Drama FollowSpot Spring 2012

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY - TISCH SCHOOL OF THE ARTS - DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA

FOLLOWSPOT SPRING 2012 - VOLUME 1/ISSUE 1

StageWorks’

VIOLET AN EXPLOSION OF PRODUCTION This year, the Department of Drama’s production schedule experienced an unprecedented burst of energy, with all seven of the Department’s performance spaces active.

Tisch Drama StageWorks offered opportunities to perform in student-led projects, such as 20 in 24, and full-production musicals, dance pieces, and period plays, like the upcoming production of The Madras House.

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At the Department’s affiliate-studios, students performed in a wide variety of musicals, plays, films, and workshops.

“That’s a whole lot of production,” said Leighton Mitchell, Drama’s Director of Production and Facilities. “The season has been an explosion of activity.” For highlights, on stage and behind the scenes, go to the photo portfolios on pages two and four.

SPRING 2012 - VOLUME 1/ISSUE 1

A MESSAGE FROM THE INTERIM CHAIR

Welcome to the first issue of Tisch Drama FollowSpot. I trust that this newsletter, which will be published each spring and fall, will provide a snapshot of the unique and diverse ways that Tisch Drama creates, studies, and produces theatre.

MARAT SADE

As part of NYU and the Tisch School of the Arts and in collaboration with eleven internal and external professional training studios, students in the Department of Drama draw upon a multi-faceted curriculum as they develop an individual process for the establishment of a theatrical career.

Several components of our curriculum are included in this issue.

We hope you enjoy the photo portfolios highlighting the 2011-12 StageWorks season, as well as studio productions. You’ll read about admissions, resident faculty and visiting theatre professionals, a career development workshop, and summer training programs in New York City and abroad.

It is a small sample of the day-today moments that, together, make up Tisch Drama training and lay a foundation for what we hope will be a rich, varied, and wonderful life in the theatre.

Enjoy reading FollowSpot. We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, so feel free to email us at tisch.drama.ug@nyu.edu.

Louis Scheeder Interim Chair Department of Drama Associate Dean of Faculty Tisch School of the Arts

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THE DISPLACEMENT PROJECT

VIOLET Male suada

Male suada

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SPRING 2012 - VOLUME 1/ISSUE 1

SPECIAL GUESTS

Visiting professionals who have worked with Tisch Drama students include:

ATLANTIC ACTING SCHOOL

John Patrick Shanley Writer, Doubt, MoonstruckÂ

Brian Stokes Mitchell

Actor, Ragtime, Kiss Me Kate, Glee

Phylicia Rashad

Actor, The Cosby Show

Claire Danes

Actor, Temple Grandin, Homeland

Jordan Thaler

CAP 21

STELLA ADLER SCHOOL OF ACTING

Casting Director, The Public Theater

Jeanine Tesori

Composer, Shrek The Musical

Norbert Leo Butz

Actor, Catch Me if You Can

Jessica Hecht

Actor, Nurse Jackie, The Good Wife, A View From the Bridge

Andrei Belgrader

Director, The Cherry Orchard

Kathy Najimy Actor, Sister Act

EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE WING

Samantha Stoller

Agent, Abrams Artists Agency

Cheyenne Jackson Actor, Glee, 30 Rock

Alice Ripley

THE MEISNER STUDIO

Actor, Next to Normal

Kathleen Chalfant

Actor, Angels in America, Wit

Tim Carroll

Director, The Shakespeare Globe, The Factory, Lincoln Center

Adam Rapp

Writer, In Treatment

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THE CLASSICAL STUDIO

STONESTREET ON CAMERA WORKSHOP

AN EXPLOSION OF

PRODUCTION

PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS THEATER SCHOOL PRODUCTION & DESIGN STUDIO

NEW STUDIO ON BROADWAY: MUSIC THEATRE & ACTING

LEE STRASBERG THEATRE & FILM INSTITUTE

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SPRING 2012 - VOLUME 1/ISSUE 1

CAREER RESOURCES

BOOKING WORK

Career Development explores the world of audio books

When Elizabeth Evans, Class of 2011, thought about voice-over work she never considered recording audio books. “When I thought about voice-overs," said Evans, “Pixar Studios or every car commercial voiced by Jeff Bridges came to mind.”

That all changed last fall, when Evans was one of eighty Drama students and alumni who attended a workshop led by Audible.com, a subsidiary of Amazon that produces audio books.

