Synopsis

Solo performance is a platform in which performers can stretch and showcase their creative abilities, while celebrating their natural instinct for storytelling. A physical and mental marathon, solo performance requires an athletic perseverance in the delivery of the narrative. Waltzing with disparate characters and chronology, performers shift skins in ways that traverse gender, ethnicity, religious, sexual and psychological boundaries. This discussion will focus on the collection and application of source materials, and the art of performing the solo show.

The following key questions will be explored:

*How do you know you’ve found source materials that best fit your project?
*How many sources do you locate before you find you have enough to create a narrative for performance? Is it ever okay to take liberties with a character based on an actual person?
*When you are creating a performance out of an actual text, how do you wield text, most likely prose, into dramatic action?
*How do you find your voice while staying truthful to the source?
*How early in the process do you invite a dramaturg or director to work with you on the narrative?
*What are some tips for creating clear distinctions between different characters?
*How do you mentally and physically prepare for a solo performance?
*How early in the process do you begin to consider multimedia, and when do you begin to combine the text with the visual language of the screen?

Panelists

Moe Angelos

Moe Angelos has worked with The Builders Association as a performer since 1999, spanning two centuries, several productions and many a hotel room mini-bar. In addition, she has written six plays with her collaborative theatre company The Five Lesbian Brothers, who have been published and won some awards. As a performer, she has appeared in the work of Carmelita Tropicana, Anne Bogart, Holly Hughes, Lois Weaver, Zack, Peg Healey, Dominique Dibbell, Lisa Kron, and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, to name a few.

Danny  Hoch

Danny Hoch is a playwright & actor whose plays have toured the U.S. and the world garnering many awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama, 2 OBIE Awards, Sundance Playwrighting & Screenwriting Fellowships, the CalArts/Alpert Award In Theatre and he was most recently named a USA Ford Fellow for his contributions to the American Theatre. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, New York Times, Harper's, The Nation, American Theatre, and various books: Out Of Character, Extreme Exposure, Creating Your Own Monologue and Total Chaos and his own Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop by Villard/Random House. His writing and acting credits for TV and film include Nurse Jackie, Bored To Death, Blue Bloods, Law & Order, The Good Wife, Blackhawk Down, American Splendor, War Of The Worlds, Lucky You, We Own The Night, Bamboozled, Washington Heights, Prison Song, Some People, Subway Stories, Thin Red Line, Ted, Home, Whiteboys, and Henry’s Crime. Mr. Hoch founded the Hip-Hop Theater Festival which has presented scores of Hip-Hop Generation plays from around the globe and appears annually in several American cities. His latest play Taking Over, about gentrification in New York City premiered at The Public Theater after a free tour of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. An anthology of his work, Up Against The Wall will be published by TCG in December 2015.

Dael Orlandersmith

Dael Orlandersmith previously collaborated with the Goodman on Stoop Stories during the 2009/2010 Season. Ms. Orlandersmith first performed Stoop Stories  in 2008 at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and Apollo Theater’s Salon Series; Washington, DC’s Studio Theatre produced its world premiere in 2009. Black N Blue/Broken Men was developed as a co-commission between the Goodman and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it was staged in May 2012. Her play Horsedreams  was developed at New Dramatists and workshopped at New York Stage and Film Company in 2008, and was performed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2011. Bones  was commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum where it premiered in 2010. Ms. Orlandersmith premiered The Blue Album , in collaboration with David Cale, at Long Wharf Theatre in 2007. Yellowman was commissioned by and premiered at McCarter Theatre in a co-production with The Wilma Theater and Long Wharf Theatre. Ms. Orlandersmith was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Drama Desk Award nominee for Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress in a Play for Yellowman in 2002. The Gimmick, commissioned by McCarter Theatre, premiered in their Second Stage OnStage series in 1998 and went on to great acclaim at Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop; Ms. Orlandersmith won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Gimmick in 1999. Her play Monster premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in November 1996. Ms. Orlandersmith has toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Café (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. Yellowman  and a collection of her earlier works have been published by Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service. Ms. Orlandersmith attended Sundance Institute Theatre Lab for four summers and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, The Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, a Guggenheim and the 2005 PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career. She is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights Fellowship and an Obie Award for Beauty’s Daughter. As of 2013/14, Ms. Orlandersmith is working on a new solo play for the Mark Taper forum called Forever  which will be done 2015 at Portland Center Stage. She has also written a new play called ‘the killing Floor Trilogy’ which will be workshopped at ACT San Francisco 2014.

Nilaja Sun

Nilaja Sun is the solo performer and writer of the Off-Broadway smash No Child..., which had its initial run at the Barrow Street Theatre and was then revived there in an extended run. For her creation and performance of No Child... and its subsequent
national tour, Nilaja garnered 21 awards including: an Obie Award, a Helen Hayes Award a Lucille Lortel Award, and two Outer Critics Circle Awards including the John Gassner Playwriting Award for Outstanding New American Play.Theatre credits also include The Commons of Pensacola, Einstein's Gift, Time and The Conways, Huck and Holden, and The Cook. Tv/Film credits include Madam Secretary, Louie, 30 Rock, Law & Order: SVU, Unforgettable, The International, and Rubicon. As a solo performer, her projects include the critically acclaimed Blues for a Gray Sun (INTAR), La Nubia Latina, Black and Blue, Insufficient Fare, Due to the Tragic Events of..., and Mixtures. Nilaja was awarded the soloNOVA Award for Artist of the Year by terraNOVA
Collective. Sun was recently awarded a NYSCHA grant, through Epic Theatre Ensemble, to create her newest solo piece, Pike St, which will have its world premiere at the Abrons Arts Center in November. A native of the Lower East Side, she is a Princess Grace Award winner and has worked as a teaching artist in New York City for over 15 years.

Moderator

Jo Bonney - Director

Premieres of plays by: Alan Ball, Eric Bogosian, Culture Clash, Eve Ensler, Jessica Goldberg, Danny Hoch, Neil LaBute, Warren Leight, Lynn Nottage,  Dael Orlandersmith, Suzan-Lori Parks, Darci Picoult, Will Power, David Rabe, Jose Rivera, Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, Christopher Shinn, Diana Son, Universes, Naomi Wallace, Michael Weller.

Productions of plays by: Caryl Churchill, Nilo Cruz, Anna Deavere Smith, Charles Fuller, Lisa Loomer, John Osborne, John Pollono, Lanford Wilson.

Productions directed at: ART, Boston; PS 122; The Public Theater NYC; NYTW; Second Stage; Goodman Theatre; La Jolla Playhouse; MCC, NY; Geffen Playhouse; Williamstown Festival; McCarter Theater; Playwrights Horizons; Arena Stage; CTG, LA; Signature, NY; Long Wharf; The New Group; CSC; Humana Festival; Almeida, London; Edinburgh Festival; The Market Theatre, Johannesburg; The Baxter, Cape Town SA, Cine 13, Paris.

Recipient of 1998 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Direction, Lucille Lortel Best Musical and Lucille Lortel Best Revival. Drama Desk nomination for Direction of Vera Stark. Lilly Award. Editor of Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century (TCG).