Take Ten Pictures

Well, it's been about a month since out Take Ten festival, but I finally got the time to put up just one picture from each of ours plays, plus one extra from our awards ceremony. We were so thrilled to get to work with such talented writers, directors, actors and stage crew. There are even more pictures in our

facebook album, so please check them out. All are by the talented Vladimir Weinstein. 

At Least He Didn't Die With Antlers On His Head by Thomas Levirer
Directed by Giovanna Aguilar
Pictured: Andrew Matthews, Matt Davis, Basilica Bliachas, David Donahoe

Killing Cupid, OK by Lindsay Bryde (Semi-finalist)
Directed by Lindsay Bryde
Pictured: Brendan Brierley and Larissa Diaz

Disappearing by Cathy Earnest (Winner for Best Play)
Directed by Jaclyn Gramigna (Winner for Best Director)
Pictured: Benjamin Foronda (Nominated for Best Actor), Jennifer Hunter (Winner for Best Actress)

Driving Herd by Sam Graber
Directed by Vincent Scott
Pictured: Juan Carlos Diaz, James Wilcox

Fade by Zachary Rufa (Nominated for Best Play)
Directed by Alexandra Keegan (Nominated for Best Director)
Pictured: Brady Wailbel and Olivia Harding (Nominated for Best Actress)

Getting it off in Ought Eight by David Wilcox
Directed by Cindy Kawasaki
Pictured: Kathleen Fletcher, Alexander Petrov

Give Me Something Good to Eat by John Glass
Directed by Johnny Culver
Pictured Charles Baran, Erik Neilssen and Marianne Hardat

Jumping In by Seth Freeman (Semi-finalist)
Directed by Noelle P. Wilson
Pictured: Kati Rae Cowardin, Jessica Cadden Osborne (Nominated for Best Actress)

Last Call for Love by Shasone Lambert
Directed by Shashone Lambert
Pictured: Shashone Lambert, Steven Strickland

Maturity by Aaron Leventman
Directed by Graydon Gund
Pictured: Molly Garbe, James Addison

The New Models by Rory Leahy
Directed by Art Brown
Pictured: R.A. Guirand, Heidi Jaye

Paul & Eddie by Ken Brisbois (Nominated for Best Play)
Directed by Natalia Lopez (Nominated for Best Director)
Pictured: Miguel Belmonte (Nominated for Best Actor), Nick Lopez (Winner for Best Actor)

Psycho Therapy by Tom Cherwin (Semi-finalist)
Directed by Ian Ogden (Nominated for Best Director)
Pictured: Costa Nicholas (Nominated for Best Actor), Ari Vigoda

Scars by Greg Abbot (Nominated for Best Play)
Directed by Veronica Dang
Pictured: Marissa Wolf (Nominated for Best Actress), Collin Blackard

The Oak Tree by Jay Koepke (Semi-Finalist)
Directed by Mark Cirnigliaro
Pictured: Chelsea Spack, Christopher Bennighoff, Sam Warren

Waiting by Jeremy Rafal

Directed by Michel Chahade

Pictured: Karen McFarlane, Gaston Franco

Winner for Best Play, Cathy Earnest with Co-Artistic Directors, Jasmine Brown and Samantha Manas

Don't they look swell? We also got a write up in a blog and the Windy City Media Group, so check those out!

As for our next project, you will hear about that very soon! We're still negotiating with spaces, but the plan is for our evenings of one-acts to take place at the end of June and they will feature plays by Samantha, Karl, Jasmine (me) and Cathy, as well as direction by Jasmine (still me), Samantha and Grady. Stay tuned!

It's coming soon!

Hi, friends and fans!

How's it going? Things are really getting crazy for us. Our very first festival is coming up, the week of March 19th-24th. Can you believe it? All the directors, writers, actors and crew have been working really hard and we're excited to see what they came out with. Meanwhile, we've been promoting the heck out if, with postcards, facebook ads and press releases. The only thing we need now? An audience to come out and vote on these plays! And actually, we're pretty confident we're gonna have that. The work speaks for itself.

Speaking of which, wanna see the lovely graphic we have for the Take Ten festival, designed by Dan Streeting?

Gorgeous, right?

Check out our festival website, facebook event or search for Take Ten on Smarttix.com to order tickets.

Hey, all!

     Just a quick little update. First of all, yes, we had to cancel the mardi gras party due to weather concerns. Sad, I know. I wanted to be able to post some scandalous pictures!

But the good news is that we are moving forward with the Take Ten festival! We have a website (under construction), a facebook event and oh, yeah, you can order tickets!

More on all of this very, very soon!

What's Happened and What's Coming Up

First of all:

We're proud to officially announce the 16 plays for our Take Ten Festival on March 19-24 at Roy Arias Stage II.

The Oak Tree by Jay Koepke
Maturity by Aaron Leventman
Killing Cupid, Ok by Lindsay Bryde
Give Me Something Good To Eat by John Glass
Psycho Therapy by Tom Cherwin
Disappearing by Cathy Earnest
Driving Herd by Sam Graber
At Least He Didn't Die With Antlers On His Head by Thomas Levrier
Jumping In by Seth Freeman
Paul & Eddie by Ken Brisbois
Fade by Zachary Rufa
Last Call for Love by Shashone Lambert
Scars by Greg Abbott
Getting It Off in '08 by J D Wilcox
Waiting by Jeremy Rafal
The New Models by Rory Leahy

We've been having a lot of meeting in the past few months to get all the details down, so expect to hear even more from us about this very soon! Check out the website for the festival here. We are currently designing the logo and getting all of the directors matched up with the writers. 

