Holidays at BAM Brooklyn Academy of Music Adam E. Max, BAM Board Chair Katy Clark, President William I. Campbell and Nora Ann Wallace, David Binder, Artistic Director BAM Board Vice Chairs A Very Meow Meow Holiday Show Created and performed by Meow Meow (with a little help from her friends) BAM Harvey Theater Dec 12—14 at 7:30pm; Dec 14 at 10pm Running time: approx. 90mins, no intermission Directed by Michael Kantor Design by Andrea Lauer Musical director Jethro Woodward Lighting design by Paul Jackson Season Sponsor: Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation A Very Meow Meow Holiday Show Cast includes Michaela Burger, Mark Jones, Rio Kiyoshige, Noemi Trey, Margot Weintraub, Dan Witton, Jethro Woodward Direction Michael Kantor Musical direction Jethro Woodward Design Andrea Lauer Lighting design Paul Jackson Production stage manager Lisa Osborn Assistant stage manager Matilda Woodroofe Design assistant Taylor Friel Casting director, children Carol Blanco Producer (New York season) Jo Dyer for Soft Tread ORIGINAL SONGS OTHER SONGS Meow Meow Radiohead Iain Grandage Julie London Thomas M. Lauderdale Brecht/Weill Megan Washington Sufjan Stevens Patty Griffin Nick Cave Rodgers and Hammerstein Luz Casal Stoller/Leiber Frank Loesser Chopin Presented in association with Soft Tread Enterprises and Meow Meow Revolution. Originally commissioned and produced by Southbank Centre, London as Apocalypse Meow: Crisis is Born. MEOW MEOW WOULD LIKE TO THANK Original Southbank Centre Season: Annette McLaughlin, David Coulter, Lance Horne, Lez Brotherston (Meow Meow Revolution associate), Iain Grandage, Darren Stalmach-Ware, Pav Stalmach-Ware, Steven Gates, Wendy Martin, Karen Peterson, Jude Kelly, the crew at Southbank Centre and Tim Whitehead Management. Shakespeare’s Globe Season: Tiffany Graves, Bill Barclay, Ian Ross, Andrea Lauer (Design), Malcolm Rippeth (Lighting design), Simon Baker (Sound design), Cameron Menzies (Meow Meow Revolution associate), Lisa Osborn (Stage management and Meow Meow Revolution associate), Emma Rice, staff and crew at Shakespeare’s Globe London and Tim Whitehead Management. Malthouse Theatre Season: Michael Topple and Creative Representation, Jo Dyer and Soft Tread. US Season: David Binder and Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jo Dyer and Soft Tread (Production). Special thanks to Isaac Lummis Design (Rockettes all seasons), Virginia Hyam, Sydney Opera House, Nick Schlieper and Rodney Fisher, Iain Grandage, Thomas M. Lauderdale, Megan Washington, Tobias Round UK, Lady Deborah Macmillan (Parachute Transport), Tripod for “too Christmassy?” and “there’s a time and a place,” Alan Cumming, Rufus Wainwright, and Jake Shears. Photography and thanks to Magnus Hastings (Styling Harvey B-Brown, hair/makeup Darren Evans) and Pete Le May (Shakespeare’s Globe photography). A Very Meow Meow Holiday Show MEOW MEOW MICHAELA BURGER MARK JONES DAN WITTON JETHRO WOODWARD Photo of Meow Meow by Karl Giant Shock. Other photos courtesy the artists. Who’s Who MEOW MEOW (creator and performer), Hooper), and her album with Pink Martini band named one of the “Top Performers of the Year” leader Thomas M. Lauderdale, Hotel Amour, by The New Yorker, “The Queen of Chanson” including original songs and duets with Rufus (Berliner Zeitung), “sensational” (The Times), Wainwright, the Von Trapps, and Michel Legrand and “a phenomenon” by The Australian, the has launched this year with a European and US spectacular crowd-surfing tragi-comedienne has tour with Pink Martini including at Hollywood hypnotized, inspired, and terrified audiences Bowl. She recently performed Facade and Die around the globe from London’s Royal Festival Siebentodsünden in Berlin under Jurowski, and Hall, to Lincoln Center, to the LA Philharmonic, at the National Concert Hall with Blixa Bargeld to the Sydney Opera House. As well as being and Ute Lemper among others in a revisioning of a prolific original music and theater creator for Brecht for 2019. such commissioners as Pina Bausch, David Bowie, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Meow Meow MICHAELA BURGER (cast), described by specializes in the Weimar repertoire and French Kate Ceberano as “an asset to the cabaret chanson. In addition to her own theater works community,” is the recipient of the inaugural (including the award-winning Meow Meow’s Adelaide Fringe Frank Ford award 2019, Best Little Match Girl, Vamp, Meow Meow’s Little Cabaret Adelaide Fringe 2019 weekly, Best Mermaid) and concerts of Meow Meow’s Cabaret Adelaide Fringe 2016, and also a Pandemonium with the London Philharmonic, two-time Helpmann Award nominee for Best Bergen Philharmonic, and Sydney Symphony Cabaret Performer, 2016 and 2019. She is the Orchestras, she recently appeared in Barry co-writer and star of the highly esteemed stage Humphries’ critically acclaimed Weimar season show Exposing Edith based on the life and songs at the Barbican; and at the Kennedy Center of Edith Piaf, and her recent award-winning (Washington, DC) as part of the renowned show, A Migrant’s Son (exploring migration to opera star Renée Fleming’s Voices concert Australia and featuring original music written series. She