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En Garde Arts Kicks Off BOSSS Festival This Weekend
By: BWW News Desk Oct. 23, 2015
En Garde Arts presents BOSSS, its new site-specific outdoor performance festival featuring new works by some of the New York City's most promising emerging theatre artists, this weekend, October 23-25 throughout Hudson River Park. The opening night party at The Frying Pan will now take place on October 23 at 7pm. (Tickets for the opening night party, on board the Frying Pan at Pier 66, are $250 or $75 for artists.)
Hamburger has established BOSSS to give a rising generation of spirited artists a chance to "think big" when creating new work, and to help them cultivate an audience spanning frequent theatergoers and people who rarely seek out live arts deliberately. Under her mentorship and guidance, teams of playwrights, directors, devisers, choreographers and designers are creating a dozen innovative works that En Garde will present throughout Hudson River Park. All performances are free of charge. Please see below for the lineup of artists and works.
Early this year, Hamburger began mentoring these artists through regular gatherings -- in the tradition of an old-school salon. They established a rapport, and have been sharing their dreams and ideas, as well as wrestling collectively with the obstacles most have in common. Enthralled by the dynamic vision of this group, Hamburger invited them to work collectively under En Garde's stewardship in order to achieve their creative goals, including overcoming funding challenges; Hamburger and the artistic teams are multiplying their power and extending their reach through collaborative special events, parties and crowdsourcing. Speaking about this project and her mission with En Garde Arts Anne Hamburger said, "Getting people in the room not normally in conversation is at the center of everything we do."
When En Garde Arts approached Madelyn Wils, CEO and President of Hudson River Park Trust, about the festival, Wils saw the potential immediately. "The BOSSS Festival is a fantastic way to introduce park-goers to innovative performing arts and for existing fans of En Garde Arts to discover hidden corners of Hudson River Park," Wils said. "We are thrilled to partner with En Garde Arts to support this free opportunity for audiences to discover living art that reacts and engages with our Park's rich environment."
BOSSS is sponsored in part by NY Carousel, one of the performance locations of the festival.
BOSSS Opening Night Party
Madelyn Wils, President and CEO of Hudson River Park, hosts En Garde Arts' Opening Night Party at the Frying Pan.
There will be performances by Night Janitor, cakeface, Lee Sunday Evans' This Place and a private performance with Bina 48, the artificial intelligence robot in Blind Date.
Tickets: VIP Admission is $250, Artists tickets $75
October 23nd at 7:00 pm
530 W 26th St
NY, NY 10001
BOSSS LINEUP
Given The Present, The Future Does Not Depend On The Past
Sam Alper, Playwright
Deepali Gupta, Composer and Lyricist
Jimmy Maize, Director
Saturday and Sunday, 9PM near the Rock Garden at Pier 63
For the past three years, playwright Sam Alper has collected auto-generated spam comments posted on a Wordpress site. He now has over a hundred pages of algorithms impersonating humans, using the language of advertising, viral news stories and personal anecdotes. He is distilling this text to create the script for a massive, mobile, interactive performance. Directed by Jimmy Maize, with choral arrangements by Deepali Gupta, Given the Present the Future Does Not Depend on the Past shines a light on the robotic ur-text of global capitalism's spam.
The Visitors
Barbara Cassidy, Playwright and Director
Jessica Corbin, Music Director and Composer
Johari Mayfield, Choreographer
Saturday and Sunday at 6pm across from the Frying Pan at Pier 66 Maritime
Three teenage girls, Mattie, Brooke, and Queenie decide to drink an "elixir" and stay out all night in order to feel alive. Weird things ensue. People follow them. They ask questions of each other-the kinds of questions about life that prompt all night talks. Finally, they come upon a group of strange women who just happen to be a choir sitting along the Hudson River. The girls "know not what to do." This performance features music and dance.
Moms
Sarah Delappe, Playwright
Morgan Green, Director
Saturday and Sunday at 4:00 at the Pier 62 Entrance Garden
We Were Wild Once Episode 6: Talks With A Drunk
Sanaz Ghajar, Co-Creator, Artistic Director of Built4Collapse
Vincent Van Santvoord, Co-Creator
Benjamin Hobbs, Co-Creator
Susie Williams, Co-Creator
Saturday and Sunday at 3:30pm in the Rock Garden at Pier 63
Sanaz Ghajarrahimi will create a piece with her company, Built4Collapse, inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's book On Booze. With text, dance, music and media, Ghajarrahimi will create a lifetime-asking, by the end, "Was it worth it after all?"
