Director | Jess K Smith Music Director | Jamie Maschler Scenic Designer | Kurt Walls Costume Designer | Mishka Navarre Lighting Designer | Patty Mathieu Sound Designer | Willard Franklin Dramaturg & Jewish Cultural Consultant | Leo Levine Sporer Dialect Coach | Kate Myre Assistant Director & Dramaturg | Ari Vergen Stage Manager | Kenley Borgenson Dramatugy Team | Ayli Stabinsky | Becca Kitt | Sam Webb
Cast: Ellian Kelly, Allison Turek, Sam Webb, Alex Miller, Julia Pearl-Styles, Willard Franklin, Gabi Marler, Alice Noble, Aidan Bane, Macy Hance, Sydnee Kokubun
WHAT GETS PASSED BETWEEN IG @whatgetspassedbetween
Created by Shelley Virginia + Jess K Smith in a site-specific multidisciplinary cross country COVID collaboration centered around a house in Marietta, GA (traditional land of the Cherokee and Muscogee Creek)
A story about mothers, daughters, and what gets passed between. Told through image + text, released bit by bit on one Instagram account over time.
LUNGS By Duncan Macmillan Produced by Cazart Productions Harper Studio Theatre, UAA Anchorage, AK August, 2018
Director | Jess K Smith Technical Director | Daniel Glen Carlgren Technical Advisor | Daniel J. Anteau Lighting Designer | James Kendall Sound Designer | Devin Frey Costume Designer | Colleen Alexis Metzger Poster/Trailer Designer | Jeanette Sweetman Stage Manager | James Kendall Sound and Light Board Op | Devin Frey
This January I gave a talk as part of TEDx McMinnville entitled The Seeing Place. The talk features much of the research and development of ARTBARN‘s 2016 production of We Remain Prepared and suggests the ways that site-specific and immersive theatre present a model for how to see more.
ANTIGONE By Sophocles Translated by Richard Emil Braun
DIRECTOR | Jess K Smith SCENIC DESIGNER | Kurt Walls COSTUME DESIGNER | Mishka Navarre LIGHTING DESIGNER | Patty Mathieu CHOREOGRAPHER | Alyza DelPan-Monley SET CONSTRUCTION | Robin Macartney STAGE MANAGEMENT | Bella Faith, Aimee Rowe, Isabella Marziello SOUND DESIGNER | Castor Kent PROPS DESIGN | Olivia Burke TAIKO CONSULTANT | Nick Navin ASSISTANT DIRECTOR | Hanna Woods DRAMATURG | Jack Aldisert
Sophocles’ ANTIGONE is the story of a young woman who brings an entire empire to its knees because she does what she believes is right – she buries her brother’s body despite his dishonorable death. This simple choice to cover a body with earth is an act of great rebellion and defiance against her uncle and new king Kreon, who demands loyalty under pain of death. In this contemporary staging of the play’s inexorably tragic action featuring live taiko drumming, expressive dance, and innovative design, we see the tension between loyalty to family and the gods pitted against loyalty to the state with fatal consequences to reveal a cautionary tale against unchecked power that feels as relevant today as it did in its original context.
Featuring: Alex Miller, Ari Vergen, Avery Steffen, Cat Wright, Clara Nelson Jacobs, Eli Kitchens, Emma Rose Kelly, Eshan Singh, Frankie Gormley, Jordan Calhoun, Julian Aikens-Helford, Lauren Smith, Lucius Johnson, Maximilian Tapogna, Molly McLean, Robbie Diaz, Sabrina Close
Performances: October 26 – 27, 2018 | 7:30 p.m. November 1 – 2, 2018 | 7:30 p.m. November 3, 2018 | 2 + 7:30 p.m.
A new piece inspired by and performed throughout an old space. Past turbines, amid boilers and valves, we follow Kimmel, Powell, and Gray—the three workers left behind to keep the motors running. Loyalists to the Gilbreth system of efficiency, they pledge to maintain a constant state of readiness for as long as they are needed. And then a year goes by. And a decade. A century. And maybe twenty centuries more. And when the world outside has finally faded from memory, Kimmel and Powell and Gray begin building their own worlds—civil engineers in the making. But what will happen when the old world comes crashing back in? Will their new cities survive the shock? Produced in partnership by ARTBARN and the Satori Group
FEATURING Amber Wolfe Brandon J. Simmons Carol Louise Thompson+ Charles Leggett* Liza Curtiss+
ENSEMBLE Adam Standley+ Jeff Evans Jordan Moeller Lorabeth Barr+ Lindsey Valitchka+ Nic Morden
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States, appearing under a Special Appearance Contract.
