The Symposium on the Suzuki Method of Actor Training

 

The SITI Company in Saratoga Springs, New York presented Transformation through Training: a Symposium on the Suzuki Method of Actor Training from Skidmore College livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv from Thursday 1 June to Saturday 3 June 2017.

SITI Company is an ensemble-based theater company whose three ongoing components are the creation of new work, the training of young theater artists, and a commitment to international collaboration. SITI was founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki to redefine and revitalize contemporary theater in the United States through an emphasis on international cultural exchange and collaboration. 

A link to these livestreams, along with more information about the Symposium, is available here.

About the Suzuki Company of Toga
To launch SITI's 25th anniversary season, Tadashi Suzuki and the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) will return to Saratoga Springs for the first time since the founding of SITI Company. To mark this anniversary and to celebrate SCOT’s legacy, SITI has planned the Symposium on the Suzuki Method of Actor Training.

 

Conversation #1: History
Thursday 1 June: 9:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. EDT (New York) / 8:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. CDT (Chicago) / 6:15 a.m. - 7:30 a.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 13:15 - 14:30 UTC / 2:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. BST (London) / 15:15 - 16:30 CEST (Berlin).  

Panelists Tom Hewitt, Ellen Lauren, and Sandy Robbins discuss the history of the Suzuki Company of Toga’s work and how they each first encountered the company. The panel is moderated by Norman Frisch.

 

 

Conversation #2: Training
Friday 2 June: 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. EDT (New York) / 8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. CDT (Chicago) / 6:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 13:30 - 15:00 UTC / 2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. BST (London) / 15:30 - 17:00 CEST (Berlin).

Panelists Akiko Aizawa, Will Bond, Mark Corkins, and Jeffrey Fracé discuss the impact of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training on their artistic work and career trajectories. The conversation is moderated by J.Ed Araiza.

 

 

Conversation #3: Legacy
Friday 2 June: 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. EDT  (New York) / 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 15:30 - 17:00 UTC / 4:30 p.m. - 6 p.m. BST (London) / 17:30 - 19:00 CEST (Berlin). 

Theater companies Nine Years Theatre (Singapore), The Syndicate (International), and Vueltas Bravas Producciones (International) discuss the enduring legacy of SCOT and SITI and their impact on the next generation of theater artists. The conversation is moderated by Barney O’Hanlon and Stephen Webber.

 

 

Conversation #4: Tadashi Suzuki in conversation with Anne Bogart
Saturday 3 June: 11:00 a.m. EDT (New York) / 10:00 a.m. CDT (Chicago) / 8:00 a.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 15:00 UTC / 4:00 p.m. BST (London) / 17:00 CEST (Berlin)

Tadashi Suzuki is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) based in Toga Village, located in the mountains of Toyama prefecture. He is the organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival), and the creator of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training.

Anne Bogart is one of the three Co-Artistic Directors of SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She is a Professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program.

SITI Company is committed to providing a gymnasium-for-the-soul where the interaction of art, artists, audiences and ideas inspire the possibility for change, optimism and hope.  SITI Company was built on the bedrock of ensemble. We believe that through the practice of collaboration, a group of artists working together over time can have a significant impact upon both contemporary theater and the world at large. 

Through our performances, educational programs and collaborations with other artists and thinkers, SITI Company will continue to challenge the status quo, to train to achieve artistic excellence in every aspect of our work, and to offer new ways of seeing and of being as both artists and as global citizens.

About the Suzuki Company of Toga
To launch SITI's 25th anniversary season, Tadashi Suzuki and the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) will return to Saratoga Springs for the first time since the founding of SITI Company. To mark this anniversary and to celebrate SCOT’s legacy, SITI has planned the Symposium on the Suzuki Method of Actor Training.

Bios:

Thursday 1 June:  Conversation #1: History:
Panelists Tom Hewitt, Ellen Lauren, and Sandy Robbins discuss the history of SCOT’s work and how they each first encountered the company. The panel is moderated by Norman Frisch.

