Ensemble for the Romantic Century
New Works Reading Series
‘July 5th’ Program
Soapbox Gallery
636 Dean Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11238
Thursday, November 17th, 2022 7:30 pm
‘July 5th’
A new work by Ken Green
in collaboration with music designer Eve Wolf
Directed by Donald T. Sanders
CAST
(in order of appearance)
Radio Announcer (recorded)………………………………. Nick Sullivan
The Slave……………………………………………………Cary Hite
Julia Griffiths………………………………………………..Sarah Mollo-Christiansen
Frederick Douglass………………………………………….Albert Jones
William Lloyd Garrison……………………………………..Nick Sullivan
Anna Douglass……………………………………………….Tsebiyah Mishael Derry
Pianist……………………………………………….............Adam Podd
Music Direction: Eve Wolf
Production Design: Vanessa James
Lighting Design: Beverly Emmons
Audio Mixer/Music Engineer: David Shinn
Audio Production/Casting: Sue Zizza
Casting: Stephanie Klapper
Production Stage Manager: Paul Blankenship
Technical Coordinator: James Greenfield
Synopsis
The action of ‘July 5th’ takes place on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York. Frederick Douglass’s fraught preparation for his famous, fiery speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” unfolds amid incendiary debates, political conflicts, and a scandalous love triangle.
Music Program
I can’t breathe from Seven Last Words of the Unarmed (recorded) Joel Thompson
Judgment Day is A-Rollin’ Around. Spiritual
Mary Don’t You Weep. Prince (recorded) Spiritual
What are you Following me for? from Seven Last Words of the Unarmed (recorded) Joel Thompson
My Love is Like a Red Red Rose (lyrics by Robert Burns) Folk Song
I don’t have a gun. Stop Shooting! from Seven Last Words of the Unarmed (recorded). Joel Thompson
Evil N (recorded) Julius Eastman
Where’s Our Rights Cary Hite
The Water is Wide Folk Song
Hold On Spiritual
Ezekial Saw de’ Wheel Spiritual
Lyric for Strings (recorded) George Walker
Crazy N. (recorded) Julius Eastman
I can’t breathe from Seven Last Words of the Unarmed (recorded) Joel Thompson
Didn’t my Lord Deliver Daniel Spiritual
Where’s Our Rights
By Cary Hite
It wasn’t till I woke up that I had a dream and everything I thought was real, really wasn’t what it seemed - Mean
Thought this was a better place in a better time/ But every face I see rockin’ a sourpuss - lemon lime
Rona runnin’ the block and it got me masked up, but not for hittin’ spots robbin’ ‘em for them fast bucks, don’t wanna ventilator gasping for my air stuck, while too many out there still not giving a fuck/Thinking it’s all a hoax, insistin’ that’s it’s a joke, when these fuckin’ pandemics got the globe on choke/What’s it gonna take for you to see real for real, like black folks out here by the cops get killed, like everyday another girl gets snatched up and authorities nev-ah - seem to - catch the perpetrators in-volved, perpetually going as cold cases un-solved, we lax on gun laws, a government so flawed, yet we still praise all/what is going on, My people so strong, but it’s been so long our so minds been so gone dealing with dead wrongs turned into new songs - about old plights - Where’s our rights, where’s our rights - you violate them shits everyday, in plain sight - YO
Didn’t my Lord Deliver Daniel
Didn’t My Lord deliver Daniel
Deliver Daniel, deliver Daniel
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel
And why not every man?
PROGRAM NOTES
By James Melo, ERC’s musicologist.