CREATIVE TEAM and CREW DIRECTORS Jess K Smith^ and Caitlin Sullivan+ PLAYWRIGHT Melissa D. Brown^ DRAMATURG Sara Keats PRODUCTION DESIGN Deb O^ LIGHTING DESIGN Isabella Byrd and Jessica Trundy SPECTACLE AND PUPPETRY Lacy K Campbell SOUND DESIGN Rob Witmer SCENIC ARTISANS Robin Macartney and Montana Tippett MOVEMENT DIRECTOR Alice Gosti ASS. DIR/DRAMATURG Adrian Kljucec LEAD PRODUCER Clare Strasser+ STAGE MANAGER Ruth Eitemiller PRODUCTION MANAGER Katie McKellar MENU CONSULTANT Kate Baker Linsley^ FOOD COORDINATOR Lorabeth Barr+ VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR Tasha Newell SITE SUPERVISOR Elissa Favero
SEATTLE CITY LIGHT Mike Aronowitz Julianna Ross
PRODUCING TEAM Melissa D. Brown^ Liza Curtiss+ Sara Keats Deb O^ Jess K Smith^ Caitlin Sullivan+
ARTISTIC INTERNS Erin Ganley, Hannah Ferguson, Isabel Le Mengyuan, Jake Bisuut, Jacqueline Brockel, Lucas Friedman, Mariah Prinster, McKenna Johnson
WORKSHOP ARTISTS Antoinette Bianco+, Caitlin Sullivan+, CT Doescher, Erin Culbertson, Jessica Trundy, Jordi Montes, John Leith+, Jordan Moeller, Kate Sumpter+, Lauren Hester+, Liza Curtiss+, Lorabeth Barr+, Melissa D. Brown^, Spike Friedman+, Valerie Curtis-Newton
RHINOCEROS written by Eugène Ionesco directed by Jess K Smith produced by Strawberry Theatre Workshop 12th Ave Arts, Seattle, WA
There is a ferocious rhinoceros on the loose in a small village, and no one seems alarmed. In fact, by the time Eugène Ionesco’s cast of citizens can agree on what they saw, it becomes possible for individuals to join the herd. Imagine a business leader, a prominent family, and a politician stampeding as wild rhinoceroses, while a town idly debates whether it is even possible…
Featuring: Carol Louise Thompson Shawn Belyea Amy Mayes Conner Neddersen Lacy Katherine Campbell Brandon Felker Jéhan Òsanyìn Shanna Allman Christopher Wong John Wray
Designed and constructed by: Erin Bednarz Ryan Dunn Greg Carter Alyza Delpan-Monley
YOU ON THE MOORS NOW By Jaclyn Backhaus Directed by Jess K Smith Set Design by Kurt Walls Costume Design by Mishka Navarre Lighting Design by Patty Mathieu Set Construction by Robin Macartney Assistant Directed by Erin Ganley Dramaturgy by Mariah Prinster
This playful, smart, feminist play by Jaclyn Backhaus (Men on Boats, Kilroys List) goes back more than a century to give some of our favorite literary characters a 21st century makeover. It’s 2018 and Jo March, Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre, and Cathy Earnshaw Linton have moved far beyond their original forms. They are fed up with men who conflate feelings of love with expectations of ownership and are ready to call it out in no uncertain language; begging the question of whether female friendships can be enough. Written with fast, witty, and often crude turns of phrase, this play is both a send up and love letter to the heightened emotions, epic landscapes, and tortured journeys so intrinsic to the books from which these characters originate.
Featuring: Mattea Prison, Allie Lawrence, Hannah Monsour, Lydia Thompson, Jack Aldisert, Banji Oyewole, Robbie Diaz, Dylan Turczan, Clara Nelson Jacobs, Brynn Allen, Emma Rose Kelly, Britta Baer-Simon, Frankie Gormley, Julian Aikens-Helford, Jordan Pearson
A site-specific performance in the Georgetown Steam Plant June 16 – 25, 2016
A new work inspired by an old space. WE REMAIN PREPARED takes audiences inside the historic Georgetown Steam Plant. Past turbines, amid boilers and valves, we follow Kimmel & Powell & Gray–the three workers left behind to keep the motors running. Loyalists to the Gilbreth system of efficiency, they pledge to maintain a constant state of readiness for as long as they are needed.
And then a year goes by. And a decade. A century. And maybe twenty centuries more. And when the world outside has finally faded from memory, Kimmel & Powell & Gray begin building their own worlds – civil engineers in the making.
But what will happen when the old world comes crashing back in? Will their new cities survive the shock?
ARTBARN and the Satori Group first met in the spring of 2008 and immediately saw each other as peers, muses, mentors, and teachers. Both companies revel in the hyper-theatrical, conjuring worlds that are bigger than most spaces can hold and most budgets can accommodate. In early 2015, when members of each company entered the Georgetown Steam Plant for the first time, we met a space that could not only accommodate the scale of our imaginations but required it in both process and product.