The Orbiting Human Circus Presents
Night, Janitor, Carousel
Written by Julian Koster
Directed by Elena Heyman
Featuring Julian Koster, Robbie Cucchiaro, and Drew Callander
Music by The Music Tapes (Julian Koster, Robbie Cucchiaro, and Thomas Hughes)
Production Management by Christy Gressman
With Artistic Contributions by Robbie Cucchiaro, Christy Gressman, Mary Ellen Stebbins, Eric Sluyter, Ali Kerestly, Ethan Dubin, Callie Jane Farnsworth, and Bridgette Kluger
Friday at 7:45pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 8:15pm, in and around the Pier 62 Carousel
Boundary-pushing storyteller and musician Julian Koster (of seminal indie band Neutral Milk Hotel) creates a richly imaginative, immersive experience set aboard the Hudson River Park carousel. Amidst this enchanting backdrop, Koster inhabits his seriocomic alter ego, The Janitor. Hired to clean the carousel by night, The Janitor combats loneliness through surreal flight of fancy and hallucinatory daydreams in which even the audience may just be a figment of his imagination. Featuring stories, shadow play, surprises, and songs (accompanied by a calliope organ), this alternately dark and dreamlike piece weaves a spellbinding tale of memory and magic as the carousel whirls in the night.
An Evening With Bina48
Andrew Scoville, Director
Dave Tennant, Designer
Kate Freer, Designer
Saturday at 5:00 and 6:45pm and Sunday at 3:30pm in the Frying Pan at Pier 66 Maritime
Andrew Scoville, Dave Tennet and Kate Freer seek to explore the use of robots in theatrical storytelling. In this production, they are teaming up with Bina48, the world's most advanced social robot, to create an evening of conversation unlike any other. Bina48 has been in TED Talks throughout the world and featured in various publications, including The New York Times. This performance marks Bina48's theatrical debut, as a robotic actor in collaboration with a human creative team.
This Place
Lee Sunday Evans, Director
Alisa Simonel-Keegan, Producer
Deb O, Designer
Barbara Samuels, Lighting Designer
Friday at 8:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 7:30pm, outside the entrance to the Frying Pan at Pier 66
This Place is a collaboration between Director Lee Sunday Evans, Producer Alisa Simonel-Keegan of Keegansmission, and Designer Deb O. Together they are creating an interactive installation and performance through a series of scenes along Pier 66 at the panhandle. The piece will bring viewers through transitions in time and through events that had major socio and environmental impacts on the city, the waterway, and development, and evoke images from early settlement through future imaginations.
Long Time
Conceived by PopUP Theatrics
Peca Stefan, playwright
Tamilla Woodard, Director
Paul Molnar, Fight Director
Shannon Stowe, Choreographer
Sunday at 5:15pm at the end of Pier 66
On Pier 66, two self-improvement groups try to negotiate space and time on this section of prime peaceful waterfront real estate. With the title and text, inspired by the sculpture that adorns the edge of the pier, Long Time pits spiritual gurus against fitness freaks in an epic turf battle for the well being of mankind, creating an unforgettable, reality-altering experience for participating and witnessing audiences. The history of human conflict unfolds in a screwball comedy of errors, in which every second weighs more than a year, and a minute more than a century.
Harold, I hate you.
Written + Directed by Amanda Szeglowski
Featuring Jade Daugherty, Ayesha Jordan, Amanda Szeglowski
Choreography by Amanda Szeglowskiin collaboration with cakeface
Sound Design by Jeso O'Neill
Dramaturgy by Cate Cammarata
Costumes by Elle Chyun
Friday at 7:15. Saturday and Sunday at 4:30pm near the Rock Garden at Pier 63
I don't know who Harold is, but I'm pretty sure I hate him. Florida, 1985. Chris isn't eating his broccoli. There's a knock at the door. Grams says it's a little boy named Harold who lives upstairs. He has come to eat our dinner. We clean the plates just in time, but he returns again and again. Harold, I hate you. is an exploration of the many incarnations "the boy from upstairs" took on in cakefacedirector Amanda Szeglowski's rabid imagination. This new work is an investigation of omnipresent insecurities, that are, perhaps, imaginary.
About The Artists:
Sam Alper is a writer living in Brooklyn. His plays have appeared in NYC at La MaMa ETC, BAX, Cloud City, The Brick and Dixon Place. He is a member of the Bookshop Workshop '14-'15 Writers Group and recently premiered his interactive play Loveplay/Playmoney at La MaMa ETC. Alper holds a degree in Literary Arts from Brown University, where he studied playwriting with Erik Ehn, Lisa D'Amour and Greg Moss. He is currently assisting the director of ABCs Madoff mini-series.
