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November 29, 2006
Jenny Lyn Bader, Playwright and Author, 12-1-06
Read the transcript of the ARTSCAPE interview with Jenny Lyn Bader
Jenny Lyn Bader is a playwright, author, and native New Yorker. Her plays include Manhattan Casanova — which just received its world premiere at Hudson Stage — and None of the Above, produced in New York by the theatre company New Georges and published in the collection Under Thirty: Plays for a New Generation (Vintage).
Ms. Bader has also written numerous one-act plays, including Worldness, commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival of New American Plays); The Fisherman’s Wife (HERE Arts Center); Miss America (New York International Fringe Festival, “Best of the Fringe” selection); and The Popcorn Sonata (Florida’s City Theatre), published in 2004: Best 10-Minute Plays (Smith & Kraus). Her work also appears in Heaven and Hell (Dramatists Play Service), Leading Women (Vintage), and other collections. Ms. Bader was a Lark Playwriting Fellow, nominated by Wendy Wasserstein. She has developed her plays at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, where she was invited to write for the 20th Century Project; at the Women’s Project Directors Forum, where she workshopped Memory Play starring Eli Wallach; and at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, where she won the Edith Oliver Award.
Her essays and whimsy have appeared in The New York Times “Week in Review” and in books such as Next: Young American Writers on the New Generation (Norton). With Bill Brazell, she co-authored the book He Meant, She Meant: The Definitive Male-Female Dictionary — What Men Think They’re Saying, What Women Really Mean (Warner). She wrote both seasons of the web drama Watercooler (MSN) and has written scripts for Warner Bros./Laura Ziskin Productions, NBC Studios, and HBO/Billy Crystal’s Face Productions.
A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard, she has taught at the New School University and has been a guest artist at Barnard College. In December, her one-act cycle Out of Mind: 7 Short Plays with Some of the People Missing will be produced at NYU/Strasberg.
Posted by David Lemberg at 09:06 AM | Comments (0)
Andreas Manolikakis, Chair, Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University, and member of the Acting and Directing Faculty; and Dr. Bill Coco, Director, Theater History Department, and member of the Theater History and History of Directing Faculty, 12-1-06
The Actors Studio MFA was born of the decision to train students carefully selected for their talent and potential in the system practiced at the Studio. Over three years in a full-time program, all MFA candidates study and practice together—beginning at the same place as they learn a shared “language” and technique. On parallel tracks to that “ensemble” experience, every student, actor, director, writer, is undergoing intensive—and intense—training in his or her own discipline, at the hands of one of the most distinguished acting, directing and writing faculties ever assembled.
From the beginning, all students participate in Craft Seminars, where the most accomplished members of the Actors Studio share their knowledge and experiences. Many of the Actors Studio artists also teach in intensive Friday Workshop sessions. While the Actors Studio is a private space, accessible only to members, MFA candidates have the rare privilege of attending a number of the Studio’s closed-door sessions as observers. Each year, on from 14 to 20 occasions, the program's students spend an evening with some of the world's most distinguished creative and performing artists in the Inside the Actors Studio seminars.
Andreas Manolikakis was chair of the Directing Department at the Actors Studio Drama School, where he taught acting and directing from 1995 to 2005. He has taught workshops in acting, directing, and script analysis in Athens, Berlin, and Paris (at the French National Film School LA FEMIS; the Conservatoire National Superieur d’Art Dramatique; and at L’Escalier 4). He has translated into Greek and published in Athens in 1997 Nikolai Gorchakov’s Russian classic The Vakhtangov School of Stage Art, which became a required text for the Theatre Department of the University of Athens.
Mr. Manolikakis has also given lectures on “Stanislavski and Vakhtangov,” “The Actors Studio,” “Method Acting and Greek Tragedy”, and “Method Acting and Directing” at L’Escalier 4 in Paris; the University of Athens; the National Theater and the University of Northern Greece; the Drama School of the National Theater of Greece; and the National Organization of Theater Studies in Athens. As a director and as an actor, he has worked in the United States and Europe. Among his directing highlights are: Porte Close, by N. Darmon, at the National Theatre of East Paris; Elektra, by Sophocles, at the Actors Studio; Liliom, by F. Molnar, in Athens. Among his acting highlights: on Broadway opposite Sir Derek Jacobi in Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code; and a leading role in the feature film Ice House, opposite Melissa Gilbert. He directed and acted in numerous plays from the Greek and international repertoire for the New Hellenic Stage of New York, which he founded in 1983. He is also the author of The Classmates, a 13-episode television series produced by the National Greek Television ET3.
