http://knpr.org/desert-companion/2016-01/best-city-these-are-champions-valley-food-culture-arts-shopping-and-more
Monday, February 1, 2016
NPR's Desert Companion's BEST OF THE CITY
Best Local Playwright
Combine a wildly imaginative sensibility with the talent to put a black-comedic skew on thought-provoking material, usually set in Las Vegas, and you have Erica Griffin. She’s not only penned a raft of one-act gems like Waxing On (Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper offer couples therapy) but dark, full-length fare like the prize-winning, spirited Spearminted. We await her next opus with impatience. DM
http://knpr.org/desert-companion/2016-01/best-city-these-are-champions-valley-food-culture-arts-shopping-and-more
http://knpr.org/desert-companion/2016-01/best-city-these-are-champions-valley-food-culture-arts-shopping-and-more
Sunday, February 24, 2013
From Page to Stage
From Page to Stage
Meet Cockroach Theatre’s radical new resident playwright
By Aleza Freeman
June 14th, 2012
Nothing is off-limits for award-winning local playwright Erica Griffin. She dabbles in conspiracy theories, feminism, greed, corruption, murder, incest, mental illness. It’s possible her plays will offend you. It’s also possible you’ll see the world differently—if you’re brave enough to stick around.In May, Griffin signed on for a two-year residency with Cockroach Theatre, where she will produce her character-driven dark comedies and spearhead a training series for playwrights. She joins the decade-old company as it moves into a new home, the Arts Square Theatre (1025 S. First St.) in the Arts District.
Griffin, 36, is a stay-at-home mom and no stranger to the Las Vegas theater scene. In addition to a prolific playwriting portfolio, she’s performed in various shows locally, including Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding at the Rio and Caligula with Cockroach Theatre. Her play Spearminted was the 2012 Las Vegas Little Theatre New Work Competition’s winner, and her new play, Roles for Women, just premiered at the Vegas Fringe Festival.
Between chasing around her toddler and awaiting her next creative tidal wave, Griffin took some time to speak about her new residency.
What exactly will you do as Cockroach’s resident playwright?
A residency, in general, guarantees a certain number of full productions over a certain number of years. In professional theaters, residents usually receive a cash award, stipends to attend theater and health-insurance benefits [Griffin won’t receive any of those benefits, but she will receive a full production of one play.] Playwrights don’t have a union like actors equity. What I’ll be doing with my residency is simple: developing my craft, helping other writers develop their craft, and making some sweet, sweet theater.
Why does a playwriting residency matter?
I think it’s a vital investment. If the play does well, and it gets picked up by a publisher, then it’s good for everyone. The play has the potential of going all over the country, with the permanent inscription: originally produced at Cockroach Theatre, at the Arts Square Theatre in Las Vegas, directed by so-in-so, with the following cast. So the entire company becomes part of history.
How did you first get involved with theater?
My mom was an actress and writer; she took me to plays around Seattle and taught me how to use her old blue typewriter. I wrote my first play on it at age 11. It was an adaptation of Rumpelstiltskin, and I staged it on my neighbor’s deck, using kids in the neighborhood. … I remember watching the show, totally blissed out, thinking, “I want to do this the rest of my life!” And so I did.
You’ve described your plays as radical acts. What does that mean to you?
It’s a radical act to challenge the status quo, to present a different point of view than the audience’s belief structures, [to] offend people—whether it’s the copious amounts of marijuana used by a grandma in Mulch or the questioning of the government and anti-privacy acts in Chipped. People have been walking out of my shows since 2001, but they never seem to ask for their money back. … Critics have called my work “screwball tragedy,” which I think has a nice ring to it.
When it comes to writing a play, what inspires you?
Ideas for plays come when an interesting character in my head intersects with an interesting theme I’ve been knocking around. … For instance I see a homeless person with a blanket on their head and I’m reading Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, and suddenly I come up with the dramatic question of Casa de Nada: What if someone were using homeless people to make them money and then exterminating them, Holocaust-style?
