ENSEMBLE FOR THE ROMANTIC CENTURY
NEW WORKS READING SERIES
The Judgment of Josephine Baker
Based in History - Set in Purgatory
Story by Renée Silverman
Script by Renée Silverman and Eve Wolf
Music Design by Eve Wolf
Directed by Donald T. Sanders
Special thanks to The Augustine Foundation for making this series possible.
CAST
Narrator/Bernard Faÿ/Pétain/Newspapermen/Prefect/Eric Severaid……………Ronald Guttman
Josephine Baker…………………………………………………………….……Tsebiyah Mishael Derry
Gertrude Stein……………………………………………………………………Carol Monda
Alice B. Toklas………………………………………………………..…………Natalie Zimmerman
Piano…………………………….…………………………..……………………Albert Cano Smit
Percussion………………………………………………………………………...Shiqi Zhong
Music Direction: Eve Wolf
Production Design: Vanessa James
Lighting Design: Beverly Emmons
Casting: Sue Zizza
Production Stage Manager: Paul Blankenship
Technical Coordinator: James Greenfield
Music Program
Act I
Gloria from La Messe de Nostre Dame Guillaume de Machaut c. 1365
Density 21.5 Edgard Varèse (1936)
Don’t Touch Me Tomato (recorded) Sam Manning (1949)
Vingt Regards sur L’enfant-Jésus Olivier Messiaen (1944)
#15 Regard sur l’Enfant-Jésus
Oedipus der Tyran (excerpt) Carl Orff (1959)
Je te veux Erik Satie (c.1903)
The Unknown Soldier (recorded excerpt) Jim Morrison/The Doors (1969)
Then I’ll be Happy (recorded excerpt) Cliff Friend (1927)
Le Boeuf sur Le Toit (excerpt) - marimba & piano Darius Milhaud 1919-1920
Catulli Carmina (excerpt) Es Aiona! (‘Forever !’) Carl Orff (1940-1943)
Three Preludes George Gershwin (1926)
Allegro ben ritmato e deciso
Ballet Mécanique - (excerpt-arr.) George Antheil (1924)
Act II
O Quanta Qualia (recording) Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
Dances from Les Fêtes D’Hébé Jean Phillipe Rameau (c.1739)
Air gracieux pour Zéphir et les Grâces
Bourée
Pour le Génie de Mars
Tambourin
In the Name of the Holocaust John Cage (1943)
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Don Raye/Hughie Prince (1940)
(Lyrics by Eve Wolf & Renée Silverman)
Bugle Call Rag (recorded excerpt) Jack Pettis/Glenn Miller (1940)
Danzas Argentinas, op. 2 Alberto Ginastera
Danza de la moza donosa
Kyrie from La Messe de Nostre Dame Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1365)
The Devil’s Staircase György Ligeti (1985-2001)
NOTE FROM THE PLAYWRIGHTS
By Renée Silverman
Gertrude Stein counts among the legendary icons of the 20th century. She leapfrogged over Victorian conventions to blaze an original path as a queer, public intellectual. A radical writer, visionary saloniste, decorated World War 1 volunteer, she even wrestled a hard-won literary success after decades of rejections. The 1934 publication of “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” finally catapulted to the world-wide stardom that she had craved. Yet if you dig a bit deeper into her biography, you will also uncover the staunch conservative, anti-FDR Republican who never worked a paid job in her life and lived off the family trust fund. Mercurial and charismatic, she dropped friends as easily as she made them. (Dinner guests who mistakenly mentioned James Joyce were summarily given the boot.) But one friendship extended over many years and was the catalyst of her most troubling associations – her long relationship with French translator Bernard Faÿ. When Paris fell, the gay, monarchist Catholic Faÿ was appointed head of the national library. This was the moment of his greatest power as he entered into close contact with the inner circle of collaborators. It was at this moment in 1940 that Faÿ proposed to Gertrude the grim project of translating the speeches of that old Nazi appeaser Marshal Pétain. Gertrude dawdled over these speeches for more than two years. Her translations are bizarrely incompetent and perhaps willfully unintelligible. In any event they were never published. Did she approve of Pétain’s reactionary and antisemitic politics, or willingly choose to overlook his dark inclinations because of his heroic past? Nobody really knows. The project was finally abandoned - Gertrude’s own writings were banned during the occupation. She wrote for Resistance newspapers and anti-fascist political satires in the latter half of the war. Meanwhile Faÿ handed over lists of Freemasons - many of whom were Jews. Over 900 people were deported - more than 600 murdered in Auschwitz. Hiding in her country house in Bilignan, Gertrude had little contact with Faÿ in Paris and could not have known about his wartime activities. She died in 1946 – with her usual impeccable timing - widely beloved as an American writer abroad. This was long before the full horror of the holocaust had been digested. Few questioned how two Jewish lesbians survived the Nazi occupation. Even more curious - they were the only Jewish collectors in all of France whose priceless art collection remained intact after the war. The art collection’s survival was one of the precious few good deeds performed by Faÿ. Picasso kept an eye on the Stein collection and managed to alert Faÿ when the SS tried to confiscate it. Faÿ used his office to prevent the theft. But Faÿ’s claim that he saved the lives of the two women has never been substantiated. After the war’s end, while Gertrude was hosting dinners for the GIs and loudly proclaiming her American patriotism, her old friend was arrested by the Allies and narrowly avoided death by firing squad. In the past decade, public awareness of this uncomfortable alliance has become increasingly controversial. As the extent of their friendship gained wide attention, Gertrude’s reputation has been subject to an explosion of vitriol. No less than Alan Dershowitz, the self-appointed representative of Jewish opinion, has suggested that morality would have been better served hadshe landed in a concentration camp. However dispiriting Stein’s politics and associations may be, I wonder how