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  • Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete - European Stages Journal - Martin E. Segal Theater Center

    European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 18, Fall, 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete By Ion M. Tomuș Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF The poetry recital in the Romanian performing arts landscape holds a special position which needs to be described in its general coordinates. First, before 1990 and the fall of the Iron Curtain, most poetry recitals given by Romanian actors were part of the job description of those with certain visibility. The poetry recital thus became, in most cases, a job obligation and part of the Communist party's propaganda. Of course, this situation meant that the relationship between the audience and those who recited poetry benefited from a special configuration, deeply marked by the social-cultural particularities of the period between 1947 and 1990. The patriotic poems that had to be recited by the Romanian actors were part of the communist propaganda and had nothing in common with real poetry. Socialist realism was expressed in the field of poetry in topics like outstanding crops, comrades who break new records in industrial production, or ones who work on the homeland’s great construction sites and compete with those around them. There was also the category of patriotic poetry in which the image of the supreme leader of the country and of the Communist party were praised. Moreover, during the last fifteen years of the Communist regime, there was a lot of insistence on the glorification of the presidential couple through poetry, a situation that now, almost 50 years later, seems completely ridiculous. Finally, the last major trend in the recitals of patriotic poetry before 1990 was represented by the reinterpretation of some of the great classical Romanian poets in a special key that served the purposes of propaganda. For example, in the work of Mihai Eminescu (the last great European romantic poet), the same propaganda identified certain elements that could be useful for its purposes, thus an important series of themes was diverted towards these ambitions. After 1990, Romanian society and the national artistic environment found themselves in a situation of total freedom of expression, and the transition was very sudden. The situation was similar in the whole of Eastern Europe and this new freedom was rather difficult for coping with not only for the artists but for the whole society. The world of theatre rightly tried to detach itself from the traumas during the Communist regime and establish a safe distance from the unfortunate clichés of the past, from the procedures and means of stage expression so well established during half a century of Communist propaganda. One of the genres that lost substantial ground, though, was exactly that of poetic recital. Most prominent Romanian actors avoided it because they wanted to evade the association with an outdated way of artistic expression which was for so long diverted from the true purpose of art - that of creating stimulating emotion. Of course, there were exceptions: those who understood the importance of poetry and emotion for the general audience. Several actors did not shy away from publicly reciting true poetry (as they did before 1990), insisting on artistic truth, emotion and value: Lucia Mureșan, Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, Ion Caramitru, Valeria Seciu, Ilinca Tomoroveanu, Traian Stănescu, Constantin Chiriac, Mircea Albulescu and others. Even more than others, Constantin Chiriac, from the very beginning of his career, understood the importance of “real” poetry in a society that responds to emotion and truth. Addressing the public through poetry and, thus, serving the community – this is the solid foundation on which he built his career as an actor. It is also crucial to note that he is the author of a doctoral thesis focused precisely on the act of interpreting and reciting poetry. His thesis has become a textbook for the poetry recital technique for students and professionals in the field of performing arts. Games, Words, Crickets... Photo: Dragos Dumitru. At Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu, the theatrical autumn of 2022 was marked by the opening of Games, Words, Crickets… , directed by Silviu Purcărete: a performance of poetry by Constantin Chiriac, with the support of more than a dozen of the company’s actors who performed a series of stage exercises that derived from improvisations led by the director. The text of the performance was based on fragments from a diverse and surprising selection of Romanian and international poets: Carl Sandburg, Nazim Hikmet, Serghei Esenin, William Shakespeare, Paul Verlaine, Mihai Eminescu, Marin Sorescu, Radu Stanca, and others. Silviu Purcărete is a director who has made his audience expect to see in his shows a special dynamic involving usually a group of actors on stage who are driven by the energy and emotion instigated by improvisational exercises. Gulliver's Travels, Faust, Metamorphoses and The Scarlet Princess are just a few of the performances staged by him in Sibiu in which a group of actors acquires the consistency of a real character that is in direct relationship with the central performer (or performers). The performance of the group of actors is usually accompanied by music or is itself a music generator, the stage, thus, becoming a space where Silviu Purcărete creates a functional, extremely colorful, and diverse world—a universe that works according to its own special rules where this collective (but also individualized) character evolves and develops organically in their relationship with the main performer and the particularities of the space on stage and the universe in the script. This is also the general context for Games, Words, Crickets... : At the beginning on stage there are the main elements of a naive and picturesque winter universe. The snowmen melt, the carrot used as a nose falls off, the snowbanks also melt, the birds chirp. Then the white and cold nature transforms, and comes back to life, as a sign of a new beginning. It is with this sign that the show begins because we feel a state of expectation and impatience--an emotion like that in childhood at the reawakening of spring. Gradually the group of actors breaks away from the theme of the end of winter and of the new beginning, and start an exercise of balancing several dozen glasses on top of each other, in a scenic expression of fragility and transparency and, of course, of the joy of building a spectacular foundation marked by these coordinates. Constantin Chiriac, in his first moment on stage, makes use of Carl Sandburg (the story about the king and the shah from The People, Yes ) to start a captatio benevolentiae exercise, based on the textual formula specific to telling stories: “Once upon a time...” In this way, he establishes the dramatic convention, opens the story, and initiates the magic of emotion. The script never aims to tell a story, which is a rarity for Silviu Purcărete, a director who has adapted some of the most important stories from world literature and drama: One Thousand and One Nights, Gulliver's Travels, Pantagruel , etc. This time, more than ever before, he uses the text as a pretext and the main intention is to create emotion. The protagonist of the show, Constantin Chiriac, is configured as an ordinary character in a light-colored costume, who stands out in the chromatics and the special configuration of the stage, as implemented by Dragoș Buhagiar, the set designer. Of course, the commonality of the character reciting poems is an element sought out by the director and well assumed and carried out by the actor. Through this artistic approach, the poetic text is emphasized in all its nuances and labyrinthine, deep, extremely differing substrata, both for the performer and the audience. In addition, the stage direction of the performance is extremely attentive to the means of expression of the character who recites the poems: his banality is not pushed into an existentialist zone, as is the one in which, for example, Ionesco's famous Béranger works. On the contrary, Silviu Purcărete places his actor, Constantin Chiriac, in a detached area, where the great questions raised by the text have a welcomed ludic counterpoint, assumed both by the role itself and by the group of actors on stage, who develop and continue their improvisations in parallel with the poetry in the text. Performing arts professionals know very well the fundamental difficulties related to expressing poetic texts on stage. The enunciation that reaches the audience must be precisely distilled by the performer and a truly interdisciplinary approach to the text is needed. Philology, as a field that is tangential to dramaturgy, is particularly useful in this sense, because it may offer a helpful set of theoretical tools that may help in this whole endeavor. The technique of the poetry recital requires the development of an activity that is, to a great extent, similar to that of a detective: good knowledge of all the nuances of the text and the entire work of the poet (for the best possible selection of texts), and also identification of several cores of the poetic text that will later be used by the performer and passed on to the public. In addition to all this, it is essential to establish a possible dialogue in the text that is spoken on stage, which can then be verbalized and delivered with theatrical means. This is, for example, why conceptual poetry is so difficult to recite on stage. Through the main performer and the group of actors who carry out the improvisation exercises, Games, Words, Crickets establishes a dialogue that works in several ways, all of which are suffused with emotion. First of all, the dialogue between the protagonist and the audience should be mentioned. The foundation on which it is built is the poetry recited by Constantin Chiriac, which does not communicate a precise content of ideas or facts, as the audience is used to when going to the theatre, but focuses on the delivery of emotion from the poetic text. The “sender” (the protagonist) may use means that are sometimes theatrically exaggerated and dissolve the fourth wall of the stage. Theatrical convention and the routines of watching a theatrical performance may make the audience see a character in the protagonist. However, the director's stage reality proposes a concept that uses poetry to convey not ideas and facts, but emotion. The script is not made up of a chain of events that link together to build up dramatic tension and reach a climax, but of successive emotions, which are communicated by the protagonist to the audience through often playful means and the goal is the creation and the stage configuration of a whole universe, with its special rules, in which not only those on the stage but the entire audience take refuge. Furthermore, also regarding the decomposition of the poetic text and the identification of dialogue vectors, it is essential to detail one of the most important moments of the performance: two life-size marionettes, copies of the protagonist, appear on stage, manipulated by the actors. The marionettes become part of the mechanism that configures the dialogue: the performer is in a communicative relationship with these marionettes. Questions are answered; answers generate new questions; the poetic text, loaded with deep philosophical meanings, becomes more and more accessible to the general audience, without its universe of meanings being altered. Moreover, for one of Mihai Eminescu’s poems, approaching the possible dialogue with ludic means on a theatre stage implies a happy adaptation to the horizon of expectations of the contemporary spectator. The world is now fast, communication has changed enormously in the last decades, and identifying new nuances and levels in the process of delivering the poetic text to the public through a (re)configuration of the dialogue may be a useful and rewarding approach. Finally, the two marionettes convey extra theatricality and fit perfectly into the characteristics of Silviu Purcărete's theatrical universe: the apparent grotesqueness of the images is augmented by dialogue, emotion, and playfulness. The music of the show is composed by Vasile Şirli and is a complex of sounds that accompany the stage actions and the emotions transmitted by the protagonist to the audience. The sounds are created spontaneously, on stage, under the gaze of the spectators, and in a close relationship with the text, which emphasizes the playfulness mentioned earlier. Furthermore, when the protagonist and the improvisations of the group of actors are accompanied by recorded music, it joins the general tones of an open and bright space. The playfulness that marks the whole show is accentuated by the set design signed by Dragoș Buhagiar: the space is wide open, referring to the universality of poetry, the colors are bright, so that the lights can provide nuances and brilliance, or even texture to all the images. Games, Words, Crickets... Photo: Dragos Dumitru. The group of actors behind the protagonist (seventeen of them) behaves as a parallel mechanism which associates with the poetic text, enhances its potential, and completes it, or ironizes the actions on stage. Their costumes are also light-colored (shirts and shorts with suspenders)—a reference to a possible eternal childhood associated with playfulness. The games primarily belong to the group of actors. This suggests a character that stands out from the crowd or, on the contrary, a comic-grotesque uniformity caused by the masks they wear at a certain point. In Games, Words, Crickets... , the seventeen who accompany the protagonist on stage have the precise role of increasing the playfulness of the whole artistic endeavor. Finally, one last thing to be emphasized: in an artistic and social context marked by a troubled and complex reality, Silviu Purcărete turns to true poetry in order to create a sensitive and emotional show. He has been known as a creator of poetry on stage through the images and energies of his performances. In Games, Words, Crickets... we have the opportunity to see how he uses a selection from the world's great poetry to enhance his own stage emotion. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Dr. Ion M. Tomuș is a Professor at “Lucian Blaga” University, Sibiu, the Department of Drama and Theatre Studies, where he teaches courses in History of Romanian Theatre, History of Worldwide Theatre, Text and Stage Image and Drama Theory. He is member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Field of Performing Arts (Cavas). In 2008 he received his PhD from the National University of Drama and Film, Bucharest, with a doctoral thesis entitled Realist and Naïve Picturesqueness in Vasile Alecsandri’s, I. L. Caragiale’s, and Eugene Ionesco’s Plays and Their Stage Adaptations. In 2013 he finished a postdoctoral study together with the Romanian Academy, focused on the topic of the modern international theatre festival, with case studies on the Edinburgh International Festival, Festival d’Avignon, and Sibiu International Theatre Festival. He has published studies, book reviews, theatre reviews, and essays in prestigious cultural magazines and academic journals in Romania and Europe. Since 2005, he has been co-editor of the annual Text Anthology published by Nemira Publishing House for each edition of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival. Since 2005, Mr. Tomuș is part of the staff at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (SITF is the third performing arts festival in the world, preceded by the ones in Edinburgh and Avignon). Ion M. Tomuș was Head of the Department of Drama and Theatre Studies, in “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu (2011-2019), and now he is the Chair of the PhD School in Theatre and Performing Arts at the same university Since October 2016, Ion M. Tomuș is advising PhD students in the field of Performing Arts at “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu. Email: ion.tomus@ulbsibiu.ro European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Report from London (December 2022) Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 “Regietheater:” two cases The Grec Festival 2023 The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Report from Germany Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

