HERE Celebrates 25th Anniversary Season; 2017-2018 Lineup Announced

HERE proudly announces its 2017-2018 producing season, marking the 25th Anniversary of this award-winning, boundary-stretching institution. The 2017-2018 HERE lineup features three HERE Resident Artist world premieres; the world premiere of a HERE Artistic Director production by Kristin Marting; innovative works from the Dream Music Puppetry Program including a revival of Symphonie Fantastique by Basil Twist, internationally acclaimed artist and Artistic Director of HERE's Dream Music Puppetry Program; the sixth annual PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now festival, and HERE's yearly CULTUREMART festival, where HERE serves up a first look at new work in process from artists in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). The multidisciplinary productions in HERE's milestone 2017-2018 season represent the culmination of commissions and developmental residencies of up to three years in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) and/or the Dream Music Puppetry Program.

HERE is located at 145 Sixth Avenue, just below Spring Street. For ticket information and purchase, please visit www.here.org or call 212-352-3101. In person sales at the box office after 5pm only on performance days and two hours prior to curtain for matinees. For Group Sales, contact tickets@here.org. General detail and further info available at www.here.org.

HERE's 25th Anniversary, 2017-2018 season:

Stairway to Stardom
September 12 - 23, 2017
A Resident Artist Production by Amanda Szeglowski / cakeface
With crackling wit and startling honesty, Amanda Szeglowski and the women of cakeface serve up a silver-sequined dissection of the American Dream. Synthesizing razor-sharp choreography and a poker-faced delivery of original text, the cast shatters the facade of "making it." Featuring live-mixed sound and visuals from electronic duo Prism House and clips from the 80s cult-favorite New York public access TV show of the same name, Stairway to Stardom honors the contributions of the wildly passionate but questionably talented among us.

Amanda Szeglowski, Artistic Director (cakeface), is a writer, director, choreographer and performing artist. She is a HERE Resident Artist and a recipient of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation's Women Playwrights Commissioning program. Formerly a Company Dancer with the internationally acclaimed Ellis Wood Dance (NYC) over a span of four years, she performed with the company throughout New York 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 her all-female company cakeface in 2008. As Culturebot describes, "cakeface is a group of fierce, funny, talented women," and later offered, "Think Monica Bill Barnes for the Amy Schumer Generation," in the Culturebot article "Eight Reasons cakeface's Harold, I Hate You Is Your New Favorite Downtown Dance/Theater Piece." cakeface projects thread together intricate choreography and original, abstract scripts, contemplating the uncomfortable through the use of grim themes and an inherently wry female wit. cakeface has been presented by En Garde Arts, 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, The Tank, Going Dutch (Chicago, IL), Smith & Tinker writers' group, Hillsborough Community College, Rebound Dance Festival (New Haven, CT) and the Florida Dance Festival (Tampa, FL). With cakeface, Amanda has guest lectured at the University of South Florida, and taught master classes at the University of Tampa, Hillsborough Community College and Howard W. Blake School for the Arts. She also received a residency at Marble House Project this spring in Dorset, VT to further develop Stairway to Stardom.

Thomas Paine in Violence
November 6 - 18, 2017
A Resident Artist Production by Paul Pinto
Thomas Paine in Violence is an electronic psychedelic opera-sermon by Paul Pinto that is set in a radio station in the afterlife of the Founding Father and international activist. Joan La Barbara portrays Paine struggling to broadcast a message of economic justice amidst a whirlwind of lightning-quick singing, auto-tuned shock-jockery, gadgets, voices, instruments and sonic chaos.

Paul Pinto creates, performs and produces experimental music and opera-theatre that fuses the musicality of American speech, poetry, classical music, extended vocal techniques and electronic sound art. He is a founding member of the acclaimed collectives Varispeed and thingNY. Paul has presented music across the U.S. and internationally. As a vocalist, Paul works on a diversity of projects including the lead role in Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King and originating the Broadway role of Balaga in Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin's hit musical, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

TreePop
An Imaginative Pageant Amongst The Pines - An Ode To Friends That Leave & Objects That Speak
November 30 - December 10, 2017
A Dream Music Puppetry Presentation by Lake Simons and John Dyer
A visual poem told through a variety of puppetry forms, dance and music, Lake Simons and John Dyer's Tree Pop evokes memories of old friends, meditates upon the life of objects, and explores how we play.

