OSF Commissions Second Round Of Artists For U.S. History Cycle

Alison Carey, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s director of American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, and Artistic Director Bill Rauch announced today the second round of theatre artists to be commissioned for the 37-play, 10-year History Cycle, the largest commissioning and production project in the Festival's 74-year history.
 
The commissioned artists are: Young Jean Lee, Korean-born playwright and director, who was named by American Theatre magazine as one of the 25 theatre artists who will shape American theatre in the next 25 years; Universes, a touring ensemble company of writers and performers who fuse poetry, theatre, jazz, hip-hop, politics, blues and Spanish Boleros to create theatrical works—core members include Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, Gamal Chasten and Ninja (William Ruiz); and in a co-commission with the Public Theater, Rhiana Yazzie, award-winning Navajo playwright whose recent work includes Rainbow Crow and Las Madres.
 
“These deeply gifted artists bring new perspectives and artistic styles to the Cycle and continue to deepen this portrait of our nation,” Carey said. “We are thrilled to introduce their work to OSF’s audience.”
 
“We are overjoyed that OSF will have the opportunity to work with these newly-commissioned artists,” Rauch said, “and we are delighted to be collaborating with The Public Theater, a theater noted for its steadfast support of Native American work. We recognize that this is one of the ways that the United States History Cycle can have an impact throughout the nation.”
 
As with previous commissions, the exact stories these artists will tell is not yet determined. “We are following the inspiration and insight of the artists in all aspects of the project,” said Carey. “We look forward to learning what stories the artists will be exploring as the project unfolds.”
Last year, OSF announced the commissioning of Culture Clash (Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza), David Henry Hwang, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Robert Schenkkan, Naomi Wallace, and the collaborative team of Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone.
 
The first of the History Cycle commissions will be produced at OSF in 2010 for its 75th anniversary. American Night, by Culture Clash, will open in the New Theatre on July 4th weekend and run through October. Written with humor and compassion, the play follows the journey of one immigrant, who studies to take his American citizenship exam with such fervor and determination that he finds himself involved in momentous historical moments.
 
The plays of American Revolutions will look at moments of change in America's past, helping to establish a shared understanding of our national identity and illuminate the best paths for our nation's future.
 
American Revolutions, inspired by the scale and scope of Shakespeare’s history cycle of plays, will bring together more than 100 artists, historians and institutions from around the country. Up to thirty-seven new plays are slated to result in up to 15 full productions at OSF between 2010 and 2019. Every work commissioned, even if it does not receive a full production, will be presented to OSF audiences through workshops or readings.
 
American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle has been made possible through grants from The Collins Foundation and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Both grants are for three years:  2008, 2009 and 2010. The Universes commission is supported by a grant from The Nathan Cummings Foundation.
 
Cycle director Alison Carey is co-founder with Bill Rauch of Cornerstone Theater Company, which works with diverse American communities. As Cornerstone's resident playwright, she wrote more than 25 of the company's productions for stages across the country.
 
The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation’s pre-eminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, and productions of classics at its downtown and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public’s mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day onstage and through extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe’s Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public has won 42 Tony Awards, 149 Obies, 40 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. For more information, visit www.publictheater.org.
 
Young Jean Lee was born in Korea in 1974, moved to the United States when she was two and was raised in Washington State. Since 2002, she has directed her plays at The Public Theater (CHURCH), (P.S. 122 (CHURCH; Pullman, WA), HERE Arts Center (Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven), Soho Rep (The Appeal), and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals). Her plays have been published in New Downtown Now, an anthology edited by Mac Wellman and herself, in Three Plays by Young Jean Lee (Samuel French), American Theatre magazine (September 2007), and will soon be published in a collection of all of her plays entitled Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays (Theatre Communications Group). She is the recipient of grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Rockefeller MAP Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. She directed her recent play The Shipment at the Walker Art Center in 2008, and at The Kitchen in January 2009. She will direct her adaptation of King Lear at Soho Rep in January 2010, and has been commissioned to write a new musical (with music by Mike Doughty) for Playwrights Horizons. She is the artistic director of Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company (www.youngjeanlee.org) and is the recipient of the ZKB Patronage Prize 2007 of the Zuercher Theater Spektakel and a 2007 Emerging Playwright OBIE Award.
 
Universes includes core performers Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz, Gamal A. Chasten, and Ninja (William Ruiz). Universes has performed: Off-Off and Off-Broadway: Slanguage (New York Theatre Workshop), U (Slanguage workshop: Mark Taper Forum-New Works Festival, New World Theater, The Painted Bride, Pregones Theater, Performance Space 122 -P.S. 122), The Ride (P.S. 122, New York Performance Works, Andy Warhol Museum), International: The Ride (Teatro A Mil Festival in CHILE- Ex-Carcel, Valparaiso and Teatro San Gines, Santiago). Alfred Jarry's UBU:Enchained (Arts Link International Exchange with Teatre Polski, Poland and New York). Poetry Performances: Nuyorican Poets Café, American Airlines Theater (Encore Awards), Joe's Pub, Labyrinth Theatre, Symphony Space, Aaron Davis Hall, Museum of Natural History, The Painted Bride, St. John the Divine, Sing Sing Prison, The Tea Party, Bar 13, Sisters Place, El Puente, Live From The Edge Theater, The Bronx Academy of Art & Dance (B.A.A.D). College performances include: Harvard University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Lehman College, University of Massachusetts, Bard College, Binghamton University, Sarah Lawrence College, City College, New York University, Pace University.
 
Rhiana Yazzi is a Navajo playwright based in Minnesota. Her recent plays included Rainbow Crow, a commission by Stepping Stone Theatre for Youth Development in St. Paul; Las Madres commissioned by Teatro del Pueblo for their 2009 Political Theatre Festival; Red Ink, a commission by Mixed Blood Theatre; and ADY, a commission by Pangea World Theatre—Rhiana received a 2008 Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Expressive Arts grant to develop ADY and it was a 2009 SPF finalist. She received a Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowship in 2006. She is also an award-winning writer of plays for radio and for youth. She is the three time winner of the Native Radio Theatre annual new play contest; her TYA radio play The Best Place to Grow Pumpkins received an Honorable Mention at the ImagiNative Film Festival in Toronto for Best Radio. An appreciated voice in her community writing about the contemporary Native American experience, she was honored by “First Americans in the Arts” in Los Angeles, California, with an award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing in 2007. Her other plays include Asdzani Shash: The Woman Who Turned into a Bear, The Long Flight, and This Land Had Seen War Before. Rhiana is also very active as a radio/audio theatre writer and director. She is now a co-host of First Nations Radio.