  • Leche Hervida at PRELUDE 2023 - Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY

    Leche Hervida is a Solo Performance created in 2023. The work involves meticulous detail around all objects floor to ceiling. The foam floor is first laid below the meticulously constructed lighting rig by the artist. All of the objects in the work are created by IV Castellanos. The wearables are deconstructed during the production of this performance. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Leche Hervida IV Castellanos Dance, Performance Art English. Spanish, Quechua 20mins 2:30PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Leche Hervida is a Solo Performance created in 2023. The work involves meticulous detail around all objects floor to ceiling. The foam floor is first laid below the meticulously constructed lighting rig by the artist. All of the objects in the work are created by IV Castellanos. The wearables are deconstructed during the production of this performance. Content / Trigger Description: The performance goes to complete darkness at one point. Abstract Performance Artist and Sculptor. I create solo, collaborative and group task vignette performances. The objects in my performances are all constructed/deconstructed by myself and/or the collaborator/s I am working with. In addition, I create stand alone sculptures not meant to be activated by performances. I am a Three Spirit Queer Trans* Bolivian-Indige / American. www.ivcastellanos.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

  • Exposure at PRELUDE 2023 - Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY

    EXPOSURE: A group show of performance works exploring the body. PERFORMANCE BY: Ilan Bachrach Kristel Baldoz Blaze Ferrer Hannah Kallenbach Julia Mounsey Alexander Paris Matt Romein Alex Tatarsky Peter Mills Weiss Kristin Worrall At The Collapsable Hole 155 Bank Street New York, NY 10014 Seating extremely limited. Tickets are first come first served. The Collapsable Hole box office opens at 6pm. Please arrive early to secure your ticket and enjoy free refreshments. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Exposure Radiohole Theater, Performance Art English 90 minutes 7:00PM EST Saturday, October 7, 2023 The Collapsable Hole, Bank Street, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All EXPOSURE: A group show of performance works exploring the body. PERFORMANCE BY: Paris Alexander Kristel Baldoz Blaze Ferrer Hannah Kallenbach Dante Migone-Ojeda Julia Mounsey Matt Romein Alex Tatarsky Peter Mills Weiss Kristin Worrall HOSTED BY: Fantasy Grandma VISUAL ART BY: Robert Bunkin & Jenny Tango At The Collapsable Hole 155 Bank Street New York, NY 10014 Tickets are first come first served. The Collapsable Hole box office opens at 6pm. Please arrive early to secure your ticket and enjoy free refreshments. Radiohole is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Radiohole's work is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Content / Trigger Description: Please email radiohole@gmail.com for information about content and access. https://www.radiohole.com/ https://thehole.site/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

  • Please Do Not Touch the Indians at PRELUDE 2023 - Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY

    This is a reading of an excerpt of the play, "Please Do Not Touch the Indians." This is a play about the history of what happened to all Indians. Two wooden Indians sit on a bench in front of a gift shop and have their picture taken by a tourist. Characters appear as images of a child lost and they share their tragic journey of historical wrongs. In the end, we see that what we have seen is what the 2 Indians see every day as they come there to remember their lost child. It is a simple tale of lost love for a child, of a lost people, joined by their memories. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Please Do Not Touch the Indians Eagle Project 60 minutes 3:00PM EST Wednesday, October 11, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All This is a reading of an excerpt of the play, "Please Do Not Touch the Indians." This is a play about the history of what happened to all Indians. Two wooden Indians sit on a bench in front of a gift shop and have their picture taken by a tourist. Characters appear as images of a child lost and they share their tragic journey of historical wrongs. In the end, we see that what we have seen is what the 2 Indians see every day as they come there to remember their lost child. It is a simple tale of lost love for a child, of a lost people, joined by their memories. Content / Trigger Description: Joseph A. Dandurand is a member of Kwantlen First Nation located on the Fraser River about 20 minutes east of Vancouver. He resides there with his 3 children Danessa, Marlysse, and Jace. Joseph is the Director of the Kwantlen Cultural Center. Joseph received a Diploma in Performing Arts from Algonquin College and studied Theatre and Direction at the University of Ottawa. He has been the Storyteller in Residence at the Vancouver Public Library. He has published 13 books of poetry and the latest are: I WANT by Leaf Press (2015) and HEAR AND FORETELL by BookLand Press (2015) The Rumour (2018) by BookLand Press in (2018) SH:LAM (the doctor) Mawenzi Press (2019) The Corrupted by Guernica Press (2020) his children’s play: Th’owixiya: the hungry Feast dish by Playwrights Press Canada (2019) his children’s books: The Sasquatch, the fire, and the cedar basket (2020) and The Magical Sturgeon (2022) published by Nightwood Press along with his poetry manuscript: The Punishment (2022) He also is very busy Storytelling at many events and Schools. Opalanietet is a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal nation of New Jersey. He is currently a PhD student at The Graduate Center at the City of University of New York (CUNY), and the Founder and Artistic Director of Eagle Project, www.eagleprojectarts.org . Upon graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Opalanietet has performed in workshops and productions at such renown New York theatrical institutions as the Public Theater, Nuyorican Poets Café, New York City Opera, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In November of 2020, Opalanietet made history by giving the first-ever Lenape Land Acknowledgement at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. Founded by Opalanietet (Ryan Victor Pierce) in 2012, Eagle Project is the only Lenape-led performing arts company in New York City. Its mission is to explore the American identity through the performing arts and our Native American heritage, deciphering what exactly it means to be American while using the Native American experience as the primary means for which to conduct its investigation. Since its inception, Eagle Project has produced six full productions, numerous readings and workshops, and has collaborated with the Public Theater, Nuyorican Poets Café, Rattlestick Theater, and Ashtar Theater in Palestine. For more information, visit www.eagleprojectarts.org . https://www.eagleprojectarts.org/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

  • Going Beige - PRELUDE 2024 | The Segal Center

    LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL presents Going Beige at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Going Beige LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL 5:30-6:20 pm Friday, October 18, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall RSVP Performing artists Leslie Cuyjet and Karen Kandel sit down for the first time to speak about their experiences, forming the start of a collaboration of a potential project. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Photo: Maria Baranova Karen Kandel is a cultural worker, mentor, performer, writer, and a co-Artistic Director of NYC based theater company, Mabou Mines. Leslie Cuyjet is a performer, artist, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. More information at lesliecuyjet.com Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

