Summit Performance

Summit shows the ‘Different’ could be any of us

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By John Lyle Belden and Wendy Carson

Summit Performance Indianapolis does more than produce great plays. As a community outreach, it presents “This is Different,” an original one-act play, followed by open panel discussion, on living with and looking past the stigma of substance use disorder (SUD).

Quoting Summit: “It is the ninth Community Conversation One-Act produced by Summit and developed in collaboration with Dr. Sally Wasmuth… at the IU Indianapolis School of Health and Human Services… created from local interviews, conducted by Dr. Wasmuth.”

One performance remains, 7 p.m. tonight (June 28) on the main stage of the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre, 705 N. Illinois St., downtown Indianapolis. As the production is made possible in part by the City of Indianapolis and the Opioid Settlement Funds through the Indy Arts Council, all tickets are free, but reservations are needed at phoenixtheatre.org.

Told mainly through compelling monologues, the first-person stories collected by Wasmuth were crafted by playwrights Lauren Briggeman, the director and a Summit founder with long experience in drama; and Kelsey Johnson Lyons, who approached the script from her experience as a poet. Briggemen noted that choreographer Mariel Greenlee, formerly a company member with Dance Kaleidoscope, took the initiative in recommending movement used to underscore the performances. Simple yet effective lighting and sound are by Laura Glover and Olivia Lawson; Nico Meisner is stage manager.

The spirit of collaboration is reflected by the cast, each a major local talent: Tracy Herring, Miki Mathioudadkis, Morgan Morton, and Tracy Nakagozi. The source, script, and earnest delivery combine to thoroughly humanize the addicts in recovery that they represent. While additiction is expensive and devastating, they warn, most of all it is “sneaky.” It’s a party – until it’s not. Without excuses or complaint, the women who speak through these four relate their circumstances, their losses, what they salvage, and the human desire to belong, whether among others or just alone in your own yellow house.

You likely know or may even have been someone like these anonymous real souls. Especially if you don’t, it is imperative to understand them. The discussion after the one-hour performance gives plenty of room for exploring what this means to you, and all of us.

The title, “This is Different,” turns out to have a double meaning. It is what that voice within says when it dawns that instead of using a substance, the roles are reversed; then it’s the realization when after all your attempts to get “clean,” you finally see real recovery.

Big thanks to Dove Recovery House for its participation in this production, and to the continued community work of Summit Performance Indianapolis.

Exploring the degree we ‘Flex’ to fulfill dreams

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By John Lyle Belden

I am in a unique position to review the play “Flex” by Candrice Jones, presented by Summit Performance Indianapolis at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. At the time and place of this fictional drama – late 1990s in rural southeastern Arkansas – I was a small-town reporter covering sports in that region. I also grew up in a tiny town where basketball was practically the only school sport, and to have a player noticed at all by college scouts was a miracle.

Starra Jones (Shelby Marie Edwards) is the star point guard of the Plano, Ark., (pronounced “Plain Ol’ Arkansas”) High School Lady Train. The daughter of a promising woman baller from pre-WNBA days, she practices on a packed-dirt court by her home. Fellow senior teammates are Sidney Brown (Maggie Kryszyn), who recently moved from California, bringing with her attention from Division-1 scouts; Cherise Howard (Marissa Emerson), a devout newly-minted youth minister who wants baptism to wash away her feelings for…; Donna Cunningham (Enjoli Desiree), who will use an academic scholarship to escape small-town life; and April Jenkins (Kelli Thomas), whose unplanned pregnancy will likely get her benched by no-nonsense Coach Pace (Alicia K. Sims) just as the Train are State Tournament bound.

Starra was brought up in a take-charge ethos as powerful as her talent, calling the shots in a traditional 1-3-1 offense. Coach finally feels, with two star players in a tightly knit squad, she can run the “Flex” offense she has developed for years. This calls for frequent passing to overwhelm opponents – a lot more sharing than Starra is used to, on top of seeing Sidney’s stats and status rise. Meanwhile, April has a plan to get back on the court, involving a secret road trip across the Mississippi River. Desperate measures are being taken, putting these girls’ futures and perhaps even their souls at risk.

