IPA Spring 2015 Newsletter by Institute of Performing Arts

Tisch School of the Arts

SPRING 2015 NEWSLETTER

Welcome to the second IPA newsletter! The Institute of Performing Arts at Tisch School of the Arts includes the Department of Dance, Design for Stage and Film, Graduate Acting, Department of Drama, Graduate Musical Theatre Writing, Graduate Theatre Production and Department of Performance Studies. We are also working closely with Open Arts and Art & Public Policy. Chairs, Associate Chairs, faculty and students from these departments are meeting on a regular basis and sharing concerns, ideas and plans for the future. The IPA was formed under Dean Allyson Green during her tenure as Associate Dean of the Institute of Performing Arts and is now being led by Sarah Schlesinger. This newsletter highlights events sponsored by IPA and significant happenings in each of our Departments. What we’re able to share here represents only a small portion of the exciting work that is going on in all corners of the IPA in both our conservatory and academic programs. Our IPA office is in Room 267 at 715 Broadway, Second Floor. It is being run by Hali Alspach and her office hours 9:00am-‐5:00pm, Monday through Friday. Julianne Wick Davis is the Program Coordinator and can be reached at 212-‐992-‐9322. Sarah Schlesinger can be reached at ss4@nyu.edu. We’re anxious to hear your ideas for collaborative programming, events etc., so feel free to contact us at any time. Sarah Schlesinger Associate Dean, IPA

-‐IPA Department Highlights-‐

Art & Public Policy

‘Inaugural’ by Kathy Engel

March 8, 2015 by Women's Voices For Change

Americans participating in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965. Photo by Peter Pettus (Source: Wikimedia Commons) In his recent Oscar acceptance speech for “Best Original Song,” John Legend, who co-‐wrote “Glory” for the film Selma, poignantly reminded us: “Selma is now. The struggle for justice is now.” From the tears on the faces in the room that night, there seemed to be a collective agreement that we, as a nation, are at a crossroads. Art & Public Policy Chair, Kathy Engel, marched with thousands to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery that sparked the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Engel generously shares “Inaugural” on this date as a call to action and as a guiding light as we, in our own lives, fight our battles—both

personal and political. Her words impress upon us the urgency of “now” as the time “to be brave, to build, and to lie down in the street for justice.”

Inaugural

Now is the time to be generous, now is the time to be brave and patient to watch how the dove tails up, blinks, sits tight over invisible eggs. Now is the time to protect, a time to risk, now is the time to mother to become curious, now is the time to father the time to be a child and hear the world’s breath striped as a zebra, now is the time to caulk blood and worship water. Now is the time to build to speckle and spackle enough love to keep the species all the species going, now is the time to listen to a porcupine follow a lizard, now is the time to undress now is the time to redress dance to the music of our youth as if we’re still young accepting our turtle bodies. Now is the time to hear our children’s music. Now is the time to grow garlic and give it away, to see time as a lover, acrobatic, responsive, torso familiar as a soft vowel. Now is the time to remember when you were an animal lying in a field in the warm horse snort, newly cut grass turning to hay. Now is still the time to lie down in the street for justice and also construct new consonants out of carrots, cement, unknown

particles, and compassion, shielding that word in the body as the closest companion, the time to build windows ushering edible light and to mirror the bonobo. Now is the time to knock on the door of a neighbor whose mouth and hands you’ve never studied as she speaks her map of days from the corners of her mouth to the opening of her palm a time to inhale the swallows’ cacophony in treetops and imagine the listening of a whole world.

One-‐Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Works

The 60 panels by the brilliant artist Jacob Lawrence -‐ in 1941 chronicles through text and paint the Black Migration is an incredible extraordinary work of art. The 60 panels are together at MOMA for the first time in many years -‐ and we as artists will view, discuss and consider the artist as historical recorder. Museum of Modern

Karen Finley conducted a workshop utilizing the museum as a research tool and as a source of inspiration for artists. The session included a discussion and reflection on One-‐Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Works in order to think deeply about aesthetics and cultural movements in artistic social activism. Using background readings and close reading, participants uncovered strategies of Lawrence’s works and other works in the exhibit and formulated artistic proposals for their own creative production.

Art & Public Policy Highlights

The family of our beloved Randy Martin has established, with the Tisch School of the Arts/NYU and our APP Department, The Randy Martin Scholarship Fund to support students in the Arts Politics Masters Program. "Knowledge Carnival," curated by Leonie Ettinger, a Masters candidate in Performance Studies at Tisch, was a program inspired by Wilson's body of work and the myriad experimental performances embedded in Franklin Furnace's history. Participating APP students Nada Azem, Tian Tang, Daniela Tenhamm-‐Tejos, and Zhi Yang performed original works on themes ranging from the hypocrisy of the American immigration system to the materiality of the female body compared to paper. Class of 2015 students Jana L. Pickart and Daniela Tenhamm-‐Tejos were key members of a project team, funded by a grant from the Tisch Graduate Student Organization, along with Ansh Patel in Game Design and Francisco Ramirez from ITP. The team's multimedia performance "(Re)Sounding the City" was shown on April 24th and May 1st. "(Re)Sounding the City" explores the relationship between spoken word, body language, and artificial computer landscapes to open up a dialogue with the audience about the subtle ways in which our minds and bodies react to the overwhelming urban soundscape. The performance crosses boundaries between new media, poetry, and dance, and presents an unexpected solution to the problem of social control in the city.