Lake Simons is a theater artist based in New York City with strong ties to Fort Worth, Texas. She is a director, designer, choreographer, puppeteer, builder, painter and performer. Lake has collaborated with many distinguished artists creating theater productions from the ground up. She makes theater that utilizes puppetry, movement and live music. But most importantly she relies on make-believe. Her creations have been performed in New York City, Fort Worth, Boston, Chicago and Edinburgh, Scotland. Lake and partner/composer John Dyer have created ten productions together. Lake has received multiple Jim Henson Foundation Grants in support of her original work. She was a 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award nominee. She has participated in various artist residency programs including: Here Artist Residency Program (HARP), The Freight, Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program (SUITE) and the Puppet Lab at St Ann's. Lake is a 2018 artist-in-resident with Dixon Place. As an artistic associate with the Hip Pocket Theatre in Texas, Lake has directed and designed over a dozen shows. She enjoys an ongoing collaboration with Miller Theatre at Columbia University, being commissioned to create two puppet and music centric shows. Lake served as a puppetry associate for the Lincoln Center Broadway production of War Horse and assistant movement and puppetry director for the national tour. She teaches set design and puppetry at Sarah Lawrence College. She is a graduate of Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France and holds a BFA in Scene Design from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

John Dyer is a Brooklyn-based Singer-Songwriter, Composer (for experimental theater and dance) and Visual Artist. His primary instrument is guitar. In New York he has performed / presented at The Knitting Factory, Tonic, Living Room, American Folk Art Museum, St. Ann's Warehouse, HERE, Dixon Place, La MaMa, St Marks Church, and Theatre For The New City. His song Hot Owl received an Honorable Mention (for Best Song/ Performance) in the International Songwriting Competition. He is the recipient of nine consecutive ASCAPlus Awards, two Meet The Composer grants and multiple Dallas Fort Worth Theatre Critic's Forum Awards. Theatrical collaborations with his partner, puppet artist Lake Simons, include Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2003), White Elephant (2009), Wind Set-up (2011), Moby Dick (2012), TreePop (2015) & Don Quixote (2016).

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now
January 7 - 20, 2018
Each January, HERE and Beth Morrison Projects join forces to co-produce PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now, the premier global festival of opera-theater and music-theater in New York City. After just five years on the scene, PROTOTYPE has produced and presented 160 performances of 32 works in 15 venues across 2 boroughs; advanced
the careers of nearly 500 early and mid-career composers, lyricists, librettists and their collaborators by showcasing their innovative works; and engaged a robust audience of nearly 27,000 people comprised of both opera general directors, performing arts presenters and the general public. In its first year, the festival was called "the teenage hacker of the opera world" by New York Magazine. By 2016, however, PROTOTYPE's stature had grown, and the quality of work offered to audiences was evident. The New York Times proclaimed that "the Prototype Festival, an annual explosion of youthful energy spearheaded by Beth Morrison Projects and the experimental theatre space HERE, has built a clearly defined profile: brash, socially engaged, and substantially post-classical." In 2017, The New Yorker declared PROTOTYPE "essential to the evolution of American opera." As recently announced, the sixth edition of PROTOTYPE runs January 7 - 20, 2018. For lineup and more, please visit www.prototypefestival.org.

Co-produced by HERE and Beth Morrison Projects and, with lead funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

CULTUREMART Festival
March 5 - 18, 2018
Annual Resident Artist Festival
CULTUREMART is the annual festival for the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), where process becomes the focus. Beautifully produced, yet still in development, CULTUREMART provides a platform for HERE's current Resident Artists to blur the boundaries between dance, theatre, puppetry, music, new media and visual art, melding these forms to support their adventurous visions.

Symphonie Fantastique
12-week Limited Engagement Begins March 29, 2018
Twenty years ago, in 1998, Basil Twist debuted his boundary-breaking response to Berlioz's 1830 "Symphonie Fantastique" to universal acclaim, inaugurating HERE's intimate Dorothy B. Williams Theatre. In the two decades since Symphonie Fantastique's premiere, Basil Twist has become an internationally recognized artist in opera, ballet and on Broadway, and has been honored with countless awards including the illustrious MacArthur Fellowship. Ahead in 2018, as part of this 25th Anniversary landmark season at HERE, Twist revisits his legendary masterpiece. In this revival, accompanied live by virtuosic pianist Christopher O'Riley playing the exquisite Liszt transcription, Symphonie floats and swirls in a 1,000-gallon water tank neatly disguised as a puppet stage. For those who never saw it and for those who relish seeing it again and again, the return of this tour de force to HERE promises a not-to-be-missed theatrical event.

Since coming to New York over 20 years ago, Basil Twist has garnered an international reputation as an audacious designer, director and performer. He creates iconic, visionary puppetry worlds with a remarkable range of style and scope appearing in intimate nightclubs to large orchestra halls. He is a sought after collaborator for theater, dance, opera and film. His utterly unique approaches have been recognized with awards; critical acclaim and have furthered contemporary artistry and the technical craft of puppetry.

