Tag Archives: Stairway to Stardom

TWI-NY TALK: AMANDA SZEGLOWSKI / STAIRWAY TO STARDOM

(photo by Maria Baranova)

Writer, director, choreographer, and performer Amanda Szeglowski dreams of fame and fortune in Stairway to Stardom (photo by Maria Baranova)

STAIRWAY TO STARDOM
HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
September 12-23, $18-$45, 8:30
212-647-0202
www.here.org

Before there was Star Search, American Idol, The Voice, and America’s Got Talent there was Stairway to Stardom, a no-budget New York City public access television show in which men, women, and children performed with big dreams in their heads, hoping to make it big. Writer, director, choreographer, performer, and “global paradigm architect” Amanda Szeglowski explores the American dream of reaching for fame and fortune in the vastly entertaining and ridiculously clever multimedia production Stairway to Stardom, which opened at HERE on September 12. The sixty-minute show features Szeglowski and her cakeface company, Ali Castro, Jade Daugherty, Ayesha Jordan, and Nola Sporn Smith, in glittery silver-sequined gowns and high heels singing, dancing, and sharing their successes and failures, their hopes and desires with a dry, wry mechanical delivery deliciously at odds with the spectacular longing for stardom that lies beneath.

The narrative follows the arc of a contemporary U.S. life in the arts, from what creative kids want to be when they grow up and what their parents expect of them to discovering their unique talent and then working odd jobs as they strive for artistic (and maybe even financial) success while also experiencing regrets. The performers are joined by Prism House — Brian Wenner and Matt O’Hare — who provide live video and music mixing, featuring excerpts from the original public access program. Szeglowski, who is also HERE’s marketing director, formed the all-female cakeface in 2008; their previous “linguistic performance art” projects include Don’t Call Me McNeill., Alpha Pups, and Harold, I Hate You. The new show continues through September 23; there will be a talkback following the September 20 performance, and September 15 and 19 are ’80s nights, in which the audience is encouraged to dress with their best retro flair. The show begins at 8:30, but HERE will be projecting clips from the original Stairway to Stardom in the lounge beginning at 7:00 every evening. Shortly after opening night, which kicked off HERE’s twenty-fifth anniversary season, Szeglowski found time to answer some questions about her own career trajectory.

twi-ny: As you were preparing for the opening of Stairway to Stardom, your native Florida — you went to high school in Tampa and college at USF — was being battered by Hurricane Irma. What was that experience like, balancing the two? Are your friends and family safe?

amanda szeglowski: Yes, thank you for asking. My family lives in West Tampa, so we were all watching the storm very closely. It was an incredibly stressful time to be in tech rehearsals all day and night approaching the culmination of a show I’ve been building for three years while this monster of a storm was creeping towards my family. I was checking in on them every chance I got and FaceTiming to see all the prep they were doing to their houses, going over the evacuation plans. . . . Being a part of that process helped me feel like I was with them. But growing up in Florida and having been through many hurricanes actually gave me some comfort as well. We know how to prepare and we take it seriously. That’s not to say that wine isn’t the first thing in the hurricane supply shopping cart — it is. But I felt better knowing this wasn’t my family’s first rodeo; they knew exactly what to do.

(photo by Maria Baranova)

Nola Sporn Smith, Jade Daugherty, Ayesha Jordan, Amanda Szeglowski, and Ali Castro reach for the stars in glittering show at HERE (photo by Maria Baranova)

twi-ny: Were you ever a fan of such programs as Star Search, American Idol, The Voice, or America’s Got Talent?

as: I loved watching Star Search as a kid. As I got older and the shows got more scripted I lost interest. I think Idol changed the game by making the auditions part of the show, and then it became a gimmick of who could be the most outrageous. But I will occasionally watch clips from these shows when my parents call me and insist that they just saw the greatest thing.

twi-ny: What is it about the public access show that spurred your creative juices? You treat it with respect without getting overly kitschy or mean-spirited.

as: The TV show was so raw — so vulnerable. These weren’t people trying to become a character on a reality show; these were people really trying to make it. I respect that. There wasn’t any competitive aspect to the TV show; they were just performing and hoping to be seen. Sure, when you see clips from the TV show there are moments that you want to laugh, but I spent hours and hours interviewing people about their lives for my script, and a lot of it was pretty damn sad. At least these people were out there trying. I wanted to honor that drive and explore what happens to all of us along the way, because I think that fire is there for almost everyone in the beginning.

