Tom X. Chao | |
---|---|
Occupation | Playwright, writer, actor, musician |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of Southern California New York University |
Notable works | Cats Can See the Devil |
Website | |
tomxchao |
Tom X. Chao is a comedic playwright, actor, and musician based in New York City whose works have been produced in the United States and Canada. Chao regularly stars in his own work, usually playing an unflattering autobiographical character named "Tom." During the 1990s, Chao was a member of New York City's Art Stars alternative performance scene, and The New York Times called him "a dryly funny downtown comedian," [1] and Time Out New York labeled him a "hilariously angsty writer-performer." [2] He is best known for his play Cats Can See the Devil, which appears in Plays and Playwrights 2004.
In 2016, Chao began collaborating with award-winning [3] playwright-performer Kim Katzberg on a full-length show entitled Hot for Feminist Theory Professor. In June–July 2017, the duo performed a 40-minute excerpt at the This Is Not Normal festival of The Brick Theater, Brooklyn, NY. [4] [5]
On November 17, 2023, Chao released "It's Too Early to Celebrate Christmas," a holiday-themed song, via all major streaming platforms. Mixed by Ken Rich at Grand Street Recording, Williamsburg, NYC. [6]
Chao received a B.A. in Cinema-Television from the University of Southern California in 1984. [7] While an undergraduate, he also studied fiction writing with T. C. Boyle. Chao also earned a master's degree from the Master of Professional Writing program in 1992. [8] In this program, he studied with Richard Yates, John Rechy, and Hubert Selby, Jr.
Chao also holds a M.A. from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, conferred in 1996. While at NYU, Chao studied with performance artist Deb Margolin of the Split Britches troupe.
Chao's first production, an experimental one-act play in which he also starred. The lead character spends the entirety of the show delivering existential monologues while lying under a large piece of black cloth, until he is challenged by an otherworldly woman in a white dress. Chao created The Negative Energy Field as part of his Masters thesis in performance art at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, premiering it in 1996 at Pink, Inc. in New York City, with Shawn Sides originating the role of the Woman in the White Dress. [9] It was subsequently produced at Dixon Place, the New York International Fringe Festival, and elsewhere. [10]
Chao's first produced work to include a full cast and the only in which he has never played a role, Summer, Deepening Then Gone involves a teenage girl who magically summons an unwitting poet to protect her from the unwanted advances of a suitor. [11] It debuted in 1999 at HERE in New York City [12] under the original title The Universe of Despair before being retitled for later productions. Script published on Indietheaternow.com in May 2016 (no longer available). [13]
A one-act play in which a young woman tries to help a hapless King Crimson fan understand relationships, Can't Get Started premiered at the St. Marks Theater in 2000 [14] as Chao's first work as an artist-in-residence at New York's Horse Trade Theater Group. [15] An early performance of the play was included in the video archive series of New York City experimental theater NotPerformanceArt. [16] Can't Get Started later saw multiple productions in Canada, one featuring Chao at the 2006 Edmonton International Fringe Festival, [17] and a revival with a new cast for the 2011 Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. [18]
An absurdist comedy in which an experimental theater production—involving a puppet show in which all the characters are abstract shapes—devolves into a scathing deconstruction of its creator and his failed romantic life when he's confronted and ridiculed by a series of women. Cats Can See the Devil premiered in 2003 at the New York International Fringe Festival [19] in a production starring Chao and directed by John Harlacher, with choreography by Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers. [20] The cast included Krista Worth [21] (AKA Krista Watterworth), later the host of HGTV shows Save My Bath and Splurge & Save. [22] The play was published in the 2004 edition of the Plays and Playwrights anthology series, [20] and monologues from it were excerpted in several books, including The Best Men's Stage Monologues of 2004. [23] [24] [25] The original working script for Cats Can See the Devil is in the collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. [26]
A 2009 semi-autobiographical work in which Chao stars as himself on the occasion of a visit by a magical being come to celebrate Tom's first true love. Instead, the Being finds Tom unsatisfied and morose, and she attempts to determine why. [27] Rosalie Purvis originated the role of the Magical Being. In a 2011 revival of the play, Charlotte Pines (previously seen in Play Dead (show) by Todd Robbins and Teller (magician)) was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for outstanding actress in a lead role for her performance as the Magical Being, [28] a production that The New York Times called "intriguing... droll and ruminative." [29] Script published on Indie Theater Now in September 2016 (no longer available).
