The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company today announced that their 2014 - '15 season will begin with the first major New York revival of Lee Blessing's A Walk In The Woods starring Kathleen Chalfant and Paul Niebanck, directed by Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein. It will be followed in the spring by a rare revival of John amp Jen, the musical with music by Andrew Lippa, lyrics by Tom Greenwald, and a book by Lippa and Greenwald.
- 8/11/2014
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
The Sundance Institute announced I Origins as the winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, as well as the recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Lab Fellowship, which is presented through the Institute’s Feature Film Program.
These activities, as well as a panel at the Festival and the Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Grant, are part of the Sundance Institute Science-in-Film Initiative, which is made possible by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The initiative supports the development and exhibition of new independent film projects that explore science and technology themes or that depict scientists, engineers and mathematicians in engaging and innovative ways.
“We are delighted to collaborate with Sundance Institute for the 11th year in a row and to recognize Mike Cahill’s original and compelling I Origins as the winner of this year’s Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize,” said Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “With Academy Award-nominated films like this year’s Gravity and Her, I Origins—as well as new scripts we are developing with Sundance Institute Labs such as The Buried Life and Prodigal Summer—demonstrates that not only are science and technology central to understanding, engaging with and dramatizing modern life, but they also make for cracking good films that draw large audiences.”
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Independent filmmakers offer unique perspectives on the role math, science and technology play in our world and culture. The Sundance Institute Science-in-Film Initiative, with critical support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recognizes and encourages these projects as they make their way to audiences.”
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize
I Origins, directed and written by Mike Cahill, has been awarded the 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and will receive a $20,000 cash award by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The Prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to outstanding feature films focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.
In I Origins, a molecular biologist and his lab partner uncover startling evidence that could fundamentally change society as we know it and cause them to question their once-certain beliefs in science and spirituality. The cast includes Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Steven Yeun, Archie Panjabi. The jury presented the award to the film for its “intelligent and nuanced portrayal of molecular biologists as central characters, and for dramatizing the power of the scientific process to explore fundamental questions about the human condition.”
Previous Alfred P. Sloan Prize Winners include: Andrew Bujalski, Computer Chess (2013); Jake Schreier, Christopher Ford, Robot & Frank (2012); Musa Syeed, Valley of Saints (2012); Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, Another Earth (2011); Diane Bell, Obselidia (2010); Max Mayer, Adam (2009); Alex Rivera, Sleep Dealer (2008); Shi-Zheng Chen, Dark Matter (2007); Andrucha Waddington, The House of Sand (2006); Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man (2005), Shane Carruth, Primer (2004) and Marc Decena, Dopamine (2003). Several past winners have also been awarded Jury Awards at the Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize for Primer, the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Sleep Dealer and the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Obselidia.
This year’s Alfred P. Sloan jury members are:
Dr. Kevin Hand Dr. Kevin Hand is deputy chief scientist for Solar System Exploration at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research focuses on the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the solar system. His fieldwork involves exploring some of Earth’s most extreme environments from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, to the depths of the Earth’s oceans, to the glaciers of Kilimanjaro.
Flora Lichtman Flora Lichtman is a science journalist living in New York. She has worked as a video journalist for the New York Times and National Public Radio’s Science Friday and writes regularly for Popular Science magazine. She is the coauthor of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us.
Max Mayer Max Mayer is a founder and producing director of New York Stage and Film and has directed over 50 new plays by writers such as John Patrick Shanley, Lee Blessing, and Eric Overmyer. In addition to writing and directing Better Living and Adam, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and won the Sloan Prize, Mayer has directed As Cool as I Am and episodes of The West Wing, Alias, and Family Law and written three produced plays.
Jon Spaihts Jon Spaihts is the screenwriter of The Darkest Hour, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, and the upcoming Passengers and The Mummy. The one-time physics student and science writer continues to specialize in science fiction.
Jill Tarter Astronomer Jill Tarter, the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for the Seti Institute, has devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings elsewhere. The lead for Project Phoenix, a decade-long Seti scrutiny of about 750 nearby star systems, she now leads Seti’s efforts to build and operate the Allen Telescope Array. A 2009 Ted prize recipient, she is also the real-life researcher upon whom the Jodie Foster character in Contact is largely based.
Sundance Institute / Alfred P. Sloan Lab Fellowship
The Buried Life (U.S.A.) Joan Stein Schimke and Averie Storck (co-writers/co-directors) An archaeologist risks her reputation for the dig of her career, but when her rock 'n' roll sister and overbearing father follow her to the excavation, she discovers her biggest challenge is facing what's above ground.
Joan Stein Schimke and Averie Storck have just attended the Institute’s January Screenwriters Lab with The Buried Life.
