Spring '05 Programs

Sickness or Modern Women, (Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen) by Elfriede Jelinek, Austrian playwright and 2004 Nobel Prize winner Translated and directed by Fiona Templeton Elfriede Jelinek's plays and novels have won many distinguished prizes, among them the Georg Büchner Prize (1998), the Müllheim Dramatists Prize (2002 and 2004), the Franz Kafka Prize (2004) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (2004). Her work tackles social and women's issues, and her innovative use of language embodies the usually unspoken and often brutal power play in human relations. She has targeted the clichés of capitalism, patriarchal society, and the fascist past and anti-semitic present of Austria and Germany. Her plays include Sportstuck, In den Alpen, and Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen, and her novels, Lust and Die Klavierspielerin (The Piano Teacher), which was made into a film with Isabelle Huppert. Fiona Templeton is a director, playwright and poet whose honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Cambridge University, and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. Her theatre work includes seminal site-specific urban journeys for an audience of one. 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 31, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre Res. Code 5792. Free. Co-sponsors: Austrian Cultural Forum in New York;  Rowohlt Publishing House, Germany

THE PETRAKIS UNIVERSE BY DIMITRI C. MICHALAKIS

Staged reading by the American Thymele Theatre
Directed by Stephen Diacrussi

Harry Mark Petrakis will introduce the evening.

The Petrakis Universe is a based on the life and work of American writer Harry Mark Petrakis whose exuberant and sensitive works deal with the lives of Greek immigrants in urban America. In the play, written by Dimitri C. Michalakis, Petrakis visits his old Chicago neighborhood and runs across the scene of his own life and the characters in his own fiction: a strongman who gets shorn in an autumnal wedding, the owner of a diner who hopes to recoup his losses with a feast of cooked turkeys, an old peanut vendor who philosophizes about the glory that once was Greece, and many more.

Harry Mark Petrakis, a longtime Chicago resident and the son of a Greek Orthodox priest, is the author of numerous novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays. Among his many honors is a two-time nomination for the National Book Award.

7 p.m., Monday, March 28, 2005, Harold M. Proshansky Auditorium

Res. Code 5793. $10 suggested donation guarantees a seat; guaranteed seat to CUNY students who RSVP.

Contact Continuing Education and Public Programs at 1.212.817.8215 or continuinged@gc.cuny.edu

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FIVE EVENINGS WITH NEW YORK PLAYWRITING ORGANIZATIONS

Please join us for an exciting series introducing some of New York's most important organizations dedicated to the development of new plays and playwrights. Attendees will become acquainted with the unique structure and mission of each organization, meet its artistic leaders, and have the opportunity to encounter some of the most exciting new voices in American theatre. Writers will participate in discussions and present readings of excerpts from their work. Join us for this rare glimpse inside this fascinating-and usually hidden-aspect of the theatre.

 

NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP

With Associate Artistic Director Linda Chapman, members of NYTW's Artistic Staff, and Usual Suspect writers and directors

Founded in 1979, New York Theatre Workshop produces challenging and unpredictable new theatre and fosters the creative work of artists with a shared vision. Dedicated to nurturing artists at all stages of their careers and to developing provocative and thrilling new works, NYTW explores perspectives on our collective history and responses to the events and institutions that shape our lives. The Usual Suspects are New York Theatre Workshop's extended community of theatre artists. They include artists involved in every facet of theatre production, from actors and playwrights to designers and directors. The Usual Suspects are at the heart of NYTW's workshop activities; their work can be seen on NYTW's stages and in theatres and performing arts venues throughout the country and around the globe.

6:30 p.m., Monday, March 14, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 5808. Free

LARK PLAY DEVELOPMENT CENTER

With John Eisner and writers from the Lark Play Development Center

A laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the Lark Play Development Center provides American and international playwrights with indispensable resources to develop their work, nurturing artists at all stages in their careers, and inviting them to freely express themselves in a supportive and rigorous environment. By reaching across international boundaries, the Lark seeks out and embraces new and diverse perspectives from writers in all corners of the world. With the aim of integrating audiences into the creative process from its initial stages the Lark brings together actors, directors, and playwrights to allow writers to learn about their own work by seeing it-and by receiving feedback from a community of committed artists.