Ellen Lauren is a SITI Company founding member and co-artistic director; 25 years. Productions include: Chess Match #5, Room, Persians, bobrauschenbergamerica, Trojan Women (After Euripides), the theater is a blank page (with Ann Hamilton), Seven Deadly Sins (at NYCity Opera), Radio Macbeth, Death and the Ploughman, American Document (with Martha Graham Dance Co.),  A Rite (with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company). Head of SITI Training programs including SITI Conservatory.  Associate artist with the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) under the direction of Tadashi Suzuki; 35 years. Productions include: Electra, Dionysus, King Lear, Oedipus, Waiting for Romeo.  2003-2008 conducted Toga International Summer Training Program, Japan. Founding member, international consortium on Suzuki Training for Actors. Teaching residencies at over 250 theaters and schools around the world including; TEAC Finland, RSC, Moscow Art Theatre, Le Coq Paris, Banff Centre, Sfumato Theatre Bulgaria, Iceland Academy, Casa Teatro de Bogotá, Maastricht Academy, Beijing Academy, Windsor University and UCLA. Faculty member: The Juilliard School of Drama Lincoln Center; 18 years. Director: A Midsummer Night’s Dream UCLA, Iphigenia and Other Daughters Juilliard School.  Company member – Alley Theater, StageWest and Milwaukee Repertory. TCG Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement recipient 2008-2010. Published in American Theatre, “In Search of Stillness”.

Tom Hewitt began his association with Tadashi Suzuki in 1980 as a student at UW- Milwaukee. Over the next 13 years he performed periodically with the then Waseda Sho Gekijo in bilingual productions of The Bacchae, Clytemnestra and The Tale of Lear throughout Japan, Europe and the US. He has performed in 11 Broadway shows including The Lion King, The Rocky Horror Show (Tony and Drama Desk nominations), Chicago and Jesus Christ Superstar. National tours include Urinetown, Dirty Rotted Scoundrels, Peter Pan and Finding Neverland. Off Broadway includes. Beau Jest, Jeffery, Treasure Island, and the solo piece Another Media. Tom has worked with regional theaters throughout the US including 22 productions as a company member of Washington DC’s Arena Stage. He is a native of Montana and lives in Putnam County, NY.

Sanford (Sandy) Robbins is the Founder and Producing Artistic Director of the Resident Ensemble Players (REP). Theatres for which he has directed include the Oregon Shakespearean Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival, and American Players Theatre. He is a frequent guest director at a variety of theatres around the country, having recently directed multiple productions for the Alley Theatre and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, where he served for several years as a resident director. His Alley Theatre production of You Can’t Take It With You was awarded “Best Ensemble of the Year” by the Houston Press. Internationally, he has directed the premieres of Sam Shepard’s plays for the national theatres of several foreign countries, including Buried Child for the Moscow Art Theatre Studio and the National Theatre of Cyprus. His production of Shepard’s The Tooth of Crime received the Thalia Award for Best Production in Finland, an award won the previous year by Ingmar Bergman. Mr. Robbins also serves professional theatres as a text and verse speaking coach for Shakespeare and other classic plays, most recently for the Alley Theatre’s production of Hamlet. He has taught acting, voice, verse speaking, and period style at Carnegie-Mellon University, Los Angeles City College, and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He is the founder and served as head of the Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1978-1988 and at the University of Delaware from 1988-2011. His productions for the REP include The Hostage, The Imaginary Invalid, She Stoops to Conquer, Dancing At Lughnasa , A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Skin of Our Teeth, Wit, To Kill A Mockingbird, Things We Do For Love, The Elephant Man and the world premieres of Theresa Rebeck’s O Beautiful and Fever.

Norman Frisch (Moderator) is a New York-based independent dramaturg, performance curator and producer. During the 1970’s, he studied at Yale School of Drama and worked with experimental theater laboratories in Poland, Denmark, and Wales. During the 80’s, he began his longstanding collaboration with director Peter Sellars, and served for a number of years as a dramaturg and administrator for The Wooster Group at The Performing Garage. In the 1990’s, he worked as a curator and producer for several important urban arts festivals, including The Los Angeles Festival, The International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, The Arts Festival of Atlanta, and the London International Festival of Theatre. From 2008-2013, he served on the staff of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where he ran the Getty’s Villa Theater Lab, which commissions new productions of ancient Greek and Roman plays in the context of the musuem’s Antiquities Department.  In that capacity, he collaborated with SITI Company on a series of Greek tragedies, including Antigone, Trojan Women, and Persians. Norman has taught Theater History, Literature, and Dramaturgy at several universities, including NYU, Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and CalArts. He has been an ardent admirer of director Anne Bogart since they first met as young artists at New York's PS122 in 1984, and a fan of SITI Company since its foundation.

