R&D Groups
Current 2019-2020
The Civilians’ R&D Group meets biweekly for nine months, during which time each artist or team of artists develops a new piece of theater through a creative investigation of a topic chosen by each artist. The creative process may include interviewing, community engagement, research, or other experimental methods of inquiry. Led by R&D Program Director Megan McClain, the group shares and discusses their methodologies and the resulting work. The process will culminate in the FINDINGS Series, in which the groups present their works-in-progress to the public.
DROWN MY BOOK
In 2010, Arizona House Bill 2281 banned Mexican Studies programs in the Tucson Unified School District by making it illegal to teach classes that “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils,” “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group,” and - dubiously - “promote the overthrow of the United States government.” A number of books were outright confiscated from classrooms by government officials, but one text confusingly caught in the crossfire was William Shakespeare's The Tempest, which touches on themes of colonization, indigeneity, and enslavement. Drown My Book will borrow and remix words found in legal documents, public statements, interviews, and Shakespeare's plays to tell an original story of high school resistance.
Matt Barbot
Matt Barbot (Writer) is a playwright from Brooklyn, NY. His plays include EL COQUÍ ESPECTACULAR AND THE BOTTLE OF DOOM (Two River Theatre), THE VENETIANS (Columbia@Roundabout New Play Series), INFALLIBILITY (Robert Moss Theater, Theater for the New City), STOO'S FAMOUS MARTIAN-AMERICAN GUMBO (Peppercorn Theater at Kaleidium), PRINCESS CLARA OF LOISAIDA (Columbia University), and THE TRAGEDY OF SULTAN KHALID BIN BARGHASH; OR, THE ENTIRE ANGLO-ZANZIBAR WAR IN REAL TIME (Dixon Place). Matt recently collaborated with Ilana Becker and Christina Quintana on the Civilians' Lobby Project OH, THIS IS SUCCESS! (New York City Center). Additionally, Matt has worked with comic book creator Edgardo Miranda Rodriguez as an editor and co-writer for Darryl Makes Comics' DMC, as well as Somos Arte's La Borinqueña. Matt is a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow, a Sheen Center playwriting fellow, and received his MFA from Columbia University.
Writer
CANDIDATE X
Candidate X is a new theatre work that plunges inside the minds of women-identifying people running for office in America today. A dynamic cross between documentary theatre, dance theatre, and immersive spectacle, Candidate X celebrates risk-takers who challenge the gendered expectations our country has of those who lead. In 2019 America, there are more women and trans candidates negotiating political power in the face of gender discrimination, racial bias, and religious intolerance than ever before. In the wake of Trump's brutal misogyny and racial intolerance, Candidate X serves as both an anthem and cautionary tale to accompany this revolutionary movement. Candidate X is built around texts and songs penned by a diverse team including composer Kamala Sankaram and playwright Aisha Zia. Building on Ripe Time's signature kinetically-driven, visually immersive style, Candidate X plunges headlong into the divisive politics of gender and leadership.
Rachel Dickstein
Rachel Dickstein (Artistic Director, Ripe Time) is the artistic director of Ripe Time in Brooklyn, NY. She has devised, choreographed, and directed the critically acclaimed Haruki Murakami’s SLEEP (BAM Next Wave Festival, Yale Rep, Annenberg Center for the Arts/University of Pennsylvania), THE WORLD IS ROUND (BAM-Fisher, Obie Award, Special Citation, Finalist for 2014 Richard Rodgers Award), SEPTIMUS AND CLARISSA (Joe A. Calloway, Drama Desk, Drama League, Drama Desk nominations) at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, FIRE THROWS (based on ANTIGONE) at 3LD, INNOCENTS, BETROTHED at the Ohio Theatre. Other: Kamala Sankaram's THUMBPRINT (LA Opera, Prototype), Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd's IN WHAT LANGUAGE? (Asia Society, REDCAT, PICA. Winner of 2015 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award. Nominated for 2014 Alan Schneider Award and 2014 and 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award. BA, Yale College. Training: DellArte International (in Bali, Indonesia), Complicite, Norman Taylor (Lecoq.) Other new works for New York Theatre Workshop (where she has been a usual suspect since 1994), New Georges, The Ohio Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre Directorʼs Lab, Drama League Director's Project and Seattleʼs Annex Theatre. Residencies at the Drama League, LMCC, JCC in Manhattan, Ko Festival. Former resident director at New Dramatists and Assistant Director to Martha Clarke nationally and internationally. Recipient of commissions from BAM, CTG, NYSCA, MAP, P.S. 122 and the NEA/TCG Director's Fellowship. Associate Professor, Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Purchase College, SUNY where she teaches directing and ensemble creation and devising and has directed academic productions of plays by such writers as Anne Washburn, Alice Birch, Sophie Treadwell, Anton Chekhov, Sarah Ruhl, Ellen McLaughlin, and Naomi Iizuka.
