Open Training begins Tuesday plus 'The Lab' at Grace & St. Paul's this Saturday

It's a big week for The Ume Group! We're kicking off our Open Training Series this Tuesday at 7p with a Butoh lesson with Yokko. Participants are then invited to stay and rehearse with The Ume Group as we begin to devise materials for our newest piece. This event is open to the community and by-donation/ pay-what-you-can. 

I'm also looking forward to moderating the talk-back immediately following The Ume Group's Lab @ Grace & St. Paul's Church- a forum for early stage performance experiments. We'll be hosting the following artists as they share their early explorations of these pieces:

-Ren Gyo Soh- Solo Dances (dance)

-Dara Malina- Adaptation of Minna Needs Rehearsal Space (other)

-Tom Nieboer- REINHARDT - The Unsavory Rise and Putrid Fall of An Uncommonly Filthy and Disreputable Youth (literature)

-Camilla Dely- of soft fissures and jagged spine (dance)

This event is free to the public and a reception will follow. Join us! 

Reading of "The Offending Gesture" by Mac Wellman

I'm thrilled to be working again with director Meghan Finn on another Mac Wellman piece- a reading of "The Offending Gesture." It's part of the inaugural New Works Brooklyn Festival and features the work of an absurdly fierce lineup of playwrights, including Kia Corthron, Erin Courtney, Jose Rivera, Anne Washburn and Mac Wellman.

The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman, directed by Meghan Finn, curated by Christine Snyder Sunday, June 29, 3:00 PM, 312 Roosevelt Hall- Brooklyn College Campus- 2900 Bedford Ave. 

Read all about it at the Brooklyn Eagle or on Broadway World.  

A Reading of 'Botte di Ferro' by Ben Gassman

Ocean becomes pizza becomes candy becomes war as a sometimes couple tries to make sense of desire and each other across a decade, new kinds of telephony, and a night in Naples where it all seems right.

A Reading of Botte di Ferro

by Ben Gassman 

directed by Mark Sitko

Cast Includes: Noel Joseph Allain, Keelie A. Sheridan, Eliza Bent, Sam Soghor and Sarah Mollo-Christensen

Thursday, May 15 @ 3PM

The New Ohio Theater

154 Christopher St. (inside the Archive Building)

Readings

I recently had the opportunity to participate in readings of two new plays: Botte di Ferro by Ben Gassman and The Errant Gene by Richard Manley. I'm very excited to continue following the development of these two terrific pieces.