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ML Kinney |
Marketing Director
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MOST RECENT PRODUCTION: Playwright for Milk Can's Scene Herd Uddered (SHU) workshop of Consequences .
After working with Riv Massey on P.O.V. we decided to build on that relationship and work on my new script Consequences. The SHU process is such a rewarding experience for a playwright. With Riv's help I was able to work through the narrative of the story and find an active approach in presenting it to an audience. The end result was a very powerful and true presentation of three men's lives caught in the midst of the death penalty issue.
From the script...
SCOTT: What was the dog's name?
DENNY: (pause) I don't remember.
WADE: Sergeant - the dog's name is Sergeant.
DENNY: He called that dog every name in the book. Hump, asshole, son-of-a-bitch...
WADE: But Sergeant is his name. How do you do that? Kick and beat a thing, tie it up just inches from the world then just walk out one day and kill it? Dog was just being a dog.
Also: Directed and wrote Stan and Illy Await the Coming - for "The 5 Borough Plays" for Milk Can.
Staten Island the forgotten borough! , "Fuhgeddaboudit!" The more research I did on the borough of Staten Island the more this portrayal rang true. It is a sad truth. Staten Island is the least know, least respected, always the brunt of the joke borough. It is not only forgotten, but it is ignored. My journey into the Island was constantly filled with awe and wonder by its rich history and strong community. I found myself with the questions -Why are they forgotten? What are they waiting for in order to take their rightful place amongst the other boroughs? With that question came the inspiration for Stan and Illy Await the Coming. With a nod to Samuel Beckett and his absurdist style I choose to answer these questions as he would have, much like Waiting for Godot, illustrating the poignant, oppressed, social, corrupt, and bewildered attitude of the state of the human experience and appeasing it through art. That is why puppets represent the characters. Socks and dogs await the coming, absurd yes, but as true and as clear as the view from the deck of the Staten Island Ferry.
CURRENTLY WORKING ON: Playwright of Balance.
Teaming up with Riv Massey again, this new script is being developed through the Milk Can's Scene Herd Uddered Workshop Series. Balance is a look at the politics of being female. How do an Indian warrior, an American Soldier, and a home grown activist all end up late for dinner?
THREE WORDS THAT DESCRIBE ME:
Loyal, Lethal, Absurd |
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MORE ON ML...
ML has been working in New York Theatre for over twenty years. She has worked with Mabou Mines, Duo Theatre, Off Broadway Queens, WOW, Spirit Productions, Chekhov Theatre Ensemble, NYSF Latino Festival, the Riant, Theatre for a New City, Artists in Motion, Dixon Place and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, to name a few.
ML has worked as a playwright, lyricist, director, producer, stage manager, and actor and has a strong background in technical theatre. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
For the Milk Can Theatre Company, ML has directed the mainstage production of Shaw's Arms the Man;
written the Scene Herd Uddered (SHU) workshop Life Among the Natives, written and directed the SHU workshop of Resolution, as well
as PUNCH for "The Potluck Plays," Baloney for "The Hamlet Plays," Good Samaritans in Late Afternoon for "The Matisse Plays" and ISBN for "The Receipt Plays." Her play Ashes, directed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, was produced by Milk Can in Fall 2004.
As a director, ML's favorite projects include: Martin Sherman's Bent, The First Doorman's Play and Créche Scenes by Anne Phelan, Lillian Hellman's The Lark, and Pinter's Kind of Alaska. She has also worked closely with the new music scene mixing theatrical staging with concert performances, and has worked as a director, developing many new and avant-garde musicals.
