Sturgis Warner is an actor and theater director who specializes in new plays and new-play development. He has also produced two animated feature films by Signe Baumane. He lives in New York City. [1]
Sturgis Warner is an actor and theater director who specializes in new plays and new-play development. He has also produced two animated feature films by Signe Baumane. He lives in New York City. [1]
After graduating in theater from Washington University in St. Louis, Warner moved to New York to be an actor. Within two weeks he was cast in Sacred Guard. [2] , a futuristic play at La Mama and he joined the booming Off-Off Broadway theater scene in the East Village. Some of the theater artists he worked with in his early years include Jeff Weiss, Tom Eyen, Henry Kreiger, Charles Stanley, Madeleine le Roux, Neil Flanagan, Andre DeShields, Nathan Lane [3] and John Goodman. To help pay rent he drove a taxicab, moved furniture, and eventually developed trade skills as a carpenter and electrician [1] - jobs with flexible schedules in case acting roles came up. At Circle Repertory Company he helped build many sets designed by John Lee Beatty including premieres by Lanford Wilson and Jules Feiffer. He designed and built sets for the Off-Broadway production of Women Behind Bars starring Divine. [4] After five years of low-pay downtown theater he started booking acting jobs in TV commercials, many as a basketball player. He appeared in Magic Johnson's first commercial for 7-Up and worked with other NBA pros such as Bernard King and Spud Webb. He made eight different commercials with former New York Knick players Luther Rackley and Nate Bowman. He acted in a movie, Starting Over, opposite Jill Clayburgh [5] and Burt Reynolds. He studied with famed acting teacher Wynn Handman, a major influence. He acted in plays at The Public Theater, [6] Signature Theater Company, [7] Second Stage, Atlantic Theater Company, The Performing Garage, [8] PS122, HERE Arts Center and numerous others.
In 1992 Warner directed his first play, a student production at American Academy of Dramatic Arts, America's oldest acting school. Over the next several years he directed nine more plays at the Academy, all as a freelancer. In 1998 Warner founded Twilight Theater Company, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the production of new plays. Through Twilight, Warner produced and directed new plays by Michael John Garcés, [9] Gordon Dahlquist, [9] Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, [9] Ted LoRusso, [9] Daniel Macdonald and Najla Said. Said performed her one-woman play Palestine [10] [11] for ten weeks to sold-out audiences at New York Theater Workshop. [11] Through readings, workshops, and retreats, Warner worked extensively developing new plays at The Lark Play Development Company (closed in 2021), New York Theater Workshop, where he is a "Usual Suspect" and elsewhere. As a freelancer, Warner directed productions of new plays at theaters in New York City and around the country. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [11] [20] [21]
In 2013 Warner began to put his focus on acting once again. Margarett Perry took over as Artistic Director of Twilight Theater Company. [22]
In 2010 Warner started to work with filmmaker/animator Signe Baumane on her first animated feature film Rocks In My Pockets [23] (2014). He was her dramaturg on the script and directed her 85-minute voiceover. He helped build background sets for her animation and was the lighting designer when she photographed them. [24] As the film neared completion he came on board as Co- Producer. Rocks In My Pockets premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival [25] and went on to screen at 130 other film festivals. [26] Zeitgeist Films was the theatrical distributor in North America. [27]
In 2015 Baumane and Warner founded The Marriage Project LLC to begin work on her new animated feature My Love Affair with Marriage [28] . Along with producing the film, he was the script advisor, casting director, set builder/designer and lighting designer bringing theater and new-play principles and skills into her animation. [29] My Love Affair with Marriage premiered June 11, 2022 at Tribeca Festival [30] and has screened at 65 other film festivals winning numerous awards [31]
Harvey Forbes Fierstein is an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter, known for his distinctive gravelly voice. He is best known for his theater work in Torch Song Trilogy and Hairspray and film roles in Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, and as the voice of Yao in Mulan and Mulan II. Fierstein won two Tony Awards, Best Actor in a Play and Best Play, for Torch Song Trilogy. He received his third Tony Award, Best Book of a Musical, for the musical La Cage aux Folles and his fourth, the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, for playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, a role he revived in its live television event, Hairspray Live! Fierstein also wrote the books for the Tony Award-winning musicals Kinky Boots, Newsies, and Tony Award-nominated, Drama League Award-winner A Catered Affair. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2007.
