WEB SERIES - The Impossibilities

June 10, 2015

I'm in the web series The Impossibilies, which has been doing great since its release about a month ago. We've been in festivals in LA and Melborne, and we were just a Staff Pick on Vimeo! Check out the series if you haven' t yet. I'm in episodes two and four as Tom, the protagonists' chilled out musician roommate. I even wrote a song for the show that Tom sings at children's birthday parties.

While you should certainly watch from the beginning (season one is just 8 episodes!), here's my first episode:

The Impossibilities - Episode 2 of 8 (Harry) from The Impossibilities on Vimeo.

THEATER/MUSIC - Performing at Bonnaroo

June 3, 2015

I'm excited to be a part of Camp Over There, the new pop-up performance project at Bonnaroo, led by theater company Fresh Ground Pepper. I'm on board as the lead musician and an actor in the many different little performances we'll be doing all around the grounds at Bonnaroo over the course of the festival. I can't wait to blow the minds of hundreds of Bonnaroovians!

Theater - Bull's Hollow Part I: The Founding Fathers

May 13, 2015

On 5/20 I'll be performing in a reading of Part I of Andrew Neilser/Jaclyn Scoville/Mike Brun's three part epic Bull's Hollow! We just wrapped up workshop performances of Part II at Ars Nova. Part I is receiving a reading as part of The Civilian's R&D group. For more info click here.

THEATER - Bull's Hollow Part II: The Princess Alaska

May 1, 2015

I am delighted to be performing in a project residency performance of Bull's Hollow at Ars Nova. The creative team were just given a commission by the theater to create their epic trilogy of plays about a lonely young whale who eats a bunch of survivors from the Titanic who start a society in his belly. It's very silly and very beautiful and super fun. More details and ticket info available here: http://arsnovanyc.com/project-residency/

THEATER - BLESSING at PHTS

April 12, 2015

My newest musical, BLESSING, goes up in a couple of weeks at The Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU. PHTS commissioned the new musical from playwright Andrew Farmer and I, to be directed by the incredible Kent Nicholson! We've been writing the show on a group of 15 brilliant student actors since late January, and are entering our last week of rehearsals tomorrow! Check out this awesome poster, and reserve your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/blessing-a-new-southern-gothic-musical-tickets-16456457708

THEATER - Vid with Director of Playwrights Horizons Theater School

March 24, 2015

Here's a fun little Q and A video I did with the director of the Playwrights Horizons Theater School where I'm currently a resident artist! PHTS such a delightful, supportive place to develop new work! I couldn't more thrilled to be working with their students and administration!

inJEANious - Andrew Butler from PlaywrightsHorizonsTheaterSchool on Vimeo.

FILM - Straight Outta Tompkins opens in NYC/LA

February 28, 2015

An independent film I worked on last year with writer/director/star Zephyr Benson is opening this week in NYC and LA! Straight Outta Tompkins is the story of an East Village teenager who gets swept up in a fever dream turned nightmare of drugs, dealing and money in New York City. The film was a blast to work on. I play a cocaine-shooting drug and gun dealer who (consenually) shoots a skin-head client with a desert eagle in a drug enduced frenzy. It's a short scene, but a crazy one. I'm very excited to see the finished product this week! Check out the trailer below, and see the film at Cinema Village starting this weekend! 

Straight Outta Tompkins Official Trailer from Indican Pictures on Vimeo.

THEATER - COMFORT DOGS at JACK

February 26, 2015

I'm thrilled to be a part of William Burke's Comfort Dogs: Live From the Pink House at Jack in Clinton Hill, opening tonight! We run for the next three weeks. The show takes the form of a house concert by a group of abandoned therapy dogs who play you songs and read letters they receive. ALSO there are three REAL DOGS who are present in the space with the performers and audience during the show. It's a wild experiment that's yeilding beautiful, funny, human, animal, theatrical results. 

Here's me and one of my co-star's Gypsy!  

MUSIC - Composing for Strasberg Institute's RED LIGHT WINTER

February 20, 2015

The Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute is putting up a production of Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter in March before taking the show to Poland this summer. The text of the play includes lyrics for a song that a character sings during the show. I'm delighted to be the composer for this production, working with director Laura Savia, whom I first met while composing at The Williamstown Theater Festival, and the delightful Shannon Spangler who will be singing the tune in the role of Christina.

Performances in NYC are March 12-14, at the Strastberg Institute on 15th St. 

Tickets are available online here!

THEATER - Commission at Playwrights Horizons Theater School

February 2, 2015

I'm very excited to be writing music and lyrics for a new musical commissioned by The Playwrights Horizons Theater School for a group of 15 student actor/singers. This super-talented group of performers is doing several weeks of exploratory workshops with us, followed by a rehearsal period leading to a production of the musical we'll be creating! I'm writing the show with playwright Andrew Farmer, and the project is being helmed by director Kent Nicholson. The brilliant Mike Brun is music directing and arranging.

We're walking into the room with the idea of a Southern Gothic musical, about a town somewhere near the intersection of Alabama, Georgia and Florida. We have a thick stack of influences from which we're drawing inspiration, ranging from Dickens' Great Expectations, to Errol Morris' Vernon, FL. I can't wait to see what we come up with!

