"VISIONS FOR A CHANGING THEATRE" NYU Hosts Symposium on Radical Theatre, Oct. 9

baj1@nyu.edu

On Thursday, October 9, beginning at 9 a.m., New York University's Fales Collection will host "Visions for a Changing Theatre," an all-day symposium on radical theatre as viewed through the lens of Mark Hall Amitin's work as a producer, manager, director, writer and teacher from the late 1960s through the 1990s.

The event will take place at the NYU Fales Collection, 3rd floor of the NYU Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square South. It is planned in conjunction with the opening of an exhibition from the Amitin/Universal Theatre Repertory/World of Culture archives, to be on display at Fales through March 12, 2004. The event is free and open to the public; seating is limited and reservation is required. Please call 212.998.2386.

Leading theatre scholars, writers, actors, directors and producers will explore the importance of radical theatre as well as Amitin's work and influence in a series of panels:

• 9:00 a.m. "Seeking Paradise" - an academic panel with William Coco, New School University; James Leverett, Yale and Columbia; Serge Ouaknine, Université de Quebec; Rosemary Quinn, NYU.
• 11:00 a.m. "Eyeing Parnassus" - a critics panel with Bonnie Marranca, Performing Arts Journal; Erika Munk, Yale/Theatre; Gordon Rogoff, critic-at-large; Arthur Sainer, Sarah Lawrence College; Richard Schechner, The Drama Review.
• 2:00 p.m. "Decoding Utopia" - a panel of artists with Lee Breuer, Mabou Mines; Martha Coigney, president emeritus, International Theatre Institute; Judith Malina, The Living Theatre; Jean-Claude van Itallie, playwright.
• 4:00 p.m. "Making Waves" - artists' panel to include Steve Buscemi, actor, director; David Cale, writer, actor, monologist; Roselee Goldberg, NYU; Joseph Melillo, producer, Brooklyn Academy of Music/Next Wave Festival; Mark Russell, director, P.S. 122.
• 6:00 p.m. Opening of exhibition, "Visions for a Changing Theatre." Reception.

Mark Hall Amitin served as the general manager of the Radical Theatre Repertory and manager for The Living Theatre, 1968-69, and was founding director of Universal Movement Theatre Repertory, 1971-76. He represented dozens of artists and experimental theatre companies, including the Open Theatre, Bread and Puppet Theater, San Francisco Mime Troupe, The Performance Group, Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Manhattan Project, Squat Theatre, Pilobolus, and El Campesino. In 1978-79 he produced and created a repertory of three separate evenings of Edward Albee's one-act plays directed by the author, which toured the U.S. and Asia. From 1983-1996 he was the director of the World of Culture, representing such writers and directors as Spalding Gray, David Cale, Steve Buscemi, Judith Malina, Julian Beck and Franne Lee, among many others.

Amitin has lectured, taught and directed at 200 universities, festivals, institutes and embassies internationally in such cities as Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow, Gaza, Jerusalem, Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Amsterdam. He has published articles in the Village Voice, Performing Arts Journal, Black Book, Hamptons Magazine, and other publications. He received his Doctorate from the Université de Paris VIII.

The Fales Collection at NYU is especially renowned for its Downtown Collection, which documents the explosion of artistic experimentation that took place in SoHo and the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s and is the only collection of its kind at a major university. Included in the collection are the papers of such writers and artists as David Wojnarowicz, Dennis Cooper, Tim Dlugos, Ron Kolm, John Watts and many others.

09/05/03