PAUL SWAN IS DEAD AND GONE

Paul Swan was a real man. Born in 1883, he danced well into his eighties until he died in 1972. Besides a dancer, he was a sculptor, a painter, a poet, and a philosopher. He was also my great grand-uncle.

I was ten years old when I first heard about Paul. I told my grandmother that I wanted to be an artist and she told me there had only been one other artist in our family – her uncle Paul Swan, who was “very strange.” In Nebraska speak, that meant he was loud, queer, and lived, for some awful reason, in New York City.

My grandmother meant it as a warning, but I held onto Paul as a talisman,
a guiding queer light in dark and serious times. My relationship with Paul has shifted throughout the years – I’ve been repulsed by him, amazed by him, amused and embarrassed by his stark, sincere longing.

The truth is that Paul has taught me many things.

He was never afraid of his own inner depths. Instead, his greatest fear was obsolescence, that there would be no trace of him once he left this world.
With that in mind, some of the text that went into the play has been directly adapted from Paul’s own work. The poems are his; Avi Amon and Rob Johanson have composed songs for lyrics that I’ve based on Paul’s poems and letters to him; and I took much of Paul’s specific language from his unpublished autobiography, his films, and his many newspaper interviews.

Also, I made stuff up.

From Paul’s own foreword to his book: “I dedicate this history to those who are magnificently misunderstood.”

And I dedicate this play to Paul and to the Paul Swan in all of us. To all of us who dare to be ridiculous.

– CLAIRE KIECHEL, New York, 2019

Cast
Tony Torn (Paul Swan) is an actor, director, and associate artist of The Civilians, with whom he appeared in Rimbaud in New York directed by Steve Cosson at BAM. He is known for the rock musical Ubu Sings Ubu – which he created, starred in, and co-directed with Dan Safer, and for his work with legendary experimental theater directors Reza Abdoh and Richard Foreman. Recent Stage includes Franklin in Jean-Claude van Itallie‘s The Fat Lady Sings at La Mama; Ensemble in Suzan-Lori Parks‘ Venus at The Signature Theater; The King in Ben Beckley‘s Latter Days with Dutch Kills Theater at Ars Nova; Stefano in The Tempest at La Mama; Porfiery in Platonov, or The Disinherited at The Kitchen; Rusty Trawler in Breakfast at Tiffany’s on Broadway at The Cort Theater. Torn manages Torn Page, an event space dedicated to his parents the actors Rip Torn and Geraldine Page

Robert M. Johanson (Bellamy) is a freelance performer/composer/director in New York City. He is a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, and has performed with them in No Dice, Poetics: a Ballet Brut, Romeo and Juliet, and No President. Robert also composed music for and performed in Nature Theater’s epic cycle Life and Times: Episodes 1-9, part of which won an Obie award in 2013. Johanson has worked with many other companies both in New York City and abroad including: Elevator Repair Service, 7 Daughters of Eve, Radiohole, Witness Relocation, Jim Findlay, Von Krahli, Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, Teater Ibsen and Spreafico Eckly. He is a frequent teacher at the Norwegian Theatre Academy and has directed and composed music for his own music theater pieces Life is Hard and Life is Very Hard in Norway and Estonia.

Helen Cespedes (Flora) credits include The Cripple of Inishmaan (Broadway), The Rose Tattoo (benefit for The Acting Company with Patti LuPone and Bobby Cannavale), The School For Scandal (Red Bull), A Picture of Autumn (The Mint), and Couriers and Contrabands (Timeline). Regional credits include Doug McGrath‘s world premiere adaptation of The Age of Innocence directed by Doug Hughes(McCarter/Hartford), Taking Steps (Barrington Stage Co.), The Women of Padilla (Two River), the world premiere of José Rivera’s Another Word for Beauty (Goodman Theatre and NYSF), The Importance of Being Earnest (Williamstown and The Old Globe), world premiere of Beth Henley‘s Laugh and Tribes (Studio Theatre), Love’s Labour’s Lost(Chautauqua). Film/TV: The Way I Remember It, The Knick. Helen trained at The Juilliard School where she received the John Houseman Prize.

Alexis Scott (Paula) has spent the last decade acting in new play premieres from New York to Austin to Seattle. She continues to tour with the Johnny LaGuardia’s Trinitron Mixtape, a live film by Bug Davidson that premiered at Fusebox Festival. Recently, she starred in Triggered by Gabriel Jason Dean at Cherry Lane Theatre, the first of the Amoralists’ Ricochet series. She received her BA in Performance Studies from Brown University and her MFA in Acting from The University of Texas at Austin where she has also served as Acting faculty. Scott teaches with the Jewish Performing Arts Center of Brooklyn and will tour next year with a new play in development with Little Green Pig in Durham.