Dance This year the 4th Annual NYU Tisch Dance and New Media Festival developed into a two day event and featured guest artists, Bridgman|Packer Dance. Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer have a long history of integrating live performance and video technology. The festival kicked off with a Dance/Film Festival the first evening and was followed by workshop for NYU students by the guest artists the next day. The festival was held in the historic Studio 1 at 111 Second Avenue, housed in the Dance Department. Studio 1, built for innovation, is a space designed for film and multimedia classes — or performances. It can be a black box on four sides, a wrapped green-‐screen, multi-‐side projection surface, or a mirrored studio. It has networked and interactive equipment, and studio lighting. This summer, Tisch Dance adds to its versatility and is installing a motion capture camera system. Friday Evening Film Festival: Friday evening, April 17, The Dance/Film Festival showed works by students and alumni from Tisch Dance and New Media, as well as from other universities that have Dance/Film programs. The Friday night presentation was curated by Director of Dance and New Media, Paul Galando. The Tisch Dance and New Media Program teaches students the importance of partnering with other media artists and institutions. This year Galando collaborated with several other university professors and invited them to submit their own and their students’ works for screening. Stanford University Prof. Alex Ketly’s film AXIS was screened along with another film with students of his class. Victoria Franzetti and Megan Gesick, Prof. Kathleen Kelly’s Montclair students, had the opportunity to premiere their film, Malice. Blank, a student work by Jaad Asante, was also featured thanks to the submission by Prof. Sarah Drury of Temple University.

At the festival, along with the screening of Erin Bomboy’s film featuring Arturo Vidich, this MFA alum and The Dance Enthusiast writer and media producer, spoke about the importance of her studying digital media in a discussion format with the audience. Also screened were these films: I Was Within by MFA alum Jenny Stulberg, Boom Box by MFA alum Dana Katz, Grounded (Calm Your Mind) by MFA alums Jennifer Edwards and Sydney Skybetter, What if All Dreams by Chihiro Shimizu, Contemporary Swing and Strip Tease (commercial filmed in Studio 1) both by MFA alum Mary John Frank, Last Stop by MFA alum Carol Mendes, a student film by current second year MFA Matthew James, Atlantic by current first year MFA student Angie Conte, and NYU’s Let’s Move! a short film by MFA alum Callie Lyons in collaboration with her classmates featuring a photo shoot by guest artist Lois Greenfield Workshop and Student Showing: Saturday, April 18, 9:30 am-‐12:00 pm: The Live Performance and Video Technology Workshop with Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer was a hit with the students. Prof. William Moulton curated the day and evening festivities. The workshop was open to student dancers or interested student media and film artists. It included students from Tisch Dance, ITP, Film, and various media artists from around the world. The workshop examined the relationship of video and live performance from a choreographic point of view. It explored how video technology can become an integral part of the performance and the creative process; how it can offer a vital layering element in choreographic composition; and how it can add depth to the realization of the choreographic intent. In the workshop students experimented with several camera angles, pre-‐recorded video, and some live processing, with emphasis on the interaction between the live performance and the video projections. The workshop was followed by a demonstration of students’ works-‐in-‐progress from their semesters’ Digital Performance class taught by professors Jamie Jewitt and R. Luke

DuBois. Afterwards, the students had an opportunity to share and discuss their performances with Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, who gave insight toward a larger ongoing discussion about new directions in the field.

Bridgman|Packer Dance Performance: The festival closed with a sold-‐out interactive performance by Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer of Bridgman|Packer Dance including UNDER THE SKIN and a new Work-‐in-‐Progress. The Fourth Annual Tisch Dance and New Media Festival was supported by funds from The Tisch Institute of Performing Arts.

Faculty and Student Updates

Department Chair, Sean Curran just directed and choreographed a production of “The Daughter of the Regiment” for Pittsburgh Opera (Stage director Sean Curran created this hilarious production for Opera Theatre of St. Louis. A dancer and choreographer, Curran’s approach draws upon American musical theater, which is part of the same theatrical line with French operetta.) This summer he will be choreographing “La Rondine”, “Emmaline” and “Richard the Lionheart” at the Opera Theater of St Louis. Graduating BFA Seniors going to professional dance companies: Jacoby Pruitt -‐ Alvin Ailey 2 Dance Company Vinson Fraley -‐ Kyle Abraham's Abraham In Motion Stephanie Troyak -‐ Batsheve Dance Ensemble Joey Giordano -‐ Liz Gerring Dance Company MFA Graduate, Patrick Corbin has been hired by the University of Southern California, Gloria Kaufman School of Dance as a new faculty member.

