Wily West Productions
Visit our Facebook page!
  • Home
  • Tickets
  • About Us
  • The Company
  • Submissions
  • Press Room
  • Auditions
  • Mailing List
  • Gallery
  • Past Productions
    • Season 2017
    • Season 2015
    • I Saw It 2015
    • Season 2014
    • Zero Hour 2015
    • Un-Hinged 2014
    • Drowning Kate 2014
    • 2013 Productions
    • 2012 Productions
    • 2011 Productions
    • 2010 Productions
    • 2009 Productions
    • 2008 Productions
  • Wily Westings Blog

The Producing Director Behind Wily West: Quinn Cayabyab

9/23/2014

0 Comments

 
Support our Indiegogo Campaign!
Artistic Director Morgan Ludlow talks about the producer behind the scenes for Wily West... 
Picture
Quinn Cayabyab at the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards
Picture
Quinn with her dog Maisy
Meet Quinn Cayabyab.  Our Producing Director who makes so much happen for us at Wily West.   Quinn joined Wily West for our 2009-2010 season as Production Manager.   Her contributions have been interwoven into all of our productions since then.  Quinn is now a Producer for Wily West and has produced two hit summer shows and a play and music festival.  Quinn essentially oversees all aspects of our productions.  All great theatre companies need someone like Quinn at their core to keep them going.  Every aspect of what you see on stage with Wily West Quinn has a hand in. From scouting actors, to reading plays, turning so many of our crazy ideas into something even better; from the set, to the props, from the budget to buying whatever liquid needs to be in glasses on stage - Quinn is thinking about it and making it happen.   I believe it is important for our audience to know this remarkable woman as she is key to making all the magic at Wily West happen.  She is the first person to enter our theatre and the last to leave it.  She works tirelessly with her husband, Wesley Cayabyab, to make each and every production as wonderful as time, space and budget will allow.   Here is a glimpse of her work and her life behind the scenes...
Picture
Quinn ever present in the tech booth.   On top of being producer, set designer, props mistress, literary manager, etc.   Quinn is also our resident lighting designer.   During tech week you will find Quinn on stage, back stage with her checklist and observing the madness she needs to sort out from the booth!
Picture
Quinn's office - is often the porch off her backyard where she works with Wesley to build sets and props.  Here she is about to add another base coat to the set for our fall shows.  She is getting the overalls (which will be worn by actor Rick Homan) to look worn-in while she also paints the set.
Picture
Here is the Wily West workshop in action - Quinn and Wesley's backyard.   Most of our sets and props are built here before they are sent to the theatre.  Here we see Genevieve helping Quinn apply another base coat for the set of DROWNING KATE.
Picture
Studio 633: Quinn's command center.  We are in rehearsals for our current production of DROWNING KATE (also UN-HINGED).   First testing of ghoulish make-up for actor Colleen Egan by Genevieve Perdue our make-up artist.   Quinn observes the progress...
Picture
Throwback:  Here is a photo of Quinn from a production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC (she is playing Maria) at Oakland School of the Arts.  Then Quinn Whitaker began studying theatre design and production at Oakland School of the Arts with a concentration in Lighting Design and Stage Management.  
Picture
Quinn went to Barnard College in New York City where she served as the Lighting Designer and Stage Manager for Columbia University Event Management and the Columbia Musical Theatre Society.  While living in New York Quinn worked many shows as a technician, including the International Architectural Lighting Lighting Design Awards and the Ellie Charles Awards.
Picture
So a little love story:  Quinn and Wes have been together for several years but they just got married last year: July 5, 2013!   Wesley has been our technical director since 2011 and he has originated several roles for the company.   Last year he started directing for us by bringing the premiere of LAWFULLY WEDDED to SF and this year he directed plays for SHEHEREZADE 14 and he is directing both fall shows UN-HINGED and DROWNING KATE.
Picture
The Power Couple
THE MANY SETS OF QUINN & WES! 
This slide show is just a portion of the many sets Quinn & Wes have designed and built for Wily West from 2009-2014.
Picture
Quinn is busiest at the theatre days before we open.   
Picture
Quinn working with director Chelsey Little for our SUPERHEROES production at the Exit Theatre in SF.  The production has received a TBA Award nomination for Best Anthology!
Picture
Quinn's menagerie: these are some of Quinn's pets...Not pictured: Cats Millie, Pheobe, Lulu and Muffet the bunny.
Picture
Maisy gives her doggie blessing to the script
Picture
Buying and trying on some costumes with Genevieve.  We ain't named Wily West for nothing!
Picture
In her spare time Quinn shops for props, sees as many other shows in the SF Area as she can - as a TBA Awards Adjudicator, volunteers for the SF FRINGE FESTIVAL and spends quality time with her pets - here she is with Maisy probably on her way to buy more props...
Don't miss Quinn's latest work as a Producer - lighting designer, props mistress, scenic painter, etc.  DROWNING KATE and UN-HINGED both world premieres run October 3-25 at the Exit Theatre!