Barbara Cassidy's work has been seen at JACK, The Flea Theatre, Playwrights' Horizons, Dixon Place, Little Theatre, The New York International Fringe Festival and BRIC Studios. She has received a MacDowell Residency Fellowship, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency and grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council. She earned her MFA at Brooklyn College, and is an affiliated artist with New Georges.
Jessica Corbin is a music director, accompanist, conductor and singer. She is an adjunct professor in the Theater program at Kingsborough Community College, and is the Founding Director of the Brooklyn women's choir Bella Voce Singers. Corbin frequently conducts and performs new music in the NYC area, and regularly works as an accompanist with area choirs, theater groups and vocal classes, at locations including Marymount Manhattan College and Stagedoor Connections. She also maintains a private teaching studio in Manhattan.
Robbie Cucchiaro is the co-founder of The Orbiting Human Circus and a creative collaborator in The Music Tapes. As a musician and in various other roles he has had the good fortune to participate in the musical and artistic culture of Athens, GA.
Sarah Delappe's plays include The Wolves (Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, Great Plains Theater Conference) and Parabola (JACK, The Amoralists, Bookshop Workshops). She has been a resident at Sitka Fellows Program and SPACE on Ryder Farm; a recipient of an EST/Sloan commission and the Holland New Voices Award; a member of Clubbed Thumb Early Career and Bookshop Workshops writers groups; and a New Georges affiliated artist. BA: Yale, Frances Bergen Memorial Prize for Prose. MFA: pursuing at Brooklyn College.
Katherine Freer is a multimedia designer working in live performance, film, and installation. Her work has been seen in venues across the United States and internationally. Frequent collaborators include Liz Lerman, Ping Chong, Stein | Holum Projects, Tim Bond, Kamillah Forbes, Andrew Scoville and Tamilla Woodard. Freer is a Helen Hayes nominee and an Innovative Theater Award nominee. She is a founding member of Imaginary Media.
Sanaz Ghajar is a director, writer and Artistic Director of Built for Collapse. She has developed works nationally and internationally with New York Theatre Workshop, The Drama League, Target Margin Theater, The New Ohio, Three Legged Dog, Prelude Festival, Dixon Place, Ars Nova, HERE, Theater for the New City, Rising Circle Theatre Company, The Tank, Fresh Ground Pepper, breedingground, Colorado State University, Prague Film and Theater Center, UK-based company Fragility, Vox Populi in Bulgaria and Goldex Poldex Gallery in Krakow, Poland. She is a directing fellow at Clubbed Thumb, a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow Alum and a Drama League Director's Project Alum.
Morgan Green is a Brooklyn-based director and co-founder of New Saloon. Recent credits include Three Translations of Uncle Vanya at the Same Time (New Saloon, The Invisible Dog), I'm Miserable but Changes Scares Me by Milo Cramer (New Saloon, The Brick), and He Ate Quietly into the Wall by Ariel Stess (New Georges, New Ohio). Green was a Directing Intern at Williamstown Theater Festival and a Robert Moss Directing Resident at Playwrights Horizons. She is an alumna of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab. BA: Bard College, Ana Itelman Prize for Directing.
Christy Gressman is an artist and attorney and the creative manager of The Orbiting Human Circus. She has studied design and painting at the University of Pennsylvania, law at Harvard, and arts and entertainment management at Yale. In addition to making her own artwork, Gressman works with artists to facilitate creative action and organization.
Elena Heyman is a New York City-based director. Credits include The Traveling Imaginary, a nationally touring, theatrical rock show featuring Julian Koster (Neutral Milk Hotel) and rated in the "top five shows of the year" by NPR; The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Brown/Trinity SuRF); The Sun Experiment (Helikon Rep); and Oh Liza (watchliza.com). Recent collaborators include Lucy Thruber, Madeleine George and Erin Markey. Heyman is Co-Artistic Director of The Orbiting Human Circus, a graduate of Northwestern and Boston Universities (MFA) and a Drama League Directing Fellow.
Ben Hobbs is a performer, writer and choreographer. Selected credits include Fuerzabruta (NYC), Red Wednesday (New Ohio, LPAC), The Barber of Seville (Brooklyn Loft Opera), Nuclear Love Affair (Roma Fringe Festival, HERE, Prague Fringe, Ars Nova), Byuioo (Judson Church), Clown Bar (Parkside Lounge, The Box), Hamlet (Galapagos Art Space), Lynn Barr Dance Theatre (Judson Church, Kaatsbaan), and Drunkfish Oceanrant (Prelude Festival, Dixon Place). He earmed his BFA in Drama from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, with a minor in Art History. He also studied Chinese Opera, Shanghai Theater Academy and Dance, Point Park University.