What brought you to Las Vegas as opposed to L.A. or New York?
I’d rather be a pioneer than a settler. I moved here after college precisely because there wasn’t much going on, and yet a huge potential for something big to happen. I’ve always believed in theater in Las Vegas, like the little engine that could. I’ve been lucky enough to see minor shifts in the way theater off the Strip has been viewed. I feel like I’ve witnessed a small cultural awakening, and I’ve been proud to be part of the effort.
Cockroach Theatre boldly infests the Arts District
They wandered the desert for 10 years, staging shows wherever they could find space, like in magic shops and yoga studios. Now Cockroach Theatre is putting down roots in the 18b Arts District. Their first home, The Arts Square Theater, will open this summer in Art Square (1025 S. First St., attached to Artifice).Known for pushing the edge of convention and challenging the way audiences think, the nonprofit Cockroach Theater was formed in 2002 by a group of UNLV theater students. “Up until now, Cockroach Theater has done one-offs, now we are going to be able to present a whole package,” said the company’s new artistic director, Erik Amblad.
With a permanent home, Cockroach Theater will reach a broader audience as it presents a full season of neglected/forgotten works as well as new works by emerging playwrights. “Most exciting, is that fans of Cockroach will be rewarded with a season-long exploration of a theme—an exploration [that] will hopefully get more complicated show after show,” Amblad says.
The first season will be announced in early July and will start in September. The pre-season will begin in late July with the 2011 Sin City New Play Contest winner, Nurture by Johnna Adams. (The contest from Original Works Publishing was previously hosted by Onyx Theatre.)
Cockroach Theater also plans to offer training programs and provide an affordable space for variety acts, contemporary dancers and spoken-word performers from around the Valley. “The idea is that every step of the way, every day of the week,” Amblad says, “you’ll find something interesting at the Art Square Theatre.”
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Cockroach’s Theatre Company’s new Art Square venue already feels like a success
Wed, Sep 26, 2012 (5:24 p.m.)
Want to nurture a healthy theater ecosystem in Las Vegas? Then go see Nurture at Cockroach Theatre.
Photo: Ryan Reason
Nurture
A healthy theater ecosystem needs smaller companies, where artists are free to explore what theater can mean outside of hanging on silks or belting show tunes. A place that supports new work and the community that creates it. Over the past few years, theater in Las Vegas has taken halting steps toward supporting this type of work. With Cockroach’s debut in the Art Square Theatre, all that energy feels like it finally has an outlet.
An intimate black box theater, Art Square occupies one corner of Brett Westley’s artSQUARE complex. The flexible space was explicitly renovated to be a theater, and has the robust infrastructure necessary to stage a variety of productions and designs. And it was all put into good service for its premiere production, Nurture, written by Johnna Adams and directed by Jason Goldberg.
Winner of the 2012 Sin City New Play Contest, Nurture tells the story of the awkward romance between Cheryl (Francine Gordon) and Doug (Erik Amblad), and their tenuous relationship with their children. It starts in standard Everybody Loves Raymond territory, but has more real laughs per minute than your average sitcom. Then, one line at a time, the play takes you further and further into absurdist comedy worthy of Durang. It delves deep into the fears—even horrors—of parenthood, but ends in a hopeful, accepting place. It’s also incredibly not safe for children. It’s grown-up theater of the energy and caliber you won’t see anyplace else in Las Vegas.
There’s more to the human experience than can be explored by Cirque du Soleil. And there are vital emotions too quiet to fill the Smith Center. Cockroach wants the Art Square Theatre to be the crucible to hold those experiences. And if they can keep up the quality of this stunning debut, they’ll have it.
Cockroach Theatre endures a decade of obstacles to land its own downtown performance space
read here
by KRISTY TOTTEN
Cockroaches are scavengers — pests that can survive nuclear-level destruction. Which is to say, cockroaches might some day inherit the Earth. One thing’s for sure: They’ve already taken a permanent residence in the heart of the Arts District, scoring their own Art Square Theatre.
