Hey Kickstarter Supporters,

We are opening our show tonight, anxiously awaiting the rehearsal to finish on our stage so we can frantically load our sound and set in (the time/split of the theatre was part of the rental deal). We'll let you know how it goes!

You can keep up to date with what is going on with the show via our facebook page and hopefully even catch a live broadcast this weekend via web streaming.

Best,
Eamonn

PS Here is my director's notes that were translated for the program:

Thank you for coming here tonight to experience "The Return" at this stage in its development. Our road to this performance has been a unique and thrilling journey. It began last winter when William Antoniou and I started talking about what our second collaboration might be. Our first collaboration was a multimedia, musical theater piece called "a Wonderland" which we presented in New York City a year ago. We both knew that we wanted to develop our second show here in Greece. I've worked in Greece several times with director, Lee Breuer (which is how William and I met) and I was eager to collaborate with a group of Greek theatre artists.

William and I began to talk about musical styles for the new show and he said he was interested in creating music that was influenced by Rebetiko. Never having been aware of Rebetiko before Will introduced me to it, I started listening to and researching the music and quickly fell in love with it. At the same time, I had become infatuated with Euripides's "The Bacchae." My theatre company in New York, Anonymous Ensemble, has produced numerous, contemporary, "rock" adaptations of ancient Greek plays. Soon the concept for this piece fell into place.

Will and I began writing music and text and sharing Ideas with each other over the Atlantic via skype. When the opportunity for support from the Hellenic/American University came, we decided to accelerate the process and present a workshop of the entire show and so here we are.

Myself, Jessica and Liz (fellow Anonymous Ensemble members) have only been here in Athens working on the show for six weeks but it has been such an artistically full experience that it feels much longer. It has been an absolute pleasure working with this incredible ensemble of Greek and American artists and technicians - getting to know each other's languages, cultural and artistic practices. Everything about this process has been rewarding - from first working with the actors via skype on translating their lines - to getting here and listening to and about Rebetiko late into the night with our guitarist, Fotis - to witnessing the meticulous work of the dancers and Faidra in the studio - to the long hours and hard work put in by our tremendous technical team this past week.

I am extremely grateful to this dedicated and talented group of artists and especially to Will, a remarkable collaborator and in the case of this workshop, a fearless producer. We hope that this show has a long life and welcome any feedback you are willing to offer so that we may continue to develop it. Please sign our mailing list and stay tuned for the return of "The Return."

So much has happened since our last update. We are in the thick of rehearsals and adventures.
A sample day:
In our search for our Cadmos charactor, who should be played by an 80 year old man, we began the morning by entering a portal into 1920, in the apartment of the most beautiful elegant old gentleman, Thodoros Dimitriev. It was amazing to see him working through Eamonn's lyrics, figuring them out beautufully and earnestly, with Will on piano, and then and deliver readings of the Greek text that had everyone dying with laughter. All in a days work, we continued on to rehearsal, where our choreographer had just finished staging a post-modern lesbian dance love scene, knocked out some intricate English and Greek camera and staging work, and rounded off the day by going to the the pop music concert of our lead performer, Isaias, for the third week in a row, confirming our groupie status.
We have almost finished staging the show, and getting all the very different kinds of performers into the same world.
We would like to share with you a taste of our living quarters, known as To Archio (the archives) Which is known as such because it is serves as the storage area for Will's prolific composer father, Theodore Antoniou. In addition to thousands of musical scores, the archives houses closets full of priceless 90's clothing, preserved in time, and ready to most likely costume our entire show. We took the opportunity to model some choice selections in their natural environment. We hope you enjoy. Also, we are including a picture of Liz finally getting to make beautiful music with the Rebetiko musicians all night...

Happy Mothers Day!

As the temperature here creeps up to perfection with blue skies and blue water, the political situation is also heating up. In case you missed it on the news, there was a huge protest last Wednesday and smaller protests throughout the week. Somehow we completely missed it even though it happened within earshot of where we are staying. We were in another part of Athens in the rehearsal all day and just passed through the leftover devastation on our way home: smashed Mcdonalds, burnt bank (where, sadly some workers died) and tear gas still lending a sting to the air.

Our Greek collaborators are definitely worried about the situation and the future of their country's economy. We've had many a fascinating conversation deep into the night about it all. We're trying to absorb everything we can from every perspective - especially because our show deals with the complexities of the relationship between Greek culture and American culture and anti-Americanism is inflamed here right now (hence the smashed MacDonalds). Despite all that, we feel totally safe and incredibly welcomed here. There's really nothing quite like Greek hospitality - it goes on and on and involves lots of nescafe and tupperware containers of food cooked by various Greek mothers.

