Festival Dates: March 6-11, 2007
New York University’s Graduate Acting Program in the Tisch School of the Arts is presenting the 20th annual Freeplay Festival from March 6-11 this year. Freeplay Festival 2007 comprises 11 original theatre projects created in the classroom by 18 actors and staged in collaboration with 7 lighting designers from the Department of Design for Stage and Film.
The Freeplay Festival is produced, directed, and performed by the third year Graduate Acting students. Since its inception in 1987, Freeplay has given students the opportunity to evolve beyond the prepared curriculum, develop new work, and collaborate with their peers in the Tisch School’s Design Department.
Freeplay Festival 2007 is free and open to the public. For general information and ticket reservations call (212) 998-1921. The reservation line will be open Monday-Friday from 11am - 3pm. Seating is limited and reservations are recommended. All performances are at the Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway, 5th floor, in either the Walker Theatre or Shubert Theatre. (Nearest subway: 8th Street - R, W trains; or Astor Place - 6 train.) The Festival runs each day throughout the week, from 12:30 to 9 p.m., with projects presented in a daily rotation. For more detailed information: visit www.gradacting.tisch.nyu.edu.
“Freeplay—as it suggests—is a project that gives the students the chance to play freely—choosing what to do rather than being given the play to act in, the role to inhabit, the scene to work on, the assignment to fulfill,” said Zelda Fichandler, chair of the Graduate Acting Program. “Out of their lives, out of their imagination, out of their personal vision of the world, they choose what they want to find for themselves and for their partner, the audience. Wonderful and unexpected work comes out of this possibility.”
The 2007 projects are: Am I Born to Die? with Creighton James & Amanda Fulks; Quick Bright Things… with Jocelyn Christensen & Abraham Smith, dir. by Elissa Walstead; Close Your Eyes with Bhavesh Patel & Amanda Fulks, dir. by Kate MacCluggage; Echeveria with Don Guillory; Frayed with Cornelius Smith, Jr.; The Hitchhiking Game with Karen Pittman, Amirh Rosario Vann, Don Guillory & Bhavesh Patel, dir. by Jennifer Thompson; I Am Nothing Like My Mother with Christine Corpuz; The Knight in Rusty Armor by Ed Valentine, with Arthur Lazalde & Karen Pittman; Live and Smokin’ with Ben Huber; Scratch with Ben Huber & David Ross; and Migration with Timothy Sekk, Clayton Apgar, & Christina Pumariega.
Freeplay Festival 2007 is produced by Cornelius Smith, Jr. and Jennifer Thompson. It is funded by the Graduate Student Organization and the Tisch School of the Arts Student Affairs Office.