2012-2013
“They also serve who only stand and wait.”
— John Milton
Was I making progress?
By 2012, playwrights like LM Feldman, Krista Knight, Eric Meyer, Tommy Smith, and Kate Benson were calling me in regularly for readings and workshops.
I developed an opera with avant-garde luminary Robert Wilson, got my Equity card through New Georges, and wrote key scenes and a memorable monologue for The Assembly’s riff on Great Expectations, for which I created the role of Miss Havisham.
But a decade after moving to New York, still unrepresented, I had no access to theater that paid a weekly salary, and virtually never got the opportunity to even audition for it.
Then Jess, making her Broadway debut as the associate director of Peter and the Starcatcher, got me an appointment for the show’s first national Broadway tour.
That fall, for the first time in my life, I made the majority of my income as an actor.
Sara Farrington
PERFORM-A-THON - "EXTERMINATION"
Devised Workshop
January 8, 2012
by Sara Farrington, dir. Yana Landowne
New Georges
Perform-a-Thon features original plays — 18 in this case — written and directed over the course of a few hours in response to a prompt received that morning.
An incredible theatrical institution, New Georges is one of the only New York companies dedicated to supporting female writers and directors.
OUR PLANET
Workshop Production
February 6, 2012
by Yukio Shiba, dir. Alec Duffy
Eliza Bent, Nikki Calonge, Ryan Eggensperger, Juliana Francis Kelly, Mia Katigbak, Godfrey Simmons and Paula Wilson
Role: Teacher
The Japan Society
An unlikely, beautiful mashup of Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Thornton Wilder's Our Town.
It’s hard to convey to folks outside the New York theater community just how exciting this cast was: wry, hilarious Eliza Bent is a brilliant writer/performer; Juliana Francis Kelly is famous for her preternaturally intense work with Reza Abdoh, featured in a major Museum of Modern Art retrospective in 2018; and Obie Award-winner Mia Katigbak has perfected a dry, crisp delivery that somehow conveys deep emotion.
Alec offered sure-footed direction of a Yukio’s haunting play, and Yukio himself skyped in from Japan for the talkback.
Ben with composer Barry Brinegar
SALAMANDER LEVIATHAN
Performance (Musical)
February 13, 2012
by Krista Knight and Barry Brinegar, dir. Jess Chayes
with Emily Perkins, Alison Scaramella, David Skeist, and Steve Stout
Role: Salamander Leviathan
The Public Theater/Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub is the coolest cabaret venue in downtown New York.
Performing Salamander there was a dream come true.
THE EXTINCTION OF FELIX GARDEN
Staged Reading
February 15-18, 2012
by Sarah Hammond, dir. Mary Birnbaum
with Clea Aslip (Brooke), Kevin Hoffman (EJ), Scott Kerns (Craig, Voice, Stage Directions), and Ellen Maddow (Cora)
Role: Felix Garden
Firework Theater Company
Based on the true story of a Harlem cab driver who raised a pet tiger for three years in his Harlem apartment, The Extinction of Felix Garden featured me as an overeducated janitor raising a tiger of his own.
There was also a prayer-catching gargoyle on the roof and a love story between Felix and an upstairs neighbor whose cat has recently disappeared.
(Guess who ate it?)
Ben and Kevin Hoffman
Andrew Kramer
Dyalekt
WINTER WRITING RETREAT
Closed Workshop
February 26, 2012
new plays by Brian "Dyalekt" Kushner and Andrew Kramer
The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group
My second EWG retreat, under the direction of literary manager Liz Frankel.
The Emerging Writers Group prides itself on range:
Dyalekt, a rap artist from St. Croix, writes poetic theatrical meditations steeped in hiphop and social justice, while Andrew, a queer playwright from Cleveland, writes naturalistic plays that explore the aching loneliness of exclusion.