Chao frequently appears in his own plays, usually as himself. Aside from his own work, Chao's acting appearances include Deb Margolin's Critical Mass, [30] Jen Mitas and Hilary Koob-Sassen's feature film The Bioengine, [31] John Harlacher's feature film Urchin , [32] a recreation of the lost 1932 film Charlie Chan's Chance , [33] and the radio comedy Special Relativity. [34] In the early 1990s, Chao appeared as an extra in two feature films by his USC Cinema classmate, Gregg Araki. (Credited with "Special Thanks" in Totally Fucked Up (1993). [35] )
On February 27, 2018, Chao reprised his role as the Stage Manager (and other roles) in a benefit staged reading of Margolin’s Critical Mass at Dixon Place, almost 21 years after the original production at P.S. 122 in 1997. For this reading, several members of the original cast (including former MTV VJ Kevin Seal) were reunited, along with new additions Jim Turner (of Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre) and Dale Goodson. [36]
Tom X. Chao composed and performed original songs for several of his plays. In 2008 he released a four-song EP of original music, The Only Record. [37] It was followed by singles in 2010 and 2012. "It's Too Early to Celebrate Christmas" was released in November 2023.
The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets is a self-billed "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits, and writer William S. Burroughs. Wilson, in the original production, was largely responsible for the design and direction. Burroughs wrote the book, while Waits wrote the music and most of the lyrics. The project began in about 1988 when Wilson approached Waits. The story is based on a German folktale called "Der Freischütz", which had previously been made into an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. It premiered at Hamburg's Thalia Theatre on 31 March 1990, and was performed at Paris's Théâtre du Châtelet on 9 October 1990. November Theatre produced its world English-language premiere in 1998 at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival in Canada. Det Norske Teatret in Oslo staged a Norwegian (Nynorsk) version in 1998, with Lasse Kolsrud as Pegleg. Only the dialogue was translated by the dramaturg and key collaborator of the entire creative process, Wolfgang Wiens; the songs were performed in English.
4.48 Psychosis is the final play by British playwright Sarah Kane. It was her last work, first staged at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs on 23 June 2000, directed by James Macdonald, nearly one and a half years after Kane's death on 20 February 1999. The play has no explicit characters or stage directions. Stage productions of the play vary greatly, therefore, with between one and several actors in performance; the original production featured three actors. According to Kane's friend and fellow-playwright David Greig, the title of the play derives from the time, 4:48 a.m., when Kane, in her depressed state, often woke.
Jeremy Joseph Gable is a British-born American playwright and game designer living in Philadelphia.
Tea at Five is a 2002 one-woman play, written by Matthew Lombardo, which tells the story of Katharine Hepburn in a monologue. It is based on Hepburn's book Me: Stories of My Life. The initial production of the play starred Kate Mulgrew, and was apparently written with her in mind for the part.
Carolyn Gage is an American playwright, actor, theatrical director and author. She has written nine books on lesbian theater and sixty-five plays, musicals, and one-woman shows. A lesbian feminist, her work emphasizes non-traditional roles for women and lesbian characters.
Ian Fraser is a South African playwright, writer, comedian, anti-Apartheid activist, artist, anarchist, and social agitator, now living in the USA. He began as South Africa's first street-level comedian, "ranting-verse" poet, and acerbic anti-government satirist. He has consistently been a pro-democracy, anti-establishment voice, both under Apartheid and under the new dispensation in South Africa.