her peers would fare under similar scrutiny. Do we question Picasso for joining the communist party after Stalin’s mass murders were public knowledge or debate if T.S. Eliot’s antisemitism overshadows his literary reputation? Is Gertrude Stein being held to a different standard than her gentile, straight male cohort? Does she really deserve to be damned by public consensus? I have pondered the fate of Stein’s legacy over the many years that I have been writing a television pilot about her early days in Paris. What was her responsibility as a world-famous writer to use her influence and reach a vast audience? How are we to interpret her wretched translation assignment or her decision to remain in France after being warned twice by the US State department to leave? Should history judge her life by her dubious politics or on the merit of her achievements alone? Josephine Baker’s story serves as the perfect foil to the troubling morals of Gertrude and Alice. Though decades younger than the two women, Josephine Baker was the other wildly famous American living in Paris in the 1920s and 30s. A self-made woman who escaped a hardscrabble childhood and virulent racism, she brings a depth and moral authority to the judgment of her fellow expats. Her example of self-sacrifice and courage is based entirely on the historical record. She immediately recognized the existential threat posed by the fascists and risked her life many times while operating undercover. In addition to smuggling messages to de Gaulle, she hosted a spy cell in her Chateau and saved the lives of many Jewish refugees. I can only echo Hemingway that “she was the most sensational woman who ever lived.” Josephine’s courage is as rare as her celebrated talent and beauty. Most of us squirm around in the gray area between the struggle to survive and a vague desire to do the right thing. Had Gertrude and Alice left before the Nazis arrived, we would not be considering their moral choices. The politics of their era thrust them into the moral quagmire that we revisit in “The Judgment of Josephine Baker”. How would any one of us have responded to the moral challenges of they faced? In judging them, we must confront our own actions and inactions. What will history think of our response to the existential challenges that we face? These questions are just as urgent for us as they were for Gertrude and Alice. A few brief notes on the play - After Gertrude’s death, Alice concocted a bizarre theory that as a Jewish genius like Gertrude could go to Heaven. But Alice would need to convert to Catholicism to meet her there. I found this premise to be irresistibly daft. It provided the literal embodiment of the curious morality and inner lives of this eccentric duo. The scenes and most of the dialogue are pulled directly from the documented record. The one big exception is the meeting of Gertrude, Alice, and Pétain in WWI. Gertrude did have a knack for getting strangers to rescue her but in this case, it wasn’t the Marshal. Also – please note that since this is the underworld, the dead can choose their favorite age. Even Gertrude and Alice were young once.
Thoughts on the Music
By Eve Wolf
At first glance, the music in The Judgment of Josephine Baker seems wildly eclectic, bouncing back and forth across many centuries – from Machaut (14th century) to Cage, Messiaen, and Ligeti (20th), to Rameau (18th), to Abelard (11th-12th). But to my musician’s ear, there is a link that connects all of these pieces and that also ties in with this play’s story of Gertrude and Alice. The dissonance of the Machaut piece with its “Diabolus in Musicus” tritones, does not seem that far removed from Ligeti’s The Devil’s Staircase or Messiaen’s Vingt Regards, and the subject matter of each of these pieces is religious. And the Latin Quanta Qualia of Abelard (who, in the well-known story, was castrated for having had a love affair with his pupil, Eloise) is also hauntingly religious in nature. Catulli Carmina and Oedipus der Tyrann, written by Orff in the 20th century, to texts in Latin, also have a driven, diabolical, ancient feeling. The musical language of all these pieces makes me think of the “sound” of Purgatory or Hell. Even Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique has a driven devilishness that recalls such films as Metropolis - a kind of machine-age American futurism, with the machine as God. Much of the music on this program also feels political, by representing modernism and its antithesis. Ligeti and Messaien were prisoners in Nazi concentration camps; the Cage piece is about the Holocaust; and the Orff pieces were touted by the Nazis as great music that expressed the Fascist State (by serving the public good and recalling ancient Greece and Rome.) At the same time, - Milhaud and Gershwin were banned for being Jewish, and jazz in general, American big band jazz in particular, and most “modernist” composers were all considered “degenerate.” Josephine Baker herself was reviled by the Nazis: she was a black woman married to a Jewish man. Even the inclusion of Rameau in this program has a political side, because according to France’s collaborationist Vichy government and the conservative Schola Cantorum, Rameau and other 18th-century French composers represented “pure” French music, untouched by the polluting hand of other influences, especially Jewish influences. Satie, although he was older than the other 20th-century composers on this program, was a modernist like Gertrude Stein and even collaborated with Picasso. In his music I hear the Paris of the Montmartre cafés and the artistic experimentation at the cabaret “happenings.” In fact, I feel conscious and unconscious connections among all the pieces in this program, and together they create the “soundscape” of The Judgment of Josephine. I hope that you, too, will hear the it.