Secondly, I'm happy to say that our holiday party/fundraiser was a great success! We've tried several venues for these types of events and although we enjoyed them all, we found a really good fit with Traffic! We'll likely be hosting future events there, so look out...and thanks to those who came out with us for this event a few weeks ago! You can check out the photo album we have on facebook for just a little slice of the fun we had!

Finally, we're going to be having a Mardis Gras themed event this february 16th. We don't have the venue or time info yet, but it will include dance, music, movement and comedy!

Check back with us soon!

Holiday celebrations!

Hi, everyone! First of all, Happy Hanukkah!

In the spirit of that, and all the other holidays we celebrate during the winter season, Between Us is having a holiday party! That's at Traffic Bar on December 22nd (you know, the day after the world is supposed to end...you'll need a drink) at 8pm. For just 5 dollars, you'll get a raffle ticket to win a $100 gift certificate to Traffic, get drink specials and a holiday candy. Plus you'll be supporting great art and chilling with us!

In other news, our Assistant Artistic Director, Karl Custer aka Uncle Yo, recently did a podcast interview all about us...check it out!

Finally, there is less than one day left to support our indiegogo campaign! We're still very far from our goal and we need help giving these artists the support they deserve!

Check back soon to hear the full lineup for the festival as well as news about what we're doing for Mardis Gras this year (because you know that's our thing now!)

Pics and a plea

How was everyone's thanksgiving? One thing we know that we're thankful for is the incredible community of artists and audience members and for those of you who read this blog! Let us know if there's more we can do to make it more interesting.

One thing we can share are some pictures from our last two events!

First of all, on October 20th, we had a Halloween themed improv night:

Elise Baker, Jeremy Rafal, Karl Custer, Samantha Lee Manas and Chris Barber

Chris Barber, Elise Baker and Veronica Dang

Elise Baker, Chris Barber, Veronica Dang and Jasmine Brown

Samantha Lee Manas and Jeremy Rafal

Elise Baker and Jeremy Rafal

Karl Custer, Jasmine Brown, Samantha Lee Manas, Veronica Dang, Jeremy Rafal, Elise Baker and Chris Barber

Elise Baker, Karl Custer (aka Uncle Yo) and Chris Barber

We also have pictures from our November Notes Between Us:

Alaska in the Summertime by Anna Fox.
Pictured: Anna Stefanic. 

Lily by Caity Shea Violette.
Pictured: Anna Stefanic, Scott Klavan, Lisette Espaillat and Amelia Huckle-Bauer

High Hard Ones by Charles O' Connor
Pictured: Ivan Perez, Elliot Crown and Emile Lafond.

High Hard Ones by Charles O' Connor
Pictured: John E. Simes.

The Sub by Vincent Gomez
Pictured: Ivan Perez, Emile Lafond and Jasmine Brown. 

Now, of course, this is all leading up to our festival and performances in the spring, but we need your support to make those things happen. We're getting there, but we need a lot more and the campaign is ending in 15 days!( link to the indiegogo campaign).  Please donate and/or promote! We really need you!

Stay tuned because we will have the official list of the 16 plays for our festival up shortly (we have 14 confirmed, but I wanted to give you the full list), plus what events we have going on this winter. We can tell you that the festival will be from March 18-24 at Roy Arias Stage II. It's all booked, baby!

Moving on since Sandy

Hi there, Between Us fans! It's been awhile!

First things first, I want to let you know that the Between Us Family rode out Superstorm Sandy safely.  As I'm writing this, however, many people in New York and New Jersey still have no power, have lost their homes and have had a host of other problems from the storm. This is our home and we're proud of the efforts made to help one and other and committed to staying strong for one and other. Please let us know what's going on in your community and if there is anything we can do to help.

Before the storm, as I mentioned before, we had a Halloween themed Improv battle. It was a great success, with audience members as well as Sam (Samantha Manas), Karl Custer (Uncle Yo) and me (Jasmine Brown) getting in on the action. Pictures to come!

Missed that? Well, luckily, we have an event coming up! This Saturday, November 17th, we are having a reading! It will be featuring for original plays, three of which were originally submitted as part of our upcoming ten minute play festival, so that will be a fun sneak peek as to the caliber of plays you should be expecting. The plays will be directed by myself, Samantha Manas and Graydon Gund. This will be Grady's directorial debut with Between Us Productions. He's our newest member of the company, but this will be a great time to really get to know his work. We're pretty excited about that!

As for the plays themselves, you'll meet such interesting characters as a submissive substitute, a Jewish gangster, grieving parents and the north wind, all played by some of the best actors in New York. It should be a memorable night! That's at 8pm at the Director's Studio.

 Check it out on facebook.

We are also still running are indiegogo campaign for our festival and stage productions in the spring. We really need the support, so if you can give anything please do. And do it soon, because the campaign is ending soon! And if you can't...at least share the campaign somewhere! Let's get the word out!

indiegogo campaign link