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After Adam Margolin (Michael Gaston) falls ill, his wife, Nina Strauss (Vivienne Benesch), comforts him and asks him not to take his planned trip to San Francisco. Nina’s common-law step-sister Zoe (Leah Anderson) looks on in disgust in Kate Fodor’s Fifty Ways. Photo by Eric Shea.

Between love and oblivion

July 27, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

In her new play, Fifty Ways, now playing its debut engagement in Bratton Theater, Kate Fodor explores the potent but ambiguous states of emotion that lie in the balance between loving and not loving, between forgiving and not forgiving, between moral obligation and freedom from obligation.

These are speculative states of being:

“Would I still love you if …?”

“Could I forgive you if …?”

“Would I stay with you if …?”

We may think we know the answers to those questions, but we never really do. We can never know in which of the 50 ways we might leave our lovers until fate actually delivers us to the crossroads of decision.

Guest Critic Reviews

Anthony Chase, David Aaron Baker, Eric Shea, Ethan McSweeny, Fifty Ways, Josh Tobin, Kate Fodor, Leah Anderson, Michael Gaston, Vivienne Benesch

Guest artists share relationships on stage and off in ‘Fifty Ways’

July 27, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Though the married couple in Fifty Ways faces a deteriorating union and a seemingly endless feud, the actors behind the pair, Vivienne Benesch and Michael Gaston, are much bigger fans of each other.

Benesch, Chautauqua Theater Company’s artistic director, and Gaston, a guest artist actor, have been close friends for 25 years.

“We are doing this play about these intimate relationships — and Viv and I have never dated — but we’ve lived through each other’s relationships. We’ve lived through each other’s careers’ ups and downs,” Gaston said. “There are a lot of things about this play, which is brand new, which reflects our 25-year friendship.”

Gaston and Benesch are but two of the three guest artist actors in Fifty Ways, which shows at 8 p.m. tonight in Bratton Theater and runs through July 29. The third, David Aaron Baker, has also known Benesch and Gaston for many years.

Theater

Chautauqua Theater Company, David Aaron Baker, Fifty Ways, Guest artists, Jessie Cadle, Kate Fodor, Michael Gaston, theater, Vivienne Benesch

Production team reunites for Fodor’s world premiere

July 24, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are six ways the world premiere of the play Fifty Ways ties to playwright Kate Fodor’s previous world premiere.

Six people who opened Fodor’s February 2012 world premiere of Rx in New York City are now at Chautauqua for the world premiere of Fifty Ways: playwright Fodor; director Ethan McSweeny; set designer Lee Savage; production stage manager Jenn Rae Moore; assistant stage manager Bales Karlin; and sound designer Lindsay Jones.

“In a way, it’s not ‘Why are so many people from Rx working on Fifty Ways,’ but ‘Why are so many people from Chautauqua working on Rx,’ ” McSweeny said. “That comes directly out of work we’ve done with Kate here.”

Theater

Bales Karlin, Chautauqua Theater Company, ctc, Ethan McSweeny, Fifty Ways, Jenn Rae Moore, Jessie Cadle, Kate Fodor, Lee Savage, Lindsay Jones, production, Rx, theater

Nina’s husband, Adam (Michael Gaston), sits on the bathroom floor with Nina’s common-law step-sister Zoe (Leah Anderson). Photo by Eric Shea.

‘Fifty Ways’: A promising play full of hurt, more hurt and hope

July 24, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Fifty Ways, the new play by Kate Fodor showing in premiere with the Chautauqua Theater Company, might become music in time. Its promise is atonal. Right now, it plays too pleasantly.

Fifty Ways begins with great assurance, dropping several F-bombs by the end of Page 3 and keeping up that verbal damage for the duration.

As well, the protagonist quickly and convincingly vomits three times, his wife having just concluded a declamation with an odd synesthesia about the different barks her house emanates, which is her way of complaining about the things that don’t work around the place. Those things that don’t work bark at her.

Guest Critic Reviews

Anthony Bannon, Chautauqua Theater Company, Chautauqua Writers' Center, ctc, CWC, David Aaron Baker, Eric Shea, Ethan McSweeny, Fifty Ways, Josh Tobin, Kate Fodor, Leah Anderson, Lindsay Jones, Michael Gaston, Paul Simon, Vivienne Benesch

Vivienne Benesch and fellow cast members perform vocal warmups before opening night of Chautauqua Theater Company’s world premiere production of Fifty Ways.