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) delivered an impassioned (and fiery) speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. At the time, Douglass had already secured a position of relative safety as an escaped slave from his bondage in Maryland, and had attracted the attention of abolitionists and like-minded politicians in the northern states. In the speech, which was timed to respond to the national celebrations of the Fourth of July, Douglass presented his views with the flair, passion, and supremely articulated arguments that came to distinguish his oratorical style, for which he was much admired. An excerpt from the speech encapsulates both its tone and its contents:
O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. (“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”)
Speaking to a crowd of white abolitionists, Douglass laid out the gaping abyss at the center of the American ideal of freedom and equality. He made it inescapably clear that there were two Americas. By the time he delivered this landmark speech, Douglass had traveled a distance that would seem inconceivable for someone born under his conditions, at that time. Born into slavery on a plantation in Maryland, of mixed race, he was separated from his mother at an early age and went to live with his grandmother. He saw his mother only a few times before she died when he was only seven years old. He was enslaved to several plantation owners, and it was while serving Hugh Auld that Douglass had the first inkling of the liberating power of education. Hugh’s wife, Sophia, began to teach him to read when he was twelve years old, but her husband curtailed her efforts, convincing her that reading and education were incompatible with the life of a slave. The seed had been sown, though, and Douglass continued to practice reading, with the help of white children in the neighborhood of Baltimore where the Aulds lived. A few years later, while serving the tyrannical and vicious Edward Covey, who whipped Douglass mercilessly and who had a reputation as a “slave-breaker”, Douglass rebelled and attempted to escape several times. He finally succeeded in 1838, and after crossing Delaware and Pennsylvania he arrived in New York City and was safely housed at the home of the abolitionist David Ruggles. This marked the beginning of a remarkably new life that eventually brought Douglass to national and international fame, as he became a powerful orator, abolitionist, statesman, and writer. He became the most photographed American man in the 19th century, and was an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln.
Douglass’s life story gave the lie to slave holders who preached that the enslaved were not capable of functioning as active and independent members of society, and therefore should always be under the aegis of a master. Douglass bore living testimony to the contrary. Taking stock of his own experience, he believed that a high education was the surest way for Black people to escape their predicament. He advocated dialogue as a way of bridging differences and enlightening America about the inhumanity of slavery. Throughout his life, he stressed the fact that he would enter into an alliance with anyone who was committed to doing good, regardless of which side of the aisle they sat on. This fundamentally diplomatic and conciliatory approach undoubtedly opened many doors and allowed Douglas to penetrate into increasingly higher levels of the social organization, where he could exert his influence more forcefully.
Douglass’s belief in the inherent power of education as a means of deliverance was later echoed by the sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963). Du Bois lived in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and he had access to the most prestigious academic institutions, including Harvard University. His writings offer a complex, multi-layered diagnosis of the condition of the Black people in America, and like Douglass he also favored dialogue and cooperation rather than confrontation. In his groundbreaking work, The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of 14 essays published in 1903, he presented a theme that became central to the project of an African American identity: the question of “double consciousness” faced by African Americans, who are both American and Black. This notion has implications for the development of an African American classical music tradition, because it puts the Black composer at the intersection of two distinct cultures, the tradition of Western classical music and the need to create a musical idiom that speaks to their identity as a Black person.
Interestingly, the impetus for the development of an African American tradition in classical music came, not from the initiative of local composers, but from the influence of a white European composer steeped in tradition. From 1892 to 1895, the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City, during which time he came into contact with an important group of African American composers and performers. Among these was the renowned singer and composer Harry Burleigh, who sang spirituals to Dvořák for hours on end, and in doing so exposed Dvořák to that rich Black tradition. Dvořák then went into a veritable crusade to convince the African American composers in his circle to turn to their traditions, more particularly to the melodies of the spirituals, as the only means to fashion a genuinely Black idiom in classical music. His influence proved decisive for a first generation of nationalist African American composers, who set out to create a genuinely African American musical tradition.
George Walker (1922-2018), the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Music (1996) belonged to the generation immediately following the first group of African American composers who worked under the inspirational guidance of Antonín Dvořák. He studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, achieving great recognition and critical acclaim as both a composer and a pianist. His output is varied and comprises works in virtually all the genres of traditional Western classical music. His Lyric for Strings, by far his best known orchestral composition, began life as the second movement of his String Quartet no. 1 (1946). Originally titled “Lament”, it was composed in honor of his grandmother, a former slave who, sadly, did not live to see the work completed. In 1990, Walker orchestrated the movement into a version for full orchestra, and in this format it became a stand-alone composition, similar to what happened with the famous “Adagio” of Samuel Barber (who was Walker’s classmate at the Curtis Institute), and on which Walker’s Lyric for Strings was based. While he was a highly accomplished pianist (he was the first African American to perform as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, playing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3), Walker had no intimate knowledge of string instruments, which makes his achievement in the Lyric for Strings all the more remarkable.