John Clancy is a contemporary American playwright, novelist and director. He was a co-founder and first Artistic Director of the New York International Fringe Festival and its producing organization The Present Company.
Marga Gomez is a comedian, writer, performer, and teaching artist from Harlem, New York. She has written and performed in thirteen solo plays which have been presented nationally and internationally. Her acting credits include Off-Broadway and national productions of The Vagina Monologues with Rita Moreno. She also acted in season two of the Netflix series Sense8. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Gomez pivoted to adapting and presenting her work for live streaming. She has been featured in online theater festivals from New York to San Diego, as well as a five-week virtual run for Brava, SF where she is an artist-in-residence. She is a GLAAD media award winner and recipient of the 2020 CCI Investing in Artists grant.
Dixon Place is a theater organization in New York City dedicated to the development of works-in-progress from a broad range of performers and artists. It exists to serve the creative needs of artists—emerging, mid-career and established—who are creating new work in theater, dance, music, literature, puppetry, performance, variety and visual arts.
Ken Urban is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and musician based in New York. He is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and leads the Music and Theatre Arts Program's dramatic writing program. Urban is also a resident playwright at New Dramatists and an affiliated writer at the Playwrights' Center.
I Hate This (a play without the baby) is a solo performance by David Hansen detailing his experiences as the father of a stillborn child.
John Kuntz is an American actor, playwright, director, and solo performer. Kuntz is the author of 14 full-length plays, a founding company member at Actors' Shakespeare Project, has taught at Emerson College, Suffolk University, and Concord Academy, and is currently an associate professor of theater at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He was an inaugural playwriting fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company and a fellow at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in 2007. Kuntz is the recipient of six Elliot Norton Awards, two Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards, and New York International Fringe Festival Award, among others.
Catherine Butterfield is an American playwright, screenwriter and actress. She lives in Santa Monica with her partner, Ron West. She has one daughter, the actress Audrey Corsa.
Craig Pospisil is an American playwright, musical bookwriter and filmmaker. He has written nine full-length plays and musicals, mostly comedies, and more than 40 short plays and musicals.
Anne Washburn is an American playwright.
Hamletmachine is a postmodernist drama by German playwright and theatre director Heiner Müller. Written in 1977, the play is loosely based on Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The play originated in relation to a translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet that Müller undertook. Some critics claim the play problematizes the role of intellectuals during the East German Communism era; others argue that the play should be understood in relation to wider post-modern concepts. A characteristic of the play is that it is not centered on a conventional plot, but partially connects through sequences of monologues, where the protagonist leaves his role and reflects on being an actor.
Joe Gulla is an American playwright, actor and reality television participant. He is best known for the autobiographical monologues that he writes and performs for the theater. He is a regular performer at Feinstein's/54 Below and Joe's Pub at The Public Theater. An award-winning playwright, his plays have been performed Off-Broadway, nationally and internationally.
Migdalia Cruz is a writer of plays, musical theatre and opera in the U.S. and has been translated into Spanish, French, Arabic, Greek, and Turkish.
Nassim Soleimanpour (Persian: نسیم سلیمانپور, born 10 December 1981, is an Iranian playwright. He is best known for his 2010 play White Rabbit Red Rabbit.
Arlene Hutton is an American playwright, theatre artist and teacher. She is best known for a trio of plays, set during and after the Second World War, known as The Nibroc Trilogy. The initial play of that trilogy, Last Train to Nibroc, was the first play to transfer from FringeNYC to Off-Broadway. Other works for which she is known include a one-act dramatic work about the aftermath of a sexual assault, I Dream Before I Take the Stand; a one-act musical drama set among the members of a Shaker community in the 19th century, As It Is in Heaven; and a Holocaust-themed work, Letters to Sala, based on actual documents. She has also created plays for young audiences.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)