As a playwright ML's work has been both produced and workshopped around the city. Productions have included: Islands, Embracing the Executioner, the musical children's plays: The Spider and the Dokannos and The Adventures of the Stone Monkey King, the new musical A Bridge of Time, The Princess and the Toad: An Insanely Modern Day Fairy Tale, Pie in the Sky. |
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REVIEWS |
On Ashes |
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"The Milk Can Theatre Company's production of Ashes deserves a big 'bravo' and a longer performance run...ML Kinney did a brilliant job in the composition of the script...[Ashes] is poignant yet humorous, and carries a dynamite cast with an identifiable message - a credit to all involved in the production. The Milk Can Theatre Company should definitely be proud of this one." |
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| On Arms and the Man |
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"The Milk Can Theatre Company is tackling George Bernard Shaw's multifaceted Arms and the Man , and it's a noble endeavor. Set against the backdrop of the Bulgarian-Serbian war, Shaw's play has his characters wax philosophical about love, the conventions of war, class struggle, and the responsibilities of man...[Katherine Alt Keener's] self-absorbed Catherine Petkoff is a delight to watch...Keener plays her as if she were doing camp Noel Coward--a fading grand dame drunk on her own sense of self-importance." |
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On Baloney |
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"... with props serving as jokes and some meta-theatrical moments, such as breaking the fourth wall and some self-conscious lines. I enjoyed it...a sort of ironic, self-aware wit...I appreciated the work of the actors, Byron Blevins and Timothy Cole." |
| -- nytheatre.com |
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On Stan and Illy Await the Coming |
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"The evening begins boldly with Staten Island: Stan and Illy Await the Coming , written and directed by ML Kinney. The play is a daring concept: to convey the general perception that Staten Island is New York City's forgotten borough through an absurdist puppet show based on Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot . The sock puppeteers (Jonathan Zipper and Zak Kostro) are in superb rhythm with each other. They portray Illy and Stan who eagerly await visitors from the Staten Island Ferry. Aaron Sparks portrays Dog, the equivalent of the boy in Godot who informs our heroes that they will not be coming today. The puppets by Luque Designs are well-conceived and appropriately simple." |
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| Full Length Plays |
| CONSEQUENCES |
A view of the death penalty issue seen through the eyes of family. As the hour of Wades execution nears, his brother Denny waits at the prison with attorney Scott Reese. The conversation that unfolds details the events of three men's lives and the consequences of their choices. |
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| LIFE AMONG THE NATIVES |
AZALEA: Mother? Did you know about this?
GRANDMA: The Lesbian thing, yeah, but the marriage is a complete surprise to me. I don't approve.
JEWEL: Grandma!
GRANDMA: I don't. You know my feelings about marriage. The institution of marriage is a sham! I never believed in it. Legalized prostitution. Proper society's legitimizing of slavery. The sanctity of what? Jewel you got the best world. You can love with out rules, but no! You want to settle for less. Hell, the Gays everywhere are fighting for the ordinary, it's a waste.
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One-woman's journey out of the closet and into the jungle.
A twist on the gay "coming out" saga. Jewel Native, mild mannered accountant, is not "out" to her family. Her girlfriend Amanda has talked her into having a family dinner so that Jewel can "come out" and announce their wedding plans. What follows is a farcical adventure through the life of the Natives. Each family member of the Native tribe is more outrageous than the next - Tinkerbell, the Grandmother, a pill popping Elvis groupie who believes Elvis is alive and living next door; Azalea, Jewel's mother, a Big Game Huntress; Richard, Jewel's Dad, a local politician running for city assembly who has adopted a platform of cross dressing; Lulu, Jewels younger sister a student of the military with a mouth of a sailor; and Adam the Monkey Boy, an adoptee into the tribe, raised by apes and saved by the Natives. |
| ASHES |
"Here's to family. The ties that bind, unwind
and finally weave into who we are."