Friday 2 June: Conversation #2: Training
Panelists Akiko Aizawa, Will Bond, Mark Corkins, and Jeffrey Fracé discuss the impact of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training on their artistic work and career trajectories.

The conversation is moderated by J.Ed Araiza.

Akiko Aizawa joined SITI in 1997. SITI credits include: Steel Hammer (music by Julia Wolfe, Bang on a Can All-Stars), the theater is a blank page (with Ann Hamilton), Persians, A Rite (with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company), Café Variations, Trojan Women, American Document (with Martha Graham Dance Company), Antigone, Who Do You Think You Are, Radio Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Intimations for Saxophone, La Dispute, bobrauschenbergamerica, War of the Worlds-The Radio Play and systems/layers (music by Rachel’s). Other Theatre/Festival Credits Include: American Repertory Theater, Arena Stage, ArtsEmerson, BAM, Carolina Performing Arts, Getty Villa, Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival for New American Plays, Japan Society, Joyce Theater, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Los Angeles Opera, New York Theatre Workshop, New York Live Arts, Royce Hall, The Public Theater, SUNY Purchase Performing Arts, and Wexner Center for the Arts. International Festival/Venue Credits Include: Edinburgh, Dublin, Bonn, Helsinki, Melbourne, Bogotá, São Paulo, Vienna, Moscow, Toga, Tokyo and Tbilisi.

Will Bond is a founding member of SITI Company. He most recently performed the company's play Bob at the Venice Biennale, and last summer performed in the 40th Anniversary Toga International Arts Festival as Cornwall in Tadashi Suzuki's Lear. He has performed internationally in SITI’s Orestes, The Medium, Small Lives/Big Dreams, Culture of Desire, War of the Worlds, Cabin Pressure, bobrauschenbergamerica, Death and the Ploughman, Radio Macbeth, Who Do You Think You Are, Antigone, and Persians. He has toured in Tadashi Suzuki's Dionysus and Robert Wilson’s Persephone. Recently Will toured with SITI & the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company collaboration A Rite commissioned for the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring. Original works include History of the World from the very Beginning with Christian Frederickson & Brian H Scott, I’ll Crane For You solo dance work commissioned from Deborah Hay, The Perfect Human V.1 and Option Delete with Marianne Kim. Will was awarded a prestigious 2013 EMPAC Dance MOViES Commission for the short film Lost & Found with Marianne Kim and Brian H Scott premiering at RPI in January 2015. He is newly published in the 2013 Routledge Companion to Stanislavsky.

Mark Corkins is an actor and educator who first encountered the Suzuki Training over 30 years ago as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Professional Theatre Training Program. After graduation Mark was invited to play Cornwall in a co-production with the Japan Performing Arts Center and 4 American regional theaters, of Mr. Suzuki's The Tale of Lear The Lear Project marked Mr. Suzuki's first all-American, English- speaking cast. After touring the states, the production also performed in Tokyo, Mito, and the Toga Festival. Shortly after Mr. Corkins participated in an international master class for teachers of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training. Through his connection to Mr. Suzuki, Mark was fortunate to be introduced to Anne Bogart and SITI Company-- where he was privileged to help create and perform in the first production of THE MEDIUM. Nationally, Mr. Corkins has worked with the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Stage West, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Madison Rep, Illinois Shakespeare—to name a few. Mark has also been a member of several resident acting companies, including American Players Theatre, Resident Ensemble Players, and The Milwaukee Rep.

