Mike Daisey Honored As terraNOVA's Artist Of The Year 5/6-31

terraNOVA Collective is proud to announce it will honor Mike Daisey (How Theater Failed America, If You See Something, Say Something) as this year's soloNOVA Artist of the Year at the 2009 soloNOVA Arts Festival, running May 6-31 at the DR2 Theatre and D-Lounge at the Daryl Roth Theatres off Union Square. Mr. Daisey will open the festival with a fiery keynote address, Why Solo Performance Matters: A Manifesto on May 6, 2009 at 8pm in the DR2 Theatre.

"We couldn't be happier that Mike is a part of this year's festival." terraNOVA artistic director Jennifer Conley Darling said. "He breaks out of conventional expectations of the art form and explores new and important issues to not only theatre but the world. It's what great artists do."

Mike Daisey had this to say about being part of this years soloNOVA, "Monologuists, performance artists, and solo performers of all kinds are hungry for the kind of opportunities a festival like soloNOVA creates, and I'm delighted to have been asked to talk about the unique value and position the solo form occupies in the theater as a vital force for illumination and change."

The festival settles into its new home this year at the DR2 Theatre and the D-Lounge, presenting ten main stage solo performers, two solo fine art shows, and three late night evenings at 10pm on Thursdays called the Ones at Ten, featuring shorter form lone singer/songwriters, spoken word artists and comedians.

"A few years back, we toured the Daryl Roth Theatres and saw the potential for bringing all aspects of the festival together under one canopy," James Carter, soloNOVA's lead curator, said of the festival's new residency. "The main stage performers show in the DR2 Theatre, late night performers in the D-Lounge, and visual artists show in the lobbies of both spaces. It's the next evolution of the festival."

Artist's featured at this years soloNOVA Arts Festival will include:
Abena Koomson reconstructs Ghanaian funeral rites and explores her family roots in Cozi Sa Wala
Ryan Migge portrays a 17-year-old girl seeking love in Mann Seeking Man: Jesus-Lovin' Schoolgirl Seeks Soulmate
Micia Mosely lampoons black, lesbian lifestyles in Where My Girls At?
Haerry Kim offers a monologue about Korean girls forced into brothels for Japanese soldiers during WWII in Face
Leigh Evans with her textural dance piece, Traces
Jeff Grow lies and make the unbelievable believable with magic and mind reading, Creating Illusion
Preston Martin makes the audience the show in his interactive Fun Design with Swelte
Martin Dockery tells stories about his family rife with secrets in The Surprise
Abigail Nessen Bengson explores disasters around the world in The Magic Show: The Story of the Barefoot Angels
Aja Nisenson tells of her jazz journey through Italy, Piccola Cosi

Visual Artists presenting work:
Kenneth Le Riche with his figurative Clown oil Paintings
Amy Kalyn Sims with her Flashlight Painting Photo Portraits

For more information on soloNOVA 2009, go to www.terranovacollective.org

MIKE DAISEY has been called "the master storyteller" and "one of the finest solo performers of his generation" by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections. His monologues, fourteen and counting, include the controversial How Theater Failed America, the six-hour epic Great Men of Genius, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years. Over the past decade he has performed his unique extemporaneous monologues at venues such as the Public Theater, American Repertory Theatre, the Spoleto Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Cherry Lane Theatre, Yale Repertory Theater, the Noorderzon Festival, the T:BA Festival, Performance Space 122, and many more. He's been a guest on the "Late Show with David Letterman", a commentator for PRI's "Studio 360" and NPR's "Day To Day", a contributor to WIRED, Slate and Salon, a web contributor to Vanity Fair and Radar Magazine, and his work has been heard on the BBC, NPR, and the National Lampoon Comedy Hour. His first film, Layover, is being distributed by Lars von Trier's company Zentropa, a feature film of his monologue If You See Something Say Something will be released this year, and he stars in the Lawrence Krauser film Horrible Child. His first book, 21 Dog Years: A Cubedweller's Tale, was published by the Free Press and he is working on a second book, Great Men of Genius, adapted from his monologues about genius and megalomania in the lives of Bertolt Brecht, P.T. Barnum, Nikola Tesla, and L. Ron Hubbard. His first work as a playwright, The Moon Is A Dead World, will be produced in Seattle this season. He has been the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, three Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell Fellowship. He lives in New York City with his director and collaborator, Jean-Michele Gregory.

terraNOVA Collective is a vibrant playground for artists devoted to innovative new and original theatrical works. Its multi-layered development process, solo arts festivals, and productions serve to nurture and liberate our community.

"...brings back the art of storytelling." - Backstage

www.terranovacollective.org