Mr. Manolikakis holds a B.A. in acting from the Greek Art Theatre Drama School in Athens, founded by Karolos Koun, and an M.F.A. in theater from the University of Paris VIII-Vincennes. He also studied with Marcel Marceau at his International School of Mime in Paris. At the Actors Studio, he is a Lifetime Member and a member of the Board of Directors.
A dramaturge, translator, magazine and book editor, and teacher, Dr. Bill Coco was principal dramaturge for the late director Joseph Chaikin on 15 productions for the stage, radio, and audio-recording. His has written for The Drama Review (TDR), Performance, Scripts, Theater Journal, and Performing Arts Journal (PAJ). He was associate editor of TDR and a founding editor of Performance and Scripts, which were published by Joseph Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater. He was also contributing editor for PAJ and the Yale School of Drama’s Theater. His translations include Sophocles' Elektra, produced at the Actors Studio, and Strindberg's Dance of Death (cotranslated with Peter Stormare) at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Coco’s productions with Mr. Chaikin include premieres and performances of plays by Jean-Claude van Itallie, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy, Moliere, Ionesco, and four plays by Beckett, at venues including the NYSF Public Theater, Signature Theater (Shepard and Kennedy seasons), the Mark Taper Forum in L.A., and the Juilliard School. He coedited, with Gloria Brim Beckerman, Bernard Beckerman's posthumous book Theatrical Presentation: Performer, Audience and Act. Also, he dramaturged the Shepard-Chaikin collaboration When the World Was Green, which toured Moscow as the first American company to play guest performances at the Moscow Art Theater. Dr. Coco holds an M.F.A. and a Ph.D. from Columbia University and has taught at Columbia, New York University, and, most recently, at the Actors Studio Drama School from 1995 to 2005.
Posted by David Lemberg at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2006
Dr. Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Senior Curator, The Phillips Collection, 11-17-06
One of the country’s paramount anthologies of modern art will be on view at The Phillips Collection from Oct. 14, 2006 to Jan. 21, 2007. The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, organized by the Yale University Art Gallery, represents a diverse cross section of art from the 1910s to 1950s, including now widely acknowledged masterpieces by artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró, and Piet Mondrian, alongside key Dada works that have not been seen for decades. The exhibition also will include works by Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, Fernand Léger, and many other visionaries that forever altered the way America looks at the world.
Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Senior Curator of The Phillips Collection, is a specialist in early twentieth century modern art. Dr. Turner’s Ph.D. is from the University of Virginia (1985). Before joining The Phillips Collection she worked for the National Museum of American Art and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has been at The Phillips Collection since 1989, where she has directed a series of traveling exhibitions derived from the permanent collection that address the earliest chapters of the Phillips’s collecting history, including Men of Rebellion: The Eight and their Associates at The Phillips Collection (author, 1990), Duncan Phillips Collects: Paris between the Wars (author, 1991); Two Lives: Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (co-author, 1992); Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series (editor, 1993; also includes video and children’s book); and In the American Grain: Dove, Hartley, Marin, O’Keeffe, and Stieglitz (author, 1995).
During her tenure at The Phillips Dr. Turner also has curated and directed significant large loan exhibitions, including Americans in Paris: Man Ray, Gerald Murphy, Stuart Davis, Alexander Calder (principle author, 1996); Arthur Dove: A Retrospective (co-author, 1997), and Georgia O’Keeffe: The Poetry of Things (co-author, 1999). She contributed an essay on “Bonnard, Matisse, and the School of Paris” to the definitive text on The Phillips Collection and Duncan Phillips entitled The Eye of Duncan Phillips: A Collection in the Making, and was co-curator for the 1999 exhibition Renoir to Rothko: The Eye of Duncan Phillips.
Dr. Turner contributed an essay to the Jacob Lawrence catalogue raisonné entitled Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence (2000) and, on the occasion of its publication she curated the nationally touring show of the same title, which opened at The Phillips Collection in 2001. She was also the curator of Pierre Bonnard: Early and Late (2002), a show co-organized by The Phillips with the Denver Art Museum that includes examples of all the media in which this artist worked. Dr. Turner was the project director and co-curator for Calder, Miró: A New Space for the Imagination, which opened in May 2004 and was co-organized by the Phillips Collection with the Foundation Beyeler in Basel (Switzerland). Dr. Turner’s current projects include co-editing with Dr. Josef Helfenstein the exhibition catalogue for Klee and America.
