Dylan & the Coffeehouse Tradition

While Under Milk Wood lives inside the Storefront Theater, a whole other world--or rather, series of worlds-- is coming to life in the mezzanine lobby. After sifting through submissions from Chicago, Wales, Ireland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Indiana, Minnesota, and Lithuania--to name just some of the sources, we're putting together The Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret for its one night of glory on Wednesday September 9.

Along with the winners of the Rev. Eli Jenkins' Five & Country Senses poetry competition (named for a Milk Wood poet and a Thomas poem), the Coffeehouse will bring together local and international works inspired by Thomas.

Since our first Coffeehouse in 2005 (The Acorn Forum, companion to the world premiere of Silva and co-funded by the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas), Caffeine has brought together artists from across organizations and disciplines. In 2008 the Antigone Coffeehouse expanded that notion into a mini-performance festival, played to packed houses and made friends around the globe. The Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret continues that tradition.

We're pleased as punch to include new music and dance from locals like The Summer is for Fireflies, Robert Steel, Catherine Glynn, and Chicago Opera Vanguard. We're also thrilled to hear the luminous Nick Rudall read from Dylan's "Prologue." And Pat Hofmann (of past Caffeine shows Sailing to Byzantium and Silva) voice Dylan's wife Caitlin (at an AA meeting, no less!), and Artistic Associate Jeremy van Meter portray the Welsh composer Daniel Jones. Other performers include Artistic Associates Carey Burton and Erik Schnitger, Chuck Filipov and Kaitlin Byrd of Under Milk Wood, and Ian Randall of The Cocktail Party, Many Loves, and The Changeling. The theatre pieces, meanwhile, come to us from Jerome Fellow Monica Raymond, David McCall of County Cork Ireland, Richard Ballon of Amherst, Massachusetts, and many others.

Tickets are free, but eventually we'll run out of chairs, so to take advantage of this one-night event, you'll want to reserve a ticket in advance!

Welsh Heroes

Welsh Heroes: Original Digital Illustrations by Benjy Davies

Benjy Davies kindly gave us permission to share these images from his Welsh Heroes collection inspired by the results of Culturenet Cymru's "100 Welsh Heroes" online poll. To see the layers used to create the images, and to read more about his process and the heroes themselves, visit the Gallery. For instance, the Dylan Thomas image above includes landscape images and manuscripts, as well as Thomas himself.





Sir Richard Burton, a great admirer of Thomas' work and of course very fine actor, performed Under Milk Wood many times, and brought along Liz Taylor as Rosie Probert.






David Lloyd George served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1916-1922, the only Welshmen to hold the office. He was "widely credited with ending the First World War, and setting up infrastructure and procedures that contributed to winning the Second World War."

Robert Owen, an industrialist and social reformer, fought to improve the “dark, satanic mills”of the Industrial Age, and in his 1816 "A New View of Society," espoused a plan for cooperative villages, which inspired the founding of New Harmony, Indiana, among others.








Phil Campbell has been both guitarist of the heavy metal group Motorhead, and a Minister of Health and Labor Party leader.









For close to twenty years, in the 13th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd "ruled a united Wales, and briefly, it appeared that Wales would achieve an independent national status. As history turned, it did not work out that way."





Rowan Williams, despite his outspokenness "against nuclear proliferation, the Iraq war, the over-dependence of the free market as a governing force, and in favor of the ordination of women," and particularly about homosexuality, became the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.







Sir Anthony Hopkins has directed Under Milk Wood and played First Voice. He once performed in Strindberg's The Dance of Death as Olivier's understudy, and Olivier said “He walked away with the role like a cat with a mouse between its teeth”.

This exhibition was sponsored by the Madog Center for Welsh Studies at the University of Rio Grande in Rio Grande Ohio. http://madog.rio.edu/.

Milk Wood Emerges

This Dylan Thomas fellow… we know him mostly for a villanelle he wrote exhorting his father “Do not go gentle into that good night.” We know he’s Welsh, if we think about it, because we likely read in school his Child’s Christmas in Wales.

Entering our sixth season, Caffeine finds ourselves with two poets whom even the scholars call by their first names, as if of friends—one famously pounding whiskey at the White Horse Tavern, one infamously garreted away in her quiet Amherst home—Dylan and Emily, two poets more than half in love with death. (And when you add on the work-in-progress Ode to Akhmatova begun at University of Chicago’s Summer, Inc residency, there’s a third singer of mortality in the mix.) So perhaps the most amazing thing about the work of these poets is the great joy they find in life, and the big-hearted humor in these plays.

This week Thomas’ Under Milk Wood takes shape in the Storefront Theater.