A year-long, bi-coastal devising process emerged, which will culminate in an intensive residency in Seattle in which both companies will live and work together. The resulting production will invite a city-wide audience to immerse themselves in the Steam Plant, following a performance inspired by the space and reflective of the community.
University of Puget Sound
Department of Theatre Arts + The School of Music
RENT BOOK, MUSIC, LYRICS | Jonathan Larson
DIRECTOR | Jess K Smith
MUSIC DIRECTOR | Dr. Dawn Padula
SET DESIGNER | Kurt Walls
COSTUME DESIGNER | Mishka Navarre
LIGHTING DESIGNER | Patty Mathieu
SOUND DESIGNER | Lawrence Huffines
CONDUCTOR | Dr. Gerard Morris
DANCE INSTRUCTION | Kathryn Van Meter
Performance Dates & Times
Feb. 26, 27, Mar. 3, 4, 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Mar. 6 at 2:00 p.m.
Tickets $11 general; $7 sr. citizen (55+), non-Puget Sound student, military, and Puget Sound faculty/staff/student. Tickets sold at Wheelock Information Center, 253.879.6013, and online at tickets.pugetsound.edu. Remaining tickets available at the door.
RENT, the Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical that thrilled New York audiences for more than a decade, will be staged at University of Puget Sound this spring, marking 20years since the play first opened on Broadway.
The collaboration between the Department of Theatre Arts and School of Music will revive Jonathan Larson’s dramatic depiction of life in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, in the year between Christmas Eve 1989 and Christmas Eve 1990. Inspired by Puccini’s opera La Bohème, Larson created a dramatic, yet uplifting, story using rock music to evoke the tough, angry, and terrifying reality of a world wrought with AIDS, suicide, and drug addiction—all underscored by a theme of hope.
RENT will be staged at 7:30 p.m., on Friday, Feb. 26; Saturday, Feb. 27; Thursday, March 3; Friday, March 4; and Saturday, March 5. On Sunday, March 6, there will be a 2 p.m. matinee. The performances will take place in Norton Clapp Theatre, Jones Hall. Ticket information is below.
The student-acted production is directed by Jess K Smith ’05, with music direction by Dawn Padula, and Gerard Morris conducting the School of Music musicians. Other collaborators include Kurt Walls, scenic design; Mishka Navarre, costume design; Lawrence Huffines, sound design; and Patty Mathieu, lighting design.
“This is a show about choosing life and love in the face of death and disease,” Smith said. “As Act 1 ends, riots are breaking out over housing rights, a couple shares a kiss, it begins to snow, and this community of struggling artists and activists shouts out, ‘Viva la vie bohème!’
“They build a chosen family by being an ‘us, for once, instead of a them,’ inspiring each other to live life for the present, and turn away from fear and regret for the chance to live ‘no day, but today.’”
RENT’s dramatic action takes place amid poverty, homelessness, gay life, drag culture, drug addiction, and the AIDS crisis—making it not so dissimilar from La Bohème’s setting among poor young artists and a tuberculosis plague. The iconoclastic community was familiar to the musical’s creator, who himself lived for many years as a poor artist in New York, sacrificing stability for his art.
The Tony-award winning play, first staged in 1993 and later made into a film, greatly influenced musical theater of the day by reimagining old forms, tackling new content and themes, and expanding musical and theatrical language.
Scott Miller, respected musical director, playwright, and author of several books on the theater, wrote in an essay that Larson used “the structural vocabulary of classical opera with the harmonic and rhythmic language of rock” when he created RENT. It was the first musical in decades that younger audiences really identified with, wrote Miller, and it breathed new commercial life into the Broadway musical.
The timely musical ran for 12 years on Broadway, making it the 10th longest-running Broadway show, with more than 5,000 performances. Unfortunately Larson passed away unexpectedly the night before the first preview performance, and so never had the chance to receive the significant acclaim the work garnered.
THE CIRCLE A Guidebook to Peace, Happiness and Truth Through Personal Geometry
Inspired by Shakespeare’s final play The Tempest and William Butler Yeats’ prophetic and terrifying poem The Second Coming, The Circle tells the story of a group of idealists who attempt to turn their back on the pain and suffering of the world only to discover that sometimes, the harder you try to keep something out, the more you end up letting it in.
Pandora’s Box Project, a new play inspired by over forty submissions from writers around the country in response to issues of reproductive justice in America, has been selected for the 2015 Women Playwrights International Conference, which will be held this summer in Cape Town, South Africa. A selection of the play will be rehearsed and presented by a South African director and cast. Thanks to generous support from the University of Puget Sound, I will travel to South Africa in late June to represent the unique generative process that birthed this important piece and to lead a workshop with conference participants on methods of collaborative playwriting. I’m thrilled to have the chance to share the work and process, receive feedback, meet international collaborators, and be introduced to exciting new work by women playwrights from around the globe.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, written by Tennessee Williams, is an iconic American play that follows Blanche DuBois as she attempts to find hope for stability and a refuge from her haunting past in her reunion with sister, Stella. However, Stella’s new life with husband Stanley in their modest home situated in the French Quarter of New Orleans unsettles Blanche, unearths her troubled past, introduces new but fleeting love with a man named Mitch, and eventually leads to a traumatizing confrontation with Stanley.