Posted by David Lemberg at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)
Wesley Jessup, Executive Director, Pasadena Museum of California Art, 11-17-06
The Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) is dedicated to the exhibition of California art, architecture, and design from 1850 to the present. Informed by the state's rich mixture of cultures and inspired by its impressive geography, California art has long been defined by a spirit of freedom and experimentation. PMCA exhibitions and educational programs explore the cultural dynamics and influences unique to California that have shaped and defined art in all media.
Wesley Jessup was appointed Executive Director of the Pasadena Museum of California Art in December 2000. During his time at this new start-up museum, Mr. Jessup has organized several exhibitions including Richard Diebenkorn: The Carey Stanton Collection, Maynard Dixon (summer 2007), Liquid Los Angeles: Currents in Contemporary Watercolor, Wondertoonel: Paintings by Mark Ryden, and the California Design Biennial in 2003 and 2005.
Mr. Jessup previously served as the Manager of Budgeting and Planning for International Programs at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City from (1994–1998), where he helped organize and travel Robert Rauschenberg: a Retrospective, The Art of the Motorcycle, and Picasso and the War Years: 1937 – 1945. He left the Guggenheim in 1998 when he was recruited by the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas to be Assistant Director. Mr. Jessup received his B.A. from California State University in Fullerton and holds a Masters Degree in Art History and Museum Studies from the City University of New York. He and his wife Cynthia live with their children in South Pasadena.
Posted by David Lemberg at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)
Rey Bustos, Artist and Educator, 11-17-06
Rey Bustos is one of the leading artistic anatomists in the country today. A former freelance illustrator, he is now almost solely dedicated to art education at every level. Mr. Bustos not only has students at the college/university level, but also works with professionals and teachers. Along with his specialty of teaching anatomy through écorché — the teaching of anatomy through sculptural means — he also teaches figure drawing and composition. Mr. Bustos is currently teaching at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena; the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, Van Nuys; Cal State L.A., Los Angeles; and Disney Feature Animation, Burbank.
Mr. Bustos is also an accomplished artist with two main subjects — figurative drawings and a type of painting he calls SURREAL-REALISM, whereby he uses collage and paint to create a surreal new environment. He is represented by the San Marino Gallery in San Marino, CA.
Posted by David Lemberg at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2006
Kimberli Meyer, Director, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, 11-10-06
Kimberli Meyer earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and practiced architecture in Chicago before moving to Southern California. She received her M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts in 1995, and has since lived in Los Angeles pursuing art and architecture projects.
Ms. Meyer has been Director of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles at the Schindler House since 2002. There she has co-curated the current exhibition The Gen(h)ome Project along with Open Source Architecture. She has also co-curated the exhibition Symmetry (2006) with Nizan Shaked and Showdown! at the Schindler House (2004) with Fritz Haegj. She has directed guest curator François Perrin for the exhibition and publication Yves Klein: Air Architecture (2004) and has organized Schindler’s Paradise: Architectural Resistance (2003), an architectural ideas competition, exhibition, and publication.
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture is a contemporary, experimental, multidisciplinary center for art and architecture that operates from architect Rudolph M. Schindler’s own House and Studio (1922) in West Hollywood. It was established in 1994 as an alliance between the MAK Museum in Vienna and Friends of the Schindler House in West Hollywood.
Designed and built by Rudolph Schindler in 1921–1922 as live/work space for two families, the Schindler House redefined notions of residential space and architecture. It is the mission of the MAK Center to continue the conversation initiated by Schindler by creating and supporting programming that explores the dynamic intersections of art, architecture, and culture.
The MAK Center acts as a “think tank” for current issues in art and architecture by encouraging exploration and experimentation of artistic practices. It produces a year-round schedule of exhibitions, lectures, concerts, film screenings, performances, publications and new work commissions. It also hosts an international residency program for visiting artists and architects, who live and work in the Mackey Apartments (R. M. Schindler, 1939).