We've finished most of the translation and had our first read/sing through of the show yesterday and it was thrilling and terrifying. The amount of work we have ahead of us is a little overwhelming but we are up for it. We also have a bunch of fantastic and energetic interns from the University that are going to help us out tremendously. They are all completely bilingual and enthusiastic which is good because everything we do here involves a couple extra layers of work (like the arduous task of translating our press release). They're going to start coming to rehearsals this week which is going to be fun.

Time for an amazing side story / small world anecdote. Liz's cousin lives in Athens and his name is John. He has two small children and Liz was so excited to see all of them. The first day that she was free to make plans with him, he had to drop off an application so she tagged along with him. Turns out he was applying for a carpentry job at one of Athens big theaters. When Liz described the theater to me, I realized that it was where Jessica and I had performed Mabou Mines' Dollhouse two years ago. When Liz told her cousin that, he said "I remember Dollhouse, I wore a wig and had to go out on stage and giggle in that crazy show." When Liz told me that, I siad "Your cousin is American John from Illinois who was on our Greek crew!" and then Jessica took out her laptop and found a picture of him in his Dollhouse wig. Amazing!

Alright, I close with a picture from us in the lobby of our theatre. The Chora is a cool, huge space with a great energy and we are looking forward to pouring our show into it!

hello people!
liz here
believe it!
because of you, we three have arrived in greece!!
i've been here just 28 hours, but it's been aMAZing
we're all working on our greek, though we've made some mistakes
(a near homophone: "i want to eat a dog" rather than "i want to eat something")
but we're learning
luckily, the Greeks are receptive to our attempts and mistakes, ha
we began rehearsals in our amazing space (i was finally able to meet some of our cast in person, rather than skype), met with our sound guy, and tonight we three set off to see our Dionysis (Isaias Matiampa; google him. he's amazing!) perform in a music venue
i hadn't yet met him, so was super excited to see him perform
we were given questionable directions ("get off at this stop, take the exit that's not______, turn right at the building under construction, etc.)
we asked a lovely woman on the street where to find Σταυρός του Νότου; she instantly recognized the venue, walked with us for a bit, and told us where to turn left
we found the street, immediately saw Σταυρός του Νότου, paid our 15 euro, and went inside
a band opened and we listened patiently
they sang mostly in greek, so it was difficult to understand the poetic lyrics of love and loss; mostly we were waiting for Isaias to begin
after two hours, they closed with a greek version of the alicia keys/jay z song about new york, relyriced about athens (no matter where i go; i cannot escape that song)
the waitress came to collect our bill, and i politely asked if anyone else was performing
she told us no, and the venue was obviously clearing
we had encountered our first Fail of the trip
we paid and exited the club, only to realize that there's a Σταυρός του Νότου just across the street and that we'd be in Σταυρός του Νότου PLUS
the doorman at the regular old Σταυρός του Νότου was sympathetic to our story (and english) and let us in free of charge
we entered and Isaias was performing one of his hits! (see crappy mobile phone photo)
though we feared we had missed him completely, we were graced with song after song; we danced, we laughed and generally rocked out
we were so happy to receive his graceful, engaging, polished and entertaining performance
he, eamonn and jessica reunited, and i first met him after the show!
what a warm, charismatic individual with whom i can't wait to collaborate!
so what appeared to be the first Fail was an epic Success, and i know that it bodes well for our time in gorgeous greece
we will be sure to update as we progress, and you should look forward to hearing from eamonn and jessica!
all my very best
we're all so appreciative of you who have contributed to this project; we are intent on creating virtuosic theatre, and will apprise you of our progress
again, many thanks, and you will hear from us soon!
my very best,
liz

Thank you so much for your support for our Greek/American Bacchae project!!! As you know we reached and even exceeded our goal, thanks to your most fabulous selves. We just want to let you know how much we appreciate each and every one of you, and we promise to take the Greeks by storm in your name and if all goes well bring them back here to perform for you too!

Also, we mentioned some exciting news about the project. Our composer, Will is over in Athens busy assembling the ensemble and it's turning into what seems like a dream team, including several Greek celebrities, who we will be meeting in person in a matter of weeks. We're also exploring some possibilities for presenting the piece in other parts of Greece and perhaps beyond! We'll let you know as things develop!

Lots of Love and Olives,
Jessica, Eamonn and Liz