En Garde Arts at BAM Presents Venteran Stories BASETRACK, 11/11-15

En Garde Arts come to BAM and will present original work telling the stories of veterans.

Created by Edward Bilous; Adapted by Jason Grote in Collaboration with Seth Bockley and Anne Hamburger; Directed by Seth Bockley; with Composition by Edward Bilous, Michelle DiBucci and Greg Kalember; Music Direction by Michelle DiBucci.

Production Marks the Return of Innovative Theater Company En Garde Arts.

When I was in Afghanistan, all's I wanted to do was come back to America. But when I got home to America there was this empty feeling and I just wanted to go back to Afghanistan. When your life is so extreme every single day, and you're just adrenaline pumping every day, and then you just come home to this perfect little world, it kind of just sets you off balance.­-Lance Corporal Kevin Daly.

In 2010, while embedded with Marines in southern Afghanistan, a group of photojournalists took pictures and videos with their iPhones and launched One-Eight Basetrack, a web project connecting servicemen in the field with their families back home. Now En Garde Arts and Edward Bilous have created Basetrack, in which adaptor Jason Grote, director Seth Bockley and a cast of actors delve into the experience of the Marines-and their families-as they enlist, deploy, serve and return home fundamentally changed. Basetrack makes its New York premiere with six performances (November 11-15) at BAM's Harvey Theater as part of this year's Next Wave Festival.

With major funding from MetLife Foundation, the performances are part of an extensive national tour that will bring together veteran and civilian audiences and will include community engagement initiatives and structured conversations between veterans and civilians led by Scott Thompson, Director, Veterans Mental Health Coalition. See www.basetracklive.com for details.

Basetrack is built entirely from verbatim interviews conducted by the artistic team with veterans and their families, which in performance is accompanied by a cascade of images and sound, including a dynamic, electro-acoustic score composed by Edward Bilous, Michelle DiBucci and Greg Kalember and performed by a four-piece on-stage band. Casting for the BAM performances will be announced soon.

The creative team for Basetrack also includes Caleb Wertenbaker (set design) Paul Hudson (lighting design), Claudia Brown (costume design), William David Fastenow (performance technology design) and Balazs Gardi (photography).

Basetrack marks the return of En Garde Arts, founded by Anne Hamburger, the company has a 25 year history of developing iconoclastic theatrical productions from the ground up, marrying story with place, and content with community. En Garde has garnered acclaim for its 360-degree approach to producing theatre, commissioning both emerging and established artists to create immersive, theatrical work inspired by physical space-architectural sites, landmarks, neighborhoods-and critical social issues of our time. Past productions have been honored with six OBIEs, two Drama Desk Awards and an Outer Critics Circle Award. Through the company, Hamburger commissioned some of the theater's most visionary artists such as Tina Landau, Mac Wellman, Anne Bogart and Charles L. Mee, Jr. and created productions starring Fiona Shaw, Tyne Daily and Jefferson Mays.

In 1999, Hamburger moved to the west coast to be Artistic Director of the La Jolla Playhouse (1999-2000). During her tenure there, she began Spring Awakening and produced Thoroughly Modern Millie. Both went on to win multiple Tony Awards. She was then Executive Vice President for Disney Creative Entertainment (2000-2008), where she built a successful global division in which internationally recognized theater artists-including Diane Paulus, Eric Schaffer, Francesca Zambello and Robert Lopez-created Broadway-caliber shows in parks and on cruise ships around the world.

Performances of Basetrack will take place November 11 - 15, 2014 at 7.30pm at BAM's Harvey Theater (651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn). Tickets-$20-35 on weekdays, $20-40 on weekends (subject to change after Aug 10)-can be purchased online at BAM.org or by phone from BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100.

BAM will present several events in connection with the premiere of Basetrack. On November 9 at 4.30pm, philosopher and New York Times contributor Simon Critchley will host "On Truth (and Lies) in Homecoming" at BAMcafé (30 Lafayette Ave), co-presented by BAM and the Onassis Cultural Center NY as part of the Hellenic Humanities Program. Tickets are $15 ($7.50 for Friends of BAM). Following the November 13 performance, Bryan Doerries, founder of Theater of War, will lead a Town Hall discussion that is free for same-day ticket holders.

