I love poetry on stage. Working aloud with poets, actors, and powerful language, having words connect with an audience full force is theater to me. I was shown the way by a remarkable poet and teacher, Dolores Kendrick, who created Poetry Stage, in which I performed when I was in high school. Ms. Kendrick was a strong black woman in snowy white New England prep school, who taught us awareness like I'd never heard it spoken before. She assembled an unusually diverse ensemble of students to rehearse for a year and took us places like the Folger Library in Washington to perform our poetry theater. The captain of the basketball team, a Korean exchange student, a gay clown; she taught us all to perform poetry, move and express the essence of a poem. Above all, she taught respect for the word spoken in truth. Her spirit is with me as I work - fiercely critical as always -but I hope enjoying the poems…
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THE THIEF OF VENICE (playwright) new play based on the life of 16C Venetian poet and courtesan, Veronica Franco, with period music. |
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WET: a DACAmented Journey - I had the pleasure of working intensively with spoken word poet, Alex Alpharoah, developing his one-person show about living undocumented in the United States, and his experience as a DREAMER. Directed by Brisa Munoz this powerful show is touring across the country. www.dacamentedjourney.com |
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HATUEY (librettist) new opera based on epic Yiddish poem by Asher Penn, with composer Frank London. Click here for more information about Hatuey. |
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ToasT (developer/director) new play by Lemon Andersen based on an oral tradition of Black narrative poetry. Click here for more information about Lemon and ToasT. |
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County of Kings (developer/director) Brooklyn based spoken word poet, Lemon weaves his version of the coming-of-age memoir with this jarring and poignant performance. Click here for more information about Lemon and County of Kings. |
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