HERE and Beth Morrison Projects Present PROTOTYPE: OPERA/THEATRE/NOW

HERE and Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) have announced the January 2013 arrival of Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now, an annual festival of visionary music-theatre and opera-theatre works by pioneering artists from NYC and around the world. This two-week event, distilling the curatorial visions of Beth Morrison (of BMP), Kristin Marting and Kim Whitener (both of HERE), will be presented at HERE in Soho. Prototype is unique in providing a recurring showcase for such productions in a permanent theatrical venue, spotlighting the high-caliber creations of an exciting new generation of composers and collaborators, with a focus on chamber-sized works.

Prototype will launch its premiere Festival in January 2013 with twenty-six performances to include a coproduction commission, two presentations, concerts (one of which will be multi-media), an array of panels, and more. Though program details for the 2013 Festival will be announced later this year, Prototype’s initial seasons will feature works from such artists as Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis, David Little, and Bora Yoon.

HERE and BMP will introduce the Festival at HERE’s annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) Hybrid Performance Brunch on January 8, 2012. Subsequent festivals will coincide with APAP’s annual New York conference, allowing artistic decision-makers from all over the world the opportunity to experience these new creations.

Says Beth Morrison, “The Festival will give voice to serious young composers whose work would generally be categorized as ‘contemporary classical’ or ‘post-classical’ rather than the more commercial musical theatre idiom that is being explored by other musical theatre entities in New York and elsewhere. A new body of work is on the brink of exploding out of New York and onto the national scene. As this cohort of composers claim the opera-theatre and music-theatre genre in a new and unique way, Prototype will be integral in encouraging the field to embrace this new form. Historically, the marriage of music and drama has been something composers tackled further along in their careers. It is a complex and difficult craft to master, and a very time-consuming and expensive endeavor. But with Prototype we intend to provide a lively showcase for this work.”

Says Kristin Marting, Artistic Director of HERE, “Collaboration is integral to the work at HERE, and it was a natural progression to join forces to produce and showcase the burgeoning work by artists in this realm, about which both partners feel passionately. Beth Morrison is a successful composers’ producer without a home venue who has developed, produced, and toured over 24 new opera-theatre works; HERE is a producing venue with a record of success in developing chamber-sized opera-theatre works through its HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP).”

Kim Whitener, Producing Director of HERE continues, “Most large venues have not caught up with the art form, and the formation of Prototype addresses this need. This work is not generally seen on the large-sized stages of opera companies or regional theatres, although some of it could ultimately live there very successfully. Much of the work produced and presented at the Festival will feature a scalability of size, meaning that they can be adapted for stages of varying sizes, with adaptability in the production forces.”

Further information on the 2013 Festival will be announced later this year.

http://www.bethmorrisonprojects.org/

Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) identifies and supports the work of emerging and established composers and their multi-media collaborators through the commission, development, production, and touring of their works, which take the form of music-theatre, opera-theatre, chamber music, song-cycle, dance, theatre, film, mixed media work, and new art forms waiting to be discovered. Founded in 2006, the company has developed a reputation for successfully “envisioning new possibilities and finding ways to facilitate their realization.” (The New York Times) In six years, BMP has commissioned, developed, and produced more than twenty-four opera and music-theatre pieces from Eve Beglarian, TEd Hearne, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Keeril Makan, Missy Mazzoli, Paola Prestini, Kamala Sankaram, among many others, that have been performed in New York City, across the country, and around the globe. Previous projects include Nico Muhly’s theatrical song-cycle The Elements of Style, based on the indispensible writing manual by Strunk & White, presented in 2005 by New York Public Library Live! (National Public Radio’s “Best of 2005”) and again in 2009 by Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series; composer Elliott Sharp and sci-fi writer Jack Womack’s collaboration Binibon, an opera about the nexus of artists, musicians, and bohemians at a grittier moment in New York’s history (The Kitchen, 2009); Michael Webster’s downtown opera Hell, the first opera to be presented at PS122 (2006); and David T. Little’s one-man opera Soldier Songs, presented during Le Poisson Rouge’s inaugural week (2008), which will be remounted at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas (IFAI) in June 2011.

