Theater: THE BUFFALO PLAY, at The Tank, NYC 2019

By Ciara Griffin and Kendra Mylnechuk Potter
Directed by Mason Wagner

In a small town jail cell just outside Yellowstone National Park, an east coast social justice worker awaits her arraignment. Her crime? “Calfnapping.” When she finds herself with a dead baby bison, its mother, and a local rancher as her cell mates, she’s forced to reckon with her worldview. In The Buffalo Play wildness takes over, women and buffalos dish on sex, guts become armor, and media is an unavoidable storm.  Inspired by true events, The Buffalo Play poses the question, "What kind of an idiot puts a baby bison in the back of their car?”

Starring Ciara Rose Griffin, Kendra Mylnechuk Potter, Sukha Belle Potter, and Jeremy Sher.

Installation Art by Liza Buzytsky
Media by Marshall Granger
Costume Design by Sarah Kelly
Dramaturgy by Kate Morris
Sound Design by Peter Musante
Lighting Design by Mason Wagner

Music: Contemporaneous and Projeto Arcomusical, at the Littlefield, Brooklyn May 18, 2019

Presented in association with Contemporaneous
Features two world premiere works by Elliot Cole and Ian Gottlieb

Contemporaneous is an ensemble of 22 musicians whose mission is to bring to life the music of the present. In this groundbreaking collaboration with berimbau sextet Projeto Arcomusical, disparate traditions of string instruments collide in an explosion of radical new music that draws from diverse traditions of ancient string instruments. The program builds a musical atlas of the ubiquitous and eclectic history of music for strings, from the kora to the harp to the cello to the berimbau.

In two world premiere works by Elliot Cole and Ian Gottlieb written for Contemporaneous and Arcomusical, the visionary composers reimagine the sound of the berimbau (the one-string Afro-Brazilian percussion instrument known for its use in capoeira) to stretch its expressive possibilities in a new context.

About the composer:
Projeto Arcomusical joins the ranks of the many outstanding chamber music ensembles in the United States that have worked closely with Chamber Music America to develop excellent new works of music via CMA’s Classical Commissioning Program. At our 2014 performance at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, we were fortunate to befriend Elliot Cole, who expressed a strong emotional response to our work. We will work with him over the coming season to create, “Roda,” a fifteen-minute work for berimbau sextet. Roda refers to Capoeira Angola, the Afro-Brazilian martial game that prominently features the berimbau. “Roda” means wheel and as such provides ample poetry and inspiration through not just the musical canon of capoeira but also its deliberate use of the term as a metaphor for the “wheel of life.” The decision to name the work is a nod of respect to this noble tradition. Indeed, Capoeira’s inclusion of the berimbau in its practice is, in fact, largely responsible for the instrument’s thriving culture today.

Contemporaneous: RODA | Trailer | End-of-year Campaign from Contemporaneous on Vimeo.

Film: WALKING ON WATER

Documentary film:

DIRECTED BY ANDREY PAOUNOV

Christo and his late wife/partner Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) created some of the most visually breathtaking art installations of the postwar era, including Running Fence in Sonoma and Marin counties (1976), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1995), and The Gates in Central Park (2005). The Floating Piers—an ambitious effort to create the effect of walking on water via a 3-kilometer walkway over Lake Iseo in Northern Italy—is Christo’s first large-scale project since Jeanne-Claude’s passing (the two conceived of the idea together). Filmmaker Andrey M Paounov has rare access to Christo’s process, from inception to completion of the installation: thorny negotiations with local government, engineering challenges, crowd control, logistical nightmares and the sheer force of nature, captured through breathtaking aerial views and fly-on-the-wall cameras.

Theater: Feral

Created by Tortoise in a Nutshell
An original co-production with Cumbernauld Theatre
Directed by Ross MacKay

With Alex Bird, Jim Harbourne, Arran Howie, and Matthew Leonard

Joe looks back at the town of his childhood. Bright, vibrant, and idyllic, the world resembles a haven of comfort. But as Joe journeys on, walls and lives are peeled back and the story of a community’s fall unfolds around him.

