Mabou Mines
Mabou Mines is an artist-driven experimental theater collective generating original works and re-imagined adaptations of classics. Work is created through multi-disciplinary, technologically inventive collaborations among its members and a wide world of contemporary filmmakers, composers, writers, musicians, choreographers, puppeteers and visual artists. Mabou Mines fosters the next generation of artists through mentorship and residencies.
Today, the Company includes four Artistic Directors: Founding Artistic Director Lee Breuer and co-Artistic Directors Sharon Anne Fogarty, Karen Kandel and Terry O’Reilly; Artistic Associates: Maude Mitchell, Clove Galilee, David Neumann and Carl Hancock Rux and a far-reaching network of collaborators.
Karen Kandel, Lee Breuer, Terry O'Reilly, Sharon Fogarty (photo: c Maria Baranova)
In the summer of 1970, a group of artists – David Warrilow, Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis and Philip Glass – retreated to Philip and JoAnne Glass’s house near Mabou Mines, Nova Scotia to create their first theater piece, “Red Horse Animation.” The company took the name “Mabou Mines,” and has since become not only a collective of artists, but of ideas and approaches.
The company was born out of the influences and inspirations of Europe’s seminal Avant-garde theater collectives. Before arriving in New York in 1970, the would-be ensemble of Mabou Mines spent five years in Europe observing and studying the working methods of the Berliner Ensemble, the politics of the exiled Living Theater and the demands of physical training with Jerzy Grotowski. Since that time, Mabou Mines has created more than a hundred and twenty works and has been honored with more than a hundred major awards.
Mabou Mines production of “Hajj,” the multimedia piece Mabou Mines with Ruth Maeczech, by writer-director Lee Breuer and videographer Craig Jones.
Founding Company Members included Lee Breuer, JoAnne Akalaitis, Philip Glass, Ruth Maleczech (1939-2013), Fred Neumann (1926-2012),and David Warrilow (1934-1995). Former Company members include: Bill Raymond, Ellen McElduff, L.B. Dallas, B-St. John Schofield (1952–2013), Dawn Gray, Julie Archer, and Honora Fergusson (1936-2012).
Through the years, Mabou Mines has developed original works and re-imagined adaptations of classics through multi-disciplinary, technologically inventive collaborations. Each work is created in an extended development process. Additionally, the Company serves the artistic community by mentoring emerging artists and creating opportunities for strengthening the city’s rich cultural landscape via our longstanding Resident Artists Program, and their performance initiative SUITE/Space.
Mabou Mines production of “Dollhouse,” adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” by Lee Nreuer and Maude Mitchell, cast included: Nora Helmer: Maude Mitchell, Torvald Helmer: Mark Povinelli, Ricardo Gil: Dr. Rank, Nils Krogstad: Kristopher Medina, Kristine Linde: Honora Fergusson [Original], Kristine Linde: Janet Girardeau [after 5/21/07], Margaret Lancaster: Helene, Understudy: Nic Novicki, Hannah Kritzeck: Emmy Helmer, Anna Maria: Jessica Weinstein
For nearly fifty years, the company’s productions have toured to more than a thousand venues worldwide. New work is shown annually in New York City, and tours nationally and internationally. Mabou Mines’ newly renovated home-base with a ninety-nine seat theater and studio is housed in the 122CC (Community Center) in the East Village.
Mabou Mines production of “Dollhouse,” adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” by Lee Nreuer and Maude Mitchell
Mabou Mines and Weathervane Productions, in association with Philip Glass’ The Days and Nights Festival, presented a unique celebration of legendary playwright and director María Irene Fornés, featuring the New York premiere of Philip Glass’ transformation of her five-page play, “Drowning,” into an opera and a version of Fornés’ acclaimed, play “Mud.” JoAnne Akalaitis directed the two intimate productions (both with new music composed by Glass).
Maria Irene Fornes
They built upon a recent outpouring of recognition of Fornés’ work that began with an Akalaitis-produced marathon of her plays at the Public Theater in August, 2018 and continued with the acclaimed Theatre for a New Audience production of Fornés’ landmark, “Fefu and Her Friends,” directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, in the fall of 2019. Earlier versions of the new “Drowning” and “Mud,” were first performed in 2019 at the Circle Theatre in Carmel, CA, as part of the Days and Nights Festival.
Philip Glass
“Mud”/”Drowning” – presented by Mabou Mines
“Mud” and “Drowning” offered New York audiences an opportunity to experience the work of a singular writer at close range. Akalaitis had explained, “The program is intended to express that world of Irene’s, which is about the terribly poignant and unfulfilled longing for some kind of emotional accomplishment in life that often gets dashed – that’s what both of these pieces are about. We hope this evening offers a glimpse into the range of Irene’s rich theatrical landscape and the heart of an artist who never soothes and continues to astonish.”
“Mud”/”Drowning” – presented by Mabou Mines
The “Mud” cast included Giselle LeBleu Gant, Wendy vanden Heuvel, Paul Lazar, and Bruce MacVittie. The “Drowning” cast included Brandon Hynum, Gregory Purnhagen, Peter Stewart – Roe, with Michael A. Ferrara as Music Director and Keyboard, and Lavinia Meijer and Victoria Drake on Harp. Scenic and Costume Design was by Kaye Voyce, and Lighting Design by Thomas Dunn.
In 2019, Mabou Mines also hosted Resident Artists. They included Leonie Bell, Marcella Murray, Hyung Seok Jeon, Sugar Vendil, Dara Malina, Lacy Rose, Hannah Mitchell, Lisa Fagan and Arpita Mukherjee/Hypokrit Theatre Company.
