FLY BABIES / PIOJOS - Fact and Fiction - a matter of script

WELCOME TO MY BLOG 

Performing in Game Over.  Photo: Erika Rojas
Segment 5 of 6

Schools in panic, summer camps on the defensive, 

turntables unrealized, a teacher turned duchess, 

an actor turned king...all of this  and more

has been covered by previous segments of my blog. 

Ultimately, it all leads to the challenge ahead of me.

FLY BABIES / PIOJOS - 2010-11 continued

Blocking a scene at Pregones' Casa Blanca

 Elise Hernández (singing), with  Shadia Fairuz and Omar Pėrez

Playing: Desmar Guevara, Anthony Carrillo

Photos: Erika Rojas, Video: Rosalba

In 2010 Pregones scheduled the premiere of Fly Babies / Piojos for the Fall of 2011. I began to feel the pressure. The 20 minute showcase we had shown in Remojo two years before had set a direction. But what to do with all the information gathered over the years, what to use, what to discard and most importantly, how to deliver it to the audience? At some point one needs to stop searching. So I stopped...for a while. I don't do conventional plays but my route was perhaps too unconventional, even for me.

2011 - Workshop Production

As the Summer of 2011 approached I saw another opportunity to advance the project. In summary, I had five key characters on track: Chic (lice consultant), Dr. Reyes (entomologist), Liberty (activist), Demetrio (actor) and Georgette (opera singer). Other characters would surface later. With some fine tuning I could present at least 40 minutes worth of monologues and songs at Pregones'  annual block party, which includes outdoors concerts and indoors presentations. It was clear by now that the monologues and songs would be performed in interaction between the characters. This interaction was addressed in Diversity, a musical scene that finally hinted at a common story in the production. 

August 7, 2011 - Workshop production of Fly Babies / Piojos

We decided to go ahead and present a workshop production of...no title! We had always called it Piojos, the Spanish word for 'lice', but I was inclined to use an euphemism instead of the literal 'piojos'. We had been using fly babies as a working title, courtesy of our colleague Arnaldo López. Fly babies imply wings, which lice don't have, flying insects, which lice are not. In short, lice - even baby ones- are the opposite of a fly baby. Perfect!

The Ensemble gets into the action

August 7, 2011 - Workshop production

Pregones Ensemble is integrated by actors and musicians who work consistently with the company. The creative process adjusts depending on the type of project. In this case, I mostly needed them to approach the characters and the music the way Desmar and I were proposing. Their task was to infuse their own spark, question choices when necessary and contribute to the aesthetic development of the piece. I needed to see the material on its feet.

Our team was completed with Anthony Carrillo (percussion), John Benitez (bass),Tony Vargas(movement) and Jessica Moya (projections). Our budget could cover 9 days of rehearsals. Everyone was game, but a bit worried. There was a lot of material to cover. But I got everyone to relax by assuring them that we would present to the audience only the material we could cover during those 9 days. It worked.

On the day of the performance we even had one of our actresses say to the audience: "the next scene, called Diversity, is incomplete; we are not sure where we are heading with it, but thought it would be fun to share with you where we are at". The audience loved it and responded accordingly.

Fast forward: Eventually the scene would begin like this:



Shadia Fairuz (Georgette)
and Elise Hernández (Chic)

(Music. Georgette enters, followed by Chic. Georgette seems in a trance.)

GEORGETTE: (in a whisper) ...or to a secret place…where no one knows who we are…do you understand?...

CHIC: Surely you understand the cost involved…

GEORGETTE: Tomorrow. At midnight. I will have a confidentiality agreement prepared. You must show up at the airport in an unmarked van and discreet clothing. A private plane will take you to our villa. It is secluded. My daughter, her nanny...and I will there.

During the nine days of rehearsals we sharpened some of the characters and explored some potential relationships. At the end of each day I would go home to rewrite, reshape and bring back fresh dialogue or ideas.