DIRECTION | Jess K Smith SCENIC DESIGN | Kurt Walls COSTUME DESIGN | Mishka Navarre LIGHTING DESIGN | Patty Mathieu FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY | Jesse Hinds DIALECT | Terri Weagant MUSIC DIRECTOR | Max Hirtz-Wolf STAGE MANAGEMENT | Henry Reed (ASM | Molly Gregory, Libby Dabrowski) FEATURING | Cassie Jo Fastabend, Erin Broughan, Gabriel Vergez, Darrin Schultz, Katelyn Hart, Sikander Sohail, Mitch Young, Annika Perez-Krikorian, John Magas, Jake Bisuut, Shelby Isham, Lisa Hawkins JAZZ COMBO | Max Hirtz-Wolf, Adam Lewis, Rachel Schroder, Leo Levine Sporer
University of Puget Sound | Norton Clapp Theatre Friday, Feb. 27, 7:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 28, 2:00 pm and 7:30 pm Friday, March 6, 7:30 pm Saturday, March 7, 2:00 pm and 7:30 pm
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Jess K Smith, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts
Performance Dates and Times
Friday, Feb. 27, 7:30 pm
Saturday, Feb. 28, 2:00 pm + 7:30 pm
Friday, March 6, 7:30 pm
Saturday, March 7, 2:00 pm + 7:30 pm
Tickets: $11 general; $7 sr. citizen (55+), non-Puget Sound student, military, and Puget Sound faculty/staff/student. Tickets sold at Wheelock Information Center, 253.879.6013, and online at tickets.pugetsound.edu. Remaining tickets available at the door.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, written by Tennessee Williams, is an iconic American play that follows Blanche DuBois as she attempts to find hope for stability and a refuge from her haunting past in her reunion with sister, Stella. However, Stella’s new life with husband Stanley in their modest home situated in the French Quarter of New Orleans unsettles Blanche, unearths her troubled past, introduces new but fleeting love with a man named Mitch, and eventually leads to a traumatizing confrontation with Stanley.
The production features a live jazz combo, an intimate set (Kurt Walls), expressive lighting (Patty Mathieu), and vibrant costumes (Mishka Navarre). Collectively the production elements aim to evoke the heat, color, and texture of New Orleans in the 1940s while also transporting the audience into the mind and imagination of Blanche DuBois as she fights for magic over realism.
Please note that this play contains both domestic and sexual violence.
I am directing Cowboys #2 and Evanescence, or Shakespeare in the Alley by Sam Shepard as part of Profile Theatre company’s Festival of One Acts in Portland, OR September 3 – 8.
FESTIVAL OF ONE ACTS
BY SAM SHEPARD
PROFILE THEATRE COMPANY
Six directors tackle nine of Shepard’s vast and varied short plays and memoirs. With live music by a different band each night, this festival is a celebration not to be missed. Presented in two series, Series A and Series B, catch all nine plays over two nights or come to our marathon weekend and see all nine in one day!
Featuring Andrés Alcalá*, Nicholas Erickson, Ty Hewitt*, Elizabeth Huffman*, Chris Murray*, Nelda Reyes, Beth Thompson and Mark Valadez
Directed by Bruce Hostetler, Rebecca Lingafelter, Pat Patton, Olga Sanchez, Jess K Smith and Matthew B. Zrebski
SERIES A: The War in Heaven, The Curse of the Raven’s Black Feather, Hail from Nowhere, Just Space, Rhythm and Evanescence, or Shakespeare in the Alley
SERIES B: Savage/Love, Tongues and Cowboys #2
Performance schedule:
Series A – Wednesday Sept. 3 @ 7:30pm
Series B – Thursday Sept. 4 @ 7:30pm
Series A – Friday Sept. 5 @ 7:30pm
Series B – Saturday Sept. 6 @ 2:00pm
Series A – Saturday Sept. 6 @ 7:30pm
Series A – Sunday Sept. 7 @ 1:00pm
Series B – Sunday Sept. 7 @ 6:00pm
Series B – Monday Sept. 8 @ 7:30pm
In Dialogue Series Events for the Festival of One Acts:
Go deeper into the play and the world of Sam Shepard with unique events before or after every performance!
