April 28th, 2017 Salon Radio Live Theatre presents...
Pioneers Go East Collective world premiere of
American Mill No. 2, a selection for the 2017 Estrogenius Festival
International Women Artists' Salon series Salon Radio debuts a new series of Live (or recorded as-live) Theatre on Radio from March 17 through April 28th on City World Radio Network. Tonight we partner with Estrogenius Festival to bring you this poignant new music-theatre and documentary work about the textile workers’ protest movement, riots and police brutality in the South in the early 20th Century created by Pioneers Go East Collective; Written and Directed by Gian Marco Lo Forte / Original Music composed by Kamala Sankaram / Choreography by Maura Nguyen Donohue.
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Logo: Maggie Cousins
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This show brought to you in partnership with Estrogenius Festival
EstroGenius is the longest running women’s work festival in NYC. The festival was founded in 2000 by Fiona Jones at Manhattan Theatre Source to celebrate women’s voices, roles that matter and work made by and for women. Men (who celebrate women) are always welcome.
www.estrogenius.org
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Pioneers Go East Collective
proudly presents the world premiere ofAmerican Mill No. 2
Written and Directed by Gian Marco Lo Forte / Original Music composed by Kamala
Sankaram / Choreography by Maura Nguyen Donohue.
American Mill No. 2 is Pioneers Go East Collective new music-theatre and documentary work about the textile workers’ protest movement, riots and police brutality in the South in the early
20th Century.
10 Performances Only! March 30th through April 9th
A.R.T./NY Theatres (502 West 53rd Street at 10th Avenue)
Pioneers Go East Collective will present the World Premiere of American Mill No. 2, a new music-theatre and documentary work written and devised by Pioneers Go East Collective. The work is written and directed by Gian Marco Lo Forte, with music by Kamala Sankaram, and choreography by Maura Nguyen Donohue. The production, which is devised, performed and written by the Pioneers Go East Collective will begin on March 30, 2017, and run through April 9, 2017 at A.R.T./NY Theatres (502 West 53rd Street at 10th Avenue) as a limited engagement.
American Mill No. 2 is an original docudrama with new music by Kamala Sankaram based on existing ballads and protest songs about Ella May Wiggins – a textile mill worker, union organizer and folk singer who found herself at the forefront of the protest movement during the strike at the Loray mill in Gastonia, NC in 1929. American Mill No. 2 features a multi-talented cast of actors and musicians, with Kamala Sankaram (Composer, Ella May Wiggings, Accordion), Catrin Lloyd-Bollard (Guitar/ mill worker), Brittane Rowe (Eula), Anthony Napoletano (mill worker), and Jason Stanley (Mandolin/ mill owner/ mob).
Writer/ director, Gian Marco Lo Forte indicates, “The collective has been deeply affected by the current social-political environment, and the protest movement that’s now surfacing, including the women’s march. The collective for this new work includes feminist artists and queer artists who have worked creatively together over the last year and a half to examine facts from the 1920’s workers movement – with special attention to women’s role during the strike as agent of peace and reason. Women used to strike by singing beautiful songs, and galvanize the crowds with their words of wisdom. By centering American Mill No. 2 on the life,
speeches, and beautiful ballads composed by Ella May Wiggins – we hope to share and engage with our community as we reflect and connect past and present activism and shared values.”
American Mill No. 2 explores the junction of culture, music and social conditions of factory workers in the South, which includes both a live video component inspired by historical photography to re-create the experience of the mill workers and their families, and a live performance with folk music (protest songs), and primary source material including news articles clips, speeches during the protest movement and interviews inspired by original audio
recordings about factory workers and their lives working in the textile industry. American Mill No. 2 features lighting design by Marie Yokoyama, costume design by Becky Hubbert, an
video design by Hao Bai.
American Mill No. 2 will perform as follows:
Thursday March 30 – 7:30 pm Wednesday April 5 – 7:30 pm
Friday March 31 – 7:30 pm
(Opening reception)
Thursday April 6 – 7:30 pm
Saturday April 1 – 7:30 pm (talkback) Friday April 7 – 7:30 pm
Sunday April 2 – 2:30 pm Saturday April 8 – 7:30 pm
(talkback and closing party)
Tuesday April 4 – 7:30 pm Sunday April 9 – 2:30 pm
For tickets and information please visit: http://www.pioneersgoeast.org/
or call 212-352-3101.
