JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956)
v is regarded as the undisputed leader of the Abstract Expressionist movement. He was the youngest of five sons and in his first 16 years moved nine times with his family between California and Arizona. In 1928 he settled in Los Angeles, where he studied at the Manual Arts High School under the painter and illustrator Frederick John de St. Vrain Schwankowsky. He studied European and Mexican modernism and was introduced to the doctrines of Theosophy and Krishnamurti, which prepared Pollock, who had been brought up as an agnostic, to be open to contemporary spiritual concepts, particularly Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology and Surrealist automatism. In the early 1930s he studied in New York City under Thomas Hart Benton, and later he was employed on the WPA Federal Art Project. In 1945 he married the artist Lee Krasner. Two years later, after several years of semiabstract work stimulated by psychotherapy, Pollock began to lay his canvas on the floor and pour or drip paint onto it in stages. This process permitted him to record the force and scope of his gestures in trajectories of enamel or aluminum paint that “veiled” the figurative elements found in his earlier work. The results were huge areas covered with complex and dynamic linear patterns that fuse image and form and engulf the vision of the spectator in their scale and intricacy. Pollock believed that art derived from the unconscious and judged his work and that of others on its inherent authenticity of personal expression. He became known as a leading practitioner of Abstract Expressionism, particularly the form known as action painting. Championed by critic Clement Greenberg and others, he became a celebrity. When he died in a car crash at 44, he was one of the few American painters to be recognized during his lifetime and afterward as the peer of 20th-century European masters of modern art.
MONI YAKIM (Concept & Direction) Mr. Yakim heads the Movement Department at the Juilliard Drama School where he has been teaching since its inception in 1967, and teaches physical acting at Circle in the Square Theatre School. For years he directed for and taught acting at the American Opera Center, the Stella Adler Conservatory, led the movement department at the Yale Drama School, and is the author of the widely read book Creating a Character: A Physical Approach to Acting. His theatrical career began in his native Jerusalem, joining the Massach Theatre at age fourteen, and later making his way to Paris where he studied with the famed director/actor/teacher George Wilson at the Theatre Nationale Populaire and with Etienne Decroux, creator of modern Mime. He became a principal performer in Decroux’s company, and later, a principal performer with famed mime Marcel Marceau. He also joined Theatre Franco Allemand, touring France and Germany, and directed plays for the Cité Universitaire. It was there that he was noticed by the legendary Stella Adler, who arranged for him to come to New York to teach physical acting at her conservatory. He directed Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris at the Village Gate, on Broadway, in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, Toronto, and for about a dozen other companies across the U.S. for which he received the award of directorial excellence. He also choreographed and was featured in the Jacques Brel film. Mr. Yakim has directed productions for Yale Repertory Theatre, Stratford Theatre and Broadway’s Anta Theatre, London’s King’s Head Theatre, Boston Concert Opera, Broadway’s Circle In The Square Theatre, La Mama, and The Metropolitan Opera Studio. Mr. Yakim also created the movement for the films Robocop, Robocop II and Robocop III.
JOE PERACCHIO (Performer)
Mr. Peracchio is the Founding Artistic Director of Tricklock Company, theatre in residence at the University of New Mexico, and the founder of the Revolutions International Theatre Festival (now in its 11th season). He served as the Founding Producer for both the Rubicon International Theatre Festival in Ventura, California, and for the California International Theatre Festival in Calabasas along-side director Linda Purl. He has performed and/or directed on stages across the US including Playwrights Horizons in New York City, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Baltimore Theatre Project, Prop Theatre of Chicago, & Rubicon Theatre Company, as well as over a decade of international touring including to The Edinburgh Festival, The Prague Quadrennial Festival, Calgary’s High Performance Rodeo, and many venues in Canada, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, and throughout the U.S. Recently he created, directed, & performed in Café Burlesque-O! for the Rubicon, directed and starred in the hit L.A. rock opera Taking The Jesus Pill for Hollywood’s KingKing Theatre, and directed & produced the sold-out Los Angeles run of BUKOWSICAL!, about madman poet Charles Bukowski, going on to win the award for Outstanding Musical 2007 at the New York Fringe Festival. Mr. Peracchio lives in Los Angeles where he works as an actor in film, theatre, and television, and teaches regularly for Pasadena Playhouse and the Rubicon. He recently appeared in a series regular role as “Mike Klink” on The CW Network’s critically acclaimed drama Easy Money, and in the films The Purple Hat and Dear John released in 2010.
DAVID D’AGOSTINO (Playwright)
David studied acting at Circle in the Square Theater School in New York and he has written a number of short stories, stage and screen plays. He is the author and illustrator of “The Sheep, The Shepherd and the Ugly Gnome” (theuglygnome.com) and is currently at work on a novel for young adults. Mr. D’Agostino became a fan of Jackson Pollock and his work while researching this play and he is thrilled, that through this story, others may also come to know the genius of this great American artist. David lives in Eastern Long Island (not far from Pollock’s home in The Springs) with his wife and two children and is actively involved in local environmental and quality of life issues.