  • Acting - Segal Film Festival 2025 | Martin E. Segal Theater Center

    Watch Acting by Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. Sophie Fiennes' richly detailed and immersive film offers privileged access to the vital experience of making theatre with pioneering practitioners Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod of the ground breaking international theatre company Cheek By Jowl. In a derelict Gothic mansion on the outskirts of London, we join eight actors - four Macbeths and four Lady Macbeths - for 11 days with Cheek By Jowl. Working in pairs, they investigate key scenes and soliloquies from Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy. But this film is not about the play. It’s about being offered a different position from which to view acting and theatre - of seeing text newly animated in ways more subtle, surprising, revelatory and various than even the most dedicated theatregoers might have considered possible. Within the labyrinthine remains of the building, we watch with increasing fascination as actors and spaces combine to give Shakespeare’s words seemingly infinite new lives.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Acting At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Friday May 16th at 1:20pm. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country United Kingdom Language English Running Time 144 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film About The Retrospective Sophie Fiennes' richly detailed and immersive film offers privileged access to the vital experience of making theatre with pioneering practitioners Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod of the ground breaking international theatre company Cheek By Jowl. In a derelict Gothic mansion on the outskirts of London, we join eight actors - four Macbeths and four Lady Macbeths - for 11 days with Cheek By Jowl. Working in pairs, they investigate key scenes and soliloquies from Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy. But this film is not about the play. It’s about being offered a different position from which to view acting and theatre - of seeing text newly animated in ways more subtle, surprising, revelatory and various than even the most dedicated theatregoers might have considered possible. Within the labyrinthine remains of the building, we watch with increasing fascination as actors and spaces combine to give Shakespeare’s words seemingly infinite new lives. About The Artist(s) Cheek by Jowl is the international theatre company of Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod. Its landmark productions, performed in more than 50 countries in the 44 years since the company was founded, have influenced the creation of theatre and the experience of audiences the world over. Actors including Adrian Lester, Tom Hiddleston, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, David Morrissey, Gwendoline Christie and Matthew Macfadyen all developed their talent working with Cheek by Jowl in their early careers. Get in touch with the artist(s) martin@lonestarproductions.co.uk ; shanihinton@me.com and follow them on social media https://www.cheekbyjowl.com/, https://www.instagram.com/wearecheekbyjowl/, http://www.lonestarproductions.co.uk/, https://www.instagram.com/sophiefiennesofficial/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

  • Guinean Environmental Stewardship Traditions - Prelude in the Parks 2024 | Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY

    Encounter Sidiki Conde and Tokounou Dance Company's work Guinean Environmental Stewardship Traditions in Queens, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Hunters Point Park Alliance, Queens. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival Guinean Environmental Stewardship Traditions Sidiki Conde and Tokounou Dance Company Music Friday, June 7, 2024 @ 6pm Hunter’s Point South Park, Queens Meet at the Overhang - Enter the park at 56th Ave and Center Blvd. Hunters Point Park Alliance, Queens Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center in collaboration with Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center View Location Details RSVP To Event NEA Heritage Fellow Sidiki Conde and his Tokounou Ensemble present Guinean environmental stewardship traditions to address the global climate crisis through song. Conde, best known for his remarkable drumming and dancing despite the loss of his legs to polio as a child, is a spiritual authority called a “Sundousou” for his ancestral village, Mancellia in Guinea, West Africa. He is one of this tradition’s last keepers of stories who, to this day, is called upon by village community members to perform baby naming, funeral, and marriage ceremonies. As his mother speaks the language of birds, Conde’s particular spirit familiar (a kind of “spirit animal”) is the “dugah,” or the vulture, whose funeral songs celebrate the passing of great leaders. Sidiki Conde and Tokounou Dance Company Sidiki Conde is a dancer, drummer and singer from Guinea, West Africa. Sidiki lost the use of his legs at the age of 14 but this did not stop him from his dream of becoming a dancer. Sidiki has performed with the premier dance and music ensembles in Africa. He came to America in 1998 and formed Tokounou, whose music and dances chronicle Sidiki's unique journey as an artist and celebrate the traditional arts of Guinea. Dance and music in Africa are community events where everyone participates and no one is excluded. Tokounou offer performances as well as mixed ability workshops in which participants will learn to sing and play African rhythms on djembe drums and other instruments, as well as traditional dances. Visit Artist Website Location Meet at the Overhang - Enter the park at 56th Ave and Center Blvd. Hunters Point Park Alliance, Queens The Hunters Point Parks Conservancy’s mission is to enhance and advocate for the green spaces and waterfront of Long Island City, Queens, and to ensure the parks remain an indispensable asset to the community. Visit Partner Website

  • Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 - European Stages Journal - Martin E. Segal Theater Center

