Welcome, welcome, one and all!
We are cARTel. We’re a bunch of young, go-getting ragamuffins who happen to be extremely dedicated to spreading non-violence through the abundance of art. That means encouraging personal expression, fostering a great community of artists and providing audiences with new, challenging, and (most importantly) low-cost art, available to anyone and everyone. Whether you’re an aspiring artist looking to train and grow, or whether you’re an experienced artist looking for a home, cARTel will bring you into our fabulous network of producers, directors, actors, painters, singers and whatever-the-heck-else and bring your work to the world.
"I think the idea is genius, you have a fantastic and realistic cast, and the script is exceptional. All of it led by you. You make me want to do big things."
A UCI student's email, after watching Slow Through Eden, an original production tackling homophobia in American households, toured in 12 homes in Southern California.
This has been a super big year for our company. We have spread our network of artists to over four hundred very talented people, and have reached thousands of audience members across Southern California. Here are just a few of cARTel’s accomplishments in this year alone:
- We have made our Community Pool (a self-described “art party”) into a successful monthly fundraiser. Every month at the Improv Space in Westwood, cARTel gets musicians, painters, poets, illustrators, comedians, dancers, writers, jugglers and the occasional burlesque act to perform, exhibit and share their work in a low-key, party-type atmosphere. Food is served, conversation is encouraged, and a good time is had by all. Promise.
- Our clown troupe, Everybody Nose, has put on two fully produced shows: first, Everybody Nose Coffee, a clown variety show performed at The Talking Stick in Venice, California; and second, our knock-out Christmas extravaganza Everybody Nose: A Christmas Carol performed at the Powerhouse Theater in Santa Monica. Twenty of our hilarious clowns auditioned for, and performed in, a hilarious rendition of Charles Dickens classic Christmas tale, accompanied by cocoa, a few showtunes, and a healthy dose of Christmas cheer. It was magical, ambitious, and one of the most successful cARTel shows to date.
-Proving that you don’t need a theater to make theatre, cARTel produced two wonderful site-specific shows in 2009, each in unconventional locations. Over the summer, cARTel produced a rendition of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon performed by the Santa Monica pier, just at the magic hour (that’s dusk, by the way). Then, in October, cARTel put on its second annual Living Room Tour, an original work performed in real-life-honest-to-goodness living rooms all throughout the SoCal area, from Ventura to Irvine. Each show was a compelling, engaging night of theater, all done without exorbitant rental fees (Woo! Saved money!)
-And finally (and, strategically, after having slammed the notion of doing theater in a theater) we’ve made great relationships with a few local theaters! We are currently producing shows and events at venues like the Improv Space in Westwood (a wonderful comedy theater right next to UCLA), the Talking Stick in Venice (a gigantic coffee shop right next to a Pizza Hut), the Powerhouse Theater in Santa Monica (an amazing theater space right next to some really big electrical equipment) and the Hayworth Theater (the kind of space that makes your knees go weak).
Our ensemble has also grown to a wonderful group of committed, enthusiastic artists, reaching out to new venues, new resources and lots and lots of new people. These great, honest, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth creative types are:
Negin Singh (Artistic Director, Co-Founder) – Director, producer, rain-maker
Jack De Sena (Artist Outreach Associate, Co-Founder) – Actor, director, professional giggler.
Leigh Zeichick (Secretary) – Organizer, stage-manager, loveable curmudgeon.
Shea Depmore (Head of Public Relations) – Artist, poet, actor, facebook event whiz.
Emmalinda Maclean (Education Director) – Actor, singer, teacher, wonderful woman.
Sebastian Kadlecik (Head of Audience, Artist and Student Outreach) – Author, Illustrator, actor and brooding, Byron-esque rake.
Colin O’Brien-Lux (Head of Research and Student Activities) – Actor, Songwriter, earnest young gentleman.
Kit Steinkellner (Company Writer) – Playwright, author, and damn does she make a good pastry.
Matt Chester (Company Writer) – Playwright, actor, impossibly handsome man.
Deirdre Gaffney – Actor, Director, Writer, dream-weaver.
Chris Smith – Actor, Juggler, professional Idea Man.
Aaron J. Sussman – Playwright, web designer, lawyer-in-training
"I'm still reliving and enjoying the performance you all created last week with all the vibrancy, freshness and uncharted territory of the material, how everyone's energy sparkled and just the positive waves that flowed over the audience that evening.
As I've said to you before, the biggest part of this for me is that you thought of an idea and brought it to life. I'm not sure you know how unusual and powerful this trait is."
An e-mail from an audience member after watching Attraction/Logic, directed by cARTel Artistic Directors Negin Singh and Jack De Sena
Now I know what you’re thinking: a year of amazing accomplishments, a great board of committed, talented people…what more could these kids possibly want? Well, quite a bit actually. We are extremely proud of our accomplishments and our wonderful ensemble, but we have even more ambitious plans in the upcoming year. First off, we will be providing more opportunities for workshops and classes. We plan to teach clowning, writing, movement, drawing and juggling workshops through the course of the year. But we’re also reaching out to schools, foster care advocates, colleges (we’ve already set up a few workshops over at Cal Arts) and we even plan to work with an international clowning organization called Clowns Without Borders, a group that teaches circus arts to children in areas of crisis.
As for shows, we will be producing a new clown show over the summer called Everybody Nose Science, which, as you could imagine, will be a clown science fair. Audiences will interact with and be blown away by a real-life, actual science fair composed entirely of clowns (There is nothing staged about this! Nothing! Okay, maybe some things) We will be producing an original play at the Powerhouse theater this spring, an as-yet-untitled love story written by Mr. Impossibly Handsome himself, Matt Chester. We even began 2010 by producing our first ever musical- Patrick Burns’ one-man musical From Foster Care to Fabulous, a funny, sad and toe-tapping chronicle of Patrick Burns’ encounters with the American foster care system. Pair all of this with another clown show, another living room tour, and a gigantic, off-the-wall performance art show- and we've got ourselves quite the season.
"Every single thing you put on is always so great and astounding that it leaves me thinking about it for a long time after. I want to thank you guys for helping to keep so many youthful LA peoples' artistic souls alive and thriving."
An email from an audience member after attending one of cARTel's Community Pool events at which local Los Angeles artists gather to perform and share ideas.
We are also developing new media projects, such as our planned Based on a True Story web series, where we will find interview subjects and ask artists and other such collaborators to make pieces of art that are, you guessed, based on that particular true story. cARTel plans on making multimedia CDs packed with wonderful images, photos, poems, stories and short films. We will create one-day events, protests, tremendous projections, maybe a flash mob or two, that will help spread cARTel’s name to even more artists and audiences.
In other words, 2010 is going to be a big, big year for cARTel. But while our company is growing at an exciting pace, we still need the support from wonderful, generous, charitable, and undeniably attractive people like you. We are dedicated to making art that is accessible to everyone, and that means keeping ticket prices below your average fast-food combo meal. Though we are thrifty, and know how to squeeze as much show as possible out of a single dollar, every little bit can help go to creating a new show, starting a new workshop, making new fliers and posters and advertisements, what have you. As such, every little bit helps; any donation gets us that much closer to creating the inclusive, supportive community of artists we dream cARTel can be.
So if you believe in expression, if you believe in art, if you believe that creativity can bring joy to anyone in all walks of life, be they professional artists or professional CPA’s or professional car mechanics, give generously and keep cARTel alive. We've done all of this in one year, and we can't wait to see what happens next.
Make art with us. And do it now.
