Meet Our Newest Associate Artists

We are thrilled to introduce our newest group of Associate Artists!

Susannah Flood

With the Civilians, Susannah appeared in Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play (Playwrights Horizons). Other favorite New York projects include  Love and Information (New York Theater Workshop), Sylvia in Tribes (Barrow Street Theater); Phoebe in As You Like It (The Public/NYSF); Bird in Hand (Fulcrum Theater); Baby Screams Miracle (Clubbed Thumb); Okay (Ensemble Studio Theatre). Regional credits include two seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (including Mayella Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird and Ophelia in Hamlet); Travesties (McCarter Theater); A Civil War Christmas (world premiere, Long Wharf Theatre); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hartford Stage); Quilters (Denver Center Theatre Company); Our Town (Trinity Repertory Company – IRNE nomination for Best Actress); Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare in Santa Fe); boom (world premiere, Brown/Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theatre), among others. She's a graduate of UC Berkeley and Brown/Trinity (MFA).

Rebecca Hart 

Rebecca Hart is an actor and singer/songwriter based in NYC.  Current/upcoming projects include The Civilians’ ‘The Great Immensity’ at the Public Theater, and the  hip hop theatre piece ‘How to Break’ (as actor and songwriter) at the Spkrbox Festival in Oslo, Norway. Film: ‘Young Adult’ (Paramount), ‘Wendell & the Lemon’ (Imperfect Films). NY Stage:  ‘Uncle Vanya’ (Target Margin/HERE), ‘Son of a Gun’ (Beckett/Theatre Row), ‘Dead City’ (New Georges),  ‘Vendetta Chrome’ (Clubbed Thumb), ‘Love Sucks’ (NYMF) and the original rock musical ‘STRUCK’ (co-written with Bob Saietta) at the 2011 Ice Factory Festival (New Ohio).  Regional credits include the premiere of 'The Great Immensity' at Kansas City Rep, the 35th and 37th Humana Festivals at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the 2010 O'Neill Playwrights Conference, and the 2011 O'Neill Music Theatre Conference.  She is an alum of Brown University's Theatre department, the Public Theater Shakespeare Lab, and the Maggie Flanigan Studio's two year training program.  She ‘plays out’ regularly in collaboration with the folk band The New Students, and co-writes a food blog (A Mouse Bouche: the Hart Sisters Eat Life) with her sister Megan. www.rebeccahart.net

Terri Kohler

With the Civilians:  Brooklyn at Eye Level, Paris Commune, In the Footprint, The Great Immensity 

New York:  Cheri (Signature Theater), The Designated Mourner (The Public/Tfana), In Darfur, (The Public), The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The School for Lies, The Forest (CSC), Belleville, The Black Eyed (NYTW), We are Proud...., Orange, Hat & Grace (Soho Rep), Orpheus X (Tfana), Garden of Earthly Delights (2 Step), Killers and Other Family (Rattlestick), Angel Reapers (The Joyce Theater), Don Juan in Prague (BAM)

Regional: As You Like It (Two River Theater Company), Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare on the Sound), Wild Swans (American Repertory Theater/ The Young Vic), Quixote (Stillpoint Productions), Carmen (Madison Opera), I Just Stopped By to See the Man, God’s Man in Texas (Geffen Playhouse), Oedipus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Dispute, The Sound of a Voice (American Repertory Theater), Moscow: Cherry Tree Towers, The Tenderland, Offenbach!!! (Bard Summerscape) The Tales of Hoffman (New Orleans Opera).

Alyse Alan Louis

The Civilians: Workshop of Times Square (Pammy) at Joe's Pub and Let Me Ascertain You.

NYC: Broadway: Mamma Mia! (Sophie). Off Broadway: City Center Encores: Bells Are Ringing; Lucille Lortel: The Civil War; LaMama ETC: Camp Wanatachi; CAP21:The Daughters. 

Regional: Wendla in Spring Awakening (dir. Steve Cosson) at Olney Theatre Center; Philadelphia Theatre Company: NERDS (Thekla); Pittsburgh City Theatre: POP! Who Shot Andy Warhol? (Valerie Solonas); Revision Theatre; Prince Music Theatre; Walnut Street Theatre.