Wednesday, September 3
Joaquin Lopez and Susan Jacobo Music, 6:30pm in the Lobby
Mix and Mingle after the performance in the Lobby
Thursday, September 4
Adrian Martin Music, 6:30pm in the Lobby
Mix and Mingle after the performance in the Lobby
Friday, September 5
Dan Haley & Tim Acott Music, 6:30pm Lobby and following the performance at 9:00pm in the Lobby
Saturday, September 6
Lecture with Ray Malewitz, 3:30pm on the Morrison Stage
Gigantic Brewing Beer Tastings, 4:00pm in the Lobby
Tim Acott & Lyn Conover Music, 4:00pm in the Lobby
Freshii Food Cart, 4:30pm in the Outdoor Parking Lot
Tim Acott & Lyn Conover Music, 6:15pm in the Lobby
Sunday, September 7
Lecture with Sidony O’Neal: “Hunger Territory: Language and Possibility in Nine Short Pieces by Sam Shepard”, 2:30pm on the Morrison Stage
Gigantic Brewing Beer Tasting, 3:00pm in the Lobby
Bourbon Jockey Music, 3:00pm in the Lobby
Koi Fusion Food Cart, 3:30pm in the Outdoor Parking Lot
Bourbon Jockey Music, 4:45pm in the Lobby
Monday, September 8
Bre Gregg & Dan Gildea Music, 6:30pm in the Lobby
Lecture with Sidony O’Neal: “Hunger Territory: Language and Possibility in Nine Short Pieces by Sam Shepard”, 9:00pm on the Morrison Stage
Written by Melissa D Brown Directed by Jess K Smith Environment, Costume and Lighting by Deb O Food by Kate Baker Linsley Produced by Alex Peterson Featuring Nick Dillenburg, Dave Droxler, and Kathryn Van Meter Design Assistance from Lachlan Brooks, Bruno Baker, Zohra Victoria Benzerga, Kylie Hogrefe, and Adam Mirkine
Presented by ARTBARN at Byrdcliffe Art Colony on May 25, 2014
A R T B A R N is returning to the beautiful and historic Byrdcliffe Art Colony for a second season and we couldn’t be more excited! We are all deeply invested in making great work with great people in a gorgeous environment. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. Please join us in helping to make our second season come to life.
Renew
I call for a revolution of language. I reject the notion that my options for how to be in a creative process are either nice and accommodating or manipulative and renowned. I believe that the language of accommodation and the language of dominance are both deeply rooted in fear. For the former, it’s a fear of being considered unlikeable and for the latter, it’s a fear of not having control or not owning the best idea. I believe that directing requires great vision, great attention, great awareness, and great humility. It requires egos to be left outside while bold action and outstanding listening enter the room. I am guided by a small piece of text that I return to season after season as a kind of ritual meditation. It’s from the foreword of Paul Woodruff’s The Necessity of Theatre. It reads,
There is an art to watching and being watched, and that is one of the few arts on which all human living depends. If we are unwatched, we diminish and we cannot be entirely as we wish to be. If we never stop to watch, we know only how it feels to be us, never how it feels to be another. Watched too much or in the wrong way, we become frightened. Watching too much, we lose the capacity for action in our own lives. Watching well, together, and being watched well, with limits on both sides, we grow, and grow together.
I return to these words because they are a reminder of how I wish to be in the creative process and a foundation for a new language of power to build from. The balance between watching and being watched calls for empathy and action. When I first read the passage, I was surprised by how revelatory this simple text was. The idea of theater as a place of seeing was not new—it’s the origin of the word itself and a starting place for most theater makers. It was the “If we are unwatched, we diminish and we cannot be entirely as we wish to be” portion that stopped me in my tracks. As a director, as a teacher, as a woman, this felt like an urgent reminder to be visible, to allow my work to be visible, and to allow my language to be heard. This text could easily be adjusted to be about speaking and listening as opposed to watching and being watched and be just as powerful and pertinent to a discussion on language.
In June 2013, ARTBARN produced Home Stretch, a site-specific installation and performance event inspired by the Robert Frost poem, In the Home Stretch.
Home Stretch led us on a journey with one man, one woman, and a deer as they pack, un-pack, build things, break things, dance, fight, love, and navigate that relentless tension between the toxic but invigorating excitement of the city, the call of the woods and promise of quiet, and the disillusions wrapped up in both.
JESS K SMITH Creator/Director MELISSA D BROWN Creator/Writer DEB O Creator/Designer JOEL RIPKA Performer KELLY McCRANN Performer ALISON GRANUCCI Performer KATE BAKER LINSLEY Chef
A new adaptation of an old play about leadership, wars, weddings, and sacrifice
direction | JESS K SMITH
choreography | KATHRYN VAN METER
scene design | KURT WALLS
costume design | MISHKA NAVARRE
lighting design | PATTY MATHIEU
sound design | JASON MILLER
University of Puget Sound
Norton Clapp Theatre, Jones Hall
7:30 p.m. | Friday, Feb. 28
7:30 p.m. | Saturday, March 1
7:30 p.m. | Thursday, March 6
7:30 p.m. | Friday, March 7
2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. | Saturday, March 8
Tickets | $11 general; $7 sr. citizen (55+), non-Puget Sound student, military, and Puget Sound faculty/staff/student. Tickets sold at Wheelock Information Center, 253-879-6013, and online at tickets.pugetsound.edu. Remaining tickets available at the door.