The career of Julius Eastman (1940-1990) followed a downward spiral that brought him from the height of critical acclaim, to intense controversy, and finally to neglect and homelessness. He was one of the first American composers to explore minimalism and experimental music, and his meteoric career left deep marks on the development of American avant-garde music. Being gay and black, he never shied away from any uncomfortable issues associated with his identity. His defiant spirit is evident in the title of some of his compositions, such as the ones featured in this program. Evil Niggerand Crazy Nigger, both composed in 1979, belong to what Eastman called his “Nigger Series” of compositions. In 1980, addressing the audience before the premiere of the two pieces at Northwestern University, Eastman felt compelled to defend their titles against the objections of some audience members and faculty. He pointed to an inherent nobility in the work of the first African Americans, their connection to the soil, their role in fostering American economy. In his view, the word has a certain “basic-ness” to it that, one infers, would transcend its misappropriation and its derogatory connotations. Both pieces were originally written for four pianos (a very unusual combination) but they accommodate a variety of instrumental combinations. Essential to these pieces is the continuous transformation of their primary motifs, which are treated through a succession of tonal incarnations, textures, and figurations, often informed by aleatoric procedures. The pieces project an almost rhapsodic freedom, and belong to what Eastman himself called “organic music”, a type of work that, as the name implies, generates its own rules as it develops through conflict and resolution, jarring juxtapositions, climaxes, and dissolution of the musical material.
Of all the pieces in the program, Joel Thompson’s Seven Last Words of the Unarmed (2015) is the one that can most directly be linked to W.E.B. DuBois’s notion of “double consciousness” in relation to the African American musical tradition. The work emulates a liturgical format of Western classical music, as embodied in Joseph Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ (1796), yet it addresses directly a tragic reality of contemporary Black culture. Each of its seven movements is based on the last words of an unarmed Black man before he was killed by the police. Thompson himself has stated that, in using the liturgical model embedded in Haydn’s work, he intended to humanize these Black men and rescue them from the scourge of brutality through the cathartic power of music. Despite its overtly political content, the work conveys a message of empathy, of dignity, of shared humanity.
The African American spiritual, as a genre, bridges two cultures and two experiences of the human condition. Taking as its point of departure the culture of sub-Saharan Africa, it addresses the condition of being in bondage as an enslaved people. It is an inherently religious genre, and hence it is infused by the prospect of grace, salvation, and liberation. As it evolved during the 19th century, it became the genuine voice of a people, and the first distinctly American musical idiom. Stylistically, spirituals range from plaintive songs in the manner of a lament, to rousing pieces that infectiously celebrate the possibility of freedom and liberation. It is important to point out that the spiritual was created by and for African Americans, and in this sense it is completely alien to DuBois’s notion of “double consciousness”. As a marker of identity, the spiritual is unambiguous. In a later stage, however, some African American classical composers drew on the spiritual for inspiration and as a component of their work. The highly successful composer and singer Harry Burleigh, for instance, brought elements of Western classical music to the spiritual, and, in so doing, brought the genre to the concert stage. In the core, however, the spiritual remains one of the most culturally emblematic musical genres in the history of the United States. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the spiritual was popularized through the activities of several choirs and individual singers. It also proved to be a genre of unending fertility, influencing other African American genres such as the blues. The repertoire of spirituals, which rely strongly on a technique of call and response, include distinct song types such as sorrow songs, jubilee songs, freedom songs, and work songs, all of which are directly related to the African American experience of a people in bondage.