Directed by A.J. Baldwin, the play excellently portrays both the closeness of small-town life, developing tight bonds and pride, and the desperate urges of youth to kick the dirt off your feet for good, getting out to find bigger opportunities far away from Plano. These five mesh as a team and both fight and support one another like sisters. Edwards, our principal narrator, gets much of the focus (like her character) but this squad all give brilliant performances, bringing out their dreams, struggles, and pain for us all to share – making triumph all the more sweet.

Sims mainly plays the mentor but adds layers as Coach Pace also finds she, too, has lessons to learn. The title comes to mean more than a basketball strategy, as all figure out when in life one should – and shouldn’t – be flexible.

I was also impressed that this story was not critical of the role of evangelical Christianity in the girls’ lives, letting it be a source of comfort and even healing in Charise’s unsure yet faithful hands.

SMALL SPOILER: I did have one concern about the script, in that a stumble in the tournament, while essential to the plot, did not eliminate them from the Finals. Please allow some dramatic license here.

Inventive set design by Maggie Jackson puts a basketball court flowing into a rural highway at the center of the black box Basile Stage, with seating on both sides giving a good close view to all. Stage managers are Becky Roeber and Chandra Lynch, who also appear as referees.

With a real hoop at regulation height, the most impressive aspect was how well-practiced the actors were, as there are a number of moments in which shots had to be made. At our performance, every swoosh was right on cue.

Experience small-town hoop dreams with “Flex,” through Feb. 2 at 705 N. Illinois St., Indianapolis. Get info and tickets at phoenixtheatre.org.

Summit: Tests of research methods and ethics get personal

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By John Lyle Belden

No matter how good your scientific method is, there will always be one flaw – the all-too-human scientist. But, perhaps, a person’s humanity can be what redeems the research.

In “Queen,” by Madhuri Shekar, presented by Summit Performance Indianapolis, mathematical genius Sanam (Isha Narayanan) and lifelong bee expert Ariel (Chynna Fry), PhD candidates at University of California Santa Cruz, have been working on the issue of honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder for years. Finally, in the 20-teens, during the peak of international concern for pollinator loss, they have what they believe are sufficient study results to publish.

This has their professor, Phil (Ryan Artzberger), overjoyed as the paper will be published as a cover story in the magazine Nature and their peers are giving him an award and an opportunity to address a conference where he and the women will present how Monsanto pesticides are to blame – there is even a bill on the issue being proposed in Congress.

Meanwhile, for Sanam, whose life is her work and verse visa, her traditional Indian parents have set up yet another blind date with an eligible bachelor whose “grandfather played golf with her grandfather.” To keep familial peace and get a free meal, she goes. Enter Arvind (Nayan Patadia), a supremely self-confident Republican-sounding Wall Street trader, whom Sanam detects is a fellow statistics nerd. Bothered by a last-minute problem with the data in the bee studies, she invites him to her office to “check the figures,” which he does, assuming at first that it was a euphemism.

Like the syndrome being researched, the “bad” data can cause this work with so much at stake – individually and potentially for the whole world – to completely collapse. What happened? What and where is the flaw? Can it be fixed, and if not, can it be “fixed” for the presentation?

The plot buzzes with complexity: issues of ethics, standards of research and good science, the politics of Washington and academia, the fight-fire-with-fire temptation to oppose questionable studies with results skewed your way, the bothersome danger of statistical fallacies, clashes of personal ego, and discovering that as a worker bee, wielding the stinger is self-destruction.

Narayanan holds her own as the proud advocate for statistically accurate science, no matter what it says, devoted to mathematical models practically only she can see. Yet deep within is the need for connection to a bigger hive, allowing the creeping possibility of compromise.

Fry gives us heroically minded Ariel as a woman on a personal crusade, a single mom and first from her beekeeping family to graduate college, with a chance to literally make a difference in the world. She is driven both by the nobility of the quest and fear for her daughter’s future.

Artzberger, adept at both the hero and the heel, gives us an excellent counter to the women’s points of view. Phil is both practical and ambitious, arguing that perhaps a single statistical variance shouldn’t jeopardize the entire project and all they will soon reap. The initial numbers were sound, the Nature article already peer-reviewed. The presentation is a day away, and the show must go on, right?

