Arlekin Players Theatre

Our Diary: MXAT Performance

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:54:48 +0000

Dear diary,
In writing this entry, we hope to keep fresh in our minds, the incredible experience of performing at MXAT in Moscow. The trip can easily be summarized by Sasha Petetsky’s remark “Someone, please pinch me! This cannot be happening,” as he was walking into the elevator with the star of Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislav Lubshin to go up to the buffet in the cafeteria. The buffet at the Moscow Art Theatre was our favorite part of the day, not only because we felt like we were a small part of history, but also because the “apple plushkas” were unbelievable. I think Alla, who is size 8 by now, left the actors of Moscow Art Theatre without “plushkas” for the week that we were there. We felt complete pride being part of the Moscow Art Theatre where the sense of tradition was felt all around us. Every single person we passed in the halls looked us in the eyes at and said “zdravstvujte”, no matter the rank. We had two performances at the Moscow Art Theatre School stage attended by the general public, Mark Rozovsky, Anatoly Smeliansky, Vasilij Istratov (from Russkij Mir) and many of Igor’s and Alana’s classmates. We performed both shows to a full house, but the 7pm show was overflowing with 30 more people than the theatre could accommodate. There were people sitting on the stairs, standing, leaning on the walls and it seems like the stars were aligned for us, especially for the 7pm show. It was a once in a lifetime feeling when the actors onstage became completely in sync with the audience, where the actors could feel and hear the breath of their silence. We had their fullest attention and it seemed like we could do anything onstage. Every movement stirred the audience, it was the ultimate connection that happens once or twice during an actor’s career. There were lots of flowers and a standing ovation, but was different is that the flowers came from completely unknown people, it was a true celebration of theatre.

After the show, in the dressing room, we huddled and were literally jumping from the adrenaline rush. We huddled screaming “we ffff rocked this!!!!!” There was a crowd of people waiting to congratulate the actors, and it was difficult to pass through as I was told that Smeliansky was waiting for me outside. Finally, after breaking through, and running out with half a face of makeup from Mephistopheles, I see Anatoly Smeliansky and Vasiliy Istratov standing together with their arms crossed. I see Smeliansky glowing from the inside and him trying to refrain from showing any emotion (after all he is the head of the greatest theatre school in the world), but at the same time I see huge pride in himself for giving us this opportunity. His exact words were: “Nu chto, mi dovolni” – “So, we are happy”. I jumped! This “dovolni” had so much more behind it, as in Chekhov plays, and made the whole struggle well worth it. We all felt a huge sense of accomplishment and a great sense of fulfillment. We came back from Moscow feeling energized, with new insight and ready for new challenges. We could not be more grateful to our friends and generous supporters who made it possible for us to experience performing on the greatest stage in the world!

- Arlekin Players

EMACT Festival results

admin — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:44:04 +0000

We are extremely proud and excited to announce our winnings and nominations at the 2012 EMACT Massachusetts Drama Festival this past weekend!!

Awards:
Best Actor – Igor Golyak
Special Adjudicator’s Award for Notable Theatrical Risk Taking – Arlekin Players Theatre
Special Adjudicator’s Award for Outstanding Performance – Gene Ravvin
Best Sound – Mike Mcteague, Vadim Khrapatchev

Nominations:
Best Production – “The Guest”
Best Make-up – Lenna Kaleva
Best Supporting Actress – Irina Bordian
Best Supporting Actor- Eduard Snitkovsky
Best Lighting – Mike McTeague
Best Director – Igor Golyak
Best Actress – Alana Kumalagova

This is really a great accomplishment for us performing in Russian (without subtitles), and we are so proud of our first time festival actors who performed wonderfully.

HELP US GET TO MOSCOW ART THEATRE (MXAT) TO PERFORM “THE GUEST”!

admin — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 08:06:49 +0000

It is with great honor that we accept the invitation of the esteemed professor and critic Anatoly Smeliansky to perform our newest production of “The Guest” at the prestigious Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT), in September. We are very excited about this opportunity, but need your help to get there! As a non-profit organization, we thrive from the support of our friends, and right now we need it the most! We are hoping to raise enough funds for our actors to travel to Moscow. With your help, we are aiming to raise $7,500, which is only half the amount it would take for our actors to travel to Russia. We ask you to please consider pledging a donation, no matter how small to support our mission to spread our talent and be recognized around the world.

The Catch: If we do not raise our pledged amount, you do not pay, and we do not receive any money.

ABOUT US

Please watch our video above, which aired both in the U.S. and Israel. RTVI did a truly amazing job capturing the essence of Arlekin.

We are continuously thriving to produce thought provoking, innovative adaptations, and our efforts have not gone unnoticed. Arlekin Players has won both state and regional competitions of the American Association of Community Theatre (AACT) and have been selected to represent the U.S. at the International Theatre Festival in Monaco in 2013! This is a great accomplishment, as we are the first theatre to win these competitions while performing predominantly in a foreign language.

We are a new theatre, but have already accomplished some great feats, and with your help, we can continue to share our productions and our talents and grow our influence. The first step is getting to Moscow, so please help us by donating to our campaign!

Arlekin featured on RTVi