WE CAN'T REACH YOU, HARTFORD
Benefit Reading
March 3, 2012
by Stephen Aubrey and Jess Chayes
dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer (P.T. Barnum), Jean Ann Douglass, Jeff Kitrosser, Emily Perkins, and Justin Yorio
Role: Thomas Barber
The Assembly @ Spoke The Hub
In 2006, a group of undergrads at Wesleyan University began devising an original play about the Hartford circus fire of 1944, which claimed almost 170 lives.
(After September 11, 2001, the psychic impact of a national tragedy was still on everyone’s mind.)
When We Can't Reach You, Hartford premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that summer, it was nominated for the coveted Fringe First Award. A year later, they brought the show to New York, where it became The Assembly’s inaugural production.
(I joined the company two years later.)
In this benefit performance of the play, Edward reprised his original role, while the rest of us were encountering the material for the first time.
WOMEN'S CENTER STAGE FESTIVAL -
"RUFUS AND KATE: A LOVE STORY"
Performance (Short)
March 10-11, 2012
by Ben Beckley, Kate Benson, Rachel Bonds, Anna Abhau Elliott, Dan Kitrosser, Tommy Smith, and Caridad Svitch
conceived and dir. Jess Chayes
with Alley Scott
Role: Rufus
Women's Center Stage Festival and The Culture Project @ The Living Theater
Asked to create a short play related to the prompt "economy," Jess suggested we string together a series of one-sentence plays as an experiment in theatrical economy.
Soliciting micro-plays from my favorite playwrights, I also wrote a few of my own.
The Prince of Homburg
Closed Reading
March 20, 2012
by Heinrich von Kleist, dir. Joseph Cermatori
My college classmate Joe, studying for his PhD at Columbia, brought folks together to read this classic German play.
MURDER IN CELEBRATION
Closed Reading
March 24, 2012
by Dave McGee
with Annika Franklin, Lisa Michelle McKeown, Laura Moss, Wil Petre, and Tomi Tsunoda
440 Studios
In the mid-90s, Disney created the perfect American city — Celebration, Florida — with all the carefully calibrated nostalgia of a Norman Rockwell painting. Then a brutal murder shattered the perfect illusion of American security.
Dave McGee — a brilliant political playwright with a wicked sense of humor — wrote a play about it.
LITTLE ROCK
Closed Reading (Musical)
March 28, 2012
by Tommy Smith, music by Estelle Bajou
with Jessica Smith, Mary-Jane Gibson and Ben Vershbow
The Lark Play Development Center
Tommy and Estelle adapted the brutal revenge drama The Virgin Spring for a musical set in 1910s New Mexico.
composer Estelle Bajou
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Closed Workshop
April 2, 2012
freely adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens
by Steve Aubrey, dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer and Emily Perkins
Roles: Abel Magwitch, Miss Havisham
The Assembly
The first workshop of what would become That Poor Dream.
At this stage, we were taking dialogue straight from Dickens’ text.
It was during this workshop that we realized we shouldn’t tell a story about socioeconomic inequality in America with an all-white cast.
THE FOOD PROJECT
Closed Workshop
April 3-5, 2012
by Nastaran Ahmadi, Nick Choksi, Lauren Feldman, Charise Castro Smith, and Leah Nanako Winkler
dir. Pirronne Yousefzadeh
with Nick Choksi, Jackie Chung, Joby Earle, Lanna Joffrey, Eric Miller, Rachel Rusch, Josh Sauerman, Charise Castro Smith, Elvy Yost, and Jehan O. Young
Roles: The Maid, Telemachus
New York Theatre Workshop
Conceived by Pirronne Yousefzadeh, The Food Project investigates how food is produced, prepared, commodified, and consumed.