Acclaimed for his engaging and deeply committed performances, the pianist Christopher O'Riley is known to millions as the host of NPR's From the Top. Now in his fifteenth year on air, O'Riley introduces the next generation of classical-music stars to almost a million listeners each week. He performs around the world and has garnered widespread praise for his untiring efforts to reach new audiences. Christopher O'Riley has performed as a soloist with virtually all of the major American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, National Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony. In addition, O'Riley has performed recitals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. Living by the Duke Ellington adage "There are only two kinds of music, good music and bad," O'Riley - a proponent of the former in all of its guises - has received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and an equally coveted four-star review from Rolling Stone magazine. O'Riley strives to introduce new audiences to classical music with an almost missionary zeal by performing piano arrangements of music by Radiohead, Elliott Smith, Pink Floyd, and Nirvana alongside traditional classical repertoire. He has collaborated for many years with the flutist Sir James Galway and cellists Matt Haimovitz and Carter Brey. A prolific recording artist, O'Riley has recorded the music of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Scriabin, Liszt, Ravel, Gershwin, Debussy and John Adams for Sony Classical, Oxingale Records, RCA Red Seal, Decca and Harmonia Mundi. Christopher O'Riley splits his time between Los Angeles and rural Ohio.

Assembled Identity
April 24 - May 13, 2018
An Artistic Director Production by Purva Bedi, Kristin Marting and Mariana Newhard
Twin sisters discover they are clones and embark on an unexpected journey, confronting their own authenticity. Exploring ethnic ambiguity, race, genetics and eugenics, this electrifying duet created by Purva Bedi, Kristin Marting and Mariana Newhard and performed by Bedi and Newhard, uses original and found text, live cinematography and contemporary music to explore the science of identity formation and who has the authority to define it.

Purva Bedi (Performer / Co-creator) is an actress of film, television and stage and also a deviser of new work. Theater Includes: Idiot (directed by Kristin Marting), East is East (MTC/The New Group), My Wandering Boy (South Coast Rep), The Rise of Dorothy Hale (St, Lukes'). With Target Margin Theatre: Reread Another, The Tempest, Second Language, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real, Old Comedy, These Very Serious Jokes, The 5 Hysterical Girls Theorem, The Seagull, Sonoma. Film & TV Appearances include: Nurse Jackie, The Good Wife, Unforgettable, Kumare & American Desi. Upcoming: Person of Interest, Clint Eastwood's feature film Sully and in Equity premiering at Sundance 2016. Purva is a member of The Actor's Center Workshop Company, an Associate Artist with Target Margin Theatre and Founding member of Disha Theatre. She studied at Williams College, The British American Drama Academy and The Public Theatre Shakespeare Lab.

Kristin Marting (Director / Co-creator) is a director of hybrid work based in NYC. She has constructed 27 hybrid works (12 original works, 8 novel adaptations and 7 classics). Kristin has directed 16 works at HERE and also premiered works at 3LD, Ohio Theatre and Soho Rep. Her work has toured to 7 Stages, Berkshire Festival, Brown, MCA, Moscow Art Theatre, New World, Oslo (Norway), Painted Bride, Perishable and UMass. She has directed readings and workshops for Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Playwrights Horizons, Public Theatre, Target Margin and others. She has received residencies at LMCC, Mabou Mines, NACL, Orchard Project, MASS MOCA, Playwrights Center, Smack Mellon and Voice & Vision. Her work has been supported by the NEA, NYSCA, DCA, MAP Fund, Axe-Houghton, Greenwall, Harkness, Jerome, and Peg Santvoord Foundations; reviews have appeared in all major New York media. Prior works have toured around the US. She is Co-Founder/Artistic Director of HERE.

Mariana Newhard (Performer / Co-creator) is an actress working in theater and film specializing in hybrid and devised new work. Theater includes: Lilia (Rising Circle Rep), La Paloma Prisoner (Signature), The Emperor and the Queen's Parisian Weekend (PROTOTYPE at HERE), Elegy for a Midshipman (Dixon Place) and Three Graces (The Ohio). With HERE (directed by Kristin Marting): Trade Practices, Lush Valley, Possessed, Women of Orleans, The Courtesan. Films include The Snake and the Parrot, Something Else (Best Actress Paris Film Festival) and The Wanderlust Room (Cannes SFC). She developed her plays Da Food is Da Food and The Women's Project with Packawallop Productions. She is a member of The Dorian Collective and was the artistic director of NascentWorks. She studied at NYU's Tisch School for the Arts, Sarah Lawrence and The British American Drama Academy.