For example, in an early version of one of the characters I had a self taught 'duchess' be an expert on lice. But the character had to have a reason to possess all this knowledge.  I knew I couldn't discard the world of lice and the branch of science that studies them. Turning the play into a speech about lice was not an option. In my previous segment I wrote about Dr. Reyes. Yes, the Duchess came back as Dr. Reyes, and because working in ensembles often means aligning text with specific actors, 'she' came back as a 'he'. Here Dr. Reyes greets a group of parents :

DR. REYES

Omar Pėrez as Dr. Reyes - Workshop production

Good evening. I am an Entomologist. En-to-mo-lo-gist! (word scrolls across screen) Cockroaches, mosquitoes and   lice---oh, my! For an entomologist, running across these creepy crawlies is a dream come true. What am I saying! They are not creepy. They are crawling wonders! (pauses, amazed at the thought; music) I live and work in many places. Here, there, everywhere! I have studied the lives of very famous, and of very infamous historical figures. Writers, kings, gorillas! (at the sound of a siren, Dr. Reyes exits.)

Q & A - Someone finally pops the question

A standing ovation is always encouraging and that is exactly what we received. Everyone was on their feet, cheering and clapping. We had about 40 minutes of material, with strong performances, fun and provocative songs and a glimpse of an emerging common theme.

After the performance I invited the audience to a conversation about the project. Some members of the audience shared their own experiences and others asked about why I had decided to write a play about lice (this question surfaced again and again).

And then, finally the question came: "will these characters connect with each other through a story?"

I answered honestly: "I don't know". Then I asked: "Do you need a single story?" Several answers: "not really", "yes, for sure", "it is expected" etc.

But I knew the answer already: although each character had her/his own individual conflict, I needed something much stronger to bring it all together.

Oh, No! This is my idea!

A NY Times article about the booming business of high end lice consultants (not an abuela) triggered all kinds of thoughts, but mostly it felt like a threat. Because when The NY Times says it, people pay attention! I panicked at the thought that someone might see what I had seen for nearly 15 years...that a musical could be made out of it. Not that it happened. Because really, not too many people dare.

Next Segment:  The Last Stretch 
En route to the premiere

BONUS VIDEO

Jesús Martínez (Actor/Louis XIV), Cast and Magic Hands
singing  "El Rascador" (The Scratcher)

 

Photos: Erika Rojas  

FLY BABIES / PIOJOS - the sequence Part II

WELCOME TO MY FRIDAY BLOG

Photo: René Miko - Segment 4 of 6 on Fly Babies / Piojos

For years I gathered as much information as I could about lice, famous people with lice, the history of lice and trends
according to ethnicity, types of hair, race etc.

The more I thought

and scribbled and searched,

the more complex

the world of lice became.

I wanted it to be a comedy. Besides, each time I mentioned the theme of the play people laughed. So I thought "it'll be funny". Never assume.

Preparing for last Friday's blog helped me organize notes and identify benchmarks leading to the moment in which I began to think concretely about Fly Babies / Piojos (1996-2005). I had no title for it yet, though, but I had a pretty good outline for some of the characters: an actor-cast-as Louis XIV had surfaced first (check out last week's blog for info on Louis XIV), an activist looking for 'something' that would unite humankind, and sketches of a teacher. This seemed the kind of project that would reveal itself through the characters rather than through a storyline. In other words, the storyline was buried in the ton of information I was still gathering. Fly Babies seemed to be slowly emerging as a performance comedy consisting primarily of  monologues perhaps in some sort of interaction with other characters.

It was a puzzle and each piece could fit with each other in numerous ways, or not at all.  In putting it all together, I had my actress cap on most of the time.

2006-2007 - The Turntable

Photo: In house - Pregones in construction - 2005

In 2006 my attention was split between the creation of another new work and the yearlong inaugural events at Pregones. We had just opened the theater with a great season and I was still in a high from  the success of The Red Rose. 

But in the Spring of that year, during yet another train ride - can't remember where-- I began to draw circles.  I had flashes of Stop The World - I Want to Get Off, a show I had seen in 1978 at Lincoln Center. The main character would get on and off a moving  'globe' gracefully. It helped that he was played by Sammy Davis Jr.! Click: A turntable! Our stage is large enough to hold a turntable that the actors could manipulate as lice stories emerged, most likely in relay form.     

Photo: Erika Rojas

Fast forward to 2011: The turntable did not materialize. It would be a mechanical monster and resources were not at hand. The next best thing? Block in the round. Think circular motion. And keep it simple! It would be a challenge. Enter Brian Ireland, our set designer, and Lucrecia Briceño, lighting designer. They 'got' me right away. Designed 'legs', a subtle fence that framed the projections screen and musicians, movable benches that morphed and rich textured lighting did the trick . No turntable. But I had my circles!  

