CREATIVE TEAM
JOSHUA W. KELLEY (Director)
Joshua W. Kelley is a New York-based director known for tackling texts of various genres, styles, and methods of storytelling because - ultimately - he is interested in how content can always dictate form. Josh's work is characterized by a clear, specific vision, and performances that reflect a deep understanding of the text. In NYC, he has directed the world premieres of Jacob Marx Rice's Chemistry (The Alchemical Theatre Laboratory) and Urinal (Roy Arias Stage II), Corey Pajka's Under Your Pillow (Perchance To Dream Theatre), and Levi Shrader's Hardships Jeer Love (Variations Theatre Group). Josh has also directed Harold Pinter's Party Time, David Mamet's School, the original musical Exit Row, and selections from Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin'sSavage/Love. He directed as well as curated ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE WHORES: Pace Does Drew Fornarola at The Duplex Cabaret Theatre, and MINT'D: Concert A - Inheritance at The Pershing Square Signature Center as a part of The 2013 New York Musical Theatre Festival. This led to his collaboration with composer/lyricist Addison O'Donnell on CLUELESS: The Music and Lyrics of Addison O'Donnell at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Josh has also worked on staged readings of rhythmic, animal perfection (Dixon Place) and the new musical, Fake It. As Assistant Director, Josh has worked onEvanston: A Rare Comedy (dir. Michael Rau) as a part of the 2013 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, the cell's world premiere production of Peter/Wendy (dir. Jeremy Bloom), New York Theatre Barn's production of Tamar of the River Oratorio (dir. Joe Barros), Merrily We Roll Along (dir. Amy Rogers), Anyone Can Whistle (dir. Amy Rogers), Hello Again (dir. John Ruocco), The Who's Tommy (dir. Bob Cline), and The House of Bernarda Alba. In the fall of 2011, Joshua was one of two directors selected for the Advanced Directing program with the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. During his time at the O'Neill, Josh had the pleasure of observing Michael Mayer in rehearsal for the 2011 Broadway revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. He also participated in workshops / masterclasses in a variety of disciplines, including Suzuki, Viewpoints, Balinese Mask, Chekhov performance, Lecoq, and clowning. He is a graduate of Pace University, holding a BA in Theater Arts with a directing focus. SDC Associate Member. www.joshuawkelley.com LAURA STEINROEDER (Director of Development & Audience Outreach)
Laura Steinroeder is a Theatre Director and Social Media / Marketing Consultant who is passionate about new play development and connecting artist communities through social media engagement. Laura serves as the social media manager for Botanicum Seedlings: A New Play Development Series for Playwrights and tweets for The Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. She has curated several twitter chats for Howl Round’s weekly Howls on the topics of new play development, director/playwright relationships and self-producing. Most recently Laura has directed several staged readings and she produced/directed a new play for the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2013. She studied directing at the Claremont Colleges and she attended the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. SDC Associate Member. www.laurasteinroeder.com BRADEN JOYCE (Associate Producer)
Braden Joyce recently returned to New York after spending three months abroad researching Latin American theater and performance culture in Chile and Argentina. Upcoming: Assistant Director: Hero! The Musical (Asolo Repertory Theatre; dir. David Bell); Director: Songs for a New World (FSU/Asolo Conservatory). Past Assistant Director credits include: 1776 (American Conservatory Theatre; dir. Frank Galati), Clybourne Park (Asolo Rep; dir. Michael Edwards), Venus in Fur (Asolo Rep; dir. Tea Alagić), and the world-premiere developmental workshop of John Guare’s newest play, Eddie in the Andes. For the 2012-2013 Season, Braden was the Assistant to the Producing Artistic Director of Asolo Repertory Theatre. As an actor, he has worked at Williamstown Theatre Festival, with the SITI Company in the world-premiere production of Café Variations (dir. Anne Bogart), a pre-Delacorte workshop of Love’s Labours Lost (dir. Alex Timbers), Death and the Powers (dir. Diane Paulus) and others. Braden holds a BFA in Musical Theatre with a producing concentration from Emerson College. www.bradenjoyce.com SYLVIANNE SHURMAN (Costume Designer)
