Thursday, February 14, 2008

Congrats to Furious Nominees!

posted by Nick Cernoch at 2:10 PM
Nominations have recently been announced for both the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle and LA Weekly Awards and we'd like to congratulate some truly Furious artists on getting nods for their work on our 2007 world premiere production of Matt Pelfrey's An Impending Rupture of the Belly.  The nominations are below.  Click here for more info on this Furious Production.

LADCC Award Nominee:
Featured Actor - Shawn Lee

LA Weekly Award Nominees:
Production of the Year
Ensemble
Play Writing - Matt Pelfrey
Direction - Damaso Rodriguez

Since we are a company built around an ensemble of theatre artists, nominations for things like "Production of the Year" and "Ensemble" are truly gratifying because of their recognition of the great collaborative effort put forth by everyone involved in producing theatre.  We're also thrilled at the recognition given to our Playwright in Residence, Matt Pelfrey, whose bold new work is exactly the kind of writing that our company stands behind. 
Congratulations again to these and all of the nominees from all of the companies who continue to work hard to make Los Angeles theatre great.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Furious Reproduction

posted by brad at 7:01 PM
As ensemble members, we've all become pretty close to one another. Probably too close, but we like it this way. Our personal lives have become somewhat shared by everyone in the company and it seems this unique and sometimes bizarre extended family quality is partly responsible for the artistic output of the ensemble, both in terms of content and quality. After seeing August Osage County in New York last week, there is little room for argument that on stage relationships truly benefit from individuals who have worked and shared real life experiences with each other over a long period of time.

We often draw comparisons with great rock bands when explaining the purpose or benefit of the ensemble. How did the Beatles or the Stones do and become what they did? Insane talent, yes, but certainly they shared numerous intimate life experiences which influenced them in some way and ultimately made them family.

So too goes the world of Furious. Last Thursday we got a new member of the extended family when ensemble members Shawn and Vonessa gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Skylar Jude. Less than 24 hours later, ensemble member James Leary and his wife Stacie gave birth to their second son, Eoin Elliot. Not only did our two new additions come less than a day apart, but they were delivered in the same hospital and the proud parents ended up with rooms across the hall from one another. Now that's "close."

Needless to say we all greatly appreciated their efforts to simplify our busy lives and schedules by delivering in tandem and sharing the end of a hall to boot.

That's where we're at right now - reproduction. It seems to be in the water with six babies in the past two and a half years. The artistic result? Furious Reproduction of another kind - coming to the stage this spring. More details on that soon.

For now - congrats to the new parents... who just made everyone's lives that much crazier. Thanks, we love it.

Be Furious.