Closer to our time, the development of rap music and hip hop culture marked another instance of a musical genre that became a distinct cultural emblem. Contrary to the spiritual, which was born in the field and in connection with the plantation, rap music is an essentially urban phenomenon. It belongs to a set of cultural identifiers that go well beyond music itself and incorporate clothing, visual arts, language, and behaviors. Its vitality and influence is so vast and encompassing that there is hardly any corner of the world that has not emulated some of its features. Lauryn Hill’s Tell Him comes from her groundbreaking and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, released in 1998. The album’s sources of inspiration (the autobiographical novel The Education of Sonny Carson and Carter Woodson’s The Mis- Education of the Negro) were refashioned into a musical language of great originality. It did not take long for the album to climb the billboard charts, culminating with its inclusion in the Rolling Stones magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Times.
Surveying the repertoire presented in this program, one cannot help but imagine that the rich and diverse traditions of African American music represent a form of oratory that is worthy to stand next to Frederick Douglass’s supreme narratives, as a way of reaching the ears of the nation.
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 (Anna) is an actor/singer/poet from New York, 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. 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
Ken Green (playwright) is a Chicagoan currently residing in Boston. His plays include 2020’s “The Charles Lenox Experience," a historical “moving play” produced by New Repertory Theater in Watertown, Mass., “In The Back/On The Floor," slated for production by Stage Left Theater in Chicago in April 2023, and several 10-minute plays that have been part of the Boston Theater Marathon and Houston’s Fade To Black play festival (among others) including “The Campaign,” “Your Favorite,” “The Annoying of Europa,” and “…And Then There’s Aaron Burr.” Ken is a former news and sports reporter and editor, a bad slam poet and an even worse standup comedian. He was co-host/co-producer of Story Club Boston, a storytelling/reading series, and was featured on the nationally televised storytelling show, “Stories from the Stage” on PBS, as well as having been a regional Moth and Massmouth storytelling finalist.
Jimmy Greenfield (technical coordinator) is a sculptor and the owner and director of Soapbox Gallery.
Cary Hite (The Slave) is a three-time Audie Award Nominated, Earphones Award Winning narrator from NYC. Since 2007, he’s had the pleasure of working with a number of publishing houses & producers. Some notable credits include: Manchild: In the Promised Land, Four Hundred Souls, Pimp: The Story of My Life, Four Hundred Souls, Fear No Evil, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and My Grandmother's Hands.
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.
Albert Jones (Frederick Douglass)Albert will next be seen opposite Chrissy Metz in the feature Stay Awake, directed by Jamie Sisley, and Dark My Light, in which he stars opposite Keesha Sharp. Last year, Albert was seen opposite Jennifer Hudson in the MGM film, Respect, directed by Liesl Tommy, in which he portrayed Aretha Franklin's second husband, Ken Cunningham. Albert is perhaps best known for his acclaimed performance as 'Jim Barney' on season 2 of David Fincher’s Mindhunter for Netflix. He has previously been seen in such films as Salt, Cadillac Records, American Gangster, The Bourne Ultimatum, She's Funny That Way, And So it Goes, and more. TV includes roles on Bull (CBS), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon), The Blacklist (NBC), The Affair (Showtime), Quarry (Cinemax), The Night Of (HBO), to name just a few. Also a prolific stage actor, Albert has been seen on Broadway in Henry IV (Lincoln Center Theater), and Off-Broadway in Macbeth (TFANA), Oroonoko (TFANA, Audelco Nom.), Pericles (TFANA at BAM), Iphigeneia at Aulis, Richard III (Pearl Theater). Jones received his MFA from the American Conservatory Theater.
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REEL: https://reels.apa-agency.com/?id=05c4e1ww60
Stephanie Klapper (Casting Director)’s award-winning work is frequently seen on Broadway, off-Broadway, regionally, on concert stages, film, television, and streaming media. Casting for ERC’s Jules Verne; From the Earth to the Air, both stage and audio productions; Anna Akhmatova…; and The Dreyfus Affair for the stage. Recent credits include: The Rat Trap; The Daughter in Law; Chains (for Mint Theater); The Lucky Star; Goldie, Max, and Milk; The New Golden Age (all three for the Volt Festival at 59E59); Grace, the musical (Ford’s Theatre) Elf Quest, the audio movie; Ranked, the musical/HBO Documentary; Candide (Cincinnati Symphony / Philadelphia Orchestra). Stephanie, along with her exceptional team, is dedicated to continuing to expand and champion diversity, equity, and inclusion in the business and is passionate about arts education. Teaches for NYU’s New Studio on Broadway and USC’s dept of Theatre/Musical Theatre; participant NYU Tisch Women’s Mentorship Program and Fordham HS for the Arts. Member of the National Board of Governors for Casting Society and Board Member for Casting Society Cares. Co-host of the podcast Someone’s Thunder. For Bob and Florence. Stephanie Klapper Casting: Stephanie Klapper, CSA– Casting Director
Deena Danishefsky and Hershey Vazquez Millner – Casting Assistants
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.
