2016 BAM Winter/Spring #RimbaudinNY

Brooklyn Academy of Music

Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board

William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board

Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board

Katy Clark, President

Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer Rimbaud in New York Written and directed by The Civilians Poems by Arthur Rimbaud translated by John Ashbery

Produced by BAM with major support from the Poetry Foundation

BAM Fisher (Fishman Space) Mar 1—5 at 7:30pm; Mar 6 at 3pm

Scenic design by Andromache Chalfant Costume design by Paloma Young Lighting design by Eric Southern Season Sponsor: Sound design and additional compositions by Daniel Kluger Music direction by Matthew Dean Marsh

Major support for French programming at BAM Choreography by Sam Pinkleton provided by The Grand Marnier Foundation.

Songs by Adam Cochran, Michael Friedman, Major support for theater at BAM provided by: The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Rebecca Hart, Joseph Keckler, Matthew Dean The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust Marsh, and Grace McLean Donald R. Mullen Jr. The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc. The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund The SHS Foundation The Shubert Foundation, Inc. #RimbaudinNY

ADAM COCHRAN HARRIETT D. FOY

REBECCA HART JOSEPH KECKLER JO LAMPERT

MATTHEW DEAN MARSH TONY TORN DITO VAN REIGERSBERG #RimbaudinNY

CAST Adam Cochran Harriett D. Foy Rebecca Hart Joseph Keckler Jo Lampert Tony Torn Dito van Reigersberg

Dance Captain Jo Lampert

STAGE MANAGEMENT Production stage manager Samantha Watson Production assistant Hannah Spratt

ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION CREDITS Assistant director Benjamin Viertel Casting director Geoff Josselson Assistant scenic design by Rebecca Lord-Surratt Assistant costume design by Zoë Allen Assistant lighting design by Will Delorm Associate sound design by Lee Kinney Props shopper Karin White

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Set constructed by Sightline Fabrication

BAM would like to acknowledge Stephen Young, Program Director at The Poetry Foundation for his visionary support.

Rimbaud’s texts used in this production are from his Illuminations, translated by John Ashbery (Norton, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by John Ashbery. All rights reserved. Presented through special arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of John Ashbery.

David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Subway), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York

David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Times Square), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York

David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Shooting Up), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York

David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Under Boardwalk), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York

The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League Of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Rimbaud in New York—Song List

1. “Hot Mess Disaster Boy” Music by Adam Cochran Lyrics based on an interview by Steve Cosson with Lorin Stein & Violaine Huisman Performed by Full Company

2. “Phrases” Music by Grace McLean Lyrics based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Harriett D. Foy, Rebecca Hart, and Jo Lampert

3. “Tale” Music by Adam Cochran Lyrics based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Adam Cochran, Jo Lampert, and Company

4. “The Future of Poetry is Female” Music by Rebecca Hart Lyrics based on an interview by Steve Cosson with Ariana Reines Performed by Rebecca Hart

5. “Four Letters” Music by Michael Friedman Based on letters by Arthur Rimbaud Performed by Adam Cochran, Jo Lampert, Tony Torn, and Dito van Reigersberg

6. “City” Music and lyrics by Joseph Keckler Performed by Joseph Keckler

7. “Genie” Music by Adam Cochran and Matthew Marsh Based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Jo Lampert and Company

Note from Steve Cosson

Last season, while working on The Belle of Amherst—a solo show about Emily Dickinson by William Luce, starring Joely Richardson—I wondered about how I would go about creating a show based on poetry, were I to start with the text and go from there. Specifically, I was curious about what might be gained by not centering the show on the character of the writer herself or himself. What might be revealed if one worked from the poems and how they are read, rather then how they might have been written? Is there a way to stage the multiple meanings of a poet’s work and the numerous and contradictory resonances a poet has for different readers and in different eras?

These questions lingered when BAM invited me to create this show, a first-time collaboration of BAM and the Poetry Foundation. I chose Rimbaud’s Illuminations in its recent translation by the great American poet John Ashbery. There were many reasons for choosing Rimbaud, but foremost, reading these poems did something to me. It felt like an action; it felt physical—a sense of being taken through a visceral experience of image and sensation.

