In a time in our history when yet again we are faced with a growing divide of “us” vs “them,” we are challenged to ask ourselves if the old proverb about how a “house divided against itself shall not stand” is indeed truth. Suzan-Lori Parks’ play The Book of Grace, making its Baltimore debut with Rapid Lemon Productions, tackles that notion.
Before continuing, a warning: this production contains depictions and descriptions of domestic violence,
Your mind is boundless. Allow this notion to guide you closure to the fullness of you. Or allow Rapid Lemon Productions and their first live on-stage performance of 2021 to guide you to the fullness of you. After over a year’s hiatus from live, in-person, on-stage performances due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, Rapid Lemon Productions is back in action with a world premiere of Serious Adverse Effects by upcoming playwright Derek Lee McPhatter.
There are somethings that you cannot put into words;
experiencing the joy of a world premiere is one of those things. Rapid Lemon
Productions presents the world premiere of Give Me Moonlight by Ariel
Mitchell. This surrealist tale of historical happenings in rooted in the truth
of Albert and Bessie Johnson, who eventually built a castle in Death Valley. Directed
by Noah Silas, the play features just four actors and carries a loosely woven
narrative of hope and despair,
They say try and remember the good times, or think about the
good memories, when doling out advice for how to cope with the loss of a loved
ones. But good memories get ruined by grief; they make you wish you could
forget entirely. What if there was no more need for forgetting? What if loss
was no longer necessary? Enter Proxy, the last show on the Rapid Lemon stage
for their 2019 calendar season.
Recon— they don’t speculate. They observe and report. Sort
of like theatre critics. We don’t speculate— we observe and report. Observing
now: Crusade the only full-length production of the Baltimore
Playwrights Festival in the 2019 calendar year. Crusade, written by Bruce
Bonafede, is a world premiere making its debut in association with the BPF
through Rapid Lemon Productions at the Baltimore Theatre Project. (BPF, RLP,
BTP, over and out!) Directed by Timoth David Copney,
In Rapid Lemon’s Variations on
Myth, director T. P. Huth takes advantage of the emotional ride a series of
ten-minute plays can create if presented in an order that allows them to
strengthen one another. It is too often that a series of smaller plays is
presented as hors d’oeuvres, being consumed individually without thought to if
the first appetizes the audience for the second, whereas this collection of ten-minute
plays formed a cohesive experience.
Amanda N. Gunther | TheatreBloom
In a world exploding with fake news, the facts often get
lost in the chaotic flurry of excitement fluttering all around the story. And
even when the facts are straight forward, they don’t tell the whole story. The
facts here are straight forward. On November 18, 1978 over 900 people died in
the Jonestown agricultural commune in Guyana; over 300 of them were aged 17 and
under.
When you force the eye to see something in a whole new light; that’s true beauty. A pile of junk is just a pile of junk until it isn’t anymore; looking differently upon something broken, disregarded, or damaged can transform trash into treasure. In the world premiere of D. W. Gregory’s Dirty Pictures, art, beauty, and truth find new lights and the backwoods yokels of wilderness-nowhere Colorado absorb new perspective on what those things mean to their lives.
Sacrifice Your Sour Outlook and Enjoy Rapid Lemon’s Variations on Sacrifice at Theatre Project
Rapid Lemon Productions presents the annual “Variations” collection; this year’s production is directed by Lance Bankerd. The theme this year, chosen by last year’s audiences, is Sacrifice. Baltimore Theatre Project is housed in a building that is 125 years old, and we find it significantly more comfortable on a summer evening than on a winter afternoon.
Palindrome by Max Garner holds a special element of history with two important men of music in the two plays he wrote. With each one act play explaining the fantastic yet tragic stories of Thelonious Monk and Marvin Gaye. With subtle touches of musical aspects in each play, the audience’s ears ring with the smooth sounds of jazz and other genres that were produced by the focused artists.
Allan Sean Weeks who took the responsibility of lighting director really took on the “less is more” saying for each play.
Rapid Lemon Production’s production of Love is a Blue Tick Hound found a beautiful way to touch and create an intimate environment for the audience to grow a connection with each character on stage. Audrey Cefaly wrote four different plays that are displayed long enough to grow a bond with each character, whether that would be a waitress laying on the floor of an Italian restaurant or a man on his second date receiving an ear piercing with a potato in his hand.
