A 100 year old man makes a last request to a 15 year old boy who may or may not be his son: To drive cross-county, find the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. . . .and look at it.
So. What’s the catch?
The catch is what lies at the heart of I Am At My Best When I Am Singing Very Quietly, written by Ontological Theater Resident Artist Brian PJ Cronin, and directed by ANDHOW! Theater Company’s Jessica Davis–Irons.
I Am At My Best When I Am Singing Very Quietly was developed as a part of ANDHOW! Theater Company’s Beginning the American Spirit Celebration. Playwrights were invited to submit the beginnings of new plays responding to the phrase Beginning the American Spirit. They did. The beginnings were then presented as readings at the Blue Heron Arts Center in March 2002. After each “beginning” was read, the audience participated in a discussion of where the plays were going and how they could end. By doing this, ANDHOW! aimed at including the audience as part of the creation process from the very start. After a lively and heated discussion ended with the audience enthusiastically urging Mr. Cronin to finish the play as quickly as possible, he decided to do just that.
Written in a style that invokes Tom Robbins, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye barreling down I-80, I Am At My Best. . .creates a phantasmagorical world involving teenage runaways, talking dogs, failed priests, metaphysical shipwrecks, the American Collective Unconscious, scary yet helpful ghost truckers, mysterious packages, rites of passage, dangerous memories, looping landscapes, very loud music, very soft music, and our old friends Tom & Jerry. In other words, Theatrical Realism can take a hike.
Mythical in scope, yet firmly rooted in the things we all know too well to be true, I Am At My Best. . . will make you laugh, cry, think, remember, forget, and maybe even rock out a little. Hopefully all at the same time.
With:
Arthur Aulisi*
Gwenyth Dobson
Jeremy Ellison-Gladstone*
Shayna Ferm*
Lilah Fisher
Alex Goldberg
Matthew Hamm
William Peden*
Liz Thompson
(* Appearing courtesy of Actor’s Equity.)
Jessica Davis-Irons, Director
Michael Darling, Scenic Designer
Owen Hughes, Lighting Designer
Brian PJ Cronin, Sound Designer
Jessie Weisstein, Stage Manager
Developed through ANDHOW!’s Beginning The American Spirit Festival
PHOTOS!
Image1
| Image 2