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Kamala Sankaram (original music/ musician and storyteller/ Ella May Wiggins) KAMALA SANKARAM has been praised as “strikingly original” (NY Times) and “an impassioned soprano with blazing high notes” (The Wall Street Journal.) She has performed and premiered pieces with Beth Morrison Projects, the Philip Glass Ensemble, and the Wooster Group, among others, and is the leader of Bombay Rickey, an operatic Bollywood surf ensemble whose debut was named Best Eclectic Album by the Independent Music Awards Vox Pop. Also a composer, commissions include Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, HERE Arts Center, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Awards, grants and residencies include: Kevin Spacey Artist of Choice, Jonathan Larson Award, NEA ArtWorks, MAP Fund, Opera America, NY IT Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical, the Civilians, HERE, the MacDowell Colony, and the Watermill Center. Kamala's opera THUMBPRINT will receive its West Coast premiere at LA Opera this June. In addition to her musical pursuits, Kamala holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology and can be heard as a voice
on the Cartoon Network show Superjail. www.kamalasankaram.com
Brittane Rowe (musician and storyteller/ Eula) is a musician originally from Grand Rapids. She is a resident artist with Pioneers Go East Collective and has been living in NYC for the past six years working in original music theatre and as a background singer for indie bands. She primarily works at The Flea Theatre where she is a member of the Acting Company “The Bats”. You can find her performing in “Gemini Stars” at The Exponential Festival and La MaMa, Sound Departures Music Series at La MaMa and at A.R.T./ New York in “American Mill No. 2” with Pioneers Go East Collective
this year.
Anthony Napoletano (musician and storyteller/ mill worker) is a songwriter in residence with Pioneers Go East Collective since 2014. He has been seen as Baby John on the International Tour and London's West End productions of "West Side Story,"Disney's "The Doodlebops," "Peter Pan" at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2008 and 2010, "Puppet Playlist: Beyonce" with Sinking Ship Productions, "American Mill" and "Gemini Stars" with Pioneers Go East Collective, and "LARP Me Gently" with The Society of Misfit Puppets. He co-created and choreographed "We Put the Spring in Springfield: the Music of the Simpsons" and performed on the official Simpson's panel alongside Matt Groening at San Diego Comic-Con in 2013. He has performed his original music at The Bowery Poetry Club, The Sidewalk Cafe, "Sound Departures" at The Club at LaMaMa, and The Duplex. He holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from the Boston Conservatory.
Catrin Lloyd-Bollard (musician and storyteller/ mill worker) is a songwriter, performer and storyteller. She most recently acted onstage with Brooklyn-based experimental theater companies Title:Point (CHROMA KEY, BITER [EVERY TIME I TURN AROUND], NEVER ODD OR EVEN) and Object Collection (IT'S ALL TRUE premiere in Bergen, Norway). She hosts and co-curates Title:Point's monthly SalON! series (now running 2.5 years consecutively). She regularly performs her solo music project CATFOX, most recently at La MaMa as part of the Sound Departures music series. In 2015 she released her debut album, ZOÖMAGNESIS. Catrin appears as ʻMinnie” in Inappropriate Production's forthcoming feature horror film THE MOOSEHEAD OVER THE MANTEL, and performs the voice of "Olympia" on Cartoon Network's POKÉMON XYZ. catrinlloyd-bollard.com |thecatfox.com
Jason Stanley (musician and storyteller/ mill owner/ mob) is a performer and multi-instrumentalist based in Missouri. Last seen on stage in Six Partʼs production of The Skin, Godlightʼs productions of Cool Hand Luke as Boss Keane and Deliverance as Tall Man. Film credits include: Night and a Switchblade as Chas Bergeron The Fungus Adventures as Gus, and Losses and Gains as Craig.
Maura Nguyen Donohue (Choreographer) has been making experimental performance works in NYC for over 20 years. Her work has been produced by Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Roulette, Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, La MaMa, The Asia Society, Mulberry St. Theater, the West End Theater, and has toured across the US and to Europe and Asia. She is Associate Prof of Dance at Hunter College/CUNY and faculty fellow for the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Maura has collaborated with Pioneers Go East Collective since 2012. As a member of La Mama's Great Jones Rep since 1997, shehas toured the US, Europe and Asia in "Fragments of a Greek Trilogy," "Angels of Swedenborg," and "Pylade." From '99-04, as artistic advisor for DTW’s Mekong Project, she facilitated residencies in the US and SE Asia. Her essay "Ambivalent Selves: The Asian Female Body in American Concert Dance" was published in "Contemporary Directions in Asian American Dance" (U.Wisc Press) and she writes for Culturebot. She previously served on the boards of Dance Theater Workshop (now NYLA) and Congress on Research in Dance, and
currently serves on the board of Movement Research and the New York Dance and Performance (Bessies) Awards Committee. She continues to collaborate with Perry Yung on the ongoing durational performance of parenting 2 (slightly) smaller humans.
Marie Yokoyama (Lighting design) is a set and lighting designer based in NYC. She designed for Damon Chua's Film Chinois at Pan Asian Rep. Other credit's include: Redhouse: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Spelling Bee, A Man of No Importance, Gross Indecency, Oliver and 13, Public: Apple Family Series European Tour, Pacific Beats: TALA, Pan Asian Rep: Three Trees, Monk Parrots: Bum Phillips -All American Opera-. Regional: Yale Rep:
Compulsion, Curtis: Faust, Opera Theater Pittsburgh: Fantasticks, Merry Widow, and Ariadne auf Naxos.
