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Category Archives: Mesa Verde

Randy Rasmussen’s most memorable Plan-B set design

Randy Rasmussen

Randy Rasmussen

Randy Rasmussen has designed nearly every Plan-B set, beginning with MACBETH in 1992. Most recently he designed lighting for the revival of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! and sets for SHE WAS MY BROTHER, MESA VERDE and BORDERLANDS.

Efficient. Minimal. Sparse. These are the words that, if I am lucky enough, people use to describe my scenery. I hope they get that it isn’t always a budget choice that drives the look of Plan-B shows. The real goal is not always entertainment with big flashy sets. So how do we stimulate minds and create social change with shows? Movies provide easy, concrete images and they struggle when they need something more abstract. Theatre is just the opposite. If you let it, the abstract is so easy and the audience will do all the work. My hope is that by leaving things out, the audience immediately knows they have to engage their imaginations. When that happens it is so much easier for their emotions and heart to jump along for the ride. If the audience can become sympathetic with a character and they will leave with an entirely different perspective on the world. That’s all we do or at least that’s what we hope for.

The shows I remember most are the ones that cost next to nothing. See, I believe that we create our reality by the dreams and choices we pursue. It’s not like I think someone can think themselves sick but I do think you might be able to think yourself less sick. Anyway. Sometimes I get to kinda stew with a project a while and stuff just kinda appears around me that is perfect for what we are doing and generally the right size if not already the right color. Seriously the shit just appears!

April Fossen and Christy Summerhays - photo credit Rick Pollock

April Fossen and Christy Summerhays - photo credit Rick Pollock

Pick the most memorable one? Pick ONE? Kinda hard but recently I had a good time with MESA VERDE/ It was made mostly with recycled parts from a University of Utah Lyric Opera and parts from DI ESPERIENZA – who knows how long we have had some of it. It wasn’t prefect the deck was wiggly and squeaky and the paint didn’t dry as fast as I wanted it to, but wow did it look good! The black-on-black thing I saw on native pots and once I saw it used at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. It was a bit of a risk but we do that sometimes. The show looks like it was floating in space: thanks Jesse [Portillo, lighting designer], and the actors [April Fossen, Christy Summerhays, Teresa Sanderson] were flawless. Thanks Cheryl [Ann Cluff, director]. Great script Matt [hew Ivan Bennett, playwright]. Just another perfect little show. Hope you saw it.

Please click here for information on Plan-B’s 2011/12 season, featuring three world premieres by Utah playwrights (all with sets designed by Randy Rasmussen)!

Teresa Sanderson’s Most Memorable Plan-B Role

Teresa Sanderson | Photo credit: Rick Pollock

Teresa Sanderson | Photo credit: Rick Pollock

Teresa Sanderson has appeared in Plan-B’s Script-In-Hand Series, a slew of SLAMs, all but one RADIO HOUR, STAGE DIRECTIONS, ANIMAL FARM, TRAGEDY: A TRAGEDY, THE ALIENATION EFFEKT, EXPOSED, DI ESPERIENZA and MESA VERDE.

Pick my most memorable Plan-B role? I’m not sure how to do that. Each one has been a rich and rewarding experience. It is sort of like picking a favorite child. My history with Plan-B is long. I have made life long friends, and feel lucky to be part of the Plan-B family. There’s ANIMAL FARM (my kids’ favorite) and TRAGEDY: A TRAGEDY (my husband’s favorite).

I guess if I have to pick, I am going to have to say Mary Dickson’s EXPOSED, about the impact of nuclear testing on our state and our nation. To be part of telling Mary’s personal story, thousands of people’s story, as it turns out, was a great honor.

It is a huge responsibility to play real people on stage. In EXPOSED I was excited and intimidated all at the same time. I knew that all of the characters that I played were going to see the show at one point or another.

Now I can really relate to the fact the we were an easy target. Patriotic people who are used to following what our leaders said. I am a very patriotic person, brought up to respect authority. Both of my parents were public servants. My father an authority figure. I did what he said and never ask why. Our government told us we would be safe, and we believed them. I can imagine myself on test days sitting in a lawn chair, “safety” glasses on, watching the blast, writing my name in the ash, like so many kids in Southern Utah did. We were all “exposed” here along the Wasatch Front. From St. George to… well, fallout was reported in pockets all over the United States.
Monday, August 8, 2011

My husband Barry grew up in Roy, Utah, in nice neighborhood with an inordinate number of cancer deaths. When you look at the map of where the fallout went on test days, Roy is covered. Barry has lost over 20 neighbors, including his aunt and uncle (who lived next door to his family) and his own mother to cancer. If we made a map like Irma Thomas did in St. George, all but two house on the block were affected with multiple cancer deaths.