Even more than that, Illuminations stretched my mind to see the unseeable, to try to think the unimaginable. Like stepping just partly into another dimension, these poems gave glimpses into another universe with very different laws of physics. Such an experience cracks open the ordinary world we live in. His poems are in a sense a gateway drug, but in the best possible way—to possibility, an escape hatch out of all that is boring or oppressive, and a bridge to a life lived fully awake.

It was tempting to consider putting Rimbaud himself on stage. His life was nothing if not dramatic. But perhaps more than any other poet, Rimbaud evokes the opposite of character-centric. Rimbaud’s poems create and populate worlds. They have had a profound legacy with later readers and cultural movements that he couldn’t have imagined. The poems are there with the Surrealists, the New York School, the birth of punk, the downtown scenes of poetry and visual art, and among writers and readers today.

Rimbaud may have had a small audience for his work when he was alive, but since then his influence has been vast, particularly considering the musician/poets he’s influenced such as Patti Smith and Bob Dylan, and others who have brought their own Rimbaudian visions to new publics. And although Rimbaud himself never came to America, he has been and still is very much present, particularly in “downtown” (wherever or whatever that might mean now).

In creating The Civilians’ show Rimbaud in New York, this presence of Rimbaud in downtown was my way in. I interviewed many poets, artists, and performers: Eileen Myles, Dael Orlandersmith, Adam Fitzgerald, CA Conrad, Ariana Reines, David Wojnarowicz’s biographer Cindy Carr, and John Ashbery, to name a few. And then I gathered a group of performers, songwriters, and designers to make our show set in the multiple layers of New York’s downtown cultural scenes. But the center of the event is the living, very present voice of these extraordinary poems.

—Steve Cosson Who’s Who

THE CIVILIANS creates new theater from the first time—works by virtually every major creative investigations into the most vital contemporary poet. poetryfoundation.org. questions of the present. Through a number of artistic programs, The Civilians advances STEVE COSSON (writer and director) is a theater as an engine of artistic innovation and director and writer, and is artistic director of strengthens the connections between theater The Civilians. Recent directing credits for The and society. Last season the company was Civilians include Pretty Filthy (Abrons Arts the first ever theater company-in-residence at Center); The Great Immensity (The Public the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The previous Theater Lab); Mr. Burns (Playwrights Horizons, season saw two highly successful Civilians top 10 lists in The New York Times, Time Out, shows in New York: Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric The New Yorker, Vogue, and others); Paris Play at Playwrights Horizons, which was Commune (Public Theater, BAM Next Wave, La included in eight top 10 of 2013 lists, as Jolla Playhouse); In the Footprint (Top 10, The well as The Great Immensity at The Public New York Times); This Beautiful City (Vineyard, Theater. Since its founding in 2001, the Obie Kirk Douglas Theatre, Humana Festival); (I am) Award-winning company has been produced Nobody’s Lunch (Edinburgh Fringe First Award); at numerous theaters in New York, including and Gone Missing. Other Civilians productions the BAM Next Wave Festival, Vineyard Theater, have appeared at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Barrow Street Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and Kansas City Rep, American Repertory Theater, ; nationally at Center Theatre TED Conference, HBO’s Comedy Festival, Group, the TED Conference, HBO’s US Comedy MoMA, the Baltic Triennial, the Gate Theatre Festival, ART, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and and Soho Theatre in London, and many others. internationally at London’s Gate Theatre and Other recent credits include Dael Orlandersmith’s Soho Theatre. thecivilians.org | extendedplay. Stoop Stories; Ethel’s Documerica (BAM Next thecivilians.org. Wave); Spring Awakening (Olney Theatre); ’s A Devil at Noon (Humana Festival); THE POETRY FOUNDATION, publisher of and Bus Stop (Kansas City Rep). His plays are Poetry magazine, is an independent literary published by Dramatists Play Service, Oberon organization committed to a vigorous presence Books, and Playscripts, Inc. for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it ANDROMACHE CHALFANT (scenic design) before the largest possible audience. The Poetry is a set designer for theater and opera. Recent Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a New York credits include: brownsville song (b receptive climate for poetry by developing new side for tray) directed by Patricia MacGregor audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, (Lincoln Center Theater); Sex With Strangers and encouraging new kinds of poetry through directed by David Schwimmer (Second Stage innovative literary prizes and programs. Founded Theater); The Long Shrift written by Robert in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry Boswell, directed by James Franco (Rattlestick); is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the and a site-specific, sculptural installation at the English-speaking world. Monroe’s “Open Door” Metropolitan Museum of Art in a co-production policy, set forth in Volume 1 of the magazine, with Gotham Chamber Opera, presenting remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e mission: to print the best poetry written today, Clorinda and a new composition by composer in whatever style, genre, or approach. The Lembit Beecher, directed by Robin Guarino. magazine established its reputation early by Other recent designs include: A world premiere publishing the first important poems of TS by Beth Henley called Laugh directed by David Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Wallace Schweizer (Studio Theater, DC); El Gato Con Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Carl Botas, directed by Moises Kaufman (Museo Del Sandburg, and other now-classic authors. In Barrio); and Reverberation by Matthew Lopez succeeding decades it has presented—often for (Hartford Stage). Upcoming projects include the Who’s Who