PROGRAM NOTES
by James Melo, ERC’s musicologist
The career of Josephine Baker (1906-1975) could easily be taken as illustration of the “rags-to-riches” topos in fairy tales: born in the slums of St. Louis, Missouri, she rose to international recognition as a major star, living in a castle in France, and at home in the most selective milieus in the arts, fashion, and politics. Born Freda Josephine McDonald, she and her mother were adopted by former slaves and lived in the highly oppressive and segregated environment of the American South. The identity of her biological father continues to be a matter of dispute, given the conflicting accounts in her biographies and her own contradictory versions of it. From an early age, she learned to circumvent the dire circumstances of her life, becoming a shrew and street-smart girl wo was often exposed to racial violence. When she was only eight-years-old she worked doing laundry for white families in St. Louis, a period during which she was frequently subjected to abuse (including having her hands burned by her mistress because she had put too much detergent in the laundry). She lived as a street child, sleeping in cardboard boxes and scavenging for food, performing at street corners as a street dancer, and eventually marrying at age 13, only to be divorced one year later. It is clear that, at this phase of her life, she had already a very precise notion that she would become an entertainer. She began to look for opportunities to pursue her dream, approaching managers and impresarios and joining troupes of vaudeville performers. She went to New York City when she was still a teenager, during the Harlem Renaissance, and there she began to appear in important venues, performing in the chorus line of a couple of highly successful revues, during which she began to forge important aspects of her stage persona, such as the touches of humor and seductiveness that she would refine along the years. The turning point in Josephine Baker’s life and career came in 1925 when she sailed to Paris with the cast of La Revue Nègre, a vaudeville troupe that opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées to immediate success. Within two years, Josephine Baker had become an international star, fêted by artists and intellectuals, and in the process of completely revolutionizing the vaudeville scene in Paris. Her stage persona generated passionate responses, both favorable and condemnatory, and an entire mythology began to grow around her figure, her ethnicity, her sexuality. It became clear that the only response that was not expected in relation to her was indifference. As her international reputation grew, bringing her to prominence in an array of countries where she performed, so did the number and range of her admirers. Memories of her childhood in the racist American South led her to engage ever more deeply with social causes and the fight for equality, prompting attention from the FBI, who kept a file on her for many years, under suspicions that she was a communist. She renounced her American citizenship and became a French citizen, acted as a British spy during World War II, and became increasingly more influential in areas well beyond the performing arts. The enthusiastic reception of Josephine Baker by the Parisian public resulted from the confluence of many factors, such as the widespread interest in all forms of exoticism and a burning curiosity toward other cultures. This aspect of Parisian cultural life set it apart from other European capitals, which remained captive to a notion of national tradition that precluded foreign influences. The ebullient arts scene in Paris, in which it was safe to assume that anything could happen, created the right environment for Josephine Baker’s projection of her most audacious acts. There, she experienced a kind of personal and artistic freedom (and wholesale adulation) that would be impossible in the U.S. Josephine Baker’s artistic persona was forged through a series of behaviors, stage props, and sheer bravado. Her signature banana skirt and pearl necklace crystallized into the emblem of her stage presence, and later she caused much anxiety among musicians and performers when she brought her pet cheetah (“Chiquita”) on stage with her, the animal sporting a diamond collar.
Her performances were loaded with cultural-sexual overtones, tickling the public’s imagination in ways that were impossible to ignore. The dance critic André Levinson, who was present at the premiere of La Revue Nègre in 1925, was one of the earliest commentators to pinpoint some of the iconic aspects of Baker’s performance:
Certain of Mis Baker’s poses, back arched, haunches protruding, arms entwined and uplifted in a phallic symbol, had the compelling potency of the finest examples of African sculpture. The plastic sense of a race of sculptors came to life and the frenzy of African eros swept over the audience. It was no longer a grotesque dancing girl that stood before them, but the black Venus that haunted Baudelaire.
And so, the “Black Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, the “Creole Goddess”, the “Bronze Venus” (among many of the epithets that were coined to describe her), took Paris by storm and led the international public in a voyage of exploration of some of their most primal fantasies. Her career made it easier for Ernest Hemingway to resort to superlatives when praising her, when he said that she was “the most sensational woman anybody ever saw. Or ever will.”