I have lived a relatively charmed life. Yes I have know great loss. I have watched helplessly as the people I love have suffered. But nothing like Michelle Thomas, Elizabeth Catalan, Darlene Phillips – all women I portrayed in EXPOSED – live with everyday of their lives. I can relate to their fight these women. What I can’t imagine is living in that kind of pain, all day, every day. Dealing with the anger, the betrayal.

When opening night of EXPOSED arrived. It was hard to miss Michelle’s wheelchair in the front row. Darlene was in the house as well. The other characters I played all saw the show at one point or another during the run. I think they were all satisfied with my work, and more importantly, they were thrilled to have their stories told.

A year after the first run of the show closed we toured Utah. EXPOSED was very well received in Moab. We had a lively post-show discussion. The anger in the theatre was palpable. Moab is still in the process of cleaning up uranium tailings in their own community.

But in St. George, there was NO audience. We basically did a matinee so my mom could see the show. There were maybe 15 people in the audience. After the post show discussion, a young man approached us and said he was born and raised in St George. He had lost several family members to cancer and other illnesses attributed to testing. He had never heard even a whisper of this story. He was outraged. An activist was born that day.

We ended each performance of the run and the tour with the reading of a list of names that have lost their lives to to testing. After each performance people in the audience gave us new names as they left the theatre and we added them to the next performance. My cousin’s husband is on the list, Barry’s aunt and uncle and his mom were added to the list. And so was Jerry’s mother.

I will never forget one patron discussing the play with me months after seeing the show. She actually said, “Well it was a very one-sided view. Our government would never put its citizens in danger like that.” A cold chill ran up my spine. I went home, sat down and wrote letters to my representatives. There will be no more testing in my lifetime, without me speaking out.

April Fossen’s Most Memorable Plan-B Role

April Fossen has appeared in Plan-B’s Script-In-Hand Series, a slew of SLAMs, MIASMA, SHE WAS MY BROTHER and MESA VERDE.

It’s difficult for me to write about playing the role of Tabitha in MESA VERDE by Matthew Ivan Bennett, because writing about it makes me realize that the role was (and clearly still is) too close. Playing Tabitha was powerful and all-encompassing and I had to force myself to leave her behind when the show closed so I could get on with the business of life. I lived inside Tabitha’s mind and emotional world for almost 5 years and as incredible of an experience as it was, I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. I’m a big proponent of actors keeping a safe distance from their characters. I don’t believe in “method” acting and I try not to take characters home with me. I think the work belongs in the space and real life belongs everywhere else. But sometimes, there is so much of a character in you and so much of you in a character that the separation becomes impossible.

I don’t know that I can describe how I feel I’m like Tabitha, or how she’s like me. There’s the obvious; I’m stubborn, I’d rather joke about something than have a deep discussion, I have in turns loved and hated my sisters, I can be distant if you push too hard… But that’s not the meat of it. The meat is something I can only describe by saying I FEEL her. Which is so touch-feely-actor-y it makes me squirm to even write it. But here’s the thing: that’s not enough. “Feeling” doesn’t mean anything on stage, it’s not something you can communicate. It’s just background noise going on in the actor’s head. And it can easily make a performance indulgent. Which is why I’m so thankful we had a smart and level-headed director like Cheryl Cluff. Only Cheryl could stand in a room with 3 women who brought a lot to the rehearsal…a lot of experience, a lot of pain, a lot of feelings, a lot of love…and tell them “no crying.” That we had to put all of that in our back pockets and just tell the story. And she was right. Which isn’t to say there was no crying in the rehearsal room. There was plenty. And after rehearsal on the drive home. And in the shower in the morning. Because I couldn’t help but connect the dots. Between Tabitha and my brother who has been fighting cancer for almost 3 years. Between Tabitha’s illness and my own female problems. Between Tabitha watching her mother battle illness and my own children watching me struggle with unexplained pain and bleeding. The connections were just there. And I allowed myself to feel them. I let everything come to the surface so I knew it was there, then squashed it all down so it wouldn’t get in the way. And now, when I try to write about it, months after closing the show, it all comes back again.

