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, AND TYLER THOMAS
5pm-6:20 pm
Friday, October 18, 2024
The Segal Theatre
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.
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
Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality.
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.
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.
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.
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.