continuing development of a multimedia piece and the Great Comet of 1812 (ART, Kazino, about autism called Uncommon Sense (Tectonic Broadway in fall 2016); Amélie (Berkeley Rep); Theater Company); and The Purple Lights of Significant Other (Roundabout); Machinal Joppa Illinois written and directed by Adam (Broadway/Roundabout); Kansas City Choir Rapp (Atlantic Theater Company). Chalfant is Boy (Prototype, ART, CTG); Heisenberg (MTC, currently designing and developing an art and Broadway in fall 2016); and I Promised Myself performance space in Red Hook, . She to Live Faster (Pig Iron/Humana Festival). He is is a company member of Labyrinth Theater co-director of the Dance Cartel’s ONTHEFLOOR Company and an associate artist of The Civilians. and is an associate artist with The Civilians and Witness Relocation. sampinkleton.com ADAM COCHRAN (songwriter; actor) is an actor, musician, and Drama Desk-nominated ERIC SOUTHERN (lighting design) is an Obie composer (2010: Outstanding Music in a Play). Award-winning designer for theater, opera, Off-Broadway: Songbird (59E59), Juárez: A and dance. New York: Pocatello (Playwrights Documentary Mythology (Rattlestick Playwrights Horizons); Steve (New Group); The Few, The Theater); regional: The Last Goodbye (The Correspondent (Rattlestick Theater); Buyer Old Globe), Pageant (Stoneham Theater); and Cellar (London, CTG, New York, national international: The La MaMa Cantata (Tokyo), A tour); Judy (Page 73); Collected Stories with Dream Play (Abu Dhabi). He has participated David Lang (Carnegie Hall); Play/Pause with in residencies with Theater Mitu at Robert Susan Marshall and David Lang (BAM Next Wilson’s Watermill Center and New York Theater Wave Festival), and Paul’s Case (Urban Arias, Workshop and has been a guest teaching artist Prototype Festival). He has worked extensively at NYU Abu Dhabi and Tamagawa University. with the Obie-winning 600 Highwaymen. Listen to his band: plasticangelofthemonth.com Additional productions at Atlantic Theater Company, Mint Theater, Huntington Theater, DANIEL KLUGER (sound design; music Long Wharf Theater, Baltimore Centerstage, and composition) recently did the orchestrations for the Guthrie Theater, among others. He received Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! at Bard SummerScape. his BFA and MFA degrees from New York Other credits include, in New York: The Mystery University. of Love and Sex, Nikolai and the Others (Lincoln Center), Significant Other, The Common Pursuit PALOMA YOUNG (costume design) in New (Roundabout); Iowa and Your Mother’s Copy York has worked on Broadway in Peter and the of the Kama Sutra (Playwrights Horizons); The Starcatcher (Tony Award), and off-Broadway Nether, The Village Bike, Really Really (MCC); in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Women or 1812 (Lucille Lortel Award); Kazino; The Nothing (Atlantic Theater Company); You Got Patron Saint of Sea Monsters, Fly By Night Older (Page 73); Somewhere Fun, The North (Playwrights Horizons); Here’s Hoover, Les Pool (Vineyard); Tribes, Hit the Wall (Barrow Frères Corbusier, Preludes (LCT3); Wildflower Street Theatre); How to Make Friends and (Second Stage Uptown); Recall; Colt Coeur; and Then Kill Them, The Few, Ode to Joy, and The Brooklyn Babylon (BAM Next Wave). Young has Correspondent (Rattlestick). Regional: The Old also worked regionally at La Jolla Playhouse, Globe, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, American Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Long Wharf, Pig Iron, TheatreWorks Silicon Williamstown Theatre Festival, South Coast Valley, People’s Light & Theatre, and American Repertory, the Old Globe, Oregon Shakespeare Players Theatre. Festival, California Shakespeare Theatre, Hand2Mouth, and Mixed Blood, among others. SAM PINKLETON (choreography) with The Civlians has choreographed Pretty Filthy and HARRIETT D. FOY’s (actor) work on Broadway Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play (Playwrights includes Amazing Grace, Mamma Mia, The Horizons). Recent work includes Natasha, Pierre American Plan, and Once on This Island. Who’s Who

