SITI Company Announces Additional Details for Finale 30th Anniversary Season

The award-winning Siti Company has announced additional details for its Finale 30th Anniversary Season. At the conclusion of the finale season in December 2022, Siti Company will cease to operate in its current iteration as a touring, teaching, performing ensemble with an administrative staff and a studio. The business entity that remains, SITI, Inc, will provide service to the field and function as a bridge between the legacy of SITI and new generations of ensembles for exploration of international artistic endeavors, and as a hub for archival inquiries, training inquiries and alumni support.

A centerpiece of the Finale 30th Anniversary Season is the revival of The Medium, Siti Company's first-ever devised work. A meditation on technology that's more resonant now than when it premiered in 1993, The Medium draws heavily on the writings of pioneering media theorist Marshall McLuhan, coiner of the phrases "the medium is the message" and "global village" to describe his visions of our interconnected future. Following recent sold-out engagements in Pittsburgh, Hanover, and at BAM in Brooklyn, The Medium will continue to tour the United States with performances on September 13 at Duke Performances in Durham, NC; September 17 at Musco Center for the Arts in Orange, CA; and November 12 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana, IL.

On October 19, Siti Company launches a New York radio play tour at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (October 19-22) with Radio Macbeth, Orson Welles' adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy set in an abandoned theatre at night. Then, from October 26 - November 5, Siti Company will present War of the Worlds - The Radio Play at the Laurie Beechman Theater in NYC. The production follows a manic Orson Welles as he orchestrates the Mercury Theatre's infamous radio production that caused widespread panic throughout the United States.

After fruitful work-in-progress performances in December 2021, Siti Company will return to the Fisher Center at Bard to premiere a new adaptation of Christmas Carol, inspired by Orson Welles's 1939 Christmas Eve radio show with Lionel Barrymore and by Dickens' own reading script. In an intimate re-telling, SITI conjures the ghosts of the past, present, and future to speak to our society's immediate need for gratitude, charity, fairness, justice, and equity. World premiere performances will be December 16-18, 2022.

In addition to these public performances, Siti Company will lead its final summer workshop with Skidmore College from June 12 - July 1. Sixty-two artists from 17 countries will be participating in this intensive online program that honors the past, celebrates the present, and lays groundwork for the future.

On Friday, June 17, Siti Company led one of the three plenaries at Theatre Communication Group's 2022 National Conference. Moderated by Jessica Hanna (SITI Board Chair), the lively conversation focused on what being an artist-driven ensemble means, what it needs to thrive, and how important a graceful ending is.

Following a two-year planning process that began in 2017, Siti Company determined that its mission was rooted in the passions of like-minded individual artists-its ensemble members-and not a larger self-sustaining institution. In early 2019, Siti Company members, board, and staff decided that shedding the constraints of an organization, such as an administrative staff and a physical office and studio, in favor of moving towards a more flexible configuration, was the organic next step. This would allow all stakeholders to move onto new projects in a healthy way. In the fall of 2020, Siti Company announced the SITI Legacy Plan, which includes the finale 30th anniversary season and the creation of a robust physical and digital archive. All of these activities are currently underway thanks to generous funding from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Community Trust, New York City Department of Culture Affairs in partnership with City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts.

"The question that we asked was, are we an institution that continues on indefinitely, or are we a group of artists who circled around one another thirty years ago and then stayed together based upon a shared vision about collaborative creation?" said Anne Bogart, Co-Artistic Director of Siti Company. "After much consideration, it became clear that we are a specific group of likeminded artists moving through time and space together. And now, here we are, taking our next step, but united in our intention to help others to carry the tradition forwards, each in their own fashion."

Please visit www.siti.org for more information.

About Siti Company

Siti Company was founded in 1992 by Tadashi Suzuki, Anne Bogart, and a group of like-minded artists interested in revitalizing and redefining contemporary theater in the United States through international cultural exchange, creation of new work, and the training of theater artists. Originally envisioned as the Saratoga International Theater Institute (SITI) in Saratoga Springs, NY, SITI quickly established itself in New York City and expanded to encompass a year-round season inclusive of creating new work, touring, and training programs to cultivate the next generation of independent theater artists. The Company is known nationally and internationally as a top-level artistic ensemble that generates groundbreaking theater. Siti Company is Akiko Aizawa, J.Ed Araiza, Anne Bogart, Will Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Leon Ingulsrud, Ellen Lauren, Ellen M. Lavaia, Kelly Maurer, Charles L. Mee, Barney O'Hanlon, Neil Patel, James Schuette, Brian H Scott, Samuel Stricklen, Stephen Duff Webber, and Darron L West. Former company members include Susan Hightower, Jefferson Mays, Elizabeth Moreau, Tom Nelis, KJ Sanchez, and Megan Wanlass.

Siti Company was built on the bedrock of ensemble. They believe that through the practice of collaboration, a group of artists committed to working together over time can have a significant impact on both contemporary theater and the world at large. Through performances, educational programs, and collaborations with other artists and thinkers, SITI continues to challenge the status quo, to train, and to achieve artistic excellence in every aspect of their work, and to offer new ways of seeing and of being as both artists and as global citizens.

SITI is deeply committed to the training and development of young and emerging artists as well as a continuing dialogue with established artists. SITI has redefined contemporary theater in the US through innovative approaches to actor training, collaboration and cultural exchange. Mary Overlie's Viewpoint work deeply influenced Anne Bogart and the Company continues to teach an evolving form of Viewpoints, inspired, informed and rooted in Overlie's work. The world renowned director Tadashi Suzuki was instrumental in the founding of Siti Company and continues to support SITI's work and teaching. The direct lineage of SITI's training with these pioneers has made Company members uniquely qualified to introduce artists to both of these essential and innovative techniques for nearly thirty years.

SITI has traveled to 27 countries on 5 continents and created nearly 50 productions, which have been presented at venues across the world. Widely known for highly innovative, physical productions that have ranged from new plays to original devised pieces to reinventions of classics, SITI has expanded the meaning of collaboration by creating work with Rachel's, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Ann Hamilton, Julia Wolfe and the Bang on A Can All Stars, and STREB Extreme Action.

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