American Weather
June 15 - June 30, 2018
A HERE Resident Artist and Dream Music Puppetry Program Production by Chris Green
Created by Chris Green with a multi-disciplinary ensemble, American Weather is an immersive work of projected animation, live music and puppetry that re-frames our troubled American narrative as a rambling folk-epic wherein fear of the 'other,' a lost shared reality and other contemporary Americana are mythologized through song and performance.

Chris Green (Director, Composer) is a Brooklyn-based designer, composer and director. His theatrical, sound and installation works have been presented over the past 18 years in venues including Lincoln Center, New York City Center, St. Ann's Warehouse, National Geographic Museum, Teatro del Lago (Chile) and La Jolla Playhouse, among others. Chris Green Kinetics has received awards from the American Association of Museums, TEA and AIA. Honors include Creative Capital (2009), MacDowell Fellowship (2012), and LMCC Process Space residency (2013). American Weather is supported with grants from the Jim Henson Foundation.

Additional projects currently in development from artists in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP):
HERE's current HARP artists, with projects in development, include: Writer/Director Gisela Cardenas and Composer Milica Paranosic (Hybrid Suite No. 2: The Carmen Variations); Composer Leah Coloff (ThisTree); Dance artists Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya/LEIMAY (The Meal); Puppetry/ Visual Performance Artists Liz Hara, Maiko Kikuchi and Spencer Lott (9,000 Paper Balloons); Director Zoey Martinson (The Black History Museum According to the United States of America); Music-Theater Artists Brian Rady & Jeremy Bloom (Ding Dong It's the Ocean); Multimedia Director Rob Roth (Soundstage); and Choreographer Yara Travieso & Composer Sam Crawford (Ofelia The Invincible),

The OBIE-winning HERE (Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and Kim Whitener, Producing Director), which celebrates its 25th Anniversary this season, was named a Top Ten Off-Off Broadway Theatre by Time Out New York, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines-theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art. Standout productions include Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist, Hazelle Goodman's On Edge, Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers, Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Kamala Sankaram's Miranda and Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, among many others. In 2008, following an extensive renovation, HERE re-opened the doors to its long-time downtown home for the arts, where it continues as a vibrant, welcoming haven for artists and audiences alike.

The HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) has been HERE's signature development and producing program since 1998. HARP commissions, develops and premieres new hybrid performances. Productions developed at HERE challenge existing boundaries between disciplines -- theater, dance, music, opera, puppetry, media, visual arts, installation, spoken word and more. Through HARP, the Resident Artists are given the unique opportunity to develop their projects for up to three years through free works-in-progress showings, workshop presentations in HERE's annual CULTUREMART festival, culminating in full-scale productions.

Each season, HERE premieres several of these Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. These innovative projects are grown in a diverse artistic community where artists receive career development resources and hands-on training. HARP has been widely recognized as a unique model for artistic development for the field to emulate. In honoring HERE with the 2009 Ross Wetzsteon Award, the OBIE Committee noted, "it's become increasingly hard for artists to find a place to take risks, a safe haven where they can develop daring new work. One theater has regularly bucked the trend, making its mission to ensure that artists have a home for their research and development, and that theatregoers can sample the exciting results."

HERE proudly hosts adventurous artists, companies and productions, whether emerging or acclaimed, through its SubletSeries. It also presents work from New York, across the country, and around the globe through the Dream Music Puppetry Program (co-curated with Basil Twist), and the widely acclaimed PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now festival of opera-theater and music-theater, co-produced with Beth Morrison Projects.

HERE's Dream Music Puppetry Program, under the artistic direction of Basil Twist, with producing direction from HERE co-founder Barbara Busackino, is one of few programs in the country to grow and commission contemporary adult puppet works, particularly works that feature live music as a collaborative element. Dream Music seeks to secure the future of puppetry by providing increased development and performance opportunities to puppet artists, and by collaborating with artists from other disciplines to develop new puppetry techniques. This program was inaugurated with the premiere of Basil Twist's OBIE-award winning Symphonie Fantastique in 1998 and the opening of the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre, an intimate space created specifically for intimate puppetry. HERE's Dream Music is also proud to house the Griff Williams Puppetry Collection. The 6 antique marionettes of Harry James, Griff Williams, Cab Calloway, Arturo Toscannini, Ted Lewis and Paul Whiteman were all performed with The Griff Williams Orchestra in the 1930s & 40s throughout America's big band era. They have a permanent home outside the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre at HERE.