Off-Broadway: The Total Bent, On the Levee appeared off-Broadway in Preludes at Lincoln (AUDELCO Nomination), and Crowns (AUDELCO Center. Original works include Human Jukebox Award). Regional: The House That Will Not (La MaMa) and I Am an Opera (Dixon Place Stand (Berkeley Rep—Theater Bay Award, Yale commission). His music has been featured Rep—CT Critics Nomination); LMNOP, Amazing on BBC America and WNYC and his writing Grace (Goodspeed); The Women of Brewster has appeared in VICE and other publications. Place, Polk County (Arena Stage—Helen Hayes Awards: Creative Capital, NYFA, Franklin Nominations); Seven Guitars (Center Stage); Furnace, a Village Voice “Best of NYC.” and Ambassador Satch (Dubai). Film: Winter’s Residencies: MacDowell, Yaddo, Times Square Tale. Television: Billions, Orange Is the New Alliance. Black, and Rescue Me. She graduated from Howard University. WGATAP! Harriettdfoy.com JO LAMPERT (actor), an NYU Tisch graduate @divafoyh in 2007, is a Brooklyn based performer. She recently toured the world with the band tUnE- MICHAEL FRIEDMAN (songwriter) has recent yArDs. New York theater credits include: New credits including the musicals Unknown Soldier, York Animals (with Bedlam Theater); Iphigenia Pretty Filthy, The Fortress of Solitude, Love’s in Aulis (CSC); Plum de Force (Bushwick Labour’s Lost, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Starr); Good Year for Hunters (New Ohio); The Jackson which premiered at the Public Theater Last Goodbye (The Wild Project); and Dance, before transferring to Broadway. As an associate Dance Revolution (Dir. Alex Timbers). New artist with The Civilians, he has written music York City workshops: Murder Ballad (MTC) and and lyrics for Canard Canard Goose, Gone Fun Home (Public Theater). Recent regional Missing, Nobody’s Lunch, This Beautiful City, credits: The Bengsons’ Hundred Days (Know In the Footprint, and The Great Immensity, Theatre, Z Space SF); Marie Antoinette (ART, and music for Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns. Yale Rep); Prometheus Bound (ART); and The With Steve Cosson, he is the co-author of Last Goodbye (Williamstown Theater Festival). Paris Commune (BAM Next Wave Festival). Lampert is a 2007 graduate of NYU Tisch. Friedman has been a MacDowell Fellow, a Princeton Hodder Fellow, a Meet The Composer MATTHEW DEAN MARSH (music director, Fellow, and a Barron Visiting Professor at the songwriter) is a New York-based composer, Princeton Environmental Institute. He is artist in writer, and performer focused on the residence and director of the Public Forum at the development of new theatrical/textual mediums. Public Theater, and received an for His compositions have been heard at Madison sustained achievement. Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Michigan Opera House, BAM, TriBeCa Film Festival, McKittrick REBECCA HART (songwriter; actor) is an actor Hotel (Sleep No More), and the White House in and singer/songwriter. With The Civilians: The Washington, DC. Recent collaborations include Great Immensity (The Public and Kansas City Plastic Angels of the Month and Sherie Rene Rep), The End and the Beginning (Metropolitan Scott. matthewdeanmarsh.com Museum), and Let Me Ascertain You (Joe’s Pub). Other recent credits: 10 Out of 12 (Soho Rep), GRACE MCLEAN (songwriter), in addition to Luna Gale, and At the Vanishing Point (Actors performing (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Theatre of Louisville). Hart is a 2014 NAMT Comet of 1812; Brooklynite; Bedbugs!!!; Sleep Showcase Alum (composer, How to Break) and No More), McLean was a headlining performer is a Civilians associate artist. rebeccahart.net and vocal instructor at the SingStrong a capella festivals in Washington, DC and Chicago in JOSEPH KECKLER (songwriter; actor) is 2014. Her band toured Pakistan in 2015 and currently artist in residence at University of performed in both the 2015 and 2016 Lincoln Michigan where he is working on Let Me Center American Songbook series. McLean’s pop Die, a collage of operatic deaths. He recently opera about 12th-century German mystic Hilde- Who’s Who