performed Reinbert de Leeuw’s by Burger) has received critical acclaim. Burger jump-cut homage to Schubert and Schumann has performed with one of Broadway’s most with the Hebrides Ensemble; played Titania/ sophisticated songwriters, Jason Robert Brown, Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at as well as Australia’s own Tyran Park, John Shakespeare’s Globe (dir. Emma Rice), the devil Thorn, and Paul Capsis. Other performing Pegleg in Tom Wait’s opera The Black Rider credits include Rumpelstiltskin (Southbank (Victorian Opera/Malthouse), La Maitresse in Theatre London/Windmill & State Theatre SA); Michel Legrand and Kneehigh’s The Umbrellas The Merry Widow (State Opera of SA); Can You of Cherbourg (West End), and an acclaimed Hear Colour? (Adelaide Festival/Patch Theatre); Miss Adelaide in the recent Guys and Dolls with Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in the Royal Philharmonic at Royal Albert Hall. Paris (Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2017); and She has just finished filming Cats (dir. Tom Cranky Bear (Patch Theatre). Meow Meow. Photo: Magnus Hastings Meow Meow. Who’s Who MICHAEL KANTOR (director) is a theater, PAUL JACKSON (lighting designer) is a opera, and film director. He was artistic director multi-award-winning designer who works of the Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne from across Australia and internationally. Design 2004—11. Among many productions, Kantor credits include Solaris, Cloudstreet, Blasted, directed for Malthouse the Australian feature Melancholia, Bliss, The Testament of Mary, film The Boy Castaways and an indigenous The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant version of King Lear called The Shadow King, Man, Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic which was performed as part of the Melbourne, Bullets, Away, I Am a Miracle, Picnic at Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane Festivals. anging Rock, Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid In 2016 the production played a season at (Malthouse Theatre); Love and Information, The Barbican Theatre, London. He received the 2015 Histrionic, The Trial (STC/Malthouse Theatre); Helpmann Award for Direction for The Shadow Mary Stuart, True West, The Mysteries: Genesis King. Recently Kantor directed the Australian (STC); Merchant of Venice, Othello, As You premiere production of the David Bowie musical Like It, Phèdre, Tartuffe, Julius Caesar (Bell Lazarus and is currently working with acclaimed Shakespeare); Seventeen, Nora, Oedipus Indonesian film director Garin Nugroho on a Rex (Belvoir); and Arbus & West, Gloria, The new operatic work, The Planet–A Lament, to Children, Three Little Words, Hay Fever, and Di premiere at Asiatopa, Arts Centre Melbourne in and Viv and Rose (MTC). Jackson has received early 2020. a Helpmann Award, a Sydney Theatre Award, seven Green Room Awards, three Australian ANDREA LAUER (designer) resides in New Production Design Guild Awards, and 31 York City and produces multimedia experiences Green Room Award nominations. He is the with a focus on the human form. Ongoing current recipient of an Australia Council for the collaborations include Meow Meow, Pilobolus Arts Fellowship. Jackson is a graduate of the Dance, NYU Langone Medical Center, and University of Melbourne and RMIT. choreographers Elizabeth Streb and Amanda Palmer. Lauer’s other credits include Rolling RIO KIYOSHIGE (cast) is excited to be joining Stone, Vogue, Interview, Nylon, Paper, and OUT A Very Meow Meow Holiday Show at BAM. Her magazine. Her work has also appeared at the passion for singing, dancing, and acting started Grammy Awards and on Broadway in American when she was three years old, singing along Idiot and Bring It On. She is the founder and to her own piano accompaniment of “Do You chief creative officer of RISEN from the Thread, Want to Build a Snowman?” from Frozen. Her a design thinking and innovation agency focused performances to date include the school musicals on the human body and its relationship with Singin’ In the Rain (Kathy Seldon), Matilda (Ms. technology and a sustainable jumpsuit line, Honey), and Willy Wonka (Veruca Salt). Stage is RISEN DIVISON. She was chosen as one of her happy place! Kiyoshige trains with Patricia Randi Zuckerberg’s #52Womenin52Weeks, is a Pineda (voice), Dance Molinari (dance), and BAA 2017 MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, and the (theater performance). She is fluent in Japanese current science resident at Pioneer works. and when not performing loves to read and play the ukulele. She lives in NYC with her family. Who’s Who NOEMI TREY (cast) is excited to be making Aphids, Stuck Pigs Squealing, Rawcus, and more. her professional debut in A Very Meow Meow Recent works include Lazarus (The Production Holiday Show at BAM. She studies voice with Company); Distant Matter (Staatsballett Berlin); Miriam Daly and is proud to sing with the Common Ground (Chunky Move/Dance Massive); Brooklyn Youth Chorus. She is a fifth grade Rumplestiltskin (Windmill/Southbank Centre Brooklyn native. In addition to acting and London); Paul Capsis & The Fitzroy Youth singing, she loves to read.