When Thomas was writing the play, the world was still reeling from the bombing of Hiroshima. Some believe the poet gave us his little village of Llareggub to reveal the resilie nce of small daily beauty.

Dedicated to beauty and to the play, our cast and design team make a Llareggub in Chicago.

Uplands getting down for Dylan Thomas

The news from Wales--how often does a Chicago theatre company give you that?

Press Release for Dylan Thomas' 95th birthday in his hometown of Swansea:

"Dylan Down The Ups is the title of a brand new series of events to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas in his home village of Uplands in Swansea on 27th October 2009.

A year ago Anne and Geoff Haden celebrated the opening of the fully restored birthplace of Dylan Thomas at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive with an Edwardian afternoon tea for a hundred people on what would have been the 94th birthday of the most well known man of words of the 20th century.

From that successful event they have moved to team up with residents and traders of the village of Uplands to celebrate his 95th birthday with a series of events planned throughout the day to give the area a party atmosphere despite it being in October.

Says Anne Haden “Swansea is made up of villages and this is Dylan’s – after all it was the place where he lived for over half his life and so much of his work was inspired by the area – this is the least that we can do for him.

“Dylan’s short stories are typically Welsh and full of humour while his poems are deep. The aim is to bring Dylan back to street level through fun, friendliness and accessibility.

“The area still has its Victorian and Edwardian character and what we are aiming to do is make the village the centrepiece of the celebrations with events going on in the street and many of the shops, cafes and the pub.

“People will be able to follow in Dylan’s footsteps and learn about the shops that were in the Uplands in his day when it was a more select shopping area with its own identity

“We want to involve all the community and there will be events for children and adults and because it will be during the October half term should attract a lot of interest from out side Wales.

Geoff Haden says that the plans are in an early stage but confirmed that “There will be a Dylan Look Alike Competition, short story and art competitions and shops will be encouraged to compete in the best dressed window award.

“We are in advanced discussions to premiere in Wales a new play about Dylan – Poem in October – by the writer Robert Forrest written especially for the leading Scottish actor Finlay Welsh.

“The plans have received enthusiastic support from local traders and we hope that this will develop into a week long event by the time that we celebrate the Centenary of Dylan’s birth in 2014.”

Nigel Clatworthy from The Chattery has already given his support to the birthday plans and says “Anne has booked our venue for the poet Peter Thabit Jones and musician Terry Clarke for an evening of Dylan’s work and some new and original material from both performers – it’s something that we are really looking forward to.”

Want to get involved? Telephone 0781 775 3376 or check www.5cwmdonkindrive.com "

Call for poems and performers

Caffeine Theatre seeks short original performance pieces of all kinds (music, dance, theatre, spoken word, poetry, etc.) for the Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret, September 9, 2009, at 7pm in the Storefront Theater Mezzanine (in the Loop, at 66 E Randolph). The Coffeehouse Cabaret celebrates the work of Welsh poet and playwright Dylan Thomas. Any and all pieces inspired by Thomas’ life, work, or themes are welcome. Out-of-Chicago artists are encouraged to send a script, music, poem, etc. to be performed/directed by in-town artists. Collaborations with Chicago arts organizations are welcome and encouraged.

Please email a 1-2 page proposal (or, if the written piece already exists, send that) to Artistic Director Jennifer Shook at jen(at)caffeinetheatre.com including (with understanding that transformation occurs in process) a description of your proposed piece, how many people you expect to be involved, estimated length, and any required resources. (Consideration will be given to minimal pieces with brief setup and small spatial needs.) Please use “Coffeehouse submission” in the subject heading. If it is not evident how your piece relates to Thomas, please include a brief explanation.

Some rehearsal space will be available on a first-come basis. Casting assistance is also available as required and appropriate.
The Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret is produced in association with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and in conjunction with Caffeine’s production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, running at the Storefront Theater August 21-September 27.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: August 5, 2009.
Accepted pieces will be notified by August 12, 2009.

Caffeine also seeks original poetry for Eli Jenkins’ Five and Country Senses poetry competition. Submissions may include any size or style of poem, as long as it is inspired in some way by Dylan Thomas’ life or work, or in some way speaks in conversation with that life or work. Winners will be posted and podcast on Caffeine’s website, and performed at the Dylan Thomas Coffeehouse Cabaret on September 9. Any new or previously written poem may be submitted (provided it can be republished/ recorded/performed). If it is not evident how your piece relates to Thomas, please include a brief explanation.

TO SUBMIT: Email poem(s) and 3-5 sentence description of relation to Dylan Thomas to Caffeine Theatre Artistic Director Jennifer Shook at jen(at)caffeinetheatre.com with “Eli Jenkins” in the subject heading. DEADLINE: August 16, 2009.

