Luxe Hotel 2022 — Matthew Kohn

Director Statement

Luxe Hotel is an intimate hostage situation between a man, a woman and an observer. As originally written by Barbara Nitke and Michael Wiener, the scene was between one male and two female actors with certain indicators of race and class alignment. Barbara and Michael asked me to direct the piece, but I didn't want the themes of this play to be about white, and perhaps rich people.

In preparation for the Chashama Gala 2021, and with the permission of the writers, I transformed the original short scene into a clockwork round robin requiring at least five actors rotating through the three parts. My rewrite gave each actor a chance to play all the parts, regardless of gender, age, race, and against type.

I designed a process to create a unique combination of actors for every scene, throughout two six-hour performances. As it turned out, more than 22 actors took part in 70 performances. Mathematically, each night could have resulted in more than 450 unique presentations.

In the short documentary, the audience will get an opportunity to see excerpts of the piece and hear from from the actors and key participants.

CREDITS
Documentary and Play Directed by Matthew Kohn

based on the play by Barbara Nitke Adapted by Matthew Kohn and Michael Wiener

Interviews by Hugo Perez & Featuring stills by Bob Berger and Dan Efram

Edited & Color Corrected by Matthew Kohn & Sound Mix and Fix by Carlos Storm Martinez

Thank you to the instinct and trust of Anita Durst and Chashama.org