For the past several years I have been developing a long-term heart project I’ve called the ARTBARN. I didn’t know if it would ever come to fruition, but all of the elements have finally come together. The first annual ARTBARN will be held this June 15th! The idea behind the ARTBARN is to create a creative classroom and annual festival of site-specific work with artists and audiences who return each year as it grows.
My vision for the ARTBARN is as follows:
Each year a theme is chosen
A group of innovative artists from around the globe and across disciplines (theatre, dance, film, music, visual and culinary art) is invited to be a part of the next summer’s ARTBARN
Between festivals each artist works independently to develop a new piece of work inspired by the year’s theme
Each year, immediately preceding the ARTBARN, all of the participating artists come together in a beautiful spot in the woods for a 2 week retreat. During the retreat they:
Further develop their work and mount it site-specifically on the property
Open up their rehearsal spaces for artists from other disciplines to observe a different process
Share meals together each day where they can work out problems they are having, make new friends, connect, and create a community
Have the space to allow organic collaborations to form
At the end of the 2 week retreat, we invite an audience to come and experience all of the work inspired by one singular theme, for one weekend in the woods. Ideally this involves being able to take a walk through the woods and stumble upon an installation, hearing music coming from unlikely places, seeing films projected on the side of a barn, eating delicious food and so much more!
And at the end of the weekend, the next theme is selected and the process starts again.
Last year I set the goal of finding the first home for ARTBARN and getting the first iteration of it up and running for the summer of 2013. I was fortunate enough to have been put in contact with the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, NY. Byrdcliffe is the oldest arts colony in the U.S. and the property is absolutely gorgeous. They have an active artists residency program and a new annual summer festival. So in this first year we have been chosen as their resident theatre company and have been invited to create and share a piece of work as part of theByrdcliffe Arts Festivalthis June 14-16th. This summer I am working with a fantastic team of collaborating artists to develop ONE piece (HOME STRETCH) pulling on as many of the fundamental ideas of the ARTBARN format as possible (shared meals, site-specific staging, working across disciplines, being in residence with other artists, sharing as part of a festival).
This project came from my desire to make meaningful work with people who inspire me, and to create a space for new collaborations to happen. Every summer I want to build the ideal creative classroom where I can bring together the most exciting emerging artists and we can live, work, and learn from each other. And then I want to share our work with a growing community.
I need your help in making this a reality. Right now I specifically need help financially and have been fortunate enough to receive fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas so that any and all contributions made are tax deductible. Click HERE to contribute $5. Or $500. Or More. Or less.All donations are tax deductible and anything not used for this Summer’s ARTBARN will go toward the budget for next summer.
Any amount, great or small will help. As a part of our community, please consider contributing toward this first iteration of making the ARTBARN come to life!
Here are some other ways you can help make this a reality:
Shoot me an email telling me you support my plan and want to stay on a mailing list about future ARTBARN developments!
Come see the show, and then give us some ideas for next year’s theme!
Help spread the word!
Whether or not you can pitch in financially please come and see what we make! Your support is so important to us.
This year’s piece, HOME STRETCH will be presented for one performance only as part of the Byrdcliffe Arts Festival on Saturday, June 15th at 7:30pm in Woodstock, NY. We would love to have you join us! Look at the previous post for more information about the show itself.
HOME STRETCH is a site-specific installation and performance event inspired by the Robert Frost poem, In the Home Stretch, created by an ensemble of NYC-based artists in residence at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony. Take a journey with one man, one woman, and a deer as they pack, un-pack, build things, break things, dance, fight, love, and navigate that relentless tension between the toxic but invigorating excitement of the city, the call of the woods and promise of quiet, and the disillusions wrapped up in both.
JESS K SMITH Creator/Director
MELISSA D BROWN Creator/Writer
DEB O Creator/Designer
JOEL RIPKA Performer
KELLY McCRANN Performer
ALISON GRANUCCI Performer
KATE BAKER LINSLEY Chef
A multi-disciplinary performance vacation created by Anna Brenner, Jess K Smith, Gabriel Baron, Melissa Brown, Ross Cowan, Mike James, and Rachael Richman. This piece will invite its participants to be changed by the unknown. A journey from the present to the future, and around again. Post-show discussion on May 17.
Drawing from literary and visual sources that inspire us to examine the act of being present to the unknown, we come together as friends and frequent collaborators to explore and create a new performance that takes us all—creators and audience—on a journey, a vacation, from the predictable. We strive to be precise, but open to improvisation; we strive to trust that presence is found in the unknown, real meaning is in the immaterial.