Coordinated by the Department of Drama’s Career Development program, participants worked with Audible.com’s Executive Producer, Mike Charzuk and a leading voiceover instructor. “The workshop is an example of industry professionals supplying direct, real-world advice,” said Carl Fengler, who manages Career Development.

Attendees learned skills required for book narration and had an opportunity to audition for Audible.com projects. Evans’ audition led to a recording job with Audible.com. So far she’s recorded four audio books, with a fifth on its way. “Doing these books has led me to work in many voice-over fields—animation, commercials, video games, and films,” said Evans. “I never thought I'd be getting professional work so early in my career.” – Joe McGowan

The Department of Drama’s Manager of Admissions recalls the 2012 Artistic Review Tour and offers advice for next year’s applicants.

I just flew in from our 2012 Artistic Review Tour and, boy, are my arms tired! It was indeed a fantastic voyage. We set sail in January and explored eleven cities outside of our own—from a frozen northeast to the Pacific shores, touching down amongst palm trees and white sand before returning to the greatest prospective students and their families to city in the world. We encountered delightful visit the department for information sessions. creatures at all of our destinations—

fledgling theatricals who shared If you are a prospective student, their art with us, along with their NYU provides many lovely and supportive families opportunities to gather “We hope to and friends. information. I would begin by

welcome you into perusing the websites of both Artistic Review is inspiring for NYU Admissions and the our community.” us here in the Department of Department of Drama. If you Drama. Each year, we have the plan to visit our campus, you privilege of meeting emerging can schedule a general young artists and hope to invite them information session and campus to join us at Tisch for an exploration of the tour. For a comprehensive understanding of world through art. Throughout the year, we all things Drama, add a departmental info review candidates for admission as part of session to your agenda. Every autumn, we the application process and we welcome have two Open Houses (coordinated by Tisch Student Affairs) with activities throughout the day for you and your family.

While on campus, stroll around and speak with students, read bulletin boards, see a student show! Remember that New York City is our greater campus. So, expand your visit beyond Greenwich Village to the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Broadway!

If you’ve been accepted into the Class of 2016, we hope to welcome you into our community in September. If you’ve just started your journey with college applications, we wish you the best of luck and look forward to bumping into you along the way.

And if you, your family, or teachers have any questions, we’d be glad to hear from you.

Give us a ring at 212-998-1850 or drop us a line at tisch.drama.ug@nyu.edu.

Bon voyage! —Chris Andersson

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FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

Alumni work is spreading like wildfire, drawing attention from all areas of the industry to the alumni network stemming from the Department of Drama.

It has been an incredible year for alumni from the Department of Drama. Whether they’ve been working in theatre, film, television, voice-over, casting, or a combination of all of these mediums, we’ve had the chance to celebrate so many accomplishments of past and recent graduates.

What makes our extensive alumni network so special is the devotion and innovation they bring to their work. With every update we receive from graduates, the depth of the Department of Drama’s alumni community becomes increasingly clear— both in number and the variety of work in which its members are engaged.

This semester alone, we have had the opportunity to celebrate Broadway debuts in Lysistrata Jones and Seminar, a television pilot picked up by CBS, a spread in Glamour magazine’s Top 10 College Women, a movie role in the blockbuster The Hunger Games, a recurring part on NBC’s 30 Rock, and much more.

We’ve watched as Drama alumni have founded arts organizations that work collaboratively as a community to support and promote each others projects.

Companies like Pipeline Theatre, Built For Collapse, Theatre Reconstruction Ensemble, The Bower Group, Aggrocrag, The In-Between People, Sharkmother Arts Collective, Organs of State, Uglyrhino Productions, Theater In Asylum, and Fresh Ground Pepper have woven together a

network of artistic creation that is igniting New York City with sparks of moving, powerful, and innovative work.

We’ve been inspired by the strength of the bonds within our alumni community.

Recently they have yielded large scale, forty-eight-hour play festivals, a dominant presence in major international play festivals. Drama alumni have also been innovating in other fields. Some have integrated social media into the performing arts. Others have created communitybased work that is engaging audiences.

One of the most inspiring aspects of our alumni is their continued connection with the university and the Department of Drama. More than ever, Drama alums are returning to classrooms and hosting events that detail their experiences working in the industry. These programs are designed to help recent alums transition into professional life. In fact, many of the producing organizations developed and run by our alumni are devoted to welcoming soon-to-be graduates into the fabric of their companies.

All of this points to the fact that Drama alums are a force to be reckoned with, committed to work that fuels the flames of creativity, collaboration, innovation, and success and proves that our alumni are on fire—blazing new trails.