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
Andreas Manolikakis, Chair, Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University, and member of the Acting and Directing Faculty; and Edward Allan Baker, Playwriting, Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University, 11-10-06
The Actors Studio MFA was born of the decision to train students carefully selected for their talent and potential in the system practiced at the Studio. Over three years in a full-time program, all MFA candidates study and practice together—beginning at the same place as they learn a shared “language” and technique. On parallel tracks to that “ensemble” experience, every student, actor, director, writer, is undergoing intensive—and intense—training in his or her own discipline, at the hands of one of the most distinguished acting, directing and writing faculties ever assembled.
From the beginning, all students participate in Craft Seminars, where the most accomplished members of the Actors Studio share their knowledge and experiences. Many of the Actors Studio artists also teach in intensive Friday Workshop sessions. While the Actors Studio is a private space, accessible only to members, MFA candidates have the rare privilege of attending a number of the Studio’s closed-door sessions as observers. Each year, on from 14 to 20 occasions, the program's students spend an evening with some of the world's most distinguished creative and performing artists in the Inside the Actors Studio seminars.
Andreas Manolikakis was chair of the Directing Department at the Actors Studio Drama School, where he taught acting and directing from 1995 to 2005. He has taught workshops in acting, directing, and script analysis in Athens, Berlin, and Paris (at the French National Film School LA FEMIS; the Conservatoire National Superieur d’Art Dramatique; and at L’Escalier 4). He has translated into Greek and published in Athens in 1997 Nikolai Gorchakov’s Russian classic The Vakhtangov School of Stage Art, which became a required text for the Theatre Department of the University of Athens.
Mr. Manolikakis has also given lectures on “Stanislavski and Vakhtangov,” “The Actors Studio,” “Method Acting and Greek Tragedy”, and “Method Acting and Directing” at L’Escalier 4 in Paris; the University of Athens; the National Theater and the University of Northern Greece; the Drama School of the National Theater of Greece; and the National Organization of Theater Studies in Athens. As a director and as an actor, he has worked in the United States and Europe. Among his directing highlights are: Porte Close, by N. Darmon, at the National Theatre of East Paris; Elektra, by Sophocles, at the Actors Studio; Liliom, by F. Molnar, in Athens. Among his acting highlights: on Broadway opposite Sir Derek Jacobi in Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code; and a leading role in the feature film Ice House, opposite Melissa Gilbert. He directed and acted in numerous plays from the Greek and international repertoire for the New Hellenic Stage of New York, which he founded in 1983. He is also the author of The Classmates, a 13-episode television series produced by the National Greek Television ET3.
Mr. Manolikakis holds a B.A. in acting from the Greek Art Theatre Drama School in Athens, founded by Karolos Koun, and an M.F.A. in theater from the University of Paris VIII-Vincennes. He also studied with Marcel Marceau at his International School of Mime in Paris. At the Actors Studio, he is a Lifetime Member and a member of the Board of Directors.
Edward Allan Baker is a published and frequently produced New York City playwright, with 32 plays to his credit — most notably, Dolores (which starred Joan Allen and is included in The Best Short Plays of 1989), North of Providence, Prairie Avenue (which starred Ed Harris), Rosemary with Ginger, and Face Divided (which starred Sam Rockwell). He has written for HBO and Showtime, attended Sundance Film Institute, and taught playwriting for more than 20 years.
Mr. Baker was recently presented with the 25th Anniversary Award for Theatrical Excellence by the Ensemble Studio Theatre of New York.
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
Jocelyn Kress, Art Historian and International Lecturer, 11-10-06
Jocelyn Kress has achieved international recognition for her varied and significant contributions to the world of Art. Her informational and engaging lectures reflect an extension of her lifelong interest in preserving the legacy of the Samuel H. Kress Collection, which many consider the most extensive and encyclopedic art collection of old masters ever amassed by an American. The Kress Collection was started by her uncle Samuel H. Kress and continued by her father, Rush.
Today, approximately 45% of the Kress Collection is housed at The National Gallery in Washington, D.C. The collection represents 67% of all old master paintings and close to 90% of all French 18th century paintings in the Gallery’s permanent collection.
The Samuel H. Kress Collection is the only art collection of its scope and size ever to have been divided, distributed, and subsequently donated throughout the continental United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and as such the Collection’s dispersal across America to regional art museums and universities literally seeded the nation with great art. The Collection has provided millions of Americans with their first glimpse of celebrated art.