***
As with all other aspects of Parisian culture in the early 20th century, the musical environment in which the career of Josephine Baker unfolded was an effervescent mixture of avant-garde experimentation, exoticism, multiculturalism, and general creative drive. By the late 19th century, Paris had already displaced Vienna as the go-to European capital for all things musical, and at the turn of the 20th century the city had become the most powerful magnet for attracting musicians and composers invested in the search for new and alternative musical languages and styles. An important influence on these developments was the series of Expositions Universelles held in Paris (the city hosted eight of them between 1855 and 1937), which brought to the public a heightened awareness of musical traditions from all cultures, and a musical vocabulary that enriched the canon of Western music beyond all traditional boundaries. It is well known, for instance, how the Exposition Universelle of 1889 introduced the music of the Javanese gamelan to the French public and brought about a major stylistic shift in the music of Claude Debussy, to cite just one instance.
The pluralism that characterized the musical life of Paris in the “Roaring Twenties” and beyond is well illustrated in the diversity of the works that comprise tonight’s musical program. They include works that were contemporaneous with the life and career of Josephine Baker, from both her native and adoptive countries, as well as pieces by foreigners who had flocked to Paris at the time, and other works that fulfill the timeless aspect of music by resonating with the sensibilities of another era, distinct from that in which they were composed. Perhaps the best way to exemplify this diversity is to reflect on a few aspects that distinguish some of the pieces in the program.
Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 (composed in 1936 and revised in 1946) is a work for solo flute that reflects the instrument for which it was composed: a platinum flute owned by the flutist Georges Barrère (who commissioned the work), the density of platinum being 21.5. Olivier Messiaen’s Regard de l’eglise de l’amour (from his series of Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus) is a product of his Catholic faith, which informed many of his woks throughout his life. The collection consists of a series of musical vignettes depicting several aspects of the life of Jesus Christ. Carl Orff’s Oedipus der Tyranis a setting of Friedrich Hölderlin’s translation of Sophocles tragedy, employing a syllabic style that eschews any melismatic or overly melodic elements, so that the music becomes a heightened version of the prosodic elements of the text. Orff’s most famous work, the secular cantata Carmina Burana, is a collection of settings of poetry by medieval monk, some of which is surprising erotic and bawdy. Erik Satie’s Je te veux is a sensual waltz that epitomizes the sultry atmosphere of the Parisian cabarets of the early 20th century. Originally a song for voice and piano, it also exists in a version for piano solo. Darius Milhaud’s Le boeuf sur le toît was originally composed to accompany a silent film by Charlie Chaplin, but eventually premiered under another guise, as the music for a ballet staged by Jean Cocteau. George Gershwin’s Three Preludes for piano solo represent one of the best renditions in his music of the influence of jazz, which opened so many new possibilities for the development of American classical music. The rhythmic verve of the prelude selected for the program carries with it the very atmosphere of the vibrant jazz scene of the time. George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique was written as the soundtrack for a Dadaist film of the same name, conceived and directed by the Cubist artist Fernand Léger. Both the film and the music represent marked a major turning point in their respective arts, breaking with traditional in a way that is almost confrontational in their radicalism. The Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau is an inconic figure in French culture, and his music has achieved the status of a national symbol in many quarters. The excerpts from his opera Les fêtes d’Hébé could have been a soundtrack for many aspects of Josephine Baker’s own career. The American composer John Cage was one of the emblematic figures of the musical avant-garde of the 20th century. In the Name of the Holocaust, a composition for prepared piano (in which the strings of the instrument are “prepared” with different kinds of materials including paper, wood, metal, etc.) very likely refers to a pun on the expression “Holy Ghost”, found in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. At the time of its composition, the horrors of the Holocaust were not yet known by the public, so its connection with that event is doubtful. Alberto Ginastera’s Danza de la moza donosa is one of the most hauntingly beautiful of his Danzas argentinas, a series of piano pieces based on the traditional music of his native country. It has a melancholic and brooding quality that brings it into a realm more readily associated with lyrical introspection. György Ligeti’s The Devil’s Staircase comes from his second book of Études for piano solo. It has a complex polyrhythmic texture, and is written in the virtuosic style of a toccata. Excerpts from the music of Guillaume de Machaut (a foundational figure in the history of French music) and American popular music add nuance to the musical picture of Josephine Baker’s roaring career.
SONG TEXTS
La Messe de Nostre Dame (Gloria)
Gloria in excelsis Deo. Et in terra pax
Hominibus bone voluntatis
Laudamus te. Benedicimus te. Adoramus te. Glorificamus te
Gratias agimus tibi/ Propter magnam gloriam tuam.
Domine Deus rex celestis/Deus pater omnipotens
Domine fili unigenite/Ihesu Christe
Domine Deus agnus Dei/ Filius patris.
Qui tollis peccata mundi/Miserere nobis
Qui tollis peccata mundi/Suscipe deprecationem nostram
Qui sedes ad dexteram patris/Miserere nobis.