Design for Stage and Film Congratulations to Design for Stage and Film Department Alumni and Faculty Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominees! 69th Annual Tony Award nominees: Best Costume Design of a Play: David Zinn, Alumnus ‘91, Airline Highway Best Scenic Design of a Musical: David Zinn, Alumnus ‘91, Fun Home Best Costume Design of a Musical: Gregg Barnes, Alumnus '83, Something Rotten 60th Annual Drama Desk Award nominees: Outstanding Set Design: Christine Jones, Alumna '92 and Adjunct Faculty Member, Let The Right One In Mimi Lien, Alumna '03, An Octoroon Daniel Zimmerman, Alumnus '08, Fashions for Men Outstanding Costume Design: Paul Tazewell, Alumnus '89, Hamilton Outstanding Projection Design: Roger Hanna, Alumnus '91, Donogoo Darrel Maloney, Alumnus '92, Found Peter Nigrini, Adjunct Faculty Member, Our Lady of Kibeho

Drama

Drama Students Present Scholarship at the Comparative Drama Conference

During the 2014-‐15 academic year, the Department of Drama celebrated the 17th year of its Honors Program. The program is the longest-‐standing departmental academic honors program at the Tisch School of the Arts. In their third semester at NYU, Drama majors are given the opportunity to apply to either sophomores only or advanced level seminars. Full time faculty evaluates the materials submitted by applicants for places in the fifteen-‐person seminars. Placement is highly competitive. If students take two seminars (with a B+ or above grade average), they may choose to write a thesis, mentored by a full time faculty member. If the thesis is successfully completed, the student receives the Honors Certificate from the Department of Drama in the year of her/his graduation at the annual Drama Awards ceremony in May. Past recipients of the certificate have gone on to a wide range of professional careers from starring on Broadway and television, to performing across the US in a variety of performance opportunities, to starting their own theatre companies, to directing highly regarded productions, to pursuing MFA, PhD, and law degrees, and to producing works that are shaping our theatres of tomorrow. With generous support from the Office of Dean Green, six current drama Honors Program students presented their scholarship at the 39th annual Comparative Drama Conference (CDC) in Baltimore at the end of March 2015. This event is noteworthy because rarely is undergraduate scholarship, if ever, accepted for presentation at national conventions, which are primarily geared for showcasing the research of professors and graduate students. NYU’s students attended two days of the conference, sitting in on various panels and plenary sessions that featured scholars from across the globe. Outside the conference venue, they engaged in conversations with their faculty host, Bob Vorlicky, a former coordinator of the Honors Program; these conversations focused on the variety and quality of the research presented and how their insights informed their own sense of scholarship—as well as their own growing awareness of the dynamic relationship between research and practice. Every student who presented at the CDC had either finished her/his thesis or will have completed the thesis by the end of Spring 2015. Those presenting excerpts of their research on the panel, “Future Scholars: The Undergraduate Theatre Studies Honors Program at NYU,” were Ethan Abramson, “Divine Neglect?: The Absence of Religious Critique in U.S. Theatre”; Katherine Banos, “Denial, Absence, and Terror: The Transition into Post-‐ With support from Dean Green, students 9/11 Performance”; Michelle Nicole Brady Davis, “The in the Department of Drama’s Honors Intermediacy of Double Consciousness: From Slavery to Program presented excerpts of their the ‘Here and Now’ on the U.S. Stage”; Taylor Edelhart, research at the annual Comparative “The Netflix Dance: Digital Nativity, Physical Agency, and Drama Conference in Baltimore. the Challenges of Spectatorship”; Cassidy Graves, Undergraduate scholarship is rarely “Performing the Sexual Taboo in New York: Onstage, accepted for presentation at national Online, and Beyond the Proscenium”; and Ilana Khanin, conventions.

“Systems in/of/as Performance: Uncovering the Authentic in a Post-‐Postmodern Age.” Congratulations to these students who were exemplary representatives of the Department of Drama’s Honors Program at this public, international meeting of theatre scholars and practitioners in higher education.

Drama “Connects” with High School Theatre Artists

This February, the Department of Drama’s Future Theatre Artists Program began its second exhilarating year. The free course is made available to New York-‐area high school students enrolled in their freshman, sophomore, or junior years. Out of a pool of thirty-‐five applicants, fifteen students were selected to participate. Throughout the spring, they’ve come together weekly to study performance skills and explore the collaborative nature of theatre. This year students have traveled from as far way as Rochester, New York. Future Theatre Artists is facilitated by Drama Faculty and guided by staff, alumni, and current upper-‐level students. The program is dedicated to developing the mind, body, voice, and spirit of the young artists, encouraging them to experience the potential influence of the live performer. Each Saturday, the young artists focus on different areas of theatre making. Drama faculty, Nathan Flower teaches a class in physical technique for actors. It focuses on movement design, flexibility, cultivating physical impulses, and generating ensemble collaboration practice. Assisted by Drama alumna Michelle Uranowitz (’12), Flower instructs the teenagers to form choreographic duets and trios that will be shared on the final day of the program. “The students are learning how to be connected and responsive to each other physically,” explains Flower. “They’re understanding how to be open and available and comfortable with their spontaneity.” In another course, students were asked to integrate personal stories into acting exercises in order to craft a dramatic monologue. They also explored character intentions and discussed the differences between monologues and soliloquies. The program provides emerging theatre artists a variety of skills to realize the dynamics of live theatre. “We hope the young students will begin to develop a community of artists that helps them to create deep and meaningful relationships throughout their college selection process and beyond,” said Kenneth Noel Mitchell, the Department of Drama’s Associate Chair for External Outreach and Administration. “The Future Theatre Artists program will help them to connect and network with groups at Tisch Drama, High school students listen as Drama’s Nathan including alumni, faculty, and potentially future Flower explains physical technique for actors. classmates.”

