The Dream Engine : Arena Stage 1972

Funding request letter by producer Zelda Fichandler, Labor Day 1971. Page 2.

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Those On Board

And Why

Director - Richard Pearlman

I am attaching material on him. We have been working on this project for several months now and our relationship has developed handsomely. In passing, I should say that he is the only director I have ever worked with who I think can administer an art form as well as create it: a real find for this project and for the future. You will note his background in opera.

Choreographer - Louis Falco

It is to obtain his high creativity that the production is being scheduled when it is being scheduled rather than defer it in the advantages of a longer planning period and a longer time in which to gather up funds. He and his company have a spring engagement. The group auditioned for us a week ago Friday and we were bowled over. Suddenly the vision of how the tribe was to behave and be and form itself and live its life merged to Jim and Dick and me.

The group's current thrust is to combine movement with spoken sound. And their work emanates from a deep psychological source. They are actors as well as dancers. They are uniquely suited to the work for The Dream Engine.

It is our intention to have Falco and four to six of his dancers form the nucleus of his tribe and, with Falco as choreographer as well as dancer, to add - up to the number of 15 - additional singer / dancer / actors to evolve as a unit into a “tribe.”

The search will be for a style that combines movement, chanting, speaking, singing - all originating from psychological and emotional sources - much as we might imagine that the earliest Greek chorus performed its function. The work will be in amalgamating the group into a unit and shaping it to perfection. Falco is interested in working with non-dancers: in fact, he was reaching out to this when Dick Pearlman first discussed* the project with him. Pearlman and Falco have worked together before and they will work side-by-side in The Dream Engine.

* [handwritten: (of course, we aimed ??? actor-singers who "moved well")]

Obviously what we need is more than our normal rehearsal process allows. The work would only be slapped together in the time we usually have - and even that amount of time is deficit-producing.

I have one copy of Falco's promotional material. I'll try to reproduce it on the theater copier to attach to this.

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