Joan Stein Schimke was nominated for an Academy Award® for her short film One Day Crossing, which won several other awards including the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Best Woman Student Filmmaker, Best Director, National Board of Review and the Student Academy Award® Gold Medal. Other directing credits include Law and Order and the short film Solidarity, which screened at over a dozen festivals including the New York Film Festival. Stein Schimke is an Mfa graduate of Columbia University’s Film Program and is currently an Associate Professor at Adelphi University in New York.
Averie Storck is an Mfa graduate of Columbia University’s Film Program. Her award-winning short films include Live at Five , which won the New Line Cinema Development Award and screened at more than 30 international film festivals. Prior to filmmaking, Storck worked for People and Vogue magazines, was a writer for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and studied improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in NYC. She currently teaches and directs at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Founded in 1934, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a non-profit philanthropy that makes grants in science, technology and economic performance. This Sloan-Sundance partnership forms part of a broader national program by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to stimulate leading artists in film, television, and theater; to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology; and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the popular imagination. Over the past decade, the Foundation has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country – including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Nyu, UCLA, and USC – and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production and an annual first-feature award for alumni. The Foundation has also started an annual Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival and initiated new screenwriting and film production workshops at the Hamptons and Tribeca Film Festival and with Film Independent. As more finished films emerge from this developmental pipeline—four features were completed in 2013, with half a dozen more on deck—the foundation has also partnered with the Coolidge Corner Theater and the Arthouse Convergence to screen science films in up to 40 theaters nationwide. The Foundation also has an active theater program and commissions over a dozen science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwright Horizons.
These activities, as well as a panel at the Festival and the Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Grant, are part of the Sundance Institute Science-in-Film Initiative, which is made possible by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The initiative supports the development and exhibition of new independent film projects that explore science and technology themes or that depict scientists, engineers and mathematicians in engaging and innovative ways.
“We are delighted to collaborate with Sundance Institute for the 11th year in a row and to recognize Mike Cahill’s original and compelling I Origins as the winner of this year’s Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize,” said Doron Weber, Vice President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “With Academy Award-nominated films like this year’s Gravity and Her, I Origins—as well as new scripts we are developing with Sundance Institute Labs such as The Buried Life and Prodigal Summer—demonstrates that not only are science and technology central to understanding, engaging with and dramatizing modern life, but they also make for cracking good films that draw large audiences.”
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Independent filmmakers offer unique perspectives on the role math, science and technology play in our world and culture. The Sundance Institute Science-in-Film Initiative, with critical support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recognizes and encourages these projects as they make their way to audiences.”
Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize
I Origins, directed and written by Mike Cahill, has been awarded the 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and will receive a $20,000 cash award by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The Prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to outstanding feature films focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.
In I Origins, a molecular biologist and his lab partner uncover startling evidence that could fundamentally change society as we know it and cause them to question their once-certain beliefs in science and spirituality. The cast includes Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Steven Yeun, Archie Panjabi. The jury presented the award to the film for its “intelligent and nuanced portrayal of molecular biologists as central characters, and for dramatizing the power of the scientific process to explore fundamental questions about the human condition.”
Previous Alfred P. Sloan Prize Winners include: Andrew Bujalski, Computer Chess (2013); Jake Schreier, Christopher Ford, Robot & Frank (2012); Musa Syeed, Valley of Saints (2012); Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, Another Earth (2011); Diane Bell, Obselidia (2010); Max Mayer, Adam (2009); Alex Rivera, Sleep Dealer (2008); Shi-Zheng Chen, Dark Matter (2007); Andrucha Waddington, The House of Sand (2006); Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man (2005), Shane Carruth, Primer (2004) and Marc Decena, Dopamine (2003). Several past winners have also been awarded Jury Awards at the Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize for Primer, the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Sleep Dealer and the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Obselidia.
This year’s Alfred P. Sloan jury members are:
Dr. Kevin Hand Dr. Kevin Hand is deputy chief scientist for Solar System Exploration at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research focuses on the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the solar system. His fieldwork involves exploring some of Earth’s most extreme environments from the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, to the depths of the Earth’s oceans, to the glaciers of Kilimanjaro.
Flora Lichtman Flora Lichtman is a science journalist living in New York. She has worked as a video journalist for the New York Times and National Public Radio’s Science Friday and writes regularly for Popular Science magazine. She is the coauthor of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us.
Max Mayer Max Mayer is a founder and producing director of New York Stage and Film and has directed over 50 new plays by writers such as John Patrick Shanley, Lee Blessing, and Eric Overmyer. In addition to writing and directing Better Living and Adam, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and won the Sloan Prize, Mayer has directed As Cool as I Am and episodes of The West Wing, Alias, and Family Law and written three produced plays.
Jon Spaihts Jon Spaihts is the screenwriter of The Darkest Hour, Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, and the upcoming Passengers and The Mummy. The one-time physics student and science writer continues to specialize in science fiction.
