of her feeling for people and the world of her place and time.

     The acting techniques developed for this project apply with precision to a piece having its basis in prose of such intricate detail, without poetic rhythms for the performer to rely upon as mnemonic and motive;  rather, the flow of the piece is internal (or, of internal person-to-person connection across external and psychological space, an increasing instinctual, sympathetic knowing), so that the "poetic" here is in illuminated moments of the movement of the character's soul in its reaching - or being pulled - towards her child...

     Harlie brings to bear her strong stage presence borne of experiences on the D.C. stages, as well as her skills as a singer applied to the handling of voice and phrasing of spoken word, so that she immerses herself in the flow of the language.  Again, this is a placement and moving within and between the internal and the (created-out-of-imagination, on a bare stage) external, with natural shifting back and forth.  One of the points of focus for the acting technique involved is, literally, a "point of focus":  actor's attention to "direction of address," a technique of fluid, shifting "direction of address" throughout the piece.  At different moments, Harlie's character - the mother - extends her presence and attention outwards towards her absent daughter, or closer, to the surroundings of her own window and yard, or inwards to her memory and thoughts, and viscerally, intensely, to the sensations of her body linking her to the estranged one. 

     Harlie Sponaugle’s most recent role was Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir, the real life story of a New York socialite who followed her dream to be a classical singer, despite her lack of any sense of pitch or rhythm. As a classically trained singer, Harlie found performing iconic arias badly to be a new but exciting challenge. She has appeared in three Shakespeare productions this year: as Duncan and the Medicine Woman in Impossible Theatre’s Macbeth; as Nym in Vpstart Crow’s Merry Wives of Windsor; and as Camillo, Antigonus, and Emilia in the Shakespeare Factory’s The Winter's Tale. While enjoying a satisfying career as a classical singer, Harlie got hooked on acting while playing the role of Bertha, Rochester’s mad wife in the attic in Jane Eyre: The Musical, a role in which she had no lines, sang only vowel sounds, but got to bite and scratch and burn down the house, literally. Other favorite roles include Jenny in Company, Mrs. Verrinder-Gedge and the Singer in Glorious!, another tale of Mrs. Jenkins, and Emilia in Un Ballo in Maschera. Harlie was an ensemble member of the Kennedy Center’s production of Regina with Patti LuPone. She is a 2010 graduate of the Honors Conservatory of The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts, and earned her Master of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from George Mason University. See http://harliesponaugle.com/ for more info.