About the Artists

Edward Bilous (Creator, Co-composer) is a composer, artistic director and educator, and the Director of the Center for Innovation in the Arts at The Julliard School, where he first developed Basetrack in workshop. He has been on the faculty since 1984 and has directed many of the institutions most innovative programs including Beyond the Machine - A Festival of Interdisciplinary Art. Bilous's work includes Lucid Dreams for American Composers Orchestra, Night of the Dark Moon for Pilobolus, and the scores to numerous films including Scottsboro, Portraits of Grief and SACRED, an upcoming global-documentary and multimedia concert produced by WNET-New York Public Television. Bilous has served on the NEA panel for Learning In the Arts, and in 2012 was awarded the William Schuman Scholars Award by the Julliard School in recognition for his contributions to arts education. In May 2014, Bilous spoke at TEDx on the subject of nurturing innovation and creative intelligence through the arts.

Michelle DiBucci (Musical Director/Co-Composer) has composed and produced music in all genres and mediums including film, theater, television and dance. She made her New York debut at BAM under the direction of Lukas Foss in the Meet the Moderns Series with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and has composed music for the Kronos Quartet and Pilobolus. Her works have been performed in Alice Tully Hall, Juilliard, and the Weill Recital Hall as well as in theaters around the world. Her music for film and TV is regularly featured on PBS, and her soundtrack for the film Wendigo, won the NPR/WNYC, New Sounds 17th Annual Listeners Poll: Best New Soundtracks. She is currently composing the score for a new multimedia ballet titled Der Tod und die Malerin, based on the life and work of artist Charlotte Salomon and commissioned by Musiktheater im Revier in Germany.

Seth Bockley is a Chicago-based director and playwright. Directing credits include the English-language premiere of Ewald Palmetshofer's hamlet is dead. no gravity with Red Tape Theater;Philip Dawkins' Failure: A Love Story with Victory Gardens Theater; Jason Grote's Civilization (all you can eat) with Clubbed Thumb; Jon and Jason Grote's 1001; numerous events and spectacles with Chicago's Redmoon; the clown play Guerra, developed with Devon de Mayo and Mexico City-based troupe La Piara; and, most recently, the world premiere of Marcus Gardley's The Box: A Black Comedy, produced by The Foundry Theatre. His works as a playwright include February House, a collaboration with lyricist and composer Gabriel Kahane, which premiered at The Public Theater in the spring of 2012; Ask Aunt Susan (premiering at the Goodman in June 2014), The Elephant & The Whale (with Redmoon and Chicago Children's Theatre); 2666, adapted with Robert Falls from the novel by Roberto Bolaño; and adaptations of George Saunders' short stories CommComm and Jon, which won the 2008 Equity Jeff Citation for Best New Adaptation. He teaches at the University of Chicago and is Playwright in Residence at the Goodman Theater.

Jason Grote (Adaptor) Jason Grote's previous collaborations with Seth Bockley include 1001 at Collaboraction (2010) and Theater on the Lake (2011); Civilization (all you can eat) at Clubbed Thumb (2011): Scheherazade (musical workshop: original music by Marisa Michelson) at The York Theater (2013); and Yetsi'at Metzrayim (short) in Collaboraction's Sketchbook Festival (2010). Other plays include Shostakovich, Maria/Stuart, and Hamilton Township. He wrote the text for David Levine's HABIT (2013 OBIE) and has written for television shows "Mad Men" (2014 WGA Award Nomination), "Hannibal" and "Smash." He is currently writing film adaptations of works by John Cheever and Hilary Mantel, is under commission from Soho Rep, and is writing a play for Radiohole. He was the 2006 P73 Playwriting Fellow, won the 2014 ACT New Play Award, and is an alumnus of New Dramatists.

Funding Credits

Basetrack was made possible with funding from the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Theater Project with lead funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and the Met Life Foundation

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