Place Projectors at the Spirit Room: The Conjure Box Theatre and Projector Unveiling
The third site-specific Place Projector is located at 139 State St (The Spirit Room) in Rochester, NY. For this location, a 35mm cinephor projector lens (1950-1970) made by Bausch + Lomb highlights what we unearthed about this site’s specific history and present-day operations. To memorialize the present, a call for community involvement – The Place Projectors ‘Conjure Box’ Call for Short Plays took place in March 2021 – local and national playwrights were asked to write 10-minute plays exploring ‘The Veil Between This World and the Next’. The theme echoes The Spirit Room’s celebration of Rochester’s Spiritualist History, its infamous foremothers the Fox Sisters and The Spirit Room’s proximity to their historic first public seance venue, Corinthian Hall (which is now a parking lot for The Holiday Inn down the street).
The creator of Place Projectors, Annalisa Barron, received the 2021 Individual Artist Grant from The Genesee Valley Council for the Arts for Place Projectors. This generosity enabled a stipend to be provided for three selected playwrights, a director and four actors. Plays by Lisa Dowda, Taylor Terrance and Louie Podlaski, were debuted at The Spirit Room’s Conure Box Theatre on May 28th, 2021 under the guidance of Buffalo’s Samantha Marchant as director. Actors Casey Killoran, AnDrea Bim, Greg Ludek and Hernan Sanchez Garcia performed the selected micro-plays. Rob Mundschau was the Prop Master, and our film crew, Clara Reidlinger, Piper Jane Austin and Adam Schaefer filmed this event live for social media due to COVID-19. A limited, in-person audience was allowed to enjoy the evening and it was the first official performance at The Conjure Box Theater.
PROJECTOR DESIGN ELEMENTS AND RESEARCH
In order to highlight Rochester’s rich history, we conduct our research in different places – for this projector we explored the Cary Collection (RIT Library), The Rochester Public Library’s Local History and Genealogy Department and the County Clerk’s Office.
For our research we focused on the first personal account of the mysterious ‘rapping sounds’ made in the midst of Margaretta and Katie Fox. The documentation is in the form of letters from Rev. Lemuel Clark to his brother in November 1848. The letters now belong to the New York State Historical Society. In Clark’s account he describes the ‘rappings’ of ‘the spirits’ as three raps for ‘yes’ and two for ‘no’. He also describes the rhythms of songs and bible verses being rapped out with a musical quality. Later in 1888, Margaretta Fox confessed that as children she and her sister would “tie an apple on a string and move the string up and down or drop the apple on the floor” and in their later performances crack their fingers and toes to create the ominous ‘rapping’ sounds. To reference this, our interactive projector features a seance wheel of hands joined pinky to pinky ( a spiritualist custom ) that spins when you pull a chain – allowing toe silhouettes to hit a knocker with a small cast apple sitting on a hollow piece of wood.
Another source, Settlement in the West: Sketches of Rochester by architect Henry O’reilly (1938) was helpful in our pursuit of finding the actual date that 139 State Street was built. Interestingly, photography didn’t come to the United States until 1839 and the imagery in O’reilly’s book came in the form of wood engravings. Since our journey brought us to appreciate this art form, we learned how to make our own wood engravings for illustrating the projector’s design elements. Later, after comparing information from platt maps from 1825, 1858, 1875 and 1888 it seems that a building did stand directly across from Andrews St on State Street (currently The Spirit Room) in 1825, however the maps change significantly, both with the shape of the building and surrounding plots after that. Historian Brandon Fess speculates that the foundation of the building is the original 1825 foundation but the structure was most likely rebuilt multiple times. He places the brick facade and cornice of the building between 1850 and 1870, a time period when there was sparse record keeping in Rochester but could intersect with the Fox Sisters debut. Their March 1848 performance at Corinthian hall may have been down the street from the building that exists today. Sui Liu, the artist assistant for this location was inspired by the building’s brick cornice and designed a motif for his wood engraving that appears in the bracket for the projector.
Finally, for the projection imagery (35mm Cinephor projector lens by Bausch + Lomb) a small bronze object was made to memorialize each selected play and can be seen on a lenticular disc in the projector.
The objects correspond to the following plays:
OBJECT 1: ‘THE NOSE’ – IN RESPONSE TO LISA DOWDA’S ‘WHEN WE WEREWOLVES
OBJECT 2: ‘A FRESH CINNAMON BUN’- IN RESPONSE TO TAYLOR TERRANCE’S ‘CHOOSE YOUR ROOM’
OBJECT 3: ‘BENCH’ – IN RESPONSE TO LOUIE PODLASKI’S ‘REVENANT GROUNDS’.
PLACE PROJECTORS AT 139 STATE ST. (THE SPIRIT ROOM) WELCOMES OUR SELECTED PLAYWRIGHTS AND CONJURE BOX THEATRE PARTICIPANTS!
PLAYWRIGHT: Lisa Dowda is a writer/producer/investigator recently transplanted in Rochester. Favorite crowdsourced projects: she wrote and co-produced CHASING SANITATION: Falling In Love With New York’s Strongest, a photo narrative exhibition and website. She self-published her short story anthology, BREEDER at Blurb. MADONNA, MCVEIGH & ME is a solo show she wrote, produced and performed in LA’s fringe festival, later workshopping it as a full cast stage play, WACO with assistance from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Dramatists Guild Fund and donors. She co-produced HOW TO MAKE MOVIES AT HOME, an indie award-winning film that premiered at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival and won Best Filmmaker of the Year at Visionfest NYC. Born in Memphis, Lisa is a licensed private investigator with the local public defender and slogging through her current project, The Saturday Night Fever Chronicles: How I Became a Dick in Brooklyn.