Becky Hubbert (Costume design) is delighted to work with Pioneers Go East Collective. She is a costume designer and stylist working in theatre, commercials, and film. Favorite credits include; "Undefined Fractions" with Loco 7, "Ravaged by Romance" with The Francis Ethel Gumm Memorial Players, "The Jackie Look" with Karen Finley, "Eddie Adams, Saigon ’68," directed by Douglas Sloan, and Floydd for Wigstock 2015.
Hao Bai (Video design and Sound engineer) is a queer artist based in Brooklyn who works as a director, technician, and theatre maker. Hao is artist in residence with Pioneers Go East Collective since 2014. Selected credits as video designer and/or sound engineer: The Golden Toad and Burnished by Grief (by The Talking Band); pa to Prophetika: An Oratorio (dir. Charlotte Brathwaite); sound mixing for Bird In The House (by Dane Terry); set & lighting
designer for The Workroom (One Art Space); sound designer for Paisieu (Target Margin); video designer for American Mill #2 (La MaMa); LD for "Medusa" and "Oddity" (TNC).
MISSION - Pioneers Go East CollectivePioneers Go East Collective is a community of writers, musicians and designers who create performance that merge storytelling, music and video documentary of real events. Inspired by Walt Whitman’s powerfully evocative poem “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” that pays homage to fearless courage, we are a collective of ‘pioneers’ set out to find a brighter future and record memories of collective and individual vulnerability and resilience. Pioneers Go East Collective develops and promotes docudrama works inspired by true stories that focus on issues of social awareness and justice. In residence at La MaMa since 2010, the collective explores stories that are not usually investigated and which reflect social-political
vulnerabilities and otherness as a way towards provoking thought, casting impressionistic shadows. As ‘pioneers’ on a long journey, the collective finds and records memories of collective and individual courage to challenge audiences in emotionally charged yet accessible performances.
Gian Marco Lo Forte, Daniel Diaz, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Abby Felder, Julia Dobner-Pereira, Kamala Sankaram, Brittane Rowe and John Sully lead the collective in collaboration with a community of like-minded writers, performers, musicians, and visual artists. The
collective has been widely presented in NYC at La MaMa, Triskelion Arts/ The Exponential Festival, St Ann’s Warehouse, Governors Island, The Silent Barn, Astor Alive Festival,
Incubator Arts Project, Dixon Place, Performance Mix/ HERE, Chashama Harlem Gallery, Goethe Institut Gallery.www.pioneersgoeast.org
HISTORY - Pioneers Go East CollectiveAccording to Backstage, PGEC “...knocks down the walls between expressive genres and amalgamates music, video, and acting into an adrenalizing, dramatic experience.” Past Pioneers Go East Collective works include the Time Out New York Critics’ Pick HILDEGARD (VISION) about spiritual leader Hildegard Von Bingen’s same-sex relationship with another nun and her ability to transcend gender confines through her creative process (St Ann’s
Warehouse; Governors Island/LMCC, 2013-14; La MaMa 2015); GEMINI STARS (work in progress presented at The Silent Barn in Bushwick and Triskelion Arts in January 2017 as part
of The Exponential Festival); AMERICAN MILL No. 2 based on stories of women working in the Southern textile belt (A.R.T/New York ‘17); MJ WAS INNOCENT, the true story of Queer
artist Michael Burke, exploring his journey from being a high school dropout prostitute to a performance artist (HOT Festival/ Dixon Place 2014/15; Performance Mix/ HERE ‘15); MARIA
CELESTE (GALILEO) based on the epistolary correspondence between Maria Celeste and her father, scientist Galileo during his years in prison (Incubator Arts Project ‘14);7AM based
on St Francis’ poems about poverty and charity (Incubator Arts Project ‘13); S16 based on Pirandello’s story about boys and young men working in sulfur mines and reflecting on samesex
relationships and coming of age in a harsh and unforgiving environment (La MaMa ‘12); The Birds and The Wolf live video installation reflecting on a woman’s daydreaming after being
abused by her partner (Chashama/Harlem Gallery, and Goethe Institut ’11-‘12). PGEC awards: Puffin Foundation 2013 and 2015; LMCC (2011-2015); Nancy Quinn Fund (2015); Opera America Award 2010.www.pioneersgoeast.org
The A.R.T./New York Theatres are a project of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York), which provide state-of-the-art, accessible venues at subsidized rental
rates, plus free access to top-line technical equipment, so that the city’s small and emerging theatre companies can continue to experiment, grow, and produce new works. Founded in
1972, A.R.T./New York is the leading service and advocacy organization for New York City’s 375+ nonprofit theatres, with a mission to assist member theatres in managing their
companies effectively so that they may realize their rich artistic visions and serve their diverse audiences well. We accomplish this through a comprehensive roster of real estate, financial,
educational, and community-building programs, as well as research, advocacy, and field-wide initiatives that seek to improve the long-term health and sustainability of the industry. Over the
years, A.R.T./New York has received numerous honors, including an Obie Award, an Innovative Theatre Award, a New York City Mayor’s Award for Arts & Culture, and a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre. For more information, please visit www.art-newyork.org.
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