Dance Project
Composition 1 –
Claire Porter
Requiring 8-10 dancers of all levels.
An original composition based in movement creation and personal expression. The composition will be 17-20 minutes long and will involve text. Claire has created work for many professional and academic institutions. Her work is highly creative and innovative. Her work has been presented numerous times at the American College Dance Festival.
CLAIRE PORTER's work (www.cportables.com) has been produced by Dance Theater Workshop, PS-122, Joyce Soho, The Bottom Line, NY Horticulture Society, The Knitting Factory, Danspace at St. Marks, Jacob's Pillow, Southern Theater in Minneapolis MN, Duncan Theater in Palm Beach FL, Liberty Science Center NJ, Kitchen Theater in Ithaca NY, Wooley Mammoth Theater in DC, Off Center Theater in Tampa FL, Center Stage in Raleigh NC, The American Dance Festival, Lucille Ball Festival of Comedy, Holland Festival in the Netherlands, Tour of Comedy in Germany and the Korea International Festival in Seoul. She performed at the opening of the Peter Eisenman Building at the University of Cincinnati, was the hostess-comedienne-scene changer for the Minnesota Composers Forum's New Music Concert, performed in Mikhail Baryshnikov's GALA 2009 and has appeared on staircases, boats, backyards, gyms, classrooms, airports, humor festivals, museums and soapboxes. Claire has received several NEA and NJ Choreography Fellowships, commissions from The 92nd St. Y's Harkness Dance Festival, DTW's First Light Project, Art Matters, VOGUE Magazine, University Dance Companies and Domino's Pizza Company. She has an MA in Dance from Ohio State, a BA in Mathematics and is a Laban Movement Analyst. She is represented by PENTACLE (212) 278-8111 x315.
Composition 2 –
Anne Kelly
Requiring 7 dancers (male and female)
Dance will be set to several instrumental selections from Handel's baroque opera Semele. (approximately 12 minutes). The style of movement will be rooted in ballet, but it will have a more grounded, off-balance approach. The dancers will wear soft ballet slippers. All the dancers will be on the stage for the entire dance, but they will dance in couple, trios and solos. The dance is Abstract with no specific narrative. However, the dancers I must be able to color their movement with emotion and connect with the other dancers to create hints of a story."
Composition 3 – Untitled
An original composition requiring 6 strong, technical jazz dancers.
Preferably 3 male and 3 female.
Partnering skills a plus.
Choreographing by Carissa Bellando
Carissa Bellando graduated from Wagner College in 2004 with a BA in Musical Theatre and a minor in Dance. Since graduating she has performed and choreographed for plays, musicals and children’s theatre shows at the Mac-Haydn Theatre, Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre, Broadway Palm, Broadway Palm West and Brooklyn Theatre Arts Project. She has spent the last three years traveling the world as a featured and soloist dancer on various ships for Norwegian Cruise Line. While performing on land she was seen in roles such as the Carpet in “Beauty and the Beast”, Tumblebrutus in “Cats”, and The Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker segment of “Sounds of Christmas”. Some of her choreographic credits include “The King and I”, “Man of La Mancha”, numerous original pieces and various cruise ship events.
Composition 4 - Sarah Tranchina
Requiring 2 Dancers- 1 Male, 1 Female
A Contemporary piece ranging from 5 to 7 minutes in length and set to Lykke Li’s Possibility. A strong technical background is required as well as partnering skills. There is a definite emotional journey throughout the piece; the dancers must be able to fill these acting moments appropriately.
Composition 5 - Sloan Herrick
Requiring 1 Female
An original solo piece about finding the courage within to overcome life's barriers. The piece is based in a modern contemporary style, and requires a dancer with some technique, and the ability to dance with emotional strength. The piece will be about 3 minutes in length.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone
By Sarah Ruhl
Directed by David A. Miller
April 2010, Stage One
The Play
“An incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And a dead man—with a lot of loose ends. So begins Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a wildly imaginative new comedy by MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Sarah Ruhl, author of The Clean House and Eurydice. A work about how we memorialize the dead—and how that remembering changes us—it is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption, and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world.” --Samuel French, Inc.
