Special Guests
The U.S. Artists Initiative will be enriched by the presence of many prestigious seasoned professionals from the field, including several who worked intimately with Grotowski in 1977 through Kosciuszko Foundation fellowships. These artists, producers, and academics will give presentations about their work, participate in panel discussions, and facilitate group conversations.
Philip Arnoult: Founder, Center for International Theatre Development (CITD): Baltimore, MD: Widely recognized nationally and internationally, Philip has nurtured and presented new theatre and dance forms throughout the world and is committed to long-term, international projects that put artists together for collaboration. He has lectured and conducted workshops in over 25 countries. CITD has offices in Baltimore, Nairobi and Russia.
Lee Breuer: Founding Co-Artistic Director, Mabou Mines Theatre Company: New York City, NY: For many years, Lee has been one of America’s most active and innovative stage directors, as well as an author, lyricist, adaptor and teacher. He has directed fourteen OBIE award-winning productions for Mabou Mines, as well as nationally and internationally, including the Tony Award nominated The Gospel at Colonus. Lee is also a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellow and has taught at Stanford, Yale, Harvard and others, nationally and internationally.
Kathleen Cioffi: Author, Princeton, NJ: Kathleen is a book editor at Princeton University Press and a theatre historian specializing in contemporary Polish theatre. In addition to many other publications, Kathleen authored the award-winning book Alternative Theatre in Poland, 1954-1989. She is a co-founder of Maybe Theatre, an English-language student theatre in Gdansk, and she is an associate of Arden2.
Robert Cohen: Author/Director/Professor of Drama, UC Irvine: Irvine, CA: Upon receiving his Doctor of Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama in 1965, Robert joined the charter faculty of UC Irvine and has been serving there ever since. He has directed more than seventy productions at Irvine, as well as directing professionally off campus. He has authored many important theatre books, essays and reviews, and specializes in teaching acting. In the late 1980s, he paired with Grotowski in the creation of the Objective Drama Program on the UCI campus.
John Freedman: Editor/Theater Critic, The Moscow Times: Moscow, Russia: John has written or edited and translated nine books about Russian drama and theater, including Silence’s Roar: The Life and Drama of Nikolai Erdman and Provoking Theater: Kama Ginkas Directs (co-authored with Ginkas). A theater critic of The Moscow Times and columnist for Plays International, John has also contributed to The New York Times and other publications. John has been active in the theatrical process in Moscow, he has contributed to several documentary films about Russian theater, and he holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
George Lugg: Associate Director, REDCAT: Los Angeles, CA: George has been working in the field of contemporary performance presenting since 1991. At REDCAT, he oversees the implementation of a diverse array of multidisciplinary programming, serves on the curatorial team for dance and theater, produces the New Original Works Festival, and coordinates a series for new works and works-in-progress. George has a degree in Dance from the University of Washington.
Steven Leigh Morris: Critic-at-Large, L.A. Weekly: Los Angeles, CA: Steven was theater editor for 10 years at L.A. Weekly until that position was eliminated in January. His theater articles have been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, American Theatre and others. Steven is also a playwright. He has been a playwright-in-residence at Moscow’s Theater on Spartacus Square and the Actors’ Gang in Los Angeles. His play, Beachwood Drive, was just produced off-Broadway and will be included in Smith and Kraus’ anthology of Best New American Plays of 2009.
Mark Murphy: Executive Director, REDCAT: Los Angeles, CA: Mark is an influential figure in the national and international field of contemporary performing arts, with over 25 years of experience producing, presenting and developing new audiences for interdisciplinary performances. He has served as Chairman of the Choreographer’s Fellowship Panel for the NEA, along with other board positions. Mark has also been active as a writer, performer and director, performing original group and solo projects throughout the US.