Jill Tarter Astronomer Jill Tarter, the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for the Seti Institute, has devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings elsewhere. The lead for Project Phoenix, a decade-long Seti scrutiny of about 750 nearby star systems, she now leads Seti’s efforts to build and operate the Allen Telescope Array. A 2009 Ted prize recipient, she is also the real-life researcher upon whom the Jodie Foster character in Contact is largely based.
Sundance Institute / Alfred P. Sloan Lab Fellowship
The Buried Life (U.S.A.) Joan Stein Schimke and Averie Storck (co-writers/co-directors) An archaeologist risks her reputation for the dig of her career, but when her rock 'n' roll sister and overbearing father follow her to the excavation, she discovers her biggest challenge is facing what's above ground.
Joan Stein Schimke and Averie Storck have just attended the Institute’s January Screenwriters Lab with The Buried Life.
Joan Stein Schimke was nominated for an Academy Award® for her short film One Day Crossing, which won several other awards including the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Best Woman Student Filmmaker, Best Director, National Board of Review and the Student Academy Award® Gold Medal. Other directing credits include Law and Order and the short film Solidarity, which screened at over a dozen festivals including the New York Film Festival. Stein Schimke is an Mfa graduate of Columbia University’s Film Program and is currently an Associate Professor at Adelphi University in New York.
Averie Storck is an Mfa graduate of Columbia University’s Film Program. Her award-winning short films include Live at Five , which won the New Line Cinema Development Award and screened at more than 30 international film festivals. Prior to filmmaking, Storck worked for People and Vogue magazines, was a writer for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and studied improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in NYC. She currently teaches and directs at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Founded in 1934, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a non-profit philanthropy that makes grants in science, technology and economic performance. This Sloan-Sundance partnership forms part of a broader national program by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to stimulate leading artists in film, television, and theater; to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology; and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the popular imagination. Over the past decade, the Foundation has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country – including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Nyu, UCLA, and USC – and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production and an annual first-feature award for alumni. The Foundation has also started an annual Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival and initiated new screenwriting and film production workshops at the Hamptons and Tribeca Film Festival and with Film Independent. As more finished films emerge from this developmental pipeline—four features were completed in 2013, with half a dozen more on deck—the foundation has also partnered with the Coolidge Corner Theater and the Arthouse Convergence to screen science films in up to 40 theaters nationwide. The Foundation also has an active theater program and commissions over a dozen science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and Playwright Horizons.
- 1/24/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
X-Men franchise director Bryan Singer, whose first two features debuted at the Sundance Film Festival — including The Usual Suspects in 1995 — was one of the industry figures named to the Sundance juries that will judge this year’s films when the festival begins next week. Singer, who has X-Men: Days of Future Past due in May, will be one of five members of the U.S. Dramatic Jury. Other members of the juries include Tracy Chapman, Lone Scherfig, Leonard Maltin, and screenwriter Jon Spaihts (Prometheus). A complete list of the juries, courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival, can be viewed after the jump.
- 1/9/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
The Pasadena Playhouse is accepting submissions for roles in its upcoming staged readings. The venerable 686-seat theater is experiencing a financial renaissance after a successful fundraising drive saw it recently bring in a seven-figure haul. It now has a new production slate, which includes four staged readings in the coming months, and is seeking actors to fill out the casts. The 2012–13 season of the Playhouse's Hothouse staged reading series, dedicated to the development of new plays, includes "Dear Galileo," a drama by Claire Willett about three women wrestling with their identity, the conflict between science and religion, and their fathers' legacies; "Aunt Stossie’s Coming for Five Days" by Ellen Simon, which is set in a Central California beach town, about three generations of women and two surfer boys who are navigating the entanglements of sex, health, and family after a tsunami warning sign goes up in their neighborhood; and...
- 10/17/2012
- backstage.com
Randeep Hooda, who is looking forward to the release of his upcoming film Jism 2 with Sunny Leone, has yet another reason to celebrate. He has now also made his debut as a writer with a play which is an Indian adaptation of Lee Blessing's A Walk In The Woods.
Randeep has always been active on the theatre front and this is his maiden play as a writer. The play has been co-written by Randeep along with Faisal Rashid.
Watch Promo: Jism - 2...
Randeep has always been active on the theatre front and this is his maiden play as a writer. The play has been co-written by Randeep along with Faisal Rashid.
Watch Promo: Jism - 2...
- 7/21/2012
- by Bollywood Hungama News Network
- BollywoodHungama
he Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust today announced that the Fifth Annual Steinberg Playwright Mimi Awards will be presented on Monday, October 29, 2012. The Mimi Awards promote theater as a vital part of our culture by nurturing American playwrights and encouraging the development and production of new American plays. The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust will present the 2012 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award at this years ceremony, which will be held at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York City. The Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award is presented biennially to honor and encourage the artistic excellence and achievement of an American playwright whose body of work has made significant contributions to the American theater. The recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award will receive a cash award of 200,000. The Steinberg Playwright Awards and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Awards are presented in alternate years. Past recipients are Lisa DAmour and Melissa James Gibson,...
