The Ubu Project (Workshop)

The Ubu Project was a workshop with TheatreofplucK to devise a new performance piece based on Alfred Jerry's play Ubu Roi. The goal was to create a working script or detailed outline for a contemporary, Irish take on Ubu Roi spun on a recent political scandal in Northern Ireland.

For this workshop, I provided dramaturgical support with comparing multiple translations of the text (originally in French), providing context to our English and American actors for the current political landscape of Northern Ireland, and provided video and sound equipment to capture the actors improvisation. Below is audio captured from the workshop improvisations.  I also transcribed these improvisations throughout the week of workshops to create a script of our work.

Here, Artistic Director and Workshop Leader, Niall Rea asked actor Stephanie Weyman to improvise an active retelling of the plot of Ubu Roi within some kind of physical activity. This is the audio from that exercise.

The Day I Almost Met Liberace

The Day I Almost Met Liberace is a jaw-dropping autobiographical tale of sex, drugs and shocking ignorance. As a gay constable in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Patrick expects to be faced with prejudice, maybe even aggression – he just doesn’t expect it to come from his own colleagues. When he is diagnosed with HIV, he is propelled on a journey to the edge of self-destruction, where he meets a nun with a curious knowledge of sexually transmitted infections and a heavenly administrator filling in for a missing angel. And then there is the guy playing the piano…

This piece was presented in a showcase of queer plays in development under the Outburst Queer Arts Festival 2016 Programme. For this project, I was the sound designer and board operator. I worked with the playwright, Gavin Armstrong, to capture voice over and write incidental music. 

It is important to note that this was a solo-show, so gaps in the cues are where the live performer would respond.

Closer Than That by Jerry Crawford

Closer Than That by Jerry Crawford was produced in the Swine Palace new play initiative. The play is a dramatic and provocative journey of an aging U.S. Army Veteran haunted by the JFK assassination and his own military experience. The staged reading was on on October 21, 2014 in Baton Rouge, LA. 

I worked on this project as the sound designer. This was my first stand-alone Sound Designer credit with Swine Palace after my internship with them in Summer 2014. I worked off of music previously composed by a collaborator of Crawford's to create the cues for this staged reading of his new play. 

Good Kids by Naomi Iizuka

Good Kids by Naomi Iizuka was produced by the LSU Mainstage Season in Fall of 2015 and directed by Richard Holden. I was the dramaturg on the project. For this, I created an extensive presentation (linked below), statistics handouts for the production team, and wrote the program note

View Alexander's Dramaturgical Presentation for the Project

View: Handout / Program Note

Hoover in Love by Sam Gold

Hoover in Love by Sam Gold was commissioned by the Outworks LGBTQ New Play Festival in Spring of 2015 at Louisiana State University and was directed by Josh Rodriguez. Alexander was the dramaturg and sound designer.

For this piece, I was sent on a mission to uncover any audio which came from both the height of J. Edgar Hoover's career and following his death that concerned his affair with Clyde Tolson--as this affair was the centre of the text. This lead me down a path of very odd videos uploaded to YouTube of documentary and radio clips that I mixed to create different cues within the piece.

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Hear the opening cue of Hoover in Love

Read Alexander's Program Note for Hoover in Love