HI KIDS!
Good news: JON is officially awesome. That's not just me saying this. It's official.
Read the Chris Jones TRIBUNE review here: I LOVE JON And he'll be plugging us on CBS this Sunday at 10:15 (roughly)!
PLUS - we've added some sneak peek videos of the soon-to-be legendary show. Check out both the home page, and the JON show page!
ps
This is a photograph by Kristie Shanley>
In the photo of me and George Saunders, it's 9am on a Thursday, and the "garden apartment" of the Bed and Breakfast in Hyde Park seems bizarrely Saundersesque... an oddly clinical room in an otherwise cozy and welcoming place. The windows are those semi-opaque glass blocks that prevent you from actually seeing outside.
We're meeting to discuss "Jon", a story of George's I am adapting and directing this fall for Collaboraction at the Building Stage. This is the first time we've met. I'm nervous, excited. I find myself scribbling notes on inventive little things Saunders says... "The gargadisk... a glimpse of clarity in a confusing world." Nuggets of inspiration. There is an easy rhythm to the conversation. Saunders is to be whisked away at 11am, and the time slips quickly by.
Two dudes in a basement. It feels actually a lot like high school, when I stayed up all night with my nerdy friends, playing Scrabble tournaments until 3am, or Boggle. That is really what I did in high school. There were no substances involved. And here again, it feels like brains encountering each other in sober space. Again, no chemicals--coffee is absent; somehow it never comes up to inquire... my questions feel too urgent (I have been up since 6am to prepare). We drink water instead, though my caffeine-withdrawl-headache is already starting to form. Anthony Moseley, Collaboraction's Artistic Director, looks on like a bemused football fan at a ping-pong championship semifinal.
This is an icebreaker, in the Arctic sense-- breaking a glacier so what remains, one hopes, is a frigid open sea of collaborative possibilities. George is, amazingly, reassuringly, open to collaboration on all fronts-- invention of new scenes, additional dialogue, writing in support of certain casting choices. A greatly generous partner.
George Saunders is a hero of mine... a man who has lived his life with a sense of constant inquiry, and then turned that inquiry into ingenious art (read his books!) that provokes, critiques, makes you laugh out loud. I hope this is the first of many meetings to come. Next time I will bring the Scrabble board. And coffee.
Seth Bockley; Collaboraction Associate Artistic Director
Jon by George Saunders
World premiere
Adapted and Directed by Seth Bockley
October 30 – December 14, 2008
Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter St.
Jon is a futuristic allegory about teenage love and self-discovery in a corporate universe where television commercials replace life experiences. Collaboraction's Associate Artistic Director Seth Bockley adapts the story by MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship awardee George Saunders. This world premiere production will explore the boundaries of video and theater in realizing this surreal and strangely moving coming-of-age story.
