We're excited to discuss these questions with you while experiencing one performance, four online sessions and most of all, spending time with one another. You're invited below to meet the artists, artistic directors, scholars, and theatre professionals who will start the conversations on Audience and Community, Theatre Formats and Mediums, Cultural Policy, and Theatre Education.
We're looking forward to meeting you and hearing the questions you've been asking during this time,
She has directed new plays and classics in New York and across the U.S., enjoying collaborations with major American playwrights, including Adrienne Kennedy and Richard Greenberg. She directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box for Theatre for a New Audience, where she previously directed her Ohio State Murders (Lortel Award for Best Revival) and the Off-Broadway premiere of Howard Brenton’s Sore Throats. She opened Manhattan Theatre Club’s Biltmore Theatre (Broadway) with Greenberg’s The Violet Hour, directed his Everett Beekin at Lincoln Center Theater, and received an Obie Award for her direction of his Three Days of Rain at Manhattan Theatre Club, having directed the premieres of all three at South Coast Repertory.
At Yale Repertory Theatre, she has directed Cymbeline, Richard II, The Master Builder, George F. Walker’s Heaven, Brecht’s Galileo, Gozzi’s The King Stag (which she adapted with her brother, composer Mike Yionoulis and Catherine Sheehy), Caryl Churchill’s Owners, the world premiere of Kirsten Greenidge’s Bossa Nova, and numerous other productions including Kiss, by Guillermo Calderón.
Other credits include productions at the Mark Taper Forum, the Huntington, NY Shakespeare Festival, the Vineyard, Second Stage, Primary Stages, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Denver Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and many others.
She directed Seven, a documentary theatre piece about extraordinary women from across the globe who work for human rights, in New York, Boston, Washington, Aspen, London, Deauville, and New Delhi.
Her short film, Lost and Found, made with Mike Yionoulis, premiered at Cleveland International Film Festival. Their most recent collaborations are the multi-platform project Redhand Guitar, about five generations of musicians across an American century, and The Dread Pirate Project, about the malleability of identity between the digital and natural worlds.
She has received a Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship, Works-in-Progress Grant, and the foundation’s prestigious Statuette. She serves as president of the executive board of SDC, the U.S. national labor union representing stage directors and choreographers.
Lee is a leading thinker and social entrepreneur in harnessing the power of creativity and the arts for social transformation. He researches arts, politics and cultural policy and seeks to understand and influence how artists create social change and open dialogue in conflict zones and divided societies.
Alongside this work, she is currently part-time Lecturer in the Arts in Justice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where she designs and delivers creative projects in prisons and with communities affected by crime. She is a founder and trustee of Justice and Arts Scotland (formally SPAN) an organisation dedicated to developing creative work in Scottish prisons and post-release. Jess is an artist and consultant with the International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA), where she has led projects across the world.
Jess has published a large number of articles around the use of the Arts in socially engaged contexts and in 2019 released her first book 'A Beginners Guide to Devising Theatre' co-written with her long time collaborator Tashi Gore for Bloomsbury.
In the past few years, she created and performed in the shows: "Practice Makes Perfect" for which she won Best Performer at the 2015 Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, "A Family Tree" (part of "A Broken Phone" event), and "The Other Body" for which she won Best Performer at the 2014 Israeli Fringe Awards (created together with Atalia Branzburg).
She works as a lecturer in the Theatre Department of Tel Aviv University and Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts teaching performance as well as in various programs for children and adults.
Nataly is a freelance dramaturg working with different artists from the dance and theatre fields. Between the years 2018–2019, she worked as the dramaturge of the IsraDrama and International Exposure of Israeli Theatre.
She is also one of the initiators and artistic directors of "Talooy Bamakom – a Site Specific Festival" and of "Night Beat" as part of the yearly White Night celebrations in Tel Aviv.
She has a first degree in education and directing from The Kibbutzim College of Education, and another BA degree in Performance from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2015, She received her Master's degree in Theater Studies from Tel Aviv University.
In 2016. Neni was awarded by the President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, with The National Medal – The Order of Danica Hrvatska for culture - Marko Marulić - for exceptional contribution in culture and its national and international promotion.