Sarah Mollo-Christiansen (Julia) an Audie-nominated, Earphones-Award-winning narrator with over 450 books under her belt, Sarah works with both major publishers and best-selling independent authors. Before landing in the audiobook world, Sarah was mainly a stage actor, appearing on prestigious regional stages like the Folger Theatre and the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington D.C., and she brings that passion and training to her narration. When she isn't in the recording booth, she does her best to fill her life with animals and the outdoors.
Adam Podd (pianist) is a Vermont-bred, Brooklyn-based music director, pianist, organist, bassist, composer and arranger. He has worked with some of the top artists and organizations in his field including National Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, New York Pops, Houston Symphony, Ingrid Michaelson, Zedd, Cynthia Erivo, Idina Menzel, Heather Headley, Macy's Entertainment, the Young People's Chorus of New York City, and others in such venues as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Apollo Theater, United Palace, New World Stages, and others. As a pianist, Adam specializes in blues, jazz, and gospel. He plays regularly with his twin brother Matt, and their jazz and blues band Mimi and the Podd Brothers (mimijazz.com). Adam is currently Music Director and choral conductor at First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, NY. He studied classical and jazz piano, organ, orchestration, conducting, and music production at The Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT.
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. Learn more at www.caityquinn.com.
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.
David Shinn (Audio Mixer / Music Engineer) is co-owner of SueMedia Productions. He records, mixes, and masters a variety of audio projects for all media including Audiobooks, Podcasts, reality television series, film, VR, AR, and 360 film, as well as builds and installs audio studios and recording booths. David is also known as a foley (SFX) artist for live and studio productions. His work has been recognized by the Emmy, the Audies (9 nominations, 2 wins), The Communicator Awards, Earphone Awards, The International Radio Festival, and numerous other awards. During the pandemic, David, was able to continue producing new works for SueMedia Productions. This allowed him to create productions with as few as one and over 20 cast members.
Renee Silverman (ERC script consultant, archival producer, ERC 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 Skateson 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.
Nick Sullivan (William Lloyd Garrison/ Radio Announcer) has worked extensively on Broadway including the original casts of Newsies and Footloose, and has worked at theaters across the US. He has appeared in many films and television shows, including Orange is the New Black, Boardwalk Empire, The Good Wife, The Affair, Divorce, 30 Rock, Elementary, Fosse/Verdon, and all three Law & Order series. A winner of numerous Earphones and Audie Awards, Nick has been recording audiobooks since the days of cassette tapes, narrating over five hundred titles in nearly every genre. He was recently the subject of an article in The Guardian for his narration of William Gaddis’s seminal work, JR. Nick has written six novels and co-written three more, including Deep Shadow, Zombie Bigfoot, and Graceless. www.nicksullivan.net
Eve Wolf (Music Designer; Founder and Executive Director of ERC; pianist; playwright) 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. For more information on Eve’s work as a piano instructor please visit Eve's website here:
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.
UPCOMING live READING in December!
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Beethoven vs. Beethoven
Script and Music Design by Eve Wolf
Directed by Donald T. Sanders
Featuring pianist Albert Cano Smit
"The audience witnessed a genius at work"
- SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE
The second reading in our series is our new work Beethoven vs. Beethoven! Beethoven’s over-the-top legal battle with his sister-in-law for custody of his dead brother’s young son, Karl, leads to dramatic consequences for the increasingly deaf composer. This new drama is set amid the splendors of some of Beethoven’s most profound late works.