THE NAME
The "Ghost Road" was the name that Southern California's indigenous peoples gave to the Milky Way. The Ghost Road led departing spirits west beyond the Channel Island's mists to a marvellous village of peace and plenty.
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The Ghost Road is also the name given by soldiers to the path they followed to reach the front lines during World War I.
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IN BRIEF
The company was founded in 1993 by Katharine Noon, Don Gordon, and Ferdinand Lewis who were recent graduates of The California Institute of the Art's Theater program. In 1995, Ghost Road's critically acclaimed adaptation of the Elektra story, "Elektra-La-La", by Katharine Noon and Brian Howrey and directed by Noon premiered in downtown LA at the Spanish Kitchen. In addition to a successful LA run, "Elektra-La-La" received stellar reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland and was subsequently invited to perform at other festivals in Europe and the Middle East. Also performed in Edinburgh were "LRG Lot GRT VU", written and performed by Kimberly Pearce-Haynes and "The Last Vegas Lounge Act", created by Rodger Henderson, Ferdinand Lewis, Pearce-Haynes and Cody Henderson.
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A collaboration between Ghost Road and the Burglars of Hamm produced "Resa Fantastiskt Mystiskt" which ran in 1999 and 2000 in Los Angeles. The production also completed critically acclaimed runs at the Seattle Fringe Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2001(and the NY Fringe in 2002). "Carrots for Hare" by Cody Henderson closed out Ghost Road's 2000 season at the Powerhouse Theatre.
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The 2001 season saw both a workshop and a full production of Katharine Noon and Chris DeWan's adaptation of the Oresteia entitled "Clyt at Home: The Clytemnestra Project", conceived and directed by Noon and produced by Ghost Road in collaboration with Theatre of NOTE. "Clyt at Home" was developed through workshop by the ensemble and presented at the ASK Common Ground Festival in 2001 at UCLA and at NOTE. Ghost Road remounted "Clyt at Home" in 2003 at the KO Festival in Amherst MA as part of the Network of Ensemble Theatres Conference and Festival. It garnered Weekly Award nominations for Lead Performance and for Adaptation, as well as numerous Backstage West Garland Honorable Mentions.
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2002 began with the creation of the Ghost Road 5-Year Project and, after nearly a year of workshops and ensemble development, Ghost Road presented a workshop production of "Excavate the Monster" in 2003 at 24th Street Theater.
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In 2004 the Ghost Road Company created a new piece of theatre, loosely adapted from and influenced by The Tale of the Four Dervishes, a set of ancient Sufi folk tales. The finished product, "Four Dervishes", premiered in June and July at the 24th Street Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The play followed Victorian spy Richard Burtonas as modern troops collided in the desert to create a world at once mystical and real, magical and harsh; intimate moments weave an epic tale of culture and identity.Through workshops and an ensemble driven creation process Ghost Road has employed its unique way of working to create a piece that looks at Western incursions in the Middle East by way of the series of folk tales. After a succesful run at the 24th Street Theatre, the production was presented at The Edge of the World Theater Festival in October, 2005 at LATC.
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In 2005 and 2006, the ensemble began work on two new pieces, "Duck(t) Tape Soup" and "The Eumenides Project" aka "The Furies" and now called "Orestes Remembered: The Fury Project". In 2005 Katherine Noon took "The Eumenides" into workshop to create "Orestes Remembered: The Fury Project" with The Ghost Road Company. In June 2005 Katharine presented an initial workshop using this material at the Network of Ensemble Theater Festival at Dell'Arte in Blue Lake, CA. She will direct a workshop of the piece at Loyola Marymount University in late January 2007 and then premiere it at The Powerhouse Theatre in March 2007 and hopefully tour it in the summer. After this initial tour "Orestes Remembered: The Fury Project" will then be integrated into the previous adaptations of Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers. This adaptation of the entire Oresteia will premiere in 2009. There are also plans to publish the finished script.
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In the summer of 2005, Ghost Road, under the direction of Mark Seldis, began workshopping a new piece, "Duck(t) Tape Soup", a dark farce about how greed, lies, and manipulation can lead to the end of the world. Using the Marx Brothers film DUCK SOUP as a launching point, we are creating an ensemble-devised theatre piece which mixes the classic farce with both commedia del'Atre performace and harsh realism. In May 2006, a workshop of the first section of "Duck[t] Tape Soup" was presented at Shakespeare Festival/LA over two nights. We continued to work on this piece throughout 2007 and 2008, with an eye towards a full production in late 2009.
About me: The Ghost Road Company
To Imagine What Could Be By Exploring What Is.
The ensemble scavenges the current social landscape for objects, language and images which are in turn informed by the ensemble's individual experiences of the world around them in order to create something surprising and unexpected. The world of the piece is the piece itself, which will always reflect the current time, place, and people who are inventing it, with no attempt at being accurate to historical or modern-day realism, but carefully accurate to the scavenged and invented elements derived from the process. It is our aim, as an ensemble of theater artists, to discover what is missing in our communities and to provide those missing pieces in a world that is increasingly isolating and disempowering. In so doing a world is created, in the work, where the "everyday" transforms into unexpected realizations and epiphanies about the nature of truth and possibility in the world at large. www.ghostroad.org
The current permanent ensemble includes Ronnie Clark, Christel Joy Johnson, Katharine Noon, Mark Seldis, Brian Weir, and Ron Wingate.
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Who I'd like to meet: Actors, Directors, Writers, Designers, Audiences, or anyone with a curious and engaging mind who would like to know about our company.
Ignite! Spear Ensemble invites transcendence from self as you know it, in their newest work, conceived by G. Randall Wright. Come play in the spaces in between with Mary and her dream cast of musical, acrobatic, mythic troubadours as they reincarnate instantly from dream to dream. Mary’s DreamTheatre on stage at the Garage for a limited run July 17th and 18th, 975 Howard Street in San Francisco. For tickets go to www.SpearEnsemble.com
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David Ian Artistic Director & Coordinator Unchained Productions Portland, OR