Quoniam tu tolus sanctus/Tu solus Dominus
Tu solus altissimus/Ihesu Christe/Cum sancto spiritu
In gloria Dei patris./Amen.
Glory to God in the highest.
And on earth peace/And good will to men
We praise you, we bless you,/we adore you,/We glorify you,
we give you thanks/because of your great glory.
Lord God, heavenly King/ God the Father Almighty.
Lord Jesus Christ,/Only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
Who takes away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us./ Receive our prayer
You who sit at the right hand of the Father,
Have mercy on us. For you alone are Holy
You alone are the Lord, You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, With the Holy Spirit
In the glory of God the Father, Amen.
Don't Touch Me Tomato
Oh mister, don't you touch me tomato/ Please, don't you touch me tomato
Touch me on me apple, potato/ Goodness' sake, don't you touch me tomato
Touch me this, touch me that/ Touch me everything I got
Touch me plum, and me apples too/ But here's one thing you just can't do
All you do is feel up, feel up/ Ain't you tired of feel up, feel up
All you do is squeeze up, squeeze up/ Ain't you tired of squeeze up, squeeze up
Oh mister, don't you touch me tomato/Please, don't you touch me tomato
Touch me on me apple, potato/Goodness' sake, don't you touch me tomato.
The Unknown Solder
Wait until the war is over/And we’re both a little older
The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read/Television children fed
Unborn living, living, dead/ Bullet strikes the helmet’s head
And it’s all over/For the unknown soldier
Make a grave for the unknown soldier
Nestled in your hollowed shoulder, hut
The unknown soldier.
Then I’ll be Happy
I wanna go where you go,
Do what you do,
Love when you love,
Then I’ll be happy!
I wanna sigh when you sigh,
Cry when you cry,
Smile when you smile,
Then I’ll be happy!
You can go north or south,
You can go east or west,
I’ll follow you sweetheart,
And share your little love nest.
Catulli Carmina Es Aiona !
Es Aiona !
Tui sum
Es Aiona !
Tui sum o mea vita
Es aiona
Tui sum!
Es Aiona!
Forever!
I am yours!
Forever!
I am yours.
You are my life
Forever! I am yours!
Forever!
Je te veux
J’ai compris ta détresse, Cher amoureux,
Et je cède à tes vœux: Fais de moi ta maîtresse.
Loin de nous la sagesse,Plus de tristesse,
J’aspire à l’instant précieux/ Où nous serons heureux: Je te veux.
Je n’ai pas de regrets, Et je n’ai qu’une envie:
Près de toi, là, tout près, Vivre toute ma vie.
Que mon cœur soit le tien/ Et ta lèvre la mienne,
Que ton corps soit le mien, Et que toute ma chair soit tienne.Oui, je vois dans tes yeux/ La divine promesse
Que ton cœur amoureux/ Vient chercher ma caresse.
Enlacés pour toujours,/ Brûlés des mêmes flammes,
Dans des rêves d’amours,/ Nous échangerons nos deux âmes.
I’ve understood your distress,
Dear lover, And yield to your desires:
Make of me your mistress.
Let’s throw discretion/ And sadness to the winds.
I long for the precious moment/When we shall be happy: I want you.
I’ve no regrets/And only one desire:
Close, very close by you/To live my whole life long.
Let my heart be yours/And your lips mine,
Let your body be mine/And all my flesh yours.
Yes, I see in your eyes/The exquisite promise
That your loving heart/Is seeking my caress.
Entwined for ever,/Consumed by the same desire,
In dreams of love/We’ll exchange our souls.
O Quanta qualia
Ah me! How calm and deep
those mighty Sabbath days,
the courts above do keep
with never-ending praise!
For weariness what rest,
for valour what reward,
when all in all the blest
indwelleth God the Lord!
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (with new lyrics)
I was a hungry poor black girl
from out St. Louee way
At ten I danced on street corners for little pay.
I got married at thirteen.
I didn’t go to school
And then that man got so mean
I saw St. Louee burn
red summer was ablaze -
Went to gay Paree - my naked
dance was all the craze.
They all came to see me on the Champs Élysée.
Picasso painted me the roaring twenties way.
I was in film and on the stage.
In the thirties I was all the rage.
Then war came to France
They called me up one day
I Became a spy!
An agent, while I sang cabaret.
To Charles De Gaulle I smuggled secret papers from Berlin.
Inside my bra and panties hid them with a safety pin -
Of German troop movements -
I used invisible ink -
Hid secret photographs -
from danger I didn’t shrink
Then I took another risk
as well -
In my own chateau I led a Resistance cell.
I hid Jews
and they were saved -
Because the evil ones
would put them
in their grave.
I couldn’t look away
Cause all the hate that I’ve known
It’s made me fight for right
You’re gonna reap what you’ve sown.
(to Reveille tune)
A toot! A toot! A toot diddle ah-da toot.
