SITI Company Launches Year-Long Conservatory Program

Since its founding in 1992, Siti Company has redefined contemporary theater in the United States through an innovative approach to actor training as well as collaboration and cultural exchange. Company members have taught at Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Juilliard, Bard, Emerson, Royal Shakespeare Company and UCLA, to name a few. As it begins its 20th anniversary season, SITI is proud to announce the establishment of the SITI Conservatory Program, a one-year program that will train the next generation of theater makers.

The Conservatory will offer physical, vocal and intellectual training to cultivate artists capable of working with both classical and contemporary material. The Conservatory will strive to instill values of leadership, resourcefulness and the tools and skills to listen, speak, move, write and create.

Siti Company founding member Ellen Lauren remarked, “For the last twenty years we have been working towards establishing a center that will insure SITI's legacy, as well as give flight to this rising generation of artists. This can only happen by training people that they might carry our values forward into their work and creative future. The SITI Conservatory is in a sense a rebirth for our Company, we will be deeply changed. It also recognizes the time-honored tradition of handing culture on to the next generation through the direct experience of the body. We can't fight their fights, only help to equip them. What happens then is wide open.”

Applications will be available online beginning on January 2, 2013 and are due on March 30, 2013. The Conservatory will accept approximately 20 students. Classes will take place over a 27-week period (Monday-Friday, 10am-5:30pm) and will be held in SITI’s Midtown studio and additional rehearsal space in Manhattan. The program will culminate in a performance in New York City. Dates for the start and finish of each semester can be found below. Please visit siti.org/conservatory for more information.

The curriculum will be taught by Siti Company members. The Company will also engage guest artist-teachers to broaden the perspective of training approaches and accommodate SITI’s touring schedule. The program, covering both technical and theoretical approaches, will include morning classes in Suzuki and Viewpoints Training. Afternoon classes will consist of Composition class, another SITI hallmark, as well as Master Classes and alternative curriculum taught by SITI members and select guest artists.

In addition to attending a full roster of classes, participants will be able to experience the daily working life of the Company. When possible, SITI rehearsals will be open, and Conservatory artists, when appropriate, may understudy Company members in the current repertory. There will be a series of ongoing symposia and conversations with a wide range of artists and thinkers.

SITI is uniquely positioned to offer a distinctive and exceptional Conservatory program to the world. The company believes that the role of intensive training is to prepare the theater artist with tangible skills and techniques, in order to become a generous creative force in the international cultural arena. The SITI Conservatory aims to cultivate a mix of ideas with talented, committed and passionate people from diverse backgrounds. The program will strive to foster theater artists who are able to engage in bridging the traditions of the past, with new thinking in the present, to influence the future.

Schedule and Curriculum:

First Semester
Sept. 16, -Nov. 22, 2013 – First Semester/ First 10 weeks
Nov. 25-Nov. 29, 2013 – Thanksgiving Break
Dec. 2-Dec. 20, 2013 – Last 3 weeks of First Semester
Dec. 23-Jan. 10, 2014 – Winter Break, 3 weeks

Second Semester
Jan. 13-March 14, 2014 – Second Semester / First 9 weeks
March 17-April 4, 2014 – Spring Break, 3 weeks
April 7-May 11, 2014 – Last 5 weeks of Second Semester, including rehearsal and performances.

Siti Company is an ensemble theater company based in New York that tours extensively throughout the United States and internationally. SITI is dedicated to the creation of new work, the training of young theater artists, and to international collaboration. Founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki, SITI seeks to redefine and revitalize contemporary theater in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration.

SITI provides a rich context where the interaction of art, artists, audiences and ideas inspire the possibility for change, optimism and hope. The company believes that through the practice of collaboration, a group of artists working together over time can have a significant impact upon both contemporary theater and the world at large.

Through the Company’s performances, educational programs and collaborations with other artists and thinkers, SITI continues to challenge the status quo, to train to achieve artistic excellence in every aspect of our work, and to offer new ways of seeing and of being as both artists and as global citizens.

SITI has traveled to 22 countries on five continents and created more than 35 new productions including such iconic works as Under Construction (2009), The Medium (1994), Death and the Ploughman (2004), bobrauschenbergamerica (2001), War of the Worlds—The Radio Play (1999), Hotel Cassiopeia (2006), and a triptych of solo pieces inspired by great artists: Bob (1998), Room (2000), and Score (2002) as well as a collaboration with the Martha Graham Dance Company, American Document (2010).

Among the countless accolades SITI as a whole, as well as its members individually, have garnered are: seven OBIE awards; two Guggenheim Fellowships, Doris Duke Artist Award, USA Artists Rockefeller Fellowship; American Theatre Wing’s Henry Hewes design award, TCG Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement, Best Foreign Production at the Dublin Festival, and several Drama Desk Award nominations, among others.