It's a huge topic, and Pirronne brought on five writers to explore it: Leah wrote a scathing satire about a wealthy, wasteful binge-eating college girl, Lauren created a heart-rending drama about a poor family struggling to feed themselves, Nastaran wrote a food-focused riff on Homer's Odyssey, and Nick and Reese wrote songs and interstitial material, respectively.
director Pirronne Yousefzadeh
playwright Mary Elizabeth Hamilton
BUTTER: A LOVE STORY
Closed Reading
April 15, 2012
by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton, dir. Portia Krieger
with Matt Dellapina, Charise Castro Smith, Johanna Weller-Fahy, and Stephanie Wright Thompson
New Georges
In Butter, I played a huckster so peculiar, brilliant, and self-assured that he rivals the complexity of the diabolical title character of Herman Melville's Confidence Man.
Mary Hamilton captures the yearning loneliness at the center of contemporary life like maybe no one else.
D.B. COOPER PROJECT
Closed Workshop
April 22-May 13, 2012
by Tommy Smith, dir. Teddy Bergman
with Dan Cozzens, Evan Enderle, Erin Felgar, Jocelyn Kuritsky, Scott Nath, Kate Roberts, Jenny Seastone Stern and Joe Tippett
Roles: John List, D.B. Cooper
Woodshed Collective
In 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727, extorted $200,000 from the airline, and parachuted from the plane, never to be seen again.
Since then, dozens of men (including murderer John List) have been suspected of being the real "D.B. Cooper" (as the press erroneously called him).
Tommy wrote a play about all of them.
a police sketch of D.B. Cooper
an image from Zinnias 2013 premiere
ZINNIAS
Workshop Production (Opera)
May 15-May 23, 2012
music and lyrics by Dr. Bernice Reagon and Toshi Reagon
text by Jacqueline Woodson, dir. Robert Wilson
with Francesca Harper, Randy Jeter, Karma Mayet Johnson, Jennifer Kidwell, Derrin Maxwell, Josette Newsam-Marchak, Robert Osborne, Aja Salaka, Sheryl Sutton and Darynn Zimmer
The Kasser Theater @ Montclair University
Robert Wilson is one of the most influential and celebrated experimental theater directors of his generation, and Dr. Bernice Reagon and her daughter Toshi Reagon have spent decades at the forefront of chronicling the black American experience through music.
Working with these three incredible artists was one of the most demanding and rewarding experiences of my life.
HAL AND BEE
Closed Workshop
May 29-June 1, 2012
by Max Baker
with Janeane Garofolo (Bee), John Glover (Hal), and Laura Ramadei
Role: Rocco Nuncio
A longtime fan of wild-eyed, golden-voiced John Glover, I was thrilled to share a scene with him in Hal and Bee.
Glover played Hal, an aging radical, and Janeane Garofalo — famous for her work in comedy, film and politics — played Bee, his once-radical wife.
My Italian exterminator attempts to coax Hal out of his existential despair. "There is an Italian saying my mother tell me, my grandmother.... For you it means: 'Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.'"
playwright Cory Finley
SUNK
Closed Reading
June 4, 2012
by Cory Finley, dir. Kip Fagan
with Katya Campbell (Anna) and Curran Conner (Man)
Role: Matt
An informal reading at Kip’s apartment.
Matt lives with his girlfriend Anna… and an inchoate fear that something unsettling is going on under their floorboards.
He’s not wrong.
NUDE MAN WHO LOCKED SELF OUT OF HOUSE DELIVERS MOVING TREATISE ON THE HUMAN CONDITION
Internet Video
Role: Naked Guy
The Onion News Network
When David Ronzo accidentally locks himself out of his house as he’s about to take a shower, he finds more than his body stripped bare.
actor Reg E. Cathey
THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH
Staged Reading
June 18, 2012
by Thornton Wilder, dir. Niegel Smith
with Jocelyn Bioh, Reg E. Cathey, Stephanie DiMaggio, David Greenspan, Austin Lysy, Nikiya Mathis, Taylor Mac, Chivas Michael, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, and Stuart Luth
Roles: Homer, Conveener, Mr. Tremayne
A spectacular play with a wonderful cast.
