I participate in theater productions by directing, producing, and integrating a series of film and video art works into the play. I write with images in the voice of the playwright an extension to the play's conceptual and physical narrative. I'm interested in the boundary between virtual and real spaces and the transition between the two. In theater physical bodies make real the virtual material of language. I want my works to embody that performance.
Tony Fitzpatrick's American Trilogy: This Train, Stations Lost, Nickel History 2010-2012
Three multi-media plays that house a series of film and video art works that I conceptualize, direct, produce, shoot, animate, edit, and integrate into the theatrical production. The pieces perform on stage as poetic experimental films, documenting the concept and form of Tony's drawing-collage and etching works that inspire each play. All three plays are written by Tony Fitzpatrick, adapted and directed by Ann Filmer.
Stations Lost: Beast of Burden 2min. video, live performances by Lynne Jordan and John Rice.
Stations Lost is a 90 min. play containing 70 videos animating 3,000 still images I generated from Tony's drawing-collage series: Super Hero, Moth, Ohio, and Star. Six of the videos act as individual scenes and tell the story of Tony's use of light conceptually and formally throughout the four series while also contributing to the plays narrative, a journey of personal transformation.
Stations Lost: Moth Poem 2 of 4, 30sec. video, poem written and narrated by Tony Fitzpatrick, music by John Rice.
Stills from Stations Lost at the Steppenwolf Garage Theater, Chicago, IL and the Pierogi Boiler Room, Brooklyn, NY, 2011
This Train: Train Poem part 3 of 5, 1min. video, poem written and narrated by Tony Fitzpatrick, music by John Rice.
This Train 90min., contains 44 videos incorporating stills generated from Tony Fitzpatrick's Hobo Alphabet and Sitting Bull drawing-collages. This Train is a tribute to Tony's mentor oral historian Studs Terkel. There are five main video pieces that communicate both Tony's drawing-collage formal and conceptual process. The videos also contribute to the narrative: the history and language of transient populations throughout American history understood through the Hobo Alphabet.
Documentation of This Train at the Steppenwolf Garage Theater, Chicago, IL 2010
Documentation of The Scarlet Ibis at the 16th Street Theater, Berwyn, IL 2008
Documentation of Patty Red Pants at the Chopin Theater, Chicago, IL 2005
