Jenny Lyn Bader

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None of the Above at the Lion Theatre


Poster from Manhattan Casanova's World Premiere at Hudson Stage Company

Recently

July
Jenny Lyn read from her new play at Kathleen Warnock's cool reading series Drunken! Careening! Writers! At KGB Bar in the east village.

Also this month Best 10 Minute Plays for Three or More Actors: 2007 (Smith & Kraus) hit bookstores.

April-May: 2Gether
2Gether — a play written by a group of writers and put together by director Ari Laura Kreith — was performed in the Six Figures festival in New York.

March: visit to Villanova
Jenny Lyn was just a guest speaker at Villanova University, where she spoke at two classes and in a public lecture, and the students asked great questions. Any more questions, please feel free to drop a line!

Happy Valentine's!
In February Jenny Lyn was delighted to participate in a Valentine's Week benefit for Women's Expressive Theatre (W.E.T.) where 7 short plays about love were performed, including Jenny Lyn Bader's Valentine's Play starring the extremely delightful pair Neil Patrick Harris and Ricki Lake.

Recent Productions & Events:

None of the Above made its Off-Broadway debut at the Lion Theatre on Theatre Row this past fall, produced by South Ark Stage (Artistic Director, Rhoda Herrick).


Last winter, Manhattan Casanova premiered at Hudson Stage, "Westchester's answer to Off-Broadway." Read about the play in the New York Times here! (or scroll down if the link doesn't work...)

The play was then selected for the International Centre for Women Playwright's (ICWP) 2007 Chicago: Her-Rah Festival: A Festival of The World's Best Women Playwrights and Their New Plays. Linda Roberts directed it in Chicago at the Around the Coyote Arts Complex in June.




Critic's Notebook

Where a Casanova Meets His Match


If “Manhattan Casanova” had been written in 1959 as a Doris Day-Rock Hudson movie, it would go something like this:



Skip to next paragraph






Gerry Goodstein


Ideal Man James Kiberd is surrounded by, from left, Abbie Killeen, Elizabeth Hess, Kari Swenson Riely and Janine Barris (front) in “Manhattan Casanova” at Hudson Stage in Briarcliff Manor.





An attractive but emotionally defensive psychiatrist who disapproves of impetuous romantic behavior learns that four women she knows (a patient, a former patient, a friend and a waitress) have all been seduced by the same man. When the psychiatrist meets the man, she falls head over heels in love with him, too.

They banter, they parry, he gives up his promiscuous ways, and she lets her hair down. By the time the credits roll, she has given up her career and turned warm and fuzzy, thanks to a wedding band and possibly a powdery-fragranced baby.

But Jenny Lyn Bader, who was not born when Doris and Rock were playing virgin-and-the-wolf games on screen, wrote “Manhattan Casanova” in the 21st century and for the stage. And gender stereotypes are two of her least favorite things.

“I don’t think it’s a play about how men are idiots,” said Ms. Bader in a telephone interview from her apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But female characters are crucially important to her.

“I don’t like the divide between ingénue and character actress,” she said. “You always have one woman who’s lovely and one woman who’s funny. Or one who’s smart and one who’s dumb. I’m interested in getting beyond stereotypes like that.”

So in “Manhattan Casanova,” which opens on Friday as the fall mainstage production at Hudson Stage in Briarcliff Manor, the characters behave a little differently.

Dr. Charlotte Kaplan (Elizabeth Hess) and John Casey (James Kiberd) are equally forceful, verbally gifted and commitment-phobic. They meet at a neighborhood cafe where she is sitting alone, reading Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” She resists his efforts to strike up a conversation.

John: “Your hostility is dazzling.”

Charlotte: “Your approach is transparent.”

John: “You’re the first person to notice that.”

Charlotte: “You must meet a lot of blind people.”

John isn’t a bad guy, really. He sincerely loves women and knows how to make them happy: by doing romantic things (e.g., reciting French poetry) and trying to be whoever their ideal man is. Unfortunately that rings hollow for him (since he’s not being himself), which may be why his attentions are short-lived. Thus the title.

“The label tells you one thing about the person, but it’s not a totally derogatory term,” says Dan Foster, a Hudson Stage co-founder. “You would never call it ‘Manhattan Womanizer.’ Casanova is a more benevolent term.”

Yes, Ms. Bader’s play does seem to be conceived from a woman’s mindset, he said, “but it’s an enlightened woman’s point of view.”

Olivia Sklar, another Hudson Stage co-founder, is pleased with the production, which recently moved rehearsals from Manhattan to Westchester.

“It feels like the first really sexy piece we’ve done,” she said. She describes it as a “delicious, witty romantic comedy” but hastens to add that the play is also deep, as all good comedy is.