This reading marked a reunion with Stuart Luth (U.S./UK Exchange in 2010), Taylor Mac (Haroun in the Sea of Stories in 2010), and Reg E. Cathey (Cato in 2008).
AMANUENSIS
Closed Reading
June 25, 2012
by LM Feldman
with Jackie Chung, Daniel Hartley, Jen Kwok, and Rachel Rusch
Role: John Milton
Abrams Artists Agency
A cold reading in the offices of L's literary agent.
The play centers on Milton's daughters, who served as his assistants and secretaries and, as his sight faded, took dictation, line by line, as he composed Paradise Lost.
John Milton
playwright Riley MacLeod
THE MARRIAGE TRICK
Closed Reading
July 12, 2012
by Riley MacLeod, dir. Stephanie Johnstone
with Julie Baber, Edward Bauer, David Gould, Cassandra Johnstone, Justin Nestor, and Doug Paulson
Role: Edmund
A play about the 19th-century mesmerists.
HOME/SICK
Production
July 25-30, 2012
written and created by the ensemble, dir. Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Kate Benson, Anna Abhau Elliott, Luke Harlan, and Emily Perkins
Role: Tommy
The Assembly @ the undergroundzero festival @ The Living Theater
The legendary Judith Malina saw this re-mount, and afterwards she had some very nice things to say about HOME/SICK.
PLAY ABOUT BRECHT AND HIS GIRLFRIENDS AND BOYFRIEND AND WIFE
Production
August 8-18, 2012
written and directed by Sara Farrington
with Jack Frederick, Megan Gaffney, John Gasper, Tatiana Gomberg, Sandrine Hudl, Yuki Kawahisa, Erin Mallon, KatieRose McLaughlin, Gavin Price, and Robbie Tann
Role: Bertolt Brecht
Foxy Films Productions
John Fuegi's Brecht & Company claims Brecht plagiarized much of his work from the secretaries he seduced, brutalized, and manipulated.
The Village Voice called the book a "massive collection of half-truths and hysterical accusations," while Publisher's Weekly hailed it as a "gripping, myth-shattering biography.”
True or not, Fuegi’s biography inspired Sara Farrington’s powerful and provocative play.
MODERATO CANTABILE
Closed Workshop
August 18, 2012
by Marguerite Duras, dir. Pirronne Yousefzadeh
with Nick Choksi, Lynne Rosenberg, and Leah Walsh
Role: Chauvin
Adapted from the famous 1958 French novel, Moderato Cantabile recounts a wealthy French woman’s emotional affair with Chauvin, a working class stiff who works in her husband’s factory.
THE ABSENCE OF WEATHER
Closed Reading
October 2, 2012
by Ken Urban, dir. Stephen Brackett
with Michael Cumpsty, Polly Lee, and Stephen Kunken
Role: George Kennan
The Lark Play Development Center
America's first Secretary of Defense James Forrestal was one of the early architects of The Cold War.
Acutely paranoid and increasingly isolated, Forrestal ultimately threw himself — or was pushed — from a sixteenth-story window to his death.
The reading featured some of my favorite actors — none of whom I'd ever met before.
George Kennan
Harry K. Thaw
THE BROKEN UMBRELLA
Benefit Reading
October 19, 2012
by Eric John Meyer, dir. Jess Chayes
with B. Brian Argotsinger, Edward Bauer, Kate Benson, Phil Callen, John Carlin, Jean Ann Douglass, Seth Duerr, Katherine Folk-Sullivan, Emma Galvin (Evelyn), Emily Perkins, Nathaniel Kent, and Justin Yorio
Role: Harry K. Thaw
The Assembly @ JACK
Eric’s take on the love triangle between beautiful young chorus girl Evelyn Nesbitt, world-famous architect Stanford White, and deranged millionaire Harry K. Thaw.
