July 22, 2015 | sarah@dotdotdotmusic.net | t. 718/344-3690 | www.dotdotdotmusic.net

BETH MORRISION PROJECTS AND HERE ANNOUNCE

PROTOTYPE 2016: OPERA/THEATRE/NOW

Featuring ANGEL'S BONE (WORLD PREMIERE)

DOG DAYS (NY PREMIERE) THE GOOD SWIMMER (FIRST-LOOK PRESENTATION)

THE LAST HOTEL (AMERICAN PREMIERE) SÁGA (AMERICAN PREMIERE MULTI-MEDIA CONCERT)

BOMBAY RICKEY (OPERA-CABARET PRESENTATION) LA REINA (CONCERT READING)

By

Du Yun/Royce Vavrek • David T. Little/Royce Vavrek/Judy Budnitz •Heidi Rodewald/Donna Di Novelli• Donnacha Dennehy/Enda Walsh • Dez Mona & B.O.X • Kamala Sankaram • Jorge Sosa

/Laura Sosa Pedrosa

JANUARY 6–17, 2016

“A wildly promising new opera and music-theatre festival...shows the dramatic potential of black box opera.” — The New York Times

“…a major leader in opera theater for the twenty-first century.” — Opera News

“A fertile breeding ground for interesting new work.” — The Washington Post

“Kristin Marting, Beth Morrison, and Kim Whitener…found the crevices in New York’s underground opera life and filled them with inventive shows and intrepid audiences.” — New

York magazine Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) and HERE's fourth annual Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now runs January 6-17, 2016. Deemed “suddenly indispensable” (New Yorker), this "bracingly innovative" Festival, founded, directed, and curated by Kristin Marting (of HERE), Beth Morrison (of BMP), and Kim Whitener (of HERE), has quickly become "a point of reference” in the field (The New York Times) over three astoundingly successful seasons. The 2016 Festival “prove[s] that thrilling opera continues to bloom” (Time Out New York), nurturing vital work along the way. Angel’s Bone (Du Yun/Royce Vavrek), which was workshopped in the 2014 Festival, leads the programming with a fully-produced world premiere in a co-production between Prototype and Trinity Wall Street this season. Meanwhile, Dog Days, David T. Little and Royce Vavrek’s highly-acclaimed opera, based on the short-story by Judy Budnitz, predicted to become a “groundbreaking American classic” by The New York Times, returns from a recent tour of Fort Worth Opera and Los Angeles Opera for its New York City premiere. The Good Swimmer (Heidi Rodewald/Donna Di Novelli), updating the relationships of Antigone and set during the Vietnam War, gets a first-look at this year’s Festival. The Last Hotel, by Irish creative duo Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh, comes to America after acclaimed performances at Edinburgh International Arts Festival and the Royal Opera House. Sága, told through the prism of Belgian indie band Dez Mona in collaboration with B.O.X. (Baroque Orchestration X), which comes to New York for its American premiere, blurs the lines between a modern opera and a song cycle. Next up is a late-night opera-cabaret offering in the form of the “brazen, cheeky and just downright spunky” (World Music Central) band, Bombay Rickey, led by composer/coloratura soprano Kamala Sankaram. The Festival is rounded out with a concert reading of La Reina, an electro-acoustic opera commissioned by American Lyric Theater with text in Spanish and English by composer Jorge Sosa and librettist Laura Sosa Pedroza, which draws its narrative from the Mexico-U.S. drug trade.

The 2016 Festival takes place at HERE and the following presenting partner venues: 3LD Art & Technology Center, French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), National Sawdust, NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, and St. Ann’s Warehouse. Read on for more about each of the 2016 Festival programs.

A B O U T T H E P R O G R A M S

ANGEL’S BONE (WORLD PREMIERE) Composer Du Yun Librett ist Royce Vavrek @ 3LD Center for Art & Technology This collaboration between Du Yun and Royce Vavrek, two of the most compelling young artists working in the field today, is directed by multidisciplinary rising star Michael McQuilken. Workshopped as part of the 2014 Prototype Festival, Angel’s Bone follows the plight of two fallen angels mysteriously come to Earth who are found, sheltered, then manipulated and abused by a pair of mortals bent on worldly prosperity at all costs. Exploring the dark effects and motivations behind modern-day slavery and the trafficking industry, the work is scored for four —coming disparately from the operatic, punk, folk, and musical theatre worlds—plus The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, electronics, and an ensemble of ten NOVUS NY instrumentalists under the music direction of Julian Wachner. Angel’s Bone is developed and co-produced with Trinity Wall Street.

