A mystery play for the 21st century. Dumb Puppy unspools from the mind of K, who indulges in nostalgic recitations of childhood comfort foods and fanatical pie making. A collage of characters and images, from Marie Antoinette’s salon at Hameau de le Reine (and her many dogs) to Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory to Johnny Depp’s filmography, jar her reverie and expose the grim reality surrounding the disappearance of her family and neighbors.
Collaborators: Gillian Chadsey, Dare Sohei, and Jeff Wood.
Jeff Wood. Video image from Flugwerk Workstadt solo performance. Berlin, 2017
Split the Stick walks through the fractured world of an American soldier returning home from Iraq. As Cody’s family descends into chaos, who steps up to help the troubled soldier truly come home?
Weaving together the inception of modern day Iraq by the British and its subsequent invasion by the United States, Split the Stick excavates the landscape of war and exposes its unintended consequences that often land squarely on the backs of individuals—soldiers and civilians alike. The first in a cycle of plays that trace the United States’s projection of power across the planet. Part one of the Dumb Puppy Performance Epic.
Split the Stick received two weeks of development at Playwrights Foundation’s 2014 Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
A performance for up to 100+ movers/shakers and 2 or more turntables.
The third performance text of the Dumb Puppy Performance Epic. In process.
Two people are moving towards each other across a distance. We can never say with absolute certainty exactly where the other is.
How do you care for something fragile and spectacular without understanding the rules? What happens when your partner embarks upon a path that you simply cannot follow? Care of Trees is an elegiac meditation on love, interconnectedness, and the eternal that integrates live performance, sound and video.
Press:
Chris Jensen, San Francisco Weekly
“In a more conventional story, characters can achieve something like redemption by serving as examples for others. Hans Christian Andersen's mermaid may dissolve into sea-foam at the end of her tale, but at least we've all learned to avoid consigning our voices to the neighborhood Sea Witch. Such lesson-learning is one of the benefits of inhabiting a fabulist realm, where every action carries a clear and lasting consequence. But that isn't the case with Daphne, and it isn't the case with Georgia. They've done nothing to deserve their fates; in their stories, the line connecting action to consequence simply doesn't exist. They deserve a storyteller more willing than Ovid to explore both the illogic and the permanence of their transformations.
Spreen is that kind of storyteller. In Care of Trees, she has created a tale that feels true to the experience of adulthood — which is to say that it's arbitrary and unjust, full of questions you never thought you'd ask, and none too generous with obvious answers. Somewhere out there, a laurel tree is nodding its approval. And this time she means it. “
George Heymont, The Top 11 Events from San Francisco's 2011 Performances, Huffington Post, 2011
Elizabeth Hunter Spreen's daring new drama, Care of Trees, is what I call a "fearless" play. Its script takes audiences to unimaginable places in their minds while set designer Nina Ball provides the fluid landscape/mindscape required to support such a challenging emotional journey. The Shotgun Players' handsome multimedia production grabs audiences by the throat and takes them on one helluva challenging ride.
Megan Gotz, Enso Theatre Ensemble, 2018
Megan Gotz and Jon Gennari, Enso Theatre Ensemble, 2018
Liz Sklar and Patrick Russell, Shotgun Players, 2011. Photo by Pak Han.
Liz Sklar, Patrick Russell, Shotgun Players, 2011. Photo by Pak Han.
Liz Sklar, Patrick Russell, Shotgun Players, 2011. Photo by Pak Han.
Liz Sklar, Patrick Russell, Shotgun Players, 2011. Photo by Pak Han.
A time-based immersive game structured around biographical material from the life and career of Laurette Taylor, the first actor to play Amanda Wingfield. Each game is unique and personal and blurs the lines between what is real and what is theatrical.
"I have never before seen an audience more readily engage with a theatrical experience than in this piece. The piece changed every night with new audiences and with Michelle and Elizabeth's subtle responses to the ever-changing circumstances." -Deborah Eliezer. Associate Artistic Director, foolsFURY Theater
Past collaborators have included Michelle Talgarow and Don Wood. Portions of LTE were developed in foolsFURY’S Factory Parts incubator and during Rubber Rep’s Pilot Balloon pop up artist residency in Lawrence KS.
What if I told you the future is off the table? Would that effect your choices? What you do with your life? - six / eleven
What is the nature of dissent? What will you risk for what you believe? Six / eleven is an environmental morality play that delves into the worlds of capitalism and environmental radicalism.
In the summer of 2001, Undine Swift, a commercial real estate developer, prepares to open a new resort and golf course on the shores of Lake Michigan. She is targeted by an environmental group whose credo is no compromise in the name of mother earth, and whose tactics become increasingly violent.
A hybrid performance piece consisting of written scenes and prompts for a semi-devised performance based on Arthur Aron’s study about interpersonal relationships. The premise of 36 Spells is that people fall in love after asking each other a set of 36 pre-determined questions. What do they risk each time they answer and reveal more of themselves?