Created by Anna Brenner and Jess K Smith
Performers: Gabriel Baron, Melissa Brown, Ross Cowan, Mike James, Rachael Richman
Choreography: Yael Nachajon
May 17 & 18 at 7:30pm CPR 361 Manhattan Avenue Tickets: $10 in advance or at the door (cash only)
New Voices in Live Performance is a curatorial program that invites artists to curate two-night shows at CPR–Center for Performance Research with a focus on experimental and innovative creative practices in dance, theater, and performance art.
New Voices in Live Performance is generously supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Foundation for Contemporary Art.
A cross-disciplinary exhibition and festival celebrating the art and history of radio and radio plays. Throughout the exhibit, audience members will be able to tour through a series of curated environments based upon significant moments in radio history. Step back in time to hear historic broadcasts and period-appropriate music within their contexts. Enter a 1930’s living room and sit around the radio to hear the broadcast of the Hindenberg disaster. Cozy up in the front of a classic car and swoon to the hits of the 60s. Participate in the evolution of radio. During the four live performances of radio plays and storytelling, audience members have the opportunity to travel between the sound stage where performances will be created live and the environments within the gallery: choose to either watch or just listen and enjoy with your friends.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14th from 5-7pm
Join us for a live performance and broadcast of Orson Welles’ notorious radio play thriller, WAR OF THE WORLDS, directed by Jess K Smith incorporating live original music by William Sieke, followed by a broadcast of apocalyptic love letters written and recorded by members of the campus community.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21st from 5-7pm
Join us for a live performance of THE RIVERBOAT RUNS AGROUND: BASED ON A TRUE STORY, directed by Jess K. Smith. This is a piece of home-grown storytelling by Seattle-based writer and performer, Wesley K. Andrews. Rooted in Wesley’s adolescent years growing up in Fairbanks, Alaska, the stories revolve around a true transformative act of magic and reincarnation. Think Garrison Keillor but with more drugs and teen sex. Come learn about what it means to be an Alaskan, not a made-for-TV Alaskan, in a faraway place where the land is so harsh that you cannot combat it, but only become it. Including original music by William Sieke and Renee Maskin and followed by a talk-back with the writer.
An essay I wrote entitled “The Hero in the Human” about my time working with the Italian dance theatre company, Deja Donne, was recently published by Editoria & Spettacolo in the book Deja Donne: Dance in Action. This book, in addition to to the film Rediscovering Concepts are both part of a major retrospective the company did on their work over the past fifteen years. Their approaches to their work and the process of reflection have been a real guide to me in my work in the theatre and I am continually honored to have shared a room with them.
Read more about the company DEJA DONNE here.
Read more about REDISCOVERING CONCEPTS project here.
Read more about DEJA DONNE: DANCE IN ACTION here.
WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING
By Andrew Bovell
Directed by Jess K Smith
Presented at the Performance Arts Center,
Middlesex County College
It’s raining. Gabriel York is awaiting the arrival of his grown son whom he hasn’t seen since he was seven. “I know what he wants. He wants what all young men want from their fathers. He wants to know who he is. Where he comes from. Where he belongs. And for the life of me I don’t know what to tell him.”
That’s the beginning of this compelling family saga that takes us back and forth in time from one generation to another, from 1959 to 2039, from London to Australia. With four generations of fathers and sons, their mothers, lovers and wives, the play is epic in its scope, yet at the same time extraordinarily intimate.
Performances:
Thursday, October 18: 8pm
Friday, October 19: 8pm
Saturday, October 20: 8pm
Friday, October 26: 8pm
Saturday, October 27: 8pm
Sunday, October 28: 2pm
UGLY
By Josh Beerman
Directed by Jess K Smith
Featuring Meg McQuillan, Courtney Stallings, Megan Hill, Todd Licea, Dave Droxler and Eric Slater
Join us on TUESDAY, JULY 17th at 6:30PM for a free reading of UGLY at Urban Stages.
With her job on the line, FAY, a social worker and single mom, struggles to uncover the events leading up to the murder of a Hasidic girl. The one person who can bring some light to the crime is the girl’s father, who refuses to speak to her. When he finally does the lines between beauty and ugly are blurred and an unlikely relationship forms.
Tuesday July 17th at 630pm
Urban Stages
259 West 30th Street (bet 7th and 8th Avenues)
Based on the legendary New York court trial of Ruth Snyder in 1927, Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 Expressionist play uncovers the life of a woman who must choose between fulfilling the world’s mechanized expectations and abandoning convention in order to live freely, whatever the costs. Now in 2011, this imaginative production uses aerial choreo…graphy and live music with an ensemble cast to illustrate with stunning theatricality the tension between social suffocation and independent breath.