In this new play, Ashes, two sisters return to their childhood home after the death of their estranged Mother. Madeline and Leanne must sort through their Mother's things and decide what to do with her ashes. The process proves both comic and catastrophic as the two weave a tapestry of sibling rivalry, reverence and rage. |
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| RESOLUTION |
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With an intriguing use of narrative, the play Resolution blurs the line between love and obsession. Rose tells her story of love, lust and loss in a rich textured voice. It is the story of one woman's adventures with affairs of the heart, the spirit, and a married couple. Rose's solitary life is thrown into turmoil when she meets Ben, and soon after, his wife, Diane. These three characters set the corners of a lover's triangle that spins out of control as we watch and examine the complications of relationships. |
| A BRIDGE OF TIME (musical) |
During the 18th century there lived two very real people known as the "Ladies of Llangollen." Lady Eleanor Butler and the Honorable Sarah Ponsonby were both born of aristocratic families in Ireland. In 1778, some ten years after their first meeting and bond of friendship, the two women eloped together and settled in Llangollen, Wales. Here they loved and lived together for over fifty years. Chronicles of their lives, excerpts of their journals and letters have been published and questioned, and still there exists no true biographical account of the Ladies. To discover these two extraordinary women, their courage, humor and love, is to discover ourselves in a passage of time. Within the eyes of a stranger, with the sound of a voice, or the thought of a distant memory, the past may approach us all. Anyone can find themselves confronting their own antiquity and crossing A Bridge of Time.
Music by Bronwen Jones |
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THE SPIDER AND THE DOKANNOOS (musical) |
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Based on the West African Anansi stories, this is a delightful musical for all ages. The script has been performed using shadow puppets and dancers. Anansi, the spider, tricks the birds into carrying him to the Dakannos tree in the middle of the river. When his trick is discovered he finds himself alone and up a tree in more ways than one. Music by Raul Rothblatt |
| THE ADVENTURES OF THE STONE MONKEY KING (musical) |
Marking the second collaboration with composer Raul Rothblatt, this is an audacious musical adventure for all ages based on the characters from the Asian folk tales of the Monkey King. The Stone Monkey King goes off in search of immortality leaving his subjects and kingdom behind. Through his adventures he creates much chaos and draws the attention of Buddha and the Jade Emperor. Returning home he discovers his subjects imprisoned by an Ogre. Using the wisdom he has gained from his adventures can the Stone Monkey King defeat the ogre and save the day? Ensemble cast with dancers.
Music by Raul Rothblatt |
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| One Act Plays |
EMBRACING THE EXECUTIONER |
| Can peace happen among past combatants? Can someone who has lost it all and survived a war-torn upbringing live with and embrace the victor? A picnic between a young Asian woman and an American soldier focuses on love and destruction out of their control. |
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THE PRINCESS AND THE TOAD: AN INSANLEY MODERN DAY FAIRY TALE |
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What is truth and what is true?
All answers
lie somewhere once upon a time....
We find Penelope in a psychiatric ward where she meets her Prince Charming, Charles the Toad. With a visit from her Mother the situation becomes a twisted view of what is illusion and what is reality. Who is to tell if one is a prince or a toad, evil stepmother or devoted parent, princess or abused child? Sometimes things are not what they seem, and sometimes they are. |
| PIE IN THE SKY |
Based on one of the seven deadly sins - gluttony.
A couple surrounded by ecstasy have trouble enjoying their fortune with the world and a baby crying at the door. Ten minute play |
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| ISBN |
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An attempt at cataloguing human nature. Inspiration from books by Virginia Woolf, and a copy of Lighthouses of the Mid Atlantic Coast, plus Mozart and the madness of living. |
GOOD SAMARITANS IN LATE AFTERNOON |
Inspired by Matisse's 1902 painting:
A Glimpse of Notre Dame in the Late Afternoon
A suicide attempt and dancing in the street set the stage for two good Samaritans to jump in and save the day. A late afternoon spent wrestling the big questions of love, mind readers, and The Hokey Pokey. Ten minute play |
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| BALONEY |
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Lead, follow, or start digging your grave. Two gravediggers take a lunch break and discover the meaning of life... or is it just baloney!
Based on the character "The Gravedigger" from Hamlet
Ten minute play |
PUNCH |
Mix, boil, simmer then strain. Two women are tossed together and use the vocabulary of the senses to discover each other.
Ten minute play |
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| STAN AND ILLY AWAIT THE COMING |
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With a nod to Samuel Beckett, our sock puppet heroes wait for the Ferry (inspired by Staten Island).
Ten Minute Play |
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