During its 2011-12 season, BMP is developing, producing, and/or premiering nine unique and varied projects. This includes the world premieres of Kocho, an operatic retelling of the classic Noh play by composer Garrett Fisher at Galapagos; 69°S, which tells the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1916 Antarctic expedition through puppetry, artistry, and music at BAM; Brooklyn Babylon, a multi-media concert performance piece by 2011 Grammy nominated composer Darcy James Argue that uses live music, animation, and live painting by artist Danijel Zezelj to illuminate gentrification and urban sprawl, also at BAM; Song From The Uproar, a multi-media opera by Missy Mazzoli inspired by the life of Isabelle Eberhardt at The Kitchen; lovefail by David Lang with Anonymous 4 to premiere at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas with further plans at BAM, and the opera Oceanic Verses by Paola Prestini and Donna DiNovelli, which will premiere at The Kennedy Center before coming to New York's Winter Garden for the River to River Festival. BMP will also develop four new works by Paola Prestini, Maya Beiser, Matt Boresi, David T. Little, and Keeril Makan and manage the international tours of Philip Glass’ Life and Zhou Long and Cerise Jacob’s opera Madame White Snake.

Since 1993, HERE has been one of New York’s premier arts organizations and a leader in producing and presenting new, hybrid performance work. Over 18 years, HERE has come to occupy a unique and essential place in the landscape of downtown live arts, and to be known as a home both for risk-taking artists in all disciplines, and for their adventurous audiences. HERE has served thousands of emerging to mid-career artists developing bold new hybrid performances, which are cross-disciplinary works that challenge existing boundaries among media and forms of expression. In the face of cookie-cutter art making, HERE has created a commissioning, development and production model that addresses many of the challenges faced by artists working in these hybrid forms. HERE makes it possible for artists to work at varied levels or scales, depending on what they individually need for their project, and to do it within a community of fellow artists who provide peer support and inspiration through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). One major focus is on hybrid music-theatre/opera works, often involving multi-media and other genres such as dance and film. Recent examples are Corey Dargel’s Removable Parts (2007 & 2009), Christina Campanella & Stephanie Fleischmann’s Red Fly/Blue Bottle (2009), Nick Brooke’s Border Towns (2010), Yoav Gal’s Mosheh (2011), and upcoming, Kamala Sankaram’s Miranda (2012), Joe Diebes’ Botch, Stephan Weisman & David Cote’s The Scarlet Ibis, Hai-Ting Chinn’s Science Fair, and Bora Yoon’s Weights & Balances.

Praised by the New York Times as “the model for the cutting-edge arts spaces of tomorrow,” HERE has received two OBIE grants for artistic achievement and a 2006 Edwin Booth Award (“for Outstanding Contribution to NY Theatre”) from the CUNY Graduate Center. Our works have also garnered 16 OBIE Awards, five Drama Desk nominations, four NY Innovative Theatre Awards, a Bessie Award, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. In 2005, with the support of FJC, a foundation of donor-advised funds, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the City of New York, HERE purchased its long-time home as part of our five-year, $5.5 million “Secure HERE’s Future” campaign. With our full-scale renovations completed in June 2008, thanks to additional generous support from the City of New York, HERE is moving forward with great momentum to expand its role as a downtown haven for the best in new contemporary live art.

Kristin Marting is a co-founder and the Artistic Director of HERE, where she cultivates artists and programs all events for two performance spaces – including 16 OBIE-award winners – for an annual audience of 40,000. She created and co-curates HARP, the HERE Artist Residency Program. She also co-curates HERE’s presenting programs. For 19 years, she curated THE AMERICAN LIVING ROOM, an annual summer festival featuring over 30 new works by emerging artists; and for 8 years, QUEER@HERE, an annual festival of gay and lesbian work. She regularly serves on grant panels for NEA, TCG, NYSCA and DCA, among others and has lectured at NYU, Harvard, Columbia, and Williams among others. She is a director of hybrid work and has created 25 works for the stage.

Beth Morrison Projects is led by Beth Morrison, an opera and theatre producer, singer, and voice teacher with bachelor and master of music degrees and a master of fine arts in theatre management/producing from the Yale School of Drama, as well as many years of experience in the development of new opera and music theatre works. She first cultivated her extensive experience in arts administration at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute where she served as administrative director for four years. From 2009-2011 Beth was Producer for the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, as well as Producer for New York City Opera's VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab. Beth Morrison Projects is the realization of Beth‘s vision, which stems from a deep commitment to nurturing composers and other artists and fostering the development of new opera and other new music-theatre works.

Kim Whitener is the Producing Director at HERE, working in partnership with Artistic Director Kristin Marting. She co-curates HARP, the HERE Artist Residency Program, and Visiting Artist presentations. Ms. Whitener is also is an independent producer and consultant with her own company, KiWi Productions, working with a range of US artists in the Contemporary Theatre, dance-theatre, and multi-media worlds. Past clients have included The Builders Association (Alladeen, Super Vision, and Continuous City), Big Dance Theater, Martha Clarke, 33 Fainting Spells, Double Edge Theatre and The Actor’s Gang, among others.