/VANITAS/
DIXON PLACE 11.3.16
VANITAS comes from the Latin, meaning superficiality and emptiness. We define it as the emotional vacancy of repeatable, predictable forms; VANITAS is the emptied, utilitarian expectation you feel looking at a modern city’s horizon, observing the steady drumbeat of skyscrapers, the power of architecture quietly choreographing our lives.
We want to destroy VANITAS.
Like witnessing the demolition of a building, the rupturing of VANITAS produces a surge of emotions: adrenaline, panic, anger, hilarity, and most importantly, absurdity. In that absurdity, as Albert Camus defines it, we find self-consciousness.
Through a combination of theatricality, poetics, and technology, we guide our audiences across the digital and physical terrains of infrastructure space. We show how the stories we attach to technology influence how it evolves, and reciprocally, how we evolve around it. However immaterial stories are, they have the power to buckle concrete and bend steel, and they can be difficult to escape.
Zachary Small (Playwright) is a New York-based queer theater maker. Earlier this year, he dramaturged Mabou Mines's Imagining the Imaginary Invalid at La MaMa ETC (NYTimes Critics' Pick). He has also written art criticism for various publications including: Hyperalleric, BOMB Magazine, and HowlRound. Previously, he performed in the lead role in Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic (Off-Broadway) and as Mephistopheles in Faust 2.0 (Mabou Mines). Graduate of Columbia University (Art History and Political Science). You can read some of his work here. Reach him at [at]gmail[dot]com
Naomi Boyce (Director) is a New York-based theater maker. She has been a dramaturg at the English Theatre Berlin and at Eugene Lang College. She has assistant directed under Sharon Fogarty (Mabou Mines) and the Brooklyn-based company Polybe + Seats. Recently she worked on The Golden Calf at the Norwegian Theatre Academy, and did dramaturgy for No Sympathy for Crying Man at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre. In 2015 she participated in the International Summer Program at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center and is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin. Graduate of Barnard College (Theatre Directing).
Chet King (Designer) is a New York based artist, designer, and musician. He’s worked for the Wooster Group’s Summer Institute in various capacities, and been involved in a few projects with Richard Maxwell’s New York City Players. He just graduated from Columbia with a major in theatre arts and a concentration in sociocultural anthropology. He directed Oedipus Rex for his thesis this past April. His debut EP is forthcoming in 2017. You can check out his work here
Josiah Grimm (Producer) is a New York-based theater professional and producer. He has spent the last few years working on the administrative staffs at Manhattan Theatre Club and The Public Theater. Most recently, he was a part of the producing team for Jeremy Kamp's Gutting, which premiered at the National Black Theatre in Harlem. Graduate of Louisiana State University.
Inga Aleknaviciute
(Drawings and Graphic Design) is an artist creating performances for the theatre, stage designs, drawings, sculptures and installations. She has worked as an assistant for scenography for two pieces with Robert Wilson, namely 'Adam’s Passion' and 'FAUST I&II'. She was also a participant at Wilson’s Watermill Center in New York during the summer of 2015. Most recently she directed 'No Sympathy for Crying Man' at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre.
Gabby Beans is an actor and writer based in New York. She recently completed her BA at Columbia in Theatre and Neuroscience, and MA in Classical Acting from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Recent Theatre credits include The Rape of Lucrece (New York Shakespeare Exchange), Watch Me Burn (The Wild Project), Balm in Gilead (Shapiro Theater), Woe from Wit (Union Theological Seminary), and The Owl Answers (La MaMa). www.gabbybeans.com
Shannon Elizabeth O'Brien is an actor who graduated summa cum laude from the George Washington University as a double major in dance and speech-language pathology, focusing on Deaf culture and American Sign Language. She has trained in the US, Italy, and Chile. In real life, she has performed with Heidi Latsky Dance, marked dance project, Grain & Salt, Sinking Ship Productions, and Eduardo Navarro. On the Internet, she is the managing dance editor for Culturebot.org and works for Vimeo.com.
Theo Maltz is an actor based in New York. Favorite acting credits include: Bottom of the Scrum (Dixon Place), HamletGhosts (HERE, Rochester Fringe), Little Mother (NYC Fringe Festival), Spring Awakening (Access Theater), The Merry Wives of Windsor (The Drilling Company) and Puppet Romeo and Juliet (American Globe Theater). When he is not acting you can find him playing congas, making bread or reading outside in a park somewhere.
/VANITAS/ has been in development since January 2016. Originally, Zachary led a series of workshops with actors based around the question of how we form "internet personas," and this could be staged.
In February, he began writing /VANITAS/ as a deeper exploration into the infrastructure space of technology (i.e. how technology affects our development and how we affect the development of technology). The text is influenced by the writings of Keller Easterling, Albert Camus, Virginia Woolf, and internet chatrooms. In the spring, Zachary contacted Naomi and they began a transatlantic collaboration to develop the text--sending drafts back and forth for a number of months.
In July, Zachary and Naomi brought Chet into the fold to conceptualize the work for the stage. Three performers, Gabby Beans, Theo Maltz and Shannon O'Brien, and a producer, Josiah Grimm, have been invited to join the project and to help bring it to the stage.
On November 3rd, the first performance of this new work will be presented on the Main Stage at Dixon Place, a downtown theatre in New York City.
Now, the /VANITAS/ team asks for your support to realize the first performance of this project. Please make a gift during this campaign to bring these ideas to Dixon Place and New York audiences, and to support the next stage of this piece's development.