Photos Of Nova's Hamlet by Ayn Morgan (aynart.com)
Hamlet rehearsal photos(photos by Sara Patterson):
Pictures of Nova's production: Oedipus3
Oedipus Rex (directed by Bernardo Cubria)
Oedipus at Colonus (directed by Clinton Hopper)
Antigone (directed by Jenni Rebecca Stephenson)
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Founding Directors:
Short clip of video used in Nova's current production of Hamlet:
Hamlet Out-takes:
Short video of Hamlet fight call:
A film that was created as part of the MFAH's Film/Music Swap, 'Dance de fanatiques de bazarette'... (Involving Clinton Hopper and Jenni Stephenson of Nova Arts Project, along with Lindsey Ricker. Directed by Sharad Patel.)
An essay of our own making:
We are for a new theatre. What theatre oftentimes is—a dying art form no longer needed or relevant to most—is crass, mundane and profit-based. It no longer provides the ritual and communion so relished by earlier audiences. Frequently, there is nothing for the spectator to do in theatre now except sit there until it is time to leave. We are for a new theatre that is not the bland, milquetoast entertainment experience that makes people laugh, but does not make them think. We are for a new theatre—a theatre with plays that may catalyze, provoke or even offend. We are for a new theatre.
Theatre must be made to remember its core—a core that is based in ritual, communion and universality. Theatre is not real. Theatre is theatre. For plays to try to pretend to be real, in the age of movies, television and first-person videogames is futile and embarrassing. For theatre to be necessary, to be relevant in the lives of most it must be different. Theatre must be visceral, passionate and unconcerned with the literal. We are for a new theatre—a theatre of fearless theatricality, a theatre where kitchen sinks do not belong.
Our new theatre will happen in three primary ways—our use of space, our visual aesthetic and our presentation of classic plays and new works.
The space wherein we present our theatre is intimate and intense. There is no magical chasm. There is no picture frame. There is no fourth wall. The use of space as it concerns the performers and spectators is as important as all the other design elements required for a play. Our space is created new for every production—it is a dynamic element between the performers and spectators. Every bit of the space is offered up in service of the play being presented.
Aesthetically, we are moving away from realism. We will use a visual language that is based in symbol and metaphor. Literal interpretations of plays, from a visual aesthetic perspective, will not be our focus. Like a dog on the hunt, our performers and spectators must sniff out theme, characterization and interpretation based on the clues given via the visual aesthetic of any given work. Our performers and spectators are intelligent people, and we respect that. We will not insult them by spoon feeding meaning and character to them.
The works we do are our third movement. Classics are a broadcloth, with which we can imagine and analyze the universal themes they offer in our own time. We do not revere the classics, and if necessary will deconstruct them in order to see a character or theme in a new way. It is a challenge to us and to our performers and spectators to take a play we all have experienced a million times and re-imagine that play as something new. New works are passionate voices of today—they are the specificity to the classics’ universality. Using new and classic works provides a strong and true mirror to our spectators and ourselves—we see the entire world and only ourselves in that mirror.
Our new theatre must happen. For theatre to save itself, its practitioners must be brave and have the wisdom to know that letting traditional theatre go by the wayside is necessary for theatre to be reborn. We accept this challenge.
A New Theatre/Explosion is here.
Salvage Vanguard Theater - Austin, The Wooster Group, The Vortex Repertory Company, Peter Brook, Julie Taymor