The location is a huge coup for Cockroach Theatre, founded in 2002 by a group of UNLV theater alums devoted to bringing new, original and underappreciated works to Vegas audiences. When it produced its first play that year — Line, by Israel Horowitz, about five people vying for position in a line — more than 400 audience members showed up for the play’s run. “Horowitz isn’t exactly risky material,” says Cockroach Managing Director Levi Fackrell. “But it showed us that Vegas audiences were hungry for something different.”
Fackrell describes those early days as “fun, guerilla-style theater,” as it scoured the valley for play venues, scuttling about in junkyards, warehouse spaces, hotel bars and the requisite-for-the-times Katherine Gianaclis Park.
Its unique mix of original and unusual performances — Albert Camus’ Caligula, Naomi IIzuka’s Tattoo Girl and a particularly avant garde 2005 production of Richard Foreman’s Permanent Brain Damage, to name a few — kept Cockroach afloat, despite some rough patches, like the tanking of a 2008 Neonopolis deal and the rough economic years that followed. True to its tenacious moniker, it survived and made its way to the city’s cultural epicenter.
Déjà vu all over again
It’s all vaguely familiar, this talk of downtown serendipity — it struck years ago, when the First Friday phenomenon started transforming the neighborhood, drawing unlikely crowds into galleries and black box theaters, many of whom elbowed through the art and talked over the plays. It would take an injection of post-recession creative energy, fueled largely by locals (and maybe some help from a man named Hsieh) to get the downtown renaissance back on track.
By 2010, Cockroach had risen from a brief hibernation to collaborate with Born and Raised Productions, a company co-founded by Vegas native Erik Amblad, and, in 2012, after clandestine meetings and a crowd-funded campaign that raised more than $23,000 in 70 days, Cockroach finally got the chance to pull the trigger on a decade-old dream.
What’s old is new
Exposed brick. High ceilings. Industrial-style charm meets pure, unadulterated potential. “It’s a modern space,” says Fackrell of the renovated Art Square Theatre. “But the space has had a previous life. We’ve kept those elements intact.”
“You can be as creative as you want to be here,” says Amblad, who was named Cockroach’s artistic director in April and who, like Fackrell, speaks of the permanent space the way a new father might boast about his child.
Art Square, just north of the Arts Factory, also houses Artifice Bar and Lounge, several galleries, the First Street ArtGarden and the Josephine Skaught Salon. While its new high-profile digs will likely increase its audience, Cockroach remains committed to doing what it’s always done: taking risks and staging original, edgy and exciting shows.
“The space is the perfect size for us and for the type of plays we do,” says Fackrell. “We chose this size so we wouldn’t have to compromise. We don’t have to fill the Smith Center, we have to fill a 100-seat theatre.”
Judging from opening night, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Nurturing new talent
When Cockroach opened its new space to an enthusiastic, sold-out crowd on Sept. 21, it was a night of firsts: the first-ever performance in Art Square Theatre and the first-ever staging of Nurture, an outrageously dark comedy directed by Jason Goldberg and written by Johnna Adams, winner of Off-Strip Productions’ first-ever Sin City New Play Contest. Having not seen them share a stage since I covered theater in 2005, it was great to see Francine Gordon and Erik Amblad tackle the roles of perhaps the two most painfully and hilariously inept parents on the planet.
The triumphant grand opening was followed by a celebration that spilled into the halls and bars, filling old spaces with new energy and exciting audiences about what’s to come in Cockroach’s 2012-13 season, officially opening Oct. 26 with Paula Vogel’s comedy The Mineola Twins, and ending with Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
“The season is very particular to this moment in time, and where we all are, professionally and personally,” Amblad says of the upcoming five plays, one of which he’ll direct, and another to be helmed by Fackrell. “We’re growing up, settling down and facing the future.”
