Electric Pear Productions

Synesthesia: n. 1. A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.

Synesthesia is a yearly festival that showcases a unique fusion of art forms in one cohesive two-hour evening performance. It is the culmination of months of work by musicians, sculptors, actors, writers, directors, photographers, dancers and a multitude of other artists who come together to engage each other in a cross-genre conversation.

Synesthesia is an ambitious performance piece that takes an unforgettable look at how artists influence, inspire and steal from each other. It's a peak inside the dirty work of creation through the schoolyard game of telephone...with art.

And it all started with a fortune cookie.

An artist chooses a cookie and uses the enclosed fortune to inspire a piece of work from their genre. After a few days of furious work, the artist passes his/her creation off to the next artist, who then creates a piece of work inspired by that which was shown to them by the first artist. The second artist then passes his/her work to the next person, and so on...and so on, through a series of 10 to 12 artists.

Each of these “hand-offs” is filmed by a documentary filmmaker who captures the artists’ responses in these first moments of inspiration. This five-month-long game of artistic telephone is then presented through live performance and video, documenting the artists’ journeys...

Synesthesia brings the schoolyard into the gallery. It is live performance, documentary, artistic call and response, and a completely original look at the creative process.

The Outlet is designed to be a safe and trusting workshop environment where playwrights can work on a project with a consistent team of actors over an intensive six-month period. The workshop is facilitated by Electric Pear’s Literary Director, Emily Long. The first workshop, held in fall of 2006, developed two original full-length plays, including The Hawk Has No Home by Megan Mostyn-Brown, and Old Dogs Die Alone by Ashlin Halfnight.  During the spring of 2006, the workshop developed two full-length plays: Skye Blue  by Daria Polatin, and A Play about a Tomato by Joe Waechter. In our Fall 2007 session, playwright Andy Bragen developed his play titled Visiting Day.  Additionally, playwright Winter Miller, director Josh Hecht and composer/lyricist Lance Horne worked on their full-length play with music titled Something’s Wrong With Amandine.

During the workshop, which takes place over the course of six weeks, playwrights will bring in pages of a play they have chosen to work on with The Outlet.  Week to week, playwrights bring in revisions of pages or entirely new scenes at their discretion, but they continue to work with the same group of actors each time.  Pages are read out loud, followed by a talkback facilitated by Emily Long with casts from both plays.  Because the cast of actors remains the same from week to week, actors can gain an intricate knowledge of the play and its movement, and their feedback can become more valuable.  Mid-way through the workshop, playwrights begin to determine the appropriate culmination of the project within the workshop—i.e., a staged reading, a ‘skeletal’ production, or another mode of presentation for the work as it has progressed over the course of six weeks with a consistent, collaborative team of actors.

To be considered, playwrights must submit an outline for the proposed project, or a draft of the project they wish to work on during The Outlet. In addition, playwrights must also submit a resume and an additional 10-20 page writing sample. Submissions can be e-mailed to Literary Director Emily Long, or posted to Electric Pear Productions at PO Box 281, New York NY 10028.

Electric Pear Productions seeks to nurture artists and their work through sustaining relationships of trust, and we believe the best way to do this is by actively investing our time and resources in the development of new work. It is our hope that through The Outlet we will work on a project that can be fully produced by Electric Pear in future seasons.

Please check back here in future months for information regarding submission deadlines for future workshops. If you have any questions, please contact Literary Director Emily Long.

Electric Pear produces as many as two new plays in a season, and we are now accepting submissions of original plays for future production in New York City.

Submissions should include:

• Resume
• Synopsis
• First 10-20 pages of dialogue

Please send to: Electric Pear Productions at PO Box 281, New York NY 10028

Electric Pear is in the process of developing an innovative and accomplished company of actors who will collaborate, create, and work within the structure of the company's growing family of artists.

Headshots, along with covering letter, may be submitted to Electric Pear Productions at PO BOX 281, NY NY 10028

Thank you to everyone who came out for the first Trivia Night on January 12th! Congratulations to all of the winners.

A special thanks to Crema Restaurante and Pasita for their generous donations!

Electric Pear spent July and August in Budapest working with Hungarian artists on a new bi-lingual play entitled Cronotopia. Ashlin Halfnight, Emily Long and Melanie Sylvan collaborated with actors Yvette Feuer, Andy Hefler, and Otto Pecs; and musician Samu Gryllus during an intensive three week workshop period. Cronotopia, a play in Hungarian and English, weaves the myth of Cronos with the modern tale of an American real estate developer in Budapest.

A "trailer" of the Cronotopia project was created by the group and performed at the Sziget Festival in Budapest, one of Europe's largest summer music and arts festivals.  The 15 minute piece was performed on August 9th and 11th at the "Open" Stage to a full tent of festival goers who took a break from the international music acts (this year's line-up included The Killers, Cesaria Evora, Nine Inch Nails, and Sinead O'Conner) to see some experimental theatre!

We send our sincere thanks to Yvette, Andy, Otto, Samu, and Kinga Keszthelyi from the National Theatre, who so generously gave their time, energy and passion to this project.  We plan on continuing to develop the piece with hopes of presenting it in New York and at theatre festivals in Europe.

Partial funding for this trip was provided by a grant from the Theatre Communications Group. Thanks to the Merlin International Theatre and the National Theatre of Hungary for hosting us during this development process.  And a special thanks to the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York.

The Live Wire is a low tech performance series that presents the best emerging musicians and songwriters from across the country – and across the world – in an intimate setting. If you’re tired of bad bands, overproduced junk, and astronomical ticket prices, the Live Wire is the place to be.

The Live Wire premiered with Craig Cardiff, one of Canada’s best singer/songwriters teaming up with New York-based Leah Seigel for a wonderful night of new lyric-driven music.

For more details, click here.