Feral is an innovative piece of visual theater that combines puppetry, film, and live sound to create and destroy a world in front of its audience’s eyes. Puppeteers manipulate and bring to life a tiny world, whilst simultaneously creating a live animation, as they follow its every breath via digital camera.

Theater: AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS at the New Vic, NYC 2019

The clock is ticking! With a fortune at stake, Phileas Fogg and his silly sidekick, Passepartout, must abandon the misty streets of Victorian London and circumnavigate the globe in just 80 days, or lose everything. Get swept up in the adventure as they race across Asia on the back of an elephant, speed by steamer ship over the stormy Pacific and ride the railroad through the American Wild West. Adapted by Laura Eason from Jules Verne's classic novel, this fast-paced, globe-trotting theatrical romp is jam-packed with slapstick hilarity and comic book-style action scenes. Hurry, there's no time to waste!

New Vic Theatre Staffordshire, Kenny Wax Family Entertainment and Simon Friend in association with Royal Exchange Theatre
From Newcastle-under-Lyme, England

Film: MEETING GORBACHEV

DIRECTED BY WERNER HERZOG AND ANDRÉ SINGER

“Here was a man who changed the course of the twentieth century and whose actions transformed the world I grew up in.” – Werner Herzog. Iconic filmmaker Werner Herzog (GRIZZLY MAN, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS) trains his camera and mellifluous narration on one of the greatest living politicians, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev – the visionary former General Secretary of the U.S.S.R. Now 87 and battling illness, Gorbachev is nonetheless wide-ranging and revealing in his interviews with Herzog, illuminating his experience in shaping the end of the Cold War (including the cessation of Soviet control of Eastern Europe), the reunification of Germany, and his negotiations with the U.S. to end nuclear proliferation. All of which he achieved in just six years. One diplomat sums up Gorbachev’s approach: “The process went so quickly that… opponents were overcome by the reality of the situation.”

UK / US / GERMANY   2018   91 MINS.

Courage! To The Field! by Else C. Went (after Shakespeare)

Courage! To The Field! by Else C. Went (after Shakespeare)
Directed by Emma Rosa Went

Courage! To The Field! is an alternate-history-play, a good old-fashioned party, and a story told with music. As brand new characters and old favorites alike bump up against the edges of Henry IV, Courage! frames a wild conversation with Shakespeare himself, in which unnamed messengers, vengeful tapsters, and neglected wives turn history inside-out and make it their own. With disguises, swordplay, romance, fiddles, hijinks, and more – history is theatre, and it belongs to everyone.

This workshop production of Courage! To The Field! is made possible in part through a Tim Bond Production Grant from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Courage! was originally written as an entry to the ASC Shakespeare's Contemporaries Project 2018, and was named a semi-finalist.

Creative Team

Else C. Went - Playwright
Emma Rosa Went - Director
Daniella Benavides - Producer
Isabel Smith-Bernstein - Dramaturg
Harrison Densmore - Assistant Director
Crystal Lee - Video Design
Dawn McGurl - Costume Design
Miranda Poett - Lighting Design
Angela Renzi - Production Stage Manager

Cast

Oivia Rose Barresi - Lady Kate Percy
Will Ormsby Cary - William/The Douglas
Gregory Cuellar* - Hal/Glendower
Jovan Davis - Hotspur
Charlie Hankin - Peto (The Fiddler)
Julia Larsen - Anne Frith
Andrea Lopez - Poins/Mistress Quickly/Lady Mortimer
Garrett Lyons - Francis/Mortimer
Matthew Minnicino - Flastaff/Worcester/Blunt

Courage! To the Field! is an Equity Approved Showcase

(*Equity Member appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association without benefit of an Equity contract in this Off-Off-Broadway production)