Harmonious Pimps just completed an amazingly productive residency at Williamstown Theater Festival – Thanks to the WTF community for their support!!

More Pimps news soon!

Thanks to all the incredible folks who turned out for Fill Our Mouths on Friday!

It was an incredible experience to be able to dive back into working on this gorgeous play; could be more grateful to New Georges and Women’s Project for their support.

Look for more from Fill Our Mouths next summer!

My interview with Joe Haj is now up on HowlRound.   Check it out!

We talk about diversity in artistic leadership in this country – and how might be able to start to achieve it.

Here’s a sound bite:
“There is a glass ceiling problem, and until we acknowledge that and actively work to move the needle on this, we’re going to see more of the same. This is not a pipeline issue. These leaders are out there; if you think it’s a pipeline issue, you need to know more people.”

Today I embark again on the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit – teaching Shakespeare’s RICHARD III at correction facilities and institutions through NY and NJ.  I could not be more excited to continue my year of RICHARD, or so it would seem, since I spent March teaching this powerful play for BAM.

I’m especially excited to re-visit the incredible folks I met on the last tour.  As Michelle Hensley beautifully sums up, there is little that is more rewarding than showing people who don’t often get it (or maybe have never have gotten it) respect – respect for their intelligence, their imagination and their life experience, and the power that they hold.  That “this is for you – you are in this.”

Check out the wonderful video the Public produced of last year’s adventure  –
Mobile Unit 2011: Measure for Measure

And, check out Ron Cephas Jones’ powerhouse performance as Richard this year –
Ron Cephas Jones, RICHARD III

Performances for the general public run August 6th – 25th.  Full details here!

I’m wrapping up here in Ashland, having presented two plays I’m enormously proud of with a company whose talent, rigor and intelligence is absolutely breath-taking.  In a few days, it’s on to the TCG Conference in Boston for a super dose a theater debate/love.

Below is a plug for a few shows that are in their final week, which I will very sadly miss.  But – you don’t have to!  If you’re in NYC, please check out these talented artists.

FOOD & FADWA
@ New York Theatre Workshop
A Taste of Food and Fadwa

WE PLAY FOR THE GODS
@ The Women’s Project
We Play for the Gods Trailer

Tonight is the opening of HENRY V, a production I’ve had a thrilling time working on.  If you happen to be coming through Ashland, be sure to catch it.

This fantastic company will be playing two shows a week through October.
More info on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival website.

Tonight at 5:30 OSF is presenting a staged reading of Lauren Feldman’s Fill Our Mouths.  We’ve had a great response so far, and I’m excited to share this beautiful, bi-lingual play with the Ashland/OSF community.  Details below!

FAIR Expressions: An Evening of New Voices

presents:

FILL OUT MOUTHS
by Lauren Feldman
directed by Lauren Keating

Featuring:
Tala Ashe
Mikkei Fritz
Cristofer Jean
Jackie Katzman
Erin Washington
and
Amy Waschke

Doors open at 5

Reading begins at 5:30, followed by a talkback

Evan and Chap are two young women who meet in the streets of Paris: one is hearing: the other is hard of hearing. Their relationship grows and starts to change everything they thought they knew – themselves, their language, their loved ones, and the world around them. Using spoken English and American Sign Language, Fill Our Mouths is a story of love and choice, deafness and hearing, the trials of communication, and the search for self when caught between two worlds.

It’s been a busy and lovely Spring.  I spent March finishing up the academic year with BAM, bring Richard III to high school students across the 5 boroughs of NYC.

And, for the past two months, I’ve been in residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR.  I’ve been fortunate enough to assist Joe Haj on a production of HENRY V that is going to be absolutely stellar.  Check out Joe talking about it here.

Very excitingly, I’ll be directing a staged reading on June 11th of Lauren Feldman’s new play FILL OUR MOUTHS with the OSF company.  More to come on that next week.

I’m back in NYC and back on the road, or the rails, as it were, with BAM; I’m traveling the 5 boroughs to teach RICHARD III to high school students.  Later this month the students will attend the Old Vic/Kevin Spacy production at BAM and then I’ll return to their classrooms to make our own little productions of RICHARD.  Can’t wait to dive into this play – rich with revenge, vengeance, murder, power, lust!

Many thanks to the Yale community for the fun and fierce two months I spent in New Haven.  Production photos are up on the Translations project page, with a preview below, and here’s a nice student review in the Yale Herald.