2019 Resident Artists: Leonie Bell, Marcella Murray, Hyung Seok Jeon, Sugar Vendil, Dara Malina, Lacy Rose, Hannah Mitchell, Lisa Fagan, Arpita Mukherjee/Hypokrit Theatre Company
In-Development, Mabou Mines projects include “The Vicksburg Project” conceived
Composer, Eve Beglarian, created in collaboration with Karen Kandel as performer/writer, and Mallory Catlett as director. “The Vicksburg Project” is a staged song cycle of twelve interlocked songs that trace women’s experiences in Vicksburg Mississippi during four different eras: the Civil War 1860’s, the Jim Crow/Great Migration 1910’s, the Civil Rights 1960’s, and the current decade. The piece will be presented in New York as well as in Vicksburg, Mississippi (and other towns in the deep south) and other urban centers around the country.
In Development: “The Vicksburg Project” conceived by composer, Eve Beglarian, created in collaboration with Karen Kandel, performer/writer and Mallory Catlett, director
Another project In-Development is “Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed,” co-created by David Neumann & Marcella Murray, co-commissioned and co-presented by Abrons Arts Center and The Chocolate Factory.
In Development: “Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed,” co-creators David Neumann & Marcella Murray
Co-creators David Neumann & Marcella Murray have created a staged conversation of intimate scale on the set of a tv talk show in “In Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed,” where they explore and unpack their several-years-long ongoing dialogue about race alongside astronomical questions of scale and time. Mirroring the current societal conversation, in all its hubris and wonders, personal stories are shared amongst historical events, scientific uncertainties, live video refuting ideas of scale, and periodic mesmerizing dances. Over-simplification is resisted. Imperfection is a given. Humor is not absent.
Mabou Mines’ ‘On the Road’ offerings have included Horton Foote’s “A Coffin in Egypt,” which pays homage to his muse, writer Katherine Anne Porter, in this haunting testament to the mythic life of a Texan royal. Set in Egypt, Director Lee Breuer stages the story of Myrtle, played by Maude Mitchell, at the door of death with touches of both tragedy and surrealism.
An interactive performance exhibition that utilized visual media and audio designed to promote language preservation and development for the local children in the south of Taiwan is “Flying House/Home installation with design, construction and video by Terry O’Reilly, sound proposal composition and piano by Liping Ting, violin by Ying-hao Lee. The exhibition ran concurrently with Terry O’Reilly’s “Cee and Dee and the Flying House at Soulangh Artist Village, Tainan, Taiwan in 2017-2018.
Inspired by the comic dialogues of the clown characters of Wayang Kulit shadow puppetry and the contentious and playful way that children speak, Terry O’Reilly imagines what birds would say when first they encounter a flying house.
Mabou Mines also presented the 2020 Ruth Malezcech Award to three performing artists: John Kelly, Jennifer Kidwell and Sheila Tousey. The Ruth Maleczech Award (“The Ruthie”) is given to a performer who embodies Ruth’s daring and raw, naked, fearlessness in every performance.
Mabou Mines also presented the 2020 Ruth Malezcech Award to three performing artists: John Kelly, Jennifer Kidwell and Sheila Tousey
The “Ruthie” was created to honor Ruth Maleczech, the beloved artist, performer, director and co-founder of Mabou Mines. She was an inspiration, a mentor and a role model for countless artists, (and we were honored to have an interview with her in “The Soul of the American Actor” Newspaper).
John Kelly’s character-based performance works focus on the struggles encountered by artists and social outsiders. As writer, director and performer, he has embodied subjects ranging from the expressionist artist Egon Schiele, the cross-dressing aerialist Barbette, Orpheus, and Joni Mitchell. Other works have explored the AIDS pandemic, the Berlin Wall, and the Troubadours. Over the course of a career that has spanned thirty-five years, Kelly has received multiple awards and fellowships. His most recent dance theatre work, “Underneath The Skin,” is based on the life of gay novelist and tattoo artist Samuel Steward, premiering at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in October, 2019, and will receive a 3-week run at La MaMa during 2021. Kelly is also a visual artist and recently completed his first graphic novel, A Friend Gave Me A Book.
Jennifer Kidwell is a performing artist. Her recent projects include “Underground Railroad Game” (2017 Obie Award for Best New American Theatre Work; 2018 Edinburgh Fringe First Award; Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes nominations), Adrienne Truscott’s “Still Asking for It” (Joe’s Pub), “Home” (Geoff Sobelle, Bessie Award for Outstanding Production), “Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed” (Dan Hurlin), “I Understand Everything Better” (David Neumann/advanced beginner group, Bessie Award for Outstanding Production), “Antigone” (The Wilma Theater), “A Hard Time,” “Superterranean” and “Zinnias: the Life of Clementine Hunter” (Robert Wilson/Toshi Reagon/Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon). Company member PITC and Lightning Rod Special, Wilma Theater Associated Artist, co-founder of JACK. Her writing has been published in movement research Performance Journal.
Sheila Tousey is a writer, actress, director with numerous film, television and theater credits to her name including appearances in Signature Theater and Magic Theater’s “Late Henry Moss” by Sam Shepard; Marie in Joanne Akalaitis’ “Woyzcek” at the Public Theater and at the Guthrie Theater in Marsha Norman’s adaptation of Louise Erdrich’s “Master Butchers Singing Club.” She was a Drama Desk Nominee for acting and has had several residencies and fellowships throughout her career including Yale, The Public and the Sundance Theater Lab. She is a company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and in March, before the production was suspended because of the global health crisis, had just opened, “Bring Down The House Parts 1 and 2” (Shakespeare’s Henry VI Trilogy) with an all-female and non-binary cast, adapted by Rosa Joshi and Kate Wisniewski and directed by Rosa Joshi.
For info: Mabou Mines Development Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 777, Peter Stuyvesant Station, New York, NY 10009, (212) 473-0559, info@maboumines.org
