Coffeehouse Chronicles #171: Anne Bogart & SITI Company

Moderator: Richard Schechner
Panel: Anne Bogart, Ellen Lauren, Barney O’Hanlon, Darron L.West, Gabriel Berry, James Scheutte, Kevin Kuhlke, Brian Scott, GM Gianino, Kelly Maurer, Akiko Aizawa, Ellen Mezzera, Chuck Mee, Mia Yoo
Performances by SITI Company
Curated by Michal Gamily and Kima Ima

Kevin Kuhlke is an Arts Professor and former Chair at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts' Department of Drama, specializing in acting, directing, improvisation, and physical theatre. He acted with, among others, Anne Bogart, Robert Wilson, Mabou Mines, and The Builders Association, Directing and acting work includes over fifty productions in various venues including The Atlantic Theater Company, Seattle Rep, The Public Theater, Lincoln Center, La Mama, PS 122, Franklin Furnace, The Huntington Theater Company, Theater for a New Audience, Boston Center for the Arts, The Atlas Center for Performance and New Media, Danspace, The Reykjavik City Theater (Iceland), New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art (LAICA), American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) Institute, Moscow Arts Theater Institute, and International Theater Festivals in Warsaw, London Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and Baltimore (TNT). His play Winesberg; Small Town Life was produced at the Perseverance Theater. His play My Eyes, Your Eyes and his adaptation of Salome both with original music by Cynthia Hopkins were produced at Tisch. His Huntington Theater production of O,Pioneers! was televised nationally by American Playhouse P.B.S. He has taught master classes in acting and directing in Greenland, Cuba, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, England, and in several American graduate training programs including CalArts, Naropa, and A.R.T. He trained with, among others, Jerzy Grotowski, William Esper and Mary Overlie. He is affiliated faculty with NYU Abu Dhabi and the Icelandic National Theater Conservatory. He is a former director of the Tisch Experimental Theater Wing, the founder and director of the Tisch International Theater Workshop (ITW) Actor Training program in Amsterdam, The Tisch Actor Training Program in Berlin and the International Theater Workshop in Iceland.

A SITI founding partner, co-artistic director and member of the acting ensemble for three decades, Ellen Lauren was also responsible for helping design, teach and administrate  SITI’s national and international training programs and residencies. She also designed SITI’s 9-month Conservatory program held in New York City. She is an ongoing member of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) under the direction of Tadashi Suzuki since 1990. Ms Lauren is on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Drama for the last 23 years. She was the first recipient of the TCG Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement and in2018 Scott Cummings released a chapter in his book, Actors’ Actors published by Palgrave MacMillan about Ms. Lauren’s career and practice.

Chuck Mee has written Big Love and True Love and First Love, bobrauschenbergamerica and Hotel Cassiopeia, Orestes 2.0 and Trojan Women A Love Story, and Summertime and Wintertime among other plays--all of them available on the internet at www.charlesmee.org. His plays have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, American Repertory Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, the Public Theatre, Lincoln Center, the Humana Festival, Steppenwolf, and other places in the United States as well as in Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Vienna, Istanbul and elsewhere. He was honored with a full season of his plays at the Signature Theatre. Among other awards, he is the recipient of the Award of Merit in drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and of the Richard B. Fisher Award. He is also the author of a number of books of history, and the former Editor-in-Chief of Horizon magazine, a magazine of history, art, literature, and the fine arts. His work is made possible by the support of Jeanne Donovan Fisher and Richard B. Fisher.

Barney O’Hanlon most recently appeared in FALLING & LOVING, SITI Company’s collaboration with Elizabeth Streb’s Extreme Action Company, choreographed by Elizabeth Streb, directed by Anne Bogart. Previously he appeared in SITI Company’s production of The Bacchae at the Guthrie. Also with SITI Company at BAM’s Next Wave: War of the Worlds, bobrauschenbergamerica, Hotel Cassiopeia, Trojan Women, A Rite (with Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company), and Steel Hammer with the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Featured in Ann Hamilton’s Event of the Thread at the Park Avenue Armory. Also at BAM: choreography and performance for Charles L. Mee’s The Glory of The World, directed by Les Waters. Barney choreographed the world premiere of Anne Washburn and Dave Malloy’s musical Little Bunny Foo Foo, directed by Les Waters at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Anne Washburn’s 10 out of 12 at Soho Rep, directed by Les Waters; and Sarah Ruhl’s The Oldest Boy, directed by Rebecca Taichman at Lincoln Center Theater.

Darron L. West (Sound Designer) spent the first thirty years of his career as a SITI company member designing the productions of Anne Bogart’s SITI company. He is Co-Director of SITI Company’s War of The Worlds-The Radio Play, Radio Macbeth and A Christmas Carol(also adaptation). He is a TONY and OBIE award-winning sound designer whose career spans theater and dance, Broadway and Off Broadway. His work has been heard in over 700 productions all over the United States and internationally in 15 countries. Additional honors include the Drama Desk, Lortel, Audelco and Princess Grace Foundation Statue Award, among many others.