Writers in Performance is a 12-week writing and performance workshop culminating in public presentations. Throughout the course of the workshop, ten talented actors, playwrights, poets and storytellers have explored writing exercises, theater games, improvisation, movement techniques, and ensemble work in a safe, creative environment.
This season both the theme and title of the Writers in Performance show is ESCAPE. The performance will include newly written stories on this theme including escaping from life itself, a Thanksgiving dinner turned sour, a star escaping its place in the universe, and a young woman escaping the oppression of poverty.
Writers in Performance participants are diverse by design; not only in ethnicity, but by age, and experience as well, mixing professionals with students. On December 6 & 7, 2013 at 8PM, the troupe will showcase the monologues and short scenes they have been crafting. We are proud to have members of the BMCC student community in the production (denoted below). Join us to experience this dynamic exchange between the written word and the art of performance!
Tickets are a suggested donation of $10 and can be purchased in person at Ticketing Services in the lobby of 199 Chambers St. or by calling 212.220.1460.
BIOS:
Lauren Fales is a graduate of The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, BMCC and Columbia University. Previously, Lauren worked with a very special group, the STORYtellers, at Leadership Institute High School in the Bronx where they created an original ethnographic theater production. Her students inspired her to continue to tell her own story. Lauren's credits include MARIA MY LOVE, a film made in memory of her mother and inspired by her life events, which premiered at the 2011 TriBeCa Film Festival. The piece Lauren will share, For Maria, examines a personal experience through the lens of a Greek chorus. It is a presentation of a shattered consciousness, deep rooted memory, and commitment to our loved ones during the greatest transition of life.
Ural Grant is originally from Memphis Tennessee. He is a passionate performer that specializes in both voice and theater. He has been singing and acting all of his life. At the age of fourteen he, along with "Children Sings", opened up for the prolific Kurt Carr! Ural later began traveling and singing with
Kevin Davidson and the Voices.Shortly after graduating high school, he matriculated into the prestigious Wesleyan University. At Wesleyan, Ural was involved in a pleathora of cultural and performance based shows. Ural has thoroughly enjoyed this process, and hopes to continue writing and thriving in his acting pursuits!
Cristina Hernandez is a writer/actress from the Dominican Republic and the Bronx. She got her start with City Kids Foundation Theater Company and has performed in numerous plays, readings and presentations over the years. She was last seen in De Novo at Houses on The Moon Theater Company. She is currently working on her one-woman show. For her "laughter is the breath of life."
Jeff Lutz performs his unique brand of stand-up comedy at clubs and colleges throughout the country. His appearances include Caroline's on Broadway, Gotham
Comedy Club, and The Comic Strip Live in NYC and the World Famous Comedy Store in Hollywood, CA. He has been a contributing writer for National Lampoon and an on-air personality for WUFT-FM in Gainesville, FL. He is also the co-creator, producer, and head writer of the upcoming television series production "Paradise Sports."
Dominique Lynch (also known on stage by the name of A Moment Of Epiphany) is a host, spoken word artist, actress and model. She was born and raised in the culturally enriched village of Harlem, New York. She has always loved to act and write since she was a very young child. Performing is not only something she likes to do it is her passion. Epiphany has been featured at Oze Tavern with the Hottest Poets, Soul Sweet Sanctuary for Black Amethyst Woman, Played Lady in Blue in :For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow was Enuf, Friday Nite Mic With Ron at Raggs of Harlem and 449 LA Scat as a spotlight feature, and at Hunter College School of Social Work for the Women of Color Collective. She has hosted at Sylvia's Also for Laugh Your a** Off Wednesday's. She performed in a stage read for V-Day "A Memory, A Rant, and A Prayer". Also, she has hosted her own show called We Be Growing Poetry and Comedy Show. She is a two time participant in Tribeca's Performing Arts Center: Writers in Performance Program. You can contact Epiphany at epiphanyofharlem@gmail.com . Also she is on Facebook and she has a fan page.
Susan Oetgen is a Brooklyn-based artist, educator and facilitator. An opera singer by training, she combines text, music, movement, video and visual art in solo and collaborative performance projects. From 2003-2011, she wrote, performed and recorded original songs with her 'chamber pop' band, Likeness to Lily. She has toured nationally and internationally in works by
Cynthia Hopkins,
Howard Fishman,
Margot Bassett, Ben Spatz and Daniel Burkholder. As part of her creative practice, Susan designs and facilitates workshops and dialogues on the interdisciplinary social utility of the performing arts for adults, and teaches conflict resolution and violence prevention through the arts in after-school clubs and in-class residencies for elementary and middle school students. Susan earned a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Catholic University of America in 1999 and a Graduate Certificate in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from
George Mason University in 2011. She studied composition with
David Lang at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2008 and with Randy Woolf during a 2007-2008 fellowship with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. She received a 2007 Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant for a series of performance projects about the US Marine Corps, and a 2010 Meet the Composer Creative Connections Grant for a project with Karen Bernard/New Dance Alliance. She was a resident artist at Tribeca Performing Arts Center from 2009-2012 and has been a Fieldwork facilitator since 2006.