What are you going to do
On Judgment Day?
Do you really think
that you can get away?
You gonna justify?
Or will you just deny?
And the whole world jumps
when you do some good.
Remember when it’s your turn
you should do what you should.
La Messe de Nostre Dame (Kyrie)
Κύριε ελέησον
Χριστε ἐλέησον
Κύριε ελέησον
Lord Have Mercy
Christ Have Mercy
Lord Have Mercy
BIOS
(in alphabetical order)
Max Barros (Co-Artistic Director ERC, pianist) has been hailed by the critics in Brazil and the US as one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. He won the soloist of the year the São Paulo Arts Critics Association (1985), the “Discovery Award” from the French Diapason magazine for his recordings of Camargo Guarnieri’s piano concertos with the Warsaw Philharmonic for Naxos. He has been praised for his “elegance of rhythm” and “refinement of tone” (New York Times) and his “unfaltering brio” (Gramophone). He is in the process of recording the complete piano works of Camargo Guarnieri for Naxos. Mr. Barros has performed in all the major concert halls of New York City and Brazil, and in major productions by ERC in New York City and abroad. Mr. Barros is the Vice-President of the Brazilian Music Foundation in New York, and a Steinway Artist.
Paul Blankenship (Production Stage Manager) Off-Broadway: Fiercely Independent, Maestro, Because I Could Not Stop: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson; Hereafter Musical; If This Hat Could Talk; A Doll’s Life, Elizabeth and Essex; Colette Collage; The Fantasticks; Café Society. Regional: The School For Husbands (Westport Country Playhouse); The Bungler (Long Wharf Theatre); Wonderful Tennessee (McCarter Theatre); Mirette (Goodspeed Opera House); Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (Walnut Street Theatre); My Fair Lady (Cleveland Opera); The Grapes of Wrath (Cleveland Play House); Play It By Heart (The Human Race Theatre Co.); Steel Pier (Actors’ Playhouse); Jacques Brel (Florida Studio Theatre); Romeo and Juliet (Alley Theatre); Othello, All’s Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare Festival of Dallas); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It (Houston Shakespeare Festival). Tours: The Fantasticks (National & Japanese Tours), Jesus Christ Superstar (European Tour), Camelot (World Tour w/Richard Harris), Senator Joe (National Tour); The Glass Menagerie (National Tour). MFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University.
Tsebiyah Mishael Derry (Josephine Baker) is an actor/singer/poet from New York. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and the British American Drama Academy in London, UK.
As a voice actor, Tsebiyah has worked on the pilot episode of Arian Moayed’s critically acclaimed series, “The Accidental Wolf,” and the episodic musical podcast, “The World 2 Come,” a 2020 Webby Award Honoree, written by Erik Ransom & composed by Andy Peterson. Most recently, she played Anna Murray Douglass in SueMedia Productions / Ensemble for the Romantic Century’s new audio-play, “The Fifth of July.”
Additional favorite roles include: Avery Nolastname in “SKiNFoLK: An American Show” (The Bushwick Starr), which received a NY Times Critic’s Pick, Betty 3 in “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties” (Trinity Repertory Company), Sweet Thing in “Nina Simone: Four Women” (People’s Light). TV: “Hit & Run” (Netflix), “The Accidental Wolf” (Amazon Prime).
Tsebiyah is also a 2022 Hermitage Artist Retreat fellow. Listen to music by Tsebiyah, including “Coastline,” on all music platforms. For announcements & more information, please visit www.tsebiyah.com
Beverly Emmons (Lighting Designer) Broadway: Stick Fly, Annie Get Your Gun, Jekyll & Hyde, The Heiress, Passion, Amadeus and The Elephant Man. Off B’way: Joseph Chaikin, Robert Wilson. Regionals: the Guthrie, Arena Stage, The Alley in Houston, Children's Theatre of Minneapolis. Dance: Martha Graham, Trisha Brown, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham. Awards: one Tony award, seven Tony nominations, a 1976 Lumen, a 1980 Obie, Theatre Wing awards. Created TheLightingArchive.org. Career is documented at the performingartslegacy.org
Jimmy Greenfield (technical coordinator) is a sculptor and the owner and director of Soapbox Gallery.
Ronald Guttman (Bernard Faÿ, Narrator/Marshall Pétain/Newspapermen/Prefect/Eric Severaid) is a theatre, film, and television actor, originally from Brussels, and active in both America and Europe. His theatre credits include the recent world premiere of Patriots, a new play by Peter Morgan (The Crown) directed by Rupert Goold with Tom Hollander and Will Keen at the Almeida Theatre, moving to the West End this spring.
