the end of the blogbook cornerstone institute 5

class of 2008 - Los Angeles Art District @ traction

day 32 - closing ceremony/ graduation

day 31 - potluck & final strike

day 30 - evaluation + the staff of i5

                                                                                                                        

Mary on stage management: My name is Mary. I am an Assistant Stage Manager for our show. Stage management is what I do; I enjoy it greatly. I’ve worked on a lot of shows, and this is my first time working on a community-based theatre production. My job varies. I’m in a rehearsal room a lot. I did a lot of work with props, making spreadsheets of which prop goes to which actor, and where that prop needs to be a the top of the show. During rehearsals, I am either on book (reading the script as the actors say their lines so I can help them if they need it) or taking down blocking for Marisa, our stage manager. To keep things simple, I write blocking in shorthand. For example, Darell enSL, x->CS means that Darell enters stage left, and then crosses to center stage. With the help of Zohar, the other ASM, I make phone calls to the actors to let them know of their rehearsal schedule, and if they are late to rehearsal. With a cast of +50 actors, it is great to have someone else working with you! As a team, myself, Marisa and Zohar set up the rehearsal room to make sure there are chairs for actors and the director to sit in, as well as enough clear space for everyone to move in. This job got harder as we got closer to production because there was more equipment and costumes in the back room of Cornerstone. During the show, I live backstage right. I am on the American Hotel side of Traction Avenue. I generally sit next to the phone booth around the corner from Blooms. I don’t get to see much of the show as a result, but my job is important. Zohar, who is on the Zips side of Traction, and I are in charge of making sure actors get onstage when they are supposed to. We keep our backstage areas as calm and aware as we can. Marisa gives us our cues through walkie-talkies. Zohar has all the car traffic during the show (we have a few cars and a motorcycle!). I have a lot of people waiting on my side, as well as people coming in and out of Blooms and the American. I also have the Safety Team on my side. It is definitely the craziest backstage environment I have been in! I love being able to help keep things safe and calm, though, giving positive energy to the actors. I have two favorite moments that I am a part of in the show. The first is Adam’s flashback to 1985 at the beginning of the show. We have a thief who runs off with Adam’s briefcase, and then two guys AND a woman on a motorcycle that chase after the thief! I have to make sure that the sidewalk on my side is clear, and that there is no oncoming traffic. If any of the actors from onstage run into the street, then they could be hit by the motorcycle. My other favorite moment is cueing the Artshare Teens, along with Zach, Adel and Dee, to enter. The Artshare Teens wait at least thirty minutes to go on, and they are so patient! Their stomp routine is so fun to watch, and I love being around their happy selves.

Mary Kimball

day 29 - opening night

from Joseph Fernandez, Community Artist

thanks first of all for being a part of this vibrant and loving community and i guess i answered your first question; to why i am attracted to traction ave. i do allot of traveling and along the way i stopped by ground works to get something to drink, i noticed the commotion at the cornerstone theater so like always i walked a little closer and said if there was any help needed and sure enough. so really it was by chance that i was given the opportunity to be one of the many talented artists to to help beautify this production. let me see from the time i was at the cornerstone theater i was either painting on buildings or giving original henna designs to beautiful people, two of the many things that makes me content in living comfortably. i have never felt challenged more like inspired, i worked along side other talented artists and the outcome was great. i also sat in on a reading which was intense and interesting. i started my career in art as i was wasting my time enlisted in the u.s. Navy, i was left working on diesel engines being the quote unquote greese monkey for eight years. when i left in 04 of aug i went straight to community college, where i am pursuing my degree in fine arts/sculpture. so now i am a sculptor, i've held a job as a bronze caster, i weld bronze alluminum and steele. i make various things from clay pots & clay figures, and i also make figures out of found material (the artsy way of saying trash) i draw, i paint, and i art.  i have had a great experience working with everyone and seeing the behind the scenes mayham of making a play come together. i really dig the vibe and how everything came together artistically, visualy, and hummanly. thank you cornerstone theater for the opportunity to be apart of this beautiful play depicting one of L.A.'s unique communities.

