If you could present your show to just one person, who would it be and why?
Nell Weatherwax, a marvelous performer who began What If... programs with me in 1992. This show has many similarities to the shows we did for 15 years in schools and detention centers. She would laugh at both appropriate and inappropriate times.
List 3 words that truly sum up your show.
Youth, Danger, Hope
What is the best way for theater-goers to stay informed about your latest productions?
www.diane.kondrat.com, my teensy, low-tech website.
How does fringe theater benefit you as a theater artist/performer?
It's an opportunity to take risks.
What is the funniest line in your show?
I don't know, but I do like, "She is vastly cra-cra."
Where do you see yourself in a year’s time?
Acting in another show in Chicago; that would be fine!
Why IndyFringe?
Because I was asked so nicely by YAT, Pauline Moffat and Start Strong.
For more information on this show, click here.
FRINGE OFFERINGS DELVE INTO RELATIONSHIPS
ReplyDeleteJay Harvey, Aug 21, 2011, Indianapolis Star
For all the splash of performance art, stand-up comedy, dance, cabaret and storytelling that helps make theater fringe festivals exciting, at the core is pure theater: actors inhabiting characters in stories realized through word and gesture.
Three such shows made up my second day at the seventh annual Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival. On Saturday afternoon at the IndyFringe Building, "Luminary," a vibrant ensemble piece by Young Actors Theater quickened the pulse with its insights into the petty cruelties and the awkward struggles for dignity and reputation among today's teens.
Written by Bloomington theater veteran Diane Kondrat, "Luminary" was developed painstakingly in consultation with young people dealing with difficult relationships. With this kind of gestation, the result could have been didactic and weighed down by scrutiny.
But Kondrat, using the framework of social-media chatter in scenes abuzz with an electronic device for each actor, moves along a story involving the sorts of bad choices that go viral in a world where gossip is quick and merciless.
The YAT actors, directed by Justin Wade, varied in their delivery of the often trenchant dialogue. But hit-or-miss audibility couldn't seriously mar this smart portrait of an adolescent environment saturated in media, with celebrity and peer-group misbehavior jostling to claim short attention spans. The play's title hints at a sci-fi element hidden in the personality of an oddball mediator whose outsider status eventually bears fruit.
NUVO review, David Hoppe
ReplyDeleteYoung Actors Theatre Teen Issues, Indianapolis
3.5 stars
Local theater artist Diane Kondrat worked with teens, teachers and parents to create this script about how social networking technologies compound and pressurize the already fraught process of finding one's identity and developing relationships. The story, in part about a boy who seemingly falls to earth, consists of multiple strands employing a large ensemble cast to convey a message as emotionally affecting as it is troubling: our inventions are making a society that's already inhospitable to kids' fragile and formative brains even more difficult to navigate.