Patadia charmingly plays the wild card – aptly introduced as one who exercises his math-brain with lucrative games of Texas Hold‘em – who brings out the fact that while numbers don’t lie, humans do, even to themselves. His last play, however, is dealt only to Sanam: go all-in, or fold?

This drama fits Summit’s creed, “by women, about women, for everyone,” with today’s often subtle anti-feminist issues. Men taking credit for women’s research is nothing new, but even with female names on the article, Phil calls the shots. Sanam feels the stress of both ethnic tradition and being an exemplar for women in STEM. Ariel is well aware her motherhood is seen as a weakness as well as a strength. Arvind wants an “aggressive woman” who “knows what she wants” while wanting to be her lone source of support. It’s not just the bees who feel endangered.

Summit artistic manager Kelsey Leigh Miller directs and Becky Roeber is stage manager, with a clever functional set designed by MeJah Balams.

As we publish this, “Queen” opens at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre, 705 N. Illinois St., downtown Indianapolis, and runs through Feb. 25. For tickets and information, go to phoenixtheatre.org or summitperformanceindy.com.

*

Regarding the ongoing issue of Colony Collapse Disorder, this is the EPA page on the topic.

Summit: Much revealed in women’s sacred space

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By John Lyle Belden

On a mountain in France, what appears to have been a Medieval monastery has been repurposed as a unique women’s retreat in “The Convent,” a play by Jessica Dickey given a full production by Summit Performance Indianapolis following a successful staged reading last summer, directed by Summit founder Lauren Briggeman.

Mother Abbess (Jolene Mentink Moffatt), founder and leader of the facility, had been a regular American wife and mother who gave up her ordinary life to seek God. Unsatisfied with religion organized in His name, she instead dedicated The Convent to Her spirit. Upon arrival, each seeker gives up modern clothing and conveniences (including the smartphone). She receives simple clothes, is expected to do the chores of centuries past, and must study to identify with her “Nomen,*” a historic female Christian Mystic.

British heiress Cora Dimlin (Carrie Ann Schlatter), assigned Catherine of Siena, has done many such retreats, and acts as The Convent’s number two. She arrived first, as did her friend Bertie (Chynna Fry), a naïve survivor of an isolated cult, assigned St. Clare of Assisi. Jill (Maria Argentina Souza) arrives next; she is at a crossroads in career and marriage, and assigned Teresa of Avila. Wilma (Miki Mathioudakis) is a nun who finds herself unable to pray; she is assigned St. Hildegard. Tina (Shawnte P. Gaston) is trying to change from seeking pleasure to seeking purpose; she gets Juliana of Norwich. Running in late, to past participants’ dismay, is brash bratty Patti (Dekyi Ronge), still holding her Nomen card for Mechtilde von Hackeborn that she received in a previous session.

Feel free to Google the Saints (none are fictional), however, we do get to learn a bit about them during the play.

As these women undergo their journey of self-discovery, they undertake various exercises (including physical). At mealtime prayer they express, “I want…,” starting with trivial things that pop into their heads, adding items until a true deep desire comes forth.

While each has to come to terms with what feelings and needs brought them to this place, the main struggle is between Mother Abbess and Patti, for reasons that soon become clear. Though their connection is easy to guess, Moffatt and Ronge excellently portray their fraught relationship. Fry gives us a charming girl who finds more than her spirit awakening, while Schlatter embodies the English ideal of stiff-upper-lip control, at least for as long as Dimlin holds out. Gaston does a good balance of portraying a woman acting like a “tourist” yet still open to the retreat’s purpose. Mathioudakis plays another strong character; she allows Wilma to shift paradigm without abandoning the person she vowed to be. Souza gives us Jill’s inner chaos that didn’t stop with a change in scenery.

No real sacrilege here, but still for mature audiences, “The Convent” is a fascinating and thought-provoking examination of the continuing struggle and need for women to define themselves in the worlds they live in. There are a number of laughs, a tear or two, and a few unexpected sacred visions.

Feel free to say, “I want” tickets – performances run through April 9 on the Basile Stage of the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre, 705 N. Illinois St., downtown Indianapolis. Info and tickets at PhoenixTheatre.org.