day 28 - backstage shots/ final dress rehearsal

day 27 - management class

I talked with John Joo, who plays Stantin and our praise team leader, at a break during rehearsal the other night.  Becky Dale, fellow Institute student and our music composer for the show, has credited Joo with the idea to sing “God of This City” as the praise song towards the end of the play. Joo's connection to the Traction Avenue community is through his involvement with New City Church, the church Joo (and some other cast members) belong to.  New City Church is one of the congregations mentioned in the play and has been meeting at e3rd Steakhouse for the last seven months, but will soon be moving to another location a few blocks away. Joo volunteers as a music leader as his church and began to go to the church after a period in his life when he was working in the Fashion District for a family business. “Everybody is very business-minded there and I used to drive through Skid Row daily, but didn't really care about the homeless people.  I started thinking about ways to be involved in the neighborhood,” said Joo. Although Joo grew up in the church, he realized a lot of the teaching he grew up with was wrong. “Compassion is community,” said Joo.  “Many people at my church used to be addicted, but they found that when they believed in God, they cleaned up and got jobs.” Joo came to audition for the show after the announcement was made at church that the play needed praise leaders.  He said as an artist, he likes singing and performing and thought that if the invitation was extended and that his own church was portrayed in the play, he could help out. Though Joo originally auditioned with the intention to be part of the praise team, he quickly took on the role of Stantin, a Japanese American man in his 60s from Saint Francis Xavier. “It's scary to play Stantin,” he said.  “But I've always wanted to try acting and this is an easy way.  Page and Michael sat down with me and helped me dissect each line.” Another unexpected benefit is that the play has also given him a chance to know his fellow church members better. Joo has been playing guitar since the 7^th or 8^th grade and has been self-taught.  He was originally an illustrator but now considers himself more of a songwriter.  He bought himself a four-track recorder and went to Minneapolis for two years to go to school for music.  Joo was also in a band called Cornerstore. Now, Joo is attending Glendale Community College as an English major and wants to be a high school English teacher in Los Angeles, preferably in an underserved community. To hear more of John Joo's music, visit http://www.myspace.com/volleythemusic.

Ching-In Chen

Lyrics from “God of This City” by Bluetree/Chris Tomlin

Greater things have yet to come/ Great things are still to be done/ In this city/ Greater things are still to come/ And greater things are still to be done here. 

I breathe some stuff in, I breathe some other stuff out.  I take in food and drink and expend activity and waste and more.  Our physical beings are created over and over from the environment around us.  We take in some words and ideas and emit others. We are aware of only some of the things we take in and put out. My experience of making music is similar.  Some stuff goes in and music comes out.  Then, after it’s come out I have to get to know it – I have to learn it.  It doesn’t really feel like I made it but more like it passed through me like breath or food or ideas. The other day I was thinking about the ingredients of one of the songs in attraction as if it were a recipe: generous portions of Page Leong’s wonderful prose, the memory of Alejandra Navarro’s lovely voice, a bike ride through Elysian Park, and my tendency toward less common musical modes.   I intentionally read through the part of the play for the music before heading out on the bike ride, knowing that being in motion outside is my prime time for inspiration. I chose some ingredients; I am sure there are thousands of others ingredients of which I am not consciously aware. The larger musical landscape of attraction is a community creation with many musicians passing through (some for longer stays) Traction in this moment contributing ingredients to the production and to one another. I am very grateful for this opportunity to create with so many others.  I have been inspired by the talent and humanity of all I have encountered here. In a couple of days I leave Traction for the far away and foreign land of Minnesota.  My  passing through here was brief. I have breathed in fuel for future use, as well as joy and hope for continuing forward. Bits of all the people and places and sights and sounds I have encountered here come with me, ingredients for future music, interactions, ideas and who knows what? “PI:  Just passing through.  Got my eye on you.”  - from Page Leong's at Traction.