BFA NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Nedra McClyde

NEDRA McCLYDE believes our job is to unfold what is already within us. She hails from Mitchellville, Maryland and received her MFA from the Actors Studio Drama School. Member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, recipient of New Dramatist Charles Bowden Award,  NYIT Best Leading Actress nominee, and two-time AUDELCO Award nominee. Recent theater includes Mr. Burns at Playwrights Horizons, Good People at The Old Globe. Television/Film: Blue Bloods, As the World Turns, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, 30 Rock and One Life to Live. Please visit nedramcclyde.com.

Sam Pinkleton

Sam Pinkleton is a New York City-based director and choreographer. As a choreographer, his work includes the recent Broadway revival of Machinal (Roundabout) and the Off-Broadway productions of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Kazino), Mr. Burns... (Playwrights Horizons), Marie Antoinette (Soho Rep), Stage Kiss (Playwrights Horizons), and Buyer and Cellar (Barrow Street). Other recent work includes Spring Awakening (Olney Theater Center), The Material World (Dixon Place) and Love Machine (Incubator Arts Project). As a director, Sam has developed and directed new work with The Vineyard Theatre, Ars Nova, The O’Neill, Joe’s Pub, Abingdon Theatre Company, Primary Stages, Rattlestick, and City Theatre. Sam is co-director of The Dance Cartel’s long-running ONTHEFLOOR at the Ace Hotel. As part of The Civilians R&D group, he is developing a new music theatre work loosely based on the life of Marie Curie and other radioactive terrors with Maggie-Kate Coleman and Erato A. Kremmyda. Sam teaches Bustin’ Moves  at NYU and is a company member of Witness Relocation. Upcoming choreography projects include Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Theatreworks USA/Lucille Lortel), Fly By Night (Playwrights Horizons), and A Little Night Music (Berkshire Theatre Festival). www.sampinkleton.com

Oh Jesus: A Story Of Barabbas

This post was written by our 2012-13 R&D Group Artist and Associate Artist, Matt Dellapina! Click HERE for info about the Group and Matt. Here's the description of his project from the site: "Barabbas was the criminal spared for Jesus in a violent public vote. This faithless man walked away from the pages of history to live a life racked with the personal cost of his freedom. Here's what might have happened, with songs." And now... here's Matt!

To look into the character of Barabbas is to look at a B story in society. Noted throughout the gospel as a “notable prisoner” and a “bandit”, he comes up from the ink due to his random, yet auspicious seating next to the title character in The Jesus Story. In keeping with a Passover tradition, each were wheeled out before a bloodlusting crowd where one would be granted a public pardon and set free. The other would stay the course towards execution. We know how this turned out. But the what-if of what happened to the other guy has always intrigued me and seemed ripe for drama. How could you live with the guilt of being at the hinge of the modern Western world?

Barabbas’ tale is told in the shadows of a hero legend. Like every supporting character arc, whether or not one’s journey is a success, the heart of every man self-narrates a hero’s journey. If told by Barabbas himself, his footnote would swell to a triumphant tale of padding through the muck to climb out and walk tall once more. Wiser, and with the bruises to prove it.

But whatever the wisdom received by the received wisdom, the refracted angle of a minor player’s part in a larger story feels an ideal subject for a mix of what-if imaginings and historical digging. This kind of social discussion is what drew me to this R & D Group. And in the first series of presentations and discussion (including my own), I’ve been awestruck to the degree with which each of the artists in the room has provided insight that could’ve spawned it’s own evening unto itself. It’s a satisfying thing to see the postmodern streak of Barabbas mirrored in such real-time lens-shifting among fresh eyes and generous trust.

And to reflect my own storytelling leanings, song provides a real opportunity to embody Barabbas’ itch to tell his side of things. He’s a downtrodden folk singer, weaving the folk tale of his own life. Upon approaching such an emotional story, there is for me always a tendency to send the thing up & satirize the pain involved. It’s a tendency of our age to wink through tales so ripe with pitfalls of potential bombast. My last solo show was essentially a one-hour exercise in self-effacement. And it was good fun. But out of both a personal need to challenge myself and to explore the possibilities in a stripped-down (maybe even solo) musical, I had to attack this story straight from the pain of a man who’s trying to set the record straight.