(*Ancient word for “name,” or perhaps reference to “gnomon,” the indicating part of a sundial.)   

Summit’s ‘Crew’ a bold workplace drama

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By John Lyle Belden

You see the signs, and not just the unusual ones on the bulletin board. Management holds a lot of private meetings; rules start tightening up; workers leave and are not replaced; rumors circulate. The writing is on the wall, perhaps literally when notices go up: people are going to lose their jobs, and perhaps the entire workplace will soon close. 

What had been unthinkable in times of booming industry and union strength has become too common now. I went through a similar situation, perhaps you have, too. And in a recent era, this was the fate of Detroit auto workers in Dominique Morrisseau’s “Skeleton Crew,” the drama presented by Summit Performance at the Phoenix Theatre.

Faye (Dwandra Nickole Lampkin) is within months of 30 years at the plant. She is also: a proud UAW rep; a feisty cancer survivor who can’t – won’t – give up smoking; stubborn protector of her crew, especially Shanita (Akili Ni Mali) and Dez (Kerrington Shorter); practically a mother to the foreman, Reggie (Daniel A. Martin); wise and philosophical, always with something to say; eager to take your money in cards, but not always successful; and a multi-skilled worker who never seems to leave the factory. The fact that she is gay is honestly her least significant trait. 

Shanita is the best on the production line, proud of following her father and helping build something others will be proud to own. She doesn’t even let pregnancy slow her down. As for Dez, he’s got big plans, nice shoes and a gun in his bag. He talks smooth and means well, but the fire within him isn’t always under control. He and Reggie don’t get along, as they seem to assume the worst of each other. Then again, Reggie is right that Dez has been gambling on the premises. 

And as word swirls around that the plant is doomed, someone is quietly stealing from the plant – taking their severance one metal part at a time.

Needless to say, there is a lot of drama and tension as the uncertainty builds. But Morisseau has sprinkled in a healthy dose of workplace humor, and a bit of feeling among the members of this workplace family. It doesn’t take much digging nowadays for these skilled actors to bring the emotions – from concern to frustration – to the surface. Lampkin is a rock. Mali radiates confidence. Shorter gives substance to the angry-young-(black)man archetype. And Martin, known to many for his comic skills, again shows his true range.

Director Melissa Mowry strikes the right balance in the look and feel of the play. The stage (designed by Mejah Balams) is a plant break room, a temporary respite from the noise and stress just outside the back-wall door. Opaque windows show images of industry, and at transitional points in the story, silhouettes of cast members moving rhythmically – men as machines – choreographed by Mowry with the actors. It’s a brilliant visual element that sticks with you.

Powerful drama with strong performances, “Skeleton Crew” has two weekends remaining, through March 13 at the Phoenix, 705 N. Illinois St. For tickets, visit phoenixtheatre.org or go to summitperformanceindy.com.

Summit tells us a story

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By John Lyle Belden

“Tell me a story.” 

Helen of Troy sits in a room at a mythical Egyptian hotel where all of time and technology is possible, but there’s still nothing but crap on TV. 

This is the setting of “Helen,” by Ellen McLaughlin, performed as a staged reading (limited movement and props, but scripts in hand) at the outdoor amphitheater on the campus of Marian University, presented by Summit Performance Indy. 

The touchstone of this comic drama is Euripides’ play of Helen, in which it is her doppelganger that goes to Troy with Paris (abduction? elopement? little of both? legends vary), launching the later-cited “thousand ships” and an epic war as King Meneleaus of Sparta seeks to fetch her back, while the “real” woman is exiled to Egypt to await her husband figuring things out and coming for her.

But as McLaughlin’s play makes clear, the real Helen is lost among various brave, frightened, virtuous, evil, wise, vapid, humble, and ambitious personae — every one so beautiful that you hate her, and also love her, with all your heart. She has launched a thousand stories, from antiquity, to Medieval fairy tales, to the perfect faces on your TV screen. While adding to the lore, the script is a deft synthesis of the legends that have gone before. 

Helen dares not leave her room, as the gods have ordered her to wait there, so she berates, cajoles and converses with “the Help,” a longsuffering maid, and is visited by a talking cow — the legendary Io — and later the haughty goddess Athena, before, at long last, her husband shows up. But he’s confused, and not that happy to see her.

