Frank is a Grammy award winning composer, trumpeter and bandleader. Critic Stephen Fruitman writes, “Frank London is new Jewish music(s)’ heart, soul and yiddishe kop.” Musicologist Joel Ruben called him “the person most responsible for pushing the klezmer revival in the world beat and fusion with rock and jazz”, and Harvey Pekar said “London is a passionate intelligent soloist, one of the best jazz trumpeters to emerge since 1980”.
He is featured on over 300 recordings, working with a wide range of artists including John Zorn, LL Cool J, Mel Torm, Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, Jane Siberry, Ben Folds 5, Mark Ribot, Maurice El Medioni, Gal Costa, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Itzhak Perlman. He has been featured at international festivals from the North Sea Jazz Festival to the Tokyo Festival of the Arts to the Lincoln Center Summer Festival. Celebrate Brooklyn, the Ancona Festival and the Krakow Festival of Jewish Culture have all made his work the special focus of their festivals.
London was commissioned to create new works for Krems, Austria’s “Glatt und Verkehrt Festival”; Sejny, Poland’s “Musician’s Raft”; and “Todos Os Voces Do Mundo” in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
In the theater world, he was musical director for David Byrne and Robert Wilson’s The Knee Plays, touring the world and selling out Carnegie Hall. With Glen Berger, he completed a psychedelic spy drama musical, On Words and Onwards. Green Violin, the tragic story of the Soviet Yiddish theater and its principal characters, Solomon Mikhoels and Marc Chagall, was featured at the Jewish Museum, Amsterdam Jewish Music Festival, in St. Petersburg, Russia and won the Barrymore Prize for best New Musical Score. Frank composed music for Tony Kushner’s A Dybbuk, Vit Horejs’ epic telling of the history of the Lower East Side, Once There Was a Village, John Sayles’ The Brother from Another Planet, Pilobolus Dance Theater’s Davenen, Great Small Works’ The Memoirs of Glikl of Hamelin, and Min Tanaka’s Romance as well as for the documentary films The Shvitz, A Cantor’s Tale, and Divan (Winner, Best Soundtrack, Monaco Film Festival).
www.franklondon.com
Glen Berger
Lyricist
GLEN’s plays include: UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL (Over 450 performances Off-Broadway, several Best Play awards, over 100 productions in U.S., translated into 8 languages), O LOVELY GLOWWORM (2005 Portland Drammy Award Winner for Best Script), GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE, NOS. 21 & 22 (1998 Ovation Award and 1998 L.A. Weekly Award for Best Play), I WILL GO.I WILL GO (published in Applause Book’s 2001 Best Short Plays Anthology), and the musicals [book and lyrics]: ON WORDS AND ONWARDS (Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan Foundation Fellowship), A NIGHT IN THE OLD MARKETPLACE, (Loewe Award), and: [book] MAX AND RUBY (Theatreworks), to be seen by a half-million schoolchildren from 2007-09. Glen has received commissions from the Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis, Berkeley Rep, the Alley Theatre, and the Lookingglass Theatre. He is currently writing the musical SPIDER-MAN, directed by Julie Taymor with music by Bono and Edge of U2, to open in Spring, 2010. He is a New Dramatists alumnus.
In television, Glen has won two Emmys (ten nominations), and has written over 100 episodes for children’s television series including ARTHUR (PBS), its spin-off POSTCARDS FROM BUSTER (PBS), TIME WARP TRIO (NBC/Discovery) , PEEP (Discovery/The Learning Channel), CURIOUS GEORGE (PBS), BIG AND SMALL (BBC), and FETCH (PBS), for which he is in his fifth year as head writer.
“What if the great mind of our time belonged not to an inventor or historian, but a playwright? It’s a question prompted by each new work from former Seattle resident Glen Berger, who delivered the most literate – and funniest – play produced in Portland last season, Portland Center Stage’s “O Lovely Glowworm.” Portland Tribune
“A wager: If Glen Berger isn’t one of the American theater scene’s most respected writers by the next decade, I’ll sit twice through every pretentious wank by every fringe playwright currently trying to emulate him. Berger has what most ambitious young artists would kill for: the ability to be off-the-chart unusual and still say something of universal resonance.” Seattle Weekly
“Glen Berger’s work feels like what an entire generation of playwrights have been struggling to write.” The Stranger, Seattle
Photo credit: Chip Butterman
Alexandra Aron
Conceiver, Director
Alex is a NY based theater director; productions include Three Seconds in the Key by Deb Margolin (New Georges – winner of Kesselring Prize), Great Men of Science No.’s 21 & 22 by Glen Berger, Out From Under It by Susan Bernfield (Vital Theater), Karaoke at the Suicide Shack by Rob Urbinati (Queens Theater in the Park), Eloise and Ray by Stephanie Fleishmann, (New Georges — Village Voice Season Highlight 2000-01). Alex worked in the Middle East directing The Mole’s Dance (Mohammad Kamel Jabr) in Arabic at Assiraj Theater in Ramallah (Palestine) and No Second Troy (Karen Hartman) at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Alex is the recipient of Fulbright Scholarship to Argentina (2005-6) as well as Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture fellowship and of a New Play Commission from the National Foundation of Jewish Culture. She has been a member of the Women’s Project & Productions Artistic Leadership Forum, WP&P’s Directing Forum and Lincoln Center Theater Directing Lab. Alex serves on the Artistic Advisory Board of New Georges Theater where she is also an affiliated artist.
Photo credit: Nataly Levich
Tyler Micoleau
Lighting Design
Laura Mroczkowski
Associate Lighting Designer
Laura Mroczkowski is currently a freelance Set and Lighting Designer in New York City. She has had the opportunity to work with many companies from around the world. Laura’s Select Design Credits include: House/Divided Co- design with Jennifer Tipton (The Builders Association World Tour), The Carolyn Bryant Project (Highways Performance Space, Los Angeles), Peter & Wendy (First Stage Theater Milwaukee, WI), Spy Garbo: Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Lighting Design (3 Legged-Dog NYC), I Write the Songs: Art by Suzanne Bocanegra (The Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY); 5 Songs: a sculpture exhibit by artist Martin Kersels (The Whitney Museum Biennial Event 2010 NYC), AH! Opera No-Opera: an interactive, Multi-media performance with the Center for New Performance (REDCAT Los Angeles, CA), The Dig: an Archeological Exhibit (Governors Island NYC), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland), Coffee Will Make You Black (Celebration Theater, Los Angeles, CA). Laura is also the Co-Artistic Director and Founding Member of Blank-the-Dog productions in Los Angeles.
www.lauramroczkowski.org
Kate Howard
Video Design
Kate Howard is a visual artist and native New Yorker. Other recent video design projects include Frank London’s A Night in the Old Market Place (Bard SummerScape, Annandale-on-Hudson, ’09), Laura Karpman’s “Ask Your Mama” (Carnegie Hall, NYC), Ethel’s Truckstop: The Beginning (Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, NYC), and Democracy in America (The Foundry Theater/PS 122, NYC). Upcoming projects include Annie Dorsen’s “Hello. Hi There!” (The HAU Theater, Berlin, Germany and The Garajsen Theater, Bergen, Norway). Kate has exhibited her video art work in galleries both in the States and abroad. She received her MFA from the Yale School of Art.
Video Content
Tine Kindemann
www.tinekindermann.com
Animation
Key Frame Studios:
Asa Movshovitz, director
Steve Sole
www.keyframestudios.co.uk
Frank London
Glen Berger
Alexandra Aron
Laura Mroczkowski