Sylvianne Shurman is a NYC-based costume designer working in theater and film. Upcoming: Wingman (City Tech). Recent credits: Blind Angels (Theater for the New City), Colombine's Paradise Theater (eighth blackbird National Tour), Something Cloudy, Something Clear (Invisible Dog), Night of Power (Colombia), She is King (Incubator Arts- Other Forces Festival), The Lady in Red Converses with Diablo (Arts@Renaissance), Fireface (CMU), Pretty Pictures are Everything (Incubator Arts -Shortform), Inexperienced Love (NYC Fringe), Secondhand Shakespeare (WVMTF). She has worked on a variety of feature films and TV. Education: B.F.A. in Costume Design, Carnegie Mellon University. www.sylvianneshurman.wix.com/design ERIC DROOKER (Artwork)
Eric Drooker is a painter, graphic novelist, and third-generation New Yorker, born and raised on Manhattan Island. His paintings have appeared on dozens of covers of The New Yorker, and hang in numerous collections, while his graphics and street posters are a familiar site in the global street art movement. He won the American Book Award for Flood! A Novel in Pictures, soon followed by Blood Song, and Howl: A Graphic Novel. He was Animation Designer for the film, Howl, and was later hired by DreamWorks Animation. Drooker gives frequent slide lectures about art, politics, and the changing urban landscape. His dramatic slide presentation is a favorite event at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and Europe. He regularly draws from the figure, and is presently working on a series of nude paintings for an upcoming book. Drooker divides his time between New York City and Berkeley, CA. www.drooker.com |
ALI SKYE BENNET (Artistic Producer / Co-Creator)
Ali Skye Bennet is an unmatched artistic leader who has been performing and creating theatre since childhood. NYU Tisch School of the Arts, 2001-2005. A recent addition to the full-time staff of the prestigious, critically-acclaimed Vineyard Theatre as Associate Producer, she spent the last three years as the Producer & Company Manager for Obie & Drama Desk Award-winning off-Broadway theatre company, Transport Group. Select past projects include: Company Producer for PuppetCinema (Planet Egg, Washington Post Editor's Pick, Capital Fringe 5-star "Best of the Fringe" selection); Company Producer for classical-experimental company, American Centaur; intern for internationally / critically-acclaimed theatre company, Elevator Repair Service (Gatz, The Sound and the Fury, The Sun Also Rises). Ms. Bennet is also an accomplished actor, dancer, writer, and an award-winning photographer with international publication (Image International, Photolife Magazine), and has traveled all over the world documenting her adventures and the people she meets through her photos and journals. Proud member of the Drama League, and the Commercial Theater Institute's 2014 14-week program. www.aliskyebennet.com ALLEN GINSBERG (Poet)
Renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, songwriter, teacher, photographer, world traveler, champion of human and civil rights, political gadfly, spiritual seeker, and co-founder of a poetics school, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) defied simple classification. As a poet, he will probably be remembered most for two lengthy masterworks: “Howl” and “Kaddish.” Other select poems illustrate Ginsberg’s expansive interests and styles: “Sunflower Sutra,” “America,” “Wichita Vortex Sutra,” “Wales Visitation,” the interconnected poems of The Fall of America, which won Ginsberg the National Book Award, “Father Death Blues,” and “White Shroud.” The overall body of Ginsberg’s work remains one of the most impressive literary canons in American history. Ginsberg, who understood the currency of publicity from his youthful days as a marketing researcher, embraced his role as the Beat Generation’s most eloquent and persistent spokesperson. In 1973, he and poet Anne Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, ensuring a continuing legacy of the study and practice of Beat Generation-influenced writings. The 1956 publication of Howl and Other Poems established Ginsberg as an important voice in American poetry. But Ginsberg would achieve international fame a year later with the highly publicized Howl Obscenity Trial in San Francisco. This served as a catalyst in fomenting Ginsberg’s lifelong obsession with First Amendment issues in particular, and political activism in general. Using his fame as an international podium, Ginsberg spoke out on such controversial issues as the