NEW YORK – November 5 is opening night for Shakespeare’s gender-bender classic 12th Night at Manhattan’s famed SoHo Playhouse. It is the latest creation of Offline Productions and the team of producer Demetri Kofinas and director Alexis Confer. The classics will always be respected, but to make an impact on future generations, youth have to be drawn to the seats. Directors have been adapting Shakespeare to “modern” audiences from the start, but one challenge is that subjects that intrigue for centuries, like explorations of sexual identity, which is at the heart of 12th Night, can be rendered ho-hum by social revolutions. To the rescue come teams like Kofinas and Confer, who bring fresh takes from creative abilities and communications skills developed in other fields, and unique and talented casts. Kofinas is a former technology and media entrepreneur and Confer is a top official in New York City’s de Blasio administration. The players are “an eclectic mix of comedians, actors, improvisers, and musical performers, making for a uniquely funny rendition of one of Shakespeare’s classic comedies,” according to the www.offlinenyc.com, where tickets can be purchased. Kofinas is excited about his company Offline Production’s second play. It’s first was Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, but he likes 12th Night even more. “It is more complex…Viola is played by Erin Marsz, who is also the lead for a rock band,” is shipwrecked and lands, per Shakespeare’s text, in Illyria, said Kofinas, but in this production that is not a country but a resort in Hawaii that Countess Olivia just inherited. The production will not be without the requisite surfers, wild hotel guests, beach performers and an epic singer…or two. Kofinas said the set are beautiful and the website declares that audience members “will enter the hotel empire of the classy and sophisticated Olivia.”Viola wants to become part of that world, so she pretends to me a man named Cesario. The twisting begins when Viola falls in love with Count Orsino, who was in love with Olivia, but when she meets Viola, falls in love with her believing she is a man. All four end up becoming related in ways none ever expected. It has been noted that Olivia and Viola are near-anagrams, suggesting that soulmates and dearest friends are drawn together by fate. Another theme that attracted Kofinas is the transformational quality of love, although the self-serving and selfish elements of romantic love are also explored.
Loss is another theme. Viola is grieving because she believes her twin brother Sebastian has perished, and Olivia is mourning her father and her brother. They are draw together by shared experiences of pain, a relatively unexplored catalyst for new relationships. Kofinas is also intrigued by the way the characters “discovered truth through deception,”and what they really wanted my means of illusion.”That connects powerfully with his fascination and work with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), and his transition from the online to the offline world – two parts of his life which he says complement each other. “Everything I have ever done before this was online…I had a video game company, I worked in interactive TV, and created content for the web, cable and satellite, he said. The vision for his company is to create offline experiences that embrace the other world too. His participation in the recent Hearst Hackathon informs his thinking. “For 48 hours we broke up into teams as we developed AR applications. They used headsets plugged into cell phones for AR or VR experiences by generating images that overlay what people’s eyes see around them. The app they came up with pulled content from Hearst’s website and overlaid what readers would see in a magazine. “It’s just a way to play with the idea, but the overarching theme is how do you complement and tie in physical world experiences with the digital world.”He thinks theater is a very interesting place to play with that technology. “You can do a lot with VR before people come to the theater, and with respect to the theatrical experience itself there are so many things you can do with sensors in the building,” he said. Offline Productions has begun with conventional productions to generate theatrical experience and will explore using the new technology in the future. As for the content, “Confer has the great knowledge of Shakespeare. I have been more interested in the Greek classics” Kofinas said, who is deciding which one to produce. 12th Night runs November 5 –15 at the SoHo Playhouse, and The People’s Improv Theater – The PIT– will present it without sets on November 20.
“An eclectic mix of comedians, actors, improvisers and musical performers,” appear in Demetri Kofinas’ Offline Productions’ presentation 12thNight
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