The 2nd Annual Directors Salon Schedule of Events:

The 2nd Annual week-long Directors Salon ran from April 11-17, 2011 and featured THREE panels with directors, agents, producers, artistic directors, and designers, one night of new work by emerging directors, networking parties, and many more opportunities for directors.

 Monday, April 11th: Directors Salon Kick-Off Party!   

7:30pm in the Bruce Mitchell Room at ART/NY

520 8th Avenue between W. 36th & 37th Streets, 3rd Floor

Come celebrate the opening of the Directors Salon! Meet other emerging directors and theater artists, find out more about the week's festivities, and drink FREE BOOZE! If you're a director and would like to work with us this week, make sure you attend this event for a chance to direct a scene from Waiting for Lefty. Each director chosen at random will be assigned to a different scene of Clifford Odets' working classic, culminating in a performance of the entire play at the end of the week. Each scene is pre-cast and every group will have ample rehearsal time at Theater Row during the week of the Salon. There will be a talk-back following the final presentation with the audience and fellow directors to observe the difference in directing choices, styles, and perspectives.

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Tuesday, April 12th: Director Panel

7pm at the Studio Theater at Theater Row

410 W. 42nd St. between 9th & 10th Aves, 4th Floor

We're all in the same boat here - we're emerging directors with seemingly no concrete path to success before us! Come hear from professional NYC directors about their experiences and challenges, and find out what their paths were like. Panelists Tamilla Woodward, Davis McCallum, Erica Schmidt and Victor Maog !

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Wednesday, April 13th:

WE REHEARSE!

(Yes, that means you!)

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Thursday, April 14th: Artistic Director/Agent/Producer Panel

7pm at the Studio Theater at Theater Row

410 W. 42nd St. between 9th & 10th Aves, 4th Floor

What do artistic directors, agents, and producers look for in directors? How can they help us? The professionals come to the rescue! Panelists Kristin Marting (HERE), Ralph Pena (Ma-Yi Theatre), Kate Navin (Abrams Artist Agency), Liz Jones (P73 Productions), and Janet Pailet (Scottsboro Boys, Passing Strange)!

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Friday, April 15th: Designer Panel followed by Director-Designer speed-dating!

7pm at the Studio Theater at Theater Row

410 W. 42nd St. between 9th & 10th Aves, 4th Floor

We invite all emerging directors and designers to hear from experienced NYC designers of various fields, followed by a Director-Designer speed-dating activity that will introduce you to potential future collaborators! Why go to happy hour when you can grab a free beer and meet another artist who wants to work with you? Panelists Rachel Hauck (A Boy and His Soul, Creature), Emily Rebholz (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Richard Fisher (Exit Cuckoo, Throat.)

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Saturday, April 16th: Night of Director-Driven Work

Out of countless submissions, these pieces were selected because we believe them to be a great representation of emerging director-driven work. Support your fellow directors by giving them feedback at our post-performance discussions.


Announcing our projects!:

RUB-A-DUB-DUB by Mike Anderson, directed by Isaac Klein
with William Connell, Bernardo Cubria, Cooper  D'Ambrose, Meredith Hagner and Will Rogers
RUB-A-DUB-DUB chronicles the story of three famed men in a tub: the Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker, as they struggle to survive when lost at sea. The piece is an exemplar of playwright Mike Anderson's "Cartoon Theatre," which winningly embraces the irreverent, fun-loving, fantastical, and often-times exceptionally poignant form that is the cartoon. This play is perhaps best described as a cross between 24, Looney Tunes, The Three Stooges, and Waiting for Godot.


NUESTRAS VIDAS PRIVADAS/ Our Private Lives 
by Pedro Miguel Rozo Florez, directed by Kira Neel
with Yanko Bulic, Pablo Vargas, Laura Spalding, Martin Balmaceda,

Patricia Becker and Kira Neel

NUESTRAS VIDAS PRIVADAS is an exploration of the process of rebuilding and healing after private and public disasters. 

NOTHING AND NOT MUCH: stores about the universe
Directed by Rachel Park & Kevin Bigger

with: Jake Green, Blair Lewin, Leanne Becker and Laura Princiotta
Adapted from and inspired by the stories of Italo Calvino, NOTHING AND NOT MUCH: stories about the universe is a fanciful exploration of one eternal soul's journey through time and space and the different ways that we as beings--whether human, animal, or cellular organism--search for fulfillment and connections with one another.