Director: Michael McQuilken Music Director: Julian Wachner Scenic Design: Matthew Saunders Light Design: Yi Zhao Projection Design: Hannah Wasileski Choregraphy: Christy Lee

Originally commissioned by the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia. Completion co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE. Co-produced by Beth Morrison Projects, HERE, and Trinity Wall Street. Co-presented with 3LD Center for Art & Technology.

DOG DAYS (NY PREMIERE) Composer David T. Li t t le Librett ist Royce Vavrek Based on the short story “Dog Days” by Judy Budnitz @ Skirball Center for the Performing Arts - New York University

Composed by David T. Little with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, Dog Days is based on the eponymous short story by Judy Budnitz. “This gripping two-hour opera…wastes no time: A taut libretto and varied, original music deliver its grim story like a punch in the stomach,” (Wall Street Journal). Directed by Robert Woodruff, this work of contemporary opera-theatre incorporates elements of opera, musical theatre, and rock-infused-concert music to investigate the psychology of a working class American family against a not-so-distant-future wartime scenario. This black comedy asks: is it madness, delusion, or sheer animal instinct that guides us through severely trying times? Where lies the line between animal and human, and at what point must we give into our animal instincts to survive?

Director: Robert Woodruff Music Director: Alan Pierson Scenic and Video Designer: Jim Findlay Lighting Designer: Christopher Kuhl /Associate Lighting Designer: Masha Tsimring Costume Designer: Vita Tzykun

Dog Days was originally produced by Peak Performances @ Montclair State (NJ) in association with Beth Morrison Projects. Dog Days was commissioned by Peak Performances @ Montclair State (NJ). Selections from Dog Days were commissioned and presented by Carnegie Hall for the Weill Music Institute. Scenes from Dog Days were presented as part of New York City Opera’s VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab. The 2015-2016 tour of Dog Days is produced by Beth Morrison Projects. Dog Days is presented by arrangement with Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes company, publisher and copyright owner. Co-presented with NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

THE GOOD SWIMMER (FIRST-LOOK PRESENTATION) Composer Heidi Rodewald Librett ist Donna Di Novell i @ HERE’s Mainstage Theatre The Good Swimmer, part requiem, part lifesaving drill, is a new music-theatre piece by Heidi Rodewald (music) and Donna Di Novelli (libretto), directed by Kevin Newbury. Set entirely on a surf beach, the piece updates the kinship relationships of Antigone to a family of lifeguards during the early days of the Vietnam War. The pop musical rips apart non-literary ‘found’ texts (field guides, historical quotations, lifesaving manuals) to create song lyrics for four principals, a chorus of lifeguards, and a rock band. The Good Swimmer pits the ‘common good’ against the primacy of kinship as a sister opposes a monument to be built in her beloved brother’s memory. All the singers onstage

are under 21 years of age, reflecting the somber truth that a majority of those lost in Vietnam would never reach their 22nd birthday.

Director: Kevin Newbury Choreographer: Sam Pinkleton Set Designer: Vita Tzykun Lighting Designer: Eric Southern Costume Designer: David Woolard Developed with the support of the National Musical Theater Conference at the O'Neill Center, Bowdoin College, and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA.

THE LAST HOTEL (AMERICAN PREMIERE) A Landmark Productions and Wide Open Opera production Composer Donnacha Dennehy Librett ist & Director Enda Walsh @ St. Ann’s Warehouse Ireland’s Landmark Productions and Wide Open Opera have joined forces with St. Ann’s Warehouse, PROTOTYPE, and the Irish Arts Center to reunite two of Ireland’s leading creative artists, writer and director Enda Walsh (Once), and the composer Donnacha Dennehy, in an eagerly awaited American Premiere of The Last Hotel, Walsh’s first opera. Dennehy and Walsh first worked together on Misterman, which starred Cillian Murphy, at the Galway International Arts Festival, St. Ann’s Warehouse, and London’s National Theatre. Enda Walsh, is “one of the most dazzling wordsmiths of contemporary theatre” (The Guardian), a multi-award winning playwright, screenwriter, and 2012 Tony Award winner for the book of the musical Once. Donnacha Dennehy, whose “wild, stunning … spine-chilling” work was chosen to open the 2013 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, “is clearly a major talent,” (The Times). The opera, to be conducted (alternately) by André de Ridder and Alan Pierson, will be performed by a specially assembled 12-piece ensemble of leading New York new music specialists, singers Claudia Boyle, Robin Adams, Katherine Manley, and the actor Mikel Murfi.

