The Building Stage, a Chicago theater company noted for its unique retellings and adaptations of various media to the stage announces their newest and largest endeavor to date: The Ring Cycle. The Ring Cycle is a non-operatic theatrical re-imagining of the famous Richard Wagner opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung. This epic project opens in previews January 30, 2010 and will synthesize 16 hours of opera into a six-hour theater piece co-directed by The Building Stage Artistic Director Blake Montgomery and Associate Artistic Director Joanie Schultz. The official opening performance of The Ring Cycle is February 13, 2010. It then runs each Saturday and Sunday through March 14, 2010. Tickets are $40 ($32 for students/seniors) and may be purchased at www.buildingstage.com or by calling 312-491-1369.
The Ring Cycle is an exciting project for the Building Stage, not only due to the challenge of adapting a story of this massive size and scope, but also because people may recognize the name of the piece or a character, however, the actual story is not well known. Aspects of this epic tale of mythology and psychology are echoed throughout other great large-scale productions such as Star Wars or The Lord of the Ring. German and Norse mythology and sagas inspired Wagner's original vision, and with that inspiration he created an amazing opera cycle that has a narrow but dedicated audience. The Building Stage is working towards creating a massive re-envisioning for The Ring Cycle that will bring new audiences to Wagner's world and provide his fans with an exciting new look at the work that is beloved by them. The Building Stage's The Ring Cycle will focus on making this ancient story contemporary, immediate, fun, and emotionally powerful. Using Wagner's libretti as a starting point, the story conceived by co-directors Montgomery and Schultz and developed by the ensemble.
While original scores of the operas will not be performed, music still plays a large role in this production. The orchestral score of The Ring of the Nibelung is well known for its complex leitmotifs adding layers of meaning and weight to the text. These motifs will be a partner in the production, both in finding theatrical ways to express them, and with the newly composed musical components included in The Ring Cycle.
Kevin O'Donnell, composer and bandleader, is charged with working from the original score to create a new soundtrack for a band to perform live onstage.
As with all Building Stage creations, the production design will evolve alongside the creation of the piece, taking shape as the scenes begin to inhabit the space. The core design team for The Ring Cycle is production designer Lee Keenan and company member Meghan Raham, who previously collaborated with The Building Stage on the visually astounding, and award winning, Noir.
The Directors of The Ring Cycle:
Blake Montgomery is an actor, director, and creator whose approach to theater reflects his training at L'École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq (as well as its scenographic wing, Le Laboratoire d'Etude du Mouvement), the Dell'Arte School of Physical Theater, the Margolis-Brown Movement Theater Lab, and with master clown Ronlin Foreman. He has conceived and/or directed the Building Stage productions: Hamlet, Dustbowl Gothic, Moby-Dick, Noir, and Dracula. Montgomery played Halvard Solness in the Building Stage production of The Master Builder. In 2007, he appeared as Dr. Prentice in What the Butler Saw at the Court Theater. Previous to founding the Building Stage, he worked extensively with Redmoon Theater where he performed in Seagull at the Steppenwolf Studio, Nina outdoors in Los Angeles and in Humboldt Park, and Salao: The Worst Kind of Unlucky Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare.
Joanie Schultz is a theater and opera director whose recent Chicago theater work includes In Arabia We'd All Be Kings at Steep Theater(Jeff Nomination-Best Director/Best Production), A Perfect Wedding and Stone Cold Dead Serious at Circle Theatre, , frag and Faster at the side project, Many Loves for Caffeine Theater, and Betty's Summer Vacation with Infamous Commonwealth Theatre. She also recently directed the Cultural Center Summer Opera, Acis and Galatea, and Carmen at the Bay View Music Festival. She has directed opera for Roosevelt University, and is on the theater directing faculty at Columbia College Chicago. In 2007, she made her Off-Broadway debut, directing the world premiere of Sean Graney's Autophagy with the Drama League Directorfest. Schultz is co-artistic director of The Estrogen Fest and formerly founded and was artistic director of Flush Puppy Productions. She holds her MFA in directing from
Northwestern University, her BA in directing from Columbia College, was a Drama League Directing Fellow, is the 2009
Michael Maggio Directing Fellow at the
Goodman Theatre, and is a member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab. www.joanieschultz.com
The Building Stage opened its doors with a critically acclaimed new vision of Hamlet in the fall of 2005, described as "an exquisite bare-bones [production]" (Performink Year in Review), and "a triumph of extraordinary achievement" (Gay Chicago). Since then the company has been honored with an After Dark Award for Outstanding Production (Dustbowl Gothic) and has presented a world premiere adaptation of Moby-Dick, an original work created out of clips from 1940s cinema classics called Noir (After Dark Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement), a minimalist adaptation of
Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder, and a silent film-inspired adaptation of
Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
In founding the company, Artistic Director Blake Montgomery, after a decade of training and creating work in the tradition of Physical Theater, wanted to take what he had learned in a new direction. "Most people-if they are aware of it at all-think of the physical theater only in terms of its technical and stylistic variations: mask, clown, movement, and mime. But what these forms have in common is how they lead to a whole different way in thinking about theater and the methods of its creation. I wanted to create work from this physical perspective while being free to explore a wide range of subjects, styles, and forms."
The Building Stage operates on the belief that theater is made not written. And while every project has its own unique process of creation, each is driven by the spirit of investigation: to ask, through the action on stage, how a piece functions, how it is constructed, and what must be done to make it work. Whether applied to the staging of an original idea, the adaptation of literature and other media, the reinterpretation of a pre-existing dramatic text, or the exploration of a specific theatrical form, it is this approach to the work that defines us.
The Building Stage company members include: David Amaral, Daiva Bhandari, Christopher Hibbard, Fannie Hungerford, Lori Myers, Meghan Raham, and Max Wirt. Blake Montgomery is Artistic Director, Joanie Schultz is Associate Artistic Director and Interim Managing Director.
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