Playwright To Talk Back to Uranium Madhouse Audience
June 20, 2011Playwright Rick Burkhardt will engage audience in discussion of his play “Conversation Storm,” a Uranium Madhouse entry in the 2011 Hollywood Fringe Festival
Hollywood (June 20, 2011) – On the final evening of the Los Angeles premier of his play, “Conversation Storm,” playwright Rick Burkhardt will be join with Uranium Madhouse director Andrew Utter for a talkback with the audience.
Inspired by the book “A Question Of Torture” by Alfred Mccoy, Burkhardt’s play is an often humorous yet provocative examination of the question of torture as seen through a trio of friends whose philosophies and rationales collide with each other over the course of an evening.
“Conversation Storm” is presented as part of a double bill along with “The House of Cards” by Charles Mee. The June 25th audience is invited to remain after the second play to discuss Burkhardt’s work and ask questions of the playwright.
The New York-based playwright/composer/musician/performer will be i...
Uranium Madhouse Director Speaks from Behind the Fringe
June 15, 2011Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Uranium Madhouse Founding Artistic Director, Andrew Utter is interviewed by Stephen Dandy for “Behind the Fringe.”
The following interview, along with interviews with other Hollywood Fringe participants can be found at http://www.behindthefringe.com/
BTF: Will you tell us about your show?
AU: We have two shows. In Conversation Storm, three friends from high school are reunited in a cafe. As old rivalries resurface, the friends find themselves drawn into a surreal role-play of the “ticking time bomb” scenario used to legitimize torture in the last decade. The play takes an often humorous look at the imagination and its role in decision-making, the nexus of friendship and politics, and the effects (or lack thereof) of the passage of time on relationships. In The House of Cards, a woman unfolds a series of parables and meditations while building a house of cards. She conjures scenes of searing beau...
Playwright Converses Up a “Storm”
May 30, 2011Rick Burkhardt discusses his inspiration for “Conversation Storm,” a Uranium Madhouse entry in the 2011 Hollywood Fringe Festival
Hollywood (May 30, 2011) – Playwright Rick Burkhardt, a veteran of the fringe festival movement, will again have his work “on the fringe” during the second annual Hollywood Fringe Festival. Andrew Utter, Founding Artistic Director of Uranium Madhouse, selected the play as the ideal debut piece for his new theater cabal and coincidentally, Utter’s performance schedule for the company’s premiere production perfectly aligned with the period of the 2011 Fringe Festival. “Conversation Storm,” as presented by Burkhardt’s Brooklyn-based The Nonsense Company, was voted “Best New Play” at the 2007 San Francisco Fringe Festival and “Best of Fest” for the 2008 NYC Frigid Fest.
In addition to being a founding member of The Nonsense Company, Mr. Burkhardt is also an Associate Artist with Uranium Madhouse.
In a 2009 intervi...
Uranium Madhouse Actor Has the Right “Touch”
May 20, 2011Uranium Madhouse actor John Ruby stars in “Touch,” an independent feature film written and directed by Minh Duc Nguyen, and produced by Mellissa Tong. “Touch” had its world premiere at the Boston International Film Festival on April 23rd, 2011 where it garnered multiple awards. “Touch” will receive its West Coast premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival this weekend. In the film, John plays a shy mechanic whose wife refuses intimacy with him because his hands are always stained with oil. When he visits a local nail salon, he is mentored by a young Vietnamese woman on how to win back his wife’s affections. The mechanic succeeds with his wife, but not without the friendship at the nail salon growing in intimacy as well.
Hollywood Fringe audiences will see Ruby in the short play, “Conversation Storm.” The play, by Obie Award-wining playwright Rick Burkhardt, will be one half of a double bill that will be the debut production by Uranium Madhouse. Also presen...
Madhouse to Take the Fringe by “Storm”
May 08, 2011May 8, 2011
In its Los Angeles premier, Rick Burkhardt’s “Conversation Storm,” along with Charles Mee’s “The House of Cards,” will launch Uranium Madhouse, the Los Angeles-based theater cabal, a participant in the 2011 Hollywood Fringe Festival. Directed by Founding Artistic Director Andrew Utter, the plays examine the sport of verbal sparring, practical applications of torture, extremes of human cruelty and the fragility of life, love and friendship.
Humor and horror collide in “Conversation Storm,” described by the director as a “giddy shotgun marriage of Chekhov and Brecht.” An examination of the question of torture, the play reunites three friends in a quiet café after a 20-year separation. As they talk, an intricate game evolves, entailing time loops and role-playing, as the friends wrestle with Donald Rumsfeld’s statement, “People are fungible.” “Conversation Storm” was voted Best New Play at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2007.
“In...