6:30 p.m., Monday, April 11, 2005. Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 5809. Free

 

NEW DRAMATISTS

With Emily Morse, Director of Playwriting Programs; John Steber Davis, Director of Playwrights Lab, and New Dramatist fellows

Dedicated to finding gifted playwrights and giving them the time, the space, and the tools to develop their craft, fulfill their potential, and make lasting contributions to the theatre, New Dramatists, founded in 1949, is the nation's oldest nonprofit center for the development of talented playwrights. It is a Tony Award-winning national membership organization that cultivates the work of its resident playwrights through a free, seven year program of play readings, workshops, and educational and career support. Since its inception, New Dramatists has served over 500 writers. New Dramatists gives talented writers time and space to experiment and grow, sustained by an inspiring community of peers. The company is dedicated to the playwright and serves as an artistic home, research and development laboratory, and national writers' colony.

6:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 27, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 5807. Free

 

THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL

With Joe Kraemer, Literary Manager and Dramaturg

The Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program, under the direction of Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman, aids the development of new and diverse voices in the American theatre. The program offers one-year, tuition-free, graduate-level fellowships to four writers. Selected playwrights may be invited to continue their studies through a second academic year, thereby earning an Artist Diploma in Playwriting. Juilliard is one of the country's premier performing arts schools, with a faculty comprised of the world's pre-eminent performers, professional practitioners, and celebrated teachers. In the Drama Division, the acting and directing faculty has an ongoing history of work on and off Broadway and at regional theaters across the country. Instructors in voice, speech, movement, masks, singing, and stage combat also work regularly as theatre, film, and tv professionals.

6:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 18, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 5806. Free

 

MCC THEATER PLAYWRIGHTS' COALITION

With Literary Manager Stephen Willems; Director of Playwright Development,
Josh Hecht; and MCC Theater Playwrights' Coalition writers

MCC Theater Playwrights' Coalition is a development and support organization for emerging New York City playwrights. Membership is by invitation and is based on considerable and sustained knowledge of a playwright's body of work. Member playwrights include some of the most exciting, talented, and important writers of this generation. A six-week Intensive forms the core of the program, which is augmented with Roundtable Readings, dramaturgical guidance from MCC's Literary Department, Mainstage production Artist Interfaces, the Salon Series, and a schedule of community building and social events designed to encourage a network of support. All services and feedback are specifically tailored to the needs of the individual writer and the stage of development of the piece, giving artists the freedom and support they need to explore and maximize their talents.

6:30 p.m., Monday, May 23, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code 5805. Free

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IMMIGRATION AND THE EXPERIENCE OF TRANSITION

DIS-LOCATION AND RE-DISCOVERY: FOUR STAGED READINGS

Curated by Marcy Arlin from the Immigrant Theatre Projectand Ian Morgan from The New Group.

This series of four readings explores immigration and the experience of transition in our society. Each reading will be followed by a discussion with the playwright and director.

 

ELLIOT, A SOLDIER'S FUGUE BY QUIARA ALEGRÍA HUDES

Directed by Michael Garcés

The play, through lyrical "fugues" and "preludes" in the form of letters and narrative, follows three generations of military men in a Puerto Rican-American family. In the family's run-down barrio vegetable garden, Elliot, the son, returning as a wounded hero from Iraq, craves a conversation with his father, who served in Vietnam, and his grandfather, who fought in Korea, about the realities of war. This causes the three to reveal their never-spoken stories of war horror and family love.

6:30 p.m., Thursday, March 24, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5800. Free

 

BELTED BLUE, BLEEDING YELLOW BY QUI NGUYEN

Directed by Victor Maog

Pilot Quang Nguyen, who flew for the American forces in the Vietnam War, now lives in the United States with his teenage son, Truong. He attempts to give his son a sense of history, tradition, and family by teaching him the ancient Vietnam martial art Vivonam.  These lessons cause the cultural and psychological stresses of living in America to surface. Set in a Vivinam Dojo between 1952-2002, the play explores the meaning and value of ancient traditions in a new land.

6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 29, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5801. Free

 

GOD, SEX AND BLUE WATER BY LINDA FAIGAO-HALL

Directed by Marcy Arlin

This unconventional farce about religion and family love, set in the Filipino community of Hoboken, focuses on the Kintanar family's attempts to assimilate in America. Laling, a deeply religious woman, plans on crucifying herself during the Easter pasyon, which puts her in conflict with the local parish priest. Her brother Dadong runs a successful business and tries to discourage her. Her daughter, a Clarita, a healer with a secret, has just arrived in the US from a childhood in a convent, and has met Brian, an American "master of the universe" badly in need of salvation.