To learn more about what Tisch Drama alumni are doing and where to go to see their work, click here. - Andy Yanni

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PAUL LAZAR Staying professionally active benefits Tisch Drama’s faculty and students Department of Drama faculty member Paul Lazar is an old hand at working in differing fields. The theatre industry newspaper, Backstage, recently highlighted his ability to move between the world of teaching and professional theatre production. Big Dance Theater, which Lazar cofounded in 1991 with Annie-B Parson, is one of the premier companies to combine elements from the two genres. Their most recent work, Supernatural Wife, was featured in the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival.

Paul continues to be, in his own words, an “emissary from the working world to give my students a sense of directorial aesthetic and acting technique.”

Meanwhile, half a world away, faculty member Carol Martin just returned from teaching at NYU’s global campus in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Like Lazar, Martin did not sit on her teaching laurels while abroad. Most recently, she flew to Oslo, Norway to deliver the keynote address at the Monsters of Reality Festival, entitled The Reality Based Community.

Wherever you go, it seems, Drama faculty share their expertise with students from the department, and beyond. – Gwendolyn Alker

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The curriculum includes a wide variety of approaches to acting and creating theater, from advanced realistic scene study to post modern dance to extended voice to physical theater, Drama faculty member, Kevin Kuhlke, discusses directing, commedia, clowning, Brecht, teaching theatre in Amsterdam every summer Shakespeare, and self-scripting. The international faculty has included master There is no shortage of raves when Tisch teachers from ETW and members of major Drama students comment about the European companies such as The Royal International Theater Workshop (ITW). “It Shakespeare Company and Peter Brook’s changed my life forever as a person and International Centre. The ITW program also artist…opened my eyes and heart…gave me includes excursions to see works of confidence and courage…completely contemporary theater and dance, including changed my perception of work from major international artists as well what theater could be… as local grassroots companies. These the amazing faculty excursions usually include and students were opportunities to meet the artists and endlessly inspiring,” discuss their work. is just a sampling.

Over the years students have cited specific aspects of the program as having had enormous influence on their development as young theatre artists. Those have included the total immersion in the artistic curriculum, the caliber of the faculty, and the cultural life of Amsterdam. But one aspect that has been voiced repeatedly over the years is the sense of artistic community that is created each summer. Students have consistently commented that being part of a group of talented and fiercely dedicated colleagues pushed them to bring the best of themselves to every class. They have also noted that the supportive nature of the program and the group enabled them to take enormous The ITW program’s primary goal is to create creative risks. ITW students have made a supportive, rigorous, and dynamic learning dramatic leaps in personal artistic environment that strives to unearth students’ development through exposure to genuine unique artistic vision and encourages them collaboration and have created artistic to see themselves as creative, as well as relationships that have lasted for decades. interpretive artists.

- Kevin Kuhlke Every summer, since 1992, small groups of Tisch Drama students have traveled to the center of Amsterdam to participate in ITW. I founded the workshop as an outgrowth of the Department of Drama’s Experimental Theatre Wing. ITW is a sevenweek intensive program in actor and performance training, designed for serious students who seek to deepen their existing acting technique, learn how to create original work, and expose themselves to a wide range of approaches to live performance.

SUMMER HIGH SCHOOL

At the Square: Training Young Artists As its new Director, I am excited to write about the Summer Drama Program for High School Students.

This competitive program brings together promising, pre-college teens and introduces them to NYU, the Department of Drama, and the amazing culture of New York City.

This four-week, highly structured study provides a taste of the training Undergraduates receive at Tisch Drama. Summer high school students are placed in one of four studios—New Studio Music Theatre, New Studio Acting, Stonestreet Screen Acting, and the Experimental Theatre Wing. Together participants explore acting, vocal technique, music performance, movement, improvisation, and more.

Students attend studio during the week and participate in workshops on weekends. In the evenings, they enjoy New York City’s incomparable cultural offerings—from Broadway shows to experimental productions.

TISCH STEPS OUT

On April 19th, the Tisch community will celebrate the work of faculty, students, and alumni at the school’s annual gala. Special recognition will honor Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell’s 20th anniversary with Tisch, and Drama students will perform a musical tribute to the school. Notable alumni scheduled to attend include director and Dean’s Council Member, Martin Scorsese, and actor Alec Baldwin.

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Summer High School alum Nevin West recalled, “I made some of the best friends I will ever have while learning from some of the most experienced teachers in the industry.” – Shanga Parker