Theatre Library Association
SYMPOSIUM II
New York University
Kimmel Center for University Life
Shorin Music Performance Center
(directions)
Friday, February 16, 2007
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Performance Reclamation:
Research, Discovery, and Interpretation
Presenters
KEYNOTE
James Leverett began his theater career as an actor, studied with Uta Hagen, and performed roles on Broadway and beyond. For nine years, he served as Director of Literary Services at Theatre Communications Group, the national organization of nonprofit theaters, where he worked with writers and dramaturgs, and initiated the publications Dramatists Sourcebook, Plays in Process (a series that published over 100 dramatic works), and New Plays USA. In 1988, he received the first Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas award for service to the field.
Mr. Leverett served as a founding contributing editor for Performing Arts Journal, and regularly wrote criticism for Soho Weekly News. He is the author of introductions to Harvey Fierstein's Torchsong Trilogy and Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. His writings have also appeared in The Village Voice, Theatre Journal, New York Literary Forum, Theater Heute, and Alternatives Théâtrales. He helped found TCG's American Theatre magazine and is on the editorial board of Theater, published by the Yale School of Drama.
He has worked in dramaturgical positions at the Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, Theatre for a New Audience, and Berkshire Theatre Festival. From 1997 to 2003, he was Chair of the Department of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at Yale School of Drama, where he is currently Associate Professor. He is also on the faculty of the Theatre Arts Division in the School of the Arts at Columbia University. Mr. Leverett holds an MA in German and Theater from Rutgers University, and an MFA in Theater from Hunter College.
NEW YORK CITY CENTER ENCORES!
Rob Fisher was music director and conductor of the Tony Award-winning Encores! series at New York's City Center from its inception in 1994 through 2005. In 1997, he was presented the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Special Achievement for his work on Encores! The series spawned many recordings for which he has served as conductor and associate producer. The Broadway hits Chicago and Wonderful Town began at the Encores! series. Mr. Fisher was instrumental in their successful transfer and remains supervising music director of companies of Chicago around the world. In 2001, he conducted Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone, George Hearn, and the San Francisco Symphony, broadcast on PBS and available on DVD. The 2006-2007 season finds Mr. Fisher conducting The Apple Tree starring Kristin Chenoweth on Broadway.
David Ives has adapted nearly 20 Encores! musicals, including this season's Face the Music, as well as the recently televised South Pacific at Carnegie Hall with Reba McEntire. His new translation of Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear premiered at Chicago's Shakespeare Theater last year, and a new one-act appeared at last Spring's Ensemble Studio Theater's annual marathon.
Bruce Pomahac was Musical and (with Hugh Martin) co-vocal arranger for Broadway's Meet Me in St. Louis. He orchestrated the Broadway productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's State Fair and The Curse of an Aching Heart by Claibe Richardson. He also orchestrated the premier recordings of Fly With Me and I Remember Mama (which he conducted), Richard Rodgers’ first and final musicals. With Josh Logan (book, lyrics and direction), he composed the score of Huck and Jim (On the Mississippi). He additionally created the vocal and dance music arrangements for the stage adaptation of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Mr. Pomahac is Director of Music for The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization.
Since 2000 Jack Viertel has been Artistic Director of the acclaimed City Center Encores! series of great American musicals in concert, which this season features Stephen Sondheim's Follies, Irving Berlin's Face the Music, and Stairway to Paradise, an original Encores! production celebrating fifty years of musical revues. He has served as Creative Director of Jujamcyn Theaters since 1987, overseeing development of new projects including The Wedding Singer, Angels in America, The Piano Lesson, Guys and Dolls, Jelly's Last Jam, The Sound of Music, Death of a Salesman, The Weir, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Swing!, Proof, King Hedley II, and Gem of the Ocean. He was also co-producer and co-conceiver of Smokey Joe's Cafe, and co-produced Jeffrey Off-Broadway. Previously he spent two years as dramaturg at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and was chief theater critic and arts editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
MINT THEATER COMPANY
Jonathan Bank is Artistic Director of the Mint Theater Company in New York. Under his leadership, Mint has been awarded an Obie and Drama Desk Award in the past three years. Bank has unearthed and produced more than two dozen worthy but neglected plays, including Echoes of the War by J. M. Barrie, The Daughter-In-Law by D. H. Lawrence, and Arthur Schnitzler's Far and Wide, which he adapted and directed. He is editor of Worthy but Neglected: Plays of the Mint Theater Company, which included his adaptations of Thomas Wolfe's Welcome to Our City and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, both of which he directed at Mint. Bank earned his M.F.A. from Case Western Reserve University.
Jennifer Blood was last seen as Phoebe in Full Bloom with Vital Theater Company. She has worked with the Prospect Theater Company on a variety of new musicals, including The Flood, Dido and Aeneas, and Hamlet Sings! She recently played Tania in the American premiere of Falling Petals with the Production Company. Her favorite regional roles include Katie in Swingtime Canteen, Rita in Prelude to a Kiss, and Angie in Breaking Legs.