Julian Koster is a multi-disciplinary artist, storyteller and musician. He is a member of the music groups The Music Tapes and Neutral Milk Hotel, and a co-founder of The Orbiting Human Circus.
Jimmy Maize is a director whose recent credits include his critically-acclaimed 100-actor adaptation of Spoon River Anthology (The Invisible Dog); The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing (CSC); Hypochondria by Kyle Jarrow (Columbia University); Between Life and Nowhere (Old Vic, 3-Legged Dog); You're Invited (Old Vic); and Burn The End (The New School). Maize is a member of Tectonic Theater Project, where he has developed such projects as 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda (Broadway), Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Broadway) and The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later (BAM). MFA: Columbia University.
Johari Mayfield "Double Dutch meeting Martha Graham meeting African dance meeting Edgar Allan Poe meeting beatboxing" best describes Johari Mayfield's eclectic enclave of dance, theatre, music and digital media. As a choreographer, her work has been presented at venues including HERE Arts Center, The Gatehouse at Aaron Davis Hall, 45 Bleecker Theater and Dance Theatre Workshop (now New York Live Arts).
Paul Molnar (Fight Director) Originally from Boyne City, Michigan, Paul moved to New York almost 20 years ago. Off Broadway credits: Roulette, Tape, Ghoul, DiCapo Opera, EST, Fordham and Keen Company where he is the Resident Fight Director. Regional credits: Premiere Stages, Two River, Shakespeare on the Sound, The Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, Michigan Shakes, Buck's County Playhouse, Second City (Detroit) & Asolo Rep. Paul, who is also an actor, has his BFA from The University of Michigan, and earned his MFA from Florida State. Next up for Paul is directing and producing Macbeth fora Salon Reading Series with South Brooklyn Shakespeare, a company producing free outdoor Shakespeare in Brooklyn founded by he and his wife. When not fighting or acting or directing, Paul, alongside his wife, own and run a bar in South Slope, Brooklyn called SOUTH.
Stephanie Okun is a playwright and student at Riverdale Country School. Her short stories, plays, poetry, essays,and works of creative nonfiction have been recognized both regionally and nationally by The Scholastic Writing Awards, Young Playwrights Inc., Writopia Lab, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and The Blank Theatre. Okub has had professionally staged readings of her plays at The Producers Club, June Havoc Theatre and Cherry Lane Theatre.
Andrew Scoville is a Brooklyn-based theater director developing new work that merges science and performance. He is co-creator of People Doing Math, a podcast about math and art. He is the director of Love Machine, a high-tech, interactive performance utilizing actor and audience responsive technology. He is a co-Founder/co-Director of Fresh Ground Pepper, a not-for-profit dedicated to cultivating new work. Scoville was Associate Director for Alex Timbers on David Byrne's Here Lies Love in NYC and UK.
Lee Sunday Evans is a director and choreographer. She won a 2015 OBIE Award for Kate Benson's A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes and recently directed Jerry Lieblich's D Deb Debbie Deborah. Her work has been presented/developed at New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Sundance Theater Institute, CATCH, 59E59, New Ohio, BAX, LMCC, the Watermill Center, Emerging America Festival, Williamstown Theater Festival, Dixon Place, LaMama, Coatesville VA Medical Center, New Victory and Women's Project Theater.
Dave Tennant creates interactive video installations, custom theatrical software, and projections designs for theater. He has designed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Incubator Arts Project, The Flea, Ars Nova and the New Ohio. Tennant has taught projections workshops at Syracuse University, New York University and Harvard University.
Vincent Van Santvoord is an actor, Development Director of Built for Collapse, and a founding member of Motel Room Studios. He recently completed his first collaborative screenplay and is developing work with Bulgarian theater company Vox Populi. Recent theater credits include Unremarkable (developed at NYTW, presented at TNC), We Were Wild Once (3LD, JACK, Summer on the Hudson), Red Wednesday (LPAC, Ice Factory), Drunkfish Oceanrant (Prelude Festival, Dixon Place), Nuclear Love Affair (Roma Fringe Festival, HERE, Prague Fringe Festival, Ars Nova, TNC), The Sea Plays (Old Vic Tunnels), Hamlet (Galapagos Art Space). Film Credits Include: No Singing in the Halls (Dir. Steven Hajar), Fish Will Bite (Dir. Stiven Luka) and The Giant (Dir. David Raboy).
