Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Hello avid blog readers and confused internet users who accidentally ended up on this site:

My name is Laura Borgwardt and I am in no way affiliated with the Tempest Ladies. (Actually, I just wanted to break the trend of people claiming to be involved with this project…but in reality, yes, I’m an ensemble member. Oh boy. Let’s see how my writing style translates to people who don’t know me…it could be disastrous).

We are now on a slight hiatus—after graduation we all went our separate ways for a month of work, home, being a child actor star, etc, before we head to Syracuse in July to rehearse for the Fringe.

We are working our way up the social media ladder and are excited about our twitter account (which I have no idea how to use…but our resident internet geniuses are taking care of it), our blog, and are now endeavoring into the world of kickstarter.com—we’ll tell you more about that once it gets up…but let me just say, we’ve got some kick-ass prizes in store! Oh! And we are now listed on the Quaker House Website as part of their official programming (http://www.venue40.org.uk/programme)! Check it out! And then when you happen to be in Scotland this summer on holiday, come and see the show!!!

Other current tasks include memorizing our parts, collecting instruments (over the past week I have spent many an hour in my room playing random drums and tin cans…my job doesn’t start until next week…what can I say?), searching for a venue for our New York performance, and living our lives. It’s all very exciting.

That’s it for now. I’m sure the more prolific members of our ensemble will continue to blog and make up for my sad display of blog ineptitude.

Love and peace.

--Laura

Sunday, May 23, 2010

More has come!

Hello all, my name is Stella Berg and as can be deduced I too am a member of the Tempest clan of ladies. Finishing up the last semester of college EVER and graduating is a very exhilarating yet frightening experience and that is what the girls and I are going through presently. I apologize for the delay in this post but there were diplomas to receive, caps to be thrown, apartments to be moved out of and rotten vegetables to be scraped off the shelves in the refrigerator. Anyways, back on track you’ve heard about our show in Syracuse and you’ve heard all that we’ve done in order to go to Edinburgh Scotland BUT for all you New Yorkers fearing you’re going to miss out on this phenomenal piece of theater fear not because thanks to more incredible people and lucky turn of events we’re going to have a New York production when we return.

Just to give you a little background information, I was born in New York and my dad being an artist always had a lot of cool, fabulous artsy people around. Scott Griffin was a friend of his that I knew and loved from the start. He gave me piano lessons and he taught me my first phrases in Turkish when both he and my family (though at different times) all moved to Istanbul, Turkey. We lost touch for quite a number of years, however, after Scott moved back to New York and my family stayed on. A decade later while doing the Tepper semester in the city we both felt it was time to reconnect. I went to his office which turned out to be the penthouse of the Westbeth building down in the West village. He asked about our project, was thrilled by our endeavors and achievements and without hesitation inquired what he could do to assist the project further. I didn’t know what to say. Therefore he did the talking. “Well, the five of you are already here doing Tepper. Jana only lives in Maryland, what is that, three hours? I’ll pay for Jana’s ticket if she wants to come up every weekend and rehearse. You can rehearse here if you’d like. Then you can do a showing of your show here as well as in Edinburgh.” Flabbergasted all I could do was sputter that I couldn’t thank him enough for his generosity and that I’d meet with the girls and get back to him with our answer. Well, how could we possibly say no? Jana, like the trooper that she is, travelled six hours in total every week so that we could all rehearse our baby in the most wonderful space in Manhattan. Thanks to Scott we will be bringing the show here in September after we’ve returned from the UK and we feel so fortunate to have so many incredible, inspirational supporters.