CoHo Lab: Feltrinelli//Stability//Tribe

CoHo Lab

Feltrinelli//Stability//Tribe
Public Showing October 14, 8:00pm

$10

Feltrinelli by Philip Cuomo
Ground Stability by Jen Rowe
Suburban Tribe: After France by Kate Mura

Lab Work October 2 – 14

CoHo Lab launched in August 2016 for CoHo Productions to provide dedicated space, time and resources to theatre artists developing new works of performance. Selected artists receive a 20-30 hour workshop residency to develop their work and artist stipends are provided. Each Lab includes a private/invited showing for the artists to receive professional feedback, then culminates in a ticketed showing for a public audience.


Feltrinelli

Created by Philip Cuomo
Performed by Anne Sorce, Stefano Iaboni, Emily Newton, Olivia Weiss
In collaboration with Sascha Blocker
Amy Chiao, Designer
Rosie Lambert, Stage Manager
Nicola Rossi, Assistant

Source material: Feltrinelli: A Story of Riches, Revolution, and Violent Death by Carlo Feltrinelli

In 1940, during WWII, Giannalisa Feltrinelli persuaded the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, to bestow the title marquis of Gargnano on her twelve-year-old son, Giangiacomo. Giannalisa was the richest widow in Italy, and to sweeten the deal she gave Hitler’s partner a large donation. Had Il Duce known the shape his young putative marquis’s career would take, he might have refused no matter what the incentive: By 1944 the teenage Giangiacomo Feltrinelli had joined the Italian volunteer Legnano combat unit attached to the American Fifth Army. The following year he joined the Italian Communist Party and, precociously, became one of its leading figures.

His son, Carlo Feltrinelli, who directs the publishing house and chain of bookstores founded by his father, has written a personal biography. Feltrinelli: A Story of Riches, Revolution, and Violent Death sums up an extraordinary life during a tumultuous historical period. It begins with the late nineteenth-century industrial expansion that gave rise to the Feltrinelli family monopolies, moves into the misery of post–World War II Italy, and ends in a series of jump cuts, allowing readers to arrive at their own interpretation of the cause of Feltrinelli’s demise.

Feltrinelli uses clowning to tell the story of Giangiacomo’s many lives as capitalist, fascist, communist, socialist, and revolutionary.

Philip Cuomo is a director, actor, educator, Third Rail Repertory Theatre core company member, and CoHo’s Producing Artistic Director. His recent directing credits include The How and The Why by Sarah Treem (CoHo Season 21), The New Electric Ballroom by Enda Walsh, Or by Liz Duffy Adams, Belleville by Amy Herzog, The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam and Crooked by Catherine Trieschmann (CoHo Season 18). He has created and directed multiple shows, including La Carpa Del Ausente and La Carpa Calavera for Portland’s Milagro Theatre (Drammy winner for outstanding achievement in directing), and the clown shows Pas Deux Bits, Box O’ Briefs and Exaggeration On A Theme. As an actor he has appeared at Lincoln Center, The Hartford Stage, The Civic Theatre of Central Florida, Third Rail, Artists Repertory Theatre, Shaking the Tree, and Imago Theatre. Philip is an adjunct faculty member at Portland State University teaching movement and clown, and a founder and faculty member of the Institute for Contemporary Performance.


Ground Stability

Created by Jen Rowe
Featuring Beth Thompson, Lorraine Bahr, Angelique O’Rourke, Gwendolyn Duffy, Lucy Paschall, Sasha Belle, and Emilie Landmann

Change can only withstand time when the builders have a solid foundation to build upon. There is a specific and urgent social conversation around Feminism which currently threatens to pit a community of women against itself. The idea of Feminism holds different goals, outcomes, and views for an increasingly younger generation of women. Based on the scene “Thanksgiving” from Under Construction by Charles Mee, Ground Stability explores inter-generational feminism and how the rage and frustration of a younger generation of women is driven by current political administrative decisions and the acceptance of a President who promotes misogyny.

Jen Rowe
is an Actor/Director/Producer. Most recently, she directed a production of Tender Napalm at Shoebox Theater and before that, This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing as a member of the faculty at Western Oregon University. She will be seen acting in a production of this same show in the winter slot at CoHo Theatre. She founded The Quick and Dirty Art Project in 2010 through which she produced and directed Waiting, The Jewish Wife/The Informer, Mercury Fur, The Unseen, Unda, Phaedra’s Love, and DasVedanya Mama. At Portland Playhouse, she directed How We Got On, devised and directed 8 Solo Shows under the comprehensive title Subject To Change. As an Actor, her work has been seen at theaters including Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory, Third Rail Rep, Portland Playhouse and Milagro; Sketch Shows at Curious Comedy, Action/Adventure and Live Wire Radio. Television credits include Discovery Network’s The Satchel, TNT’s The Librarians, and NBC’s Grimm. Film credits include Moral’s Inc. and Road to Bob.

Suburban Tribe: After France

Created by Kate Mura

From a single, 10 minute monologue, the original Suburban Tribe grew into a six mask fringe piece, touring the USA, then heading abroad to Bali, the Adelaide Fringe, and the Avignon OFF Festival in France. Following her performances in France, Mura’s masks, costumes, and box office profits were stolen. Since that time, she has commissioned the creation of seven new masks with the intention of revisiting the original Suburban Tribe and adding a second act, After France, that will tell new stories with the new masks. 

Kate Mura is a multifaceted theatre artist who has called Portland home for almost 12 years. She is an actor, a union stagehand, designer, and coach who chooses theatre as her life’s profession because we constantly prove creating other worlds *is* possible. On this plane, in this reality. It’s her work in life & art to inspire the world she wants to live in, one beautiful, supportive and sustainable through tragedy and pain. More can be found at www.katemura.com.