Piehole: hand foot fizzle face

Directed by Tara Ahmadinejad
June 19 - 27, 2015

Performance collective Piehole, helmed by director Tara Ahmadinejad, teams up with sound artist/composer Lea Bertucci to wake up an expensive art-object and give it a workout in a surreal gymnasium of sound, video, dance, and sweat. Inspired by an enigmatic art-book produced from an awkward one-off collaboration between Samuel Beckett and Jasper Johns, Piehole’s Hand Foot Fizzle Face examines the self-defeating impulse to transcend ephemerality, in art and life.

Featuring: Allison LaPlatney, Jeff Wood, Stacey Karen Robinson, Emily Jon Mitchell and Joshua David Robinson

Director: Tara Ahmadinejad
Set/Costume Designer: Alexandra Panzer
Dramaturg: Elliot B. Quick
Sound Designer: Lea Bertucci
Producer: Katie Naka
Lighting Designer: Masha Tsimring
Video Designer: Matt Romein
Select choreography: Rebecca Warner

Friday 6/19 @ 8pm - $7 PREVIEW
Saturday 6/20 @ 8pm
Sunday 6/21 @ 6pm
Monday 6/22 @ 8pm
Wednesday 6/24 @ 8pm
Thursday 6/25 @ 8pm
Friday 6/26 @ 8pm
Saturday 6/27 @ 8pm

ARTIST BIOS:

Piehole is a laboratory of theater artists who investigate the process of collaboration and collective authorship to create live events. They draw from a shared fascination with objects and media, and continually reimagine their process, driven by an ongoing pursuit of surprise, delight and beauty in unexpected places. They invite audiences into this pursuit to encourage agency in one’s thinking, perceiving, and feeling, as well as an expanded sense of potential realities. Since 2008, Piehole's work has been performed at art galleries, theaters, warehouses, and hotel rooms, in NYC, Philly, and Prague. They have received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, BAX, the Mental Insight Foundation, Puppeteers of America, and The Drama League. Their most recent work, Old Paper Houses, was part of Prelude14, and ran at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene. Hand Foot Fizzle Face is part of the Drama League Artist-in-Residency program, and has received a Production Assistance Grant provided by New York Theatre Workshop. Piehole also throws really good parties, which have been praised for being reminiscent of “the way Brooklyn used to feel like, in 2002,” by people who attended.

Tara Ahmadinejad (Director) is a NY director, originally from Philadelphia. She is a core member of Piehole, with whom she has directed/co-created shows since its founding in 2008. She has served on the selection committee for the Puppeteers of America Endowment fund, and has assisted Dan Rothenberg, Jay Scheib, and Kristin Marting. A graduate of Columbia MFA Directing, Tara is a current Drama League resident and a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow.

Allison LaPlatney (Performer) has been performing and writing with Piehole since 2008. She has also performed with Antimatter Collective, and in the site specific immersive work ProFailure, which was co-created by Jeff Wood through the PIMA program, and performed at St. Joseph’s Church in Prospect Heights. She has also studied poetry with Michael S. Harper and Gale Nelson, and works in Collection and Exhibition Technologies at the Museum of Modern Art.

Jeff Wood (Performer) is an interdisciplinary artist in NYC. He’s a co-founder of Piehole, with whom he has devised, designed and performed since 2008. As a video/projection designer he has worked with Reid Farrington, Jonah Bokaer/Chez Bushwick, University of Maryland, Gowanus Nite Market, Girl Be Heard and others. He teaches arts/technology workshops at Beam Center, and in NYC schools. He has an MFA from Brooklyn College's Performance and Interactive Media Arts program, and has trained and devised with Pig Iron Theater Company. He plays drums in the band Lame Drivers.

Stacey Karen Robinson* (Performer), a Bronx native, is an actress and playwright. Her work explores memory, trauma and transcendence. Her solo show, Quiet Frenzy, is published in solo / black / woman: scripts, interviews, and essays (Northwestern University Press, 2013). She has performed Quiet Frenzy at JACK, The Warfield Center for African & African American Studies (University of Texas at Austin), Northwestern University and the Wild Project. She has performed excerpts of Quiet Frenzy at Dixon Place and The Pillsbury House Theatre. As an actress she has appeared at: HERE, PS 122, Perseverance Theatre, ZACH Theatre, and Frontera @ Hyde Park Theatre.

