Theatre at the Center is the Drama program of the Lawrence Arts Center which seeks to provide the best in local and touring theatre for and with youth. For years, the Center’s Seem-To-Be Players professional children’s theatre toured and educated children throughout the heartland of America and the nation. The company played in more than 42 states, 230 + communities for over 500,000 children and families. The Players performed The Emperor's New Clothes, The Boston Tea Party, American Tall Tales, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Los Zapatos Magicos; Pedro's Magic Shoes, Amelia Earhart; First Lady of Flight, The Adventures of Stuart Little, Rapunzel and many, many more titles during 25+ years of national touring.
At home, the company is producing such ‘age-appropriate' pieces of theatre as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (large cast version), The Ice Wolf, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and premiering such works as Max Bush's Kara in Black and Ric Averill's own There's an Eyeball in My Soup.
Theatre at the Center is currently producing physical theatre artist Heidi Van's The Coppelia Project; a Clown Ballet for a national tour. Coppelia features the Arts Center's resident Drama Program Director and resident Playwright and Composer, Ric Averill, as Dr. Coppelius. Ric performs live music, created the sound design and is one of the principal actors in the production.
Future projects include Grotesque Arabesque; a Rock Opera with Modern Dance based on the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe. See links below to music from this piece.
Doogin and Kalen
About Coppelia: On Tour
The Coppelia Project: a clown ballet, will be touring during January and early February of 2010, including a week at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a frequent stop on past Seem-To-Be Players tours. The tour is being produced and booked by Ric Averill, Drama and Film Program Director and Playwright and Composer in Residence at the Lawrence Arts Center. Contact Ric for more information about booking COPPELIA: Ric Averill – lacdrama@sunflower.com -785-843-2787, ext. 123
About Coppelia: The History
Dr. giving up on Kalen Clown
The Coppelia Project: a clown ballet is a red nosed clown show created by Heidi Van and her Interrobang; A Theatre Collective company to communicate on many different levels. The non-verbal piece is told through the physical relationships of the characters with each other and the audience. The non-verbal style communicates to the hearing impaired, non-English speakers and the very young as well as the seasoned theatre patron. The Coppelia Project was the result of a collaboration of music, theatre and dance artists and became the hit of the Kansas City Fringe Festival in the summer of 2008 and has been revived twice, reworked and funded for a national tour. This piece is based on the German Expressionist Der Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman, and the subsequent ballet, Coppelia, In both stories the character of Dr. Coppelius-Coppola creates automatons, or ballerina clowns, and a young boy foolishly falls in love them in a tragic and comic manner. The idea of a human creating another as an entity of “beauty” and then destroying the doll when it is “unsatisfactory” is the through line of this story. Imperfections – visible or invisible – live within all of us, but so does potential, spirit, and individuality. This project is now a touring program for Accessible Arts of Kansas City, Kansas. Actress Vanessa Severo, who pushes the limits of strength and determination every day despite a physical impairment, and an encounter with a young person with disabilities that was able to converse through clowning inspired Heidi Van to create a clown piece that has the Capabilitiy to communicate to all ages, to people of all abilities and languages.
Ric Averill as Dr. Coppelius
About Coppelia: The Show
Kalen Created
The Coppelia Project: a clown ballet, explores issues of perfection and acceptance as an odd inventor, Dr. Coppelius, brings several Clown Ballerinas to life, only to be ultimately unhappy with his creations. A young delivery boy acts as a foil to the Dr., discovering the unique qualities of each ‘automaton.’ The third actress’ actual physical disability is showcased as part of the Doll’s challenge for the Dr. and audiences learn with the Boy and the Dr. that one must accept people as they are. The play explores issues of tolerance, overcoming obstacles and the celebration of each person’s unique mental, physical and even spiritual well being. This profound and extremely comic Physical Theatre ‘hit’ has been touring as part of the Accessible Arts Program in Kansas and the Midwest.
In this beautifully staged piece of contemporary physical theatre, Dr. Coppelius’ workshop includes a door, a worktable, and window. A ‘life sized’ mannequin is replaced in turn by three talented clown ballerina’s with comic results. Ric Averill’s music, some live and some recorded, mixes with classical selections as the professional performers engage children in a unique way and explore issues of physical and mental ‘perfection.’ The piece runs just under an hour and is highly entertaining and comic as well as poignant.
The production is a wonderful way to explore issues of accessibility, difference and the value of the individual. The physical theatre piece will inspire students to communicate in unique ways and will also share with them the joy of performers reaching past their own physical restrictions and proving that there is inherit value in every human being.
COPPELIA PROJECT - A CLOWN 'BALLET'
preparing to tour to a community near you...
This NEW trailer was shot at La Esquina Art Space in Kansas City and shows the new costuming, sets and some of the development of the show as we prepare it for the family and school audience 2010 tour!!
And in development ...
Grotesque Arabesque: A Rock Opera With Modern Dance Based On The Life And Works Of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allen Poe
This project is in development and has been workshopped/developed as follows:
The 2005 Theatre in the World Festival at San Diego State University’s Theatre of the World Festival performed a staged reading/singing of the then partially completed work.
The piece was featured in a week long 2008 residency with the 940 Dance Company at the Merryman Performing Arts Center in Kearney, Nebraska, which culminated in a performance with a rock band, the professional dance company, local student dancers and both professional and student singers.
In 2008, the project became a finalist for the Creativity in Motion award and was workshopped with a professional rock band headlined by Eric Mardis in Lawrence, Kansas. A recording of the three movements of the Morella story from the rock opera is available on Ric Averill’s music MySpace page. Here's the LINK
The sections in question are titled Morella; Part One, Morella; Aria and Morella; Part Three. Other original music by Averill may be found on the same site.
This same material was workshopped for the grant with the 940 Dance company and excerpts of that production may be seen below:
In 2009, as part of the Urban Culture Project in Kansas City, Missouri, La Esquina arts space featured The Coppelia Project, above, for three weekends, but also featured a performance of the Morella story from the Poe Opera with modern dance. Video of that performance is forthcoming.
Ric Averill- Bio
Ric Averill
Currently Drama and Film Program Director at the Lawrence Arts Center, Ric Averill was the Artistic Director and principal playwright, composer and director for the Seem-To-Be Players professional national touring children's theatre company for over 30 years. Ric has made multiple appearances at the John F. Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices new play development symposium and the Indianapolis Bonderman Youth Theatre Playwriting Symposium. Averill is a 2006 recipient of an Aurand Harris Fellowship from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America. More than twelve of Ric’s plays are available from Dramatic Publishing.
Included among Ric's many commissions are Dreams Carved from Stone about the life of Crazy Horse sculptor Korczak Ziolkowsky which premiered at the Black Hills Playhouse in June of 2008, the Kennedy Center's Alice in Wonderland, First Stage Milwaukee's Little Drummer Boy, the Coterie Theatre's Frankenstein and the Kansas Health Foundation's Red Blood and High Purpose. Ric's fusion of music and theatre culminated in an opera for children based on the story of The Emperor's New Clothes commissioned by the Kennedy Center for a world premiere in November of 2001 and a national tour in 2003-2004.
Current projects include; an opera with rock music and modern dance based on the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe entitled Grotesque Arabesque; and a new play called There’s an Eyeball in My Soup, written with niece, Sierra Cyrdrus, which will premiere at Theatre at the Center in May of 2009. With son, Will, Averill has a screenplay, Riding the Pine, currently in production.