Nenni has been the director Director in residence at Croatian National Theatre in Split since 1997. Previously at CNT Split she served as the Artistic Drama Director and the Drama Director for the Split Summer Festival (2002-04), and the President of Theatre Council (2008-10). She was a council member of Festival Marulićevi dani - Festival of Croatian Drama (2002-14), as well as the Program Director (2009-10). She was also program director for the Festival of Croatian Drama for Children – Mali Marulić (2012-14), and the International Children’s Festival in Šibenik (2013-16). Nenni was a 2018-19 member of the committee for the Marin Držić award for Cotemporary Croatian drama - Ministry of Culture
Aroji was previously the Creative & Content Director of FilmAid Kenya, a communication-based humanitarian organization that disseminates life-saving information and offers psychological relief through creative media programs in Refugee Camps within East Africa. He is also the founder of Aroji Drama Academy.
Aroji has written, directed, and staged several plays within his seventeen-year career. His short-play, ‘An Eritrean Lesson’ was performed in the NOW AFRICA Festival 2016, at The National Black Theatre (New York). His article on Kenyan Theatre was published in the International Theatre Institute annual magazine (ITI-Japan) 2015. He is a beneficiary of La MaMa International Directors’ Lab, Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Nairobi Music Theatre Initiative, Kampala International Theatre Festival, Crossing Boundaries Theatre Festival in Ethiopia, and Kerala Annual Theatre Festival.
Aroji is passionate about skills development in the arts sector and has consistently trained theatre and film practitioners since 2006. He also developed a Speech and Drama syllabus which is used as a curriculum template by some schools in Kenya. Similarly, Aroji has been committed to supporting youth and community groups pursuing theatre or film. He works with experimental street and community theatre forms, and also works with marginalized ethnic communities in Kenya like the Somali, Turkana, and other African communities located in the refugee camps. His work at the Kakuma Refugee Camp was aired on CNN, Inside Africa. Aroji blogs - when the mute bites - at www.arojiotieno.com.
Her work fuses drama, movement and poetry. She uses applied theatre to tell contemporary stories. She has began experimenting with physical theatre to promote and preserve culture while exploring its intersection with emerging and popular culture. Her work involves using the transformative tool of theatre to evoke emotions and provoke thought on touchy subjects like sexual harassment, juvenile crime and taboos in the African Culture.
2018, she presented a performance at the Bagamoyo International Festival of Arts and Culture in Tanzania which was facilitated by a grant from the British Council. She was also be part of the Producers Academy in Belgium and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in 2019.
Caroline is a Bakanal De Afrique Fellow 2020 - A fellowship of multidimensional artists of African Descent and the Bay Area.
Important performances include Comfort Object, created with Rotem Volk at Habait Theatre (2020), Terra Incognita, which premiered at the Tmu-na Theatre Festival (2020),The head comes last, which she both wrote and performed in (2017), Rak Behazba'a, a show about the Israeli education sistem for which Dana served as performer and dramaturge (2017), The ME which she performed at the Garage Theatre in Norwich and at Edinburgh (2015), and unprecribed, which she performed in London and at Edinburgh fringe festival with the Sun Apparatus Theatre company (2013).
Her work constantly challenges the traditional roles of performer and viewer and often reflects on political and social issues while referring to contemporary pop culture phenomena and icons. Her site specific practice involves immersive and intimate video and audio walks encouraging audience participation and personal re-engagement with the urban environment and architecture. Rotem holds a Be.D in Theatre Directing from Hakibutzim College, Tel Aviv and MA in Performance Making from Goldsmiths University, London.
Gabriel has directed readings and short plays with companies such as Theater Accident, Theater for The New City, The Tank NYC, Casa Ensemble Colombia, Hong Kong Arts Center, KrisP Productions Hong Kong, and many others. He has also been published by BLANK Magazine, Mr Ma’Am Literary Magazine, Eleven and a Half and the Operating Room. Gabriel has a one Year Certification from The Neighborhood Playhouse Theatre. He also holds a BA in Liberal Sciences, and he is a candidate for a Media Studies MA at The New School, with concentrations in innovative storytelling, creative community development and a graduate certificate in Media Management. Gabriel was also part of the Riggio's Honors Democracy and Writing Program, Creative Capital Professional Workshop for Artists 2019. and part of the EMERGENYC Hemisphere Institute Program 2020.