When the germ of the idea first hit, the songs were what came earliest and easiest. The challenge now is to chip at the body of the piece. My first thought was that it’d be just one man, one guitar, a soundscape, and nothing else. All well and good, but still not a true framework. Namely, where the hell is he? Is he speaking, in fact, from hell? Some kind of purgatory? A jail cell? A circus? A busking tour along the streets of the world, stubbornly crooning his story to anyone who’ll listen? Maybe not that, but something like that?

In chatting with a couple of theologians and historians on the topic, it seems like Barabbas was first and foremost a kind of insurgent. And in digging at the socio-political history of Rome and Jerusalem around the time of Christ, he was one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, who took a more aggressive, even violent stance against the occupation and infringement of Rome onto their land. Sound familiar? In my fictionalized vision, Barabbas is on the spiritual quest of an atheist. And as a counterpoint to Jesus, he constantly doubts the religious ceiling of his contemporaries and realizes that change can only come from clenched fists and inflaming the hearts and minds of a public already enraged towards an empire. Pacifism is not his way. His is the way of action.

Perhaps the most haunting spark for me comes down to the simplest thing - his name. When translated from Hebrew, bar means “son” and Abba means “father”, making Barabbas the “son of the father”. Now what kind of name is that? Isn’t every man a “son of the father”? It’s a bit like calling him Everyman, or John Doe. Other manuscripts even translate it to Jesus Barabbas, essentially naming him “Jesus, Son of the Father”. Sound familiar? With each of their lives inextricably linked as outcasts of Rome, each prisoners awaiting execution for rebellious activities, each with a hearty following, is it that absurd to think that Jesus Barabbas and Jesus of Nazareth may be the same person? Perhaps the other side of the story is simply the dark side of the man.

Thanks to Matt for writing this for us!

Featured Associate Artist: Aysan Celik

Welcome to our new blog series of Featured Associate Artists! We'll be asking a new Associate Artist each month the same ten questions so that you can get to know some of the many faces that have been working with us over the years and contributing their talents to our projects. Many thanks to our first, actress Aysan Celik!

Name: Aysan Celik
Year Joined The Civilians: 2002
Where you’re from: Claremont, CA
What City You’re Living In: The San Francisco Bay Area, and out of a suitcase.

How did you first get involved with The Civilians? 
An actor had to drop out of Canard, Canard, Goose?, and Michael suggested me to Steve as a replacement. Michael and I had worked together at the American Repertory Theater a few years prior, when we were both still in swaddling clothes.

What have you done with us, both in terms of investigating and performing? 
Performing: Canard, Canard, Goose? (the original production at HERE Arts and the 10th anniversary concert at Joe's Pub), This Beautiful City at the Studio Theater in DC (I covered the set of roles originated by the wonderful Alison Weller), the cabaret series Let Me Ascertain You (specifically Porn and Atlantic Yards), many a benefit, and almost every reading and workshop production of Paris Commune over the past ten years (and I am thrilled to be in rehearsals for the premiere right now).

Investigating: due to timing, I have missed a couple of chances to create pieces from the very beginning/interview process. I have experienced this on pieces outside of The Civilians, and I am hopeful for another opportunity with the company.

Tell us about something that surprised you, either in an interview, in using the investigative method, or in a rehearsal process.
If Steve looks like he is shocked at what you are doing, it could mean he is actually tickled.  (Could)

Sometimes it can catch me by surprise how absolutely strong and hopeful people can be while in dire situations, or when faced with censure or derision.

Why has it been interesting to work in this way?  
The text in the pieces is from people simply answering questions. They have not tried to shape their thoughts into a play, a film, or a novel. They're sharing their stories, speaking their truths. Granted, there is potential there for crafting or dramatization, but because a question is being answered in a moment, live, spoken, I think it’s less worked over. It’s direct. Most of the time, it does not seem to me like they planned what they are saying so that they could create something that is stylized or polished. This text then of course becomes developed into a theatrical experience by directors, designers and actors, and yet those words are still there, as they were spoken. That interplay of the un-crafted with the very crafted is interesting to me.

