This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2021) |
Formation | 1991 [1] |
---|---|
Type | Theatre group |
Location |
|
Artistic director(s) | Moisés Kaufman [1] |
Tectonic Theater Project is a stage and theatre group whose plays have been performed around the world. The company is dedicated to developing works that explore theatrical language and form, fostering dialogue with audiences on the social, political, and human issues that affect society. [2] In service to this goal, Tectonic supports readings, workshops, and full theatrical productions, as well as training for students around the United States in their play-making techniques. [3] [4] The company has won a GLAAD Media Award. [5]
Tectonic Theater Project was founded in 1991 by Moisés Kaufman and his husband Jeffrey LaHoste [6] in New York City, after Kaufman left the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Moisés was encouraged by Arthur Bartow to start his own theatre company, as the themes he wanted to explore – namely theatre as a medium for social-political change – were not being aptly practised by existing groups. [7]
The company had challenging beginnings. Rehearsals were held in the apartment of the two founders and other unconventional spaces, like church basements and backrooms of bars, and performances often had very small audiences. The company's first official production was Women in Beckett, an anthology of short plays by Samuel Beckett for women, [8] performed in the lobby of the Theater for the New City in November 1991, exploring the creation of liminal spaces in a theatre that was consistently disturbed by other performances. [7]
In the early years of Tectonic, the company staged other works by writers who were experimenting with unorthodox theatrical form, like the aforementioned Samuel Beckett, [9] Franz Xaver Kroetz, [10] Sophie Treadwell, [11] and Naomi Iizuka. [7] As the company progressed, the focus of Kaufman shifted from theatrical form to societal issues, taking inspiration from Brecht's and Brechtian concepts of engaging the audience in political discourse. [12] The company began work on Gross Indecency in 1997, addressing Oscar Wilde's trials for the crime of sodomy.
One month after the murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, Kaufman and ten company members travelled to Laramie, Wyoming to interview people in the town torn apart by the crime. The play forged from these interviews was created collaboratively by the members of the company over a long workshop process in which the participants were encouraged to operate outside their area of specialization: actors and designers became writers and dramaturgs, directors became designers and actors, and the company uncovered a new way of creating a theatrical event, in the form of The Laramie Project.
This play, written and directed by Moisés Kaufman, examines the series of events set in motion by Oscar Wilde's 1895 libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry and his relations with the Marquess's son, Lord Alfred Douglas. The play was first performed in 1997 Off-Broadway.
The Laramie Project, written and directed by Moisés Kaufman, Stephen Belber and Leigh Fondakowski, is a verbatim stage play following the aftermath in the town of Laramie, Wyoming, after the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay teen. The play examined the bigotry that enabled the crime, [13] and prompted a social dialogue and exploration of the issue underlying hate across America and wider areas. [14]
Winner of the 2004 Tony Award for Best Play and Best Actor (Jefferson Mays), I Am My Own Wife is the true story of Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf, Berlin's most famous transvestite, who survived two of the most oppressive regimes of the 20th century, the Nazis and the Communists, in a dress. The play was written by Doug Wright (author of Quills) after gathering hundreds of hours of interviews with Charlotte in the early 90s.
Directed by Moisés Kaufman and created using Tectonic's devised theatre technique, Moment Work, the play was workshopped at Sundance Theater Lab then transferred to Playwrights Horizons and finally to Broadway. I Am My Own Wife is the recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
In 1819, the fledgeling publisher Anton Diabelli commissioned 50 composers to write a variation on a waltz which he had created. Beethoven rejected the invitation, dismissing Diabelli's waltz as ordinary. He then changed his mind and created not one but 33 variations on Diabelli's theme. Kaufman's play weaves Beethoven's artistic journey with that of Katherine, a contemporary musicologist wrestling to pin down the source of the composer's fascination with the simple waltz. Deciphering clues left behind in Beethoven's notebooks and letters, Katherine delves into his compositional process and daily life, finding even greater insight into her own obsession with genius.
An adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ unproduced screenplay of his own short story. One Arm follows Ollie, a young farm boy who joins the Navy and becomes the lightweight boxing champion of the Pacific Fleet. Soon after, he loses his arm in a car accident, and turns to 'hustling' to survive. One Arm is one of Williams' character studies, taking the viewer through Ollie's personal Odyssey in a disenfranchised American underworld prior to the Second World War.[ citation needed ]
In 2008, the members of Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie, Wyoming to explore how the town had changed since the murder of Matthew Shepard and the original play. What they found defied their expectations. The resulting piece they created was a new play about how people construct their own history. This play is the continuing story of the American town of Laramie.
Tectonic Theater Project collaborated with Gotham Chamber Opera in 2010 to present Xavier Montsalvatge's opera adaptation 'El Gato con Botas' of (Puss in Boots). The 70-minute opera/puppet show was directed by Moisés Kaufman, and conducted by Neal Goren, founder of Gotham Chamber Opera. [15]
The Tallest Tree in the Forest is a docudrama that explores both the private and public life of Paul Robeson, a singer, actor, and civil rights campaigner who was a prominent figure in the 1920s to 1940s. [16] Robeson lost popularity in the late 1940s after being accused of supporting communist organisations. [17] The Tallest Tree in the Forest uses multi-character transformation, monologues, narrative scenes, poetry, and video footage of from the era to create a representation of Robeson's life, and explore his evolution as both an artist and as an activist. [16]
The Album is a work-in-progress presented in collaboration with Miami New Drama. It focuses on an album that was delivered to the Holocaust Museum in 2008, with pictures of different Nazi officers, secretaries, and their families on vacation during World War II. It is a documentary theatre piece that uses the album itself, interviews, and personal accounts as source material. The inaugural production was written and directed by Moisés Kaufman, and ran at the Colony Theatre from May 31, 2018 - June 3, 2018. [18]
In 2002, The Tectonic Theater Project collaborated with HBO to create the film The Laramie Project, based closely on their play of the same name. The film starred multiple cast members from the original company and was directed by the original writer, Moisés Kaufman. The Laramie Project opened the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for four Emmys. [5] The film received multiple other awards, including the GLAAD media award for outstanding television movie in 2003. [19]
AntonDiabelli was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations.
The Laramie Project is a 2000 American play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the reaction to the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. The murder was denounced as a hate crime and brought attention to the lack of hate crime laws in various states, including Wyoming.
I Am My Own Wife is a play by Doug Wright based on his conversations with the German antiquarian Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The one-person play premiered Off-Broadway in 2003 at Playwrights Horizons. It opened on Broadway later that year. The play was developed with Moisés Kaufman and his Tectonic Theater Project, and Kaufman also acted as director. Jefferson Mays starred in the Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, playing some forty roles. Wright received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It runs seven productions each season from its two stages in Downtown Berkeley.
Moisés Kaufman is a Venezuelan theater director, filmmaker, playwright, founder of Tectonic Theater Project, based in New York City, and co-founder of Miami New Drama at the Colony Theatre. He was awarded the 2016 National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He is best known for creating The Laramie Project (2000) with other members of Tectonic Theater Project. He has directed extensively on Broadway and Internationally, and is the author of numerous plays, including Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and 33 Variations.
Lucille Lortel was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for Tony Awards: As Is by William M. Hoffman, Angels Fall by Lanford Wilson, Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, Mbongeni Ngema's Sarafina!, and A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing. She also produced Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, a production which ran for seven years and according to The New York Times "caused such a sensation that it...put Off-Broadway on the map."
Documentary theatre is theatre that uses pre-existing documentary material as source material for stories about real events and people, frequently without altering the text in performance. The genre typically includes or is referred to as verbatim theatre, investigative theatre, theatre of fact, theatre of witness, autobiographical theatre, and ethnodrama.