Sometimes the laughs come from the pain. “Manhattan Casanova,” like some other works of popular culture (HBO’s “Sex and the City” comes to mind), does not present the urban singles game as particularly pleasant.

“It says that it’s a jungle out there,” Mr. Foster said. New York may be so huge that the relationship possibilities seem endless, he added, but “you do have to make an emotional leap, putting yourself out there to be judged” over and over again.

Not everyone involved can speak from recent experience. Mr. Foster, who lives in Croton-on-Hudson, has been married for 21 years to the actress Liz Callaway (she originated the role of the wife in “Miss Saigon” and replaced Betty Buckley in “Cats”). Ms. Sklar, who also lives in Croton-on-Hudson, has been married for more than 30 years to Dr. Peter Powchik, a psychiatrist (who, she said, is looking forward to seeing his profession portrayed in a comedy). Ms. Bader is celebrating four years of marriage to Roger Berkowitz, a political studies and human rights professor at Bard College.

Ms. Bader met her husband online, incidentally, but points out that she had already written a draft of “Manhattan Casanova” before she met him. Any resemblance to former boyfriends living or dead is out of the question.

Directed by Richard Caliban, “Manhattan Casanova” is something of a departure for Hudson Stage, which was founded in 1999 by three actors. (Mr. Foster, who now directs, refers to himself as a “recovering actor.” Denise Bessette is the third co-founder.)

“We wanted to kind of break the mold a little bit,” Mr. Foster recalled, describing the company’s goal as “making challenging choices but remembering that you are there to entertain.”

Their first plays were presented in what is now the Julie Harris Theater at the Clear View School in Briarcliff Manor. A year and a half ago, Pace University invited Hudson Stage to become a company-in-residence and renovated a space for its productions. The Woodward Hall Theater, on the Pace campus in Briarcliff Manor, is the company’s present home.

The founders stress that they consider a season’s balance important. The last mainstage production was Gina Barnett’s “After All,” a futuristic social drama set in postapocalyptic New York. The spring 2007 play is “The Retreat From Moscow,” William Nicholson’s portrait of the end of a marriage.

Hudson Stage also does staged readings throughout the year. The next, on Dec. 8, is Jeff Wanshel’s “Modern Entrepreneurs,” described as two one-acts about manipulative relationships. In January, a project involving Briarcliff High School students will be directed by a Bard student. In April, the Tony Award-winning actress Judith Ivey will direct a reading of Kathryn Rossetter’s “Starving, Hysterical, Naked,” which deals with second-class citizenship and contemporary culture’s obsession with winning.

For the moment, though, the mood onstage is dark, brittle comedy. “Manhattan Casanova” pits a compulsive seducer against a woman whose idea of pillow talk is, “I don’t need morning-after maintenance.”

“Manhattan Casanova” is at Woodward Hall Theater, Pace University, 235 Elm Road, Briarcliff Manor, from Oct. 27 to Nov. 11. Information can be found at (914) 271-2811 or www.hudsonstage.com.



© The New York Times Company

***






Thanks to Wendy Wasserstein for convincing me to send the play to the O'Neill Conference, to Lloyd Richards for putting me on the right track, to Max Wilk for saying what was funny, to Joe Pintauro for introducing me to the reading series people in the Hamptons, to Patty Watt for making it happen there, to Mercedes Ruehl for agreeing to star in the workshop in East Hampton, to Josh Gladstone for deciding to break (or revisit) history and do a play at Guild Hall, to Tony Shalhoub for starring in the reading in Los Angeles, to Barnet Kellman for getting Tony Shalhoub to do it and for comparing it to Schnitzler, to Arthur Kopit for the dramaturgical insight on the time-space continuum, to Richard Caliban for directing it so beautifully at HSC that I didn't even need to fix the transitions there why he just created them from slides music and magic, to Richard Hamburger for bravely directing the, um, three-act version at the O'Neill. Yes Richard, it's two acts now. (Who did I think I was? George S. Kaufman?)

Thanks to everyone who participated in the development process of this play, at its readings, staged readings, “premiere” readings, lab readings, excerpt presentations, and book-in-hand “special presentation"- workshop-readings at The New Group, New Georges Performathon, O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Patsy Southgate Reading Series at Mulford Barn, Joint Theatre Co. at CBS Studios in Los Angeles, Manhattan Drama Collective at The Neighborhood Playhouse, L.A. Stage and Film at the Falcon Theatre, John Drew Theatre - Guild Hall in East Hampton, and The Ultimate Female Protagonist Project/Mae West Fest in Seattle.

Those were all lovely events leading up to this one.

Readings are wonderful up to a point. But then the difference between a reading and a production becomes like the difference between a striptease and a good date.

-and the difference between a staged reading and a world premiere production-like the difference between a lap dance and a fulfilling relationship.