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ORNETTE COLEMAN (Incidental Music) One of the most important pioneers of the jazz avant-garde, American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, Ornette Coleman was the principal initiator and leading exponent of “free jazz” in the 1950s. Mr. Coleman’s unorthodox approach to harmony early in his career quickly established him as a controversial innovator. In the late 1950s Coleman formed a group with trumpeter Don Cherry, drummer Billy Higgins, and bassist Charlie Haden, with whom he recorded his first album, Something Else (1958). His classic recordings The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century in 1959 preceded his move that year to New York City, where his radical conception of structure and the urgent emotionality of his improvisations aroused widespread controversy. His recordings Free Jazz (1960), which used two simultaneously improvising jazz quartets, and “Beauty Is a Rare Thing,” in which he successfully experimented with free meters and tempos, also proved influential. In the 1960s Coleman taught himself to play the violin and trumpet, using unorthodox techniques. His most notable extended composition is the uite Skies of America, which was recorded in 1972 by the London Symphony Orchestra joined by Coleman on alto saxophone. Influenced by his experience of improvising with native musicians in the Rif Mountains of Morocco in 1973, Coleman formed an electric band called Prime Time, whose music was a fusion of rock rhythms with harmonically free collective improvisations; this band remained his primary performance vehicle until the 1990s. In 2005, with a quartet made up of two acoustic double bass players, a drummer, and Coleman himself playing alto saxophone, trumpet, and violin, he recorded Sound Grammar. The work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2007.
GARY STOCKDALE (Sound Design) Mr. Stockdale has composed music for television shows such as Sabrina, the Teenage Witch; To Tell the Truth; Comedy Central’s Last Laugh; Cowboy U; The Independent Spirit Awards; A Home for the Holidays (CBS), and since 1990, has been the main composer for the “Bad Boys of Magic,” Penn & Teller. He received his first Emmy Award nomination leading the band on the critically-acclaimed variety series Penn & Teller’s Sin City Spectacular, and his second Emmy Award nomination and a BMI Award for Music Composition for his work on Showtime’s Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT!, now in it’s 7th season. Mr. Stockdale also wrote music for The Aristocrats, by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza, and co-wrote the irreverent adult musical BUKOWSICAL!, which won the award for Outstanding Musical 2007 at the New York Fringe Festival. Mr. Stockdale was metored by Oscar-winning music composer Henry Mancini, singing in many of he’s movies. He began his film-music composing career working for the legendary director/producer Roger Corman, scoring Corman’s first “art” film, Dance of the Damned. He also worked with famed film and television composer Lalo Schifrin, arranging and composing cues for his projects, including Sudden Impact, FX2, and Sam Peckinpah’s last film, The Osterman Weekend. As a singer, Mr. Stockdale has appeared in NBC’s Studio 60: Live on the Sunset Strip, and he sang on Neil Young’s recent Living With War project, released on DVD. He has also sung on such films as The Matrix Revolutions, and The Watchmen, and TV series’ such as The Family Guy.
DAVID TIROSH (Video Design) David Tirosh is an Israeli video and lighting designer now working in New York City and around the world on specific theatre pieces and art installations. Recently he served as the Associate Video Designer for Irena’s Vow on Broadway where he designed an interface incorporating over 60 automated video cues to respond to the sound operator’s audio program. Mr. Tirosh was recently featured at The Prizma Forum in Mexico City where he premiered an interactive installation entitled Page 56, and he is currently collaborating with the Troika Ranch company of New York and Berlin to generate live lighting operation as a source for computer synchronized manipulation in their new piece to premiere in October, 2009. With 3Legged Dog Media and Theatre Group in Manhattan he has designed and co-designed lighting and developed video lighting techniques for a number of productions and tours of original work including, Losing Something, The Curse of the Mystic Renaldo, Fire Island (an original piece by Charles Mee), Pluton, and Rods and Cables. His projects have received the prestigious 2007 Henry Hewes Design Award for Notable Effects (Losing Something), and articles in Lighting and Sound Magazine.
JASON MULLEN (Lighting Design)
Mr. Mullen has taught and designed lighting for over 20 years. His background in design has enabled him to create lighting systems for architecture, live events, permanent theatrical installations, and touring theatrical shows. In recent years he has designed premiere parties for Warner Brothers, Universal Studios, and Sony Pictures including an award nominated design for Miami Vice which covered nearly four blocks of Westwood, CA. Mr. Mullen has also worked extensively in the music industry, most recently lighting shows for Lyle Lovett, Joe Ely, Guy Clark and John Hiatt in San Diego. In 2006, Jason collaborated with Tricklock Company on Billy the Kid, which had successful runs in Albuquerque, Chicago, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, and venues across Europe. Mr. Mullen received his Master Of Fine Arts from CalArts’ Theatre School where he studied with Peter Maradudin, Liz Stillwell and D. Martyn Bookwalter. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the Univeristy of New Mexico where he studied with John Malolepsy.
ALEXIS MILES (Production Manager) Ms. Miles was on staff at The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles for several years as staff Production Stage Manager working on award-winning productions such as After the Fall, Central Avenue and Night of the Iguana. She has worked for many other theaters in Los Angeles and surrounding areas including The Odyssey Ensemble, Covina Arts Center, Boston Court (CAPP), IO West, The Hudson, and The Ford Theatre, and for the international arts festival in Edinburgh Scotland, The Revolutions International Theatre Festival in Albuquerque New Mexico, and for both the Rubicon & California International Theatre Festivals. She recently completed a four year contract with the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura California as Assistant to the Production Manager and Stage Manager. She is now proud to make California’s Theatre 150 her home.
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