Adam Seelig

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Adam Seelig
Adam Seelig, Toronto, August 2014.jpg
Adam Seelig in August 2014 at a piano, smiling while surrounded by books in his home library
Born1975 (age 49–50)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
NationalityCanadian and American
Alma mater Stanford University (BA)
Occupation(s)Poet, playwright, theatre director

Adam Seelig (born 1975) is a Canadian-American poet, playwright, theatre director, composer, and the artistic director of the One Little Goat Theatre Company in Toronto. [1] [2]

Contents

Background and Education

Born in Vancouver, Canada, [3] [4] Seelig is the child of an Israeli father and an American mother. [5] [6]

Seelig's early experience in theatre included directorial apprenticeships at the Arts Club Theatre Company in Vancouver and the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. [5] One of Seelig's early poems was published in Saul Bellow’s and Keith Botsford's The Republic of Letters. [7]

As an undergraduate at Stanford University, Seelig studied English literature with John Felstiner, Marjorie Perloff, and Gilbert Sorrentino, as well as theatre with Carl Weber, completing a BA in 1998 with a thesis on Samuel Beckett's original manuscripts. [8] During his undergraduate studies, he wrote and directed an early play entitled Inside the Whale (named after the essay by George Orwell). [9] Seelig also founded an organization known as the "Silly Society of Stanford." [10]

Directing

In 2002, Seelig founded the One Little Goat Theatre Company in New York City and Toronto. [11] [12] With the company, he directed dramatic works by poet-playwrights Yehuda Amichai, [13] Thomas Bernhard, [14] Jon Fosse, [15] Claude Gauvreau, [11] Luigi Pirandello, [16] as well as his own plays, which include reinterpretations of classic material. [17] [18]

Seelig's work aims to create poetic theatre. [19] [20] This involves the concept of "charactor" (combining an actor's onstage persona with their offstage nature), the "prism/gap" (between actor and audience), and ambiguity. [21] [22] [23] His direction avoids naturalism. [24]

In 2017, Seelig's direction of Smyth/Williams, a dramatic recounting of a verbatim confession of Russell Williams, was criticized by victims' families. [25]

Writing

Beginning with the 2010 publication of Every Day in the Morning (slow), [26] Seelig's writing combines poetic lyricism with concrete poetry. [27] Written largely in the second person, the work uses punctuation to form what has been described as a "continuous concrete-lyric-drop-poem novella". [28] [29]

Since 2010, Seelig's plays employ the same drop-poem technique where "words often align vertically, configured spatially." [21] The format has been described by critics as "a musical score," [27] a "poetry trick," [30] and "eye hockey." [31] This format allows actors to "pace and emphasize the text" as they see fit. [32] [33]

Music

For Ubu Mayor, "a play with music," Seelig wrote eight songs and played piano in the band for the production premiere. [34] [35] [36] The play has been referred to as an "anti-musical." [37] For Music Music Life Death Music: An Absurdical, Seelig wrote seven songs and played a Fender Rhodes electric piano in the band for the production premiere. [38] The sheet music for both of these plays is included in their print and electronic publications.

Music is foregrounded (rather than being assigned to the background) in Seelig's productions. [39] Music also plays a role in Seelig's "drop-poem novella" Every Day in the Morning (slow), with particular emphasis on minimalist composers such as Steve Reich [31] [40]

Essays

Translation

Seelig has translated Hebrew works by modern Israeli poets Yehuda Amichai [50] and Dan Pagis, [51] as well as contemporary poets Navit Barel [52] and Tehila Hakimi. [53] With Harry Lane, he translated Someone is Going to Come by Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse. [54]