Claire Kiechel – Playwright
Claire Kiechel has been thinking about this play since she first heard about her great grand uncle Paul Swan as a child. She began developing Paul Swan is Dead & Gone in the 2015-16 R&D group, and is delighted that it will be the first R&D premiere produced by the Civilians. Her other plays include Sophia (Alley Theatre All-New Festival 2019); the haunted (City Theatre’s Momentum Festival, additional development at Seattle Rep); Pilgrims (The Gift Theatre; Alley All New Reading Series; The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week 2016; The Kilroys’ The List 2016); Lulu Is Hungry with composer Avi Amon at Ars Nova’s ANT Fest 2016; and Some Dark Places of the Earth at The New School for Drama. She has received commissions from Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alley Theatre, and South Coast Rep. She has a BA from Amherst College and an MFA from the New School for Drama. She currently lives between Brooklyn and LA where she has written for television (Netflix’s The OA, HBO’s Watchmen).

Steve Cosson – Director
Steve Cosson Recently: Encores! Off-Center revival of Gone Missing, director of Jill Sobule’s musical Times Square, book/director The Abominables at Children’s Theater Company, writer/director The Undertaking at BAM Next Wave, US tour, Theatre de la Ville, Paris and 59E59; director José Rivera’s Another Word for Beauty, (Goodman Theatre); writer/director, Rimbaud in New York (BAM); director Michael Friedman and Bess Wohl’s Pretty Filthy; director The Belle of Amherst starring Joely Richardson. Recent world premieres: writer/director The Great Immensity (The Public Theater); Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a post-electric play (Playwrights Horizons). Other Civilians shows: In the Footprint; writer/director This Beautiful City at Vineyard Theatre and several regional; (I am) Nobody’s Lunch and Gone Missing with several US and UK productions and a one-year run Off Broadway at Barrow Street. In 2014-15, the Civilians were the first theater company in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.stevecosson.com

ANDROMACHE CHALFANT – Scenic Designer
Andromache Chalfant. Off-Broadway: Train with No Midnight (Prototype Festival), The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois (Atlantic Theater), Rimbaud in New York (BAM), A Kid Like Jake, brownsville song (b side for tray) (Lincoln Center Theater), Sex with Strangers (Second Stage), Wild Animals You Should Know (MCC Theater), Food and Fadwa (New York Theatre Workshop), Massacre, The Long Shrift, Through The Yellow Hour (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), El Gato Con Botas, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, I Have No Stories To Tell (Gotham Chamber Opera, Tectonic Theater Company), Edgewise (The Play Company), Inked Baby (Playwrights Horizons). Regional: Mary Stuart (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), Reverberation, The Whipping Man (Hartford Stage), Henry V (Two River Theater), Crimes of the Heart (McCarter Theatre), Endgame (American Repertory Theater), Touch(ed) (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Tribes (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Six Degrees of Separation (The Old Globe),Faust (Minnesota Opera), A Streetcar Named Desire (Virginia Opera), Laugh (Studio Theatre), War Stories (Opera Philadelphia). Andromache is a company member of LAByrinth Theater Company and an Associate Artist of The Civilians.

Dan Safer– Choreographer/Movement Director
Dan Safer is Artistic Director of Witness Relocation and has directed/ choreographed all of their shows, ranging from fully scripted plays to original dance/theater pieces to many things in between. Dan choreographed and co-directed the acclaimed UBU SINGS UBU with Tony Torn (Abrons, Slipper Room, American Rep, BB King’s, Highline Ballroom). His work as a choreographer has been at BAM, DTW, Danspace, Ash Lawn Opera, and many other places. In 2011, he choreographed Stravinsky’s RITE OF SPRING for Philadelphia Orchestra with Obie-winners Ridge Theater. Artforum Magazine called him “pure expressionistic danger” and Time Out NY called him “a purveyor of lo-fi mayhem.” Currently, he is faculty at MIT. He got kicked out of high school for a year, used to be a go-go dancer, and once choreographed the Queen of Thailand’s Birthday Party.

Avi A. Amon – Sound Designer and Original Music
AVI A. AMON is a composer, sound artist, and educator. His music has been heard at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater, BAM, Drama League, Edinburgh Fringe, Exponential Festival, JACK, Juilliard, Lincoln Center, La Mama, and Spoleto Festival USA, among others. Recent credits: SALONIKA (Berkeley REP) and THE WHITE CITY with Julia Gytri (Yale Institute, O’Neill NMTC, Richard Rogers Award Finalist), RATED BLACK with Kareem Lucas (New York Theater Workshop), JEUNE TERRE with Gabrielle Reisman (Playwrights Center), and several sound installations in a 100-year old grain silo in Buffalo, NY. In development: INSHALLAH/MASHALLAH, a 3-D audio opera (Target Margin Theater), THE BLACK HISTORY MUSEUM with Zoey Martinson (HERE Arts Center), and scores for several new films. He is a 2019 Jonathan Larson Grant winner and has been in-residence with Exploring the Metropolis at JCAL, Hi-ARTS, Judson, New Dramatists, and Weston Playhouse. Avi is the resident composer at the 52nd Street Project and teaches at NYU Tisch. www.aviamon.com