In addition to her forthcoming lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (January 18th, 2007), Ms. Kress has lectured at The Wallace Collection, London in honor of Marie Antoinette’s 250th birthday; The Old Masters Biennale, Florence; and Les Chateaux de Versailles, including The Salon Rond of the Grand Tranon, a favorite spot of Louis XIV and the Pavillion Francais — a favorite of Marie Antoinette.
Ms. Kress’ lifelong work within the arts reflects her strong desire to provide the American people with an opportunity to experience a connection with virtually all the great names in Western art from the 13th to the 19th century, from Giotto to Rembrandt to David.
In the tradition of her father and uncle, Jocelyn Kress has devoted her life to Art, including producing more than 100 art exhibits in New York City and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. In addition to showcasing traditional fine arts, Jocelyn produced a comprehensive exhibition of American cartoon art, which included the first retrospective ever of television commercials from the 1950s through the 1970s. Her exhibition “Cartoon Now” of 1975 is still considered the comprehensive showing of this great American art form.
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2006
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Director/Chief Curator, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation and the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, 11-3-06
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill is a British-Venezuelan art historian and curator of contemporary art. She has been Director/Chief Curator of Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation and the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection since January 2005. Ms. Fajardo-Hill was General Director of the Sala Mendoza, an alternative space for contemporary art in Caracas, Venezuela, from 1997 to 2001. She has curated and organized numerous exhibitions of the work of emerging artists in Venezuela, including Alexander Apóstol, José Antonio Hernández-Diez, and Javier Téllez; as well as solo shows of internationally recognized artists such as Laura Anderson, Candice Breitz, Susan Hiller, Mona Hatoum, and Steve McQueen.
Ms. Fajardo-Hill has written about the work of Hatoum, Anderson, Jimmie Durham, José Bedia, Miguel Angel Ríos, and Carlos Capelán, and on contemporary art and artists from Latin America.
CIFO, the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, is a non-profit organization, established in 2002 by Ella Fontanals-Cisneros and her family to foster cultural and educational exchange within the visual arts.
CIFO has three primary initiatives —
Posted by David Lemberg at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
Asuka Hisa, Education Director, Santa Monica Museum of Art, 11-3-06
Asuka Hisa is Education Director at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), where she develops and organizes education programs for the museum’s audience. In addition to organizing programs for SMMoA’s exhibitions, she is the creator of such groundbreaking programs as Wall Works, where acclaimed mid-career artists create large-scale public art projects with K-12 students; and Emerging Artists Family Workshops where one learns and makes projects with L.A.’s fascinating up-and-coming artists.
Ms. Hisa’s programs have featured such artists as Alison Saar, Kim Abeles, Salomón Huerta, Gajin Fujita, Francesca Gabbiani, and Michael C. McMillen. She is a board member of the Museum Educators of Southern California, member of ART TABLE, and sits on the City of Santa Monica Arts Education Commission. In 2003, Ms. Hisa was awarded the distinction of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by France’s Ministry of Culture.
Founded in 1984, the Santa Monica Museum of Art creates dynamic exhibitions of contemporary art in all mediums and across disciplines, complemented by outstanding educational programs for people of all ages. The only non-collecting museum in Southern California, SMMoA devotes its exhibition spaces—the main gallery and two Project Rooms—to exploring and advancing the work of contemporary local, national, and international artists whose unique bodies of work merit sustained inquiry and recognition. SMMoA diversifies its artistic vision by inviting distinguished guest curators to organize selected exhibitions. Opened in 1988, the museum’s exhibitions and programs celebrate the innovative perspectives of artists who profoundly influence contemporary art and culture.
Posted by David Lemberg at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
Robert Korda, Concert Violinist and Leader, Monseigneur Strings, 11-3-06
Robert Korda was born in New York. He was on the faculty of Immaculate Heart College. Also, Mr. Korda was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for 20 years playing under directors Sir George Solti, Zubin Mehta, and Carlo Maria Giulini. In 1986 he was a guest member of the Israel Philharmonic on it’s United States tour.
Mr. Korda has performed for six U.S. Presidents and other world leaders. Currently, he is a soloist for concerts, films, television, and chamber music. Mr. Korda also is the leader of the Monseigneur Strings, a group of strolling violinists, as well as his society dance orchestra. He also performs different styles of international music.
Posted by David Lemberg at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)