Olivier Cadiot and Ludovic Lagarde. With Marion Schoevaert.

An evening with Ludovic Lagarde (Paris) and writer Olivier Cadiot (Paris), on the occasion of the French production of Cadiot’s Colonel Zoo (Colonel des Zouaves) directed by Ludovic Lagarde and of its American production, A.W.O.L, directed by Marion Schoevaert. Both productions are presented at the 59E59 Theater. Reading by New York actor Steven Ratazzi with music by and with French musician Benoît Delbecq.

Olivier Cadiot was born in Paris in 1956. His first book of poetry, l’Art poétic’ was published by Editions P.O.L in 1988. Cadiot wrote his first play, Soeurs et frères, for Ludovic Lagarde in 1993 and then collaborated with director Ludovic Lagarde on the adaptation of his novels: Le Colonel des Zouaves (1998), Retour définitif et durable de l’être aimé, and Fairy queen (2004), produced at the Théâtre de la Colline, Paris.

Ludovic Lagarde was born in Paris in 1962. He directed first at the Comédie de Reims and at the Théâtre Granit de Belfort. In 1993, he commissioned Cadiot to write a play, Soeurs et frères, first produced at the Théâtre Granit de Belfort. Since 1997, Lagarde has adapted and directed Cadiot’s latest works: Le Colonel des Zouaves (1997), Retour définitif et durable de l’être aimé (2002) and Fairy queen.

Benoît Delbecq (born in 1966) is a Paris-based French pianist and keyboardist who has created his own music using ideas and techniques from contemporary classical (Cage, Ligeti, Nancarrow), jazz, Pygmy polyphony, and other sources.

Director Marion Schoevaert (In Parentheses, New York) is an alumna of Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab. She co-produced the Koltès in New York festival (2003), where she directed In the Solitude of Cotton Fields, which toured Eastern Europe. Her translation of The Interview by Vinaver was published in Theater Magazine, Yale School of Drama, in 1997. Her production A.W.O.L., currently at the 59E59 Theater, is an American adaptation of Le Colonel des Zouaves by Olivier Cadiot.

4 p.m.–5:30 p.m., Saturday, November 5, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 6432. Free

The Theatre of Valère Novarina

With actors André Marcon, Paris, and Hilario Saavedra, L.A., Director Travis Preston, L.A.

Actors Hilario Saavedra (Los Angeles) and André Marcon (Paris), a longtime collaborator with the playwright, will perform a staged reading of Adramélech’s Monologue (in English) and L’Animal du temps (in French). A discussion, based on their collaboration on the American production of Adramélech’s Monologue in Chicago, will follow. Moderator Travis Preston (Center for New Theatre, CalArts).

Playwright Valère Novarina was born in 1947 close to Geneva, Switzerland, and spent his childhood by the Leman Lake in France. He studied philosophy, philology, and theatre history at the Sorbonne in Paris. His first play, l’Atelier volant, was performed in 1974. He staged five of his own texts, including Le Drame de la vie (1986) and Le Jardin de reconnaissance (1997). Since the 1980s, he has pursued his work as an artist and painter.

Hilario Saavedra was born in 1978. After earning a BFA at University of West Virginia, he went to CalArts in Los Angeles, receiving a master’s in acting in 2004. He is currently working on Uncle Sam and on September 11, 2001, both by Michel Vinaver.

André Marcon has played in over 40 films, including films directed by Jacques Rivette and Olivier Assayas (Les Destinées sentimentales, 2002). He worked with directors like Novarina, Françon, Lassalle and co-starred with Isabelle Huppert and Maria Casarès. Marcon created the part of Adramélech at the Avignon Festival of Theatre in 1984.

6:30 p.m., Monday, November 21, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 6434. Free

Big Art Group, New York: Caden Mason and Jemma Nelson

This Is the Show, a lecture

A hyper-lecture by Big Art Group, a New York-based theatre company highly acclaimed in Europe. This unique live presentation elaborates on Big Art Group’s body of performance and examines the company’s desire for new modes of performed experience. Big Art Group is a New York City performance company founded in 1999 by Caden Manson. The company uses the language of media in a unique narrative form. Big Art Group aggressively attacks the boundaries of performance through experimentation with structure, medium, and process, and develops ridiculous, uninhibited, and vicious new works. With his company, Caden Manson created the critically acclaimed CLEARCUT, catastrophe! (1999), The Balladeer (2000), Shelf Life (2001); Flicker (2002), and House of No More (2004) at P.S. 122 in January 2004, to be seen at Dance Theatre Workshop New York in December 2005.

6:30 p.m., Monday, November 28, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 6428. Free

Director Arthur Nauzyciel, Paris (TBC)

Staging French playwrights in the USA/Working with American actors French director and actor Arthur Nauzyciel will discuss his experience with American actors, focusing on his American production Black Battles with Dogs, adapted from Bernard-Marie Koltès’s Combat de nègres et de chiens. Also invited: Robert Woodruff (Artistic Director, A.R.T. Boston)

As an actor, Nauzyciel was trained at L’École Nationale de Chaillot under the direction of Antoine Vitez (1987–89), and worked with Jean-Marie Villégier, Jérôme Savary, Éric Vigner, and Anatoli Vassiliev, among others, and with film directors Milos Forman, François Dupeyron, Tsai Ming Liang, and Christophe Le Masne. In 1999, he founded his own company. His recent works as a director include Black Battles with Dogs, a translation of Combat de nègres et de chiens by Bernard-Marie Koltès (Atlanta, USA, 2001; Lorient, France, 2002; Chicago 2004), Oh les beaux jours by Samuel Beckett (starring Marilù Marini, Théâtre de l’Odéon, 2004; Buenos Aires 2004, Critic’s award for best actress and foreign play), and Place des héros by Thomas Bernhard (Comédie Française, 2004). His next production, The Word, will be premiered at the Avignon Festival in 2006.

6:30 p.m., Monday, December 12, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 6435. Free