DIRECTION Jess K Smith SCENIC Deb O LIGHTING Carl Wiemann SOUND/MUSIC Daniel Kluger and Ted Pallas COSTUME Bryen Shannon AERIAL CHOREOGRAPHY Sy Parrish GRAPHIC Nik Perleros PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGEMENT Amy Steinman GENERAL MANAGEMENT Alona Fogel DRAMATURGY Emily Madison ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGEMENT Ellen Mezzera and Brittney Reimert
FEATURING Mary Archias, Gabriel Baron, Tom Cleary*, Mike James, Adam Lebowitz-Lockard, Lamar Lewis, Joel Ripka*, Clea Rivera*, and Shelley Virginia* *Appears courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
March 9-11, 8 p.m. March 12, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.*
Riverside Theatre, New York Graphic Design by Nik Perleros
PANDORA’S BOX PROJECT
A theatrical response to the political and social backtracking of women’s rights created using the voices, ideas, and words of playwrights from across the country. Over the summer an artistic team from NYC, DC, Idaho, and Seattle will sift through over forty submissions written for this project in order to develop an original play with the aim to have readings in at least NYC, DC, and Seattle by early Fall with full productions to follow.
For more information about contributing to the project: http://www.indiegogo.com/pandorasbox
Presented as part of the New Voices in Live Performance Series CPR (Center for Performance Research) May 17 + 18 at 7:30pm
Created and written by: Gabriel Baron Melissa Brown Ross Cowan Mike James Rachael Richman
Directed by Jess K Smith and Anna Brenner Choreography by Yael Nashajon Environment by Julia Przedmojska Lighting by Dante Olivia Smith
About the piece:
We came together as friends and frequent collaborators excited to create something new together, using improvisational and generative techniques to enhance our practices of storytelling, theatre, and dance. We began the work by sharing photographs and writing fictional and true stories about them. These became maps for possible performance. We decided that having a map allowed us to wander off the path. The essence of this project has been to explore and be open to the unknown and to communicate intangible experience to an audience. We strive to be precise, but open and present; we strive to find real meaning in the immaterial.
deCOMPOSITION is an original work using the scientific process of how matter decomposes, breaking down from one form to another, as a frame to look at what transforms in the moments when we lose our language, our memory and our love. Devised by the company, this is what happens when a family recipe, an Appalachian folk song, the life cycle of King salmon, a life-long friendship, a banjo and immortal jellyfish get in a room together to talk about death.
Originally produced as part of the Schapiro Series in New York under the guidance of Anne Bogart, now making it’s West Coast debut…
WHEN + WHERE August 20-22 and 27-29 The Erickson Theatre Friday-Sunday at 8pm 1524 Harvard Ave. Seattle, WA
WHO Direction by… Jess K Smith Dramaturgy by… Hannah Hessel Assistant Direction by… Melissa D Brown and Caitlin Sullivan Stage Management by… Lisa Armstrong Lighting Design by… Reed Nakayama Featuring… Melissa D. Brown Emily Gleeson Ty Hewitt* Shelley Virginia* Sean Patrick Taylor
UMBRELLA HOUSES Created and Performed by Emerie Snyder and Nick Lewis
Directed by Jess K Smith
Fact: The earliest metal-framed umbrellas were made using surplus steel ribs from corsets. Isn’t it funny how the same things that hold you in, also hold the world out? Umbrella Houses is a play about a man on a stage and a woman on the run, both locked into and lost within their own trajectories until their paths collide. Umbrella Houses invites its audience into a decrepit yet charming theatre, hotel rooms all over the world, and inside the characters’ heads. There will probably be a dance number. And lots of umbrellas.
The documentary film made about the process of making NOT MADE FOR FLYING with the dance company Deja Donne including interviews with me during our time working on the piece in Slovenia, Spring 2011.
THE SPECTACULAR DEMISE OF PLATONOV Inspired by Anton Chekhov’s Platonov and Nikita Mikhalkov’s An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano Including translations by Carol Rocamora, Michael Frayn, and David Hare Adapted by Jess K Smith and Melissa D Brown Directed by Jess K Smith Assistant Director Melissa D Brown Costume Design by Bryen Shannon Stage Management by Kate Croasdale and Christina Najera Featuring Michael Markham, Karen Strernberg*, Michael Connolly*, James Sargent, Douglas Rossi, Emily Gleeson, Amy Young, and Chelsey Shannon*
* Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
Shapiro Theatre, NY
Friday, October 30th at 8pm Saturday, October 31st at 3pm Saturday, October 31st at 8pm Sunday, November 1st at 3pm
A collaboration with composer Zosha Di Castri incorporating electronics, flute, piano and sculpture with musicians/performers Margaret Lancaster and Taka Kigawa.
Part of the GHOST IN THE INSTRUMENT Festival
Saturday, March 24th at 7pm
Miller Theatre
2960 Broadway
New York City
A R T B A R N +
TERRA INCOGNITA