Gabriel is proud to be a community organizer, he has worked as community coordinator for Fandango For Butterflies and (Coyotes) - En Garde Arts, He is currently a Community Consultant for Outer Seed Shadow, He hosts an initiative for site specific artists gathering together with Elise Bernhardt and Irina Kruzhilina, and He is currently developing a new engagement project for under represented latinx communities with Maria Torres O’connor.
He works at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade at the Department of Theory and History, the subject of History of World Drama and Theater. He was a member and chairman of several organizational boards of international scientific symposia in the field of theater and literature, organized by “Sterija pozorje”, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and others.
Ivan is an active theater critic, in the Politika daily and in the weekly Vreme. He is a member of the editorial board of Teatron's theater magazine. He is currently Assistant Secretary General of the International Association of Theater Critics.
After graduating Visual-Communication studies at Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, and completing a one-year conservatory at Beit-Zvi School of Performing Arts, and became an active member of the Herzlia community theatre, home, and stage for the joint work of physically disabled and non-disabled actors.
Her passion of storytelling, talent, and professional skills led her to spearhead a group of artists and found Dirty Laundry Theatre, producing and developing plays of various cultures, seeking to highlight uncommon views of the day-to-day lives beyond the stereotypical angle and raise consciousness and encourage American audience to embrace the cultural differences.
In 2018, she co-founded the Israeli-women blog “Missvada”, sharing her experiences as an Israeli woman in diaspora. In the past decade, Maera has been working for SundaySky as a Customer Success Manager, and a member of the company’s diversity committee.
You will be able to attend as viewers on the show's 'Telegram' group. You will either watch the live correspondence or mute the group and subsequently read the correspondence. At any point you choose to join the group, you will be able to read the chat history and catch up on what you missed. Enjoy!
13th-14th-15th October – Starting one day before the gathering, and continuing in between the gathering discussions, live play on Telegram.
Playwright & Director: Nimrod Danishman. Actors: Morad Hassan & Yoel Rozenkier. Dramaturgy: Roey Maliach Reshef. Translation from Hebrew: Adi Drori.
We're excited to discuss these questions with you while experiencing one performance, four online sessions and most of all, spending time with one another. You're invited below to meet the artists, artistic directors, scholars, and theatre professionals who will start the conversations on Audience and Community, Theatre Formats and Mediums, Cultural Policy, and Theatre Education.
We're looking forward to meeting you and hearing the questions you've been asking during this time,
She has directed new plays and classics in New York and across the U.S., enjoying collaborations with major American playwrights, including Adrienne Kennedy and Richard Greenberg. She directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box for Theatre for a New Audience, where she previously directed her Ohio State Murders (Lortel Award for Best Revival) and the Off-Broadway premiere of Howard Brenton’s Sore Throats. She opened Manhattan Theatre Club’s Biltmore Theatre (Broadway) with Greenberg’s The Violet Hour, directed his Everett Beekin at Lincoln Center Theater, and received an Obie Award for her direction of his Three Days of Rain at Manhattan Theatre Club, having directed the premieres of all three at South Coast Repertory.
At Yale Repertory Theatre, she has directed Cymbeline, Richard II, The Master Builder, George F. Walker’s Heaven, Brecht’s Galileo, Gozzi’s The King Stag (which she adapted with her brother, composer Mike Yionoulis and Catherine Sheehy), Caryl Churchill’s Owners, the world premiere of Kirsten Greenidge’s Bossa Nova, and numerous other productions including Kiss, by Guillermo Calderón.
Other credits include productions at the Mark Taper Forum, the Huntington, NY Shakespeare Festival, the Vineyard, Second Stage, Primary Stages, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Denver Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and many others.
She directed Seven, a documentary theatre piece about extraordinary women from across the globe who work for human rights, in New York, Boston, Washington, Aspen, London, Deauville, and New Delhi.
Her short film, Lost and Found, made with Mike Yionoulis, premiered at Cleveland International Film Festival. Their most recent collaborations are the multi-platform project Redhand Guitar, about five generations of musicians across an American century, and The Dread Pirate Project, about the malleability of identity between the digital and natural worlds.
