Contributed photo NaCl’s Catskill Festival of New Theatre will open on Friday, July 27 at 8:00 with “The Hidden Twin” by Wishhounds. The image above is of a stilt mask created for an earlier production. (Click for larger image)

Creating culture

NaCl’s new theatre festival

By KRISTA GROMALSKI

HIGHLAND LAKE — How can theatre return to its rightful designation as a center of culture, asked The New York Times on July 22?

Through the creation of new work, was the simple, yet not so simple, answer from writer Margo Jefferson.

Present this theory to Brad Krumholz of North American Cultural Laboratory (NaCl Theatre) and a passionate discussion might ensue.

Krumholz, co-founder and artistic director of NaCl, believes theatre has the possibility to create culture. It can “bring a community together in an event that allows the people in it to feel life in a different way.”

Which is exactly what NaCl has been doing since its creation by Krumholz and performer Tannis Kowalchuk in 1997. Six new works have emerged, with performances throughout the United States and Canada.

From its summer home in Highland Lake at the former Catskill Actors Theatre, NaCl held the first ever Catskills new theatre festival in August 2000, where the group saw the debut of “Arca Nova,” an epic ensemble performance rooted in the mysticism of the book of Genesis.

The turnout for the festival was encouraging, said Kowalchuk, who has created and performed roles in five new works. Her one-woman show, “The Passion According to G.H.,” is featured on August 2 at the 2001 Catskill Festival of New Theatre, scheduled from July 27 through August 5 at NaCl Catskills.

Based on the novel by Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, the performance centers on Kowalchuk’s character, G.H., whose normally uneventful life is turned upside down by the discovery of an enormous cockroach in her home.

Also contributing to the eclectic mix of talent at the festival will be Wishhounds, Lake Ivan Performance Group and Spatial Relations, along with a number of solo performers executing highly crafted physical artistry.

	TRR photo by Krista Gromalski Prior to the opening night performance, stilt walkers Greg Emerson of Monticello High School, far left, and Bill Cooper of Eldred High School, far right, will perform outside NaCl’s Catskill Theatre. Tannis Kowalchuk and Brad Krumholz, center, founders of NaCl, have been training the local students in the art of stilt walking. (Click for larger image)

This type of group setting is the basis for theatre’s unique ability to create culture, according to Krumholz. “There are only certain kinds of theatre that can do that,” he said. “[It] takes a lot of time to make… and is built inside of a group setting… and through that communication of the group there can be communication with the audience.”

Providing NaCl the opportunity to incubate and develop such work, Kowalchuk said, is NaCl’s performance and training space in Highland Lake. “We can build high quality work because we’re in a really special place.”

Along those lines, NaCl is working toward a situation “where we go to the world and the world comes here,” Kowalchuk said. “With the time and space we can bring in other artists and students … and create a kind of a movement.”

Which returns to the question of culture, which NaCl “strives to investigate.”

Theatre has “the possibility of kindling some kind of real fire,” said Krumholz. “Generally when anybody comes to see the work that’s here, they’re ignited by it in a very, very different way… They come out of it saying, ‘Wow!’”

For more information and a complete schedule of NaCl’s performances, call 845/557-0694 or visit www.nacl.org.