The Characters
A Woman, Jean – At the start of the play she doesn’t want to take up much space (at first). She wants to remember everything—even other people’s memories.
A Dead Man, Gordon – In life he loved himself most of all. His occupation was “to connect people”.
Gordon’s Mother, Mrs. Gottlieb – She speaks her mind. When she first meets Jean she thinks that she is comforting, like a little casserole. She wears furs, indoors.
Gordon’s Widow, Hermia – She cleans her cereal bowl while finishing the last bite.
Gordon’s Brother, Dwight – He was given his name because his mother felt sorry for it.
The Other Woman/The Stranger – Always enters accompanied by Film Noir music.
The Auditions
For the Initial Auditions all actors should a) read the play and b) prepare one of the following monologues from the play: Women should prepare either the Mrs. Gottlieb monologue on pages 16-17 (starting with “I’m not sure what to say.” and ending with “Let’s have a hymn. Father?”) or Jean’s monologue on pages 35-36 (starting with “You know what’s funny?” and ending with “…those bits of air – and voices.” Men should prepare a selection from Gordon’s monologue on pages 40-41 (beginning with the line “I wouldn’t really say I sell organs…” and ending with “…sorry we’re out.”) Page numbers refer to the Samuel French performance edition of the play script.
Callbacks will be scenes from the play. These scenes will be posted in advance of auditions.
Additional Audition Information
Initial auditions
For initial auditions, all men should prepare:
GORDON – pp. 40-41
First line: GORDON: I wouldn’t really say I sell organs…
Last line: GORDON: … As though it were a friendly, careless matter – sorry, we’re out.
For initial auditions, all women should prepare one of the following:
JEAN – pp. 35-36
First line, p. 35: JEAN: You know what’s funny?
Last line, p. 36: JEAN: …those bits of air – and voices.
MRS. GOTTLIEB – pp. 16-17
First line, p. 16: MRS. GOTTLIEB: I’m not sure what to say.
Last line, p. 17: MRS. GOTTLIEB: Well. I’ve forgotten my point. Let’s have a hymn. Father?
Callbacks
HERMIA & JEAN – Part TWO, Scene Five, pp. 46-47
First line: HERMIA: Give me another. Don’t worry, I can drive home after all, Jean.
DWIGHT & JEAN – Part ONE, Scene Five, pp. 31-33 (Actors may be asked to do both section A and B)
First line, p. 31: DWIGHT: You know why my mother named me Dwight?
Last line, p. 32: DWIGHT: I can see that. To remember.
First line, p. 32: DWIGHT: You like to remember stuff, don’t you?
Last line, p. 33: JEAN: I’ve never send out an embossed invitation. But I’d like to. One day.
THE OTHER WOMAN & JEAN – Part ONE, Scene Three, pp. 18-20
First line, p. 18: OTHER WOMAN: A woman should be able to take out her compact…
Last line, p. 20: OTHER WOMAN: Oh, Gordon.
All page numbers refer to the Samuel French Inc. edition of the play script.
The Director
David A. Miller is a professional director, playwright and teacher.
As Artistic Director of The Artful Conspirators, a Brooklyn based theatre collective, David has developed new plays such as
Whitman’s Brooklyn,
The Second Pipe of Desire,
A Lesson in Art and the current workshop of
Leaving Ikea, an
Inferno-esque Ikea-as-hell theatrical experience.
As a company member of Amphibian Stage Productions, David has directed
Gutenberg! The Musical! (Best Play, Fort Worth Weekly),
Below the Belt (Best Direction, Dallas-Fort Worth Critics Association) and
4 Edges.
For Wagner College, David has taught Introduction to Acting, Intermediate Acting and will teach Script Analysis in the spring.
He directed the staged reading of Stanley Drama Award Winning
Memory Fragments this past fall.
David earned his MFA in Directing from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and is a Drama League Directors Project alumni.
www.mrdavidamiller.com