Jeffrey Fracé is a veteran theater artist with more than 100 professional credits in the past 25 years as either an actor, director, writer, or producer. He is a former Associate Artist of SITI Company, performing, touring, and teaching with the company for over 10 years. Recent acting credits include The Life Model at On the Boards in Seattle, Betrayal at North Coast Rep in California, and Rapture, Blister, Burn; Celebration and Old Times (Pinter Festival); and Lieutenant of Inishmore, all at ACT Theatre in Seattle. Other credits include the Kennedy Center, New York Shakespeare Festival, American Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Stonington Opera House, Cleveland Public Theatre, Chopin Theatre Chicago, La MaMa ETC and the Iberoamericano Festival of Bogota. His directing credits include Measure for Measure, Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet for Stonington Opera House; Mother Courage and Her Children and 1984 for People's Branch Theatre; Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream for Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre; Don Giovanni for New York Repertory Ensemble. His original work/devised performance credits include The Life Model and Harp Song for a Radical at On the Boards, Once Upon a Time 6x in the West, Harp Song for a Radical, Barbarians and Untying My Cement Shoes for University of Washington; plus, independently produced adaptations of King Lear, and Camus’ The Stranger. He is a founding member of the award-winning ensemble Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, writing for and performing in their original shows in New York and nationally. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, he worked in Chicago for four years before relocating to New York City, where he received his MFA from Columbia University. He is now based in Seattle, where he teaches acting, directing, movement, and devising performance in the MFA program at University of Washington.

J.Ed Araiza (Moderator) has long and varied experiences working on multicultural and cross-disciplinary projects as a writer, director and performer. SITI Company acting credits include: PERSIANS,Trojan Women (After Euripides), Under Construction, Hotel Cassiopeia, A Midsummer Night's Dream, systems/layers, bobrauschenbergamerica, Culture of Desire, The Medium, Small Lives/Big Dreams, War of the Worlds–the Radio Play, Who Do You Think You Are, Radio Macbeth (Dramaturgy). Regional Theater acting credits include: The Cure at Troy, Yale Rep. Santos and Santos, Mixed Blood Theatre; Keely and Du (original cast), Hartford Stage and ATL; 1969 ATL; Yerma, Arena Stage; Principia Scriptoria, A Contemporary Theatre; Picnic, ATL; Charley Bacon, South Coast Rep.; King Lear, Macbeth, La Victima, LATC and Nicholas and Alexandra at The Los Angeles Opera. As a playwright J.Ed has had 7 original plays produced and dramaturged 3 adaptations.Most recently he  co-conceived, created and directed  Los Atlantis, a multi-media, interactive  collaboration with  UCLA FILM, Computer Sciences and Theatre. He is a Professor and Head of Graduate Acting at UCLA. 

Friday 2 June: Conversation #3: Legacy:
Theater companies Nine Years Theatre (Singapore), The Syndicate (International), and Vueltas Bravas Producciones (International) discuss the enduring legacy of SCOT and SITI and their impact on the next generation of theater artists. The conversation is moderated by Barney O’Hanlon and Stephen Webber.

Nine Years Theatre is a Singapore Mandarin theatre company co-founded by Nelson Chia and Mia Chee. The company focuses on the re-imagination of classic work and the creation of new work. Our Mandarin productions (with English surtitles) have attracted audiences from all backgrounds with their consistency in quality and a cultural sensibility in translation and adaptation.

We believe in actor training, our works are therefore often being described as grounded in the actors & art. We are the only company in Singapore that works with an ensemble of actors that train regularly on a long-term basis via systematic methods. Furthermore, we also share these training methods and philosophy with the community through classes and open training platforms.

In order to engage our audiences beyond the productions, the company continues to explore various ways of holding dialogue sessions with them. Our efforts are rooted in the belief that audiences should not merely consume art, but be offered an opportunity to discuss art. The Syndicate is an ensemble theater company comprised of women and queer actors, directors, playwrights, and producers. An international theater company with members based all around the world, The Syndicate met in 2013 while training with SITI Company in the inaugural Conservatory year. Formed in 2014 as a seven-member ensemble of actor-creators, the company relies on the shared values of effort, a willingness to lead and to follow, and diversity in both how we tell stories and whose stories we tell.