Conductors: André de Ridder, Alan Pierson Set and Costume Designer: Jamie Vartan Lighting Designer: Adam Silverman Sound Designers: David Sheppard, Helen Atkinson Associate Director: Sophie Motley

Presented by St. Ann’s Warehouse. Co-presented with The Irish Arts Center. Supported by piece by piece productions and Culture Ireland, Arts Council Ireland.

SÁGA (AMERICAN PREMIERE / MULTI-MEDIA CONCERT) By Dez Mona and Baroque Orchestration X @ National Sawdust

Sága stands midway between a modern opera and a song cycle, told through the prism of the Belgian indie band, Dez Mona, in a sparkling collaboration with B.O.X. (Baroque Orchestration X), along with the outstanding vocalist Gregory Frateur. Sága tells stories of the soul, and goes in search of love for the land, a home, and the world in which it lives. The title refers to the well-known epic tales composed in Iceland and Greenland some time between the 12th and 14th centuries, and also to Sága, the goddess of history and storytelling in Norse mythology.

Vocals, lyrics, music: Gregory Frateur Double bass vocals, music, arrangements: Nicolas Rombouts Accordion: Roel Van Camp Theorbo, arrangements, vocals: Pieter Theuns Harp, vocals: Jutta Troch Viola da gamba, vocals: Pieter Vandeveire Violin, guitar, trombone, vocals: Tijs Delbeke Sága was created with the support of deSingel in Antwerp, the Flemish Government, Klara festival and Opera Days Rotterdam. Co-presented with National Sawdust.

BOMBAY RICKEY (OPERA-CABARET PRESENTATION) @ HERE’s Dorothy B. Williams Theatre Called “the future of music” (New York Music Daily), Bombay Rickey is a five-piece, Brooklyn-based band with a unique sound evocative of 1960s movie soundscapes. The group plays both covers and original music that borrow equally from the worlds of surf rock, cumbia, spaghetti Western, and Bollywood, balanced out with a "little" coloratura soprano. Bombay Rickey has become a fixture at the world-famous Brooklyn club Barbés, performed live on WFMU radio, and their music has been featured in a television commercial for Citibank. Their debut album, Cinefonia has been described as “brazen, cheeky and just downright spunky” (World Music Central). Bombay Rickey will play 6 performances of a new work exploring the life of Peruvian singer Yma Sumac.

Vocals, accordion: Kamala Sankaram

Guitar, vocals: Drew Fleming Alto saxophone, vocals: Jeff Hudgins Upright Bass: Gil Smuskowitz Percussion: Brian Adler Additional text by: Rob Handel

LA REINA (CONCERT READING) Composer Jorge Sosa Librett ist Laura Sosa Pedroza and Jorge Sosa @ French Insti tute All iance Française (FIAF), Florence Gould Hall Drawing its narrative from the drug trade in Mexico and the United States, La Reina is an electro-acoustic opera with text in Spanish and English, inspired by some of the most vivid real life players in this increasingly violent war from the past and present. Composer Jorge Sosa’s music blends classically trained voices with a chamber orchestra of acoustic and electronic forces, and powerfully conveys a gripping libretto by Laura Sosa Pedroza. Regina, a character inspired by Sandra Ávila Beltrán known as “The Queen of the Pacific,” prays in an American prison cell, asking the patron saint of drug dealers to protect her. Suddenly, the shrine comes to life. La Santa Muerte guides Regina on a journey through her past, forcing her to relive the tragic sequences of death and treason that led to her crowning as the queen of organized crime, and ultimately, her downfall and imprisonment. This orchestral concert is presented as part of American Lyric Theater’s InsightALT concert series.

Conductor: Andrew Bisantz Commissioned by American Lyric Theater, Lawrence Edelson, Producing Artistic Director. Co-presented with French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF).

A B O U T T H E F E S T I V A L After just three years on the scene, PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now has been deemed “suddenly indispensable” by The New Yorker. And The New York Times called the 2015 festival “bracingly innovative…a point of reference.” PROTOTYPE has produced and presented 91 performances, shared the work of more than 275 local, national, and international artists, exposed visionary work to more than 9,000 people, and filled 19 stages across multiple boroughs of New York City. It has unleashed a powerful wave of opera-theatre and music-theatre from a new generation of classical and post-classical composers and librettists, and as Opera News proclaimed, “has become a major leader in opera theatre for the twenty-first century."