References

  1. ↑ "Adam Seelig". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  2. ↑ Lang, Alison. "Unraveling Finnegans Wake at the Fisher Library". University of Toronto Library. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
  3. ↑ Lavoie, Joanna (2014-09-11). "Leslieville's Astrid van Wieren performs in Ubu Mayor: A Harmful Bit of Fun at the Wychwood Theatre". Toronto.com. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  4. ↑ A. M. Segal, "Play about national security, civil rights raises questions," Canadian Jewish News, 8 Nov 2007, p.53.
  5. 1 2 Alex Kliner, Jewish Western Bulletin, 30 Jan 1998, p.26.
  6. ↑ Michael Seelig, Professor at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia ( Archived 2018-07-20 at the Wayback Machine ), and Julie Hurwitz, an Urban Planner for Metro Vancouver (Queen's Quarterly, December 22, 1996).
  7. ↑ "Kafka to Brod (Four Unheard Variations)" by Adam Seelig in News from the Republic of Letters, eds. Saul Bellow & Keith Botsford, Issue no.9, 2001.
  8. ↑ "1997 Firestone and Golden Medal Recipients Honored". news.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-04-09.
  9. ↑ "The Stanford Daily, Volume 211, Issue 23, 6 March 1997, pp.6-7". archives.stanforddaily.com. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  10. ↑ "Calling all assassins: Alternative career fair offers some options - Volume 210, Issue 22, 21 Oct 1996, p.1". archives.stanforddaily.com. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  11. 1 2 Morrow, Martin (2013-05-13). "The Charge of the Expormidable Moose: A terrific introduction to an unjustly neglected work". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  12. ↑ "Giving Scripts Some Poetic Justice". Omar Mosleh. Archived from the original on 2018-09-01. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  13. ↑ "Killing Him / The Poetry Magazine Podcast : The Poetry Foundation". www.poetryfoundation.org. Archived from the original on 2015-12-31. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  14. ↑ Kirsch, Adam (2011-02-10). "The Darkest Comedian". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 58, no. 2. ISSN   0028-7504 . Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  15. ↑ "Review - Someone Is Going to Come - One Little Goat Theatre Company, Toronto - Christopher Hoile". www.stage-door.com. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  16. ↑ "Like the First Time's style constantly wavers". The Globe and Mail. 2011-10-31. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  17. ↑ Dongshin Chang, "Democracy at War: Antigone: Insurgency in Toronto," Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage, edited by Erin Mee & Helene Foley. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 267–285. Also see Marianne Apostolides, "A Review of Antigone: Insurgency,Canadian Theatre Review, Issue 137, University of Toronto Press, Winter 2009, and Jon Kaplan, "Timely Tragedy," NOW Magazine, November 15, 2007.
  18. ↑ Kaplan, Jon (2009-11-18). "Talking Masks - NOW Magazine". NOW Toronto. Retrieved 2025-02-21. Riffing on Sophocles' biggest hit, Seelig's new book Talking Masks (subtitled "Oedipussy") uses strident debate and bawdy humour to take on the idea of character. His source material is classical, and his formal concerns are dyed-in-the-wool modernism, but his swagger is old-fashioned postmodern.
  19. ↑ "Adam Seelig: Ritter, Dene, Voss". www.nytheatre.com. Archived from the original on 2014-03-12.
  20. ↑ Nestruck, J. Kelly (2009-03-16). "She, He and The Man Make For A Seussian Tale". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  21. 1 2 3 "EMERGENSEE: GET HEAD OUT OF ASS: '{{not a typo|Charactor}}' and Poetic Theatre," The Capilano Review, "Poets Theatre" issue, Spring 2010, pp. 32-52. Complete [http://static1.squarespace.com/static/50e1f650e4b015296ce49000/t/50eb7edae4b0a5b2685d7b86/1357610714238/SEELIG-Charactor-web%26pix+%232.pdf essay online.
  22. ↑ Seelig, Adam (2009). Talking Masks (Oedipussy): A Play. BookThug. ISBN   978-1-897388-39-6.
  23. ↑ cheryluce (2007-12-06). "Histrionic Perversity: The Work of Austrian Thomas Bernhard Finally Comes to Chicago | Newcity Stage" . Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  24. ↑ Rachel Saltz, "Three Irritable Siblings, Ready to Pounce," The New York Times, 1 Oct 2010. Also characterized as "idiosyncratically avant-garde" by J. Kelly Nestruck, "The Rob Ford Musicals," Globe and Mail, 19 Sep 2014.