- 6/19/2012
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
The Spare Stage production of Lee Blessing's A Body of Water - a Bay Area premiere - opens November 6 and runs through November 22 at Exit Theatre in San Francisco, with Spare Stage Artistic Director Stephen Drewes at the helm.
A middle-aged couple awakens in a beautiful country house on a hill, surrounded by trees and glimpses of water. There's just one problem. They can't remember their own names, much less the relationship between them. Their ensuing pursuit of memory yields both terrifying and comic results, setting them adrift on a leaky raft of postmodern anxiety.
For Moss (Val Hendrickson) and Avis (Holly Silk) the loss of memory equates to loss of self, a disorientation that produces a paralyzing loss of agency. Unable to move in any direction, they are at sea without a paddle. We're in Samuel Beckett territory here, with a generous splash of Neil Simon, stuck between...
A middle-aged couple awakens in a beautiful country house on a hill, surrounded by trees and glimpses of water. There's just one problem. They can't remember their own names, much less the relationship between them. Their ensuing pursuit of memory yields both terrifying and comic results, setting them adrift on a leaky raft of postmodern anxiety.
For Moss (Val Hendrickson) and Avis (Holly Silk) the loss of memory equates to loss of self, a disorientation that produces a paralyzing loss of agency. Unable to move in any direction, they are at sea without a paddle. We're in Samuel Beckett territory here, with a generous splash of Neil Simon, stuck between...
- 11/6/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
"We had so much fun writing Love Child," says Robert Stanton. "We had a blast. But I'd be disingenuous if I said I didn't think of it as an acting showcase." Performing in the play was neither his nor co-writer Daniel Jenkins' initial ambition, but as the project progressed, playing 20 characters in a work about theatre seemed the natural thing to do. Now running in repertory Off-Broadway with Lee Blessing's A Body of Water, the comic two-hander depicts an Off-Off-Broadway troupe mounting the Greek tragedy Ion by Euripides. Beleaguered actor-manager Joel is "struggling to figure out who his family is and where he fits in," says Jenkins, who plays him and other characters. "One of the themes is family. This is about a theatre family, and as we know, it frequently becomes a dysfunctional family. What we look at here is, how does it work? How is it a blessing?...
- 10/21/2009
- backstage.com
For the fourth consecutive year, The Cleveland Play House presents FusionFest, the only multidisciplinary performing arts festival at a regional theatre in the country, from April 29-May 10, 2009. The festival will offer a sampling of international and "other-worldly" works, including an ancient Japanese art form, Dogugaeshi, by master puppeteer Basil Twist, performances by Charles Ross of his One-Man Star Wars Trilogy, and a world-premiere adaptation of Thorton Wilder's comic novel Heaven's My Destination, by Tony-award nominee Lee Blessing and commissioned by The Play House expressly for FusionFest with support from The Roe Green Foundation.
- 3/6/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
The quirk-fest "Quake" and the inter-generational study of three women "Eleemosynary" are being staged this weekend at The University of the Arts. Special guests in attendance will include "Quake" writer Melanie Marnich and "Eleemosynary" writer Lee Blessing, who just happen to be husband and wife. After taking in their plays, they will take center stage with an open forum and post-show discussions.
- 2/27/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
Stone Soup presents Lee Blessing's Eleemosynary, an evocative play about love, personal identity and the importance of family. The story is about an eccentric Grandmother--played by Artistic director, founder, Maureen Miko--a brilliant but alienated mother and a precocious spelling bee champion granddaughter. Praised by Variety Magazine and produced to glowing audience response in productions throughout the country, Eleemosynary takes us on a journey of humor and discovery. It touches on themes we can all relate to about challenged families and the need to be loved for who we really are. At the same time offers a quirky and fresh perspective on the challenges of everyday relationships.
- 1/20/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
"We had so much fun writing Love Child," says Robert Stanton. "We had a blast. But I'd be disingenuous if I said I didn't think of it as an acting showcase." Performing in the play was neither his nor co-writer Daniel Jenkins' initial ambition, but as the project progressed, playing 20 characters in a work about theatre seemed the natural thing to do. Now running in repertory Off-Broadway with Lee Blessing's A Body of Water, the comic two-hander depicts an Off-Off-Broadway troupe mounting the Greek tragedy Ion by Euripides. Beleaguered actor-manager Joel is "struggling to figure out who his family is and where he fits in," says Jenkins, who plays him and other characters. "One of the themes is family. This is about a theatre family, and as we know, it frequently becomes a dysfunctional family. What we look at here is, how does it work? How is it a blessing?...
- 10/21/2008
- by Simi Horwitz
- backstage.com
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