    European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 18, Fall, 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 By Philippa Wehle Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF From the daily chorusing of the ever-present cicadas to the familiar fanfare of Maurice Jarre’s trumpets, which have announced the opening of new shows in Avignon since early festival times, and the black swifts piercing the sky with their loud screams as they fly over the majestic 14th-century walls - - Avignon, the yearly festival I’ve attended since 1968 with a few missed years, is once more on my mind. Avignon, the name always brings forth indelible memories of navigating my way over cobblestones and through jubilant crowds to the many outdoor cloisters and other spaces serving as theatres during the festival. My yearly foray into this remarkable festival was no exception this year. No matter what shows may have disappointed or which ones delighted, Avignon for me is a yearly must despite my advanced age and frailties. I had to be there for the 77 th Avignon festival. I had to discover what the festival’s new director Tiago Rodrigues had in store for us. Seated among some two thousand spectators in the open-air Honor Court of the Popes’ Palace, I was ready and eager to receive Welfare , a new work by Julie Deliquet, director of the Gérard Philippe theatre in St. Denis. She is only the second woman to be invited to present a show in the Honor Court in the seventy-seven-year history of the festival, and I was looking forward to discovering her work even though some were saying that the Honor Court’s forbidding dimensions call for majestic stagings and that Deliquet’s choice of an ordinary school gymnasium was questionable. Welfare . Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage. Deliquet’s Welfare , an adaptation of American filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s 1973 documentary, does indeed take place in a replica of a school gymnasium someplace in New York City in the 1970s. Stagehands are slowly taking down sports equipment and moving other athletic paraphernalia out of the way in preparation for the day’s welfare center, temporarily located in a make-shift venue. They bring out a table for the social workers who are about to begin dealing with the day’s cases while empty bleachers offer seating for the clients. A young man with a guitar provides musical commentary. A policeman strolls by. It is December. Throughout Welfare ’s two and one-half hours a cast of fifteen actors reenact the hardships of the homeless and the poor, single mothers, drug attics and others in desperate need, as well as the beleaguered director of the Welfare Center and his staff as they try to navigate their way through the overwhelming dysfunction of the system. Some clients need immediate attention. Others wait on the bleachers or wander about aimlessly. These are not anonymous people. They have names: Valerie Johnson, Roz Baker, and Larry Rivera. Their complaints are valid and their frustration is tangible as are those of the team trying to help them. Reactions range from angry outbursts to forlorn acceptance. When Valerie Johnson is told “There is no Valerie Johnson in our records. You will have to wait until January 1 st ,” we cannot help but commiserate with her, especially when her anger becomes so loud that she is carried off over the policeman’s shoulder. We also cannot help but laugh at the absurdity of the heavily pregnant woman who is told that she has to get written medical proof of her pregnancy in order to receive her stipend. Of course, we are touched by the gentleman who tells us that his dog is all he has, and we sympathize with the center’s director who is overwhelmed. Still, there is something missing. Deliquet’s theatre is a theatre of testimony. Welfare documents the situation of welfare recipients and those who help them, but the play seemed not to elevate beyond reporting. We are simply witnesses to these case histories dating from the 1970s and the losing battle that clients and staff endure. In an interview, Julie Deliquet shared that she hoped that her show would be received with anger and that her theatre would invite us to rethink the way we create society. Yet, drawing our attention to the flaws of the welfare system as it existed in the United States in the 1970s is puzzling when the system was overhauled twenty years ago and despite its many flaws, it is no longer the portrait that we encounter on Deliquet’s stage. In contrast to the many lives encountered in Welfare, The Confessions , by British author Alexander Zeldin, tells the tale of just one woman, Alice, a child of the working class in Australia, born in 1943. Based on hours of interviews Zeldin conducted with his mother, The Confessions is a portrait of an “ordinary” life with its many stories told in a series of hyper-realistic moments by nine actors playing all of the roles: mother, father, husband, friends, lover. The Confessions . Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage. The play begins in the family kitchen in Australia where we meet Alice fighting with her parents who want her to go to university while she wants to break free of her confined life as a child of a conservative, narrow-minded milieu. Multiple scenes follow Alice’s determination to reinvent herself. London in the 1980s, marriage and divorce, jobs as an art history professor and social assistant, even a sexual assault. We follow her into her living room with friends, and back in a kitchen with other friends. Other scenes are set in other kitchens and other living rooms, with other sofas, chairs, sinks and refrigerators. The play’s hyper-realistic dialogue and sets and the many personal moments captured over a lifetime, leave us wishing for something beyond the stark realism of this “ordinary life.” All of it , a trilogy composed of three monologues written for actress Kate Flynn, by Alistair McDowall, co-directed by Vicky Featherstone and Sam Pritchard, and presented in Avignon by the Royal Court Theatre from London, also tells stories of women dealing with “ordinary lives,” but these three female characters escape their everyday lives through sharing their inner worlds with us. All of it . Photo: Manuel Harlan. The first monologue takes place in War time, 1940. Speaking in blank verse, a woman is sitting in her rather shabby dining room in a home she shares with her father. She is trapped at home during an air raid. To protect her against the bombs outside, she has a Morrison shelter, a large wire cage on the dining room floor, into which she crawls and stays until the air raid is over, more confined than before and still talking all the while. In the second monologue, a woman speaks to us in a pre-recorded voice that echoes throughout the theatre. She has become obsessed with a stain on her wall. As she stares at the molding, she starts to see double. Talking to herself in a psychotic rant, she becomes increasingly drawn into to the moldy green wall as it turns into rubble. The third monologue portrays a woman from birth to death. It is composed of half sentences and repeated words, from baby’s babbling to discovering language, school, her first kiss, university, motherhood, and death. She delivers her lines on a microphone, varying rhythms from fast to slow and back, repeating words, noises, and finally the mutterings of old age. Her stunning performance of “a whole life in one breath” was extraordinary. Director and Visual Artist Philippe Quesne’s new creation Le Jardin des Délices (The Garden of Delights) , loosely based on Jerome Bosch’s sixteenth century triptych of fantastical allegories, received its premiere in the Carrière Boulbon, an awe-inspiring quarry 15 kilometers outside of Avignon. The quarry had not been used as a theatre for the past seven years and one could feel a sense of expectancy and excitement in the audience. What magic would Philippe and his Vivarium Studio players conjure up for us? Le Jardin des Délices . Photo: Phiippe Dauphin. Soon, a white tourist bus appears to our left. It is being pushed into the quarry by a group of passengers, two women and six men, stranded in the middle of imposing limestone cliffs. They slowly look around and take in the landscape, barely saying a word to each other. They don’t seem concerned that they are lost and that their bus is broken down, but they do have a plan. The bus driver brings out a shovel and pickaxe and they begin digging in the quarry’s chalky soil in preparation for the arrival of a large stone egg. Le Jardin des Délices . Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage. It is time to gather for the first in a series of rituals and performances that compose Le Jardin des délices . Circling around the egg, they pay tribute to this mysterious presence with music provided by a guitar, a tambourine and a recorder and even a piano played by the bus driver inside the bus. When the performance ends, they take their leave with a kiss and a bow to the egg, along with a handful of earth. What secret does the egg hold? The promise of a new life, or a way out of their predicament, perhaps, but they choose not to open it. Other rituals, other performances follow as the travelers explore possible ways to fill their time in this “garden’ where nothing green grows. While folding chairs are placed around in a wide circle, long time Vivarium artist Gaetan Vourc’h, tour guide and master of ceremonies, invites the group to feel free to express themselves in any way they choose. One reads a poem, another balances a chair in his mouth, and others strike poses reminiscent, perhaps, of figures in Bosch’s Triptych, they go about inventing micro-performances and creating “works of art.” Perhaps a stage for individual performances might provide more entertainment. They remove the sides of the bus to reveal an open stage on which one of the travelers, a man in bright red long johns, sings opera in full throat, but here again, this performance does not seem to satisfy them. Magic perhaps might offer some answers. “Do you believe in miracles?” Gaeton asks as he provides a demonstration. “Abra Cadabra” and his bald head is covered with a thick head of hair. This is fun but clearly, they must organize themselves. Perhaps this is the garden of earthly delights but as Gaeton asks, “What is your long-term strategy?” They must come up with a plan. Wearing Medieval costumes and wigs, they make their way to the quarry walls with Gaeton among them dressed as a skeleton. The play’s title lights up against the walls in giant letters with skeletons flying overhead, seeming to beckon to them. The egg is cracked open now but instead of entering it, they try to climb up the quarry walls with ladders that are much too short. Caught in the middle of an impressive lightning and thunderstorm, they seem lost until a shimmering triangle of light appears overhead. Perhaps this offers a better world than the disappointing garden of earthly delights. They seem to disappear into the smoke and loud noises and dogs barking, moving toward a better world, perhaps. They are survivors. Tiago Rodrigues’ Dans la mesure de l’impossible , ( As Far As The Impossible ), a play that Rodrigues created in 2022 at the Comédie de Genève, was a welcome choice to replace Polish director Krystan Lupa’s The Emigrants when it had to be canceled to the regrets of many. Dans la mesure de l’impossible . Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage . Based on interviews with thirty some collaborators of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders who shared their harrowing experiences and first-hand accounts to create this powerful piece, performed at the Avignon Opera House, with just four performers and a percussionist. The show presents a number of questions. How to manage a refugee camp? How to deal with life and death decisions? How to survive when it is clear that one cannot change the world alone? In this world where the impossible is an everyday companion, Tiago Rodrigues offers us a theatre of words which puts us in touch with a reality that is deeply moving. The set is composed of large white sheets floating above the stage at different heights, suggestive of a tent where humanitarian workers retreat to recover from their encounters with disaster and death on a daily basis. These will be pulled up to varying heights and configurations throughout the show. Four actors, two women and two men—the humanitarian workers--deliver their lines in a mix of English, French and Portuguese. They are joined by a musician/ percussionist whose masterful drumming provides running commentary throughout the two-hour show. Thanks to them, we become familiar with the everyday lives of workers in humanitarian aid, those who witness horrors every day, and who are forced to make split-second decisions, as they provide relief from disaster and other emergencies. The geographical areas that they travel to throughout the world are referred to as The Impossible. Back home with family and friends is The Possible. “We work.” they tell us. “It’s a real job, helping to save others.” But they also admit that their work is no more than “a band aid placed on human suffering.” Of course, they are aware that the world cannot be saved and that they must go deeper into the frontier of the impossible. The stories they tell are the real-life stories that the interviewed humanitarian workers had told Tiago and his team, transposed into a form of documented theatre composed of testimonies. The horrors reported are almost too much to bear. Still, these brave humanitarians survive despite all of their scars, comforted by a beautiful rendition of a Portuguese “fado” sung a capella by one of the women. The final moments of the show, a virtuoso drum concert, sends the ear-splitting sounds of war throughout the theatre, as a reminder of the world of the Impossible. Black Lights , by noted choreographer Mathilde Monnier, portrays equally harrowing stories but of a different nature and they exclusively concern women—women who speak in a different voice, a voice between text and dance. Black Lights . Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage . Inspired by a TV series, H24, on Arte, based on twenty-four hours in a woman’s life in the form of written texts by well-known women, with a focus on different kinds of violence, Mathilde Monnier chose eight of these texts as the source for her choreography performed at the open-air Carmes cloisters theatre. It was a delight to visit this new dance piece by Mathilde Monnier who had created so many wonderful pieces at the festival, beginning in 1996. Performed by eight dancer/actors of different ages and different nationalities on a stage covered with the gnarled roots of olive trees, we are confronted with the mental and physical impact of different degrees of violence. One tells us how she felt when she had to smile at her old professor when she knew what was really on his mind; another was knocked down and doused with gasoline, another regrets her docile compliancy when receiving a compliment. From uncomfortable moments and regrets to horrifying attacks, the performers of Black Light show us the experience of domination, oppression, violence and defense, legs raised high as if kicking their aggressor, fingers extended in front of a face as if to ward off an unwanted attacker and twisted bodies. Among the many Avignon shows that introduced us to varied and crucial responses to the realities of today’s world, Rebecca Chaillon and her team of Afro-descendant sisters, showed us the reality of their world as black women treated as objects of white fantasy, racism and violence in Carte Noire nommée désir , a remarkable performance piece in which they present their situation head on with urgency, humor and brio. Carte Noire nommée désir . Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage . At the Gymnase du Lycée Aubanel, a large indoor theatre in the heart of Avignon, eight black women stand on a white stage in front of us. Themes of black and white play are introduced from the beginning of the performance and even before. There are two separate audiences on either side of the stage. Only women of color were invited to sit on comfortable sofas and enjoy refreshments facing the “white” audience seated on uncomfortable seats across from them. Rebecca Chaillon, her naked body covered with white cream, is scrubbing the floor with Clorox as if her life depended on it. Her friend is sitting at a potter’s wheel, making white clay coffee cups. They exchange a few words. Time drags on as we take in this painful picture of a “devoted” servant on her knees for close to forty-five minutes. In the following scene, Rebecca begins to braid long pieces of white cloth into her black hair. Soon she is joined by her friends who perform a lengthy ritual of hair braiding as if in a beauty parlor for black women. They create a masterpiece of long heavy black and white braids that Rebecca will wear throughout the performance. Seated in the middle of a circle of her sisters, Rebecca seems to enjoy their shared admiration. Later, as Rebecca smokes and thumbs through magazines, she begins to read a number of racist want ads out loud on the order of “White Man, French, looking for his black pearl” to the delight of the audience who enjoys these outrageous ads. The audience is also delighted when invited to play “Questions pour un Champion,” a popular TV game show, with Rebecca and her company feeding them questions. They seem to know all of the answers and enjoy shouting out their response. Carte Noire “plays” with the audience in other ways too. Some are provocative and even dangerous. Performers racing into the audience to “steal” women’s handbags, creates moments of chaos and anger. Others are tongue-in-cheek amusing. A beautiful black performer lying on a table covered in foaming milk, while a group of her black friends raise their coffee cups to her, draws our laughter. One especially powerful and “shocking” tableau features a nanny surrounded by her employer and others. They do not seem to think it odd that her body is pierced front and back with a long spike, as if she has been impaled. On the contrary, they seem to be enjoying themselves, placing little plastic white babies on the pike, one after the other, as the Mother, a lovely lady In Scarlet O’Hara white dress, happily looks on. Thank goodness for other moments of wild twerk dancing and amazing aerial stunts. Carte noire, nommée désir was brave and thrilling and wonderful. A great moment in the 77 th Festival. The official Avignon 77 was a great success, 225,000 audience members and theatres were 94 % full. Tiago Rodrigues’ rich programming gave full weight to the socio-political questions of our time and many new artists were invited for the first time. There was a large presence of English-language shows In keeping with Tiago’s decision to focus on the English language this year. As thrilled as I was with this year’s festival, I admit to being disappointed that American talent was so underrepresented. Only two American companies were invited to the festival, Elevator Repair Service’s Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge , based on their debate in 1965 and Tajal Harell’s choreographed performance The Romeo . The other English language contributions were mostly British, a response to Brexit, it seems. In whatever language, however, Avignon remains the “festival of my dreams.” Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Philippa Wehle is a professor emerita of French, drama studies, and literature at Purchase College. She writes widely on contemporary theatre and performance and has translated numerous contemporary French language plays by Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, Philippe Minyana, José Pliya, and others. Her current activities include translating contemporary New York theatre productions into French for supertitles. Professor Wehle is a Chevalier in the French Order of Arts and Letters. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Report from London (December 2022) Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 “Regietheater:” two cases The Grec Festival 2023 The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Report from Germany Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