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now receives leadership funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional generous support from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., Amphion Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, The Charles and Cerise Jacobs Fund for New Opera, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Fresh Sound Foundation, OPERA America’s New Works Exploration Grant, The Reed Foundation, and The Ted Snowdon Foundation. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. PROTOTYPE receives generous corporate support from Edison Properties. http://prototypefestival.org. A B O U T T H E P R O D U C E R S + A R T I S T I C D I R E C T O R S Creative producer Beth Morri son Projects identifies and supports the work of emerging and established composers and their collaborators through the commission, development, and production of their work, taking the form of opera-theatre, music-theatre, and multi-media concert works. Relying on the core values of collaboration, exploration, experimentation, artistry, and excellence, BMP provides a nurturing structure that allows artists to push the boundaries of their art form. Founded in 2006, BMP rapidly developed a reputation for “envisioning new possibilities and finding ways to facilitate their realization” (The New York Times). In eight years, BMP has commissioned, developed, and produced more than forty operas and music-theatre pieces that have premiered or been performed in New York, across the country, and around the globe. The Wall Street Journal said, “Ms. Morrison may be immortalized one day as a 21st-century Diaghilev, known for her ability to assemble memorable collaborations among artists.” BMP’s ability to recognize emerging talent, invest in the vision of living composers and their collaborators, and partner with presenters to bring new work to life has allowed it to become vital in the landscape of new music and opera. The New York Times recently said, "The production of new [opera] works in the city still falls mostly to the tireless Beth Morrison and her Beth Morrison Projects...” BMP is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, the Department of Cultural Affairs of New York City, New Music USA, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The Map Fund, a program of creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

BMP is led by Creative Producer Beth Morrison, an opera and theatre producer, singer, and voice teacher with bachelor and master of music degrees and a master of fine arts in theatre management/producing from the Yale School of Drama, as well as many years of experience in the development of new opera and theatre works. She first cultivated her extensive experience in arts administration at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute where she served as administrative director for four years. Beth served a founding tenure as the Producer for the Yale Institute for Music Theatre from 2009-2011, as well as Producer for New York City Opera's VOX:Contemporary American Opera Lab from 2010-2011. Beth is also a founding producer of 21c Liederabend, a much-lauded multi-media festival of contemporary art song. BMP is the realization of Beth‘s vision, which stems from a deep commitment to nurturing composers and other artists and fostering the development of new opera and other new music-theatre works.

Since 1993, HERE has been one of New York’s most prolific producing and presenting organizations, and today stands at the forefront of the city’s presenters of new hybrid art. HERE supports multidisciplinary work that does not fit into a conventional programming agenda. HERE's aesthetic represents the independent, the innovative, and the experimental. HERE has developed such acclaimed works as Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues; Basil Twist’s Symphonie Fantastique; Young Jean Lee's Songs of The Dragons Flying To Heaven; Trey Lyford & Geoff Sobelle’s all wear bowlers; and Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge. As the ultimate in hybrid forms, music-theater and opera-theater premieres developed and produced at HERE include Kamala Sankaram's first opera Miranda, Yoav Gal's Mosheh, Christina Campanella and Stephanie Fleischman's Red Fly/Blue Bottle, and Nick Brooke's Border Towns.

Krist in Marting is HERE’s Co-Founder and Artistic Director and a director of hybrid work based in NYC. As Artistic Director of HERE, she cultivates artists and programs all events for two performance spaces for an annual audience of 30,000. Under her leadership, HERE has garnered 16 OBIE awards, 2 OBIE grants for artistic achievement, a 2006 Edwin Booth Award (“for Outstanding Contribution to NY Theatre”) from the CUNY Graduate Center, five Drama Desk nominations, two Berrilla Kerr Awards, four NY Innovative Theatre Awards and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. She co-created and co-curates HARP, HERE's Artist Residency Program. She also has constructed 26 works for the stage, including 12 original hybrid works, 8 adaptations of novels and short stories and 6 classic plays. She works in a collaborative, process-driven way to fuse different disciplines into a cohesive whole. She is now developing TRADE PRACTICES, a collaborative live art event that examines the notion of values. Recent projects include ORPHEUS, a collaborative alt-musical also co-created with David Morris; LUSH VALLEY, a live art participatory performance on citizenship, and James Scruggs’s interactive solo work DISPOSABLE MEN. She also directed SOUNDING & DEAD TECH (collaborative hybrid works inspired by Ibsen texts), both of which received MAP Fund awards. She was named Person of the Year by NYTheatre.com in 2011, a Person of the Decade in 2015 and honored with a BAX10 Award. Kim Whitener is HERE’s Producing Director, co-curating and co-producing all of HERE's activities. Since early 2007 under her leadership, HERE's programming has grown exponentially, and several major initiatives have launched, including the PROTOTYPE festival and MADE HERE, an online video documentary series about New York performing artists. From 2001 until 2007, Ms. Whitener was an independent producer with her own company, KiWi Productions, working with a diverse range of US artists, both companies and individuals, in the contemporary theater, music-theater, dance-theater, and multi-media worlds to develop and produce new projects, working with co-producers worldwide. Her clients have included The Builders Association, Martha Clarke, Big Dance Theater, and 33 Fainting Spells, among others. Ms. Whitener was consulting producer on Logic of the Birds, artist Shirin Neshat's live performance featuring singer Sussan Deyhim (Lincoln Center Festival, Walker Art Center, Artangel London) in 2001. She also was co-producer of Zero Church, a multi-artist concert/performance event by Suzzy and Maggie Roche, at St. Ann's Warehouse in April 2002. Previously she was Managing Director of the ensemble theater company The Wooster Group, and worked with both the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia and the Boston Music Theatre Project at Suffolk University in Boston. A B O U T T H E P R O D U C I N G & V E N U E P A R T N E R S