FAMOUS PEOPLE DREAM IN CABRINI-GREEN
Closed Reading
October 22, 2012
by Jordan Seavey, dir. Niegel Smith
with Jocelyn Bioh, Nick Choksi, Tracy Hazas, Kalon Hayward, Katie Iacona, Tiffany Jewel, Stuart Luth, Brendan McDonough, Ayesha Ngaujah, Nicole Ventura, and Jason Zeren
Role: Professor Brash
DreamLab
DreamLab was the brainchild of Niegel Smith, who brought together two dozen of his favorite theater artists to devise and develop new work.
While we never succeeded in producing a single show, DreamLab did provide a satisfying creative outlet for all involved, Niegel included.
playwright Jordan Seavey
a scene from the premiere of The Consultant
THE CONSULTANT
Closed Reading
November 1, 2012
by Heidi Schreck, dir. Anne Kauffman
with Maria Dizzia
Role: Jun Suk
Playwrights Horizons New Works Lab
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the entire subway system was shut down, and when the director had to relocate the reading from midtown Manhattan to her Brooklyn apartment, the actor slated to play Korean-American Jun Suk could no longer make it.
Knowing I lived nearby, Heidi gave me a call, and I came in to read Jun Suk.
"You were incredible," her husband Kip told me afterwards, "And you are never going to play that part."
HOME/SICK
Production
November 2-18, 2012
written and created by the ensemble, Jess Chayes
with Edward Bauer, Kate Benson, Anna Abhau Elliott, Luke Harlan, and Emily Perkins
Role: Tommy
The Assembly @ The Living Theater
When Hurricane Sandy stripped the Lower East Side of electricity for days, scuttling our tech rehearsals and opening performances, we decided to mount the show in the dark.
The audience — some of them walking from miles away, since the subways were down — brought flashlights and lit the performance themselves, and The Assembly donated all proceeds to Sandy relief.
I’ll never forget it.
the flashlight performance of Home/Sick
playwright Hillary Miller
THE RETREAT
Closed Reading
November 26, 2012
by Hillary Miller, dir. Niegel Smith
with Jocelyn Bioh, Nick Choksi (Sam), Tracy Hazas, Kalon Hayward, Katie Iacona, Tiffany Jewel, Stuart Luth (Tig), Brendan McDonough, Ayesha Ngaujah (Lily), Jonathan Tindle (President Breen), Nicole Ventura (Lonny), and Jason Zeren
Role: Professor Brash
DreamLab
Hillary’s take on the waning days of Jimmy Carter’s administration.
WATERHOUSE
Closed Reading
December 3, 2012
by Tim J. Lord, dir. Niegel Smith
with Jocelyn Bioh, Nick Choksi, Tracy Hazas, Katie Iacona, Tiffany Jewel, Stuart Luth, Brendan McDonough, Ayesha Ngaujah, Jonathan Tindle, Nicole Ventura, and Jason Zeren
Role: Joseph Waterhouse III
DreamLab
Tim’s exploration of the internecine strife within an old-money family.
playwright Tim J. Lord
SALAMANDER LEVIATHAN
Closed Reading (Musical)
December 8, 2012
by Krista Knight and Barry Brinegar, dir. Jess Chayes
with Zach Harrison, Caitlin Mehner, and Emily Perkins
Role: Salamander Leviathan
Magic Futurebox
Magic Futurebox had committed to premiere Salamander Leviathan, and this was supposed to be our final developmental workshop before a 2013 production.
ALL THE HOLIDAYS AT ONCE
Benefit Performance (Musical)
December 8, 2012
by Krista Knight, Barry Brinegar, and others
with Barry Brinegar, Zach Harrison, Krista Knight, Caroline McGraw, Caitlin Mehner, Sarah Pauley and Emily Perkins
Magic Futurebox
Magic Futurebox went bankrupt shortly after our fundraiser, taking with them all our donations — and our hopes of getting the play produced.
The benefit performances were terrific — particularly Caroline McGraw's deconstructed striptease, equal parts satirical and vulnerable.