Buy Tickets NOW!
0 Comments

A Day in the Life of Actor & Costumer Genevieve Perdue

9/21/2014

0 Comments

 
Support our Indiegogo Campaign!
Picture
Genevieve Perdue is returning to the Wily West stage in two plays.  The multitalented artists is acting and costuming for both shows this fall.  Genevieve has a principal role in Morgan Ludlow's DROWNING KATE as Shelley and a featured role in Krista Knight's UN-HINGED both are world premieres.  We asked Genevieve to share a little bit of herself in pictures...

Here is a day in the life of Genevieve!
Picture
Picture
Picture
She tries on costumes occasionally
Picture
Picking out costumes and fabrics for the shows...
Picture
Picture
She shares a lot of lines with Scott Cox in DROWNING KATE.
"My turn to put in a few words about Wily West's upcoming fall productions - Un-Hinged and Drowning Kate. I have lived and breathed these shows for the last month and I can honestly say I've never felt more pride in my work/ achievements. In large part this is due to the partnership and support from a group of amazing Theatre Artists. This company has got it right folks. Wily West fosters new artists in a challenging, supportive, creative environment and consistently pumps new life and heart into an industry that has been reportedly "dying" for the last century. Through their loving care I can feel myself grow and improve as an actress, as a collaborator, and as a lover of theatre and it's inspiration - Life and humanity.

These two shows are going to reflect all of this! They represent a cast and crew's dedication and love for each other and our community - from the brilliantly creative minds of the playwrights, Morgan Ludlow and Krista Knight into the caring and passionate hands of our director, Wesley Cayabyab, and our production team, Quinn Cayabyab, Laylah Muran de Assereto, Jason Jeremy, and Phil Goleman, and finally delivered in the performances of an awesomely talented Cast, Scott Cox, Colleen Egan, Cameron Galloway, and Rick Homan (and myself ~.^). They are haunting shows, heart breaking shows, twisted shows, hilarious shows - and all who come to see this first hand will walk away with something worthwhile, some small tiny change that made their lives better."

Picture
Kissing local playwright Karl Schackne...
Picture
Genevieve spotted out on the town.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Featured actor Colleen Egan talks about playing a walking ghost...

9/20/2014

0 Comments

 
Buy Tickets!
Picture
Colleen Egan plays a woman who comes back from the dead after she drowns in an icy lake.
Picture
Scott Cox and Colleen Egan play experimental doctors, Harry and Kate, who are doing their most brazen research in a lonely farmhouse out in the woods...
Picture
Can Harry bring Kate back to life?

Colleen is delighted to work on her fourth collaboration with Wily West Productions. She recently appeared in Standing on Ceremony at The New Conservatory Theatre Center and she has assistant directed and understudied at the Magic Theatre  and SF Playhouse.  Colleen took some time away from rehearsals to talk to us about her latest role.


What other work have you done with Wily West?

Wily West has been a part of my life for a very long time. I was part of Wily West’s very first production, The Widow West in 2008. My husband (then boyfriend) was the stage manager and I was the assistant director. Since then we have acted in, assistant directed or stage managed Wily West productions. We even had a “Wily West” group photo taken at our wedding. This company is family for us.

What excites you most about this show?

I am obsessed with everything and anything spooky. Halloween is bigger than Christmas for me. It’s always been a dream of mine to act in a horror story play.  I love the ancient idea that the lighter part of the year is dying and spirits are allowed to walk more fully among the living.  I think this play is the perfect fit for this time of year.

What is your greatest challenge with this show?

Kate’s motivations are harder to express than the average, living person because, well, she’s not really alive.  Her deep love for Harry is one of the few truly human emotions that keeps her somewhat grounded in the human realm, but even that starts to deteriorate as she (literally) falls apart and moves closer to the other side. My challenge is to take Kate through the journey from life to death. You know, no big deal or anything!
Picture
Has Kate come back or has she become something else?
What have been some of your favorite previous productions?

I played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it was one of the most exciting experiences of my life. I’m thirty now and it makes me a little sad to know that I’m probably too old to play that role again.

ALL PHOTOS BY JIM NORRENA
0 Comments

Wily West Productions nominated for 4 major TBA Awards!