I realize all of this makes it sound like a horrible experience. Which is exactly the opposite of what it was. Over the course of those 5 years I gained 2 loving sisters, 2 dear mothers, 2 beloved directors, and a trusted playwright friend. I gained a different perspective about the world, about illness and death, about pain and intimacy. And I learned so much about the things that connect us all, those mysterious threads that draw us towards people and experiences that will change us. I feel so privileged to have been part of the development of this beautiful new play. So privileged to have been given the opportunity to see this role through from its conception in SLAM to a full production. So privileged to have been let into the life of this character and the incredible woman who was the inspiration for her. Tabitha is more than just a memorable role for me. She has been a huge part of my life and she will always be with me.

Musings from the cast of MESA VERDE

Christy Summerhays, Teresa Sanderson, April Fossen | Photo Credit: Rick Pollock

Christy Summerhays, Teresa Sanderson, April Fossen | Photo Credit: Rick Pollock

APRIL FOSSEN (TABITHA)

How do I write about an experience that I’ve waited almost 5 years to have? About a part that I feel was written for me? A part that was never ‘mine’, but I’ve always felt ownership of? **sigh* There’s a lot to say about this experience. But most of it is stuff I say to myself and won’t be of interest to anyone else.

It is a rare privilege to be involved with MESA VERDE. It has been from the beginning. When we first read the 10-minute SLAM version of the play, we all knew we were holding something special in our hands. Something that was personal and raw and real. And as the play has grown over these years it has become more so. Strangely, the play has also become more personal and more real for me. I have watched my two daughters get 5 years older and develop singular personalities that are oh so different from each other. They bicker almost all the time now. The younger one is thrilled beyond words when the older one is affectionate toward her. I’ve watched it happen and felt powerless to influence it. Their relationship is theirs, there is nothing I or anyone else can do to make it any different. They will grow into it, and (I hope) it will get better as they become adults. In these years, I have struggled with my own variety of female problems (nothing akin to cancer) and seen how that changed me, how I related to people, how I dealt with life, how terrifying the threat of losing a body part, any body part can be, let alone those body parts. I have also watched from a distance as my oldest brother has battled cancer and seen how a healthy relationship with his own adult children has made the experience not a death march but a daily affirmation of hope and health.

It has also been a rare privilege to be in a rehearsal room with 4 other women. Just women. Truly rare. Amazing women, as well. Women who are open and giving and, really, nothing like the characters in this play. Working together with them on this script has been difficult and fun and exhilarating and exhausting. There’s so much more to this play than meets the eye. More than you find on the first or the 500th reading. I’m still learning about these characters, about these relationships, about the moment to moment interaction. About how they love and dislike and support and deny each other. About their truth and how it changes when they are together. I’m sure I will continue to discover things as we perform. And then, sadly, this journey will end. It has changed me.

TERESA SANDERSON (GODDESS)
I wouldn’t say this play has been easy to work on. It is an emotionally charged piece. We have shared many stories and tears.

But the women I am working with are so accessible. It has been fun and exciting to explore the text together – shape our characters and relationships.

I usually do a lot of background research, and this project was no different. I read a lot about chronic pain, the illnesses and medications that go along with it. Watched some Deadliest Catch, Flying Wild Alaska, and even some Ballroom Dance Competitions.

Oh, and lots and lots of Chopin. I read about Mesa Verde itself, then read Native American stories, which led me to the image and legend of Spider Woman.

Spider Woman decided that men should build kivas. She gave us the 4 directions – North, South, East and West – and the elements. She creates order from chaos.

All that, some life experience, lots of time with the text.

These women. A beautiful set, that we have been lucky to work on from day one, gorgeous lighting, precise sound. Under Cheryl’s direction and with Jen in the technical driver’s seat, I would say we are about ready to open a play!

CHRISTY SUMMERHAYS (TAMARA)
My first thought when I knew I was going to be doing this play and this part was “Wow…it’s gonna be ALL women…COOL!” Now, let me explain…this isn’t because I have anything against men, in fact I generally get along great with men. I was very close to my father and my brothers, I was a tomboy and playing football with the boys was my idea of a good time. My excitement about working with women came from the desire to become more of one. To learn from the best how it’s done. And when I looked around at this group I knew I was going to learn some cool stuff. And I have.