“What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.” –Harry Houdini.
It’s all just an illusion, isn’t it? A surefire way to draw a crowd to an evening’s spectacle, claimed the great Harry Houdini, “…is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death.” That’s human fascination for you; we’re all wound into the potential of the story.
“Unlike a mere deception or a simple secret, which gives the impression that something’s been taken away, a great magician makes you feel like something’s been given to you.” –Jim Steinmeyer
The art of being a magician is beyond that of simply knowing tricks and purchasing gimmicks. There is a story to tell. There is a sense of showmanship to present. As Leonard Cohen once said, “Do not be a magician— be magic!” And so too should the words upon page that become words upon stage when spinning a script based in magic?
“That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.” –Charles de Lint
What would you wish for if you had magical powers? Would you wish to be able to fly and soar high above the rooftops, the treetops, over the clouds, and see everything from above? Or would you wish for money, riches, and wealth beyond your wildest dreams so that you could purchase everything your heart desired?
“Magic is not a practice. It is a living, breathing web of energy that, with our permission, can encase our every action.” –Dorothy Morrison.
Do you believe in magic? How about ghosts? The supernatural and the inexplicable tend to go hand in hand, walking precariously together down the long and winding road we call life. Ghosts are magic too, aren’t they? Aren’t we all, in a sense, made of magic? Made of ghosts?
“Never ever doubt in magic. The purest honest thoughts come from children, ask any child if they believe in magic and they will tell you the truth.” –Scott Dixon
Children have a knack for believing readily in the unbelievable. Maybe it’s because as children our minds are freer; our minds are not fettered by the complexities and responsibilities that come along with adult life. We’re encouraged to believe in magic— faeries, dragons, wizards,
“Children seek magic because they look for it.” –Christopher Moore
J.M. Barrie once said something like the moment you doubt your ability to fly you will never be able to do so ever again. What is it about believe that so strongly tethers us to the magical world? What would you believe in if the world was ending? Magic? Faith? Humanity? Exploring what the fourth playwright of this year’s Variations on Magic has put forth in her ten-minute selection,
“A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep. In dreams you will lose your heartache. Whatever you wish for, you keep. Have faith in your dreams and someday, your rainbow will come smiling through. No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true. A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re feeling small. Alone in the night you whisper,
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl.
Time to take a look at another playwright from this year’s Variations on Magic.
Name: Race Brown
Play Title: Really?
Teaser: A play about having your cake and slicing it too.
Every great magic trick consists of three parts:
The first part is called “The Pledge”. This is where the magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird…a play… The Variations Project, proudly produced by Rapid Lemon Productions as it enters its 13th annual production, is back in Baltimore this summer and this year’s theme?
The second part is called “The Turn” where the magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary…
Something is taking its course. I don’t know how I feel today. There is no one else. There is nowhere else. It must be an absurdist cycle. Rapid Lemon Productions, under producer Max Garner, presents an evening of absurdism at The Motor House in the Station North Arts District of Charm City. A double-bill of two one-acts that are threaded loosely together in their absurdism roots, the classic Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is paired with the American premiere of Darren Donohue’s Voices in the Rubble.
Her heart got broken. The car was totaled. He’s wildly out of control. Who’s to blame? In a world of helicopter parents, disasters beyond our imagination, catastrophe around every corner, isn’t the question always who’s to blame? Appearing on the stages of Baltimore City for its 12th Annual Production the Variations Project, produced by Rapid Lemon Productions, takes up residency for a limited run-performance in the Wright Theatre of the University of Baltimore. 11 short,
The 12th Annual Variations Project has arrived in Baltimore for the 2016 calendar year. Under the care of Rapid Lemon Productions, this year’s theme— as chosen by last year’s audiences— is Variations on Blame. To help spread the word and encourage local artists of Baltimore to become involved with the project, TheatreBloom sits down for an exclusive interview with the Founder of Rapid Lemon Productions to discuss the project and ways for people to get involved.
It’s Baltimore’s original 10-minute play festival. Now in its 11th run of production, The Variations Project is taking up residency in 2015 at the Baltimore Theatre Project. Now presented by Rapid Lemon Productions, a theatre company which evolved into the Baltimore Theatre Scene in 2012, the production is going strong and features eight works from local playwrights. This year’s theme: Family. Much like every year that preceded it,