Interview: John Kurzynowski and RHINEBECCA NY by TRE at The Brick in Williamsburg 3/4 to 3/19

Theater Reconstruction Ensemble (TRE) will present the World Premiere of Rhinbecca, NY from Marcy 4th to March 19th in a limited engagement at The Brick, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The show is created and performed by TRE and conceived and directed by John Kurzynowski, the company's founder and Artistic Director. Broadwayworld.com interviewed John Kurzynowski about his career and the show.

At the intersection of suspense and the absurd lies the town of Rhinbecca, NY. Population: 367, not including the mayor, which makes 368. You may have noticed the mayor's house. Up on the hill. You can always point to it. You can see it from miles away. The mayor's head is a bald dome with a half skirt of white hair. He's blue collar in the community, top of the food chain. And he is missing. Enter Don. Don is a stranger from out. He may or may not remember who he is or how he's arrived in town. And his sudden appearance may or may not be directly related to the mystery of the missing mayor. But his absurdly suspenseful quest to uncover the truth hidden beneath this theatrical facade, loosely inspired by the greatest works of playwright Eugene Ionesco and filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, may very well leave us all completely transformed.

John Kurzynowski has conceived and directed each of TRE's mainstage productions, including You On The Moors Now, Salesmen: a meditation on masculinity and the American REAL!, Set in the Living Room of a Small Town American Play, and The Three Seagulls, or MASHAMASHAMASHA!. He has collaborated with Target Margin Theater, The Talking Band, Tugboat Collective, Fresh Ground Pepper, Little Lord, and artists David Greenspan, David Herskovits, Tina Shepard, Paul Zimet, Jaclyn Backhaus, and Colby Day, among others. His process of "creative collaboration" has been taught at Abrons Arts Center through The School of Making Thinking.

What was your earliest interest in theatre?

I grew up in Jersey, so heading into the city to see a Broadway show had become a near-weekly ritual for me by the time I entered my teenage years. But my interest in theater actually sprang out of my interest in dance - I began taking tap lessons at a very early age, so performance has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. And then when I was around seven or eight years old, my parents took me to see my first Broadway show - The Phantom of the Opera - and I've been hooked ever since.

Tell us a little about your education.

I went to NYU for Drama, and for a long time I considered myself an actor. It wasn't until I began training at the Experimental Theatre Wing my junior year of college that I found myself interested in directing and creating work myself. It was around this time that I became more familiar with the "experimental" work being produced downtown at such venues as PS 122 and The (old) OHIO. After college, I worked with Target Margin Theater for a season and can claim with certainty that the most influential and lasting education I ever received occurred in the rehearsal room with David Herskovits, who has become a true mentor and supporter of my work.

Who has inspired your career?

David Herskovits and Target Margin Theater, for starters. I've always looked up to the nonprofit companies that have forged a path for those of us who are just now emerging: Elevator Repair Service, New Georges, The Talking Band, Clubbed Thumb, Ma-Yi Theater Company, SITI Company, The Wooster Group, Mabou Mines. But I'm also just as influenced by the emerging companies who are now beginning to make their mark: The TEAM, Half Straddle, The Mad Ones, The Deconstructive Theatre Project, Buran Theatre, harunalee, Built for Collapse, Fresh Ground Pepper. No one's in this profession for the money, so it's always incredibly inspiring to see a group of artists produce a new play or performance piece filled with the kind of raw passion and sense of experimentation that is unique to this field.

Tell us about the dual role of Creator and Director and some of the challenges.

Our process at TRE is highly collaborative, so the weight of creating a piece never rests solely on my shoulders. Over the course of a year or so, I'll assign tasks and start conversations geared towards generating material through a specific lens of my own choosing, but the material that's created is truly unique to the individual members of the ensemble who are exploring the canonical text or tradition in play. I'll then learn a bit about how that particular ensemble connects to the work, and start to form a structure for the piece. This loose structure will help carry us into the next workshop. And then finally, we arrive in a rehearsal room with a script in hand and the director side takes over. I'm lucky to have found such a strong core group of artists with whom I can genuinely collaborate. And who are familiar enough with this kind of process to really dive into the material and trust that we'll arrive at some meaningful destination. It makes the journey all the more exciting and mysterious.