Creator/Director
Kamala Sankaram
Praised as “strikingly original” (NY Times) and a “new voice from whom we will surely be hearing more” (LA Times), Kamala Sankaram writes highly theatrical music that defies categorization. Recent commissions include Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Opera on Tap, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, among others. Awards, grants and residencies include: Jonathan Larson Award, NEA ArtWorks, MAP Fund, Opera America, NY IT Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical, the Civilians, HERE, the MacDowell Colony, and the Watermill Center. Also a performer, notable appearances include the LA Philharmonic, the LA Opera, and the PROTOTYPE Festival, among others. Kamala is the leader of Bombay Rickey, an operatic Bollywood surf ensemble (recipient of two awards for Best Eclectic Album from the Independent Music Awards). Her 2019/2020 season includes premieres at HERE Arts Center, the Glimmerglass Festival, and Houston Grand Opera. Dr. Sankaram holds a PhD from the New School and is currently a member of the composition faculty at SUNY Purchase. www.kamalasankaram.com
Composer
Aisha Zia
Aisha Zia is an award-winning playwright, former resident artist at Somerset House Studios and part of the 503Five at Theatre 503 in London. She has toured site- specific plays across the UK having had huge success with her two most recent plays with Common Wealth NO GUTS, NO HEART, NO GLORY (Winner of Scotsman Fringe First Award, shortlisted for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Awards) and OUR GLASS HOUSE (Winner of the Special Commendation from Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Awards). Both plays were a critical success with 4*/5* reviews in the Guardian, The Independent, Scotsman, Herald and The Yorkshire Post. NO GUTS, NO HEART, NO GLORY has since been published by Oberon, was part of the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank and Live from TVC Theatre commission with the Battersea Arts Centre on BBC 4.
NO GUTS, NO HEART, NO GLORY, a play about young Muslim female boxers from Bradford staged in real boxing gyms and OUR GLASS HOUSE, a play about domestic abuse staged in disused houses, both had huge success with engaging non-theatre goers and engaged young, diverse participants and audiences across the UK. Aisha’s work is dedicated to non-theatre audiences and has a strong proven track record of working in communities to deliver high-quality artistic work. It has been highlighted extensively in the press, in print, radio, and television and online, notably with features in the Guardian, The Independent, The Huffington Post as well as several appearances on BBC Radio 4.
Aisha is currently under commission from Contact Theatre in Manchester, Curve Theatre in Leicester, Fuel Theatre in London and Ripe Time in New York. As well as conceiving original ideas for theatre, film and TV, Aisha also works as a freelance photo editor for the Financial Times and the New Statesman, having previously worked for The Independent and Reuters.
Writer
AGAINST WOMEN & MUSIC!
In the 19th century, music was considered dangerous for women to play or even hear. Ideas about women's weakness of nerves was pervasive, and music was seen as inflammatory, leading to passions, despair, crime, madness, melancholy, hysteria and more. AGAINST WOMEN & MUSIC! is an anachronistic chamber musical about a female piano tuner’s love affair with her instrument that explores this perception of female sexual behavior and music in the 1800s. Through an aesthetic of dry politeness and absurdity, AGAINST WOMEN & MUSIC! delves into the entanglement of morality and order with women's bodily autonomy.
Kate Douglas
Kate Douglas (Book&Lyrics) is a theater artist, composer and performer. Her work has been performed at The Met Cloisters, Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub and The McKittrick Hotel and developed at New Victory Theatre, SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Orchard Project, Rhinebeck Musicals, The National Theater Institute and the Writer’s Colony at Goodspeed. She is a Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project Fellow and a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. She is currently a 2019-2020 Dramatists Guild Fellow. Upcoming co-writes include work with Todd Almond and Matthew Marsh. Favorite conversation topics include old growth forests, quantum physics and Nancy Drew.