Vietnam War, gay rights, and drugs. Credited with coining the term “Flower Power,” Ginsberg became a figurehead of the global youth movement in the late 1960s. At times, his opinions landed him in trouble: he was expelled from Cuba and Czechoslovakia in 1965 and, like many outspoken artists and activists, became the subject of a voluminous FBI dossier. The life and writings of Allen Ginsberg continue to be of great interest today, long after he succumbed to liver cancer in 1997. Nearly all of his books remain in print. Four books of writings and interviews have been posthumously published, and new volumes of journals and correspondence are forthcoming. His poems appear regularly in anthologies around the world, and his photographs are constantly recycled in books and magazines. Universities regularly offer Ginsberg and Beat Generation curriculum courses. But most important — as Ginsberg would likely have seen it — is the fact that every day, somewhere in the world, perhaps in a farm town in Nebraska, or in a café in Berlin, or in a village in Southeast Asia, some kid out there is picking up Howl and Other Poems and beginning his/her own journey down the corridors of imagination, from which a more patient and generous world just might evolve. www.allenginsberg.org ALEX JAMES (Stage Manager)
Alex James is a New York City based stage manager. Off-Broadway: The Berenstain Bears Live!, Jay Allan Zimmerman’s Incredibly Deaf Musical. Other NYC credits: Infallibility (Fringe NYC 2013), SoundBites (Theater Now New York), A Lasting Impression, She Loves Me (Pace). Graduate of Pace University. BRYCE CUTLER (Scenic & Media Designer)
Bryce Cutler is a scenic and media designer originally from Florida. He recently designed the The Lady In Red Converses with Diablo, a 13-room, 4,500 sq. foot, site-specific theater experience in Brooklyn's Arts@Renaissance. Other designs include Victor Frange Presents Gas (Incubator Arts), Inexperienced Love (NYC Fringe), Secondhand Shakespeare (WVMTF), Titus Andronicus at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Theatre on the Run, Spring Awakening(CMU), and has worked on various projects at the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera in London, and The Public Theater, and was an art assistant on The Dark Knight Rises. He recently won the Lloyd Weinger Award for Scenic Design, and his booth design was a finalist to represent the United States at the 2015 Prague Quadrennial. Education: Carnegie Mellon University. www.brycecutler.com MICHAEL COSTAGLIOLA (Sound Designer)
Michael Costagliola is a Brooklyn-based sound designer and composer. He studied music at Brown University, where he received the Weston Award for Music Composition. He is a Teaching Artist in Sound Design for the Roundabout Theatre Company and is the resident composer for the AntiGravity Theatre Project. His work has been heard in New York at La MaMa, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Brick Theater, Incubator Arts Project, The Martin E. Segal Center, Dixon Place, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and Magic Futurebox among others, as well as at various theaters in Providence, Philadelphia, Boston, Madrid, and across Europe and India. ALLY SALVATORE (ASM/Props Coordinator)
Ally Salvatore is fairly new to the New York theatre scene, but is no stranger to the business. Some select productions from recent years include South Pacific, Les Miserables (Master Electrician, Surflight Theatre), Production Assistant/Stagehand (And Baby Makes Seven, The New Ohio), Barefoot in the Park, Steel Magnolias (Assistant Stage Manager, Surflight Theatre), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Assistant Lighting Designer, Wells College), and Pygmalion (Assistant Stage Manager, Wells College). She was also Production Assistant with the Kitchen Theatre Company through their 2010-2011 season. “Everybody’s serious but me.” HANNAH LEVIN (Videographer / Documentarian)
Hannah Levin is a filmmaker working in New York and Los Angeles. She graduated from Emerson College in 2005 with a BA in Film Production. As an IATSE Local 600 Camera Loader, she has worked on major motion pictures and television production across the country since 2007. As a Cinematographer and Camera Operator over the past 6 years, she has worked to help artists realize their visual dreams, from music videos and webisodes to promotional videos and documentaries. She is excited to come aboard The Untitled Ginsberg Project and document such creative and talented artists during the development of the piece. www.HLshoots.tumblr.com |