Stephen Nunns: Director, Towson University: Towson, MD: Stephen is an assistant professor and director of the MFA Program in Theatre Arts at Towson University. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice and other publications. From 1996 to 2000, he was an associate editor at American Theatre magazine. Stephen has directed and wrote for a variety of off-off Broadway venues, including HERE and The Ontological-Hysteric Theater. He was an associate artist at the seminal avant-garde company Mabou Mines, where he created the OBIE Award-winning, The Boys in the Basement.
Jim O’Quinn: Editor in Chief, American Theatre: New York City, NY: Jim’s articles have appeared in Stagebill, Theatre Heute Tatler, and many others. Prior to joining Theatre Communications Group, where he collaborated on the creation of American Theatre, Jim was managing editor of the journal TDR: The Drama Review, as well as the publisher for two years of an award-winning weekly newspaper in southwest Louisiana.
Rob Orchard: Executive Director, American Repertory Theater: Cambridge, MA: Rob serves as Executive Director of the A.R.T. and the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, and the Director of the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University. For nearly twenty years, Rob has been active in facilitating exchanges, leading seminars, and advising on public policy with theatre professionals and government officials in Russia. In 2000, Rob received the Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence.
Richard Schechner: Professor of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts; Editor, TDR: The Drama Review; Artistic Director, East Coast Artists: New York City, NY: Richard is a university professor, performer, publisher, critic and director, and he is one of the most acclaimed figures of American experimental theatre. He founded The Performance Group (later known as The Wooster Group), with which he directed Dionysus in ’69, one of the leading works of American avante-garde theatre claiming free spirit and body and fighting rigid social rules. With Lisa Wolford, Richard edited the most important English language anthology of texts on Grotowski, The Grotowski Sourcebook.
David Sefton: Executive/Artistic Director, UCLA Live: Los Angeles, CA: On arriving in Los Angeles, David created a major programming shift with the introduction of several initiatives, most notably the UCLA International Theatre Festival. He has produced and presented the work of Robert Wilson, Complicite, Volksbuhne, The Wooster Group and many others. His programming encompasses all forms of music, dance, theatre and spoken word and is acknowledged as one of the most important presenting institutions in the United States.
Tom Sellar: Editor of Theater magazine, Yale University and Duke University Press: New Haven, CT: Tom is an Associate Professor of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at Yale University. He is a theater critic and arts journalist for The Village Voice and has been published in the New York Times, American Theatre and other national publications. Currently, Tom is completing a book manuscript on Richard Foreman and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.
Nick Slie: Co-Artistic Director, Mondo Bizarro: New Orleans, LA: Nick is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the performance collective Mondo Bizarro. He is an actor, director, writer, educator and community activist. Nick’s performance work ranges from physical theater to multi-disciplinary solo work, from digital storytelling to collaborative ensemble productions. He serves on the Executive Committee for Alternative ROOTS and is the Board Chair for the Network of Ensemble Theaters.
Eli Simon: Professor of Acting/Chair, UC Irvine: Irvine, CA: Eli has directed productions across the country and overseas, specializing in the development of original commedias, clown shows, American classics and musicals. He is the author of Masking Unmasked, Four Basic Approaches to Acting and the artistic director of CLOWNZILLA, an original clown troupe that creates silent clown shows.
Ron Sossi: Artistic Director, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble (OTE): Los Angeles, CA: Ron is the Artistic Director/Founder of OTE. In his earlier life, Ron worked as a screenwriter and director and held executive positions at the Mirisch Corporation, the American Broadcasting Company, Paramount Pictures and Metromedia. Ron received the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ most prestigious Margaret Hartford Award for “demonstrating a continual willingness to experiment provocatively in the process of theatre” and the first Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Award for “Lifetime Achievement in Directing.”
Yury Urnov: Freelance Director/Instructor/Translator, Moscow, Russia: Interested in the type of theatre combining Drama and Dance (Space/Body), Yury collaborates frequently with the Russian new wave Contemporary Dance Movement. He will be in the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship next year, for the Russian Season at Towson University, MD, during which Russian Drama from the last 20 years will be presented to the professional American theatre.