The Syndicate rotates around multiple geographic centers simultaneously, with New York and Chicago as our producing homes. Since founding the company in New York City, the seven members of the Syndicate have spread out across the world, currently living in Brooklyn and Queens, New York; Chicago, Illinois; The Hague, The Netherlands; Huntingdon, Pennsylvania; and Los Angeles, California. We are committed both to maintaining our connection to our artistic roots in NYC and to reaching the international communities in which we live. While our plays focus on the importance of the body, our rehearsal processes often begin online, through Skype rehearsals, collaborative research, or composition work that we film and bring back into the rehearsal room when we reunite in one of our artistic homes.

The Syndicate is: Alanna Coby, Janouke Goosen, Leigh Hendrix, Megan Hanley, Ellenor Riley Condit, Emily Spalding, and Andrea Tzvetkov. For more information, please visit www.wearethesyndicate.com.

Vueltas Bravas Producciones, formed in 2013 as a cross-cultural collaboration between a director from Italy, an actor from Colombia, and an actress from Australia, is an international collective of artists. Our work fuses stylized movement, live music and bilingual text. Using a performance style that doesn’t rely on the spoken word, we explore the expressive potential of the body to create innovative productions that push the boundaries of theatre. Our first production, Miss Julia, is a reimagining of Strindberg’s classic play Miss Julie, which examines the relationship between Latin America and the USA. Miss Julia has traveled to many festivals and theatres in Colombia, Spain and Italy including: the Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogotá, Festival Internacional de Teatro Manizales, the Décima Fiesta de las Artes Escénicas Medellin, the 2015 Napoli Teatro Festival and the XXIX Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Cádiz, Casa Ensamble, Bogotá and Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santodomingo. In 2017 Miss Julia will have it’s US premiere at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in June and has been invited to perform as part of the 2017 LATC Encuentro de las Américas in Los Angeles and the first Latin American Theatre Festival in Chicago. Our aim is to keep finding opportunities to come together to create and perform to tell stories that are relevant to a wide audience.

Barney O’Hanlon (Moderator) has been collaborating with Anne Bogart since 1986 and joined the SITI Company in 1994. He most recently choreographed Verdi’s Macbeth for the Glimmerglass Festival directed by Anne Bogart. He also choreographed Anne Washburn’s 10 out of 12 at Soho Rep. directed by Les Waters, Charles Mee’s The Glory of The World for the Humana Festival also directed by Les Waters, and Sarah Ruhl’s The Oldest Boy for Lincoln

Center Theater directed by Rebecca Taichman. International: Dublin Theatre Festival; Edinburgh International Festival; Prague Quadrennial; MC93 Bobigny, France; Bonn Biennial; Festival Iberoamericano, Bogota; Kaleideskop Theatre, Copenhagen. New York: BAM’s Next Wave Festival, The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop and New York Live Arts. Opera: New York City Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, and Opera Omaha. SITI Company collaborations: American Document with the Martha Graham Dance Company, A Rite with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and the event of a thread with visual artist Ann Hamilton.

Stephen Duff Webber (Moderator) has performed with SITI all over the world since 1994 in Persians, Steel Hammer, A Rite, Café Variations, American Document, Antigone, Radio Macbeth, (Macbeth), Hotel Cassiopeia, Under Construction, Freshwater, Death and the Ploughman, War of the Worlds (Orson Welles), bobrauschenbergamerica, systems/layers (with Rachel’s), La Dispute, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cabin Pressure, Going Going Gone, Culture of Desire, The Medium, Private Lives, Hay Fever, War of the World–The Radio Play (Orson Welles) and Short Stories. New York: Death and the Ploughman (Classic Stage Company), War of the Worlds, Hotel Cassiopeia, A Rite (BAM), Culture of Desire (New York Theatre Workshop), Trojan Women 2.0 (En Garde Arts), Freshwater (Women’s Project), The Golden Dragon (PlayCo), Radio Macbeth (Public), American Document (Joyce), Antigone (New York Live Arts) and War of the Worlds–The Radio Play (Joe’s Pub). Regional: American Repertory Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Betrayal, Glengarry Glen Ross), Milwaukee Repertory Theater, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Court Theatre and Stage West.

