Directing
WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
By Maria Irene Fornes
Produced by the University of California at San Diego in the Potiker Theatre at the La Jolla Playhouse, 2017. Design team: Matthew Herman (scenic), Amanda Bergman (costumes), Brandon Rosen (lights), Carren Wang (sound).
What of the Night? is comprised of four short plays, Nadine, Springtime, Lust, and Hunger.
Red Hills
By Sean Christopher Lewis. Additional adaptation by Asiimwe Deborah GKashugi.
Rolling premiere: Quantum Theatre (Pittsburgh) 2017; En Garde Arts (NYC) 2018
With Scott Parkinson and Patrick Ssenjovu. Design: Deb O (scenic), Todd Brown (lights), Joe Seamans (video), Steve Shapiro (sound).
More on the project here.
MILTON
MILTON is a multi-year performance and community engagement project in 5 small towns named Milton around the country, activated in collaboration with Ashley Sparks. This video shows excerpts from our shows in NC, MA, and OR (the Oregon show was bilingual). Video and design by Jim Findlay and Peter Ksander, with sound design and composition by Brendan Connelly. Performed by Helga Davis, Mike Shapiro, and Vella Lovell (NC); Rose Cano, Moises Castro, Todd J. Moore (OR); Reya Sehgal, Dillon Heape, and Zina Ellis (MA). See more on our Milton installations here. See more on the Milton Project in total here.
lost in the meadow
A site-specific collaboration with designer Mimi Lien, composer Brendan Connelly, and sound designer Nick Kourtides in a 40-acre meadow. Co-produced by Longwood Botanical Gardens and People’s Light and Theatre company, 2015.
More on Lost in the Meadow here.
how to build a forest
A performance installation co-created with visual artist Shawn Hall. A 7-member build team obsessively constructs and then removes an exquisite, hand-made forest over the course of eight hours. Audiences come and go throughout. Watch this time-lapse video to get a sense of it. Originally a commission from the Kitchen Theater in NYC (2010 premiere) and supported by grants from Creative Capital and the Multi-Arts Production Fund (MAP). Developed in its home town of New Orleans and via residencies at Appalachia State University and Hampshire College. It has toured to Duke University, Vanderbilt University, Brown University (a nice article about that show here), and the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.
panic euphoria blackout!
Written by Ellen Maddow, produced by the Talking Band, 2011
Three traders sit at a table swapping objects with increasingly encoded values.
With Mary Shultz, Randolph Curtis Rand, and Paul Zimet. Designed by Lenore Doxsee.
More on the project here.
The Wrestling Patient
Created in collaboration with playwright Kirk Lynn and actor/producer Anne Gottlieb. Co-produced by Speakeasy Stage, Boston Playwright’s Theatre, and 49 Magnolias Productions, 2009
Based on the life and writings of Etty Hillesum. Selected as finalist for the Outstanding New American Play competition administered by Arena Stage and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) New Play Development Program (NPDP).
Read more on the project website.
The cataract
By Lisa D’Amour, produced by The Women’s Project, NYC 2006
Two couples, one waterfall, and a dam that can’t hold back a flood of mystery, longing, and despair. A stark and poetic drama about what happens to one week in the lives of Minneapolitans Cyrus and Lottie Finch when they take in two vagabond lovers from the South.
anna bella eema
By Lisa D’Amour, produced by New Georges at HERE, NYC 2003
A Trailer Park Odyssey: 3 women sit in 3 chairs, speaking and singing a story where mothers turn into werewolves, little girls are made out of mud, and Department of Transportation officials show up at the door as Frankenstein.
See the New Georges production scrapbook here. Visit the 2001 premiere production, produced in Austin, TX by Physical Plant Theater here.
Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Written and performed by Kristina Wong
A surprisingly hilarious one-woman show about anxiety, depression, and mental illness among Asian-American women. For more on the show and the startlingly extraordinary Kristina Wong visit www.kristinawong.com. Read an article about the development of the show in the Utne Reader here.
Nightswim
Produced by the State Theatre, Austin TX, 2004
By Steve Moore
Winner Best Director, Best Drama, Best New Play—Austin Critics’ Table 2004
Performed by David Stahl as ROY BEDICHEK (role originated by Hank Cathey), Douglas Taylor as J. FRANK DOBIE, Robert Faires as WALTER PRESCOTT WEBB, and Lowell Bartholomee as X.
Designed By Christopher McCollum (Set), Matt Frey (Lights), and Lindsay Jones (Sound).
More on Nightswim here.
Early Work
1414 Fairyland
Conceived and directed by Katie Pearl
Text by Asenath Avinash
In this one-day-only performance, audience members roamed at large on the grounds of an enormous art house in East Austin. Armed with a hand-drawn map, they exchanged bottle caps with the score of performers for pieces of a tale in which Snow White falls too deeply in love with the evil Queen.
The Parking Project
Conceived and created with John Walch and Lisa D’Amour
Audiences pay 25 cents every 15 minutes during their stay in a 3-level parking garage, where they encounter a cast of characters who are stuck parking purgatory.
Dress me Blue/Window me Sky
Created by Katie Pearl and Lisa D’Amour, 1997
Pre-PearlDamour, this is Katie and Lisa’s earliest piece, made for an empty boutique in Austin, Texas. Lisa performs as the Blue Dress Lady. Ten years later, we re-imagined this piece as Bird Eye Blue Print in empty suite of offices in the World Financial Center in New York City.
Physical Plant Theater
Much of my earliest work was directing the plays of Steve Moore with the fantastic Physical Plant theater company of Austin, TX. More on Phyz Plant here.
Fatigue
From Physical Plant, produced at the Off Center in Austin, Texas
September – October 1999
By Steve Moore
Featuring Ron Berry as The LECTURER and Carlos Treviño as The PIANO PLAYER, with Sam Randall as RED and Jeff Sims as DISK.
This super-8 film and editing by Jeff Sims.