  • FRITZ: Play Time at PRELUDE 2023 - Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY

    I make performances for different media: film, video, the written word, the street, the stage, museums, closets, in and out of a movie screen. Today I feel overwhelmed by all the movies that are out there. "We're supposed to spend more time with each other not watching screens. Why should I make more screen-things?" More about Fritz Donnelly: http://www.tothehills.com. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE FRITZ: Play Time Fritz Donnelly English 5:30PM EST Tuesday, October 17, 2023 137 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Play Time! A Participatory Performance by Fritz Donnelly 5:30pm at Anita’s Way 137 W 42nd Street Followed by Q and A with Frank Hentschker, Sophi Kravitz, Anita Durst, and @Funwithfritz Content / Trigger Description: About Fritz: I make performances for different media: film, video, the written word, the street, the stage, museums, closets, in and out of a movie screen. Today I feel overwhelmed by all the movies that are out there. "We're supposed to spend more time with each other not watching screens. Why should I make more screen-things?" More about Fritz Donnelly: http://www.tothehills.com . About Anita’s Way: This permanent public plaza accommodates artists and audiences in the center of New York City. The passageway between the Condè Nast building on 4 Times Square and Bank of America located at One Bryant Park was named after founder and principal of chashama, Anita Durst. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

  • The School of New York: New Leaders and the Artists They Serve in Dialogue - PRELUDE 2024 | The Segal Center

    MORGAN BASSICHIS, FREEDOME BRADLEY-BALLENTINE, ENVER CHAKARTASH, WILL DAVIS, CALEB HAMMONS, JILL RAFSON, TINA SATTER + TYLER THOMAS presents The School of New York: New Leaders and the Artists They Serve in Dialogue at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 The School of New York: New Leaders and the Artists They Serve in Dialogue MORGAN BASSICHIS, FREEDOME BRADLEY-BALLENTINE, ENVER CHAKARTASH, WILL DAVIS, CALEB HAMMONS, JILL RAFSON, TINA SATTER + TYLER THOMAS 5pm-6:30 pm Friday, October 18, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP All over New York, long-lived performance venues are in transition, and we're welcoming the biggest "class" of new artistic directors and associate artistic directors in memory. These leaders take their positions in a fraught moment for the field — they are also taking power with fresh ideas. Join us for a structured, two-part panel discussion, in which we'll hear first from a group of four "freshman" New York artistic leaders, who will share their ideas and solutions for the quandaries currently facing our field; then we'll hear from a respondent group of veteran artists, experts in New York performance, who will reflect on these innovations, explore their ramifications, and possibly offer their own. Can we talk about the theatrical "crisis" in a new, solution-oriented way? Can we marry idealism and pragmatism? Can institutions and the artists they serve arrive at solutions together? Helen Shaw from the New Yorker moderates a talk with Morgan Bassichis, Freedome Bradley-Ballentine, Enver Chakartash, Will Davis, Caleb Hammons, Jill Rafson, Tina Satter, and Tyler Thomas. This event will be livestreamed via Howlround Theatre Commons . LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Will Davis is a director and choreographer. His work has been seen off-broadway at Signature Theater, City Center, Roundabout Theatre, MTC, MCC, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, and Soho Rep. Regionally, his work has been seen at La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Shakespeare Theater Company, Long Wharf Theatre and ATC in Chicago where Davis previously served as Artistic Director. He received a Helen Hayes award for best direction for his work on Colossal at the Olney Theatre Center. He was nominated for a Lucille Lortel award for his direction of Men on Boats at Playwrights Horizons. Davis is the Artistic Director of Rattlestick Theater. Caleb Hammons (they/he) is a Tony and Obie Award-winning creative producer and curator of live performance. They are entering their second year as one of the three directors of Soho Rep, NYC’s premiere experimental Off-Broadway theater. Prior to returning to Soho Rep, Caleb spent ten years as Director of Artistic Planning and Producing at the Fisher Center at Bard, was the Producer at Soho Rep for two seasons, and was the Producing Director of Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company for four years. He is the co-organizer of the CATCH performance series, wore many hats for 13P, curated the Prelude Festival, and has generally floated around the downtown performance scene in various capacities. Jill Rafson took on the role of Producing Artistic Director at Classic Stage Company in June 2022. Previously, she worked with Roundabout Theatre Company since 2005, most recently serving as Associate Artistic Director as well as Artistic Producer for Roundabout Underground, an acclaimed program supporting productions from early-career playwrights. She has developed dozens of new plays and musicals for Roundabout, with highlights including Stephen Karam’s Tony-winning The Humans ; Steven Levenson’s If I Forget ; Joshua Harmon’s hit Bad Jews ; Adam Gwon’s musicals Ordinary Days and Scotland, PA ; Ming Peiffer’s Drama Desk-nominated Usual Girls ; and Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning English . Jill has been a dramaturg for several commercial musical projects and at institutions including the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Flea, The Playwrights’ Center, Fault Line Theater, and more. Jill received her BA from Johns Hopkins University and a Graduate Certificate in Fundraising Management from Boston University. Tina Satter is a writer and director for theater and film. Her debut feature REALITY was adapted from her play Is This A Room which opened at The Kitchen in 2019 and premiered on Broadway in fall 2021. With her theater company Half Straddle, Tina has written and directed 10 critically acclaimed plays including House of Dance , Ghost Rings , and SEAGULL (Thinking of you) and a number of shorter performances and video works. She has been a guest director at The Schaubühne and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Doris Duke Artist Award among other honors. Helen Shaw is the theatre critic for the New Yorker. Before joining the magazine in 2022, she was the theatre critic for New York magazine (and its online site, Vulture) and wrote at 4Columns, Time Out New York, the Village Voice, and others. Tyler Thomas is a New York-based theater director and Susan Stroman Directing Award recipient. Most recently, she directed new work at the Vineyard Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Geva Theatre. Tyler is a former 2050 Fellow with New York Theater Workshop, member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, and has been a Visiting Artist at the Athens Conservatoire (Greece), UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, and NYU Tisch. She is currently the Associate Artistic Director of the national arts and health initiative, Arts for EveryBody, inspired by the Federal Theatre Project. Tisch: BFA in Drama, MA in Arts Politics. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

  • PRELUDE Festival NYC | Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY

    The annual PRELUDE festival is dedicated to artists at the forefront of contemporary New York City theatre, dance, interdisciplinary and mediatized performance PRELUDE Festival Since 2003, The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has presented the PRELUDE Festival. The annual PRELUDE festival is dedicated to artists at the forefront of contemporary New York City theatre, dance, interdisciplinary and mediatized performance. PRELUDE offers an array of short performances, readings, and screenings — a completely free survey of the current New York moment and the work being prepared for the next season and beyond—as well as new commissions and panel discussions with artists, scholars, and performers. PRELUDE is a place to discover what voices are shaping the future of theatre and performance in NYC, to observe, engage, commune, and critique. Prelude 2024 Between the scenes View Festival Lineup Prelude 2020 Sites of revolution! View Festival Archive Prelude 2016 welcome failure! View Festival Archive Prelude 2013 forward View Festival Archive Prelude 2023 20th anniversary edition! View Festival Archive Prelude 2019 Riotous excursions! View Festival Archive Prelude 2015 . View Festival Archive Prelude 2012 . View Festival Archive Prelude 2021 Start making sense! View Festival Archive Prelude 2017 theater/maker View Festival Archive Prelude 2014 . View Festival Archive The PR ELUDE Archive Read 10 Y EARS PRELUDE Edited by Frank Hentschker and designed by Yu Chien Liu