Emily Jon Mitchell* (Performer) As actor: Regional: The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Bucks County Playhouse; Boyd Gaines, director); In the Car With Blossom and Len (Centenary Stage; Lynn Taylor-Corbet, director) The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Oldcastle Theatre Company; True West (Chenango River Theatre) In New York: The Record (New York Public Theatre); The Hero (Metropolitan Playhouse); A Day In the Death of Joe Egg; An Ideal Husband; Macbeth; The Cherry Orchard; Ivanov; The Fifth of July; Becket; A Lie of the Mind; Tasting Memories (with Rosemary Harris, Alvin Epstein); The Madwoman of Chaillot (Understudy for Anne Jackson); Wit; The Firebugs; Uncle Vanya; Midsummer’s Night Dream; ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Training: Boston University, Michael Howard Studios. As playwright: Book Signing; What We Talk About (Emerging Artists Theatre) see emilyjonmitchell.com

Joshua David Robinson* (Performer) is a proud alumnus of NYU’s Graduate Acting Program. He was most recently seen in The Acting Company’s productions of Macbeth and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court at The Pearl Theatre. An active member of The 52nd Street Project and Smoke and Mirrors Collaborative, Joshua is always working to use theatre as a means to engage with his community. Joshua is also the spokesperson for the tax preparation website Taxslayer.com.

Alexandra Panzer (Set/Costume Designer) has been performing, devising and designing with Piehole since 2010. When not performing or otherwise wearing her Piehole hat, she is an illustrator and graphic designer. Alexandra co-wrote and performed I <3 REVOLUTION at the 2012 NY Fringe festival.

Elliot B. Quick (Dramaturg) is a founding member of Piehole, with whom he has worked variously as a dramaturg, director, producer, shadow puppeteer, and crafter. Elliot received an MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama, where he served as the Associate Artistic Director for the Yale Cabaret and the Yale Summer Cabaret Shakespeare Festival. He has also served as an Editorial Associate for The Civilian’s Extended Play, a Literary Associate at Playwrights Horizons, Yale Rep, and Page 73, and currently teaches theater history at the Maggie Flanigan Studio. Recent freelance collaborations include adapting Karl Kraus's The Last Days of Mankind for students at Bard College, and New Saloon's Three Translations of Uncle Vanya at the Same Time.

Lea Bertucci (Sound Designer) is an interdisciplinary artist, composer and improviser working with installation, sound, and projection. As an instrumentalist, she focuses on an electro-acoustic preparation of the Bass Clarinet that heavily utilizes speaker feedback. She is currently a 2015 ISSUE Project Room Artist-in-Residence as well as a 2015 Harvestworks New Works Fellow. She has received residencies and commissions from Roulette, LMCC, Wave Farm and the Queens Museum of Art. She has performed solo at venues such as Issue Project Room, The Kitchen, Anthology Film Archives, Incubator Arts, Experimental Intermedia, The Queens Museum of Art and the High Zero Festival among many others.

Katie Naka (Producer) Currently Interim Production Manager at Pig Iron Theatre Company (Philadelphia, PA). Formerly: Creative Producer for Pig Iron residency at BAC (2015), Artistic Direction Manager at Blue Man Productions (2013-2015), Resident Director at Play/Date (2014), and Producer for Polybe + Seats’ Anna Asli Suriya (2014). BFA: Emerson College. MFA: Columbia University.

Masha Tsimring (Lighting Designer) is a Brooklyn based lighting designer for performance. Selected credits: The Way West (Marin Theatre Company); Camp Kappawanna (Atlantic for Kids); Wyoming (Lesser America); The Universe is A Small Hat (Babycastles), So Long Willy, Let’s Go Home (I AM A BOYS CHOIR) The Member of the Wedding (Triad Stage); American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose (Yale Repertory Theatre); 4000 Miles (Hangar Theatre); Antigonick (Summerfest Toronto); Full.Still.Hungry (Contra-Tiempo); Last Days of Mankind (Bard College); Echo in Camera (LaMama); Masha is the resident lighting designer for LA based dance company CONTRA-TIEMPO. MFA - Yale School of Drama. www.mashald.com

Matt Romein (Video Designer) is a video and interaction designer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has previously worked on Neal Medlyn’s King, The Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble’s Everything One in the Disc of the Sun, The A.O. Movement Collective’s The ETLE Universe, as well as some short form pieces for GRANDMA. He also works as the technical director for the CATCH performance series and creates his own work in dance and video performance. He is currently in his first year at the Tisch School of the Arts ITP program, studying creative coding and physical computing.

Rebecca Warner (Select choreography) currently works with/has worked with Anna Sperber, Stacy Grossfield, 600 Highwaymen, RoseAnne Spradlin, Wally Cardona and Jennifer Lacey, Jim Findlay, Sarah Michelson, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, Beth Gill and Neta Pulvermacher. She has collaborated with Andrew Ondrejcak, Laura Vitale, Jim Dawson and Piehole. She received a 2013 BAX Space Grant. Her work has been shown at Danspace Project , BAX, Dixon Place, Abrons Arts Center, Prelude Festival, CATCH and Movement Research at Judson Church.

*Appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity as part of an Equity Approved Showcase.