Sarah-Doe Osborne Selected Theater: Quartet (Theater for the New City), Sex and the Holy Land (Player's Theater), Fair Game (Lion Theater), Four Dogs and a Bone (La Flamboyan), Him (Walkerspace) Selected Film: The End of Something, The Prometheus Trap, Crime Fiction (Slamdance Selection). Education: The University of Chicago, The Actor's Center.
Corane Scott is a BMCC Student. She is a theatre major and this is her first year with the Writers in Performance group.
Dianna Silas-Qiu is a 20 year old actress and writer. She loves to paint, write and spend time with her two pets JunJun and Ming and her husband, Horace. She also likes to use YouTube to instantly make movies. Lights, Camera, Action: check me out!
Tidtaya Sinutoke is a composer, writer and musician originally from Thailand. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She recently graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in Musical Theatre Writing. She worked as an assistant director for Downtown and Select Chorus. Currently, she's working at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Her music has been featured at venues, including
Signature Theatre, 54 Below, Duplex, etc.
Gina Stevensen is a writer and actress with a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch. Her original work has been produced at several venues across the city, including Arlene's Grocery, The Secret Theatre, Looking Glass Theatre, and
Manhattan Repertory Theatre. Gina spent the month of September studying Mohiniyattam, a classical Indian dance-drama form, in Kerala, India, and hopes to one day perform this beautiful dance in NYC. She teaches drama to children and in the summer she is the artistic director of Park Slope Day Camp's circus camp. Thanks to Mario for two inspiring seasons of WIP!
www.ginastevensen.com
Victor Vauban Junior is a circus performer in love with his new found passion, writing. He is very passionate about focusing his writings on the inevitable dilemmas society faces since the beginning of mankind's history. As a circus performer he has performed with a number of international circus companies such as: UniverSoul Circus, Circus Amok, Gran Circus Norte-Americano, Beto Carrero Show, and Gran Bartholo Circus. Victor is an eternal admirer of the arts and is always willing to share his passion for arts with his students, friends and community.
Mario Giacalone (Director) is currently the Program Director at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, where he curates the Family, and Spotlight series, and directs the Writers in Performance. Mr. Giacalone has been working in theater and performing as a singer, songwriter, and actor in New York City since the 70's. His credits include being Artist Director and/or a founding member of The Root Theater Collective, Mass Transit Street Theater, The Writers Actors and Directors Collective, and owner/Producing/Artistic Director of The Creative
Acting Company (CAC). At CAC Mr. Giacalone taught acting, produced an annual Short Play Festival, produced and the directed the short films "Vinny and Iggy's Big Date" and "Mamma Millies Pasta Sauce Stupendiouso". He has produced and directed numerous plays including Cowboy Mouth, Neighbors, The Drowning of Manhattan, and The Girl in the Chinese Raincoat. Recently he has directed Yvette Heylinger's "Bridge to Baraka" at the National Black Theatre Festival, Ms. Heylinger's play "I Think I'd Remember if I had Sex with
Denzel Washington" at the Davenport Play Festival, Susan Murphy's "Girl Group" at LaMaMa, Siobahn O'Loughlin's "Natural Novice" for the Women at Work Festival. Mr. Giacalone has had featured and leading roles in a number of independent films including, "I Was on Mars" and "The Giraffe" by the acclaimed German Director Danni Levi. This past spring he appeared on stage in the play "In Her Wake", produced by the Provincetown Theater Company, and is set to appear in the second season of "Living in Exile" for New Media Comedy. Mr. Giacalone is also a singer-songwriter. His new CD "Only Thing I'm Sure Of" is soon to be released.
Caron A. Levis (Writing Coordinator) - Levis's first picture book, Stuck with the Blooz, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Fall 2012) was selected as one of Bankstreet College's Best Children's Books of the Year. Short stories inspired by her teenage students have been published by Fence Magazine, the New Guard Review, Persea Books, and W.W. Norton; listed in the Best American Non-required Reading 2010, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and earned fellowships from the Saltonstall Foundation and the New York Foundation of the Arts. Caron's short plays have been voted Audience Favorite at the Estrogenius Festival and selected for the Samuel French OOB Festival. For over ten years, Caron has been using drama and creative writing to teach social/emotional, communication, and literacy skills to kids of all ages. She is the student advisor and an adjunct professor in the
New School University's Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program where she earned her degree. Caron's acting training inspired her to create the writing workshop Act-Like-A-Writer. She lives in her hometown of New York City. You can find her at
www.caronlevis.com.
BMCC Tribeca PAC is Downtown Manhattan's premier presenter of the arts, reaching audiences from the college community, downtown residential and business communities, local schools, families, and audiences of all ages. BMCC Tribeca PAC strives to present a broad global perspective through the presentation of high-quality artistic work in music, theatre, dance, film and visual arts. BMCC Tribeca PAC is located on the Borough of Manhattan Community College campus, 199 Chambers Street (between Greenwich Avenue & West Street) and is convenient to the 2/3, A/C/E and R subway lines and the New Jersey Path Train. For more information, visit our website,
www.tribecapac.org.