She has received a Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship, Works-in-Progress Grant, and the foundation’s prestigious Statuette. She serves as president of the executive board of SDC, the U.S. national labor union representing stage directors and choreographers.
Lee is a leading thinker and social entrepreneur in harnessing the power of creativity and the arts for social transformation. He researches arts, politics and cultural policy and seeks to understand and influence how artists create social change and open dialogue in conflict zones and divided societies.
Alongside this work, she is currently part-time Lecturer in the Arts in Justice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where she designs and delivers creative projects in prisons and with communities affected by crime. She is a founder and trustee of Justice and Arts Scotland (formally SPAN) an organisation dedicated to developing creative work in Scottish prisons and post-release. Jess is an artist and consultant with the International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA), where she has led projects across the world.
Jess has published a large number of articles around the use of the Arts in socially engaged contexts and in 2019 released her first book 'A Beginners Guide to Devising Theatre' co-written with her long time collaborator Tashi Gore for Bloomsbury.
In the past few years, she created and performed in the shows: "Practice Makes Perfect" for which she won Best Performer at the 2015 Acco Festival of Alternative Israeli Theatre, "A Family Tree" (part of "A Broken Phone" event), and "The Other Body" for which she won Best Performer at the 2014 Israeli Fringe Awards (created together with Atalia Branzburg).
She works as a lecturer in the Theatre Department of Tel Aviv University and Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts teaching performance as well as in various programs for children and adults.
Nataly is a freelance dramaturg working with different artists from the dance and theatre fields. Between the years 2018–2019, she worked as the dramaturge of the IsraDrama and International Exposure of Israeli Theatre.
She is also one of the initiators and artistic directors of "Talooy Bamakom – a Site Specific Festival" and of "Night Beat" as part of the yearly White Night celebrations in Tel Aviv.
She has a first degree in education and directing from The Kibbutzim College of Education, and another BA degree in Performance from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2015, She received her Master's degree in Theater Studies from Tel Aviv University.
In 2016. Neni was awarded by the President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, with The National Medal – The Order of Danica Hrvatska for culture - Marko Marulić - for exceptional contribution in culture and its national and international promotion.
Nenni has been the director Director in residence at Croatian National Theatre in Split since 1997. Previously at CNT Split she served as the Artistic Drama Director and the Drama Director for the Split Summer Festival (2002-04), and the President of Theatre Council (2008-10). She was a council member of Festival Marulićevi dani - Festival of Croatian Drama (2002-14), as well as the Program Director (2009-10). She was also program director for the Festival of Croatian Drama for Children – Mali Marulić (2012-14), and the International Children’s Festival in Šibenik (2013-16). Nenni was a 2018-19 member of the committee for the Marin Držić award for Cotemporary Croatian drama - Ministry of Culture
Aroji was previously the Creative & Content Director of FilmAid Kenya, a communication-based humanitarian organization that disseminates life-saving information and offers psychological relief through creative media programs in Refugee Camps within East Africa. He is also the founder of Aroji Drama Academy.
Aroji has written, directed, and staged several plays within his seventeen-year career. His short-play, ‘An Eritrean Lesson’ was performed in the NOW AFRICA Festival 2016, at The National Black Theatre (New York). His article on Kenyan Theatre was published in the International Theatre Institute annual magazine (ITI-Japan) 2015. He is a beneficiary of La MaMa International Directors’ Lab, Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Nairobi Music Theatre Initiative, Kampala International Theatre Festival, Crossing Boundaries Theatre Festival in Ethiopia, and Kerala Annual Theatre Festival.
Aroji is passionate about skills development in the arts sector and has consistently trained theatre and film practitioners since 2006. He also developed a Speech and Drama syllabus which is used as a curriculum template by some schools in Kenya. Similarly, Aroji has been committed to supporting youth and community groups pursuing theatre or film. He works with experimental street and community theatre forms, and also works with marginalized ethnic communities in Kenya like the Somali, Turkana, and other African communities located in the refugee camps. His work at the Kakuma Refugee Camp was aired on CNN, Inside Africa. Aroji blogs - when the mute bites - at www.arojiotieno.com.
Her work fuses drama, movement and poetry. She uses applied theatre to tell contemporary stories. She has began experimenting with physical theatre to promote and preserve culture while exploring its intersection with emerging and popular culture. Her work involves using the transformative tool of theatre to evoke emotions and provoke thought on touchy subjects like sexual harassment, juvenile crime and taboos in the African Culture.
