WATER MILL, N.Y. AND NORTH ADAMS, MASS: The Sundance Institute has announced the participating artists and projects in its two fall programs: the inaugural Playwrights Studio and the Theatre Lab.
The new Playwrights Studio (Oct. 19–26) offers Theatre Program alumni a one-week session to work on their projects in a studio setting. The artists selected for the fall session in Water Mill, N.Y. are playwrights David Cale, Dan LeFranc, Christopher Shinn, José Rivera and Cori Thomas.
The Theatre Lab (Nov. 30–Dec. 14) is for musical theatre, ensemble-generated projects and solo work. The artists and projects who will participate at the two-week lab at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) are Throw Me On the Burnpile and Light Me Up, written and performed by Lucy Alibar; A Memory of Fire: Hatuey, written by Elise Thoron with music by Frank London; and The Fever from the 600 Highwaymen ensemble.
A brief summary of each Theatre Lab projects are below:
Alibar’s Throw Me On the Burnpile and Light Me Up is about a man, his family, his animals and, well, his burn pile.
Thoron and London’s A Memory of Fire: Hatuey is based on Asher Penn’s 1931 epic Yiddish poem Hatuey, about the Taino chief of the same name who led an uprising against Spanish conquistadors.
And 600 Highwaymen’s The Fever will bring together New Yorkers and Norm Adams, Mass. residents to reinterpret Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
Said Sundance Insititute artistic director Philip Himberg in a statement: “These fall labs provide unique and inspiring locations for these new and established artists to develop and explore their stories. MASS MoCA allows the creators of these innovative musical theatre and ensemble-generated projects the time and space for collaboration and rehearsal, while the Playwrights Studio offers a home to our alumni who continue to grow and experiment and can take advantage of the retreat setting to focus solely on their work.”
The Sundance Institute, founded by Robert Redford in 1981, provides artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights. Sundance normally offers five annual labs and residencies for theatre artists, from among 24 artist residencies for artists across all disciplines.
