Dael Orlandersmith to Bring UNTIL THE FLOOD to HB Studio This Month

HB Studio, one of New York's most esteemed institutions for theater training and practice located in the heart of Greenwich Village, will present Until the Flood by Dael Orlandersmith, as a part of their 2016-17 Benefit Series.

Featuring music by Elliott Sharp, benefit proceeds will support HB Studio's World-Renowned Training, Practice and Development Programs for Aspiring and Professional Theater Artists.

Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie-Award winning playwright Dael Orlandersmith brings her latest work to HB Studio for a special New York engagement. Commissioned by The Rep in 2016, Until the Flood focuses on the social unrest in Ferguson, MO after the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. The one-woman show explores the experience of an American community through the eyes of multiple characters, developed by Dael through her extensive interviews with St. Louis residents. First performed at the St. Louis Rep in February 2016, Orlandersmith will be bringing the solo play to Rattlestick Theatre in New York City and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre in 2018.

Orlandersmith's solo play FOREVER will be performed in summer 2017 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, after successful runs at New York Theatre Workshop and Portland Center Stage. Her new play, LADY IN DENMARK, will open fall 2017 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Orlandersmith collaborated with the Goodman on STOOP STORIES, first performed in 2008 at The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival and Apollo Theater's Salon Series; Washington, DC's Studio Theatre produced its world premiere in 2009. BLACK N' BLUE BOYS/BROKEN MEN was developed as a co-commission between the Goodman and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it was staged in May 2012. Her play HORSEDREAMS was developed at New Dramatists and workshopped at New York Stage and Film Company in 2008, and was performed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2011. BONES premiered in 2010 at the Mark Taper Forum, who also commissioned the work. In 2007, Orlandersmith premiered THE BLUE ALBUM, in collaboration with David Cale, at Long Wharf Theatre. Orlandersmith's 2002 Pulitzer Prize nominated play YELLOWMAN was commissioned by and premiered at McCarter Theatre in a co-production with The Wilma Theater and Long Wharf Theatre. Orlandersmith was also a Drama Desk Award nominee for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress in a Play for YELLOWMAN. THE GIMMICK, commissioned by McCarter Theatre, premiered in their Second Stage OnStage series in 1998 and went on to great acclaim at Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop; Orlandersmith won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for THE GIMMICK in 1999. Her play MONSTER premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in November 1996. Orlandersmith has toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Café (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. She attended Sundance Institute Theatre Lab for four summers and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim and the 2005 PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career. Orlandersmith also is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights Fellowship and an OBIE Award for BEAUTY'S DAUGHTER (1995).

Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 30 years, Elliott Sharp has released over 150 recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He leads the projects Carbon and Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction.

His collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; pop singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Kronos String Quartet; Ensemble Resonanz; cello innovator Frances Marie Uitti; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pipa virtuoso Min-Xiao Feng; jazz greats Jack deJohnette, Oliver Lake, and Sonny Sharrock; multimedia artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka.

Sharp is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2014 Fellow at Parson's Center for Transformative Media. He received the 2015 Berlin Prize in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Berlin. He has composed scores for feature films and documentaries; created sound-design for interstitials on The Sundance Channel, MTV and Bravo networks; and has presented numerous sound installations in art galleries and museums. He is the subject of a recent documentary "Doing The Don't" by filmmaker Bert Shapiro. For more information click here or listen to a recent interview on NPR's "All Things Considered".

IF YOU GO:

UNTIL THE FLOOD by Dael Orlandersmith
Featuring: Dael Orlandersmith, with music by Elliott Sharp
Date & Time: March 20 and 21 at 7:00pm.
Location: HB Playwrights Theatre (124 Bank Street in Greenwich Village, NYC).
Tickets: Premiere $250 | Preferred $125 | Standard Tickets $75
Followed by VIP Reception - Seating is limited. Exclusive $25 Student Rush tickets for HB students will be available.
Box Office: 212-989-7856 or hbstudio.org/giving/hb-benefit-events.

HB Studio provides an artistic home and vibrant creative community where both aspiring and professional artists find opportunity, education, encouragement, and support. HB's practical approach to theater and high artistic principles are the enduring legacy of its founders, Herbert Berghof and Uta Hagen.

HB Studio is a nonprofit organization that supports vigorous, lifelong practice in the theatre arts based on a solid foundation of practical training. The Studio was conceived as a place where artists at all stages of their careers could continue to work and train between engagements, supported and challenged by their more experienced colleagues, in a space free from pressures related to commercial success. HB is open to any person with a serious interest in the theater and its related disciplines. Its students, faculty, and alumni form a vibrant community of actors, playwrights, and directors.

HB Studio alumni include some of the most notable actors of American theater and film including Christopher Abbott, F. Murray Abraham, Carroll Baker, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, James Cromwell, Billy Crystal, Robert DeNiro, Faye Dunaway, Whoopi Goldberg, HAl Holbrook, Christine Lahti, Jessica Lange, Linda Lavin, Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Al Pacino, Sarah Jessica Parker, Amanda Peet, Doris Roberts, Mercedes Ruehl, George Segal, Molly Shannon, and Barbra Streisand.

Founded by Viennese actor/director Herbert Berghof in 1945, HB is one of the original New York acting studios. In 1947, Berghof met the celebrated actress Uta Hagen and invited her to join him in teaching at the Studio. The two later married, and Hagen, author of the seminal acting texts Respect for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor, became one of the most renowned and respected acting teachers of the 20th century. HB's faculty of master teachers and practicing artists carry on in that tradition today.