Students in Drama’s Future Theatre Artists Program practice movement styles.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Visits Drama

On March 26th, some fifty Drama students joined the producing team of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical for a panel discussion about the Tony Award nominee for Best Musical. The Drama Department’s career development team and the Broadway Speakers Bureau, a Broadway League program that shares information about non-‐performance careers and internships in the commercial theatre, organized the event. The panel included the production’s lead producer, general manager, digital marketing and advertising agents. Students were riveted as the group discussed the musical’s creative development, its business and operating models, the marketing strategy for building an audience, and their career paths.

Department of Drama Faculty Highlights

Gwendolyn Alker will be taking over as Editor of Theatre Topics in August. As Co-‐Editor of the journal, she is currently working on a special issue, titled, “Theatre and/as Education,” which will examine the interdisciplinary histories of theatre and pedagogy. The issue will be published in the Fall of 2015. Jason Ardizzone-‐West is designing the set for the national tour of Bullets Over Broadway. The tour will open in Cleveland, Ohio in October 2015.mp Sebastián Calderón Bentin organized INTEROCEANIC: ISTHMUS | ZONE | CANAL, an interdisciplinary conference on the cultural politics of the Panama Canal in collaboration with Performance Studies international (PSi). In the spring he presented papers as part of the Laboratory Theater Network Conference in Falmouth (UK) and the Performance Philosophy Conference in Chicago, IL. He also presented a work-‐in-‐progress of his upcoming theater piece Abaddon at HERE Arts Center in New York City. Una Chaudhuri’s stage adaptation of J.M.Coetzee’s novella The Lives of Animals, (co-‐adapted with Gabrielle Cody), received a professional reading in December 2014. Kathleen Chalfant read the role of Elizabeth Costello. In March 2015, Una and Marina Zurkow organized a presentation/workshop of the collaborative creative project, Dear Climate. The event took place at NYU-‐Abu Dhabi and was sponsored by the group Ecoherence. Chris Jaehnig, Associate Arts Professor and Director of the Production and Design Studio, traveled to Prague in March and met with the Artistic Director of the 2015 Prague Quadrennial, the Director of Laterna Magika at the Czech National Theatre as well as the Director of Scenography at DAMU. He also toured the preserved 18th Century Baroque Theater at Český Krumlov, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Carol Martin was an invited Keynote Speaker at the “Rethinking Political Theatre in the West” Conference at Tel Aviv University, March 2015; she published “The Real and its Outliers” in Theatre Journal, March 2015; and she was a guest editor on a special TDR entitled “Performing the City” (T223) Fall 2014. Mary Overlie taught a Viewpoints master workshop at Scoa Dimitri in Switzerland. The famous Swiss clown, Dimitri, founded the school. Louis Scheeder, Arts Professor and Director of The Classical Studio, taught at the Shanghai Theater Academy's Winter Institute. He led an ensemble of students in an exploration of scenes from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Along with fellow faculty member Shanga Parker, he also conducted a workshop for students at NYU Shanghai. This summer, he will work in London with The Factory on Measure for Measure and teach at The Huntington Library in their "Shakespeare for Teachers" program.

Graduate Acting

Show Goes On

BY LAURENCE MASLON Originally published in “The New Yorker” on April 13th, 2015 In the third act of Chekhov’s 1901 masterpiece, “Three Sisters,” a character looks out a window at the aftermath of a terrible fire and says, “Completely wiped out—everything burned to the ground.” Two Thursdays ago, a little after 3 P.M., the third-‐year students of N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts graduate acting program were rehearsing that scene at their theatre space, on Second Avenue at Sixth Street. There were five hours to go before the opening-‐night performance. Suddenly, the building shook. A half block north, an explosion had occurred, igniting a conflagration that immediately brought down two buildings. In the Chekhov play, the weary Prozorov sisters and their soldierly comrades scramble to salvage what they can of their house and to aid the dispossessed. That afternoon, there was a similar kind of scramble. Forced by the city to hastily evacuate 111 Second Avenue, the actors, the crew, the designers, and the director—Graduate Acting Chair Mark Wing-‐Davey—trudged to their classroom facilities, at 721 Broadway, to regroup; their opening night would have to be cancelled. Brian Bock, who played Colonel Vershinin, the battery commander, said, “Some of us were stiff-‐upper-‐ lipped; some were hysterically upset. The rest were in denial. We either felt sad or felt guilty for feeling sad.” Carlos Dengler, another of the actors, said he noticed “that 9/11 smell in Irina is given a little spinning top for her birthday in 1901. the air.” The students had been workshopping “Three Sisters” for three years. They had initially rehearsed the play as a classroom project; the next year, they filmed parts of it. The version set to open on the night of the explosion was actually one of two separate full productions in repertory: one set in 1901, the other set in 1988, during the waning days of glasnost. The students played different roles in each version. Friday brought no better news for the cast: the city had cordoned off Second Avenue—there would be no access to the theatre, nor to the costumes, the set, the makeup, or the props. Wing-‐ Davey decided that the show must go on. “Everyone wanted to embrace that mentality,” Christopher Metzger, the costume designer, said. “But no one was quite sure how to do that.”

