A Thousand Ways (Part One

A THOUSAND WAYS (PART ONE): A PHONE CALL

600 HIGHWAYMEN

Written and Created by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone

Virtual June 3 at 6:00pm and 7:30pm; June 4 at 5:00pm, 6:30pm, and 8:00pm; June 5 at 3:00pm, 5:00pm, and 7:00pm; June 6 at 3:00pm, 5:00pm, and 7:00pm; June 7 at 5:00pm, 6:30pm, and 8:00pm

Directors/Writers Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone Executive Producer ArKtype/Thomas O. Kriegsmann Line Producer Cynthia J. Tong Dramaturg/Project Design Andrew Kircher Part One: A Phone Call Sound Design Stanley Mathabane

1 hour | Performed via phone

This production was commissioned by The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, Stanford Live at Stanford University, Festival Theaterformen, and The Public Theater, and was originally commissioned and co-conceived by Temple Contemporaryat Temple University. Part One: A Phone Call was developed in partnership with On the Boards production and technical teams. Original support for the production was provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Philadelphia.

These performances are made possible in part through funds from the Spoleto Festival USA Endowment, generously supported by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

About the Company

600 HIGHWAYMEN/ABIGAIL BROWDE AND MICHAEL SILVERSTONE (directors/writers) have been making live art since 2009 that, through a variety of radical approaches, illuminates the inherent poignancy of people coming together. The work exists at the intersection of theater, dance, contemporary performance, and civic encounter. Though the processes are varied, each project revolves around the same curiosity: what occurs in the live encounter between people. 600 HIGHWAYMEN has been called the “the standard-bearers of contemporary theatermaking” by Le Monde and “one of New York’s best nontraditional theater companies” by The New Yorker. They are recipients of an Obie Award, Switzerland’s ZKB Prize, two Bessie Award nominations, and in 2016, were named artist fellows by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Artistic Team

THOMAS O. KRIEGSMANN/ ARKTYPE (executive producer) is honored to be back at the great Spoleto Festival USA. He began ArKtype in 2005 with a focus on new work development and touring strategies worldwide. His past work includes projects with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Toshi Reagon, Peter Brook, Victoria Thiérrée-Chaplin, Yaël Farber, Peter Sellars, Jay Scheib, Julie Taymor, and Tony Taccone. Recent premieres include Bryce Dessner’s Triptych (Eyes of One Another), John Cameron Mitchell’s The Origin of Love, Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Cyber’s Cartography, and Big Dance Theater and Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Man in a Case. Upcoming premieres include Karen O and Lila Neugebauer’s Forget About You, Scott Shepherd’s This Ignorant Present with Malthouse, Sam Green’s 32 Sounds, and Nora Chipaumire’s Nehanda.

ANDREW KIRCHER (dramaturg/ project designer) is a creative producer, dramaturg, curator, and scholar of live and new media performance. Current creative collaborations include Janani Balasubramanian, 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Flako Jimenez, Nikki Appino and Philip Glass, Lorelei Ramirez, Annie Saunders, and Pig Iron. He was the director of The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Initiative, associate director of the Under the Radar Festival, general manager of Ars Nova, and curator of the Prelude Festival. He is a Brown Institute Magic Grant recipient, a member of the Guild of Future Architects, a 2020 Sundance Fellow, and a Ph.D. candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center. Kircher teaches technology and performance theory at Brooklyn College.

CYNTHIA J. TONG (line producer) is a creative producer working across commercial (Broadway and offBroadway), nonprofit, and regional theater. In addition to her work on A Thousand Ways, she is the Associate Producer at Tom Kirdahy Productions, a Fellow of WP Theater’s 2020 – 2022 Lab, and a founding member of The Industry Standard Group—the first BIPOC commercial theatre investment and producing organization. Highlights from past independent producing projects include NYCLU’s Sing Out for Freedom benefit (Virtual, 2020), Playbill’s Women in Theatre concert (Virtual, 2020), and LORDES (New Ohio Theatre, 2019). Based in New York City but originally from sunny Rancho Palos Verdes, California, she holds a BA in sociology from Wesleyan University.