The Cherry Lane Theatre is the oldest continuously running off-Broadway theater in New York City. The theater is located at 38 Commerce Street between Barrow and Bedford Streets in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. The Cherry Lane Theatre contains a 179-seat main stage and a 60-seat studio.
Ross Katz is an American film producer, screenwriter and film director. He has executive produced films including In the Bedroom and Lost in Translation, and has directed the films Adult Beginners (2014) and The Choice (2016), and the HBO film Taking Chance (2009).
The Laramie Project is a 2002 drama film written and directed by Moisés Kaufman and starring Nestor Carbonell, Christina Ricci, Dylan Baker, Terry Kinney, and Lou Ann Wright. Based on the play of the same name, the film tells the story of the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. It premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and was first broadcast on HBO in March 2002.
The Matthew Shepard Foundation is an LGBT nonprofit organization, headquartered in Casper, Wyoming, which was founded in December 1998 by Dennis and Judy Shepard in memory of their son, Matthew, who was murdered in 1998. The Foundation runs education, outreach, and advocacy programs.
Union Square Theatre was the name of two different theatres near Union Square, Manhattan, New York City. The first was a Broadway theatre that opened in 1870, was converted into a cinema in 1921 and closed in 1936. The second was an Off-Broadway theatre that opened in 1985 and closed in 2016.
No Fog West Theater is a non-profit theater company run by students from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. It was founded in December 2006.
Cultural depictions of Matthew Shepard include notable films, musical works, novels, plays, and other works inspired by the 1998 Matthew Shepard murder, investigation, and resulting interest the case brought to the topic of hate crime. The best known is the stage play The Laramie Project, which was adapted into an HBO movie of the same name. Matthew Wayne Shepard was an openly gay university student who was brutally attacked near Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998 and left for dead by his attackers.
Stephen Belber is an American playwright, screenwriter and film director. His plays have been produced on Broadway and in over 50 countries. He directed the film adaptation of his Broadway play, Match, starring Patrick Stewart,. He also wrote and directed the film Management, starring Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson and wrote the HBO film O.G., starring Jeffrey Wright, Theothus Carter, and William Fichtner. Belber was an actor and associate writer on The Laramie Project,, as well as a co-writer of The Laramie Project, Ten Years Later.
33 Variations is a play by Moisés Kaufman, inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. It débuted on Broadway on March 9, 2009, starring Jane Fonda. Originally written in 2007, its world première was held at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
Daniel Beaty is an American actor, singer, writer, composer and poet. Beaty is known for his blend of music, movement, and words in such original works as Emergence-See and Through The Night.
Miami New Drama is a nonprofit professional theater company located in Miami Beach, Florida, founded in 2014. Since October 2016 it has been the resident theater company and operator of the historic Colony Theatre on Miami Beach. Since its first production in January 2016, the company has produced work by American, Latin American, and international theater artists.
Mark Bly is an American dramaturge, educator, and author. After graduating from Yale's Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program in 1980, Bly worked as a resident dramaturge – then a relatively new position in the United States. He held this position for several of the country's major regional theaters: the Guthrie, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, and the Alley. He was the first dramaturge to receive a Broadway dramaturgy credit for his collaboration with director Emily Mann on her play Execution of Justice (1986), During his career, Bly worked as a production dramaturge with a series of major theater artists including Doug Hughes, Garland Wright, Emily Mann and Moisés Kaufman, as well as on the world premieres of works by playwrights Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Ruhl and Rajiv Joseph.
ArtsEmerson is a non-profit, professional theater and film presenting and producing organization in Boston, Massachusetts. Conceived by Emerson College President Jackie Liebergott and founded in 2010 by theatrical producer Robert Orchard, ArtsEmerson is housed as part of the Office for the Arts at Emerson College's Boston campus. The organization focuses on contemporary world theater and presents or produces theatrical performances, films, and public dialogues across several Emerson College venues and in locations across Greater Boston.