9/20/2014

0 Comments

 
We are thrilled to have nominations for Sheherezade 14, Everybody Here Says Hello and Superheroes! All three were fantastic projects that we loved doing and we are humbled and happy that others enjoyed them too! 
Picture



SHEHEREZADE 14
nominated for 
BEST ANTHOLOGY!
Picture



EVERYBODY HERE 
SAYS HELLO!
nominated for
BEST NEW PLAY!
Picture



SUPERHEROES
nominated for
BEST ANTHOLOGY!
Picture



MIKKA BONEL
nominated for
BEST FEATURED ACTOR 
Congratulations to everyone who was nominated in all categories, it's the vitality of Bay Area theatre that we really love and that includes all of those companies!
0 Comments

Rick Homan - Playing a House Painter...

9/18/2014

0 Comments

 
Buy Tickets!
Picture
I have a personal history with house painting.

One summer, when I was in high school, my father saved me the trouble of getting a summer job by offering to pay me to paint the exterior of the family home. Of course, he had to teach me things like how to move a ladder, prepare a surface, apply caulking, which brush to use, and so on. So, I got both pocket money and an education.

The latter came in handy when I was finishing graduate school, and needed some income until my first teaching job started in the fall. I got hired by an outfit called College Painters, and spent the summer painting big, old houses in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

These experiences have served me well in rehearsing the role of the house painter, because he paints the house on stage during some scenes. It would be difficult to make all those physical actions believable if one had not actually done them. 

I had to smile when I read the speech in which Glen, the painter, explains why his wife will not let him paint their own house. My wife and I have owned four houses in our forty years together, and I have not painted any of them. However, that was my decision. I thought that if we had the money to buy a house, I would gladly pay professionals to do the difficult and demanding work of exterior painting.

Rick Homan will be creating the role of Glenn in our world premiere production of Krista Knight's play UN-HINGED.   In 2006, Rick and his wife Ann moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia where they lived for twenty-one years. There he acted with the Arden Theater Company, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival and Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival among other companies. He was a professor of theater arts for thirty years.

Rick's Thoughts on Glenn 

When I first looked at the role of Glen in Un­Hinged by Krista Knight, it reminded me of the time I understudied Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. Both roles are demanding: always on stage, lots of lines to learn, etc. But, as I have studied the Glen and Un­Hinged, I have come to see there are more profound similarities between this new play and Arthur Miller’s masterpiece.

Miller calls “Salesman” a “memory play.” Similarly, Un­Hinged has three, parallel time­frames: scenes in the 1960’s, scenes in the 1980’s and Glen’s monologues which seem to occur in a never­ending present tense. So, it may seem to the audience that everything which happens is simultaneously being remembered by Glen. Since this is the first production of this play, we are about to find out!

Miller gives his characters everyday language, but he sometimes tricks the ear of the audience with an unlikely word choice, as when Charley says, “A salesman is got to dream.” We would expect “has got to dream,” but for a moment we also marvel at what a salesman at is. Krista Knight sprinkles the same sort of vernacular poetry throughout Un­Hinged.

Willy Loman believes that if a man is “well­liked” he will be “loved and helped and remembered.” Of course, that is not true, and that is his downfall, but he makes us wish it were true. Glen also has a belief which guides everything he does, and which results in tragic failure. But, as Charley says of Willy Loman at the end of “Salesman,” “No one dast blame this man.”

The role of Glen looks better everytime I look at it; and I look at it every day. The playwright and Wily West have made me the first actor to play this amazing role in this great play. I am forever grateful to them. 


0 Comments

    Wily Westings
    Production Blog

    Our production blog features a dynamic blend of the the professional and the personal.  An original "web cocktail" infusing business and behind-the-scenes snap shots with first hand detail about the energy, commitment and perseverance to develop truly independent world premiere plays in San Francisco!

    Archives

    March 2019
    July 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All
    31 Years Of Marriage
    Actors
    Alina Trowbridge
    Arsenic And Old Lace
    Boa
    Brady Brophy Hilton
    Brian Martin
    Bridgette Dutta Portman
    Cast
    Celebration
    Chekov
    Director
    Ella Zalon
    Ellen Chesnut
    Ensemble
    Executive Producer
    Gay Community
    Ghosts
    Halloween
    Ignacio Zulueta
    Janice Wright
    Jeffrey Orth
    Jennifer Lynne Roberts
    Jim Norrena
    Joan Crawford
    Kat Bushnell
    Kat Kneisel
    Kcbs
    Kirk Shimano
    Laylah Muran
    Lighting Designer
    Morgan Ludlow
    New Plays
    Philip Goleman
    Playwright
    Producing Director
    Quinn Whitaker
    Rod Mcfadden
    Ryan Hayes
    Scott Ragle
    Sheherezade
    Sketches
    Stuart Bousel
    Susan Jackson
    The Exorcist
    Un-Hinged
    Vonn Scott Bair
    Wesley Cayabyab
    Willy Loman
    Writer

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.