Why Solo Shows? Understanding the Appeal, Mining the Market
Tuesday, December 20th
The Playroom Theater, 151 W. 46th Street, 8th floor
Panelists to include
Kayhan Irani, Emmy-award winning writer, producer, and a Theater of the Oppressed trainer;
Peter Michael Marino, co-producer/creator of
SOLOCOM which has premiered over 270 new solo comedies at The PIT;
Michael Wolk, Gorgeous Entertainment and the All-in-One Festival;
Prudence Wright Holmes, writer/performer (
Bexley, OH!! at NY Theatre Workshop, plus touring solo shows about Willa Cather, Agatha Christie and Harper Lee).
The solo show is a mainstay of our theater culture, with festivals dedicated to this specialized form. From the literally thousands of one-person shows developed by writers and writer-performers, a few make it into commercial production. What elevates a one-person show and gives it commercial potential? What are the essential elements that come together to turn solo performance into effective storytelling, the dramaturgical principles that can elevate this to art? Some audiences are wary of the confessional and overtly personal nature of some one-person shows. Why is it worth overcoming our suspicion, why is the work uniquely valuable, where is the audience for it, and how do you command attention in this crowded market?
Doors open at 7:00pm for networking and refreshments, roundtable introductions of everyone in the room will start at 7:30pm - come prepared with your best one-minute summary of who you are, and what you need. Free for TRU members;
$15 for non-members at the door ($12.50 if you register in advance above), free for TRU members. Please register above, or call at least a day in advance (or much sooner) for reservations: 212/714-7628, or e-mail
TRUStaff1@gmail.com
Panelists
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MICHAEL ALDEN
On Broadway: Come From Away, Disgraced (Pulitzer Prize) Grey Gardens and Bridge & Tunnel (Special Tony Award.) On the West End: David Seidler's original play, The King's Speech and Bat Boy The Musical. Off Broadway: Not That Jewish, Becoming Dr, Ruth, Bat Boy The Musical, Save It For The Stage written by and starring Charles Nelson Reilly, and The Last Session. Film works include: Just Cause with Sean Connery, the fashion forward documentary UnZipped for Mirimax, Stephen Daldry's The Hours, Kissing Jessica Stein, The Zookeeper starring Sam Neill, Lesser Prophets and Mother, Mother. Current projects include the feature length documentaries, My Beautiful Stutter and When Reagan Killed Roosevelt the never before told story of the childhood years of the rap group Public Enemy; the features UnHinged starring Mickey Rourke and the recently completed Death Metal. From 1987- 89, Vice President Post Production Cannon Films; 1989 - 90, Vice President Pathe Films; 1991 -92 Vice President MGM Post Production.
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KAYHAN IRANI
an Emmy-award winning writer, a producer, and a Theater of the Oppressed trainer. She creates art, media and live events to build community and engage audiences in social justice issues. She creates arts projects and events to build community and engage audiences in social justice issues. She works NGOs, government agencies, and community organizations in using in story-based strategies for mobilization, engagement, and education. Kayhan was one of ten artists named as a 2016 White House Champion of Change for her art and storytelling work. In 2010 Kayhan won a New York Emmy award for best writing for We Are New York a 9-episode broadcast TV drama used as an English language and civic engagement tool for immigrant New Yorkers. She created a linked, community-based conversation initiative that brought thousands of immigrants, throughout the five boroughs, together to practice English in volunteer-led conversation groups. She also created comic books based on the series which were translated into 5 languages and distributed in NYC public hospitals, courts, CBOs and local meeting places. In 2012-2013 Kayhan was a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Researcher in India working on her new play, Tree of Seeds. Her one-woman show, We've Come Undone toured nationally and internationally, telling stories of Arab, South Asian and Muslim-American women in the wake of 9/11. She has trained hundreds of groups in Theater of the Oppressed and participatory storytelling tools over the years, both nationally and overseas, in Afghanistan, India, and Iraq.
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PETER MICHAEL MARINO
is an award-winning solo show teacher, director, producer and performer. He’s the creator and co-producer of SOLOCOM, which has launched over 250 world-premiere, international solo comedies at The People’s Improv Theater. Solo show directing credits include: Amy Marcs’ Nice T*ts, Mark Demayo’s 20 & Out, Mark Giordano’s Mad Man and dozens more. His long-running solo comedy Desperately Seeking the Exit chronicled the unmaking of his West End musical flop Desperately Seeking Susan; receiving 5-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and Adelaide Fringe, and a London transfer. His 2015 solo chat show spoof, Late with Lance!, played NYC, London, Buffalo, Orlando, Hollywood and the Edinburgh Fringe. His current solo show, Show Up, deconstructs the solo show genre and is improvised and directed by the audience - and is prepping for a world tour in 2017. Pete’s production company PM2 Entertainment recently presented two encore performances of David Mills: Shame! at Pangea, LA comedy duo Moby Alpha, and the acclaimed solo show hit Gary Busey’s One-Man Hamlet as Performed by David Carl in NYC and Chicago. www.petermmarino.com
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MICHAEL WOLK
is a producer, writer, composer and director. He has produced over 50 solo plays off-Broadway and off-off since founding All For One Theater in 2011. As CEO of Gorgeous Entertainment, he has produced on Broadway (Pacific Overtures); at Lincoln Center (Musashi, Temple of the Golden Pavillion); at BAM (Macbeth); Kennedy Center (Up In The Air) ; and in Central Park (Japan Day @ Central Park since 2007). His writing credits include screenplays (Innocent Blood , Warner Bros., directed by John Landis), mystery novels (The Beast on Broadway, Signet); and plays (Femme Fatale, Broadway Play Publishing) . He also wrote the book, music and lyrics for Deep Cover, which premiered at the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival and for Ghostlight 9, which premiered at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 2015. He has directed plays and films including the award-winning documentary You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story, which screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and is available on Plexifilm DVD. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild. His personal gallery of work can be found at MichaelWolk.com.
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PRUDENCE WRIGHT HOLMES
was in the original cast of Godspell which she helped to create, along with classmates from Carnegie Mellon University. Her first Broadway show was Happy End with Meryl Streep, and more recently she spent two and a half years in the Broadway cast of the Tony Award winning musical, The Light in the Piazza. Her Right Guard Deodorant commercial won a Clio, and she played a nun in Sister Act I and II with Whoopi Goldberg. Her one-woman show, Bexley, Oh! was produced at New York Theatre Workshop. Recently She has been touring her solo show, Willa Cather: Her Life and Loves around the country, and has written another solo show called Agatha Christie is Missing, and one about Harper Lee.