What is the last project you worked on outside of The Civilians? Ingmar Bergman's Persona - adapted and directed by Craig Baldwin, at HERE Arts this past August. It was a stage adaptation of Bergman's shooting script for the film, in which he wrote beautiful, weird and haunting commentary, and very vivid narration that is not necessarily reflected in the film in an obvious way. Any fan of the film should read this shooting script - it is a revelation. Bergman was fittingly a character in this piece, and was portrayed by Michael Rudko. Nick Westrate played Sister Alma (the nurse), and I performed both the doctor and Elisabeth Vogler (the actress who has a nervous breakdown and stops speaking).

What artist has had the biggest impact on you? 
There are so many. A few major ones: Pina Bausch, Yoshi Oida, Shinichi Suzuki, Jim Henson, and Gene Kelly.

What’s the last play you saw? 
A Bird in the Hand, by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas. It just opened at Theater For a New City. I highly recommend it. It is magical, cruel and funny. The birds are exquisite. I love his writing.

What’s your favorite bad movie? 
She’s the Man is a teeny bopper take on Twelfth Night, to which it bears very little resemblance. So many of the performance choices are so confounding, so deeply awkward, and sometimes even unintelligible, that they are kind of ridiculously funny. At moments, you wonder if it's all on purpose! Also David Cross is in it, so yay.

Do you like sports?
Yes. I love the Olympics - everything makes me cry.  I absolutely love watching tennis!  A few of of my all time favorite players to watch: Martina Navratilova, Venus Williams and Serena Williams.

What question would you like us to ask our next Featured Associate Artist? 
What book do you re-read?

Click HERE for Aysan's bio!

You Better Sit Down Salon Night, Part II

A talk-back with the cast of You Better Sit Down: Tales from My Parents' Divorce kicks off this week's episode. The show, which recently completed its New York premiere at the Flea Theater, featured actors Matt Maher, Caitlin Miller, Jennifer R. Morris, and Robbie Collier Sublett, who all interviewed their parents, and each plays his or her own parent (or parents). In the talk-back, they discuss the process of creating the show, talking about these topics with their parents, and their parents' reactions to the show. Then, The Flea Theater's resident acting company, The Bats, presents a short piece created from online and live audience responses that they put together during You Better Sit Down and performed after the play on the same night. Next is a monologue crafted from responses by our R&D Group artist Mia Rovegno and performed by Associate Artist Dan Domingues. The episode closes out with a song written and performed by Matt Berger.

TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU PODCAST SERIES ON ITUNES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

CRIME, USA, HARTFORD

Our cabaret LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU: CRIME, USA last year featured interviews about crime conducted in Florida and New York, plus some songs by the band Scrapomatic (photos of the evening are HERE , plus the audio from the performance will be included in our podcast series launching very soon!). The creative force behind that evening was our Associate Artist and R&D Group member Alix Lambert, who is continuing her fascinating work with the topic. She is currently in Hartford, CT conducting interviews, and she was also able to spend some time at Occupy Hartford. The following is direct from Alix, chronicling the first few days of her current investigation!

Post by Alix Lambert, Photos by Alix Lambert and Michael Premo

I am developing a play with the support of Real Art Ways and The Civilians about crime in Hartford, Connecticut, aptly titled: CRIME, USA, HARTFORD. Michael Premo and Jordan Mahome have agreed to come with me to Hartford for a week to conduct the initial interviews that the play will be based on. Meghan Maguire Dahn (Development Manager for Real Art Ways) has graciously offered to drive us from Brooklyn to Hartford, which saves us a Megabus ride.

Monday morning Dahn and I pick up Premo and Mahome, who both live within convenient proximity to my house, and we head toward Hartford. Dahn has been referring to Hartford as Treecapolyse after the horrendous storm the previous day which brought down many trees and left large parts of the city without power.



Here are Premo (L) and Mahome (R) sleeping in the car on the way.

We arrive to a city in chaos. Traffic lights are out, power is spotty (literally and metaphorically) and everything is generally upside down. We settle into our hotel and go by Real Art Ways to say hello to Will K. Wilkins (the director of Real Art Ways) and John O’Donnell (visual arts coordinator), who have been helping line up interviews and taking care of logistics for our stay. The play will be presented at Real Art Ways in March and I want to take a look at both the visual arts space and the theater space that I will be using. Mahome has contacted an old friend in Hartford who is without power but has agreed to talk with us. He is a school-teacher and we are interested in talking with his students as well, but school is closed for days due to the storm. In the evening we have an amazing and insightful conversation with Mahome’s friends that lasts over two hours.