Have you always had a penchant for mystery?

I wouldn't say I've always had a penchant for mystery, per se, but I have always been drawn to the particular mode of suspense that's prevalent in both the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Eugene Ionesco. Which is why the underlying experiment of this project piqued my interest: What happens when the worlds of Hitchcock and Ionesco collide? There's such a fine line between suspense and the absurd. And somehow we've managed to not only find that line, but tightrope-walk our way along it for nearly a year and a half now. At any moment you can lean over just a bit onto one side of that line, but the other side is still completely visible. It's easy to laugh at some of the more suspenseful moments in Hitchcock's films, and just as easy to gasp in horror at some of the more absurd moments in Ionesco's plays. And that suspenseful absurdity has always interested me.

What do you want area audiences to know about the show?

Rhinbecca, NY is premiering at The Brick in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as part of their Resident Artist Program. The Brick has been a home-base for many emerging and established experimental theater artists and companies for years now, and we feel truly lucky to be returning with this particular piece. And (for those who are familiar with The Brick) we are particularly excited to be transforming the space completely for this production. You will definitely be walking into a room free of risers and black curtains, but to say much more would ruin the fun.

Tell us a little about your cast and the creative team.

This is our first show written entirely by the ensemble, with some help from our playwright extraordinaire Alex Kveton. This group of actors/artists is quite possibly the most insanely talented group ever assembled (you can quote me on that one) and together they have created such a beautiful and bizarre piece of theater. We've also been fortunate enough to have an incredible design team present throughout the show's development, helping to create the piece from the get go. It's honestly been the most exhilarating and rewarding creative process I've ever been a part of, and I cannot wait for audience members to share in that process come March.

Why does Theater Reconstruction Ensemble have a distinctive appeal in the theater community?

What sets TRE apart from other companies is our commitment to creative collaboration within our own unique process of development. We're interested in digging into the past in order to collaboratively create something new. We love theater, but more importantly we love challenging why we love theater, and why we love particular styles or genres or periods of theater. This process of challenging the source material as a collective of individual artists with individual interests allows us to explore without any particular end goal in sight. And the work we create truly reflects that mysterious level of exploration. Anything can happen, and every discovery is valid.

For the future?

What's next for TRE? Once Rhinbecca, NY closes we'll begin to assemble an ensemble for our next reconstruction How to Hamlet? which is set to premiere in 2017. This piece will be a meditation on Shakespeare's Hamlet - specifically on the universal interest in the piece and its impact on modern society. After that, who knows? We're now in our sixth year, and we hope to continue down this road of development and growth we've found ourselves on for many years to come. There's so much more to explore, and so much more to create. And so much more fun to be had along the way.

About Theatre Reconstruction Ensemble

Theater Reconstruction Ensemble (TRE) is an evolving collective of theater artists striving to reconstruct both classical and canonical forms of theatricality through the playful development of works over time. Committed to a collaborative approach to theater making, TRE functions as a project-based ensemble of artists working under the artistic leadership of director John Kurzynowski, collectively examining each element of a theatrical text or tradition and creating new works that reflect the ensemble's personal connection to the materiel being explored.

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Rhinbecca NY runs from March 4 - 19, 2016 in a limited engagement at The Brick, located at 579 Metropolitan Avenue between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Brick is accessible from the L train to Lorimer or the G train to Metropolitan.

Performances are Wednesdays - Sundays at 8pm and Saturdays at 2pm with an added show on Monday, March 14 at 8pm. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at http://www.ReconstructionEnsemble.org or by calling 1-866-811-4111. The running time is approximately 90 minutes.

Photo Credit: Hunter Canning