All this is done beautifully by an excellent local cast (I don’t have names available to me, so won’t make errant guesses), who are familiar enough with the material to be “semi-book” and to move and emote naturally. The Allen Whitehill Clowes Amphitheater is a beautiful setting, with lawn seating (bring your own blanket or chair) that is close, but perfectly spaced by Summit staff (you get a “box” area to sit in, with boxes set about six feet apart). 

There is one performance left as this is posted, today (Aug. 29, bumped to Sunday, Aug. 30 if it rains). Tickets are $10 each, available online at SummitPerformanceIndy.com. Marian is located at 3200 Cold Spring Road on Indy’s west side.

Summit: Finding life’s meaning in unlikely ways

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By John Lyle Belden

Summit Performance explores connections, being in the moment, and the fears that affect both, in the comic drama “Be Here Now,” by Deborah Zoe Laufer, directed by Amy Lynn Budd.

Bari (Carrie Ann Schlatter) is an aspiring professor of philosophy, specializing in nihilism, who needs to finish her dissertation. Being in a process that requires a lot of work to argue that nothing at all matters, she’s stuck. Also, her headaches aren’t helping.

Patty (Cynthia Collins) and Luanne (Zariya Butler), coworkers at her other job, a distribution center for knicknacks of various faiths, dislike Bari’s “smug gloom” and seek to somehow make her happy. Desperate, Patty sets up a date with her cousin Mike (Ryan Ruckman), who has issues of his own.

Suddenly, Bari collapses. After a brief seizure, she awakens to unheard music, experiencing fantastic visions — and the realization that absolutely everything is awesome.

While this play is Bari’s story, Mike is a complex presence as well, with a tragic past and an eccentric present life of gathering cast-off items and building them into little houses. And he has a pet crow. Ruckman is solid, maintaining an easy charm that makes his oddities quaint rather than disturbing.

The setting, a little town just a couple of hours away from New York City, is sort of a metaphorical character of its own: Cooperville, where nearly everyone has the last name of Cooper, including Patty. She believes in astrology and fate, and easily justifies her fear of ever leaving town by citing the dangers of the Big City. Collins plays her a little curmudgeonly, but with a big heart. By contrast, her niece Louanne blithely walks the thin line between optimistic and naive. Butler serves up a perfect dose of sweetness.

As for Bari, Schlatter expertly carries her philosophical load, expounding on questions that would give Hamlet a stroke, at times seeming to babble like one who is high (which technically the character is “tripping” at times) yet thanks to Laufer’s script, giving profound insights. This being modern times in enlightened society, she (and the others) understand there is likely a serious medical explanation for what is happening to her. But realizing that even if it’s endangering her life, it does seem to make her feel happy for perhaps the first time, does she really want to give that up?

When all is said and done, you might find yourself looking for the “garbage house” in your own backyard. See for yourself to understand what I mean. “Be Here Now” runs through Feb. 2 on the Basile Stage at the Phoenix Theatre, 705 N. Illinois St. in downtown Indianapolis. Call 317-635-7529 or visit phoenixtheatre.org.

Summit: Feel the love of ‘Mary Jane’

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By John Lyle Belden

“Mary Jane,” as the name of both central character and the play presented by Summit Performance Indianapolis, refers not to a quasi-legal substance but to an American everywoman – dealing with one of the worst nightmares a mother could face.

In the drama by acclaimed playwright Amy Herzog (staged Off-Broadway in 2017), Mary Jane – played with bold optimism by Bridget Haight – is the primary caretaker for Alex, a nearly three-year-old boy with cerebral palsy and other conditions likely caused by a brain-bleed during premature birth.

Presented on the intimate confines of the Basile Stage at the Phoenix Theatre, the play is presented without intermission (as intended) but its scenes present the narrative in two acts: In the first, we are in Mary Jane’s apartment, which includes various medical equipment (much of it unseen behind Alex’s door) and a visiting nurse (Nathalie Cruz). In the second, we are in a hospital which becomes for Mary Jane a sort of home – her son still being cared for just off-stage.