Book/Lyrics
Grace McLean
Grace McLean (writer/composer) is an actor, singer, writer and composer. Performing credits include NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 (Broadway, Off-Broadway, ART), ALICE BY HEART (MCC), BROOKLYNITE (Vineyard), BEDBUGS!!! (Arclight), THE WORLD IS ROUND (BAM), SLEEP NO MORE (McKittrick), THE LAST GOODBYE (WTF), TWELVE OPHELIAS (Woodshed Collective), HELL HOUSE (St Ann’s Warehouse), LA MAMA CANTATA (La MaMa), and currently CYRANO (The New Group). As a writer, her original musical IN THE GREEN (LCT3) was commissioned and produced by Lincoln Center Theater. She has developed work at CAP21, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Goodspeed, The Orchard Project, The Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, and The MacDowell Colony. Grace’s band performed in the 2015 and 2016 seasons of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook and she is the recipient of a 2017 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center.
Writer/Composer
AFRIKAN•ISCH
From refugee and immigrant narratives to native-born stories, AFRIKAN•ISCH will present a rich tapestry of theatrical narratives created from ethnographic interviews Darrel Alejandro Holnes conducted within Black communities in Berlin, Germany.
Darrel Alejandro Holnes
Darrel Alejandro Holnes is a poet, playwright, and researcher from Panama City, Panama, and the former Panama Canal Zone. His plays have won or been finalists for various awards and honors including the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference, WSU’s Best New Play, Farrar Prize in Playwriting, and the Hopwood Award in Drama at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. He’s been awarded various grants including a Kitchen Theater Company New Play Development Grant, Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation Production Grant, and the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant in Literature. His plays have been presented as part of the Kennedy Center for the Arts College Theater Festival (THE BURNING ROOM), NOW African Playwrights Festival (SHELL SHOCK), Brick Theater's Festival of Lies (BIRD OF PRAY), Keep Soul Alive! at the National Black Theater (TRIGGER), and elsewhere nationwide. He is a MacDowell fellow in playwriting and a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers’ Group, the Musical Theater Factory’s POC Roundtable, and the Stillwater Writers Workshop. His play NATIVITY was selected for the 50PP List of top unproduced plays by Latinx playwrights in 2018. His play STARRY NIGHT was a 2018 finalist for the O'Neill's National Playwrights Conference and a 2019 finalist for the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting. His play FRANKLIN AVE was selected for the 2019 SolFest: A Latinx Theater Festival presented by The Sol Project and Pregones Theater/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, and an excerpt of his play MIMADO was read at Primary Stages as part of their Infinite Stories series presented by NYC Latinx Playwrights.
Playwright
THIS SHOW IS MONEY
THIS SHOW IS MONEY - A musical about the 1 and 99 percent exploring how our choices with this fictional creation called money affects people around us in ways we find difficult to see. As we follow several different characters who suddenly have a new job opportunity, we ask does it means to have more and less? Based on interviews ranging from Wall Street traders to those in the Occupy movement, to social media managers, to those who work in the service industries, and those who benefit from the illusion of being wealthy in a get-rich society, this new musical piece asks what is profit? Who profits and from what and how? Can the concepts of justice and money co-exist? THIS SHOW IS MONEY is about American’s love affair with money that asks what can happen if we see those connections? Can we change? An investigation that exposes how bad, scary, beautiful, and disturbing our relationships with the almighty dollar are.