Other credits include Picasso at the Lapin Agile; The Philanthropist (Long Wharf Theatre); The Fifth Column; The Lonely Way (The Mint); Coastal Disturbances (Second Stage/Circle in the Square) and numerous plays at National Theatre (Brussels). His film credits include On the Basis of Sex; 27 Dresses; Avalon; Green Card; The Hunt for Red October; August Rush, and Danton. His television credits include Documentary Now; Godfather of Harlem; Hunters; Madam Secretary; Mad Men; Mildred Pierce; Homeland and a few others. --
Vanessa James (Production Designer) is an international designer of sets and costumes for theatre and opera and an art director for film and TV. Her New York stage credits include William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, Arthur Penn’s production of Chambers, Kenneth Koch’s Red Robbins, and Donald Sanders’ 33 Scenes on the Possibility of Human Happiness andThomas Cole; A Waking Dream for the Joseph Papp Public Theatre. She is the resident designer for the Ensemble for the Romantic Century for whom she has designed the recent productions of Akhmatova and Jules Verne at BAM/Fisher and Van Gough’s Ear, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart, Because I Could Not Stop: An encounter with Emily Dickinson at The Signature Theatre and Maestro and Hans Christian Andersen at The Duke Theater. She has been nominated for three Emmy awards for art direction. Examples of her work are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute library and the New York Museum of the Moving Image. She is a professor at Mount Holyoke College and is the author of two books of popular reference The Genealogy of Greek Mythology, and Shakespeare’s Genealogies.
Carol Monda (Gertrude Stein) is a veteran actor, voiceover talent and audiobook narrator of over 400 titles. She is a multiple Audie and Earphones Awards winner and an Odyssey Award recipient. She’s also won several theatre awards and performed on stages such as The Houseman, EST, Classic Stage Company, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center and Arena Stage. Carol has been the voice of the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival since its 2010 inception. She has voiced commercials, narrations and promos for The Guggenheim, New York Historical Society, KLM, McDonald’s, HSBC and Citicorp.
You can hear her work at: carolmondavo.com.
Member: Sag-Aftra, AEA
James Melo (ERC musicologist, playwright) is a Senior-Supervising Editor at the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) at the Graduate Center (CUNY), and the New York correspondent for the music magazine Sinfónica in Uruguay. He has written program notes for major concert halls in the United States and Brazil, as well as for CDs on several labels. He was the program notes writer for the National Philharmonic in Strathmore, Maryland, and for the Montreal Chamber Music Festival. He is the author of the liner notes for the complete recordings of the works of Heitor Villa-Lobos and of Camargo Guarnieri on Naxos. He is on the faculty of the Diller-Quaile School of Music in New York City and is active as a translator in Brazil and the US. His most recent publication, an essay on Friedrich Nietzsche and the aesthetics of the Romantic song, was published this year by Cambridge Scholars.
Caity Quinn (ERC Development and Business Manager; playwright) has been a member of the staff at ERC since 2008. She has been instrumental in winning numerous ERC grants, including over ten years of funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and NYC’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA); The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for ‘July 5th’, and Maestro, about the life of celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini. Ms. Quinn works closely with Eve Wolf and Don Sanders to implement and fulfill ERC’s mission. Ms. Quinn is also a playwright and drama teacher. She has collaborated with film director Robert Eggers (The Northman) on numerous theatre projects, including a Commedia dell’Arte version of Faust. Recent projects include teaching theatre K-8 at a tiny island school in Maine, directing Rabbit Hole and Six Characters in Search of an Author at Purdue, appearing at Theatre Passe Muraille in the bilingual French-English production of The Sound of Cracking Boneswith Pleiades Theatre in Toronto. Her play “Within and Without: The Flood” won the award Le Prix Initiative Jeunesse ALPHA Assurances in 2017. She has been nominated twice for the Brickenden Award for Best Youth Play/Musical in Ontario.
Donald T. Sanders, Director, (Director of Theatrical Production Ensemble for the Romantic Century/ERC) Notable ERC productions: Van Gogh's Ear with Carter Hudson; Seduction, Smoke and Music with Sinead Cusack and Jeremy Irons; Because I Could Not Stop, An Encounter with Emily Dickinson with Angelica Page; for ERC Audio Drama Division: Tchaikovsky, None But The Lonely Heartwith Vanessa Redgrave and Stephen Fry; Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon with Thibault de Montalembert. B.A. University of Pennsylvania (President, Penn Players,Thouron Scholar); C.I.D University of Bristol England; MFA Yale School of Drama. Career debut, the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, 1968, The American Pig, An Anti-Imperialist Vaudeville; Founder and Executive Artistic Director MIFA, the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts/MIFA. Awards: NEA, NYSCA, NYCDCA, MCC, National Philanthropic Trust, NYTimes Critic's Picks, Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres France.
