The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Announces SEGAL TALKS Week Three

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has announced the third weekly line-up of its new global series, SEGAL TALKS. New York, US, and international theatre artists, curators, researchers and academics will talk daily for one hour with Segal Center's director, Frank Hentschker, about life and art in the Time of Corona and speak about challenges, sorrows, and hopes for the new Weltzustand- the State of the World.

The newly introduced SEGAL TALKS is in English, ad-free and will be live-streaming on howlround.tv, on the Segal Center Facebook page, as well as on the Segal Center YouTube Channel. Each session will be archived on both platforms, HowlRoundand the YouTube Channel, and will raise money for a theatre artist or a company. In collaboration with HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College.

Viewers can submit questions during the live streaming at: SegalTalks@gmail.com

Participants from Week Two included:

Laila Soliman, Dalia Basiouny (Egypt) + Sahar Assaf (Lebanon); Chou Tung-Yen, Kathy Hong, Wu-Kang Chen (Taiwan); Lucia Calamaro, Graziano Graziani, Valeria Orani (Italy); Meredith Monk (New York, US); Aristide Tarnagda & Safoura Kaboré (Burkina Faso).

Participants from Week One included: Taylor Mac & Kristin Martin (New York, US); Mok Chiu Yu (Hong Kong) + Hanchen Feng, Shuyi Liao (China); Thomas Ostermeier (Germany); Marco Martinelli, Ermanna Montanari (Teatro delle Albe) (Italy); Toshiki Okada (Japan)

For more information on the SEGAL TALKS, please visit www.theSegalCenter.org

a??WEEK 3 SCHEDULE

MONDAY, April 13, 2020

12 noon, EDT New York Time

Keith Adkins (The New Black Fest) with Dennis A. Allen II, France-Luce Benson,
& Lisa Strum (NYC, USA)
Join us for an update on the situation for theatre artists in New York City.

Keith Adkins is a playwright and screenwriter, and artistic director at
The New Black Fest. His plays include SWEET HOME (MPAACT Theater, Chicago), SUGAR AND NEEDLES (Epic Theater), THE FINAL DAYS OF NEGRO-VILLE, THE DANGEROUS, a commission at The Public Theater, SAFE HOUSE, a commission honoring August Wilson @ Alliance Theater (Goodman Theater New Stages), FAREWELL MISS COTTON (Black Dahlia Theater), PITBULLS (Bay Area Playwrights Festival), THE LAST SAINT ON SUGAR HILL (MPAACT Theater), ON THE HILLS OF BLACK AMERICA. Awards: Gateway Commission from Obie Award-winning Epic Theater, Contemporary Theatre/Hansberry Project Commission, New Professional Theater Playwright Award, Kesselring Fellowship nomination, Richard Sherwood Distinguished Emerging Theater Artist Award, Van Lier Fellowship with NYTW and Sloan Science Foundation Playwriting Grant.

Dennis A. Allen II is from Hempstead, New York. He is a published and award winning Playwright; some or his accomplishments include; the first recipient of Atlantic Theater Company's Launch Commission; a alum of the National Black Theatre's I Am Soul Playwright Residency and Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writer's Group. Dennis is an Associate Producer of The New Black Fest. He is an adjunct professor at Laguardia Community College and Montclair State University, and received his MFA from Mac Wellman's Brooklyn College Playwriting program.

France-Luce Benson is a playwright and arts educator. She was named "Someone to Watch " in 2019 by American Theatre magazine. She is a recipient of a Miranda Foundation grant for her play Detained, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Play Commission for her play The Devil's Salt, and a Princess Grace Award runner up for Boat People. Additional honors include: Zoetrope Grand Prize for Caroline's Wedding; Dramatists Guild Fellow 2016-17, Sam French OOB Festival Winner, NNPN Award for Best Play, and three time Kilroy List Honorable Mention. Residencies include Djerassi, the Camargo Foundation in France, and Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil. Her plays have had productions, workshops, and readings at The Playwrights Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, City Theatre of Miami, Global Black Voices in London, The Lark, The Billy Holiday Theatre, and Ensemble Studio Theatre of New York, where she is a company member. Benson has been published by Sam French and Routledge Press. She is currently the Community Engagement Coordinator for The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles.

Lisa Strum is an award winning and nominated actress, playwright and director. Her solo play SHE GON' LEARN was presented at The New Black Fest at the Lark in 2016 and she has since worked as one of the Associate Producers with the Festival. While practicing shelter in place, Lisa has reignited her passion for cooking, baking, making signature cocktails and watching Democracy Now. Lisa looks forward to sharing space with her community and family again after this crisis has slowed down. Praise and Appreciation to all of our Essential Workers!

TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2020

12 noon, EDT New York Time

Kelly Copper & Pavol Liska (Nature Theatre of Oklahoma)
+ Annie-B Parson & Paul Lazar (Big Dance Theatre) (NYC, USA)
Join us for an update on the situation for theatre artists in New York City.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma is an award-winning New York art and performance group under the direction of Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper. With each new project, they attempt to set an impossible challenge for themselves, the audience, and their collaborators-working from inside the codes and confines of established genres and exploding them. No two projects are formally the same, but the work is always full of humor, earnestness, rigor, and the audience plays an essential role-whether as spectators or- just as often- as participants in the work. Using readymade material, found space, gifted properties, cosmic accident, extreme formal manipulation and plain hard work- Nature Theater of Oklahoma makes art to affect a shift in the perception of everyday reality that extends beyond the site of performance and into the world in which we live.

Annie-B Parson co-founded Big Dance Theater in 1991 with Molly Hickok and Paul Lazar. She has choreographed and co-created over 20 works for the company, ranging from pure dance pieces, to adaptations of found text, plays, and literature, to original works combining wildly disparate materials. Her work with Big Dance has been commissioned by The Old Vic/London, Les Subsistances in France, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The National Theater of Paris/Chaillot, The Japan Society, The Walker Art Center, The Kitchen, and many other theaters. Her awards include the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2014), an Olivier Award nomination in choreography (2015), Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2014), USA Artists Grant in theater (2012), Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography (2007), two BESSIE awards (2010, 2002), and three NYFA Choreography Fellowships (2013, 2006 and 2000).

Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company and Japan Society. In 2017 Paul Premiered a solo show, Cage Shuffle (text by John Cage, choreography by Annie-B Parson). Cage Shuffle continues to tour nationally and internationally ( https://www.cageshuffle.com [cageshuffle.com]).
Outside of Big Dance, Paul directed Christina Masciotti's Social Security at the Bushwick Starr in 2015, Elephant Room at St. Ann's Warehouse for the company Rainpan 43 in 2012, and Young Jean Lee's Obie Award winning, We're Gonna Die in 2011. His awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob's Pillow Creativity Award in 2007, and the Prelude Festival's Frankie Award in 2014, as well as an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Paul currently teaches at New York University. He has also taught at Yale, Rutgers, The William Esper Studio and The Michael Howard Studio.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2020

12 noon, EDT New York Time

Melanie Joseph (The Foundry Theatre) with Aaron Landsman & Aurin Squire
(NYC, USA)

Join us for an update on the situation for theatre artists in NYC, USA.

Melanie Joseph is a theatre maker and the founding Artistic Producer of The Foundry Theatre which she led for 25 years. She is a recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Prize, a Lucille Lortel award for Creative Producing, a Skirball-Kennis T.I.M.E. Artist Prize, and she has twice been honored with special Obie Awards for "creating cutting edge work" and "engaging artists in some of the thorniest issues of the world we inhabit."

Aaron Landsman is an Abrons Arts Center Social Practice Artist in Residence, and a recent Guggenheim Fellow, ASU Gammage Residency Artist and Princeton Arts Fellow. His projects have been presented in New York by The Foundry Theatre, Abrons, PS 122, The Chocolate Factory, and HERE. From 2012-14 his participatory work City Council Meeting, created with Mallory Catlett and Jim Findlay, was presented in five US cities. His 2008 play, Open House, originally performed in 24 New York City apartments, has been remounted in five cities, on three continents, from Novi Sad Serbia, to Rabat, Morocco, to Phoenix Arizona. Landsman is in year three of a 20-year art and activism project called Perfect City and is making a show called Night Keeper/Silent Treatment. Aaron has performed Off-Broadway, internationally and on London's West End with Elevator Repair Service and many other artists. He has a chapter in A Moment on the Clock of the World, edited by Melanie Joseph and David Bruin. He teaches part-time at Princeton.

Aurin Squire is an award-winning playwright, reporter, and multimedia artist. He is a two-time recipient of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center and has received residencies at The Royal Court Theatre in London, Ars Nova, Lincoln Center Lab, National Black Theatre, the Dramatists Guild of America, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. He was also a reporter for publications like ESPN, The Miami Herald, and Chicago Tribune. In the 2018-2019 season, Squire had six productions in Chicago, North Carolina, Seattle, Dallas, and Miami, including world premieres of "Fire Season" and "Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy." He won the 2017 Helen Merrill Prize for Emerging Playwrights and the Emerald Prize from Seattle Public Theatre for his new drama. In TV, Squire has been a writer for the CBS political satire "BrainDead," and the NBC family drama "This is Us." He is a producer/writer for the CBS show "The Good Fight" as well as the supernatural drama "Evil."

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2020

12 noon, EDT New York Time

Shahid Nadeem (Pakistan) + Abhishek Majumdar & Anurupa Roy (India)
Join us for an update on the situation for theatre artists in South Asia.