2008-2009 - Remojo

During this period I concentrated on the structure of characters that were emerging from the vast amount of anecdotes I found in sites from all over the world and those volunteered to  me. So far I had the Actor, the Activist, a sketchy urban mom who was hiding her lice problem at all costs, and a small town, self appointed Duchess very knowledgeable about lice. Click: The sketchy mom would develop into the opera singer and Duchess, formerly a teacher, would develop into a dorky entomologist. More on this later.

Shadia and Yarani going over music score

Remojo (Spanish for soaking) is a fun project that allows audiences to watch our ideas in action. Those of us at Pregones developing projects have the opportunity to show up to 25 minutes of the idea. We can do it as a staged reading, or a combination of a reading and a performance. It can be sketchy and we can even interrupt and let the audience know if we are not sure of what to do with the next section but will put it out there anyway. It is one of our most successful behind-the-scenes events and we have a full house each time.

I decided to go for it in the Remojo. I had written the song Fly Babies (check some of the lyrics in blog #2) and substantial sections of monologues. Working with Desmar Guevara, our composer and musical director, we had three rehearsals, staged the song, the monologues and voila! We presented 20 minutes of the idea. Laughter and comments throughout. Cheers. A good sign.   

 

Still no central story! The overload of information and anecdotes had something to do with it. If it seems like I was working backwards, I was. Again, my gut feeling was that the individual stories could carry an entire performance whether there was a central storyline or not, because each character had an arc I could depend on. I needed to test my assumptions, though. Just not yet.


2010 - The Carrousel

30+ years of travels have made the world manageable for my work. In the past 10 years, though, our international family  has expanded thanks to the International Community Arts Festival in Rotterdam.

The ICAF brings together community and professional  artists from all over the world. This has led to the creation of joint initiatives and global projects. One of these is the Worldwide Virtual Theater Carrousel. 

Working with partners in Belgium, Perú and South Africa, Pregones is able to participate in joint creative ventures. We do it via film, country-to-country hopping, photography and of course, virtually. We have participated in each other's productions on four or five occasions.

Omar Pėrez and Jan Janssen (of Sering Theater, Belgium)
  

Fast forward to 2011: We invite our Belgium partners, Sering Theater, to come on board. They went to work, filming  actors scratching their heads and sharing lice stories, which were then edited with our other footage.  By now we have had many conversations about lice. They are just as familiar with lice as we are. One of Sering actors, Jan Janssen (in projection), shared his opinion about lice, in dialogue with Omar Pėrez (playing Dr. Reyes, the scientist--formerly the Duchess). 

The process is always a bit complicated and shows great commitments from our partners. After the concept is clear, they convene actors, filmmaker and other personnel. If they use video, they film it, then load it -- a process that takes several hours -- send it to us, our filmmaker picks it up do all kinds of technical things I know little about, and edits as needed. Meanwhile, we skype constantly. 

Language is another factor. Jan speaks in Flemish. Omar is perfectly bilingual...in English and Spanish. We decide that the conversation will have to be in Flemish. Omar jumps at the opportunity to learn the lines. He loves languages.  We skype with Mia Grijp, Artistic Director of Sering, and we video the session in which she coaches Omar with the correct pronunciation. It's a sight! And it worked!
 
But what was the conversation about? By the time we filmed Jan and Omar, we had a story!

2010 TO BE CONTINUED...The tension mounts, Tolkien emerges, with a glitch. So does the story. The Carrousel joins in...just one year away from opening night!

NEXT BLOG, NEXT FRIDAY

BONUS VIDEO

Jesús Martínez and Omar Pérez in dressing room

FLY BABIES / PIOJOS - the sequence Part I

 WELCOME TO MY FRIDAY BLOG

Segment 3 of 6

After each performance of Fly Babies / Piojos audience members liked to share their "piojos" stories. Some were compelled to approach me privately. I was jokingly called 'insane', asked what do I really have inside my brain, what do I eat for breakfast, and other provocative and funny questions. I was told that the play is clever many, many times. But more often than not, I was asked why I chose to write about "piojos". Blogs, articles and interviews have so far focused on that question. It's made me think back to those first thoughts that germinated the idea of a play about lice. 

15 years to create a play? Really? Not exactly, but...

Generally, it takes me --and I suspect others too-- time to react, for observations to sink in until a concrete idea emerges for a play. Mind you, I have the unusual good fortune of belonging to a theater company and an ensemble. Pregones affords me the opportunity to develop and, more often than not, also stage the work.