July 2006
Okay I lied. I had no updates one day and so I labeled this page a blog. And really meant to start one...

It's not exactly a blog. More like a thought of the day.

Today I am perplexed by arrest of the insider-trading beverage guy at Coca-Cola.

What does it say about the FBI? They didn't figure out when the terrorists were coming. Rumor has it that for the most part they still dress like they did in the 50's and most of them don't even have e-mail. And yet they are expert at foiling a potential soda copyright heist...
•••
Below are some updates of recent shows and events

DECEMBER 2006

Recently: Out of Mind...
NYU Practicum Company Presents
OUT OF MIND: 7 SHORT PLAYS WITH SOME OF THE PEOPLE MISSING
by Jenny Lyn Bader
directed by Julie Kramer
December 2006
Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute
115 East 15th Street (between Park Ave. and Irving Pl.)

Relationships are never what they seem — especially in this play cycle about people who are invisible, missing, or barely there. As the characters search for the perfect date, babysit under mysterious circumstances, meet their idols, recover from heartbreak, and learn to sleep, these comedies celebrate love, revel in human connection, and offer a glimpse of the unseen: Don’t believe your eyes.

APRIL 2006:

Neighborhood Playhouse one-act festival, featuring The Popcorn Sonata and One Night at Your Local superstore.
Plus other comedies, dramas, stand-up, music, mayhem
Produced by Patricia Watt.
Mon April 10 at 8pm, Tues April 11 at 8pm
The Neighborhood Playhouse
340 East 54th St (First & Second Ave.)

MARCH 2006:

At Seattle's Hugo House, a performance of Manhattan Casanova was part of the Ultimate Female Protagonist Project, produced by the Mae West Fest.

NOVEMBER 2005:

Afterlife: Short plays about life after death, including Jenny Lyn Bader's Past Lives, at Las Vegas Little Theatre Nov 11-20... part of the Insomniac Project for anyone staying up late in Vegas...

Recent Publications:
2004: Best 10-Minute Plays for 2 Actors is available, with short plays for oh, every occasion two actors might have. It includes The Popcorn Sonata.

...Under Thirty: Plays for a New Generation is now out from Vintage books. It is a collection for actors in their teens and twenties looking for challenging and varied roles. The full script of None of the Above appears here.

None of the Above will be also be excerpted in Great Monologues for Young Actors, Volume III (Smith & Kraus, 2005)

Recent Shows:

MARCH 2005

White Bird Productions presents...
BORO TALES: MANHATTAN
-Workshop Productions of Grimm Fairy Tales set in Manhattan, including: Briar Rose by Len Jenkin & Zoe Jenkin, directed by Steve Mellor, and The Fisherman's Wife by Jenny Lyn Bader, directed by Daniela Varon

At the HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Avenue (between Spring & Dominick)

-
Thanks to all who attended the workshop production of Boro Tales: Manhattan (especially the little boy in the first row who spontaneously shouted encouraging comments). Details about its next incarnation will be posted here.

SPRING 2004 - In Connecticut
Out of Mind was presented in the 5th Annual Fringe Festival (March 2-March 28, 2004) at the Rich Forum, Stamford Fringe Festival. Thanks to Victoria Maxwell and George Moredock.

Relationships are never quite what they seem to be — especially in this play cycle about people who are invisible, missing, or barely there! The characters search for the perfect date, recover from heartbreak, baby-sit under mysterious circumstances, meet their idols, and learn to sleep... but nothing goes as planned. These tender comedies celebrate love, revel in human connection, and offer a glimpse of the unseen: Don't believe your eyes.

Recent Productions: Summer 2003
Out of Mind, starring Alysia Reiner.

Summer Shorts Festival 2003

FLORIDA
Summer Shorts at City Theatre

-including one-acts by Jenny Lyn Bader, Jon Robin Baitz, Neil Labute, William Mastrosimone, Paul Rudnick, Shel Silverstein, and more.

DELAWARE
OUT OF MIND: 7 Short Plays with Some of the People Missing
by Jenny Lyn Bader
directed by Ari Laura Kreith

The play cycle about invisible characters. Why can't we just see everyone all the time? And what does it mean to be seen?

presented at the Henlopen Theater Project, Summer 2003



Selected Works

New York Times "Week in Review"
•Why We Chitchat
Post-9/11 Small Talk Looms Large
•How to Land the Bachelor
Primetime dating strategies!
The Male-Female Dictionary!
•He Meant, She Meant: The Definitive Male-Female Dictionary - What Men Think They're Saying, What Women Really Mean
"Isn't this the funniest book ever?" -WCKG

"A Berlitz crash course in the female language" -Men's Health

"Very Cute and Very Funny!"-CNN

"The most extraordinary invention for sex life since The Pill"-actual blurb on back of Italian edition, unattributed




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