Shahid Nadeem is the founder and Executive Director of Ajoka Theatre and also a renowned theatre and television director. He has directed many popular Pakistani TV drama serials and stage plays including Burqavaganza, Hotel Mohenjo Daro, Amrika Chalo/Destination USA and Dara. His telefilm An Act of Terror received a Scottish BAFTA nomination in 2009 and was screened at London's Asian Film Festival. His documentary on the late Bishop John Joseph, A Sun Sets In, was selected by South Asian Film Festival for worldwide screening. His telefilm Mujahid was screened at the Asia Society, New York, in 2004. He produced documentaries on human rights for Amnesty International in 1991-92. Shahid served on the Pakistan Television Corporation in various capacities including as a producer, general manager, Director of Programmes and Deputy Managing Director.

Abhishek Majumdar is a playwright, theatre director and Scenographer. He is the ex artistic director and founder of Indian Ensemble and Bhasha Centre of Performing Arts, Bangalore. Currently he works in theatres around the world and in India. He is currently making new work for Royal Court Theatre London, PlayCo New York, New York University Abu Dhabi, Bloomsbury/ Methuen and his independently in India. He primarily works in English, Hindi, Bangla and Kannada. His work has been translated into many languages including Marathi, Gujarati, Spanish, French, Czech, Kashmiri, Bangla to name a few. He is also Associate Professor of Arts Practice at New York University, Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Fellow of Delhi University. He lives in Bangalore and Abu Dhabi.

Anurupa Roy is a puppeteer, puppet designer and director of the puppet theater. In Roy's views puppetry is not "manipulating dolls with strings," but an amalgam of plastic and performing arts where sculptures, masks, figures, materials, found objects and narratives come together with music, movement, physicality and theater to create the theater where humans and puppets are co actors. She has directed over 15 shows for children and adults ranging from the Ramayana and Mahabharata to Shakespearean comedy to the Humayun-nama. The puppets used by the group range from 3 inches to forty feet. The shows have toured across Europe, Japan and South Asia. A major aspect of her work is using puppets for psycho-social interventions in conflict areas like Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Manipur to Juvenile Remand homes.

FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2020

12 noon, EDT New York Time

Grzegorz Jarzyna (TR Warszawa) with Agata Kołacz & Roman Pawłowski (Poland)

Join us for an update on the situation for theatre artists in Warsaw, Poland.

Grzegorz Jarzyna is the artistic director of the TR Warszawa-one of the most innovative and progressive theaters in Europe. Jarzyna has staged classical dramas reinterpreted in a bold and innovative way, adaptations of famous European novels, world-famous contemporary dramas, as well as operas. In June 2008, his Macbeth was staged at St Ann's Warehouse in New York, where a special stage was built under the Brooklyn Bridge. Grzegorz Jarzyna is a laureate of many awards and distinctions, including awards of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for outstanding services to Poland in the world (2002). In 2007 he received NESTROY PREIS - one of the most prestigious theater awards in Europe. Under Jarzyna's supervision, TR Warszawa has become a place of artistic experiments and creative development of many artists present today on Polish and international theater stages and film. His vision includes the search for new theatrical forms and innovative ways to support the development of young theatre artists. Jarzyna is the initiator and co-creator of the 'Strategy of TR Warszawa Team for 2019-2023', with the goal to build a new theatre for the 21stCentury on the Defilade Square in Warsaw.

Agata Kołacz is the head of International Projects of TR Warszawa, producing works of internationally acclaimed artists as Kornel Mundruczó, René Pollesch, Luk Perceval, Philippe Quesne and the rising talent of Polish performing scene as Anna Karasińska or Magda Szpecht. She is as well the advisor on International Relations for Malta Festival Poznań, where since 2010 was developing the Industry Guest Department, producing the French open-air performances and the original productions of the Festival like „Slow Man" composed by Nicholas Lens. In Poznań, she was the developing as well No Women No Art Festival and Association promoting female artist in contemporary culture. She was in charge of communication for Old Brewary New Dance Programme and Arts Station Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk.

Roman Pawłowski is a theatre curator and deputy artistic director at TR Warszawa. Since 1994 he has been writing for the Polish Newspaper Gazette Wyborcza. He has published two collections of new Polish drama and has been curator of several theatre festivals as well as the co-founder of the School of Drama in Warsaw.

TR Warszawa, a recognized contemporary theatre company in Poland led by Grzegorz Jarzyna, is home to artistic experiments of all kinds. Jarzyna has created a place that not only provides space for his own work but also attracts other brilliant directors such as René Pollesch, Kornél Mundruczó, Luk Perceval or Philippe Quesne (both in 2021). Always on the lookout for new talents and a new language for contemporary theater, TR Warszawa has commissioned several new dramas, made some bold reinterpretations of classics texts, opened its stage to young actors and directors, and explored the potential of non-traditional performance spaces in the city. Among the theater's latest productions are Grzegorz Jarzyna's Other People based on the rap-novel of Dorota Masłowska. In its current repertoire there are also productions of young directors such as Fantasia directed by Anna Karasińska, Always Coming Home by Magda Szpecht, as well as productions of acclaimed directors was Michał Borczuch's My Struggle based on Karl Ove Knausgård's books or California / Grace Slick written and directed by René Pollesch, or Pieces of a Woman, written by Kata Weber and directed by Kornel Mundruczó.