  25. ↑ Matteis, Stephanie. "Victims Outraged About Staging of Russell Williams Confession". CBC News. Retrieved 14 February 2025.
  26. ↑ Seelig, Adam (2010-10-15). Every Day in the Morning (slow). New Star Books. ISBN   978-1-55420-051-1.
  27. 1 2 "LEMON HOUND: Just Twelve Bars: On Adam Seelig's Every Day in the Morning (Slow)". lemonhound.blogspot.ca. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  28. ↑ Park, Ed (2011-01-03). "The Art of the Very Long Sentence". ArtsBeat. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  29. ↑ "Three Poems - THE PURITAN". The Puritan Literary Magazine | Canadian Literature Online. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  30. ↑ Jacob McArthur Mooney, "Sam Is a Person: An Electronic Conversation with Poet and Playwright Adam Seelig," The Walrus Magazine, 18 Feb 2011. Web. Accessed 21 Feb 2011.
  31. 1 2 "He-You-I: Who's Thinking, Anyway?". Rogue Embryo. 2011-01-24. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  32. ↑ "Like the First Time. Toronto: BookThug, 2011, p.3". Archived from the original on 2016-06-16. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  33. ↑ "Parts to Whole: A Play by Adam Seelig | Book*hug Press". 2015-02-18. p. 107. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  34. ↑ "Charlotte Dupon - Ubu maire: Un Classique Remanié aux Couleurs de la Vie Politique Torontoise - L'Express de Toronto". www.lexpress.to (in French). Archived from the original on 2015-10-18. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  35. ↑ "The Rob Ford Musicals: One Tries Hard, the Other Fails Completely". The Globe and Mail. 2014-09-19. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  36. ↑ Morrow, Martin (2014-09-14). "Time on His Side: Seelig Stages Ubu-Clever Rob Ford Satire". morrowreviews. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  37. ↑ "Ubu Mayor: A Harmful Bit of Fun". torontoist.com. Archived from the original on 2014-12-18.
  38. ↑ Parr, Jennifer (2018-04-27). "The Sound's the Thing: One Little Goat Theatre's Adam Seelig". The WholeNote. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  39. ↑ "Flexible Impossibilities: On Claude Gauvreau's The Charge of the Expormidable Moose," Rampike Magazine, University of Windsor, Ontario, Vol.22 No.2, 2014, pp.16-19.
  40. ↑ Olds, David (31 January 2011). "EDITOR'S CORNER -February 2011". The WholeNote. Retrieved 21 May 2025.
  41. ↑ Modern Drama, Vol. 43.3, University of Toronto, 2000, pp.376-392.
  42. ↑ Poetics.ca, Ottawa, Summer 2005. Web. Accessed 23 Oct 2015. Includes examples from works by Maurice Blanchot, David Markson, Rosmarie Waldrop, and others.
  43. ↑ "Open Letter - A Canadian Journal of Writing and Theory". publish.uwo.ca. pp. 33–53. Retrieved 2025-02-21. With examples touching on other contemporary Canadian poets including Gregory Betts, Alice Burdick, Donato Mancini, David McFadden, Jay MillAr, Angela Rawlings, Mark Truscott, and Rachel Zolf.
  44. ↑ Gregory Betts interview by Adam Seelig, Filling Station, Calgary, No.38, 2007, pp.26-9.
  45. ↑ "Nerve's Quill: Nerve Squall by Sylvia Legris," Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.12 Nos.5&6, May/June 2006, p.5.
  46. ↑ "Donato Mancini - interview with Adam Seelig". www.mechanicalbrides.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  47. ↑ "A/DRIFT," Review of Lisa Robertson's Rousseau's Boat, Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.11 Nos.11&12, November/December 2005, p.15-16.
  48. ↑ Review of Jordan Scott's Silt, Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, May 2004.
  49. ↑ "First Person Plural: The Novel at Play - Adam Seelig Interviews Sean Dixon," Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.13 Nos.5&6, May/June 2007, pp.8-9.
  50. ↑ "Killing Him: A Radio Play". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  51. ↑ "Covenant" and "Diagnosis" by Dan Pagis, translated from the Hebrew, World Literature Today, Oklahoma, May 2004.
  52. ↑ Poetry International Rotterdam [ usurped ]. Web. Accessed 23 Oct 2015.
  53. ↑ "Sacred and Profane – The Poetry Society: Poems". poems.poetrysociety.org.uk. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
  54. ↑ "Harry Lane - Playwrights Canada Press". www.playwrightscanada.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2025-02-21.
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