It's been a busy and exciting year for <the invisible draft>!  One year ago we were in the middle of our Kickstarter funding campaign for our first production at Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival in NYC.  

Thanks to you, that project was a huge success and the same production headed south to the New Orleans Fringe Festival in November.  

Now We're Fund Raising Again!

This summer we are busier than ever as Preview of the Arts is producing a new production of <the invisible draft> at the New Ohio Theater in the New York International Fringe Festival!  This time, we are looking to raise just $1500 toward the production through our producing company Preview of the Arts.  

We're doing modelling our campaign after Kickstarter's brilliant crowd funding with gifts/rewards (including limited edition pendants by Munjoy Metals and the album Weird Chess Surfs the Web!) for our generous contributors.  

More information about our campaign (how it works, what we're doing with your dollars, and our gift gallery) may be found here.  To make a tax-deductible contribution to the show, click here.  I hope you'll consider supporting the continued development of this piece, come see it and tell your friends about it too!

What's New This Time

• The new production features set and costume design by visual artist Nickey Frankel.  Streamlining the design with new materials and a new rig, not only will the set be stunning, its manipulation will be streamlined into a single foldable map! 
• Founders of EGG, Maxwell and Milo Cramer both return to the cast, however, this time they will both be playing Our Man of the World!  And to top it off, they will be the only performers puppeteering!  
• The sonic landscape and the Girl with a Backpack are also developing further under the delicate ear of sound designer Jonah Rosenberg, with additional vocal performance by Maxwell Cramer adding yet another layer to the Girl with a Backpack's linguistic exploration of consciousness and identity.
• Lotte Marie Allen and I are also revamping and introducing new video animation elements to the performance since Lotte's return from Palestine where she spent the past year teaching.  Linking performances to puppeteered projection, the integration of each of the media of expression are being ramped up this time around!

Stay up to date with the show on Facebook, Twitter, and on the new show site:  http://theinvisibledraft.com!

Where and When Can you See it?

We're thrilled to announce we'll be at the New Ohio Theater on Christopher St. between Greenwich and Washington in the landmarked Archive Building.

Our performance schedule was just announced!  

SATURDAY 8/11 @ 7:15 pm
SATURDAY 8/18 @10:15 pm
THURSDAY 8/23 @ 4:00 pm 
SATURDAY 8/25 @ 5:45 pm
SUNDAY 8/26 @ 12 pm

Preview of the Arts, created by Artist Collective NYC a non-profit fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, offers promotion and exposure for emerging and established artists of all disciplines. Our process presents the greatest possible variety of work throughout the year. The content is created and programmed by our artists.

Thanks again!

Deepest gratitude from the entire team of superbly talented artists working on this show!  We couldn't have gotten this far without you and can't wait to see where we wind up next!  

Yours truly,

Claire

< the invisible draft> will be part of the New Orleans Fringe Festival at the New Orleans Candle Factory this November!

Performances:  November 16-18 at 7pm and November 19-20 at 5pm and 7pm

Tickets:  $8 (with $3 Fringe button) available online, at the Mardi Gras Zone, and at the door

Cast:  Our Man of the World - Maxwell Cramer   ---   Girl with a Backpack - Briana Pozner   ---   Italian voiceover - Matteo Paoloni   ---   Puppeteers:  Glenna Broderick, Samuel Moodey, Danielle Small   ---   Video Performance - EmmaGrace Skove-Epes

Matteo returned to Rome this fall, and Harriett Meyer and Milo Cramer have returned to Bard College for their senior years.  They are missed, but it is a great pleasure to be working with a new and equally talented cast!

The caravan leaves for New Orleans on November 3rd!  Many thanks again for all your support in getting this project off the ground and if you're in the neighborhood, come by the Candle Factory!  If you are in the New York area, check out EmmaGrace's show at Spoke the Hub this month.  If you can't make the shows, you can get a taste of what you're missing at www.youtube.com/sweptnodoormat .

< the invisible draft > opens in just 9 days at Theater for the New City!  

Theater for the New City, Crystal Field Executive Director, presents its Dream Up Festival production of <the invisible draft>

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• August 14th at 2pm
  
• August 15th at 9pm
  
• August 17th at 7pm
  
• August 19th at 7pm
  
• August 20th at 7pm
  

Tickets are available through Smarttix and at the Box Office.  Theater for the New City is located on 1st Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets in New York.  Tell your friends! 

Thanks to your support, we have been rehearsing and building upstate for the last three weeks!  Here are just a few photos to give you a taste of what's to come...

A few quick notes about what's shaking:

• Fedora, one of the animations, is now on YouTube!

• We've applied to the New Orleans Fringe Festival.  i.e. Your contributions to the upcoming production will continue to help the production as it travels to new places.  

• <the invisible draft> moved upstate to the Old Gym!  The Old Gym is a free, student-run arts space at Bard College where the production will be built and rehearsed over the next month.

• Milo Cramer has joined the cast as a puppeteer! Director/playwright/actor will join rehearsals at Bard College after returning from Vermont this month where he teaches theater to summer campers.
  

Apart from picking your own berries, summer upstate means yard sales.  I was fortunate enough to stop by the Bennett's in Elizaville while working in the Hudson Valley for the month of June at Voice & Vision Theater's ENVISION Retreat. 

The Bennetts, a lovely couple with a home on the way to my favorite swimming hole, had laid out all kinds of treasures, but the thing which caught my eye was a collection of antique postcards, mostly blank.  The collection belonged to the late grandmother, a dancer and performer in New York who died over the age of 90 with this collection of more than 400 postcards in a shoebox.  

After talking with Mr. and Mrs. Bennett about <the invisible draft>, their grandmother and these postcards, we were all convinced that they should be the ones mailed to you, dear supporters, and in the show.  Take a look, maybe this one wants your address?