At 721 Broadway, the “Three Sisters” cast commandeered a half-‐ constructed set that was being used for another school production. They held a quick rehearsal to reblock and re-‐cue the play. A rudimentary light plot was rigged. Street clothes replaced period costumes. The props—so important in Chekhov— were locked away on Second Avenue, so the cast improvised: an Aeron chair became a perambulator, yoga mats Irina is given a big spinning top (like a Soviet Spacecraft) for became couches, a push broom her birthday in 1988. became a nineteenth-‐century camera tripod. A gunshot—essential to the plot—was produced by slamming two yoga blocks together offstage. Survival instincts got the actors through Friday night’s performance of the 1988 version in the makeshift space. But there were four more performances scheduled for the weekend, to be attended by friends, relatives, and industry scouts. Might the troupe be able to return to Second Avenue? The city stood firm: no access, not even to fetch props and costumes. A Saturday-‐ morning guerrilla run-‐through was called for the 1901 version; Metzger ransacked the N.Y.U. costume closets for period-‐appropriate clothing. Rehearsal ended at 1 P.M.; the matinée started at 2. Wing-‐Davey made a curtain speech before each of the four performances: “There will be some minimal lighting, clothes, and sound. Nonetheless, the essential flavor and characteristics of the production will be discernible. But this will be the most dramatic performance of all, because it really involves your imagination.” The houses were packed, and each performance received a standing ovation. “This must have been what it was like to put up a play during some kind of wartime disaster in Europe,” Dengler said. Four days after the explosion, the police allowed the company back into its space on Second Avenue. I.D.s had to be shown at the barricades. It was a sombre homecoming. Only the day before, the remains of two victims of the explosion had been recovered. Emma Duncan, who is from suburban Chicago and played the youngest sister, Irina, said, “Second Avenue has been our neighborhood during our training here. When something like this happens in your home, and you’re telling a story about your home, the air changes.” The students were able to stage the last three performances of “Three Sisters” on their own set, with the original props and costumes. At the final performance of the 1988 version, Colonel Vershinin, covered in soot, sank into a sofa (an actual one, this time) and said, with a sigh, “If not for my men, the whole town would have burned down.” A fire-‐engine siren wailed. It was hard to tell whether it was a sound cue. ♦

The soldiers dance in 1901.

The soldiers dance in 1988.

Alumni Update

Arielle Goldman, Grad Acting '14; cast in Cinemax's "The Knick". Ryan-‐James Hatanaka, Grad Acting '14; was on Broadway in "Big Love". Rodney Richardson, Grad Acting '15; has been cast in "The Tempest" this summer in Shakespeare in the Park. Associate Chair, Larry Maslon's published essay in the New Yorker, "Show Goes On," details the current 3rd year class and their production of Three Sisters during the 2nd Avenue explosion.

Graduate Musical Theatre Writing

Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program Alumnus Wins Kleban Award

Sam Carner, a Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program alumnus has been named one of two 2015 winners of the Kleban Prize, the big-‐league musical theater awards honoring promising lyricists and book writers. Carner was awarded the prize for promising book writer. Each award, established under the will of “A Chorus Line” lyricist Edward L. Kleban, totals $100,000, paid out over two years. Over its 25 year lifespan, the Kleban has pointed the theater industry toward up-‐and-‐comers who have gone on to have significant success on Broadway and elsewhere, with Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”), Jason Robert Brown (“The Last Five Years,” “Honeymoon in Vegas”)and Glenn Slater (“Galavant,” the upcoming “School of Rock” musical) among those writers singled out early in their careers. Carner, who has taught at Yale and New York University, has co-‐written musicals including “Unlock’d,” a New York Musical Theater Festival award winner, and “Island Song.” The final selections for this year’s winners were made by a trio of judges that included actress Kerry Butler (“Clinton the Musical”), Wiley Hausam of Stanford University, and composer David Shire (“Baby,” “Big”). The Kleban Foundation will present the 2015 awards to Carner in a private ceremony at ASCAP, which hosts the event with BMI.

Cycle 22 Alum Wins Jonathan Larson Grant In March, the American Theatre Wing announced that composer/lyricist Max Vernon (Cycle 22) is one of the recipients of the 2015 Jonathan Larson Grant. Vernon will receive $10,000 and two evenings of performances at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. The performances will be in the fall of 2015 and the winter/spring of 2016 as part of Adelphi’s Larson Legacy Concert Series. This year’s grant recipients were chosen by Amanda Green, Steven Lutvak (Cycle 1), and Ted Chapin.