Gary "Gedde" Watanabe is a Japanese-American actor. He is known for voicing the character of Ling in the animated film Mulan (1998) and its sequel Mulan II (2004), as well as playing Long Duk Dong in the film Sixteen Candles (1984) and Takahara "Kaz" Kazihiro in Gung Ho (1986), and Nurse Yosh Takata in the NBC medical drama ER from 1997 to 2003. He was also an original cast member of the Stephen Sondheim musical Pacific Overtures.
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Jeffrey Daniel Whitty is an American playwright, actor, and screenwriter.
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The Circle in the Square Theatre is a Broadway theater at 235 West 50th Street, within the basement of Paramount Plaza, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The current Broadway theater, completed in 1972, is the successor of an off-Broadway theater of the same name, co-founded around 1950 by a group that included Theodore Mann and José Quintero. The Broadway venue was designed by Allen Sayles; it originally contained 650 seats and uses a thrust stage that extends into the audience on three sides. The theater had 751 seats as of 2022.
The Broadway Theatre is a Broadway theater at 1681 Broadway in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1924, the theater was designed by Eugene De Rosa for Benjamin S. Moss, who originally operated the venue as a movie theater. It has approximately 1,763 seats across two levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. The Broadway Theatre is one of the few Broadway theaters that is physically on Broadway.
The John Golden Theatre, formerly the Theatre Masque and Masque Theater, is a Broadway theater at 252 West 45th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1927, the Golden Theatre was designed by Herbert J. Krapp in a Spanish style and was built for real-estate developer Irwin S. Chanin. It has 800 seats across two levels and is operated by the Shubert Organization. Both the facade and the auditorium interior are New York City landmarks.
The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, formerly the Biltmore Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 261 West 47th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1925, it was designed by Herbert J. Krapp in the neo-Renaissance style and was constructed for Irwin Chanin. It has 650 seats across two levels and is operated by the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC). The auditorium interior is a New York City landmark, and the theater is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 2008, the theater has been named for Broadway publicist Samuel J. Friedman, whose family was a major donor to MTC.
Jujamcyn Theaters LLC, formerly the Jujamcyn Amusement Corporation, is a theatrical producing and theatre-ownership company in New York City. For many years Jujamcyn was owned by James H. Binger, former Chairman of Honeywell, and his wife, Virginia McKnight Binger. The organization is now held by its president, Jordan Roth, and president emeritus, Rocco Landesman.
The Beacon Theatre is an entertainment venue at 2124 Broadway, adjacent to the Hotel Beacon, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1929, the Beacon Theatre was developed by Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and built as a movie palace, with 2,894 seats across three levels. It was designed by Walter W. Ahlschlager with decorations inspired by the Renaissance, Ancient Roman, Ancient Greek, and Rococo styles. The theater is designated as a New York City interior landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Gideon Glick is an American actor. His Broadway work includes originating the roles of Ernst in the musical Spring Awakening, Jimmy-6 in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Jordan Berman in Significant Other, and Dill Harris in Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he was nominated for the 2019 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
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Signe Baumane is a Latvian animator, fine artist, illustrator and writer, currently living and working in New York City. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, she was a 2005 Fellow in Film of the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is also a teacher, having taught animation at the Pratt Institute from 2000 to 2002.
Rocks in My Pockets is a 2014 animated film written, produced, directed and animated by Signe Baumane. It was originally created in English and a Latvian version was thereafter translated and produced. The film is based on true events about five women of the filmmaker's family, including herself, and their battles with depression and suicide.
Kristian Sensini is an Italian film composer flutist and music producer. He works for music related Thriller, Horror, Drama Movie, Fantasy, Documentary, Animation and Cartoon. He has composed music for 10 featured films, including film scores for My Love Affair with Marriage in 2022, Rocks in My Pockets in 2014, Hyde's Secret Nightmare in 2011, Dead Enders in 2010, Monkeyshine in 2008.
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My Love Affair with Marriage is a 2022 semi-autobiographical adult animated musical comedy-drama film animated, written and directed by Signe Baumane, her second feature following Rocks in My Pockets (2014). The story follows a young woman, Zelma, on her 23-year quest for Perfect Love and Lasting Marriage set against a backdrop of historic events in Eastern Europe. Pressured by Mythology Sirens to be the ideal woman and unable to free herself from the biology of her own brain, Zelma finds love and loses it multiple times before discovering who she really is. Told from a female point of view, this is a coming-of-age story of love, gender, marriage, abuse, hopes, fantasies, and ultimately, finding a better place for women in society.