6:30 p.m., Thursday, April 14, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5802. Free

 

AS REAPER IN SUMMER GRAIN BY KEITH BYRON KIRK

Director: Josh Hecht

With deep poignancy, this tragic play follows the events leading up to the brutal murders of Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress, Mamah Cheney, her family, and household by the caretaker Julian Carlton. Julian and his wife Gertrude have worked their way into positions of respect as valet and cook respectively. But the insults of racism and class discrimination that have followed them from Barbados to America inevitably lead to a violent explosion. Based on the real events that took place at Taliesin, Wrights experimental home in the Midwest.

6:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 19, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5803. Free

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FOUR EVENINGS WITH CONTEMPORARY ARAB AMERICAN FEMALE WRITERS/PERFORMERS

Join us in a series of evenings exploring the performances and theatre work of Arab American Theatre artists. In four evenings, five Arab American women present their unique views on the current events, the war, and growing up Arab in America. This series offers an incite into the Arab American women's experience through the medium of theatre and performance. A bi-coastal sampling of award winning playwright and performance artists featuring one-woman shows, performance pieces and a reading.

The series is curated by Dalia Basiouny, a Ph.D. student in the CUNY Graduate Center Theatre Program. Ms. Basiouny is a theatre director and winner of a Fulbright Arts grant. She is currently writing her dissertation on Arab American Women Playwrights after 9/11.

 

UNDER THE RAMADAN MOON AND 32 MOHAMEDS

by Elmaz Abi Nader

Lebanese American Poet and performer, Elmaz Abi Nader, has been an influential voice in American literature for almost two decades. Her work, from her memoir to her poetry to her performance work, resonates with the complications of the history of America, its relationship to other cultures and itself. She is the creator of Voices of Our Nation (VONA) and won the Goldi award for Literature and the Pen Oakland award for In the Country of My Dreams and The Children of the Roojme: A Family's Journey from Lebanon.  Elmaz will perform parts from her performance pieces Under the Ramadan Moon and 32 Mohameds that tell the story of her journey to the country of origin, which she describes as "Being Arab here, being American there."

7:00 p.m., Thurs., March 3, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5798. Free.

NINE PARTS OF DESIRE BY HEATHER RAFFO

Iraqi American playwright and actress, Heather Raffo, scored a big hit off-Broadway with Nine Parts of Desire, a one-woman play in which she portrays a cross-section of Iraqi women. Nine Parts of Desire is one of the few New York theater successes this year. The play has garnered rave reviews and been extended three times since it opened in October. Heather Raffo will perform a section of Nine Parts of Desire that is based on interviews she conducted with Iraqi women in Iraq and in exile over the last decade. Raffo weaves the stories of these women, in her exquisite solo performance that captures, shocks, and inspires.

6:30 p.m., Monday, March 7, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5795 . Free.

 

CHOCOLATE IN HEAT: GROWING UP ARAB IN AMERICA

by Betty Shamieh

The work of Palestinian American playwright and performer, Betty Shamieh, includes Roar, which opened off-Broadway in 2003, the award-winning Chocolate in Heat: Growing up Arab in America, which premiered in 2003, and Black-Eyed, which premiered in San Francisco in 2005. Shamieh's work complicates the history of America by including the Arab's story. A recipient of the New Dramatists Van Lier Fellowship, Shamieh is a graduate of Harvard University and the Yale School of Drama and is currently the screenwriting professor at Marymount Manhattan College.

6:30 p.m., Monday, April 4, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5796. Free.

THE RANIA KHALIL SHOW

by Rania Khalil

Egyptian American poet and performance artist, Rania Khalil, will present part of The Rania Khalil Show. Her mime performance Flag Piece shows the complicated relationship between a Muslim woman and the American flag, and how she feels the flag acts as a veil to silence her.

PRESSING BEYOND

by Suha Al Jurf

Palestinian American actor and playwright, Suha Al Jurf, will perform Pressing Beyond In Between, which premiered in Ramallah, Palestine. Pressing Beyond explores the journey of an American-born Palestinian woman who goes back to the home country to connect with her roots.

6:30 p.m., Monday, May 16, 2005, Martin E. Segal Theatre

Res. Code: 5797. Free.

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SERVICES FOR VISITORS WITH DISABILITIES

The Graduate Center has been designed to comply with federal, state and city requirements and codes with regard to access for persons with disabilities, and specific attention has been given to providing full physical access to all public areas.  Individuals with disabilities seeking accommodations should contact us.