Saturday 3 June: Conversation #4: Tadashi Suzuki in conversation with Anne Bogart:

Tadashi Suzuki is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) based in Toga Village, located in the mountains of Toyama prefecture. He is the organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival), and the creator of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training. Suzuki also plays an important role with several other organizations: as General Artistic Director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (1995~2007), as a member of the International Theatre Olympics Committee, as founding member of the BeSeTo Festival (jointly organized by leading theatre professionals from Japan, China and Korea) and as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Japan Performing Arts Foundation (2000~2010), a nation-wide network of theatre professionals in Japan. Suzuki’s works include “On the Dramatic Passions”, “The Trojan Women”, “Dionysus”, “King Lear”, “Cyrano de Bergerac”, “Madame de Sade” and many others. Besides productions with his own company, he has directed several international collaborations, such as “The Tale of Lear”, co-produced and presented by four leading regional theatres in the US; “King Lear”, presented with the Moscow Art Theatre; “Oedipus Rex”, co-produced by Cultural Olympiad and Düsseldorf Schauspiel Haus; and “Electra”, produced by Ansan Arts Center/Arco Arts Theatre in Korea and the Taganka Theatre in Russia.

Suzuki has articulated his theories in a number of books. A collection of his writings in English, Culture is the Body is published by Theatre Communications Group in New York. He has taught his system of actor training in schools and theatres throughout the world, including The Juilliard School in New York and the Moscow Art Theatre. Also, a book written on Suzuki titled The Theatre of Suzuki Tadashi is published by Cambridge University Press as part of their Directors in Perspective series, featuring leading theatre directors of the 20th Century. This series includes works on Meyerlhold, Brecht, Strehler, Peter Brook and Robert Wilson among others.

Not just one of the world’s foremost theatre directors, Suzuki is also a seminal thinker and practitioner whose work has a powerful influence on theatre everywhere. Suzuki’s primary concerns include: the structure of a theatre group, the creation and use of theatrical space, and the overcoming of cultural and national barriers in the interest of creating work that is truly universal. Suzuki has established in Toga one of the largest international theatre centers in the world. Surrounded by the beautiful wilderness of Toga, the facility includes six theatres, rehearsal rooms, offices, lodgings, restaurants, etc. Suzuki’s activities, both as a director creating multilingual and multicultural productions, and as a festival producer bringing people from throughout the world together in the context of shared theatrical endeavor, reflect an aggressive approach to dealing with the fundamental issues of our times.

Anne Bogart (moderator) is one of the three Co-Artistic Directors of SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She is a Professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program. Works with SITI include: the theater is a blank page; Persians; Steel Hammer; A Rite; Café Variations; Trojan Women (After Euripides); American Document; Antigone; Under Construction; Freshwater; Who Do You Think You Are; Radio Macbeth; Hotel Cassiopeia; Death and the Ploughman; La Dispute; Score; bobrauschenbergamerica; Room; War of the Worlds; Cabin Pressure; War of the Worlds – The Radio Play; Alice’s Adventures; Culture of Desire; Bob; Going, Going, Gone; Small Lives/Big Dreams; The Medium; Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and Private Lives; August Strindberg’s Miss Julie; and Charles Mee’s Orestes. She is the author of five books: A Director Prepares; The Viewpoints Book; And Then, You Act; Conversations with Anne; and What’s the Story.

Kameron Steele: In 1991, Kameron Steele joined Tadashi Suzuki’s SCOT company in Toga, Japan where he has since worked as an actor, assistant director, teacher and translator, appearing in King Lear, Ivanov, and Dionysus among others. From 1998-2007, Mr. Steele also worked at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, appearing in Wilson’s touring productions of Persephone, Woyzeck, The Days Before and the title role in Prometheus. In 2003, Steele formed The South Wing (alaSur) with Argentinean director Ivana Catanese. Since then, their work has been seen regularly in Argentina and in NYC at HERE Arts Center, Japan Society, Prelude Festival, PS122, LMCC, LIU and the Watermill Center. Steele is currently a guest lecturer at Williams College, where he directed Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker last fall. He also leads the summer training program in Toga for SCOT. His translation of Tadashi Suzuki’s Culture is the Body was published by TCG in August, 2015. BFA: Northwestern. MFA: CalArts.

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