The following are benchmarks of my thought process, leading to the moment in which I voiced that I wanted to create a play about lice.

1996 - The OMG! Factor

head louse

My daughter was in fourth grade at this really nice elementary public school in Manhattan. Parents were called in because there was an outbreak of lice at the school. OK, so lice are a pest and really something we don't want on our heads or on our bodies, but the reaction of some parents were not in proportion with the problem, I thought.

"Ohhhh myyyy gggggoood!" said a mom who came running into the school with a shower cap and gloves on. I thought she had just come in from a kitchen nearby. She looked around in desperation: Did the school have a plan? I looked around too, but I could tell we were the plan! The teacher that made the initial call assumed that the Latina mothers knew more about lice than everyone else. They looked at us expectantly. Click! First seed planted. Hmmm... This moment eventually translated into a 6-minute musical scene. Here's a sample:



Rosal  Colón, Jesús Martinez
 Shadia Feiruz, Omar Pėrez

Diversity! Diversity!

Bring in the flocks

Of all who clean

And just walk in

Who knows from where!

But at what cost?

Lice!

Diversity! Diversity!

What other burdens

Shall we bear

In the name of 

Diversity! Diversity!

For the record: lice are very democratic. They don't discriminate, though head lice prefer straight hair. They change color to match the host's hair.

1998 - In good company... Again!

My daughter and her best friend, whose mother is one of my oldest friends, have lice and we plan a lice removal party at home. Just the four of us, each mom with her daughter sitting on the floor, between her legs, a table with all the gear + instructions. We begin to segment their hair, taking strand by strand, squeezing out again and again, until we had a choreography of sorts. We had a good laugh. The girls didn't find it funny. Click! Second seed planted. This was the initial inspiration for the song Ocho Tramos (Eight Tracks). Here's a bit of the scene, played during an open rehearsal:

In video: Elise Hernández, Rosal Colón and Shadia Fairuz; music: Desmar, Guevara, Alberto Toro,
Anthony Carrillo and Ben Willlis

Translation: "examine the scalp, squeeze out each louse using your index finger and your thumb, break it with your fingernails, make sure you hear a 'click', drop the louse in a glass of water and throw it out the window".

 1999 - Summer Camp... Of course!

I remember joking about my 'three-act opera about lice' when we were told that kids, including my daughter and her friend, needed to be checked for lice before boarding the summer camp bus. My daughter got on the bus, but her friend didn't. She was staying with us, as her parents were in Spain. We rushed home, had her hair cut, did the treatment and drove to Massachusetts so she wouldn't miss camp. I paid attention to the instructions and found myself humming while reading them. Click! There could be an entire scene with sung instructions. Perhaps this was a sign of the opera diva that would emerge 11 years later.

2000-2003 - Blackout!

No doubt the topic of lice went in and out of my brain throughout this period. But I can't remember or find notes that document specific thoughts about the play. During this period Pregones toured to Rotterdam and then to Paris. No sign of lice, or so I thought.

2004-2005 - A visit to Louis XIV via Philly 

Jesús Martinez (Louis XIV) and Cast

Pregones was building our new theater, while rehearsing The Red Rose at studio we had remodeled next door.  I can't recall what brought lice "back" into my life, but something did. I needed to travel to Philadelphia and, at the urging of my colleagues I grabbed my notes and scribbled through the entire trip, seriously thinking about the kind of play I wanted to make. I also brought an article that had gotten my attention during a visit to Spain. The Duchess of Alba had had a history with lice! Click! That was too tempting. I thought, maybe there are other monarchs with lice!

Once in Philly, at the hotel, I searched online and King Louis XIV of France emerged as one of the most famous 'piojosos' of the 17th century. A dictator by nature (is there such a thing?), he was an aggressive ruler, used lavish wigs under which a colony of lice had fun, and is credited for commissioning the invention of the scratcher. You can't make these things up! But I thought having a character that would just play Louis XIV would be limiting to the story... though I had no idea what the story was yet! Click! The role of an aspiring actor who has been cast as Louis XIV could do the trick. It was a sweet ride back to NY. 

2005-2011 - Next Friday! Next Blog!

Bonus Video

Sound (Milton), Projections (Jessica), Choreographer (Tony) and Musicians warm up

Photos: Erika Rojas, Soldanela Rivera and Rosalba. Rosalba took the videos.