Shannon Stowe is the founding artistic director of New Dance Theatre. She has an MFA in Acting from the New School for Drama is on the faculty there where she teaches Dance for Actors. She has also choreographed and assistant directed several of their classical productions. She was most recently the movement director for Masterworks Theatre Company's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, directed by Tamilla Woodard. She can currently be seen in R&J, the web series (Ready Set Go Theatre Company). Shannon is the marketing director for RSG, a company dedicated to making Shakespeare digitally available to a new generation of theatre and film enthusiasts.
Amanda Szeglowski, (Creator), is a writer, director and choreographer and a 2014-15 HERE Resident Artist. Formerly a Company Dancer with the internationally acclaimed Ellis Wood Dance over a span of four years, she performed with the company throughout NYC and on tour in locations such as Portugal, Germany, San Diego and Washington DC, and set work/taught at UC Berkeley and New York University, among others, all while also serving as the company's Managing Director. Amanda launched cakeface in 2008 and serves as the company's Artistic Director. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of South Florida with a degree in Dance and Business.
cakeface has been presented by Stony Brook University, Ars Nova, Dance New Amsterdam, AUNTS, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, RoofTop Dance with the Roger Smith Hotel, Going Dutch (Chicago, IL), Smith & Tinker writers' group, Hillsborough Community College, Rebound Dance Festival (New Haven, CT) and the Florida Dance Festival. cakefacehas guest lectured at the University of South Florida, and taught master classes at the University of Tampa and Howard W. Blake School for the Arts. cakefaceart.com
Susie Williams is an aerial performer, choreographer, instructor and producer. She recently completed a Fellowship in the 2014 BAM Professional Development Program. Producing credits include Bright Ideas' Aerial Salons, migrations, Landscrapes and Discord and the award-winning Roundhaus video Hammertime. As a performer, Williams has appeared in traditional circuses, casinos and theaters. She has performed flying trapeze, Spanish web and silks at Circus Circus and in Kristin Geneve Young's migrations. Williams is an adjunct professor at Pace University, where she teaches circus arts.
Tamilla Woodardis the co-founder of PopUp Theatrics, a partnership that creates site-impacting theatrical events around the world, often in collaboration with international theater artists. She is currently is serving as the Artistic Director of The Five Boroughs/One City Project, a multi-year initiative of The Working Theater. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, she is a current Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women's Project Theater Lab, a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, an alumnus of The Lincoln Center Directors Lab, an artistic affiliate with New Georges and a recipient of The Josephine Abady Award from The League of Professional Theatre Women. More at www.Tamilla.com
About En Garde Arts - En Garde Arts develops unconventional theatrical productions from the ground up, marrying story with place and content with community. The company champions the idea that "site-specific" is not just about place; it is about making art that is truly accessible by virtue of its location and the methodology by which it communicates. En Garde commits to diversity and inclusion in the producing process itself.
Founded by Anne Hamburger, En Garde Arts was a pioneer of the site-specific theater movement in New York City, developing iconoclastic theatrical productions in the 1980s and '90s with many of downtown's most visionary artists: Chuck Mee, Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, among many others.
In 2014, the organization made a powerful return to New York with its production Basetrack Live, which The New York Times named one of the top ten productions of the year. The production has toured to 25 cities across the country. En Garde's past productions have been honored with six OBIEs, two Drama Desk Awards and an Outer Critics Circle Award.
Hamburger recently received Exceptional Merit in Media Award from the National Political Women's Caucus. The Wall Street Journal has named her "a person to watch in 2015."
About Hudson River Park - Hudson River Park, which extends from Chambers Street to 59th street along Manhattan's west side, is the longest waterfront park in the United States. This free, urban recreational oasis is home to award-winning skate parks, playgrounds, sports fields, gardens and nature exhibits, boating and maritime activities, art installations, and myriad year-round events that celebrate the diverse cultures and neighborhoods along its shores. The Park plays a critical role in protecting the Hudson River ecosystem, and though it receives no public operating funds from city, state or federal government, its development has transformed four miles of decaying piers and parking lots into a premier New York City destination for local residents and visitors alike. The non-profit, Friends of Hudson River Park helps to ensure ongoing sustainability by serving as the Park's primary source of fundraising, advocacy and support, working in concert with the Hudson River Park Trust, the city-state entity that oversees the design, construction and operation of the Park. For more information, please visit www.hudsonriverpark.org. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @HudsonRiverPark, and LIKE us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/HudsonRiverPark.
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