Created for the University of San Francisco Performing Arts and Social Justice program’s Origin of Love festival in 2016.
A short play commissioned by Marissa Wolf for Crowded Fire’s evening of short Sam Shepard plays produced for the Bay Area Shepard Legacy Project led by The Magic Theatre.
I’m currently expanding this piece into a full length play entitled Room to Swing or Abilene.
This World Is Not My Home
A timely document of the deeper things we share: love, loyalty, peace, meaning and care.
This World Is Not My Home is a devised piece that deconstructs the prevailing myths surrounding poverty, scarcity, money and distribution in the United States. Used improvisation, audience surveys and live gatherings, group research, fictional scripted moments and personal writing contributed by company members.
Press:
Rob Avila, San Francisco Bay Guardian, September 19, 2003
“The bitterness and sorrow lurking in the title (taken from the classic folk song) are summoned up in the tense, volatile mixture of form and expression in this passionate plea for social justice and solidarity. The disarming anecdotes and memories work well, especially one man’s reminiscence of a single idyllic day spent with an otherwise aloof grandfather. At it’s best, World is a politically and theatrically bold venture with its ear to the ground.”
Anna Mantzaris, SF Gate, September 10, 2003
“From a Bryn Mawr grad who talks about growing up in a house with only condiments in the fridge, to a working stiff who puts in 18 hour days only hoping to fill up on sides of potato salad for dinner, to a homeless woman who relies on a stuffed rabbit as her confidant, the characters of this world are something you want to step inside to see.”
“As we began work on the project, Elizabeth asked us a series of questions—for example, our sources of inspiration as artists. I listed Doris Lessing among others. Elizabeth gave back to me two interviews in a packet that also contained other pieces, and all my responses—on beautiful cards and paper, in calligraphy, as something like poems, works of art. She created a packet for each of us. She took something I had treated seriously, as an assignment, and gave it back to me in a way that showed me she had read it all and taken it to heart, reminding me that I too could use it to make art.” - Karen Marek.
This World Is Not My Home, Paducah Mining Company, 2003. Performed/devised by Karen Marek, Susannah Martin, Michelle Talgarow, Jeff Taub and Don Wood. Lighting design by Brian Jones. Scripted/directed by E. Hunter Spreen.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (Paducah Mining Company, 2002). Conceived was as a full staging of James Agee and Walker Evan's renowned book documenting the lives of three tenant farm families in 1930's Alabama. The first part of the book was performed in December, 2002 at Noh Space in San Francisco.
Performed by Titus France, Christopher Kristant, Karen Marek, Susannah Martin, Michelle Talgarow and Don Wood. Lighting design by Brian Jones. Set Design by Christopher Kristant. Directed by E. Hunter Spreen.
No remorse. No anxiety. No fear. Just full of excitement, jokes, recipes and resolutions. Going off the road, so to speak. Isn't that the way it should be? - ElectrOphelia
Hamlet meets Electra with bits and pieces of blues lyrics, advice columns, personal dating ads, James Joyce, and Moby Dick.
Deadhorse Theatre Ensemble 1998, 1999. Devised and performed by Gillian Chadsey, Susannah Martin, and Patrick McCracken. Written and directed by Elizabeth Spreen.
Press:
Elise Archias, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, 1999.
“In its virtuosic weaving together of the stories of Electra and Hamlet, it is the murders, deaths, and other traumas that come to the fore. As the three amazing performers weave in and out of the play’s 13 different characters, emotions purify and release themselves from gender specific identifications. The piece becomes a fluid interplay between voices and bodies in which dancelike movement performs as essential a role as speech.”
Brad Rosenstein, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 1998
“The text is a fascinating mix of voices and discourses, as if The Waste Land had been written from a woman’s perspective. The result is a fractured portrait of women on the verge, with Spreen and Chadsey viewing their heroines/victims from a distinctly contemporary perspective, embracing and questioning their madness and their power.”
Family living is an adventure in adventure in survival. - Waltzing the Half Hula
Four generations of women grapple with their obsession with sex, violence and fine footwear. Is there one critical moment in a woman’s life that alters everything that comes after? Who makes that choice? What moments shape family history?
Devised movement + found + original text. Performed by Amy Baxt, Gillian Chadsey, Patty Cachapero, Susan Faust, Greg Land and Matt Matthews. Written and directed by E. Hunter Spreen. Paducah Mining Company, 1997.
A series of dinner parties and potlucks centering on female friendship, sexuality, economics and proximity. Intended as research for a devised piece, the energy of the gatherings and their unexpected turns proved more immediate and provocative. Participants continued to engage with the material and offer their perspectives via online email exchanges and phone conversations. Friendships developed.