Happy National Poetry Month

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month?

In Chicago, we wallow in an embarrassment of poetry riches year-round, and April just revs it up.

Caffeine's mission is to mine the poetic tradition to explore social questions. The word "poetry" can be a little daunting to some (as I wrote about in HereThere magazine in 2008). Yet it carries a long tradition of engaging people both in beauty and in ethical thought.

The origins of spoken drama lie in poetry (Aristotle's Poetics, anybody?). Beckett wrote that he wanted to "bring the poetry back to the drama."

Robert Pinsky says in Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry that poetry is a part of the rhythm of our internal lives, our thoughts and our guts, as well as our external lives, our walking, our speaking, our whimpers and whoops. Octavio Paz says “as long as there are people, there will be poetry.” Ruth Padel succinctly explains why art persists: "Art can be a witness – and, in witnessing, it makes other people see themselves and the world with new eyes."

Last fall we celebrated the 125th birthday of beloved American poet William Carlos Williams with his play Many Loves. Williams puts it well:

"It is difficult to get the news from poems,
Yet men die miserably every day
For lack of what is found there."

We began quoting those particular lines during our first "full-run" production, Sailing to Byzantium, in which W. B. Yeats wondered whether poetry could properly serve a world where young men die for their beliefs. In the play, Ezra Pound answered him with youthful enthusiasm. In real life, Auden wrote this in his own memoriam for Yeats:

"For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth."

Isn't that what, ultimately, theatre does as well? Provide a mouth, and a witness? And a way to step into another world, where we reflect back upon our own lives with new perspective and perhaps new vigor?

The Poetry Foundation (kin to the great Poetry Magazine founded in 1912) issued a call a few years ago for more verse theatre, and Caffeine has answered that call repeatedly--currently with The Changeling. Tallgrass Gothic, then, answers another facet of our mission: to connect that time-honored tradition with the contemporary world.

Poetry has teeth. But it will not bite you. Give it a go this April, and see what poetry can do for you.

- Jennifer Shook, Artistic Director

World Theatre Day approaches

Five years ago, Caffeine committed to expanding the conversation of poetry and theatre and artistic social engagement. We continue to produce works that juxtapose old and new, legacy and innovation. (Sometimes that leads us far afield, and we're proud to be called "Chicago's most reliable source for oddball gems.") Sometimes that leads us right into the classics, like The Changeling. As we asked with our season of ancient Greek drama, we ask again: what is it about these old plays that compels us to return to them?

This and more questions we bring to the planning for celebration of World Theatre Day, approaching on March 27. On the day, we'll be celebrating with a panel on the enduring legacy of classic English drama (and yes, a performance of The Changeling).

But even now, you can prepare to celebrate by reading the WTD statement by the remarkable Augusto Boal, best known in this country for his book Theatre of the Oppressed.

World Theatre Day - International Message

27th March 2009

Augusto Boal

All human societies are “spectacular” in their daily life and produce “spectacles” at special moments. They are “spectacular” as a form of social organization and produce “spectacles” like the one you have come to see.

Even if one is unaware of it, human relationships are structured in a theatrical way. The use of space, body language, choice of words and voice modulation, the confrontation of ideas and passions, everything that we demonstrate on the stage, we live in our lives. We are theatre!

Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting - all is theatre.

One of the main functions of our art is to make people sensitive to the “spectacles” of daily life in which the actors are their own spectators, performances in which the stage and the stalls coincide. We are all artists. By doing theatre, we learn to see what is obvious but what we usually can’t see because we are only used to looking at it. What is familiar to us becomes unseen: doing theatre throws light on the stage of daily life.

Last September, we were surprised by a theatrical revelation: we, who thought that we were living in a safe world, despite wars, genocide, slaughter and torture which certainly exist, but far from us in remote and wild places. We, who were living in security with our money invested in some respectable bank or in some honest trader’s hands in the stock exchange were told that this money did not exist, that it was virtual, a fictitious invention by some economists who were not fictitious at all and neither reliable nor respectable. Everything was just bad theatre, a dark plot in which a few people won a lot and many people lost all. Some politicians from rich countries held secret meetings in which they found some magic solutions. And we, the victims of their decisions, have remained spectators in the last row of the balcony.

Twenty years ago, I staged Racine’s Phèdre in Rio de Janeiro. The stage setting was poor: cow skins on the ground, bamboos around. Before each presentation, I used to say to my actors: “The fiction we created day by day is over. When you cross those bamboos, none of you will have the right to lie. Theatre is the Hidden Truth”.

When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

-Augusto Boal

You can read more about World Theatre Day as well as the 2008 message from Robert LePage at http://worldtheatreday.org/ and http://wtd09.wordpress.com/