My second thought was specific to my character, Tamara. How am I going to do this? How am I going to relate to this woman who is so different than I am (or how I perceive myself)? As I have proceeded with my work on the part, I’ve learned what I almost always learn as an actor…the human experience, no matter how it looks from the outside, is essentially the same. We all pretty much want the same stuff, have the same needs…love, connection, validation, to be heard, to have purpose. This play is about two sisters who are trying to get that from each other and from a mother who is no longer living. It is about learning how to look at yourself more honestly, which any attempt at a deep relationship will teach you, if you will let it.

Another thing I’ve enjoyed about this process is remembering that we, as humans, are…well…pretty hilarious. The awkwardness and the fumbling we go through! And to explore it in a theatrical setting, with wonderful actresses and a great director and stage manager? And with a script written by a gifted playwright? Pretty good stuff.

Plan-B Theatre Company presents

the world premiere of MESA VERDE
February 24-March 6, 2011
Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner
Thurs-Fri at 8pm | Sat at 4pm and 8pm | Sun at 2pm
Tickets $20 here or 801.355.ARTS

MESA VERDE, Matthew Ivan Bennett’s most personal play focuses on the relationship between two estranged sisters (played by April Fossen and Christy Summerhays) and their late mother (played by Teresa Sanderson, who also portrays several other characters) in this complex quest for hope and healing. A play about facing family. Directed by Cheryl Ann Cluff.

 

Marcine Lake: When Real Life & Art Collide

Marcine Lake

Marcine Lake

How fititng that this post is on Valentine’s Day!

Few people can say that they have battled cancer, and even fewer can say that someone wrote a play about it! MESA VERDE by Matthew Ivan Bennett is a story of my struggle with myself when I battled ovarian cancer.

I always told Matt to write what he knows and would often find a funny line or situation from my real life appear in one of his scripts. In fact, I think most of Matt’s friends could say the same thing: “That character is totally me on paper.” or “Oh dude, I totally remember when that happened.” But nothing quite compares or prepares you for having one of the scariest and most intimate parts of your life set on stage for God and the whole world to see. And nothing can ever prepare you for the feeling of an audience crying and laughing at what is quite possibly the hardest part of your life.

MESA VERDE sort of just happened; Matt never planned to write a story about my cancer. Matt wrote it for SLAM in 2006. It came to him as the title was assigned to him. It was short – just 10 minutes – and beautiful. Matt tried to prepare me for seeing it by casually saying, “It is ‘kind of’ about you.” ‘Kind of’ might have been a bit of an understatement. As I sat and watched my own personal, spiritual and philosophical inner struggle, portrayed simply and beautifully by 3 actresses, I was overcome with emotion and amazed at how much Matt had understood about my struggles. What was even more overwhelming was watching the audience around me experience the same emotional journey that cancer had taken me on. At that moment I knew that it was important for me to share my story, I knew that it would bring others who have struggled comfort, and most importantly I knew that Matt would need to be the one to write it.

Cancer comes with a lot of stigmas that can leave a person feeling isolated. There is this old-school philosophy that was should treat illnesses with reverence and only ever whisper their names. Nothing was worse than that: the whispering of people around me. “What is wrong with her?” “Oh, Marcine, she has cancer.” No one ever knows what to say to someone who is sick…should they talk about it, joke about it, ignore it? But the hardest part of being sick is not being sick. It is feeling alone, unsure; being forced to question everything you once believed in and the desperation, the willingness to try anything, if only given the time. That is the part of cancer that needs to be told: the part where you want to fight for every small piece of your life and at the same time the part where you really want to give up because the fight is too hard, and the part where all you have left is the spirit inside you, that small voice that drives you. I wanted those who have been sick and those who have nursed the sick to know that someone understands. We don’t need to be reverent. Matt has allowed me this opportunity.

Matt constructed this piece into a full-length play and, nearly 5 years later, it has been my pleasure to be part of the process. It has been a labor of love and understanding for Matt and a form of therapy and acceptance for me. I look forward to seeing the full production on stage for the first time and feel blessed to be able to share a part of my soul. I’m very thankful to Matt for helping me, so eloquently, to tell my story.

