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| 5/26/2010 9:01:00 AM Email this article • Print this article |
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Rachel Lampert will premiere her latest work, “Losing Myself,” May 26-June 6 at the Kitchen Theatre. (Photo by Samantha Braziller) |
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Back on the boards: Rachel Lampert returns to the stage with 'Losing Myself'
Kitchen Theatre artistic director Rachel Lampert returns to the stage this week with the premiere of "Losing Myself," a new play with music and dance that looks back on her life in theater and dance. The show runs May 26 through June 6, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 p.m. Sunday. Call 273-4497 or visit www.kitchentheatre.org for more information.
Earlier this week, Lampert sat down with the Ithaca Times for an email interview about the new show.
Q: It's been 10 years since you wrote "The Soup Comes Last." How long have you been thinking about doing this show? Did it evolve from its original conception?
Rachel Lampert: It's been interesting to return to writing a "true story" in which I am the primary story-teller. I knew I wanted to write something about aging, and that there would be other people in the piece, and that at least a couple of them would be a lot younger than I am. I started writing about the changes that come with age, and then it naturally evolved into writing about the changes in my life, the Kitchen's progress and the nexus of the two. "Losing Myself" could have the subtitle "a tale of two buildings" or "a life in the theater."
Q: The title of the play could be taken in several ways - everything from losing weight to losing youth to losing sight of your personal goals in the midst of everyday life. Is it representative of the content of the show?
RL: Yes, and more. Getting lost can have negative connotations, but one can also get caught up in work and life, and the "losing yourself" is then entirely fulfilling. Sure there are conflicts, as getting the perfect mix is not easy, and compromises are always made - but that is a good source of material. I think there is a lot of "taking stock" and then trying to steer a forward course while a lot is going on outside and inside that is not easily controlled. Which makes for good comedy.
Q: What was it like to get back to your roots in dance?
RL: I always like when I can put some dance into my pieces. "Losing Myself" has a very sweet movement piece for Erin Hilgartner and some reprises from plays I have written over the years. There is just a sprinkling of dance, but there is the "dance sensibility" in the structure. The Kitchen audiences recently had the pleasure of seeing Ain Gordon's "In This Place..." and I am having the joy of his participation in the project as a dramaturg and outside eye and ear. He and I share a similar aesthetic, and I am enjoying tooling around in my former home in the world of "downtown art" with him as co-pilot.
Q: It seems like the casting is meaningful in a couple of ways, including working with KTC colleagues, and also up-and-comers who have been in past Family Fare shows. Could you talk about that a bit?
RL: The story is personal, so having KTC colleagues in it was an easy choice. Steve Nunley and I have known each other close to 30 years, and Lesley Greene and I have collaborated on more than a dozen plays. The three of us can read each others' minds - that's cut down on rehearsal time! Erin and Chunmei have appeared as the young girl heroines in lots of my plays for general audiences and they could be seen as examples of my younger self in this piece. Rob Fancher has been at the Kitchen for a year as an all-around intern and he's making his stage debut. There should be someone doing that in a play about the past and the future.
Q: I'm sure you're plenty busy, writing, reviewing potential shows for upcoming seasons and running the KTC, but do you think it's still important for you to get onstage every so often?
RL: Having spent so much time "on the road" performing for the first twenty years of my professional life I must say I miss it. I like how a day gets focused on a doing a performance. And I love summoning the kind of concentration it takes to be in the relationship of "actor and audience" that live performance provides. Has it gotten easier for you over the years? It evolves constantly. The nervousness is still there, but I am a lot more nervy, if you catch my drift? Learning lines has new challenges. Yikes! Even if you write them, it is still a bear to memorize. I have had such a love affair with the Kitchen, our audiences, and the Clinton House, that the space feels like my other home and I am very comfortable on those boards.
Q: Any update on the new Kitchen Theatre building?
RL: The building is going well. We will begin performances in there in September 2010 which will also be the start of the 20th Anniversary Season of the Kitchen Theatre Company! There's a lot to celebrate and a lot of people have worked very hard to make this possible: the staff, the board, the capital campaign committee and over 200 individual donors, businesses and foundations. "Losing Myself" has a major resonance with this enormously exciting effort, and all the people on stage and off stage who have contributed to the Kitchen's success over all the years of its existence. I celebrate them in LOSING MYSELF.
Q: Feel free to add anything else.
RL: Just the usual with a little more urgency as LOSING MYSELF will be my final opportunity to perform on the Clinton House stage. We will finish the Main Stage season with CHESAPEAKE by Lee Blessing, directed by Margarett Perry and starring Mark Boyett. That production will mark the end of the Kitchen's era in the Clinton House. I hope everyone who has enjoyed seeing plays there, and those who might still be first-timers will catch one of these last two productions before we move the BIG MOVE.
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