Timothy Deenihan has spent nearly his entire professional career living and working in the UK and Ireland. After completing his training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Tim took the role of David in the Time Out London Critic’s Choice production of Absolution. He went on to play Levin in Anna Karenina, Babbybobby in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Dobbin in Vanity Fair, Austin in True West, and Jerry in Pinter’s classic Betrayal. Along with guest roles in series such as “Hornblower” and “Doctors,” Tim received a Best Actor nomination for his part as Darren Roebuck in the Channel Four series “Brookside.” His film credits include Batman Begins and the forthcoming Paul Verhoeven feature, Zwartboek (Black Book).
Leslie Hendrix has appeared as the ever-dry medical examiner Rodgers on the Law & Order series for the past 14 years. She made her Broadway debut when she stepped in for Jessica Lange in A Streetcar Named Desire; she later understudied Kathleen Turner as Yvonne in Indiscretions, playing opposite Eileen Atkins, Roger Rees, Jude Law, and Cynthia Nixon. Other Broadway appearances include The Music Man (directed by Susan Stroman), and most recently Hollywood Arms (directed by Harold Prince). Off-Broadway includes The Cover of Life at American Place, and The Cider House Rules at Atlantic Theatre Company. She has worked in regional theatres across the country, playing leading roles including Maggie the Cat, Miss Adelaide, Kate the Shrew, and Anna Christie. She appeared on NPR’s “Selected Shorts,” and is occasionally seen on “All My Children” as Judge Hannah Lampert.
Heather J. Violanti served as Dramaturg on the Mint’s production of Susan and God. Previous credits include Valiant (Unofficial New York Yale Cabaret) and Massacre at Paris (Blood N Thunder Theatre Company, UK). She worked as new play development dramaturg for two Arts Council of England grant projects, After Troy by Maureen McManus and Septimus Severus by Beverly Andrews. She has a B.A. from the College of Notre Dame in Maryland, and an M.F.A. in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from Yale School of Drama.
JACOB’S PILLOW DANCE FESTIVAL
Paul Dennis received his BFA from the Juilliard School in 1990 and was a member of the Jose Limon Dance Company, where he performed works of Jose Limon, Doris Humphrey, Daniel Nagrin, Garth Fagan, Ralph Lemon, Phillis Lamhut and Donald McKayle. He has also performed with Laura Glenn Dance and the Jacob's Pillow Men's Dancers Project. He currently teaches at Dance International in Burgos, Spain, Central Connecticut State University, and is a guest artist/faculty at Mount Holyoke College, Ridgefield Dance Conservatory, and Trinity College.
Norton Owen has been associated with Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival since 1976 and has been Director of Preservation since 1990, initiating and conducting various programs concerning dance documentation, exhibitions and archival resources. He is the author of A Certain Place: The Jacob's Pillow Story, currently in its second edition. He has written numerous articles for Dance Magazine, Performing Arts Resources and the International Dictionary of Modern Dance, for which he also served on the editorial board. He wrote a chapter in the textbook, Envisioning Dance on Film and Video, provided an Afterword to Wesleyan Press' José Limón: An Unfinished Memoir, and was a contributor to Routledge's José Limón: The Artist Re-Viewed. He has edited annual issues of the Limón Journal since launching this publication in 1994. His writings on Limón are the outgrowth of a 14-year tenure as Director of the Limón Institute, where he continues to serve as consultant. He is also a consultant to the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, assisting the organization with its archives. Mr. Owen has curated exhibits at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Harvard Theatre Collection, and recently served as co-curator for a touring exhibit sponsored by Dance Heritage Coalition on America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures. In fall 2005 he was elected Chairman of Dance Heritage Coalition, whose constituents include Library of Congress, San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum, and Ohio State University's Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute.
Sarah Stackhouse was a soloist with José Limón Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Louis Falco, Daniel Nagrin's Workgroup, and Annabelle Gamson Dance Solos. She served as Limón's assistant and taught his approach to dance at Juilliard and American Dance Festival. Formerly rehearsal director and coach for Limón Dance Company, she currently sets his works on professional companies, as well as writes about his works and artistry. As associate professor at SUNY Purchase's Conservatory of Dance, she taught composition, technique and repertory. Sarah has offered choreographic residencies as a master teacher throughout the United States, as well as Europe, India and China. In 2001 she gave workshops and lectures in Rome, Florence and Perugia as an American cultural specialist sponsored by the State Department.
CLOSING REMARKS
Don B. Wilmeth is Asa Messer Professor Emeritus and Emeritus Professor of Theatre and English, Brown University, retiring in 2003 after 36 years there, 16 as chair of the theatre department. Author, editor, co-editor, or series editor of three dozen books, including the award-winning three-volume Cambridge History of American Theatre, which is about to be issued in a paperback edition. For a dozen years he was series editor of Cambridge University Press' Studies in American Theatre and Drama, and is currently editor of Palgrave Macmillan's Studies in Theatre and Performance History and Culture. At present he is preparing a new edition of the Cambridge Guide to American Theatre. A former president of American Society for Theatre Research and dean emeritus of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, Don is currently vice present of the International Shaw Society and a member of the Board of Theatre Library Association. He is recipient of career and research recognitions from New England Theatre Conference, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, American Society for Theatre Research, and Theatre Library Association.
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