Renée Silverman (Playwright) is a seasoned filmmaker with over twenty-five years’ experience as a producer, director, writer and archival researcher. She is the US producer on the feature documentaries, Wim Wenders: Desperado, winner of the Rose D’Or, Cannes with Francis Ford Coppola, Patti Smith and Werner Herzog and It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story in wide distribution in Europe. A New York based stringer for ARD and ZDF public tv, she produced hundreds of stories covering culture, politics, and breaking news. Renée’s is the co-director of the award-winning documentaries, Refugee Kids: One Small School Takes on the World and Sosúa: Make a Better World for PBS. Her archival producing credits include the Oscar nominated documentary RBG and United Skates on HBO. A script consultant with filmmakers and playwrights, she founded a documentary story structure workshop for the Gotham (formerly the IFP) and will teach screenwriting at SVA starting January 2023.
Albert Cano Smit (pianist) Praised as “a moving young poet” and “a great romantic” (by Christophe Huss – Le Devoir), Spanish/Dutch pianist Albert Cano Smit enjoys a growing international career on the orchestral, recital, and chamber music stages. Noted for his captivating performances, storytelling quality and nuanced musicality, the First Prize winner of the 2019 Young Concert Artists International Auditions has appeared as a soloist with the San Diego, Montreal, Las Vegas, Manchester, and Barcelona symphony orchestras, amongst others. He also won First Prize at the 2017 Walter W. Naumburg Piano Competition, which presented him in recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Most recently, Albert was awarded the 2020 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Prize from The Juilliard School.
Eve Wolf (Playwright; Founder and Executive Director of ERC; pianist) During the past twenty-two seasons, Wolf has written scripts and been music designer for more than twenty-five of ERC’s theatrical concerts, including ERC’s new Radio Drama Division, and has performed as pianist in most of the ensemble’s forty-plus original productions. Highlights: Audio: Anna Akhmatova, - starring Vanessa Redgrave (2021); Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon – starring Thibeault de Montalembert (2022); Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart - starring Stephen Fry and Vanessa Redgrave. (2022); Notable Plays: Maestro (The Duke at 42nd Street), Van Gogh’s Ear (Signature Theater), 2017 - a New York Times Critic’s Pick; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Signature Theater), 2018; The Dreyfus Affair (BAM), 2017; Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone (BAM) 2016 - a New York Times Critic’s Pick; Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon (BAM), 2015, a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Ms. Wolf has served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and been a professional mentor at The Juilliard School, and is currently on the faculty of Columbia University-Teachers College.
Shiqi Zhong (percussion). "Mr. Zhong’s technical resources appear limitless, ranging from furious energy, when required, to ethereal delicacy. His independence of hands is unbelievable; and he has a certain meditative humility, often facing upstage when not playing, seeming to contemplate something within." (New York Concert Review). Multi-percussionist Shiqi (Jackie) Zhong possesses an unusually broad repertoire ranging from solo works and chamber music to percussion concertos. His technical perfection, enthusiasm and musical versatility brought percussion from the back of an orchestra to the middle of the stage.Winner of multiple prizes, Shiqi Zhong was named one of the Top 10 Outstanding Chinese Youth by the All American Chinese Youth Federation in 2021. He is the recipient of the 2nd World Percussion Movement International Percussion Competition, the 2021 Piazzolla Music Competition, the 2015 Modern Snare Drum Competition, and the 2013 PAS KoSA Marimba Competition. As an orchestral percussionist, Shiqi has collaborated with many world-class conductors, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Michael Tilson Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski, Rossen Milanov. Shiqi has toured many places such as Britain, Germany, Finland, Poland, Singapore, and the United States.Born in Nanjing, Shiqi Zhong studied at Juilliard Pre-College, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Yale School of Music. Shiqi is currently studying at NYU Steinhardt department of Music and works as a graduate adjunct teacher.
Natalie Zimmerman (Alice B. Toklas) is a New York City born and raised actor, writer, and singer dedicated to writing and performing stories about complex women. A true nerd at heart, she has a passion for bringing roles to life through detailed textual analysis theorizing everything from her character’s favorite music to her bedroom décor. Some of her favorite credits include Martirio in Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba and Babe in Henly’s Crimes of the Heart. Natalie is a classically trained soprano who delights in singing opera and musical theater as well as jazz and pop. She loves the challenge of writing and performing in her own work. She is currently working on “Abortion Play,”, a biting satire on the Supreme Court’s verdict to overturn Roe V Wade. She is thrilled to make her ERC debut in The Judgement of Josephine.
Sue Zizza (Audio Producer) is a transmedia storyteller. She is a producer, director, writer, sound designer, and owner of SueMedia Productions, a full service audio production company producing sound for all media: Audiobooks, Podcasts, TV, Film,VR. etc. Sue has produced award winning audio fiction for the web, public radio, and audiobooks for more than 3 decades. Her work has been featured at the 2022 Tribeca Festival as well as honored over the years by The Audies (9 nominations, two wins); The Gabriel’s; The International Festival of New York; The National Federation of Community Broadcasters; and the Communicator Awards. In 2021 she was named The Corwin Award winner for lifetime achievement in producing audio fiction. Sue’s sound clients have included: Cleo TV, PBS, Audible, Blackstone, MacMillan Publishers, and USA Networks -Sci-Fi Channel.