Plan-B Theatre Company presents
the world premiere of MESA VERDE
February 24-March 6, 2011
Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner
Thurs-Fri at 8pm | Sat at 4pm and 8pm | Sun at 2pm
Tickets $20 here or 801.355.ARTS

MESA VERDE, Matthew Ivan Bennett’s most personal play focuses on the relationship between two estranged sisters (played by April Fossen and Christy Summerhays) and their late mother (played by Teresa Sanderson, who also portrays several other characters) in this complex quest for hope and healing. A play about facing family. Directed by Cheryl Ann Cluff.

Marcine Lake will participate in the free post-show discussion with the cast, director and playwright on Sunday, February 27 following the 2pm matinee.

Matthew Ivan Bennett: Creating MESA VERDE

Matthew Ivan Bennett

Matthew Ivan Bennett

This blog entry also appears in the February 2011 issue of CatalystMagazine.

MESA VERDE is a play for sisters, mothers, daughters and anyone that’s ever faced their family dynamics and walked away wiser. It follows Tamara and Tabitha, two sisters who come together when one of them falls sick, allowing them to finally air their feelings about their mother, the way she died, the way she lived and taught them to live. MESA VERDE is about seeing the joy in our broken relationships and releasing the past.

I start work on a play with a simple image. Even if the image isn’t literally onstage, I like having an unframed “oil painting” in my head of what the play is viscerally, mythologically and emotionally. When I shuffled in for SLAM 2006 (Plan-B’s 24-hour theatre festival) I was shown a black-and-white slide projection of an ancient, wooden ladder reaching through darkness to a square of light. That image was the seed of the now full-length play MESA VERDE.

Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde

I was head over feet for Mesa Verde State Park as a boy. What kid wouldn’t want to live on a cliff side? I remember dashing ahead of my family to clamber down into a kiva and standing there in a dim, hair-raising silence. I knew I was in a church of sorts. I knew that the clergy had called on different gods than my clergy; gods under the earth. But most mysterious was the question of why the ancients left Mesa Verde…Why would they ever leave that gorgeous red fortress? I still wonder.

So the ladder image, my memories, and my questions all coalesced and drew me into months of literary darkness. With the first incarnation of the script at SLAM, the kiva became a womb and the story a “female” story. My partner at the time had been through ovarian cancer, and more recently a cyst scare, and I found my own fears about it slopping on the page. When she was first diagnosed she didn’t want to talk about it much and I feigned optimism and pushed down the worry. With MESA VERDE it broke free.

Also out of the sacred womb sprang a Goddess character, there to drag me and my characters – two sisters – through the fear. At first she was the voice of that old optimism, but slowly she became honest, coming to embody that disturbed silence of the kiva – that silence that says: “You cannot pretend here. Here you will meet monsters. And they will all be you.” The Goddess character simply had to step out of the kiva shadows, and had to develop into the alternately gentle and chilling force she is, because otherwise I would’ve been betraying my memory of that kiva. I was both intrigued and repulsed by it.

With a little breathing room from the project now, I see that the sisters are facing the under-dark of family in that kiva. I knew that as the play evolved, but the process was so emotional that my bird’s eye on the piece was emotional. During the writing it was easier to feel the trajectory of it all than to say in words “Here’s where it’s going…” The result is a play that combines the alluringly eerie energy of Amerindian ruins with the unsettling question of “How much are you like your mother? …Really.” The result is a play that juxtaposes the two versions of “Mesa Verde.” One “Mesa Verde” is a green table, a lush fantasy fortress. The other “Mesa Verde” is an abandoned desert town. One vision looks back kindly; one vision sees loss and starvation.

The kiva image inspired me in a way I couldn’t have foreseen, and led me to serious ruminations about family, personality, and about the symbology of place. I’m grateful to have encountered it.

Plan-B Theatre Company presents
the world premiere of MESA VERDE
February 24-March 6, 2011
Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner
Thurs-Fri at 8pm | Sat at 4pm and 8pm | Sun at 2pm
Tickets $20 here or 801.355.ARTS

MESA VERDE, Matthew Ivan Bennett’s most personal play focuses on the relationship between two estranged sisters (played by April Fossen and Christy Summerhays) and their late mother (played by Teresa Sanderson, who also portrays several other characters) in this complex quest for hope and healing. A play about facing family. Directed by Cheryl Ann Cluff.