PLAYWRIGHT: Louie Podlaski has been involved in theatre mostly in NY State as an actor but has also performed in Florida and Missouri. He is the recipient of several acting awards and one for writing the short play The Resurrection of Zoerina. Over the years he has had five productions of his work staged as a full evening at the MuCCC in Rochester which included multiple pieces; his most recent being the farce Ravengale in 2019 a tongue-in-cheek meta western in which he also portrayed the villain. He continues to write for the stage and is planning on another full production later this year.
PLAYWRIGHT: Taylor Terrance is a graduate of Second City Chicago’s Comedy Writing Program and so holds a strong love for SNL, Chicago, and Wrigley Field. During her time at Second City, she was a writer for the sketch show Shrimp and Buns. Though comedy is her preference, she loves all manner of script writing: plays, television, or film. Her short play Big Day was included at Rochester Fringe Fest 2019. She was a writer/cast member in Rochester’s performance of the nationally produced show Listen To Your Mother and will return in 2021 as a co-producer, script writer and coach. Taylor is also a frequent writer/performer at Rochester’s Speak Easy, a monthly storytelling event. Her autobiographical and humorous short essays can be found on her Facebook page, Taylor T Rants. Her essay “Winter Roads” was published in the winter anthology “A Celebration of Winter.” Taylor loves hanging out with her nieces and nephews and traveling. Her love language is Cheetos and she speaks fluent snark.
WELCOME CONJURE BOX PERFORMERS AND PROP MASTER!
Casey is a theatre, film & television actress based in NYC. Upon graduating from The NYU Graduate Acting Program she immediately started producing her own content. Her first feature, Viral Beauty, was released theatrically in 2018 and is currently streaming online. Currently her short, Motherhood, is in its festival run. It won the Audience Choice Award at Hollyshorts and received nominations for Best Short and Best Production Design at the London-based Lonely Wolf Film Festival. She is in the process of learning ASL for her next leading role in the upcoming feature film, “3 Monkeys”.
Hernan Sanchez Garcia is a soon to be graduate of The University of Rochester’s International Theater Program. From Long Island, Hernan was introduced to the performing arts through forensics at his previous institution, Nassau Community College, winning multiple awards in platform speaking and oral interpretation from 2017-2019. Upon coming to Rochester in 2019, Hernan became an active member of UR’s International Theater Program having appeared in four of its staged productions: New Voices Initiative, Everybody, The Government Inspector, and Terminal 3. New to theater, Hernan is excited to take part in his first production outside of school!
ABOUT OUR FILM CREW:
Welcome Samantha Marchant!
Samantha is the Director of the Conjure Box portion of Place Projectors at The Spirit Room – welcome Samantha!
ABOUT:
Samantha Marchant is playwright, director and dramaturg, based in Buffalo, NY. She graduated from Spalding University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing with a concentration in Playwriting (Fall 2015). Her work has been produced on both US coasts and has had readings all across the country and in Canada. Her writing has been published in The Louisville Review, Sick Lit Magazine and Women Writing Letters Season 3 and 4. Favorite directing credits include: Blasted by Sarah Kane and Orestes 2.0 by Charles Mee – both productions at Bread and Water Theatre (Rochester, NY). She longs for what’s weird and a good laugh.
https://www.facebook.com/samanthamarchantplaywright
Upcoming: 139 State Street Rochester, NY (The Spirit Room)
PLACE PROJECTORS ‘Conjure Box’ Call for Plays and Performers
Location: 139 State St. Rochester, NY (The Spirit Room)
Contact: Annalisa Barron/ (814) 883-6532/ annalisabarronart@gmail.com
Call for Plays Description:
Place Projectors is partnering with the Spirit Room in a call for short (10 minute) ‘Micro-Theatre’ plays exploring the ‘The Veil Between This World and The Next’. Inspired by the Fox Sisters and their infamous demonstration of communicating with the dead through otherworldly ‘rappings’ at Corinthian Hall (just around the corner from The Spirit Room), our call for mirco-plays is open to young and old, amateur and professional, local and national to try their hand at exploring both this world and the next on stage. The Spirit Room has expanded and is proud to bring The Conjure Box, a new experimental theatre space, to downtown Rochester, NY. An object for the Spirit Room’s Place Projector will be made in response to each of the 3 selected micro-plays and will be used as the projected imagery for their sculpture. Participation in this Place Projectors event is voluntary and accompanied with a $100 stipend.
Play Requirements:
- 10 Minutes Max
- 4 Parts Max
- No costumes/1 prop (performers will be in black, prop can be no larger than 12 x 12”)
- Must be able to be performed on a 10 x 10ft stage
- Content must explore ‘The Veil Between This World and the Next’
*We encourage researching Corinthian Hall, The Spiritualist Movement and Rochester’s history for your short play but it is not required!*
Submissions must be sent to annalisabarronart@gmail.com with ‘Place Projectors Conjure Box Call for Plays’ in the subject line by March 31st, 2021 to be considered. The 3 selected Playwrights will be announced on Friday, April 9th, 2021!
Available Performer Positions:
Place Projectors is currently accepting applications for a director as well as a group of 4 actors to rehearse and perform the selected micro-plays at the unveiling of the Spirit Room’s Place Projector on May 22nd, 2021.
To apply for the director position and/or audition to be one of the four actors please email annalisabarronart@gmail.com with ‘Conjure Box Performer Inquiry’ in the subject line by March 25, 2021.
Welcome to Place Projectors Sui Liu!
Sui Liu’s artwork:
