OSF Features New Commissions From Diaz, Friedman, Galati, Hudes, Stew & Rodewald

At a press conference yesterday the Oregon Shakespeare Festival provided a comprehensive picture of the scope of new work underway over the next several season supported by grants totaling more than $800,000. OSF recently received a grant of $600,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation over three years (2010-2012) for the decade-long commissioning, production, and public dialogue initiative American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle. The Edgerton Foundation of Los Angeles, California awarded OSF a four-year $200,000 grant to support the commissioning of five new American musicals, putting OSF in the unique position of creating new American musicals with a resident Acting Company.

Under the leadership of OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch, new work is receiving significantly increased attention and resources, an institutional commitment initiated by Rauch's predecessor, Libby Appel, more than a decade ago. Each of the past twelve seasons has seen an average of one or two world premieres (a total that exceeds the previous 63 seasons combined) and as many as 20 commissions are now underway.

The most recent artists commissioned for the Cycle are playwright and educator Kristoffer Diaz (co-commission with the Guthrie Theater), musical artist Michael Friedman, director/playwright Frank Galati (co-commission with Steppenwolf Theatre), and Quiara Alegría Hudes author of plays, musicals, screenplays. (See bios below). Friedman, the composer of the off-Broadway hit Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson will be creating an original musical for OSF; his commission is supported by The Edgerton Foundation.

Since the launch of the Cycle in 2008, under the guidance of Alison Carey, Director of American Revolutions, 10 commissions have been announced: Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza), David Henry Hwang, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Robert Schenkkan, Naomi Wallace, the team of Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone, Young Jean Lee, Universes (includes core performers Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz, Gamal A. Chasten, and William Ruiz), and Rhiana Yazzie.

This season OSF will mount its inaugural production of the Cycle. American Night: The Ballad of Juan José, will open July 3 in the New Theatre in celebration of OSF's 75th anniversary. The second production of the Cycle, Ghost Light, written by Tony Taccone and directed by Jonathan Moscone, will be produced in 2011 in the New Theatre.

In addition to the Michael Friedman commission, The Edgerton Foundation is supporting the commission of a new musical by Stew and his writing partner, Heidi Rodewald, the authors of the musical hit Passing Strange. Passing Strange premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2006, eventually moving to Broadway in 2008. The piece was praised by the New York Times as an "exuberant and bitingly funny new musical" earning seven Tony Award nominations, with Stew receiving the award for Best Book of a Musical. Jacob Padrón, Associate Producer, Company, will lead the development of new American musicals for OSF.

OSF has also received two grants from the Nathan Cummings Foundation for ongoing projects in the area of Nexthetics (the term for hip-hop and spoken word aesthetics created at the 2003 Ford Foundation Future Aesthetics conference), under the administration of OSF Associate Producer, Community, Claudia Alick.

Also, currently under commission by OSF for other projects are: original plays by Chay Yew and Melanie Marnich (a co-commission with The Playwrights' Center), an adaptation of Three Sisters by Libby Appel and Alison Horsley, an adaptation of The Imaginary Invalid by Oded Gross and TraCy Young, an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor by Alison Carey, and Michael Rohd and Shannon Scrofano for the site-specific, company-devised piece, WillFul that will be produced in the 2011 season. Lue Morgan Douthit, Director of Literary Development and Dramaturgy, is overseeing these projects.

In reflecting on these multiple commissions, Rauch noted, "I am overjoyed by the addition of these exceptional theater artists to the roster of writers and composers that we have commissioned; they represent the excellence, diversity and artistic risk-taking that is synonymous with new work at the Festival."

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Theater Program seeks to fund leading theaters of all sizes that contribute to the advancement or preservation of theater as an art form and which are characterized by distinctive and ambitious artistic programming, a commitment to artists, intellectual relevance, and the capacity to engage audiences. Its goals are to help artistic leaders who are "swimming upstream" to continue to take artistic risks; to support processes that will improve the quality of work being produced; and to support collaborations between organizations that develop, premiere, and mount second and third productions of a work. It also endeavors to support long-term commitments to artists by institutions. In addition to support for theaters, the program provides direct support to a handful of leading playwriting centers that are critical to the development of artists and new work. Finally, the Foundation's efforts are not exclusively focused on new work. Recognizing that such activities as remounting difficult classical works, translations, and international collaborations are both important and challenging, the program also supports organizations that have a record of doing important and exemplary work in these areas.

The Edgerton Foundation
The Edgerton Foundation has supported OSF's development of the new plays since 2007. The premieres of Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter (2007) and Equivocation (2009) each received an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award. The Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards has provided over forty Theatre Communication Group member theaters with financial resources to increase rehearsal time with the full production team onsite at the theater. In 2006, The Edgerton Foundation piloted this program with the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles by offering plays in development an extended rehearsal period for the entire creative team including the playwrights. Those first two plays, Curtains and 13 both went on to Broadway. Dr. Edgerton launched the program nationally in 2007 by funding 21 plays, continued in 2008 by supporting 23 plays and in 2009 supported a record 27 plays.

To date, seventy-three Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards, totaling $2,292,000, have been granted and thirty-four of those plays have gone on to further productions including 2009 Tony Award Winners Next to Normal and 33 Variations; and 2010 Tony Award nominees Time Stands Still and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play.

American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle
The launch of the United States History Cycle was first announced in January 2008. At the time, Bill Rauch was in his first season as Artistic Director at OSF and had established the History Cycle as one of his top priorities. In conceiving the cycle, Rauch took inspiration from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's genesis in the Chautauqua movement of the late nineteenth century and OSF's birth on the 4th of July, 1935. OSF's commitment to the works of Shakespeare (the Festival has completed the canon three times) drew Rauch to the potential parallels between the United States History Cycle and Shakespeare's own histories in chronicling the tensions and intentions of a nation. Acknowledging this, the Cycle's 37 commissions match the number of plays in the Shakespeare canon.

The plays of American Revolutions will look at moments of change in America's past, helping to establish a shared understanding of our national identity and illuminate the best paths for our nation's future. The project will bring together more than 100 artists, historians and institutions from around the country. The 37 new plays are slated to result in up to 15 full productions at OSF between 2010 and 2019. Every work commissioned, even if it does not receive a full production, will be presented to OSF audiences through workshops or readings.

Biographies

Kristoffer Diaz is a playwright and educator, currently living and working in Minneapolis, where he is a 2009-10 Jerome Fellow. His full-length plays, including The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer), Welcome to Arroyo's, and Guernica, have been produced and developed at Second Stage, Victory Gardens, American Theatre Company, InterAct, Mixed Blood, The Orchard Project, Hip-Hop Theater Festival, The Lark, Summer Play Festival, Donmar Warehouse, and South Coast Repertory. Kristoffer was one of the creators of Brink!, the apprentice anthology show at the 2009 Humana Festival of New American Plays. He is a playwright-in-residence at Teatro Vista, a recipient of both the Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant and the Van Lier Fellowship (New Dramatists), and a member of the Ars Nova Play Group. Kristoffer is currently working on a commission for the Center Theatre Group. As an educator, conference presenter, and dramaturg, Kristoffer has worked with El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, the International Thespian Festival, Florida Thespians, Cleveland Play House, No Passport, Austin Scriptworks/Latino Playwright Initiative, Rising Circle Productions, Future Aesthetics Artist Dialogue, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the Playwrights Center.

Michael Friedman's recent productions as composer/lyricist include: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Center Theatre Group and The Public Theater), This Beautiful City (The Civilians at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Studio Theatre in Washington, DC, Kirk Douglas Theater in Los Angeles, and the Vineyard Theatre in New York), Saved (Playwrights Horizons), The Brand New Kid (Kennedy Center), and In the Bubble (at AMTP) as well as The Civilians' [I Am] Nobody's Lunch, Canard, Canard, Goose? and the long-running Gone Missing(Barrow Street Theater). With Steve Cosson, he co-wrote Paris Commune, which was produced at The Public Theater in 2008. Music for film and TV include the films On Common Ground and Affair Game, the online series Floaters and the upcoming feature, Coach. His music has also been heard at NYTW, the Roundabout, Second Stage, Soho Rep, Theater for a New Audience, Signature, and The Acting Company, and regionally at the Guthrie, The Huntington, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage, Humana Festival, ART, Williamstown Theatre Festival; and internationally at London's Soho and Gate Theatres, and the Edinburgh Festival. He was also the dramaturg for the Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Kenny Leon. He is currently working on an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude with Itamar Moses and Daniel Aukin; THE CHERRY SISTERS REVISITED with Dan O'Brien, and is under commission at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Center Theatre Group, Playwrights Horizons, and the Huntington Theater. Michael is an Artistic Associate at New York Theatre Workshop, a founding Associate Artist of the Obie-Award-winning Civilians, and a recipient of a MacDowell fellowship, a Princeton University Hodder Fellowship, and a 2007 Obie Award.

Frank Galati has won two Tony Awards in 1990 for his highly praised adaptation and direction of Steppenwolf's production of The Grapes of Wrath on Broadway. He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1998 for directing the musical Ragtime. Other Steppenwolf productions include after the quake, Homebody/Kabul, The Royal Family, Morning Star, Valparaiso, You Can't Take It with You, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Born Yesterday, Earthly Possessions, As I Lay Dying and Everyman. His productions at the Goodman Theatre, where he has been an associate director since 1986, include She Always Said Pablo, The Winter's Tale, The Good Person of Setzuan and Cry the Beloved Country. He has staged operas for Chicago Opera Theatre and for the Lyric Opera including The Voyage of Edgar Allen Poe and William Balcom's View from the Bridge seen at the Metropolitan Opera in 2000. In 1989 Mr. Galati was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay (with Lawrence Kasdan) of The Accidental Tourist. Mr. Galati is a professor in the department of performance studies at Northwestern University.
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Quiara Alegría Hudes is an award-winning author of plays, musicals, screenplays and other literary works. Though her works are varied in style, she combines an intellectual curiosity with a humanistic vision to tell new American stories. Her work for musical theater includes the Tony Award-winning Best Musical In the Heights (Tony Nomination for her book, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Lucille Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle Award) and the children's piece Barrio Grrrl! which opened at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and begins a national tour in 2011 (book and lyrics). Her plays include Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue (Pulitzer Prize finalist), 26 Miles, and Yemaya's Belly. Currently, Hudes's film and TV projects include the screenplay for the upcoming film adaptation of In the Heights for Universal Pictures, and a sitcom in development at NBC. Hudes was born and raised in Philadelphia, where she recently returned to receive a Resolution from the City of Philadelphia. Her first play was produced in the tenth grade by Philadelphia Young Playwrights, where she now serves as a board member and mentor to other young writers. After graduating from public school, she received a B.A. in music composition from Yale and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Brown. She is a resident writer at New Dramatists and the Joyce Fellow at the Goodman Theatre.

Heidi Rodewald has spent more than a decade as a performer, arranger, producer and composer for both The Negro Problem and the multi-disciplinary ensemble known as Stew. Credits include Passing Strange, Berkeley Repertory Theatre/The Public Theater/the Belasco Theater (2006/2007/2008); composer, Karen Kandel's Portraits: Night and Day (2004); and co-writer with Stew of the screenplay We Can See Today, Sundance Screenwriters Lab/Directors Lab (2005). Heidi also wrote and performed with the seminal female punk band Wednesday Week.

Stew's works include Passing Strange for which he received the 2008 Tony award for "Best Book of a Musical." Wrote lyrics and co-composed music for the same. Two-time Obie winner: "Best New Theater Piece" and, as a member of the PS acting family, "Best Ensemble." A four-time Tony nominee, Stew leads, along with his collaborator Heidi Rodewald, two critically acclaimed bands: The Negro Problem and Stew. Works: Post Minstrel Syndrome (TNP 1997), Joys and Concerns (TNP 1999), Guest Host (S 2000), The Naked Dutch Painter (S 2002), Welcome Black (TNP 2002), Something Deeper Than These Changes (S 2003) and the cast album of Passing Strange (2008).
Artist-in-residence at the California Institute of the Arts (2004/5); Passing Strange: Berkeley Repertory Theater/The Public Theater/the Belasco Theater (2006/2007/2008). But what Stew will ultimately be remembered for is having composed "Gary Come Home" for SpongeBob SquarePants.

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