Cycle 23 Alum Wins Richard Rodgers Award

String, Book by Sarah Hammond (Cycle 23), Music and Lyrics by Adam Gwon, has been awarded the 2015 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater. The intent of the Richard Rodgers Award is to nurture talented composers and playwrights by producing their musicals in New York City. Former award recipients include Maury Yeston, Jonathan Larson, Jeanine Tesori, and Doug Wright. String is a modern-‐day twist on the story of the three Greek Fates: Atropos, Lachesis, and Clotho. It was awarded a Studio Production.

GMTWP Alumni on Broadway Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program alums, Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen, will be opening their new musical Tuck Everlasting on Broadway at the Shubert Theater in April of 2016. Tony winner Casey Nicholaw directs and choreographs. Featuring music by Miller, lyrics by Tysen, the a book by Claudia Shear, this adaptation of Babbitt’s bestselling and award-‐winning novel had its world premiere at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia in early 2015.

Open Arts & Special Programs

Study Abroad: Berlin – What’s It All About? February 25, 2015 by Jack Serio An interview with Max Nova who teaches Live Video Performance Art in Berlin, to learn a little bit more about the program and what multimedia art is. Can you tell us a little about yourself and what you do at NYU? I am a video artist, and I run a production company / art collective in Brooklyn called Dawn Of Man. I’m an alum of Tisch UGFTV, and 4 years ago I wrote a course called “Live Video Performance Art,” based on my experience creating artwork in the music and event industries. The course is currently offered as an Open Arts course in Spring. This year will mark the first time my course is offered as part of a study abroad program, and will be my first chance to travel to Germany! In short, why Berlin? Students traveling to Berlin will have the amazing opportunity to experiment with live video mixing and projection mapping technology in one of the world’s hot spots for multi-‐media art. Who is this program for? This program is for artists of all kinds, especially those interested in installation and video art. A prior basic understanding of video editing will be very beneficial for anyone in this course. Talk to me a little about Multimedia Art, a relatively new field of study, what will students be learning in Berlin? The two courses in the multi media program are my course, “Live Video Performance Art,” as well as another course called “Creative Computing.” This is a stellar combination that will give students a well rounded view of the history of the experimental moving images as it relates to contemporary multimedia art, as well as training in a plethora of new technical skills, including projection technology, VJ and projection mapping software, as well as basics in computer programing. What else will students have a chance to do in Berlin while they’re there? One of the most exciting parts of this program will be the opportunity to participate in a large-‐ scale projection mapping installation at the St. Agnes, a gorgeous building on the NYU campus in Berlin.

Tisch Open Arts Faculty News Tisch Open Arts faculty are often part of some exciting projects and are celebrated for their commitment to their community. Here’s the latest:

Aviva Slesin

Aviva Slesin will be one of the award-‐winning filmmakers participating in Whose Story Is it? Perspectives in/on Documentary Storytelling. The event is sponsored by the Visual Arts Initiative, NYU Arts Council. The keynote speaker is Cynthia López, Commissioner, New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. Aviva Slesin is collaborating on this conversation about diverse documentary initiatives with Pegi Vail from the Center for Media, Culture and History and the Program in Culture and Media at the Graduate School of Arts and Science; Marcia Rock from NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, Graduate School of Arts and Science; and Marco Williams from the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, Tisch School of the Arts. For event details, please visit the NYU Center for Media, Culture and History. Aviva Slesin teaches the following courses in Tisch Open Arts: Master Class in Documentary: Director’s Series, Through the Documentary Lens: Civil Rights, Through the Documentary Lens: Contemporary Art, and Through the Documentary Lens: Human Rights. Patricia Hall The Barclays Center is honoring Patricia Hall as a Black History Month honoree for her contributions to the people of and her service in the borough of Brooklyn, and Black and American History. She is part of Barclays’ first Black History Month Calendar. Patricia Hall teaches Steps, Rhythm, and Movement: African Dance in Tisch Open Arts. Alan Watson Alan Watson is a choreographer and lead dancer with PMT Dance Company. In February, he was part of a secret flash mob proposal for Valentine’s Day. As Alan told us, “Basically the entire concept was to trick one of our dancers in the PMT Dance Company that we got a gig doing a normal flashmob on the show. Little did she know, we created a fake ending, and rehearsed the real thing with her boyfriend in Alan Watson teaches Steps, Rhythm, and secret. She had no idea that her boyfriend joins us at Movement: Hip-‐Hop Dance in Tisch Open Arts. the end and gets down on one knee.” It turns out the couple met at the PMT Dance Studio six years ago and have danced at the studio ever since.

Performance Studies The Department of Performance Studies is delighted to welcome our new full-‐time faculty members, Alexandra Vazquez and Malik Gaines, to a community committed to excellence in scholarship, research and teaching.

