Dreaming the Americas, Staging New Theatres/Challenging Hierarchies at the NoPassport Theatre Conference

Initiated and curated by Caridad Svich (playwright, founder, NoPassport)
Co-curated by Kristin Horton (director and faculty member, NYU Gallatin) and Sharon Friedman (faculty member, NYU Gallatin).

Staging New Theatres/Challenging Hierarchies

• Features a keynote address from: Todd London, the Artistic Director of New Dramatists,
• Opening remarks from John Eisner, the Producing Artistic Director the Lark Play Development Center.

Also featured in the conference line-up are:

• Ken Prestininzi, Artistic Director of Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep
• Lisa Phillips and Dana Whitco, Co-Directors of PositiveFeedback, an initiative of The Earth Institute, Columbia University; the Center for Creative Research at NYU; and the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities.
• a dance performance by Signdance Collective International from the UK;
• and a panel moderated by scholar-playwright Saviana Stanescu

9 a.m. CST/ 10 a.m. EST / 15:00 GMT
Opening Remarks: John Eisner (Producing Artistic Director, Lark Play Development Center)

9:30 a.m. CST / 10:30 a.m. EST / 15:30 GMT
Art, Agency, Gift and Capitalism: a curated panel on new writing and production moderated by Ken Prestininzi (Artistic Director, Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep and playwright), with Polly Carl (Editor, HowlRound), Jorge Ignacio Cortinas (theatre artist/Fulcrum Theater), Migdalia Cruz (playwright), Mia Rovegno (director) and Patricia Ybarra (Brown University).

9:15 a.m. PST / 11:15 a.m. CST / 12:15 p.m. EST / 17:15 GMT
Keynote Address: Todd London (Artistic Director, New Dramatists)

11:30 a.m. PST / 1:30 p.m. CST / 2:30 p.m. EST / 19:30 GMT
Better Than Barter: Artists and Scientists Re-define Collaboration, Mentorship and Community: A panel exploring artist/scientist collaboration on issues related to climate change, the challenges and rewards of the collaborative process and what lessons we might learn to foster future interdisciplinary connections. Co-curated and co-moderated by Lisa Phillips (Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, Earth Institute, Columbia University) and Dana Whitco (Institute for Performing Arts, NYU), Co-Directors, PositiveFeedback – an initiative of The Earth Institute, Columbia University; the Center for Creative Research at NYU and the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities.

Panelists: Steve Cosson, (director, playwright, Founding Artistic Director, The Civilians, visiting professor, Princeton Environmental Institute); Erin Sherman (energy efficiency specialist, Opower), Seth Baum, PhD, (research scientist, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, Co-Founder, Osmocene Productions); Inés García (director, actor, Co-Founder, Osmocene Productions); Nicole Davi, PhD, (research scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University); Jeremy Pickard (director, playwright, Captain, Superhero Clubhouse).

1 p.m. PST / 3 p.m. CST / 4 p.m. EST / 21:00 GMT
New Writing and Challenging Hierarchies: a panel curated by Otis Ramsey-Zoe (Howard University; series editor, NoPassport) with Tony Adams (Artistic Director, Halcyon Theatre, Chicago), Ed Cardona Jr., (playwright), EM Lewis (playwright), Oliver Mayer (USC), Matt Paul Olmos (playwright), Hank Willenbrink and Yamile Silva (co-editors of Palabras: Dispatches from the Festival de la Palabra, forthcoming from NoPassport Press; University of Scranton) and more.

3:30 p.m. PST / 5:30 p.m. CST / 6:30 p.m. EST / 23:30 GMT
DREAM ACTS, CAPITAL ACTS: a discussion about DREAM Act, undocumented immigrants, and the role of theatre in fostering social change. Panelists: Jessica Litwak, Carlo Alban, Martin Denton (nytheatre.com, Indie Theater Now), Micha Espinosa (Arizona State University). Moderated by Saviana Stanescu (Ithaca College/NYU, Immigrant Artists and Scholars in NY).

An excerpt from the play DREAM ACTS (a project conceived by Chiori Miyagawa, co-written by Mia Chung, Jessica Litwak, Chiori Miyagawa, Saviana Stanescu, and Andrea Thome) will be performed by Ithaca College and NYU students.

5 p.m. PST / 7 p.m. CST / 8 p.m. EST / 01:00 GMT (Sat., March 2)
The Other Side of the Coin: performance by Signdance Collective International, UK.
The Other Side of the Coin explores Federico Lorca’s final poems, “Ferias and acts of creative and political resistance against fascist structures and oppression.” Signdance Collective International is led by Isolte Avila and David Bower, principal figures in disability arts practice, who developed the art form signdance theater in 1987.

Signdance Collective International (SDC) was established in 2001 as a platform to further the art form through international collaborative projects. SDC is the company in residence at Bucks New University’s Theatre Department, where it empowers aspiring performers through workshops that focus on diversity as well as the technical and expressive capability of the performers.

NoPassport is an unincorporated alliance and a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas. NoPassport is devoted to the advocacy, publication and production of cross-cultural work that celebrates aesthetic difference and diversity. Donations for NoPassport’s work may go directly here.

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