Inside A.C.T.

By Shannon Stockwell  The Unfortunates  is now playing at The Strand Theater and closes April 10.  Get tickets here! In The Unfortunates , Big Joe goes from being utterly terrified of death to accepting it with bravery. For human beings, learning how to accept our own death is one of the most difficult things we can do—so difficult, in fact, that some believe we are completely incapable of it. Freud said, “It is impossible to imagine our own deaths.” But there are those who believe that accepting death is not only doable, but the key to living the happiest life possible: “We cannot live authentically and meaningfully without embracing death,” says psychologist Paul T. P. Wong. (L-R): CJ (Christopher Livingston), Big Joe (Ian Merrigan), and Coughlin (Jon Beavers) face their deaths in The Unfortunates . Photo by Kevin Berne. Several theories have been proposed about the ways in which humans approach death. Psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five...

By Shannon Stockwell  The Unfortunates  is now playing at The Strand Theater and closes April 10.  Get tickets here! Everybody dies. It’s a fact of life. Most of us can set aside this truth to get on with our lives and avoid despair, but eventually, we will all have a moment where we must come face to face with our mortality. The Unfortunates tells the story  of such a moment: Big Joe must confront the inescapable reality of death—and he must come to terms with it quickly, because the enemy is aiming his gun at Joe’s head. A copper engraving of a seventeenth-century plague doctor, by Paul Fürst, circa 1656. In the dream world of The Unfortunates , one of the most potent symbols of death is the plague. It is telling that, although Joe is in the midst of a war in the real world, his subconscious invents a pandemic. Wars and plagues are often thought of in similar terms; one is often used as a metaphor for the other. We talk about the “war” on AIDS, o...

An Interview with A.C.T. Wig Master Kate Casalino By Shannon Stockwell The Unfortunates is now playing at The Strand Theater. Get tickets here! “The wigs for The Unfortunates are a special beast,” laughs Kate Casalino. “This show is a lot different than what I’ve traditionally done at A.C.T.” As A.C.T.’s wig master, Casalino works closely with costume designers to create the hairstyles for the show. For The Unfortunates , she had the opportunity to work on a design that balanced a World War I–esque time period with a “funky, weird” factor, resulting in some truly impressive (and massive) wigs. We visited Casalino in the Unfortunates dressing rooms to get the story behind the hair. How did you go about building the wigs? Luckily, The Unfortunates had been done previously at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Even though the show has changed a lot since then, I rented the wigs that they used, to have a starting point. Only half of one of those wigs made i...

An Interview with The Unfortunates Scenic Designer Sibyl Wickersheimer By Simon Hodgson “For a designer, The Unfortunates is unusual,” says scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer. “I don’t often get to create a different world that feels nonsensical. The props take on a larger-than-life quality, with these giant fists, giant arms, and giant creations. We want to keep surprising the audience.” Wickersheimer is full of surprises. She has designed scenery for dozens of productions, including projects at Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Geffen Playhouse, as well as productions at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and even a Disney cruise-ship production of Toy Story—the Musical . With The Unfortunates   playing at A.C.T.'s Strand Theater until April 10 , we  caught up with Wickersheimer to talk about the visual inspirations behind the scenic design. What are the visual influences for The Unfortunates ? Set model, by scenic designer Sibyl Wickershe...

The Expanded Universe of The Unfortunates  By Shannon Stockwell  While super heroes like Deadpool, Ant Man, and The Avengers take over the big screen, the world of graphic novels also finds a home in live theater. The Unfortunates , the larger-than-life musical journey of Big Joe and his giant fists, is a visually stunning story that the San Francisco Chronicle says "could have emerged from the pages of a comic book.”  Throughout the creation process of The Unfortunates , writer and actor Ramiz Monsef kept telling his collaborators, “We need to do a comic book for this!” To Monsef, a n ardent comic-book fan, the world they were creating was perfect for the graphic-novel format. But there was a problem: Monsef can’t draw. “It was an equation I couldn’t finish myself,” he says. But one day, after a performance during the show’s run at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Monsef was told that there was a man backstage who wanted to speak with him. This man was comic-...

An Interview with Shana Cooper, Director of The Unfortunates By Cecilia Padilla   “ The Unfortunates is a metaphor for facing hardship,” says director Shana Cooper. “When we fall on hard times, I am always struck by how difficult it can be to open ourselves up and be vulnerable. This show reminds us of the power in community and music. Joe’s journey exemplifies the strength it takes to let someone catch you when you fall.” After taking on the challenge of bringing Big Joe’s world to life at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), Cooper now reimagines this hero’s journey for A.C.T.’s Strand stage. We caught up with Cooper to talk about the play’s inspiration, message, and fresh take on American music. (L-R): CJ (Christopher Livingston), Big Joe (Ian Merrigan),  and Coughlin (Jon Beavers)  face the  horrors of war in The Unfortunates .  Photo by Kevin Berne.   The Unfortunates has a unique sound and script structure. How does it compare to...

By Cecilia Padilla and Shannon Stockwell The plot of The Unfortunates is strange and engaging, its visual world outrageous and meaty. But it is the emotional score that makes the show so moving. It is the music that brings this group of misfits together and unites them in the face of tragedy. “St. James Infirmary” The initial inspiration for The Unfortunates  is “St. James Infirmary,” a classic blues song with mysterious origins. “It represents a morphing tradition,” says  The Unfortunates music director Casey Lee Hurt. “No one knows where the thing started.” It’s impossible to know the origins of the song because it comes out of an old European folk music tradition, which was based on sharing songs orally. The earliest written reference to anything resembling “St. James Infirmary” is “The Unfortunate Rake,” an Irish folk song from the seventeenth century. But the reference to St. James Infirmary dates the song even earlier than that. Although it’s unclear what h...

By Simon Hodgson The Unfortunates started out as a side project for musical collaborators Jon Beavers, Casey Lee Hurt, Ian Merrigan, and Ramiz Monsef. In 2013, with the creative team now including playwright Kristoffer Diaz, the show emerged as a breakout hit at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF)—an original musical that blended bluesy grit with contemporary syncopations. Over the last couple of years, the musical’s creators have worked with A.C.T.’s artistic team to refine the score and script for a run at The Strand. We sat down with Beavers, Hurt, and Monsef to find out more about the amazing journey of The Unfortunates . Four of the five creators of The Unfortunates: (L to R) Ramiz Monsef, Jon Beavers, Ian Merrigan, and Casey Lee Hurt. Photo by Randy Taradash. What’s the inspiration behind The Unfortunates ? Ramiz M onsef: The seed of the whole thing is the song “St. James Infirmary.” The first time I ever heard that song was in a Betty Boop cartoon, in which ...