Producing

UMS Research Residencies

From 2017-2019, I produced UMS’s Research Residency program, which provides an opportunity for artists to develop a new performance work by drawing upon the human and archival resources at the University of Michigan and in southeastern Michigan. At the same time, the artists open their practice to students and community members through class visits, public talks, workshops, and/or work-in-progress performances.

Recipients have included:

Rapper/poet Omar Offendum, who collaborated with oud master Ronnie Malley and DJ/beatmaker Thanks Joey to create Little Syria, a theatrical concert/album that dramatizes the lives of Arab-American immigrants in New York City in the early twentieth century.
Playwright/performer Jillian Walker, who developed her play with music Tignon, inspired by the late eighteenth-century laws in New Orleans requiring women of color to cover their hair in public.
Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Julia Wolfe, who workshopped her new orchestral work Fire in my Mouth, about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, with the University Symphony. She also collaborated with the Contemporary Directions Ensemble on Tell Me Everything, an evening of conversation and performances of her chamber compositions.

Little Syria

(L-R) Thanks Joey, Ronnie Malley and Omar Offendum at their performance of Little Syria.

Little Syria in Performance

(L-R) Thanks Joey, Ronnie Malley and Omar Offendum perform Little Syria.

Omar Offendum Public Talk

Omar Offendum gives his talk “SyrianAmericana: A Nation-State of Mind” for U-M’s Arab and Muslim American Studies program.

Omar Offendum

Omar Offendum meets with fellows from the National Network of Arab American Communities at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, MI.

Tignon

(L-R) Breayre Tender, Krystle Dellihue, and Kayla Von Mundy in the work-in-progress reading of Jillian Walker’s play with music Tignon (Photo: Peter Smith).

Jillian Walker

Playwright/performer Jillian Walker leads a talkback for her work-in-progress reading of Tignon. (Photo: Peter Smith).

Jillian Walker at Girls Group

Jillian Walker leads a writing workshop with students from Girls Group, which serves young women of color in the Ann Arbor area. (Photo: Jesse Meria).

Jillian Walker at Girls Group

Jillian Walker with Girls Group students after her writing workshop. (Photo: Jesse Meria).

UMS Mainstage Presentations

While at UMS, I produced 3 to 6 presentations in each season, overseeing all aspects of the process from contracting to performance. Previous projects include:

Theatre: A concert reading of Death of a Salesman featuring Alec Baldwin and members of the University of Michigan Department of Theatre; State of Siege and Six Characters in Search of an Author by Théâtre de la Ville (Paris); Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity by Ping Chong + Company; Helen and Edgar by Edgar Oliver; and The Suit by Peter Brook’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.
Music: an evening of Bach trios performed by Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile; Winterreise performed by Joyce DiDonato and Yannick Nezet-Seguin; a complete Beethoven quartet cycle by the Takacs Quartet; Book of Travelers by Gabriel Kahane; Bach’s St. John Passion by Apollo’s Fire, and recitals by singers Ian Bostridge and Janai Brugger and the pianist Igor Levit.
Dance: Martha Graham Dance Company.

Death of a Salesman

Alec Baldwin performs with University of Michigan theatre faculty and students in a concert reading of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. (Photo: Nick Beardslee)

Winterreise

Joyce DiDonato and Yannick Nezet-Seguin perform Schubert’s Winterreise in recital at Hill Auditorium. (Photo: Peter Smith)

Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Dance Company performs Diversion of Angels. (Photo: Brigid Pierce)

Théâtre de la Ville

Théâtre de la Ville performs Camus’s State of Siege.

Gabriel Kahane

Singer/songwriter Gabriel Kahane performs Book of Travelers.

Yo Yo Ma

Yo Yo Ma performs Bach trios with bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolin player Chris Thile. (Photo: Peter Smith).

Ping Chong + Company

Ping Chong + Company performs Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity. (Photo: Peter Smith).

Lectures and Other Events

In partnership with the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series, I produced several large-scale discussions and lectures featuring some of the world’s leading creative artists.

Claudia Rankine and P. Carl: Theatre Matters: Activism, Imagination, Citizenship

This event featured Claudia Rankine, the acclaimed poet and author of Citizen, in conversation with writer/dramaturg P. Carl, the founder of the online theatre journal Howlround; it served as the opening keynote for UMS’s No Safety Net, a new series focused on theatre works engaging contemporary social issues. Rankine and Carl discussed their collaboration on Rankine’s new play The White Card as an example of art-making as citizenship.

Watch Event→

Ping Chong: All Islands Meet Underwater

Theatre maker Ping Chong, whose Undesirable Elements series has put the stories of marginalized communities on stage for over a quarter century, provided a survey of his recent theatre works, with an emphasis on his company’s distinctive process for gathering and dramatizing oral histories in partnership with the work’s subjects.

Watch Event→

Anne Carson and Juliette Binoche: Translation and Adaptation

This two-part event coincided with UMS’s presentation of Ivo van Hove’s production of Antigone, starring Juliette Binoche and featuring a new translation by Anne Carson. First, University of Michigan faculty and students presented a staged reading of Carson’s Antigonick, an alternative adaptation of Sophocles’s original. Binoche and Carson then took the stage to discuss their production of Antigone.

Tim Aitken (center) interviews Juliette Binoche and Anne Carson about their collaboration on “Antigone.”