2018, she presented a performance at the Bagamoyo International Festival of Arts and Culture in Tanzania which was facilitated by a grant from the British Council. She was also be part of the Producers Academy in Belgium and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in 2019.
Caroline is a Bakanal De Afrique Fellow 2020 - A fellowship of multidimensional artists of African Descent and the Bay Area.
Important performances include Comfort Object, created with Rotem Volk at Habait Theatre (2020), Terra Incognita, which premiered at the Tmu-na Theatre Festival (2020),The head comes last, which she both wrote and performed in (2017), Rak Behazba'a, a show about the Israeli education sistem for which Dana served as performer and dramaturge (2017), The ME which she performed at the Garage Theatre in Norwich and at Edinburgh (2015), and unprecribed, which she performed in London and at Edinburgh fringe festival with the Sun Apparatus Theatre company (2013).
Her work constantly challenges the traditional roles of performer and viewer and often reflects on political and social issues while referring to contemporary pop culture phenomena and icons. Her site specific practice involves immersive and intimate video and audio walks encouraging audience participation and personal re-engagement with the urban environment and architecture. Rotem holds a Be.D in Theatre Directing from Hakibutzim College, Tel Aviv and MA in Performance Making from Goldsmiths University, London.
Gabriel has directed readings and short plays with companies such as Theater Accident, Theater for The New City, The Tank NYC, Casa Ensemble Colombia, Hong Kong Arts Center, KrisP Productions Hong Kong, and many others. He has also been published by BLANK Magazine, Mr Ma’Am Literary Magazine, Eleven and a Half and the Operating Room. Gabriel has a one Year Certification from The Neighborhood Playhouse Theatre. He also holds a BA in Liberal Sciences, and he is a candidate for a Media Studies MA at The New School, with concentrations in innovative storytelling, creative community development and a graduate certificate in Media Management. Gabriel was also part of the Riggio's Honors Democracy and Writing Program, Creative Capital Professional Workshop for Artists 2019. and part of the EMERGENYC Hemisphere Institute Program 2020.
Gabriel is proud to be a community organizer, he has worked as community coordinator for Fandango For Butterflies and (Coyotes) - En Garde Arts, He is currently a Community Consultant for Outer Seed Shadow, He hosts an initiative for site specific artists gathering together with Elise Bernhardt and Irina Kruzhilina, and He is currently developing a new engagement project for under represented latinx communities with Maria Torres O’connor.
He works at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade at the Department of Theory and History, the subject of History of World Drama and Theater. He was a member and chairman of several organizational boards of international scientific symposia in the field of theater and literature, organized by “Sterija pozorje”, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and others.
Ivan is an active theater critic, in the Politika daily and in the weekly Vreme. He is a member of the editorial board of Teatron's theater magazine. He is currently Assistant Secretary General of the International Association of Theater Critics.
After graduating Visual-Communication studies at Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, and completing a one-year conservatory at Beit-Zvi School of Performing Arts, and became an active member of the Herzlia community theatre, home, and stage for the joint work of physically disabled and non-disabled actors.
Her passion of storytelling, talent, and professional skills led her to spearhead a group of artists and found Dirty Laundry Theatre, producing and developing plays of various cultures, seeking to highlight uncommon views of the day-to-day lives beyond the stereotypical angle and raise consciousness and encourage American audience to embrace the cultural differences.
In 2018, she co-founded the Israeli-women blog “Missvada”, sharing her experiences as an Israeli woman in diaspora. In the past decade, Maera has been working for SundaySky as a Customer Success Manager, and a member of the company’s diversity committee.
You will be able to attend as viewers on the show's 'Telegram' group. You will either watch the live correspondence or mute the group and subsequently read the correspondence. At any point you choose to join the group, you will be able to read the chat history and catch up on what you missed. Enjoy!
13th-14th-15th October – Starting one day before the gathering, and continuing in between the gathering discussions, live play on Telegram.
Playwright & Director: Nimrod Danishman. Actors: Morad Hassan & Yoel Rozenkier. Dramaturgy: Roey Maliach Reshef. Translation from Hebrew: Adi Drori.