On Tuesday we decide to drive over to the offices of the Hartford Courant (newspaper) and see if any journalists want to speak with us. The person at the front desk dismisses us by giving us a phone number and sending us away. We have noticed that across the street from the Courant is where Occupy Hartford is set up: a sprinkling of tents and a sad snow-man. We cross the street to see what’s going on over there. 


We are greeted by Luke, who tells us he is recently out of a psych ward, and after living in the woods for a month in Ithaca NY, ended up in Hartford in a shelter, but the bedbugs were too much for him so now he’s living at Occupy Hartford. He shows us his tent. Premo speaks to an older gentlemen who talks about his friendships with Elvis and Robert Kennedy, while Mahome and I talk to a nurse who has some compelling stories about kids coming to her with lumps under their skin that turn out to be bullets that were never removed from their bodies. Luke tells us that his favorite thing to do is ride really fast on his bicycle while high on heroine, and I buy an Occupy Hartford pin for 2 dollars. Today we are heading to the Boxing gym, and tomorrow to the tattoo parlor, both promising to be brimming with Hartford crime stories.

LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU: BEST OF...!

Last weekend, The Civilians took over The Living Room in the Lower East Side for an afternoon of performances of some of the best interviews from our archives. Much like Disney, we cracked open our vaults and brought some great monologues to the stage. We had some great characters, including a Remote Viewer, a facialist, an Evangelical Christian in the air force, and the founder of Hot Nude Yoga, If you missed it, don't worry - all of these will be released on our podcast series (launching this fall). Here are couple of choice quotes from the event:

"...the pendulum swings, we talk about the pendulum at the academy, and just swingin’ from y’know too strict to too loose and that kinda thing,. I think the pendulum swung way the other way, to where it’s just getting ridiculous, you got cases where, uh, the protes – or the uh Inner-Faith council, you’ve got people complaining on the inner-faith council cause there were Easter Bunnies, on the tables on Easter, and saying well, Christian’s are tryin’ to evangelize, everybody’s getting an Easter bunny, well Christians, don’t like the Easter bunny. Y’know, we don’t like Santa Claus." - an Evangelical Christian

"Don’t get me started on Bush. And people say he’ll get re-elected. He can’t get re-elected, he was never elected in the first place. The Supreme Court handed him the presidency. Iraq, that war was fought for Halliburton. Don’t get me started on that. It’s a fact. It’s been all over the place. It’s a fact. Cheney worked for them years ago, and now he says he doesn’t – then why is he getting paid one million dollars a year by them? They have a contract to reconstruct Iraq." - A facialist 

And lastly, here is a photo of Emily Ackerman playing a 70 year-old lady who Emily interviewed for This Beautiful City, who said:

"And then I started picketing at Planned Parenthood.  And there were women who would come down there and have their children in strollers, and we would hold signs, but nothing really active... It’s just that killing those babies is just killing babies.  For no reason.  And they think there’s a reason.  And I dug that thing out, the thing I wrote, a few years ago, and I said Jeepers!  I wrote that?  I did a pretty good job on that!  It was the first thing I had done on my own, that I had written, and I could pick my own subject.  I’ve just been an activist from that time."

 

Benefit Photos 2010!

I know it seems like just yesterday we were at the fabulous Kiss & Fly Club in the meat packing district celebrating the 2009-2010 season and The Great Immensity with Benefit 2010: It's Not Easy Being Green. Take a look at the photos we just posted from the evening to relive the magic, and to start building the anticipation for the benefit this year: BENEFIT X, celebrating our tenth anniversary season at (le) poisson rouge on May 2. Tickets go on sale and invites will be sent out next week, so let's get pumped!

Click HERE to see the photos on Flickr!

Below are a few choice images to whet your nostalgia (that sounds gross) and get the excitement rolling!

 

Our lovely Associate Artists performing

 Long-time board member and friends

Bess Wohl and Michael Friedman, playwright and composer/lyricist for Pretty Filthy  

(yes, there is also a photo of them smiling together)

 

 The background is getting crooked, though our Associate Artists are looking great!

 

and here are more of our Artists are at the end of the night!