Institute of Performing Arts The IPA Student Council

The Institute of Performing Arts has formed a student council to assist in communications between departments and to foster cross-‐departmental events. The IPA Student Council met four times during the 2015 spring semester and created the IPA Student Grants to be given out in the Fall 2016 Semester and began to plan events for Welcome Week and next semester to foster a larger sense of community and creativity between the Tisch Departments! Art and Public Policy -‐Anastasia Myasnikova Dance -‐ Dimitri C Kalaitzidis Drama Meisner -‐Katherine Schneider Experimental Theatre Wing -‐Patrick Connor Sweeney New Studio on Broadway -‐Ysabel Jasa Design for Stage and Film -‐Oona Curley Graduate Acting -‐Margret Odette Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program -‐Laura Barati -‐Deepali Gupta Performance Studies -‐Kiran Rajagopalan

Events Sponsored by IPA

February 2015 -‐Performance Studies took 12 students to see “All Our Happy Days Are Stupid” at The Kitchen. -‐Art & Public Policy took 19 students to see “Ronald K. Brown/Evidence” at The Joyce March 2015 -‐ Design for Stage & Film took 39 students to see “The Events” at New York Theatre Work Shop. -‐Design for Stage & Film and Performance Studies took collectively 12 students to Soho Rep’s “An Octoroon” at Theatre for a New a New Audience. April 2015 -‐Undergraduate Drama took 24 students to see “Betsy!” The Appalachian-‐Puerto Rican Musical at

Pregones Theater. -‐Graduate Acting took 20 students to see The Wooster Group’s “Cry, Trojans!” at St. Ann’s Warehouse. -‐Undergraduate Drama took 32 tickets to see “Dr. Zhivago” at The Broadway Theatre. -‐The Department of Dance took 25 students to see “American in Paris” at the Palace Theatre. -‐Undergraduate Drama took 21 students to see “The King & I” at Lincoln Center May 2015 -‐Graduate Acting and Design for Stage & Film took collectively 35 students to “Forever” at New York Theatre Workshop. -‐Graduate Acting took 14 students to “Iowa” at Playwright Horizons.

Art and Public Policy faculty and students gather to see Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE perform a 30-‐year retrospective at the Joyce.

Institute of Performing Arts Library

In March 2015, the Institute of Performing Arts started purchasing books that have been written by an IPA faculty, staff or alumni. The collection also includes plays in which a faculty, staff or alumni was a member of the 1st production publication. Our growing library currently holds 30 books and plays.

Guest Artists Sponsored by IPA

Alexis DeVeaux

On April 9th, 2015, Art & Public Policy, supported by

Tisch’s Institute of Performing Arts, presented an ArtShop with Alexis DeVeaux, an award winning author and 2015 Lambda Literary Award nominee for “YABO”. Alexis De Veaux was born and raised in Harlem, the product of two merging streams of black history in New York City–immigrants from the Caribbean on her mother’s side and migrants from North Carolina on her father’s side. In the early 1970s she joined the writer’s workshop of the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in Harlem. The workshop was run by the late writer Fred Hudson. Under his guidance she won first place in a national black fiction writers’ contest (1972); published her first children’s book, Na-‐ni (1973); and the fictionalized memoir, Spirits in the Street (1973). By the end of the 1970s, Alexis’s reputation as a writer bridged multiple genres: fiction, children’s literature, playwriting and poetry. Today, Alexis is a celebrated writer and activist recognized for her lifelong contributions to a number of women’s and literary organizations. She has collaborated with the visual artist Valerie Maynard and poet Kathy Engel on the digital project, “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been Terrorized?”(available on YouTube); and co-‐founded with Kathy Engel, Lyrical Democracies

(www.lyricaldemocracies.com), a cultural partnership aimed at communities interested in working with poets to enhance existing social projects. "The brilliance of Alexis De Veaux's ArtShop is that the experience sat at the intersection of play, imagination and memory as she guided us through her stories of home. The ArtShop was a space to touch, ask, listen and most importantly a space to un apologetically feel. I'm thankful for my time with her. I am a better artist, activist and scholar when I have non linear spaces that give me permission to bring my full self to our community." Jamara Mychelle Wakefield Performance Studies, Class of 2015

Nathalie Handal In Kathy Engel's "Language as Action" Class, sponsored by Tisch’s Institute of Performing Arts and Art & Public Policy, Palestinian poet, playwright, journalist, Nathalie Handal shared the process of creating her new book "The Republics", based on her 2010 post earthquake trip to Haiti, where she spent her early childhood. She worked with an independent study graduate student from Arts Politics and also offered her poetry in Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program's Black Box Theater. Here is the response of Art & Public Policy adjunct professor Adonis Volanakis regarding the poetry reading and discussion: "What an enchanting night! Nathalie Handal vocalized a journey in an archipelago of sensorial, embodied memory of and for the future already past. Her book, The Republics, is a handcrafted boat, which hops on and off islands of shared humane stories and can be experienced as a magnified view of dew on a leaf. "

Adam Guettel

Tony Award-‐winning composer/lyricist Adam Guettel (The Light In The Piazza, Floyd Collins led a series of master classes in the Spring semester with students from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, Graduate Acting and The New Studio on Broadway. The first class in February included an interview/question-‐ answer session, moderated by Mel Marvin (Faculty), where Mr. Guettel shared stories of his life and work in the theatre, along with a few songs from his upcoming projects. In the forthcoming master classes in March, Mr. Guettel worked with the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program’s Year II thesis teams, helping them refine one song from each of their final projects.

