The Fall of June Bloom - a modern invocation (working title)



by Flloyd Kennedy and William Shakespeare
- an original play combining Shakespeare with contemporary language (prose and poetry) , a powerfully tragi-comic story offering a new kind of immersive theatrical encounter.

Play Synopsis: A tragic-comedy in which an older woman still with much to offer life hovers on the edge of forgetfulness, confronted by her past. June Bloom shares her love of Shakespeare’s words with anyone who is prepared to listen. In the process she is challenged to remember much more than words.

The Fall of June Bloom is an entertainment engaging with the themes of memory and language across generations and cultures, a funny, moving and thought-provoking theatrical encounter. It represents theatre for the twenty-first century, combining Shakespearean text and heightened contemporary language (prose and poetry) with state of the art visual technology to create a new kind of immersive theatrical encounter. The audience is warmly invited to engage with the topic and the characters, or they are free to sit back and be entertained without any pressure to become more involved. The topic is both amusing and thoughtful, the performance is powerfully moving and extremely funny.

The Fall of June Bloom - A Modern Invocation, was presented as a work in progress in New York, at the VASTA conference on Tuesday August 4 2009, with Flloyd Kennedy (June), John Graham (Jerome) and Micha Espinosa (Kate), directed by Judi Lehrhaupt.
stills from VASTA June Bloom 1213
John Graham (Jerome)
stills from VASTA June Bloom 1326
Flloyd Kennedy (June)
The Fall of June Bloom - A Modern Invocation will be presented in Brisbane, Australia, in 2010 in full theatrical production, with soundscape by John Rodgers and an experimental lighting design by Jason Glenwright incorporating the Cloudwright sdk. Ira Seidenstein (www.iraseidenstein.com) will direct, and the cast is Flloyd Kennedy (June), John Graham (Jerome) and Anna Yen (Kate).

Here are some images from the 2008 work-in-progress presentation at the Allen Hall Theatre in Dunedin, NZ.
The actors are Flloyd Kennedy as June and Marc (Michael) Metzger as Jerome.

Handmade by Flloyd is the website for my handmade jewelry. All profits from jewelry sales go towards production costs for The Fall of June Bloom
some audience response to The Fall of June Bloom (work in progress)

New York - VASTA 09 - 4 August 2009

I want to thank you again for your performance -- both the text and the acting.  It was thoroughly engaging, thought provoking, fascinating and charming.  Entertaining without being didactic, it wrestled with the complex concepts of the power of language. 

  • Talking about what the “Big name” teachers were talking about AND demonstrating it, as a teacher AND embodying it fully (as good acting does, must) And reflecting on all of those layers – simultaneously – BRILLIANT!
It was wonderful how you crossed over, if you will, from contemporary language into Shakespeare’s so seamlessly to give it that accessibility.

Well done!  You have created a body of work that is successful on not only a superficial level, but also requires us to sit quietly and really address the fundamentals of how we inhabit/interpret/channel.  
I loved the theatricality of the "presentation" - You used your voice/body as the instrument should, in my opinion, be used.  You "sang off the text" as we say - and also inhabited the words, without any over histrionic effect.  The flow between Shakespeare's words and your own was almost seamless. 

Brisbane – Magdalena Easter Gathering – 22 March 2008
“I loved the swing from strength to vulnerability in Flloyd’s character!”
“What I found interesting were the intellectual concepts – valid theories and philosophies, the density and journey of the language”
“Weaving Shakespeare’s text with contemporary language was really, really interesting! So was the student emerging from the audience and the negotiating of roles. It also challenged me to think about Grief”
“The power of the performance was carried securely by excellent performances”
“I loved the open ended mystery of the ‘lost’ son, the ideas around “who owns words/thoughts?, and what is madness?”
Dunedin – University of Otago – 2 July, 2008
“it’s Hugely funny. And I love the bits of technical voice stuff. And I love the discussion about the voice, and Shakespeare, the way words are used”
“the way it jumped around, it was much more a collage of different lengths, and suddenly slid into a completely different mode, spatially, and verbally. For me, as a non-actor, I thought that was really interesting, although you weren’t dancing, it had a choreographic sense to it, and I liked that rhythmic aspect of it”
New York – Performing the World – 3 October, 2008
“I was comfortably confused throughout! I loved not being quite sure what was ‘real’ and what was ‘acted’”
“This would be wonderful for young people, it really shows how important the voice is”

“The play highlights how we can work across generations and across cultures, bringing them together”