  • Legally Bald - PRELUDE 2024 | The Segal Center

    LÉOH HAILU-GHERMAY presents Legally Bald at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Legally Bald LÉOH HAILU-GHERMAY 5:30-6:20 pm Thursday, October 17, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP This offering is a one-person staged reading exploring internalized biases. We’ll jump through time and space with a young artist/activist (and their child self and drag king alter ego) on a very important day for all three of them. Legally Bald is very much a WORK IN PROGRESS! Feedback/questions are so very encouraged. Written by Léoh Hailu-Ghermay Directed by Jake Regensburg LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Léoh Hailu-Ghermay is a first generation Tigrayan-American, Black queer artist, activist, and law student living on occupied Munsee-Lenape and Canarsie Land (Brooklyn, NY). Select theater/performance art credits: Phyllida in Galatea (Flea Theater), Euridike in Antigonick (Playwrights Horizons), Bonzai/Husband in The Good Person of Setzuan (Atlantic Stage 2), Soloist in The Rave Revue (Prospect Theater Co.), Newmama in Letters in the Dirt (The Brick), Kunty Kracker Kyle in Chaotic Good (The Tank), and Mrs. Jennings in Episode (Metropolitan Playhouse). They’re thrilled to be showing their Work in Progress at Prelude! Jake Regensburg is an NYC based actor/musician/director. Acting credits include: Playhouse on Park: THE SHARK IS BROKEN , Argyle Theatre: BUDDY: THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY , IRT: BIRD PLAY , Soho Playhouse: ANNIE BROWN , ArtHouse: THE RIP , Atlantic Stage 2: SUMMERTIME . Jake also works as a dramaturg and has served as a script-reader for Rattlestick Theater, Egg and Spoon, and The New Group. BFA: NYU. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

  • Intersectional Identities, Collaborations, and Contemporary Performance Practices

    Book Reviews Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 33 1 Visit Journal Homepage Intersectional Identities, Collaborations, and Contemporary Performance Practices Book Reviews By Published on January 11, 2021 Download Article as PDF Maya Roth, Editor Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversation on Craft By Paulette Marty Reviewed by Dohyun Gracia Shin Double review Encounters on Contested Lands: Indigenous Performances of Sovereignty and Nationhood in Québec By Julia Burelle and Provocative Eloquence: Theater, Violence and Antislavery Speech in the Antebellum United States By Lauren Mielke Reviewed by Vivian Appler Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater By Chloe Johnson and Coya Paz Brownrigg Reviewed by Jaclyn I. Prior Twenty-First Century American Playwrights By Christopher Bigsby Reviewed by Shane Strawbridge Books Received The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 33, Number 1 (Fall 2020) ISNN 2376-4236 ©2020 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center References About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Contemporary Women Stage Directors Ensemble-Made Chicago Twenty-First Century American Playwrights Encounters on Contested Lands and Provocative Eloquence Troubled Collaboration: Belasco, the Fiskes, and the Society Playwright, Mrs. Burton Harrison Silence, Gesture, and Deaf Identity in Deaf West Theatre's Spring Awakening "Ya Got Trouble, My Friend, Right Here": Romanticizing Grifters in American Musical Theatre Unhappy is the Land that Needs a Hero: The Mark of the Marketplace in Suzan-Lori Parks's Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1-3 Intersectional Identities, Collaborations, and Contemporary Performance Practices Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

  • The Pleasure Practice - PRELUDE 2024 | The Segal Center

    LUCIANA ACHUGAR presents The Pleasure Practice at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 The Pleasure Practice LUCIANA ACHUGAR 6-8 pm Saturday, October 19, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP I Dance... To soften the lines To breathe in To belong to the ground To know the ground To know it with my skin To let it in To receive Thank you ground Thank you skin Thank you skin Thank the skin Thank the eyes Thank the ground Thank the breath Thank the love in the ground with my skin With my breath Let the underneath in Know it under the skin Let the words appear from under my skin The new words for this new underneath world Let the spell be known from the ground to my feet I dance a new spell into being Thank you floor Thank you skin Thank you skin LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). luciana achugar is a Brooklyn-based choreographer from Uruguay who grew as an artist in close dialogue with the NY and Uruguayan contemporary dance communities. In her work theater is a space for utopia; utopia is a practice; practice is ritual; ritual is devotion; devotion is dance and dance is a practice of being in pleasure. She has received many accolades such as two Bessie Awards and one nomination, 2022 USA Doris Duke Fellowship, 2017 Alpert Award, 2015 Austin Critic’s Award for Best Touring work, Guggenheim Fellowship, Creative Capital Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, MAP Funds, Jerome Foundation, and NYFA Artist Grants amongst others. Her most recent work PURO TEATRO: A Spell for Utopia premiered at The Chocolate Factory Theater in November 2021 as a co-presentation with the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

  • Nannies of New York City - PRELUDE 2024 | The Segal Center

    KATIANA GONÇALES RANGEL + KATIE BROOK presents Nannies of New York City at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Nannies of New York City KATIANA GONÇALES RANGEL + KATIE BROOK 8-8:50 pm Thursday, October 17, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP Nannies of New York City is a documentary theater work by and about the experiences of professional caregivers in Manhattan. Written and performed by Rocio Piamonte, Inde Ramsaran, Katiana Gonçales Rangel, Maryory Rodriguez, and Cristiele Santos Dramaturgy by Jasmine Pisapia This project is made possible in part with funds from a regrant program(s) supported by the funding agencies The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council and administered by LMCC. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Katie Brook is an experimental theater director focused on new plays and devised work. Recent directing credits include ISLANDER (New Georges, HERE), The Cherry Orchard (Quantum Theatre, Pittsburgh), and Liza Birkenmeier’s Dr. Ride’s American Beach House (Ars Nova). For many years, Katie worked for the oral history project, StoryCorps, and has developed audio dramas, including The MS Phoenix Rising (Trish Harnetiaux, Playwrights Horizons). She received her MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, and is currently a Lecturer in Directing at Tufts University’s School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. Katiana Gonçales Rangel is a performer, director, and educator from Brazil based in NYC. They have been creating independent theater work since 1998. Their most recent work Ama The Diver (2023/2024), in collaboration with Jim Fletcher and the cellist Lori Goldston, was performed in NYC, Portland, and Seattle. Katiana has been creating documentary theater work with immigrant New Yorkers since 2014 with Incoming Theater Division (ITD), a branch of the company New York City Players, and has been ITD director since 2020. In 2024, the group performed La Casa de Bernarda Alba in Spanish language directed by Richard Maxwell. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

  • Ornamentalism - PRELUDE 2024 | The Segal Center

    RIVEN RATANAVANH presents Ornamentalism at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Ornamentalism RIVEN RATANAVANH 4:30-5:50 pm Wednesday, October 16, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP Ornamentalism is a ritual that explores the gendered racialization of the Asian transmasculine body, using tattoo as a way to inscribe personal loss and collective histories onto the skin. Through the duration of this piece the audience is invited to witness the act of transforming the body as an act of adornment, adornment as transformation; and the ways in which the two respond to and rub up against the world. In collaboration with Zhiyu Lu. Photo: Mengwen Cao LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Riven Ratanavanh (b. 1996 in Bangkok, Thailand) is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist whose work spans performance, film, and visual art to investigate queer politics, diasporic memory, and trans imaginations. Exploring the embodied realms of power, gender, and race, his performances have been presented at Performance Space, the Poetry Project, and the Center for Performance Research. His work has also been featured at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London, the London Short Film Festival, Seattle Trans Film Festival, Otherness Archive, and the Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Arts (CIRCA). Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

  • The Little Pony at PRELUDE 2023 - Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY

    Timmy is being bullied at school because of his favorite backpack—a bright pink backpack full of little ponies from his favorite TV series. Daniel and Irene try to confront the brutal school bullying that Timmy endures. A school that protects its bullies and a couple that tries to do the best for their child will witness how Timmy escapes to an imaginary universe to protect himself from the insufferable reality. With Marissa Ghavami, Montgomery Sutton Directed by Kimi Ramírez Written by Paco Bezerra Translated by Marion Peter Holt PRELUDE Festival 2023 READING The Little Pony Marissa Ghavami, Montgomery Sutton, Kimi Ramírez Theater English 60 Mins 4:30PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Timmy is being bullied at school because of his favorite backpack—a bright pink backpack full of little ponies from his favorite TV series. Daniel and Irene try to confront the brutal school bullying that Timmy endures. A school that protects its bullies and a couple that tries to do the best for their child will witness how Timmy escapes to an imaginary universe to protect himself from the insufferable reality. With Marissa Ghavami, Montgomery Sutton Directed by Kimi Ramírez Written by Paco Bezerra Translated by Marion Peter Holt This reading is in partnership with, and to benefit, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Healing TREE. It is done in cooperation with Theatre Authority Inc. Healing TREE (Trauma Resources, Education & Entertainment) advocates healing from abuse and trauma rather than coping with the symptoms, in order to transform lives and, ultimately, society. They achieve this by providing trauma-focused resources and education and by producing and partnering with relevant film, television, and theatre, empowering the social change necessary to create a healing movement. Website: www.healingtreenonprofit.org Facebook: Facebook.com/healingtreenonprofit.org Instagram: @healingtreeorg You can learn about Healing TREE’s life-saving programming and their current need for support, as well as make a donation, here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/healingtreeorg Content / Trigger Description: Marissa Ghavami (they/she) is an Iranian-American, queer artist, advocate and creator based in NYC. Most recently, they played Khalilah, opposite Tony Winner KO (Karen Olivo), in a workshop of Siluetas, part of 4xLatiné Off-Broadway. Up next on stage, they can be seen as Jessie in Divine Riot’s Cry It Out this November. Film/TV highlights include starring in the feature film The Gift of Christmas, alongside Academy Award Nominee Bruce Davison, and roles in Paramount’s Not Fade Away, with James Gandolfini, and on CBS’s Without A Trace; as well as singing on NBC’s It’s Showtime at the Apollo. Marissa has also sung at Joe’s Pub (alongside Tony Nominee L Morgan Lee), Birdland (alongside Academy Award Winner and Tony Nominee Ariana DeBose) and 54 Below. Voiceover/Commercial/Print highlights include Audible, McDonald's, Ford, JCPenney, Belvedere, PepsiCo, Girl Scout Cookies and KFC. Marissa co-produced the feature film Mass, starring Ann Dowd, Martha Plimpton, Jason Isaacs and Reed Birney. Mass premiered at Sundance, was acquired by Bleecker Street, had a theatrical release, won the Robert Altman Award, was a Gotham, Critics Choice and BAFTA nominee and is now streaming. They produced and co-wrote the short film Silk, directed by John Magaro (Carol, The Big Short), an Official Selection at the Academy Award Qualifying Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival, among others. Marissa is the Founding Executive + Artistic Director of the nonprofit Healing TREE (Trauma Resources, Education & Entertainment). They are a national public speaker, a healing trauma-focused coach for artists and a trauma consultant for productions. They are a Queer Writer Fellow at Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and an Artists Striving To End Poverty (now Arts Ignite) Fellow and participant in the Artist As Citizen Conference at Juilliard. They are a Founding Company Member of Divine Riot, a new theatre and film company that defies convention. They are also an avid meditator, vegan and cat parent. AEA, SAG-AFTRA. www.marissaghavami.com @marissaghavami www.healingtreenonprofit.org @healingtreeorg www.divineriot.org @adivineriot Montgomery Sutton (he/him) is an actor, director, playwright, and educator. LONDON: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare’s Globe); OFF-BROADWAY: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (New York Classical Theatre); REGIONAL: One Man, Two Guvnors (Florida Studio Theater), Oswald (Casa Manana), Shakespeare in Love, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest (Shakespeare Dallas), Henry V (Cape Fear Regional Theatre), Measure for Measure, Richard III, Love’s Labours Lost, King Lear (Trinity Shakespeare Festival), Pericles, The Winter’s Tale (Seven Stages Shakespeare Company), Booth, Gruesome Playground Injuries (Second Thought Theatre), Tomorrow Come Today (Undermain Theatre), The Temperamentals (Uptown Players), On the Eve (Theater Three). FILM/NEW MEDIA: 1865 podcast; Skindiving; Trouble with Women. He has directed for the Gilbert Theater, Rude Grooms, Junior Players, Seven Stages Shakespeare Company, and written and directed several short films including Between the Lines (winner, Best Screenplay; nominee, Best Director). His plays and adaptations include Advent (semi-finalist, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference), Ruins, two versions of Antigone (verse and modern), Oedipus, Broken Water, Your Colonel, and Moonlight Gospel which have been produced and developed with the Gilbert Theater, Kitchen Dog Theater, Metropolitan Playhouse, EBE Ensemble, and Salt Pillar Productions. He is on faculty for the Atlantic Theater Company/NYU and has taught for the Shakespeare Theater Association, World Shakespeare Congress, Shakespeare Dallas, the Gilbert Theatre, Junior Players, Dallas Children’s Theater, Cape Fear Regional Theatre, New York Shakespeare Company, and Rude Grooms. He received his BFA from NYU / Atlantic Acting School and was a member of the International Actors Fellowship at Shakespeare’s Globe. montgomerysutton.com Paco Bezerra is one of Spain’s most exciting dramatists. His awards include National Literary Drama Award in 2009, The Calderon de la Barca National Theatre Prize in 2007, and the Eurodram Award 2014. Paco's plays and writings have been translated into several languages and are being produced all over the globe. He trained as an actor at William Layton Theater Laboratory Madrid and read Theatre Science and Dramaturgy at the Royal School of Dramatic Art of Madrid (RESAD). Marion Peter Holt (1924-2021) remains a leading translator of contemporary Spanish and Catalan theatre. His translations have been staged internationally and by regional and university theatres throughout the United States. A member of the Real Academia Española since 1986, he was an emeritus professor of The City University of New York and visiting lecturer at the Yale School of Drama and Barcelona’s Institut del Teatre. Dr. Holt’s many translations include publications by The Martin E. Segal Center. Kimberly “Kimi” Ramírez is a professor, playwright, and critic with an M.F.A. in Playwriting and a Ph.D. in Theatre & Performance whose writing has been published and presented internationally. They are affiliated with The City University of New York, Speranza Theatre Company, Macondo Writers Workshop, Lucille Lortel Awards, Talkin' Broadway, and are a member of the Dramatists Guild. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

  • WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA - Segal Film Festival 2024 | Martin E. Segal Theater Center

    Watch WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA by Magdalene Remoundou at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. Actors, directors, theatre theorists demonstrate the man that reconfigured the Art of Theatre. An account on the world renowned director and theatre theorist Eugenio Barba’s unique approach to the theatrical art. In July, 2019, Εugenio Barba was conferred a honorary doctorate at the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of Peloponnese. A three day conference to the prominent theatre practitioner was held concurrently at the European Cultural Centre of Delphi. At the same time, Teatret ODIN’s troupe staged legendary performances. Moreover, Teatret ODIN’s actors, but also Εugenio Barba himself, carried out some of the acclaimed workshops of ODIN Teatret. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Magdalene Remoundou Theater This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks, as well as screened in-person on May 18th. About The Film Country Greece Language Greek, English Running Time 62 minutes Year of Release 2020 Actors, directors, theatre theorists demonstrate the man that reconfigured the Art of Theatre. An account on the world renowned director and theatre theorist Eugenio Barba’s unique approach to the theatrical art. In July, 2019, Εugenio Barba was conferred a honorary doctorate at the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of Peloponnese. A three day conference to the prominent theatre practitioner was held concurrently at the European Cultural Centre of Delphi. At the same time, Teatret ODIN’s troupe staged legendary performances. Moreover, Teatret ODIN’s actors, but also Εugenio Barba himself, carried out some of the acclaimed workshops of ODIN Teatret. Selection and participation in the following International Film Festivals: Film Arte Festival -March 2021 London Greek Film Festival- June 2021 Toronto International Women Film Festival -June 2021 Cannes International Cinema Festival -July 2021 Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival - June 2021 West Side Mountains Doc Festival - October 2021 Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival - November 2021 Berlin lndie Film Festival - December 2021 London International Monthly Film Festival - January 2022 Tokyo Lift- Off Film Festival - April 2022 Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival January 2023 International Epidaurus Film Festival - November 2022 Awards and nominations (if any): Film Arte Festival- March 2021 -Semifinalist London Greek Film Festival - June 2021- Finalist London International Monthly Film Festival January 2022 -Finalist West Side Mountains Doc Festival - October 2021-Honorable Mention Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival November 2021- Honorable Mention Berlin lndie Film Festival - December 2021- Best Director Documentary Award International Epidaurus Film Festival - November 2022-Honorable Mention About The Artist(s) Magdalini Remoundou is TV Director, Director, Script writer, and Production Manager for over thirty years in various Audiovisual Productions: TV shows, TV series (sitcom, comedies, soap opera), live shows, theatrical plays, broadcast news, documentaries. Also she has been Production Manager in theatrical and music productions in open and close venues, since 1990-todate. Magdalini Remoundou is certified tutor for adults in Film and Media studies, she is Dean of Faculty of Culture & Communication Studies in Metropolitan College in Athens since 2012, Programme Leader of the BA Media Production/ Film Directing since 2002. Also, she was official examiner of Greek Ministry of Education regarding the Diploma Examinations for the Film and TV Directing and Audiovisual Production Management. Get in touch with the artist(s) harris@rgbstudios.gr and follow them on social media https://www.instagram.com/magdalini.remoundou/, https://rgbstudios.gr/?lang=el Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

  • 404 Error Page | Segal Center CUNY

    Oops, this page doesn't exist (yet) on this website. Welcome to our new website! On 16 September 2023, the Segal Center moved to a new web platform. We are gradually moving and updating the content from our old website. Some of our archival content will remain unavailable for some time. In case of queries, please get in touch at mestc@gc.cuny.edu . You can also check the URL, or go back to the homepage and try again. Back to Homepage Visit Old Website