GOLDOR $ MYTHYKA
Closed Workshop
December 8-17, 2012
by Lynn Rosen, dir. Shana Gold
with Nick Abeel, Joe Boover, Christopher Gerson, Adam Harrington, Barbara McAdams, Jenni Meador, Garrett Neergaard, and Bubba Weiler
Roles: Jim, Funbeam
New Georges
This reading led to me getting my Equity card that spring.
THE DESERT
Closed Reading
January 9, 2013
by Hilary Bettis, dir. Pirronne Yousefzadeh
with Rebecca Hart
Role: Necali
Carol Ostrow Productions
I played a brutal soldier who seizes control of a troubled nation on the verge of war.
Hilary Bettis, as you might expect from someone who’d soon become a staff writer for The Americans, understands the brutality that people are capable of when they claim to put their nation’s interests over their own.
playwright Hilary Bettis
A DOLL'S HOUSE
Closed Reading
January 19, 2013
by Henrik Ibsen, dir. Rachel Chavkin
with Megan Ketch, Tom Lipinksi, Stephen O'Reilly, and Kristen Sieh
Role: Dr. Rank
A casual table read at Megan's apartment.
We've returned to the material since, and hope to mount it some day.
ANATOMY OF A SNOWFALL
Staged Reading
February 19, 2013
by Sara Stridsberg, dir. Lisa Pettersson
with Karin Agstam, Yvette Edelhart, Will de Meo, Alfred Gingold, Nina Ingemann, Clayton Dean Smith, and Anna Zastrow
Role: The Philosopher (Rene Descartes)
Columbia University's Swedish Program @ Deutsches Haus
DRACULA, MICHAEL, and FOR DEATH RIDES QUICKLY
Closed Workshop
February 23, 2013
by Bram Stoker and Jamie Poskin, dir. Jamie Poskin
with Louiza Collins, Paul Gasbarra, Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs, Jason Gray Platt, Molly Rice, Matt Schloss, and Henry Vick
Roles: Harker, Dracula, Michael, Romeo, Kwon
The Performing Garage
Inspired by Brace Up!, their whacked-out adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, I'd interned for The Wooster Group from June 2004 to May 2005.
One of New York’s most important experimental theater companies, The Wooster Group has its offices directly above The Performing Garage and regularly stages its work there. This workshop marked my first time actually performing at The Performing Garage, where I'd once sat in on rehearsals for Poor Theater, Hamlet, and Gatz.
I'M PRETTY FUCKED UP
(or THE HOWLS AND SOUNDS PLAY)
Staged Reading
February 23, 2013
by Ariel Stess, dir. Jess Chayes
with Frank Boudreaux, Edward Bauer, Megan Emery Gaffney, Brian Hastert, Lucy Kaminsky, and Keilly McQuail
Role: Security
Dixon Place
Months later, while I was back on tour with Starcatcher, Clubbed Thumb put together a critically acclaimed premiere of I'm Pretty Fucked Up.
I was sad to miss the show. Ariel's voice is unique: strange, specific, and replete with barely muted longing.
LEE MILLER
Closed Reading
March 31, 2013
by Kate Benson, dir. Portia Krieger
with Anna Abhau Elliott and Emily Perkins
Role: Man Ray
The New Georges Jam
Kate Benson, who would received a 2015 Obie Award for A Beautiful Afternoon on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes, self-identified as an actress, not a writer, until Jess Chayes asked her if she'd like to write plays and invited her to join The Jam.
Kate and I co-wrote HOME/SICK (with the rest of the ensemble), and we also worked together on Twelve Ophelias, The Confidence Man, Three Sisters, I Will Look Forward to This Later, and Seagullmachine.
LIBERTY BANK - "CELEBRATE"
Regional Commercial
March 20, 2013
Say what you will about a 15-second bank commercial — and I’d probably agree with you — but unlike, say, a three-and-a-half hour drama, not a second can be out of place.
I admire the economy of commercials, if not their content, and I wonder what we can learn from them as a form.