Behind the scenes at the world premiere of ‘Fifty Ways’

July 23, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 1 Comment

It’s two minutes before the show starts on opening night. The air teems with anxiety, energy and excitement. Actors and crewmembers rush in and out of dressing rooms, bathrooms and hallways — lit by black light — in an effort to be fully ready for their call to places, which signifies the start of Act One of Fifty Ways.

Nervousness fills the space. Chautauqua Theater Company Artistic Director Vivienne Benesch, who plays Nina Strauss, is fully made up and dressed. She stops in the dressing room of her fellow actors.

“It’s just another show,” she says. It’s both a reminder and a reassurance for herself and the rest of the five-person cast.

But really, it’s not just another show. It is CTC’s first world premiere, and it is the world premiere of the first play ever commissioned by CTC and the Chautauqua Writers’ Center.

Theater

Bales Karlin, Chautauqua Theater Company, Chautauqua Writers' Center, ctc, CWC, Eric Shea, Ethan McSweeny, Fifty Ways, Jenn Rae Moore, Jessie Cadle, Kate Fodor, Kate Wilson, Vivienne Benesch, world premiere

McSweeny directs ‘Fifty Ways’ with meticulous vision

July 21, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Ethan McSweeny is a storyteller, but always of someone else’s story. And on average, he tells five different stories per year as a nationally acclaimed freelance director.

Be it William Shakespeare’s epic plays at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., or playwright Kate Fodor’s brand-new productions in Chautauqua’s own Bratton Theater, McSweeny gives life to the works of others.

“I am the interpreter. In the same way that a conductor is not a composer,” McSweeny said, in a momentary lull in the midst of rehearsals for the show he is currently directing.

Theater

Chautauqua Theater Company, Chautauqua Writers' Center, ctc, Ethan McSweeny, Fifty Ways, Jessie Cadle, Josh Tobin, Kate Fodor, Leah Anderson, Michael Gaston, Vivienne Benesch, world premiere

‘Fifty Ways’ explores what it takes to truly leave your lover

July 20, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

Paul Simon taught the world that there are 50 ways to leave your lover. Just slip out the back, Jack. Make a new plan, Stan.

Playwright Kate Fodor re-examines what it really means to leave your lover in her play Fifty Ways, aptly named after the Simon hit. Fodor’s play explores the complexities that tie and unwind a married couple in Fifty Ways, which previews at 8 p.m. tonight at Bratton Theater and opens at 6 p.m. Saturday in Bratton Theater. Fifty Ways, the first play commissioned by Chautauqua Theater Company and the Chautauqua Writers’ Center, marks CTC’s first world premiere.

Theater

100 Saints you should know, Chautauqua Theater Company, ctc, David Aaron Baker, Featured, Fifty Ways, Jessie Cadle, Josh Tobin, Kate Fodor, Leah Anderson, Michael Gaston, Paul Simon, Rx, Vivienne Benesch, World Premier

Playwright Fodor presents first Chautauqua commissioned play

July 19, 2012 by The Chautauquan Daily 0 Comments

For the past year, Kate Fodor sculpted, plied and perfected her play Fifty Ways. In the past few weeks, she handed the reigns to Chautauqua Theater Company to transport her written word to the Bratton Theater stage.

Fifty Ways is a landmark for both CTC and Fodor. It is the first world premiere of a play held at CTC and the first play commissioned by CTC and the Writers’ Center. For Fodor, it is her first play with heft, as it deals with realistic, mature themes, she said.

“It’s this strange change from being the sole owner and creator of this piece and having this incredibly intimate relationship with the thing that I’m making … and then having it be a collaborative effort with a lot of people,” Fodor said. “In some strange way, it stops feeling like it’s entirely mine anymore.”

Theater

bratton theater, Chautauqua Theater Company, ctc, Ethan McSweeny, Fifty Ways, Jessie Cadle, Kate Fodor, theater, Writers' Center

Between love and oblivion

Guest artists share relationships on stage and off in ‘Fifty Ways’

Production team reunites for Fodor’s world premiere

‘Fifty Ways’: A promising play full of hurt, more hurt and hope

Behind the scenes at the world premiere of ‘Fifty Ways’

McSweeny directs ‘Fifty Ways’ with meticulous vision

‘Fifty Ways’ explores what it takes to truly leave your lover

Playwright Fodor presents first Chautauqua commissioned play

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