'Working in the Theatre' feat. Off-Bway Artistic Dirs on CUNY-TV

The American Theatre Wing's "Working in the Theatre" will feature the Artistic Directors of four off-Broadway not-for-profit theatre companies on CUNY TV on Sunday, January 6 at 5 p.m. The segment will repeat on Friday, January 11 at 9 a.m., 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, January 12 at 11 a.m.  The program becomes available as streaming audio and podcast from www.americantheatrewing.org beginning Monday, January 14.

Douglas Aibel of Vineyard Theatre, Charlotte Moore of Irish Repertory Theatre, Tim Sanford of Playwrights Horizons and Jim Simpson of The Flea Theater -- share their thoughts about attracting audiences to their shows, the cost of keeping their theaters going, the challenges they face competing with commercial productions, how they choose the works performed on their stages and what they hope to accomplish for their companies in the next several years.

Douglas Aibel is the Artistic Director of Vineyard Theatre. Aibel has been active in NY theatre as a producer, director and dramaturg.  He was the first recipient of Ross Wetzsteon OBIE award for his work with the Vineyard, and was pleased to accept special Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel awards for the Vineyard's body of work. Notable productions that Mr. Aibel has developed and produced at the Vineyard include two Pulitzer prize dramas- Paula Vogel's How I learned to Drive and Edward Albee's Three Tall Women and the Tony Award Winning Avenue Q.

Tim Sanford is the Artistic Director of Playwrights Horizons, where he has served since 1984, beginning as a literary intern, then serving for nine years as Literary Manager and two years as Associate Artistic Director, before assuming leadership of the theater in January 1996. In his tenure he has produced a wide variety of writers. Notable productions from his tenure include Floyd Collins, Violet, Lillian, Betty's Summer Vacation, James Joyce's The Dead, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Lobby Hero, She Stoops To Comedy, Small Tragedy, Fabulation, I Am My Own Wife, Miss Witherspoon, and Grey Gardens.  He is a past President of The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and a contributor to Dramaturgy in American Theater.  He has a B.A. from Occidental College and a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature from Stanford University.

Jim Simpson is the founder and Artistic Director of The Flea Theater (2004 Drama Desk cited for Downtown Adventurous Theater). Two-time OBIE-award winner, 2002 National Board of Review Excellence in Filmmaking, and cited for artistic leadership in Downtown New York by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Jim has directed over 70 works for the theater and has also directed for film and television. Mr. Simpson was a child actor in his hometown of Honolulu, as a teenager worked with Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, and holds degrees from Keio University in Tokyo, Boston University School for the Arts, and the Yale Drama School. Most recently, Jim directed the revival of Nixon's Nixon at MCC, A. R. Gurney's Crazy Mary at Playwrights Horizons, and Will Eno's Oh, The Humanity and other exclamations now running at The Flea.

Charlotte Moore is the Artistic Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. Ms. Moore's most recent directing assignments were Gaslight, Meet Me in St. Louis, Mrs. Warren's Profession and Mr.Dooley's America. Other directing credits include: Finian's Rainbow at Joanne Woodward's Westport Country Playhouse, She Stoops to Conquer, Samuel Beckett's Endgame, the adaptation and direction of Finian's Rainbow, Dion Boucicault's

The Colleen Bawn, J. Harley Manners' Peg O' My Heart, J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World and Dion Boucicault's The Streets of New York, which she adapted and scored. New York stage appearances include Major Barbara, A Perfect Ganesh, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Perfect Party, Morning's at Seven, Private Lives, Love for Love, Holiday, Chemin de Fer, The Great God Brown, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, and many performances with the NewYork Shakespeare Festival. She has received two Tony Award nominations, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Irish America Top 100 Irish Award. Ms. Moore has directed forty-seven Irish Repertory Theatre productions and all 19 Gala Benefits.

The ATW "Working in the Theatre" panels bring together theatre's best-known performers, producers, playwrights, directors, choreographers, composers, agents and others for peer-to-peer conversation about the art, the craft and the business of theatre.

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