The location is a huge coup for Cockroach Theatre, founded in 2002 by a group of UNLV theater alums devoted to bringing new, original and underappreciated works to Vegas audiences. When it produced its first play that year — Line, by Israel Horowitz, about five people vying for position in a line — more than 400 audience members showed up for the play’s run. “Horowitz isn’t exactly risky material,” says Cockroach Managing Director Levi Fackrell. “But it showed us that Vegas audiences were hungry for something different.”
Fackrell describes those early days as “fun, guerilla-style theater,” as it scoured the valley for play venues, scuttling about in junkyards, warehouse spaces, hotel bars and the requisite-for-the-times Katherine Gianaclis Park.
Its unique mix of original and unusual performances — Albert Camus’ Caligula, Naomi IIzuka’s Tattoo Girl and a particularly avant garde 2005 production of Richard Foreman’s Permanent Brain Damage, to name a few — kept Cockroach afloat, despite some rough patches, like the tanking of a 2008 Neonopolis deal and the rough economic years that followed. True to its tenacious moniker, it survived and made its way to the city’s cultural epicenter.
Déjà vu all over again
It’s all vaguely familiar, this talk of downtown serendipity — it struck years ago, when the First Friday phenomenon started transforming the neighborhood, drawing unlikely crowds into galleries and black box theaters, many of whom elbowed through the art and talked over the plays. It would take an injection of post-recession creative energy, fueled largely by locals (and maybe some help from a man named Hsieh) to get the downtown renaissance back on track.
By 2010, Cockroach had risen from a brief hibernation to collaborate with Born and Raised Productions, a company co-founded by Vegas native Erik Amblad, and, in 2012, after clandestine meetings and a crowd-funded campaign that raised more than $23,000 in 70 days, Cockroach finally got the chance to pull the trigger on a decade-old dream.
What’s old is new
Exposed brick. High ceilings. Industrial-style charm meets pure, unadulterated potential. “It’s a modern space,” says Fackrell of the renovated Art Square Theatre. “But the space has had a previous life. We’ve kept those elements intact.”
“You can be as creative as you want to be here,” says Amblad, who was named Cockroach’s artistic director in April and who, like Fackrell, speaks of the permanent space the way a new father might boast about his child.
Art Square, just north of the Arts Factory, also houses Artifice Bar and Lounge, several galleries, the First Street ArtGarden and the Josephine Skaught Salon. While its new high-profile digs will likely increase its audience, Cockroach remains committed to doing what it’s always done: taking risks and staging original, edgy and exciting shows.
“The space is the perfect size for us and for the type of plays we do,” says Fackrell. “We chose this size so we wouldn’t have to compromise. We don’t have to fill the Smith Center, we have to fill a 100-seat theatre.”
Judging from opening night, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Nurturing new talent
When Cockroach opened its new space to an enthusiastic, sold-out crowd on Sept. 21, it was a night of firsts: the first-ever performance in Art Square Theatre and the first-ever staging of Nurture, an outrageously dark comedy directed by Jason Goldberg and written by Johnna Adams, winner of Off-Strip Productions’ first-ever Sin City New Play Contest. Having not seen them share a stage since I covered theater in 2005, it was great to see Francine Gordon and Erik Amblad tackle the roles of perhaps the two most painfully and hilariously inept parents on the planet.
The triumphant grand opening was followed by a celebration that spilled into the halls and bars, filling old spaces with new energy and exciting audiences about what’s to come in Cockroach’s 2012-13 season, officially opening Oct. 26 with Paula Vogel’s comedy The Mineola Twins, and ending with Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
“The season is very particular to this moment in time, and where we all are, professionally and personally,” Amblad says of the upcoming five plays, one of which he’ll direct, and another to be helmed by Fackrell. “We’re growing up, settling down and facing the future.”
Monday, September 24, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
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