  • Books - Martin E. Segal Theater Center Publications

    View the collection of books, plays and other literature on performing arts published and supported by the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY. Books At The Martin E. Segal Center CUNY, we are dedicated to supporting the research, dissemination, and discourse of the performing arts through our extensive collection of books, publications, and journals. Our diverse collection covers a wide range of topics in the performing arts, from theater and dance to music and film. We are committed to providing a comprehensive resource for scholars, researchers, and artists alike. New Plays from the Caribbean Stéphanie Bérard, with Frank Hentschker An anthology of six contemporary Francophone Caribbean plays. BAiT: Buenos Aires in Translation Daniel Veronese, Lola Arias, Federico Leon, Rafael Spregelburd, Jean Graham-Jones This book brings US readers cutting-edge work from one of Latin America’s most vibrant theatrical scenes: Czech Plays: Seven New Works Marcy Arlin, Gwynn MacDonald, Daniel Gerould The first English-language anthology of Czech plays written after the 1989 “Velvet Revolution. Four Millennial Plays From Belgium David Willinger This anthology captures the tendencies of contemporary European playwriting at the beginning of the new millennium. Intermeddlers Sarah Stites, Frank Hentschker An examination of the censorship of LiIllian Hellman's The Children's Hour. New Plays from Italy Vol 2: Three Plays Daria Deflorian, Antonio Tagliarini, Maria Galante, Michele Santeramo, Allison Eikerenkoetter, Jane House, Frank Hentschker This collection features an anthology of three contemporary plays from Italy. Pixérécourt: Four Melodramas Daniel Gerould, Marvin Carlson A collection of dramas from French theatre director and playwright René-Charles Guilbert de Pixerécourt. Selected Essays: New Directions Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson Nehad Selaiha chronicles the rise of the Free Theatre Movement in Egypt in the late 1980s. Szertelen Színdarabok New Yorkból (Riff Raff Plays from New York) Attila Szabó, Frank Hentschker Hungarian language anthology of five contemporary American theater plays. The Art of Assembly Florian Malzacher A survey of contemporary theatre to demonstrate its political potential in both form and content. Three Poems Liwaa Yazji A collection of poems from Syrian playwright and filmmaker Liwaa Yazji. Zeami and the Nô Theatre in the World Benito Ortolani, Samuel L. Leiter This volume contains the proceedings of the “Zeami and the Nô Theatre in the World” symposium, held in New York City in October 1997 Theatre Research Resources in New York City Marvin Carlson A comprehensive catalogue of New York City research facilities available to theatre scholars. Barcelona Plays Josep M. Benet i Jornet, Sergi Belbel, Lluisa Cunielle, Pau Miro, Marion Peter Holt, Sharon G. Feldman A Collection of New Works by Catalan Playwrights DANCE New York: Performed Manifestos Frank Hentschker A snapshot of the vibrant New York dance scene, through their manifestos. Four Plays from North Africa Abdelkader Alloula, Jalila Baccar, Fatima Gallaire, Tayeb Saddiki A collection of dramatic texts from the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa. Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake Jan Fabre Seven works from the Flemish-Dutch theatre artist Jan Fabre. New Plays from Italy Volume 3 Valeria Orani, Frank Hentschker A collection of contemporary Italian plays presented in English. Playwrights Before the Fall Daniel Gerould A unique anthology playwrights from Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania in the backdrop of rebellion, war and revolution. Selected Essays: Perspectives Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson Nehad Selaiha draws attention to important performers, directors, dramaturges, critics and managers of Egyptian Theatre. Ta’ziyeh - Ten Contemporary Indigenous Plays From Iran M.J. Yousefian Kenari, Marvin Carlson A collection of the Ta'ziyeh passion play of Iran, one of the world's most elaborate, wide-spread and long-lasting traditions of religious drama. The Heirs of Molière Marvin Carlson Four French Comedies of the 17th and 18th Centuries Timbre 4: Two Plays by Claudio Tolcachir Claudio Tolcachir, Jean Graham-Jones Collection of plays from Claudio Tolcachir’s Timbre 4 company based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. roMANIA after 2000 Saviana Stanescu, Daniel Gerould. The first anthology of new Romanian drama published in the United States A Permanent Parliament: Notes on Social Choreography Cory Tamler An experiment in writing about performance from the conviction that our entire beings (thoughtbodies) make theory and politics. Comedy: A Bibliography Meghan Duffy, Daniel Gerould A bibliography of critical studies in english on the theory and practice of comedy in drama, theatre, and performance. Decadent Histories: Four Plays by Amelia Hertz Amelia Hertz, Jadwiga Kosicka An innovative collection of plays based on bizarre and macabre episodes from history and legend. Four Plays from Syria: Sa‘dallah Wannous Marvin Carlson, Safi Mahfouz, Robert Myers, Nada Saab This collection contains four full-length works by Sa‘dallah Wannous, available in English for the first time. Jan Fabre: The Servant of Beauty Jan Fabre This volume of monologues is the second collection of works by Jan Fabre for the theatre in an English translation. New Plays from Italy Volume 4 Valeria Orani, Frank Hentschker A collection of contemporary Italian plays, presented in English. Quick Change Daniel Gerould A volume of previously uncollected writings by Daniel Gerould from Comparative Literature, Modern Drama, PAJ, TDR, SEEP, yale/theater and other journals. Selected Essays: Plays and Playwrights Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson A stimulating eyewitness account of modern Egyptian drama by Nehad Selaiha. Ten Years PRELUDE Frank Hentschker, Yu Chien Liu Capturing 10 years of the contemporary performances and conversations of the Segal Center's PRELUDE festival. The Trilogy of Future Memory Jalila Baccar, Fadhel Jaïbi, Marvin Carlson, Nabil Cherni A collection of recent work by Tunisian playwright and actress Jalila Baccar and director co-author Fadhel Jaibi, capturing the complexity and depth of grand themes prevalent in Arab societies. Two Plays: Fleeting Stages Josep M. Benet i Jornet, Marion Peter Holt A collection of two plays by Catalan playwright Josep M. Benet i Jornet. An Incomprehensible Mother Tongue Valère Novarina, Frank Hentschker This volume contains two new American translations of works by Valère Novarina Contemporary Theatre in Egypt Alfred Farag, Gamal Maqsoud, Lenin El-Ramly, Marvin Carlson Contains the first English translation of short plays by leading Egyptian playwrights. Four Arab Hamlet Plays Nabyl Lahlou, Mamduh Adwan, Nader Omran, Jawad al-Assadi, Mahmoud Aboudoma, Marvin Carlson, Magaret Litvin, Joy Arab Jumping off from Shakespeare’s tragedy, the Arab Hamlet tradition has produced bitter and hilarious political satire, musical comedy, and farce. Four Works for the Theatre Hugo Claus, David Willinger, Luk Truyts, Luc Deneulin. A collection of dramatic texts from the Flemish writer and playwright Hugo Claus. New Plays from Italy Vol 1: The Origin of the World Frank Hentschker, Jane House A story of basic and perverse family dynamics, the play is an all-female human comedy in three acts. New Plays from Spain Ernesto Caballero, Guillem Clua, Cristina Colmena, Mar Gómez Glez, Borja Ortiz de Gondra, Alfredo Sanzol, Emilio Williams This selection of plays offers insight into the evolution of Spanish art and culture in the context of the country’s current situation. Selected Essays: Cultural Encounters 1 and 2 Nehad Selaiha, Marvin Carlson Volume 4 of Nehad Selaiha's analysis of Egyptian Theatre focuses on cultural relationships. Shakespeare Made French: Four Plays by Jean-François Ducis Jean-François Ducis, Marvin Carlson An exciting collection of Jean-François Ducis' radical reworkings of William Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, penned on the eve of the French Revolution. The Arab Oedipus: Four Plays Marvin Carlson, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Ali Ahmad Bakathir, Ali Salim, Walid Ikhlasi A varied collection of Arabic explorations of one of the central dramas of the European canon. Theatre from Medieval Cairo: The Ibn Dāniyāl Trilogy (Egypt) Marvin Carlson, Safi Mahfouz The first-ever English translation of three of Ibn Dāniyāl’s saucy puppet plays. Witkiewicz: Seven Plays Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Daniel Gerould An English-translation anthology of seven of Witkiewicz’s most important plays.

  • Performance and Politics

    Book Reviews Back to Top Untitled Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 30 2 Visit Journal Homepage Performance and Politics Book Reviews By Published on May 28, 2018 Download Article as PDF Donatella Galella, Editor Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left By Malik Gaines Reviewed by Kristin Moriah The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics By Eddie Paterson Reviewed by Kevin T. Browne Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance By Natalie Alvarez Reviewed by Eero Laine Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director By Natka Bianchini Reviewed by Richard Jones Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s By Chrystyna Dail Reviewed by Erin Rachel Kaplan Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas By Sandra M. Mayo and Elvin Holt Reviewed by Sharyn Emery Books Received The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 30, Number 2 (Spring 2018) ISNN 2376-4236 ©2018 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center References About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Kaldor and Dorsen's "desktop performances" and the (Live) Coauthorship Paradox Ecologies of Media, Ecologies of Mind: Embodying Authorship Through Mediaturgy Dropping the Needle on the Record: Intermedial Contingency and Spalding Gray's Early Talk Performances #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS: Weaponizing Performance of Identity from the Digital to the Physical Performance and Politics Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

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