Becky Dale

day 26 - day off/ visiting the neighbors

I had a chance to talk with community cast member Jonathan Jerald (who plays Duke, a Cornerstoner) during some down time during rehearsal. Jerald, with longtime friend Jim Fittipaldi, is starting Bedlam, a new monthly magazine which will cover the urban Los Angeles art scene from the West side to Pomona. Bedlam is a reference to a space that Jim Fittipaldi created and ran for almost 22 years, first in a loft on Molino Street and then in a vast two-story industrial space on 6^th Street, which hosted drawing workshops, live theater and music, performance art and an art gallery. “It was a focal point for arts in downtown Los Angeles,” said Jerald. Jerald has taken over the space formerly known as Al's Bar, which will be the editorial offices for the new magazine as well as an intimate performance space (for about 60 people) and art gallery. Jerald was the managing editor of Citizen LA (www.citizenla.com) for the past two years and left that position to start Bedlam; the first issue is slated to come out in mid-August.  Jerald has a background in journalism and wrote Pure Silver: The Second Best of Everything with David Reid in the 80s.  He also has produced many history documentaries for the History Channel, the last being a history of LSD. Although the last time Jerald acted in a play was when he was Colonel Petkoff in George Bernard shaw's Arms and the Man in high school, his parents and his older sister were both involved in the theater (that's how his parents met!) Jerald loves his experience with Cornerstone though he was initially reluctantly sucked in.  He was walking his dog and told that the production needed dogs and then persuaded to audition. “It's great that Cornerstone Theater is so well known for developing theater nationally, but is finally coming home.  It's fun to see the spectacle put together and get to meet people you normally wouldn't hang out with,” said Jerald.  “It's a gift to whatever community it's in.

Ching-In Chen

day 25 - costumes/ first dress tech

day 24 - future projects

Interview with community actor Jeanne Sales:

C: What performing experience did you have prior to this play?

J: I sang in high school musicals, playing Bloody Mary in South Pacific.

C: Which part of the AtTraction experience has been the most fun?

J: That’s easy—the wonderful people I am meeting, and the opportunity to take part in all of this. This play is a real blessing for me right now. I would call it the cherry on the pie of my retirement!

At this moment Jeanne had to run off to have her microphone fitted. Thanks for participating, Jeanne.

Cate Wiley

day 23 - tech rehearsal

Rooftop Musings

My feet are planted firmly on the bottom rung of a ladder. My eyelids cowering together from the generous sunlight.  Weight evenly distributed. Breathing. Inhaling the breeze and the rare coolness it affords.

I am standing up here, some twenty or thirty feet up in the air. Here, on this rooftop in Los Angeles. How wonderfully unlikely it all is. Here, I can step back and notice the city, removed like a sometimes-visitor of art museums…allowing myself the ability to engage in observation and criticism of that which I know little to nothing about. Marveling at its beauty. Perplexed by its inconsistencies. Curious about its meaning.

I reach down and grasp the metal frame of a light, striving against the heat to feeling my hoist it up to the lighting designer, helping him to craft his portion of this unorthodox theater…built of rooftops and asphalt and poles and yards and yards and yards of cable.

Again, I let myself enjoy the breeze. And the sensory feast surrounding me in this moment. Our street is wild with activity. The click-click-clicking of spray paint cans.  People laughing. Yelling directions to each other over rooftops and down the road. An orchestra of sounds that signal a tuning up of sorts…a preparation for something unknown.

I watch as paint-covered people slather color onto the landscape of the buildings—bright pink, yellow-greens, turquoise. A man walks by with his dog and glances nonchalantly at what he assumes is yet another film crew setting up. Someone in the American hotel starts to blast music from their third story window and a woman dances around the corner. An ice cream truck rounds the corner with a music box melody as artists sweat into their work, transforming dumpsters into gallery-worthy pieces of art.

I am glad to be so present, here on the roof. Coiling cable and hanging lights. Watching this parade of excitement and activity, of concentrated work spilling out into color. A summer afternoon just sizzling with creativity. Community drawing together. And Cornerstone at the heart of it all. I close my eyes for a moment and let the breeze pass, again, over my sun-scorched shoulders. And I smile.

Abby Jackson