The “third act” is the audience’s ride home, reflecting on what they have seen, heard and felt. Yes, it’s that kind of play. Expect no easy answers, or an ending that brings triumph or catharsis. This is a reflection of real struggles, how we find the strength to confront them, and the search for understanding among others in a similar situation, as well as through faith.

Cruz plays a doctor in the latter half; others in the cast take on dual roles as well. Mara Lisabeth Malloy twice plays a mother with a special-needs child – first a new mom receiving an avalanche of advice from Mary Jane on how to cope; later a Jewish mother of seven who, having faith and family for support, takes the mentor role. Kelsey Johnson is a young woman wanting to help but out of her depth, first as a visitor, charmed by the little boy then overwhelmed by the reality of the situation; later as a musical therapist shaken into not becoming yet another part of Mary Jane’s problems. Jan Lucas bookends the story, at first as a helpful apartment Super, and later as a serenely savvy Buddhist nun.

The play is directed by Summit founding artistic director Lauren Briggeman, who – like Herzog – has some understanding of being a caregiver. It’s easy to see the devotion she and all involved had in giving their production genuine heart – including many moments of appropriately uplifting or soothing humor. Haight plays Mary Jane with great strength, even in passing moments when the facade cracks. Castmates all exhibit empathy so convincingly it seems there truly is a sickly toddler residing on the corner of the set.

If you go to theatre for “the feels,” or are open to, I encourage you to visit “Mary Jane,” with performances through Aug. 18 at the Phoenix, 705 N. Illinois in downtown Indianapolis. Call 317-635-7529 or visit www.summitperformanceindy.com.

Stellar Summit debut with ‘Silent Sky’

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By John Lyle Belden

A century ago, a woman helped revolutionize astronomy, a perfect subject to inaugurate Indy’s new woman-centered theater company, Summit Performance Indianapolis.

“Silent Sky,” by Lauren Gunderson, playing through July 22 on the Basile Stage of the Phoenix Theatre, is the story of Henrietta Leavitt, who, shortly before 1900, joined a team of women working for the astronomy professor at Harvard College (now University) near Boston. Acting as the “Hidden Figures” of their day, Dr. Pickering (who we never meet in this play) calls these women “Computers,” a word not yet attached to the modern device, but still apt. More crudely, they were also referred to as “Pickering’s Harem.”

Though women weren’t allowed to actually use the state-of-the-art telescope, Leavitt (Carrie Ann Schlatter) finds excitement in identifying stars and celestial phenomena on its glass photographic plates. She joins no-nonsense team leader Annie Cannon (Molly Garner) and feisty Scottish immigrant Williamina Fleming (Gigi Jennewien), Pickering’s former housekeeper and his first Computer. They are supervised by the professor’s assistant, Peter Shaw (Adam Tran), a man whose heart really isn’t in his work – until he meets Henrietta.

But the ties of family beckon, as Henrietta’s dear sister Margaret (Devan Mathias) calls her to their father’s Wisconsin home when he falls ill. Even there, she continues her work, seeking to make sense and pattern of the varying brightness in the stars she studies. Margaret tires of her sister’s obsession, and finds solace at her piano – what happens next, as the saying goes, is history.

Produced by Summit founder and Artistic Director Lauren Briggeman and directed by Lori Wolter Hudson, the play makes excellent use of the Basile black-box stage, with audience on three sides, as well as projected starscapes. The props are few but beautiful, including a very functional large desk and Henrietta’s period-appropriate hearing aid. Performances are superb, especially Schlatter expressing Henrietta’s passions and regrets, and Mathias showing Margaret’s tested but true sisterly love. Garner entertainingly transforms from dour to power as a budding feminist. Jennewien is ever the kind mother figure. Tran doesn’t allow his performance to slide into buffoonery, but he is definitely not the smartest “man” in the room.

This sweet drama explores the personal cost of ambition, as well as the struggle to overcome systems set against you. As Henrietta herself says in the play, “Life is about getting appropriately upset.”

Learn about and celebrate the woman who “measured the universe.” Note that the Phoenix is now at 705 N. Illinois St., and curtain times on this stage are 7:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m. Sundays, a half-hour off the mainstage times. For info and tickets visit www.summitperformanceindy.com or www.phoenixtheatre.org.