gard von Bingen has been developed at CAP21, Philadelphia; she also performs regularly at Joe’s SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Goodspeed. Natural Pub. Disaster and Make Me Breakfast are available on iTunes. gracemclean.com SAMANTHA WATSON (production stage manager) has previously worked at BAM on The TONY TORN (actor) has acted and directed Master Builder, Shuffle Culture, Mic Check, in many different kinds of theater, film, The Bridge Project’s Richard III (also Old Vic and performance: Broadway, downtown and International Tour). Broadway: The Real experimental, Hollywood remakes, and Thing. Off-Broadway: Lazarus (New York Theater underground cinema. Recently, he appeared Workshop); Significant Other (Roundabout); in Stephen Winter’s controversial film Jason Posterity, Our , The Jammer, Harper & Shirley in its world premiere run at MoMA; Regan (Atlantic); Taking Care of Baby (MTC); directed Juliana Francis Kelly’s play The A Man’s a Man (CSC); and Stay (Rattlestick). Reenactors at Abrons Arts Center (a project Regional: La Jolla Playhouse, NYSAF. developed in The Civilians’ R&D Lab); and International: Lear Dreaming, The Continuum: performed the lead role in Ubu Sings Ubu at Beyond the Killing Fields (TheatreWorks the Oberon (ART). and on the mainstage of BB Singapore). She holds an MFA from UC San King’s Blues Club in Times Square. Married to Diego. poet Lee Ann Brown, Torn is one of the many obsessed with Rimbaud since age 16. GEOFF JOSSELSON (casting director)’s New York credits include the Broadway production of DITO VAN REIGERSBERG (ensemble) is The Velocity of Autumn starring Estelle Parsons a co-founder of Pig Iron Theatre Company and the acclaimed productions of Southern and has performed in almost all of Pig Iron’s Comfort, Yank!, Enter Laughing, AltarBoyz, productions since 1995, including the Obie Septimus & Clarissa, John and Jen, and Pretty winners Hell Meets Henry Halfway and Chekhov Filthy. Regional theater credits include Arena Lizardbrain. A graduate of Swarthmore College, Stage, Bay Street Theatre, Denver Center, he trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse and Cleveland Playhouse, North Shore Music the Martha Graham School. His hirsute alter-ego, Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kansas Martha Graham Cracker, has been performing City Starlight, Sharon Playhouse, and the York monthly for more than 10 years at L’Etage in Theatre Company. geoffjosselson.com

THE CIVILIANS STAFF

Steven Cosson, Artistic Director Jacey Erwin, Literary Associate Jane Jung, Managing Director Tommy O’Malley, Artistic Associate KC Luce, Development & Communications JD Carter, Editorial Associate Manager Lizzy Marmon, Development Assistant Jeremy Olson, Grant Writer Megan McClain, R&D Group Coordinator The Civilians are produced and represented by Patricia Taylor, Bookkeeper Octopus Theatricals: Artistic Advisor/Producer, Mara Isaacs Project Consultant, Julia Glawe