TUES, JAN 26, 6pm PDT
“It speaks to that loneliness, but it also speaks to the intense care people still have for people they don't know in the midst of all this.”- Fox Whitney, Crosscut
ACTING STRANGER: Seattle
created by Andrew Schneider, produced in partnership with Los Angeles Performance Practice with Minna Lee, Andrew Scneider, Fox Whitney, and you.
Join the creative team of ACTING STRANGER for an online screening of a selection of short videos captured in Seattle in September, along with a conversation about the work and process. Presented by Los Angeles Performance Practice, this conversation will include Andrew Schneider, Raelle Myrick Hodges, Bobby McElver, and Seattle-based artists Minna Lee and Fox Whitney.
In September 2020 On the Boards, audiences were invited to participate in the short ACTING STRANGER films. These were then screened as a part of an October 2020 Drive-In at the On the Boards Parking Lot.
To learn more about Acting Stranger, and to watch the films head over to actingstranger.com.
01. We will only meet as the characters.
02. There is only one take.
03. There are no mistakes.
04. Pauses are fine.
05. Keep going.
06. The scene ends when both of us leave the frame.
How many interactions do you avoid every day?
When will we say hello again?
Who will you be when we get there?
ACTING STRANGER is a multi-layered work created to help us all collectively figure out how we will connect with each other again, in slow stages, from zoom to a future embrace with a stranger. This project adopts the freedoms, topics, hardships, and restrictions of a post-pandemic or pandemic-recovering world.
ACTING STRANGER is, among other things, a document of intimacy between strangers.
Concept / Andrew Schneider
Writing and performance / Minna Lee, Andrew Schneider, and Fox Whitney
Dramaturg / Raelle Myrick Hodges
Sound / Bobby McElver
Video / Andrew Schneider
Produced with Miranda Wright / Los Angeles Performance Practice
ANDREW SCHNEIDER (Concept / Writing and Performance / Video) is an OBIE award-winning, Drama Desk nominated performer, writer, and interactive- electronics artist creating original works for theater, dance, sound, video, and installation since 2003. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Schneider creates and performs original performance works, builds interactive electronic art works and installations, and was a Wooster Group company member from 2007-2014. In March of 2020 Andrew premiered the choreographic work »remains« commissioned by the Sasha Waltz & Guests company at Radialsystem in Berlin, Germany. Andrew’s original performance work in NYC includes NERVOUS/SYSTEM (2018 – BAM Next Wave Festival) AFTER (2018 – Under the Radar Festival,The PublicTheater) YOUARENOWHERE (2015 OBIE award – The Invisible Dog, 2016 Drama Desk nom – 3LD); DANCE/FIELD (2014 – Dance Roulette), TIDAL (2013 – River to River festival); and WOW+FLUTTER (2010 – The Chocolate Factory Theater) among others.
He is a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2020). http://andrewjs.com/
MINNA LEE (Seattle Writing & Performance) is a Hmong-Vietnamese American writer, theatre artist, and musician based in Seattle. They serve as Marketing Coordinator at Theatre Off Jackson and as an Ensemble Member at Washington Ensemble Theatre. You can experience Annex Theatre's audio production of their play One Horse Town at https://youtu.be/ysH8NEgTp3I. Please support the Black Trans Travel Fund with their work in providing safe transportation to Black Trans Women by sending funds to their Cashapp: $BlackTransTravelFund, Venmo: @BlackTransTravelFund, and PayPal: paypal.me/BlackTransTravelFund.
BOBBY MCELVER (Sound) is a Sound Designer working with technology and spatial audio in the performing arts. He is a longtime collaborator of Andrew Schneider, co-creating YOUARENOWHERE and AFTER, as well as spending many years together at The Wooster Group. He specializes in the intersection of performers and technology, designing responsive and interactive systems for experimental theater and dance. He has recently been in residency at EMPAC, developing spatial audio content and presenting on techniques using Wave Field Synthesis to make “sound holograms.” He was a company member of The Wooster Group from 2011-2016. Other collaborators include Faye Driscoll, NYC Players, Half Straddle, Kaki King, MASS MoCA, Prague 36Q Quadrennial, Clipping, Palissimo, Erin Markey. Nominated for a 2015 BESSIE. He is Associate Professor at University of California San Diego where he heads the MFA program in Sound Design for Theatre & Dance. bobbymcelver.com
RAELLE MYRICK-HODGES (Dramaturg) was named as the first creative director of 651 Arts, has served as artistic director of San Francisco’s Brava for Women in the Arts and was the inaugural curator of Performing Arts for the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans.As a nationally-known stage director, Myrick-Hodges has worked in over 15 regional theaters and museums including SF MOMA, Playmakers Repertory, California Shakespeare Theater, The Public Theater, The National Black Theater, Theater Minnot in Beirut and EDELO Residencia in Chiapas, Mexico.
FOX WHITNEY (Seattle Writing & Performance) is the architect/choreographer of Gender Tender, an interdisciplinary performance project that centers his queer black mixed transgender point of view. He creates experiences that investigate the nature of queer relationships, trans histories and the surreal nature of transformation. Gender Tender engages a team of artists trained in Fox’s unique methods modeled on cults, sitcoms and riots. Fox is a 2020 artist in residence at On the Boards in Seattle Washington. He was selected as the 2018 artist in residence at Velocity Dance Center. His performance work has been commissioned and produced by On the Board’s NW New Works Festival and Solo Festival; Velocity’s Next Fest NW and Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation; the Seattle International Dance Festival; Yellow Fish Epic Durational Performance Festival and was selected for the inaugural season of Seattle’s Gay CIty Arts. His short dance films have screened at CounterPulse in San Francisco, at Seattle’s Twist Film Festival, Translations: Seattle’s Transgender Film Festival and at Next Dance Cinema presented by Velocity and Northwest Film Forum. www.gendertender.weebly.com
MIRANDA WRIGHT / LOS ANGELES PERFORMANCE PRACTICE (Producer) actively generates systems of support for the creation of new performance by artists whose work advances our understanding of the rapidly evolving world around us. As creative producers, we are devoted to the production and presentation of groundbreaking experiences that use innovative approaches to collaboration, technology, and social engagement. As a service organization, we create opportunities for artists to develop their projects and professional practices. As relentless advocates for live performance, we engage in field-wide research and special initiatives that deepen our collective understanding of the implicit value of art in our culture. Anchored in Los Angeles, our projects and programs have national and global reach. www.performancepractice.la