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Sunday, April 17th: Waiting for Lefty, by Clifford Odets.

Directed by...YOU!

Time TBA, The Studio Theater at Theater Row

featuring Ben Beckley, Kate Benson, Daryl Brown, Matt Brown, Philip Callen,

Adam Couperthwaite,Garrett Hendricks, Lanna Joffrey, Sarah Koestner,

Lauren Currie Lewis, Clinton Lowe,Michael Micalizzi, Lisa Ramirez and Danny Wolohan

The final culmination of our random opening night lottery - come see the full play by Odets, with each scene directed by a different director. There will be a feedback session following the play to discuss the various approaches to staging this working classic.

 

The Directors Salon was conceived and curated by
Luke Harlan, Dina Vovsi and Nicole Watson

Luke Harlan

LUKE HARLAN is a director living and working in New York. He has developed new plays at such institutions as The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Tectonic Theater Project, The New Group, The Kennedy Center, Columbia University, and the O'Neill Theater Center. After receiving the SDC National Directing Award in 2007, Luke assisted director Moisés Kaufman on his acclaimed production of 33 Variations in California and New York. Luke is a member of The PACK, The Assembly, and an associate member of SDC. Selected: Frontier, As Told By The Frontier (Columbia) Cou-Cou Bijoux, Pour Vous (Galapagos), Insatiable Hunger, a new musical (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), Fighting A Fish (Kennedy Center); Assistant Director: 33 Variations (La Jolla Playhouse).

 

Dina Vovsi DINA VOVSI is the Literary Associate at Working Theater and a co-curator and co-founder of the Working Theater Directors Salon.  She previously directed readings of Talking Dirty and The Boy Who Couldn't Smile at the inaugural 2010 Directors Salon and is directing Up and Down at the Complete Theatre Company's Choice One-Act Festival.  She has assisted Nicole A. Watson in a workshop of OyamO's White Hot Black Spice at New Dramatists.  Dina is a former Producing Associate at Page 73 (Edgewise), a NYC Associate of the Prison Creative Arts Project, and a graduate of the University of Michigan with a dual degree in Theatre and English.

 

Nicole Watson

NICOLE WATSON is a director and educator. She has a BA in history from Yale and an MA in interdisciplinary studies from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. While at Gallatin, Nicole was a Newington-Cropsey Fellow. Recent projects include co-writer on Burnt Sugar Freaks the James Brown Songbook (Apollo Salon Series). She is currently a directing affiliate at the Women’s Project and the Shakespeare Director at the 52nd Street Project where she has directed a number of plays written by Hell’s Kitchen youths. Directing credits include Homage 3:Illmatic (Black River Performing Arts Center), workshops of Suzanne (At Hand Theatre), Crystals Skillman’s Flow (Working Theater and the Brecht Forum), and Oyamo’s new musical White Hot Black Spice (New Dramatists); Deconstruction by Anne Phelan(Open Source Gallery) Reverb by Radha Blank (The Fire This Time Festival) Traffic Jam, (Secret Theatre), One Minute-Play Festival (Here Arts Center), Derek Walcott’s Ti-Jean and His Brothers (NYU-Tisch School of the Arts), Foreclosure (NYTE at the Access Theatre), David Hilder’s Just Exactly Like (The Flea),  Daniel McCoy’s Eli and Cheryl Jump (2009 Fringe Festival) and The Fantastiks (The Cathedral School, NYC) Nicole also served as a director and mentor for the Gallatin Play Development Lab at NYU where she developed Jack Moore’s Killing John Grisham. She assisted on Signature Theatre’s production of The First Breeze of Summer directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and has worked at the Lark, the Tribeca Film Institute, and the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. A former history teacher, Nicole has taught at Fieldston and the Cathedral School and has also developed and taught theatre workshops at Stratham Elementary School in New Hampshire as well as the Museum of the City of New York where she teaches an interdisciplinary playwriting/history course and leads professional development workshops on arts and education.

The Working Theater | 520 Eighth Avenue, Suite 303 | New York NY 10018
Tel: (212) 244-3300 | Fax: (212) 244-3302
info@theworkingtheater.org
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