Lucrecia Briceño – Lighting Designer
Lucrecia Briceño is a Peruvian artist based in Brooklyn. Much of her work has been in association with artists developing innovative, original pieces. She works in theatre, dance, puppetry & opera. Her designs have been presented in NYC theaters, nationally and internationally. Her designs have been presented at such venues as Oxford Playhouse (UK), The Public Theater, Arena Stage, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dallas Theatre Center, BAM (Fischer), Kennedy Center, Atlas Performing Arts, Berlind Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, La Mama ETC, Birmingham Repertory (UK), Culture Project, Pregones Theatre, Intar, HERE Arts Center, Soho Rep, Ohio Theatre, Irondale Center, ArtsEmerson, among many others. She is an associate artist with The Civilians, a Core Member of Anonymous Ensemble, a resident designer with Pregones Theatre/PRTT and La Micro. She has been a guest artist/lecturer at NYU, Princeton University, Hunter College and the Pontífica Universidad Católida de Perú. MFA: NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

An-lin Dauber – Costume Designer
An-lin Dauber is a New York based set and costume designer. Notable designs include Seven Guitars (Yale Repertory Theatre), The Good Person of Szechwan; An Acorn (Brown/Trinity Rep), Displaced: A Response to Qurban (Boston Conservatory at Berklee), You Can’t Kiss A Movie (HERE Art Center), Blood Wedding, A Bright Room Called Day (Williams Project), The Seagull (Serenbe Playhouse), The Oresteia; Othello (Yale School of Drama), In the Red and Brown Water (Yale Cabaret). MFA Yale School of Drama. www.anlindauber.com.

Ryan Gohsman – Production Stage Manager
Ryan Gohsman: Civilians: Pretty Filthy.  International: Angel’s Bone (New Vision Arts Festival – Hong Kong, Beth Morrison Projects), The Last Hotel (International Tour: Royal Opera House – London, Edinburgh International Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival, St. Ann’s Warehouse – NYC, filmed for Sky Arts TV); Here Lies Love (consultant, National Theatre – London).  New York: Here Lies Love (The Public); The Death of the Last Black Man…, Chéri (Signature); The Light Years,Antlia Pneumatica, Detroit, Maple And Vine, The Shaggs…, Kin, After The Revolution (Playwrights Horizons); Hundred Days, Mary Jane (New York Theatre Workshop);  Train with No Midnight, anatomy theater, Thumbprint, Sumeida’s Song (PROTOTYPE Festival, Beth Morrison Projects).  Regional: Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) (LA Philharmonic, Kennedy Center); Man of La Mancha (Westport Country Playhouse); Thumbprint (LA Opera);Royal Family of Broadway, West Side Story, Sweeney Todd(Barrington Stage).  Ryan has also collaborated with NBC/Universal, Ars Nova, HERE, Target Margin, and Atlantic Theatre Company.

Sara Sahin – Assistant Stage Manager
Sara recently Stage Managed William Kentridge’s THE HEAD AND THE LOAD at the Park Avenue Armory, having also done it at the Tate Modern and Ruhrtriennale. She has worked on and off-Broadway at Roundabout Theatre Company, Atlantic Theatre Company, Park Avenue Armory, MCC, LCT, Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, among others. Regional: the Wallis, Signature Theatre, Goodman Theatre, and Barrington Stage Company. With writer Greg Turner she has co-produced and directed five of his original plays in NYC and one short film. Sara is member of the LCT Directors Lab and a graduate of New York University.

Kenzie Caplan – Assistant Director
Kenzie is a New York and Los Angeles based actor, director, and playwright. Credits include What Happened When, Ugly Little Sister, Emilie Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight, Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet and Execution of Justice. TV/Film credits include: “Roseanne,” “Casual, “Anger Management”, “Tzeva Adom (The Color Red),” and the upcoming Annabelle film from The Conjuring Universe. Born and raised in LA, Kenzie is a recent graduate with honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and studied at RADA, The Lee Strasberg Institute, and NYU’s Classical Studio.

Goings On About Town – The New Yorker

The New York Times– 15 Plays and Musicals to Go to in N.Y.C. This Weekend

Time Out New York– The Best Immersive Theater in NYC

New York Theater Review– An interview with Claire Kiechel on Paul Swan is Dead and Gone as presented by The Civilians

Playbill.com– The Civilians’ Paul Swan is Dead and Gone Begins April 25

Bedford and Bowery– Performance Picks

Hyperallergic– Reenacting the Wild Art Salons of Gay Camp Icon, Paul Swan

Playbill.com– The Civilians to Take Over Historic Chelsea Townhouse for Newest Show

Broadway World– The Civilians Presents Claire Kiechel’s Paul Swan Is Dead and Gone