3-Legged Dog exists to produce new, original works in theater, performance, media and hybrid forms. Our mission is to explore the new narrative possibilities created by digital technology. 3LD Art & Technology Center is an artist-run production development studio for artists and organizations that create large-scale experimental artworks of all kinds. Since opening in 2006, we have hosted more than 700 artists a year. http://www.3ldnyc.org American Lyric Theater (ALT) was founded in 2005 by Lawrence Edelson to build a new body of operatic repertoire for new audiences by nurturing composers and librettists, developing sustainable artistic collaborations, and contributing new works to the national canon. The company’s flagship initiative, the Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP), is the only full-time training program for emerging operatic writers in the United States. Operas developed through the CLDP and by CLDP alumni have been presented by a wide variety of companies, including Chicago Lyric Opera, Washington National Opera, Tulsa Opera, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, Opera Saratoga, Urban Arias, Center City Opera, San Francisco Conservatory, Fort Worth Opera, and Beth Morrison Projects. www.altnyc.org The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is New York’s premiere French cultural and language center. FIAF's mission is to create and offer New Yorkers innovative and unique programs in education and the arts that explore the evolving diversity and richness of French cultures. FIAF seeks to generate new ideas and promote cross cultural dialogue through partnerships and new platforms of expression. www.fiaf.org National Sawdust is an unparalleled, artist-led music venue opening in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this fall. Led by composer Paola Prestini and curated by a community of remarkable artists, National Sawdust will be a home for musicians to experiment and explore, and for serious fans and casual listeners alike to discover genre-spanning music at accessible ticket prices. The flexible, state-of-the-art chamber hall, housed within the preserved brick shell of a century-old former factory, is ideal for the performance and recording of a vast range of music. National Sawdust seeks to re-envision how a non-profit can offer comprehensive support to artists, providing composers and musicians commissioning support, mentoring, and other critical resources essential to create, and then share, their work. www.nationalsawdust.org NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts is the premier venue for the presentation of cultural and performing arts events for New York University and lower Manhattan. Led by Executive Director Michael Harrington, the NYU Skirball mission is to showcase and support diverse and eclectic talent from around the world, while cultivating audiences for live performance through deeper engagement opportunities. For more information visit: www.nyuskirball.org. St. Ann’s Warehouse has commissioned, produced and presented an eclectic body of innovative cultural presentations that meet at the intersection of theater and rock and roll for over three decades. Since 2001, the organization has helped vitalize the emerging Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood, DUMBO, where St. Ann’s Warehouse has become one of New York City’s most important and compelling live performance destinations. After twelve years at 38 Water Street, St. Ann’s activated a new warehouse at 29 Jay, turning it into an interim home while the organization has adapted the historic Tobacco Warehouse (45 Water Street) in Brooklyn Bridge Park into a waterfront cultural center. Construction is nearly finished. Through its signature multi-artist concerts and groundbreaking music/theater collaborations, St. Ann’s Warehouse has become the artistic home for the American avant-garde, international companies of stature and award-winning emerging artists. http://stannswarehouse.org Trinity Wall Street is an Episcopal parish that has been part of New York City since 1697. Located in Lower Manhattan, Trinity’s two principal places of worship, the historic Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel, stand as symbols of spiritual values and social action for a world of good. Trinity is also known for its world-class Music and the Arts program, home of the GRAMMY®-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street and NOVUS NY under the leadership of Julian Wachner. https://www.trinitywallstreet.org

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