Adam Guettel is a composer/lyricist living in New York City. His musical, THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (cast album on Nonesuch Records), with a book by Craig Lucas, premiered on Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater's Vivian Beaumont Theater in April 2005, following a world premiere at Seattle's Intiman Theater in Summer 2003, and a second engagement at Chicago's Goodman Theater in early 2004 (where it received three Joseph Jefferson Awards including Best Musical). THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA received six 2005 Tony Awards including two for Mr. Guettel – Best Original Score, Best Orchestrations and a Grammy nomination for best cast recording. PIAZZA also received 5 A student from Graduate Acting in master class with Adam Guettel. Drama Desk Awards, including

two for Mr Guettel -‐-‐ Best Music, and Best Orchestrations. He wrote music and lyrics for FLOYD COLLINS (cast album on Nonesuch Records), which received the 1996 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical and earned Mr. Guettel the Obie Award for Best Music. FLOYD COLLINS has been presented at Playwrights Horizons, New York; Prince Theatre, Philadelphia; Goodman Theatre, Chicago; Old Globe, San Diego; Bridewell, London; and elsewhere. Mr. Guettel is currently working on four new musicals and an opera. He just performed material from these new projects for a week at the Hippodrome Casino in London and at 54 Below in New York in February 2013. Accolades for Mr. Guettel include the Stephen Sondheim Award (1990), the ASCAP New Horizons Award (1997), and the American Composers Orchestra Award (2005).

Rebecca Taichman

Director RebeccaTaichman (Lincoln Center: The Oldest Boy by Sarah Ruhl; Playwright's Horizons: Stage Kiss by Sarah Ruhl; Gotham Chamber Opera: Rappaccini's Daughter;) led seminars and workshops in GMTWP and Design. The GMTWP workshop/seminar series was an exploration of using Found Text as source material for creative expression involving words joined to music. Students framed an existential question, designed interview questions aimed at evoking responses to these questions and conducted interviews. They used the words gleaned from these interviews as the basis for constructing 10-‐20 minutes of Found Text set to music. Only the words of the interviewees could be used. Some student elected to work from existing documents created for other purposes instead (i.e. tax forms.) After a critique session, they revised their Found Text exercises into five mine minute pieces and added theatrical gestures. They presented them in the GMTWP Black box with lighting provided by Peter Mitchell, a student from Design for Stage and Film.

Rebecca Taichman attended two six-‐hour Costume 1 Design classes in the Spring of 2015. During the regularly scheduled class she responded as a director and dramaturge to the Costume designers sketches and designs for The Visit by Dürrenmatt and to the designers personal adaptations of Alice In Wonderland. Her presence allowed the designers to reflect on their point of view to the text and see with new eyes how their designs could be seen by a non-‐designer. The experience was critical to their continued development as storytellers.

Liza Gennaro Dance historian and choreographer Liza Gennaro gave three lectures on the roots of dance in musical theatre, covering the significance ballet to the roots of modern dance in musical theatre. Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse were the main focus of the discussions, however current musical theater choreography was discussed with special focus on Sergio Trujillo, Hands on a Hard Body (2013) and Steven Hoggett, Once (2012).

LIZA GENNARO choreographed the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of The Most Happy Fella directed by Gerald Gutierrez and the Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress starring Sarah Jessica Parker. She has choreographed Off-‐Broadway and in regional theaters across America including: Roundabout Theatre, Actor’s Theatre Of Louisville, The Old Globe, Hartford Stage, Guthrie Theater, The Goodspeed Opera House, Pioneer Theatre, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Paper Mill Playhouse and The St. Louis “Muny” Opera. She collaborated with Stephen Flaherty and Frank Galati on their chamber musical Loving, Repeating: A Musical of Gertrude Stein for the About Face Theater in Chicago. Liza choreographed the Troika Tour of Annie, currently performing nationwide, and created a dance-‐pantomime, Rudolph the Red-‐ Nosed Reindeer for the New York Pops 2014 Christmas Concert at Carnegie Hall. She is a member of the Tony Award Nominating Committee and on the Executive Board of the Stage Director and Choreographers Society. Liza has taught at Barnard College, Princeton University, Yale University and is currently on faculty at Indiana University. Her essay, “Evolution of Dance in the Golden Era of the American 'Book Musical'” appears in The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical.

Dean Allyson Green -‐-‐ Associate Dean of the Institute of Performing Arts Sarah Schlesinger

Program Coordinator, Institute of Performing Arts Julianne Wick Davis Administrative Assistant, Institute of Performing Arts Hali Alspach

Institute of Performing Arts Tisch School of the Arts 715 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 Second Floor, Room 267 212-‐998-‐1654