Crystal Skillman
CRYSTAL SKILLMAN (Writer) is an award-wining dramatist. She is an NY Innovative Theatre Award winner, an alumni of Youngblood, the WP and Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and an EST member. Plays include NYTimes Critics Picks OPEN (The Tank), KING KIRBY (The Brick), GEEK (Vampire Cowboys), and CUT (Theatre Under St. Marks), as well as ANOTHER KIND OF LOVE (Chopin Theatre), and WILD (Lucille Lortel MCC Reading, IRT). New plays include PULP VÉRITÉ (2019 Kilroys List Honorable Mention) and RAIN AND ZOE SAVE THE WORLD (2018 EMOS Prize). She is the book writer of the musical MARY AND MAX (Composer/Lyricist Bobby Cronin), winner of the 2018 MUT Award Critics Prize, which premiered at Theatre Calgary last fall, which will premiere in Europe this fall. TV/Comic Books: EAT FIGHTER (WebToon), ADVENTURE TIME (Boom! Studios), and the pilot PAPER HEROES (Finalist for Big Break and Launch Pad). https://www.crystalskillman.com/
Writer
Gabriel "Gaby" Alter
Gabriel "Gaby" Alter is a songwriter and composer living in Brooklyn, originally from Berkeley, California. His musicals include NOBODY LOVES YOU with playwright Itamar Moses (Second Stage, The Old Globe Theater), BAND GEEKS (Goodspeed Musicals, Human Race Theater, MTI) and the song cycle 29 (Joe's Pub, NYU Steinhardt, Troy University) as well as contributions to STARS OF DAVID (DR2 Theater, National Tour). Film & TV: Disney's animated feature "Tinkerbell and the Pirate Fairy", PBS Kids TV, "3rd Street Blackout" (MarVista) starring Janeane Garofalo and John Hodgman. Gaby is the recipient of a Jonathan Larsen grant, the San Diego and San Francisco Critics' Circle Awards for Best Original Score and an ASCAP Plus Award in Musical Theater. He recently released his debut folk pop album under the name Yes Gabriel.
Composer
SANCTUARY
SANCTUARY (working title) will investigate the role of citizens can and should play in the inhumane immigration detention and deportation system by interviewing volunteers and staff of the New Sanctuary Coalition.
Jason Tseng
Jason Tseng (writer) is a queer, non-binary Chinese-American playwright based in New York City, originally hailing from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Their plays have been presented and developed by Flux Theatre Ensemble, Judson Arts, Mission to dit(Mars), Theatre COTE, Inkubator Arts and Second Generation. They are a member of Mission to dit(Mars)’s Propulsion Lab, a group of Queens-based playwrights. Jason’s full-length plays include RIZING (Flux Theatre Ensemble), LIKE FATHER (Reading, Judson Arts Wednesdays), SAME SAME (Reading, Mission to (dit)Mars), GHOST MONEY (Reading, Dramatist Guild Association), and FEAR AND WONDER. Find more at jasontseng.co
Writer
Directors
Michael Alvarez
Michael Alvarez (Director) is an international and interdisciplinary director and visual artist. He has directed in New York, London, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Eastern Europe, including such institutions as Her Majesty’s Theatre in the West End, Arcola Theatre, Institute of Contemporary Arts (UK), and the British Museum. Michael was a recent 2050 Directing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab. His new piece, LOVE, MEDEA, with writer Peter Gray, will be in residence at the Center at West Park in January 2020, and his new musical, SALOME, will have a residency at A Noise Within in Los Angeles in Spring 2020. He holds a BA in Performance Art from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and an MFA in Directing from California Institute of the Arts. www.Michael-Alvarez.com
Director
Kathleen Capdesuñer
KATHLEEN CAPDESUÑER (director) is a director, theatre-maker, and artistic leader currently based in NYC. She is a 2019/20 The Civilians’ R&D Group Director, 2019/20 Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellow, 2018/2019 Roundabout Directing Fellow, 2017/18 McCarter Theatre Center Directing Apprentice, Latinx Theatre Commons Steering Committee Member, and The COOP Youth Advisory Board Member. Kathleen has developed work at: Roundabout Theatre Company, American Lore Theatre, Columbia/Signature, Ensemble Studio Theatre, PlayxPlay, McCarter Theatre Center, Little y, and internationally in the Fringe Festival circuit. Kathleen is a first-generation Cuban-American from Kissimmee, Florida and committed to making equitable change in this industry. kcapdesuner.com
Director
Whitney Mosery
Whitney Mosery (Director) is a Brooklyn-based director, dramaturg, and art activist. Favorite credits: GIRL FROM NOWHERE (NYMF/St. James/Ed Fringe), presented in support of Planned Parenthood; FOREIGN BODIES (Princeton), a documentary piece about superbugs; and the play/ritual/bonfire/danceparty BACCHANALIA (US/UK/Greece). Associate Director: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD, AMERICAN PSYCHO, KING CHARLES III. Next up: dramaturging an as-yet-untitled Cirque du Soleil show, premiering in April 2020. Proud member of Orchard Project NYC Greenhouse, former Almeida Director in Residence, and Williamstown Theatre Festival Directing Corp alum. BA Princeton, MA RADA. www.whitneymosery.com
Director
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