DEUS MACHINA EX:
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT VS. THE GOD MACHINE
Closed Reading
April 10, 2013
by Jonathan Goldberg
with Lara Hillier, James Kennedy, Kate MacCluggage, Emily Marro, Brett Robinson, and Colleen Werthmann
Role: The Wild Man of Borneo
Shelby Theater Company
Jonathan Goldberg, who mashes up history, philosophy and absurdity with Pynchonesque glee, is the mad scientist of contemporary American playwrights.
THE PRESIDENT PLAYS
Closed Reading
April 17, 2013
by David Henry Haan, dir. Liz Thaler
with Edward Bauer, Megan Gaffney, Rob Hille, Jake Lasser, and Kathy Searle
Roles: Aaron Burr, Tobias Stansbury, Preston Brooks, and William Henry Harrison
David Henry Haan had a weird and wonderful idea: write a short play about the death of every President in the history of the United States.
Ranging from the historically plausible (pneumonia) to the truly bizarre (spontaneous combustion), always informed but never limited by historical research, The President Plays are an awful lot of fun.
playwright Caroline McGraw
THE VAULTS
Staged Reading
April 17, 2013
by Caroline V. McGraw, dir. Portia Krieger
with Peter Albrink, Megan Byrne, Matt Dellapina, Laura Gragtmans, Danielle Slavick, Alex Trow, and Brian Wiles
Roles: Gus, Employee, Malcolm, Ned
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
The first time in twenty years I was asked to do a Scottish accent — a skill that came in handy a few months later, when I began understudying a Scottish role in Peter and the Starcatcher.
The Vaults premiered in May 2014, while I was away on tour.
Rob Leo Roy, Bobby Moreno, Christopher Gerson, Jaspal Binning, Jenni Meador, Ben, and Garrett Neergaard in Goldor $ Mythyka
GOLDOR $ MYTHYKA: A HERO IS BORN
Production
April 3-27, 2013
by Lynn Rosen, dir. Shana Gold
with Jaspal Binning, Christopher Gerson, Kristin Griffith, Adam Harrington (replacement), Jenni Meador, Bobby Moreno, Garrett Neergaard, Rob Leo Roy, Jenny Seastone Stern, and Bubba Weiler
Roles: Goran, Jim, Funbeam, Rush Limbaugh
New Georges @ The New Ohio
Goldor $ Mythyka got me my Equity card, and gave me the opportunity to develop nearly half-a-dozen different characters.
Lynn Rosen's play chronicles the somewhat-true tale of two down-and-out Dungeons-and-Dragons lovers who took on fantasy personas and robbed an armored car.
VIGILANCE
Closed Reading
May 6, 2013
by Wallace Charles Bossie III, dir. Tommy Smith
with Bradley Anderson, John Bernhard, Finn Kilgore, Lauren Lewis, and Mary Jane Gibson
Role: Cleveland
The Lark Play Development Center
1860s in the territory of Montana: no law but brutality, no mercy but death.
Vigilance brought together the three actors who had played Brian in major productions of Tommy Smith's White Hot: me (in the premiere at HERE Arts Center), Bradley (at The Flea), and Tommy himself (in Seattle, with West of Lenin).
Bradley Anderson in White Hot
Tommy Smith in White Hot
MFA WRITING WORKSHOP
Closed Reading
May 3, 2015
under the direction of Stephen Karam
GORDY CRASHES
by Sam Byron
with Dee Nelson and Tom Ridgely
The New School, MFA Playwrighting
A FEW THINGS BEFORE I LEAVE YOU
by Dan Kitrosser
with Matt W. Cody, Dee Nelson, and Tom Ridgely
The New School, MFA Playwrighting
The following year, Karam would win a Tony for Best Play.
Things in New York theater can change very quickly.