twi-ny: What kind of talent does someone have to display to become a member of cakeface? When someone is auditioning for you, are you more like Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Jennifer Lopez, Usher, or Miley Cyrus?

as: HAHAHA. I think I’m a Simon and Paula hybrid. I’m Simon because I have a crystal-clear vision of what I want, and if you don’t fit, I am not going to beat around the bush. I never want to waste anyone’s time. But Paula has a way of finding a spark in people and being respectful of their contributions, and I try to always do that. I’ve received many post-audition emails over the years from people that I didn’t hire saying the experience was really special. I’m proud of that.

twi-ny: Is anyone associated with the public access show still around? Did you have to go through any kind of permissions process to use some of the original footage?

as: The show was public access. But I did get the tapes directly from someone who was given them by the host of the show, Frank Masi, before he died. [Ed. note: Masi passed away in 2013 at the age of eighty-seven; you can watch a YouTube tribute to him and the show here.]

(photo courtesy of Amanda Szeglowski)

Amanda Szeglowski takes a well-deserved break from climbing the stairs to stardom (photo courtesy of Amanda Szeglowski)

twi-ny: How amazing was it to perform in such great costumes, as well as high heels?

as: The costumes, which are by Oana Botez, are absolutely fantastic. It’s such a blast being able to sparkle head to toe on a downtown stage — very atypical for the scene. The heels are challenging, but anything else with those costumes would be absurd, right? And the performers are all pros, so they make it work. I wanted an over-the-top glamorous look that I could juxtapose with the stark reality of our words. Oana definitely achieved that.

twi-ny: What did you want to be when you were growing up?

as: The opening text, which I call a monologue (even though it’s delivered by five voices), is basically a run-on sentence ticking off all of my childhood dreams. It includes a mermaid, grocery store checkout clerk, princess, trapeze artist, restaurateur, and movie star. Of course, I always wanted to be a dancer, but that’s obvious, and our unfulfilled dreams are so much more interesting.

twi-ny: What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

as: I’ve had a slew of them. The story in the show about working in the housewares department at Burdines was my life at age fifteen. I had no idea how to sell kitchen appliances and would literally walk away from customers and kick back in the stock room. That was pretty awful. There’s another story about a boss with revolting coffee breath; that was my first job in NYC. But another horrific experience was telemarketing. In high school I worked at a call center selling satellite broadcasting to elderly people in rural areas. I had to convince them they needed HBO. It was super sleazy, plus I got sexually harassed by my boss. I’d say fifteen was not a banner year for my career trajectory.

twi-ny: What would you like audiences to take away from the show?

as: I’d like them to be reminded of our often-naive notions of success and talent, reflect on the choices they’ve made, and leave with a glimmer of hope.

CULTUREMART 2016

Purva Bedi, Kristin Marting, and Mariana Newhard’s ASSEBMLED IDENTITY is part of the 2016 edition of HERE’s CULTUREMART performance festival

Purva Bedi, Kristin Marting, and Mariana Newhard’s ASSEMBLED IDENTITY is part of 2016 edition of HERE’s CULTUREMART performance festival

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
March 2-12, $15
212-647-0202
here.org

We nearly forgot about HERE’s annual CULTUREMART performance festival, which usually is held in January/February, but fortunately we were reminded of this forward-thinking series just in time as March began. A project of the HERE Artist Residency Program, or HARP, the multidisciplinary festival features eleven workshop productions from March 2 to 12, with all tickets only $15. Things get under way March 2-3 with one of New York’s most innovative teams, Reid Farrington and Sara Farrington, who repurpose footage of old films to create something new with live actors. This year they are presenting CasablancaBox, in which they go behind the scenes of the making of Casablanca. In Things Fall Apart (March 5-6), Kate Brehm uses folding chairs to examine her place in the world; it’s on a double bill with Rob Roth’s audiovisual Soundstage. RADY&BLOOM Collective Playmaking explores the ocean in O (March 5-6), which is being shown with Adam J. Thompson / the Deconstructive Theatre Project’s live-cinema Venice Double Feature, which examines social media and voyeurism. Purva Bedi, Kristin Marting, and Mariana Newhard delve into the science behind identity in Assembled Identity, part of a March 8-9 double bill with Lanie Fefferman’s math-centric chamber opera, Elements. Also on March 8-9, Paul Pinto goes inside the mind of the political activist and philosopher in Thomas Paine in Violence; also on the bill is Leah Coloff’s ThisTree, stories and songs about family and legacy. CULTUREMART concludes March 11-12 with Amanda Szeglowski/cakeface’s Stairway to Stardom, a dance-theater work dealing withtalent and fame, teamed with Chris M. Green’s American Weather, which looks at our very questionable future.