AND IF YOU LOSE YOUR WAY:
A FOOD ODYSSEY
Workshop
May 13, 2013
by Nastaran Ahmadi, Nick Choksi, Lauren Feldman, Charise Castro Smith, and Leah Nanako Winkler
dir. Pirronne Yousefzadeh
with Nick Choksi, Joby Earle, Meera Kumbhani, Natalie Kim, Rory Lipede, Rachel Rusch, Josh Sauerman, and Stephanie Wright Thompson
New York Theatre Workshop
Another iteration of Pirronne's ambitious theatrical extravaganza exploring how and why we eat.
The enormity of the project — five writers, all with markedly different takes on a very broad topic — eventually seemed too daunting, and not long after this workshop, Pirronne winnowed the writing team down to a single playwright: Lauren Feldman. Workshops continued while I was away on tour, and the play finally premiere in June 2014.
You can view pictures from that production here.
THE CIVILIANS' R&D GROUP
Workshop (Excerpts)
May 30, 2013
BARABBAS
by Matt Dellapina, dir. Jess Chayes
with Will Brill
Role: Barabbas
REVENGE
by Emily Ackerman, dir. Jess Chayes
with Colleen Werthman
Role: Chase
The Civilians
SPRING RECITAL
Performance (Excerpts)
June 6, 2013
LEE MILLER
by Kate Benson, dir. Kate Benson and Portia Krieger
with Anna Abhau Elliott and Emily Louise Perkins
Role: Man Ray
LIFTED
by Dipika Guha, dir. Sarah Krohn
with Megan Gaffney, Ethan Hova, Babak Tafti, and Marisa Lark Wallin
Role: Detective John Grant
The New Georges Jam @ Dixon Place
In a famous photograph of avant-garde photographer May Ray, the artist has carefully shaved the left side of his face, leaving a beard only on the right side.
Eager to follow suit, I shaved the left side of my face to play Man Ray in Kate Benson's Lee Miller; then, later in the evening, I returned fully shaven for Dipika Guha's Lifted.
THE PROPOSITIONAL FUNCTION
Workshop (Solo Performance)
June 13, 2013
written and directed by Barbara Cassidy
Little Theater @ Dixon Place
A dark meditation illuminated by streaks of noir, Kafka, and absurdism.
Little Theater, curated by avant-garde playwright Jeff Jones, is an invaluable incubator for new work in New York.
LUANDA-KINSASHA
Video Installation
June 23, 2013 (Principal Photography)
conceived and directed by Stan Douglas
Role: Audio Engineer
Video artist Stan Douglas creates museum installations that utilize obsolete media.
For LUANDA-KINSASHA, he painstakingly recreated Columbia's 30th Street Studio (where Miles Davis made Kind of Blue), and filmed a fictitious recording session between Davis and a coterie of jazz and African musicians. The film, which has been shown at galleries and museums in New York, Munich and Dublin, runs over six hours.
For a clip of LUANDA-KINSASHA, click here.
Reviews: The New York Times
Ben as Miss Havisham in That Poor Dream
THAT POOR DREAM
Workshop Production
June 26-29, 2013
text by Stephen Aubrey and the ensemble
dir. Jess Chayes
with Stephen Aubrey, Edward Bauer, Ray Campbell, Moti Margolin, Ayesha Ngaujah, Emily Louise Perkins, and Terrell Wheeler
Role: Miss Havisham
The Assembly @ The Ice Factory/The New Ohio
Arguably New York's premiere incubator of works-in-progress, The Ice Factory features plays that are fully designed, teched, and realized--but that all still very much in development.
That Poor Dream freely adapted Charles Dickens' Great Expectations to address the company's anxieties about rising income inequality in America and to explore our often fraught relationship to class identity.
For this version, Steve Aubrey played himself; a professor at Brooklyn College, he gave lectures about Dickens' novel that evolve into deeply personal revelations about his struggles to come to terms with his own lower-middle-class background. (In future incarnations of the piece, some of these characteristics were fused with the character of Pip, played by another actor.)
I played Miss Havisham, a role I had to relinquish when I left the following month for the first national tour of Peter and the Starcatcher.