CULTUREMART 2015

(photo by Sara and Reid Farrington)

Sara and Reid Farrington go behind the scenes of the making of a classic in CASABLANCABOX (photo by Sara and Reid Farrington)

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
March 4-14, $15
212-352-3101
www.here.org

HERE’s annual winter performance festival, now in its fourteenth year, highlights cutting-edge works-in-progress from a wide-ranging group of artists who are either current or former participants in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), which commissions hybrid presentations in order “to not only grow innovative artistic work, but also [to] give artists the awareness and skills — in areas such as audience relations, budgeting, grantwriting, and touring — they need to continue to grow their careers.” This year features a dozen multidisciplinary workshop performances, beginning March 4-5 with sound designer Christina Campanella and composer Jim Dawson’s Lighthouse 40° N, 73° W, a continuous geographic audio installation in which the audience listens in on headphones to a twenty-five-minute loop, and Sara and Reid Farrington’s CasablancaBox, in which the husband-and-wife duo combine live actors and film clips that go behind the scenes of the making of the 1942 movie; Farrington has previously reimagined such films as The Passion of Joan of Arc, Rope, and multiple versions of A Christmas Carol in his unique, mesmerizing style. On March 6-7 at 7:00, Paul Pinto’s Thomas Paine in Violence explores the American patriot during the last days of his life and the start of his afterlife, with music performed by vocalist Joan La Barbara and the ensemble Ne(x)tworks. On March 7-8 at 8:30, Sean Donovan and Sebastián Calderón Bentin turn to Alain Renais’s Last Year at Marienbad and Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel for Abbadon, in which a social gathering delves into the nature of class structure; Abbadon is on a shared bill with Amanda Szeglowski/cakeface’s Stairway to Stardom, a piece of dance theater that takes its inspiration from the public access amateur talent television show of the same name.

Hai-Ting Chinn’s SCIENCE FAIR takes viewers on a multimedia operatic journey (photo by Benjamin Heller)

Hai-Ting Chinn’s SCIENCE FAIR takes viewers on a multimedia operatic journey (photo by Benjamin Heller)

On March 9-10, you can see a double feature of Hai-Ting Chinn’s multimedia opera, Science Fair, with music by Matthew Schickele and live piano by Erika Switzer, and The Emperor and the Queen’s Parisian Weekend, with music by Kamala Sankaram and a libretto by Pete McCabe, directed by HERE cofounder Tim Maner. March 10-11 pairs Matt Marks and Paul Peers’s Mata Hari, an opera-theater piece about the last days of the renowned WWI spy, with Nick Brooke’s Psychic Driving, which immerses the audience in surveillance and CIA brainwashing. From March 12 to 14, Jessica Scott’s Ship of Fools uses music, puppets, and movement to examine particular women throughout history while looking at who is in control of the future; it’s on a shared bill with Robin Frohardt’s Fitzcardboardaldo, a cinematic cardboard tribute to Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, along with The Corrugation of Dreams, an homage to Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, about the making of the Herzog film. CULTUREMART concludes March 13-14 with HERE artistic director Kristin Marting and Robert Lyons’s Idiot, an exploration of Dostoevsky protagonist Prince Myshkin using text, video, and dance. The festival also includes a trio of post-performance talks, “Continue the Conversation,” with “Soundscapes” on March 6 after the 7:00 Lighthouse show, “Variants of Video Integration” on March 8 following the 8:30 show, and “Playing with Operatic Form” on March 10 after the 8:30 show. Tickets for all productions are $15 except for Lighthouse 40° N, 73° W, for which admission is $5; a $60 OFF-OFFten Club membership allows you to see all shows for $5 each and also comes with four tickets to be used anytime during the season in addition to four glasses of wine from the café.