THEATER - WOLFERT

January 4, 2015

I'm very excited to be performing the title role in On The Rocks next production of their incredible dance/theater show WOLFERT. 

at Dixon Place
1/22, 1/23 at 7:30
1/29, 1/30 at 10
Tickets Available Here

Jerry Wolfert. North Hollywood, CA. Film maker, Small Business Owner, Self-Published Novelist, Restauranteur, Racketeer, Religious Prodigy turned Occult Practitioner, and purveyor of Lambrusco Dom Biance Sparkling Red Wine (“The Moonshine of Napa!”) — But before all that, he was just another Hollywood nobody with delusions of grandeur. In this original dance-theatre piece, On The Rocks presents Jerry Wolfert’s first New Year’s Eve in Tinseltown, in 1968 — an equally glamorous, shameful and formative night in the life of the most hated man in the San Fernando Valley.

TV - PoliSub on Politics Nation with Al Sharpton

December 27, 2014

Political Subversities got hired to create an opening number for Rev. Al's yearly year-in-reivew awards show. We obliged. You can see us singing and dancing our made-to-order routine on MSNBC on the 31st at 6pm! I produced and co-wrote the song with Ian Axness, with additional lyrics contributed by the rest of the group. 

THEATER - WAR LESBIAN in the NYT

December 12, 2014

War Lesbian got a solid review in the New York Times today, and I just happened to be in the press photo they (namely, Julieta Cervantes for The Times) took! A few great pulls:

"Kristine Haruna Lee’s lively, haphazard “War Lesbian,”at Dixon Place, whirls together Hesiod’s poem“Theogony” with daytime talk shows, horror movies, nature documentaries, lesbian pulp fiction and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s “Futurist Manifesto.” ... full of impulses and ideas and splendid, fractious energy"

"Ms. Lee’s enjoyably fanciful script nicely meshes the grandiose and the mundane"

"under Jordan Fein’s direction, this gender-queer jumble is enthusiastically performed. Led by Ms. Markey, the cast has a fine time making war"

We've got 5 more performances! 

THEATER - Finn The Fearless at Ars Nova

December 7, 2014

Ars Nova is producing a concert of songs from Finn the Fearless, the musical I'm developing in their music/theater writers group with Andrew Farmer. We're gonna be performing 13 tunes from the show alongside some exciting performers and musicians. This promo image Ars Nova made for us has all the details!

THEATER - WAR LESBIAN opens at Dixon Place

December 5, 2014

The newest harunalee show, War Lesbian, opens tonight at Dixon Place. I play a supporting character in the new musical with text by Kristine Haruna Lee and music by Kathryn Hathaway. The show stars Erin Markey and is directed by Jordan Fein. War Lesbian is a Dixon Place commission and was accompanied by a residency for harunalee at Dixon Place this fall. 

We run Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 through December 20th, with an additional 10pm show on the 20th. 

Tickets available here. 

THEATER - Workshop Of A New Play for FGP

October 11, 2014

I'm spending my evenings this weekend workshoping a new play by Mikey Barringer, who is a member of Fresh Ground Pepper's PlayGround PlayGroup writers' group. Kristine Lee is directing. 

WEB SERIES - The Impossibilities

October 7, 2014

I'm very excited to play the role of Tom in the new web series "The Impossibilities" by Anna Kerrigan. It follows an aspiring yoga teacher (Willa) and a troubled magician (Harry) as their stumbling lives lead them to each other. Tom is Harry's roommate, a guitarist who plays birthday parties with Harry and is moving towards being a full time professional musician. I'm writing a song for Tom to play at a kids' party in one of the episodes, and I may compose some additional music for the series as well.

The show is the brain-child of producer/stars Ashley Springer and Kati Rediger. The cast includes Amber Renae Gray (Natasha & Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812; An Octaroon) and Becca Blackwell (Untitled Feminist Project; Half Straddle), both of whom I have long admired! Shooting starts next week. You can learn more at the show's facebook page or Tumblr.

THEATER - Comfort Dogs in Prelude Festival

October 7, 2014

I will be performing in a half-hour excerpt of William Burke's Comfort Dogs: Live from the Pink House at Prelude 2014 on Thursday October 9th at 7:30 pm in the Segal Theater. More details here. The show is free! Just show up a little early to be sure you get in. 

The show is a concert given by abandoned therapy dogs who are grappling with their new existence in the form of a concert. I sing, I play guitar, I howl, I speak, it's a very different show with a lot of heart.

THEATER - The Universe is a Small Hat

September 20, 2014

I'm performing in a new work of participatory musical-theater by a fellow member of Ars Nova's Uncharted writers group, César Alvarez; directed by Sarah Benson. The show is called The Universe is a Small Hat, and it's a musical you experience as a role-playing game. Audience members assume a version of their self that lives 100 years in the future, boarding a space ship to found a new human civilization on a distant planet. I play a sentient humanoid artificial intellegence who works and lives alongside the humans on board, helping them to learn about their new life and fulfill their new role in creating our new society. It's a beautiful and totally unique experience. There are several performances scattered across the fall. More details and the schedule can be found here: http://theuniverseisasmallhat.com/

THEATER - WAR LESBIAN with harunalee

September 20, 2014

Next week harunalee is having our first read-through of our next project, a musical called WAR LESBIAN. Jordan Fein is directing the show, which we are developing on commission for Dixon Place, where we are in residence this fall. The play is by Kristine Haruna Lee with music by Kathryn Hathaway. I'm looking forward to reading the role of a dissaffected beached whale across from Erin Markey!

WEB SERIES - Episode 3 of 'No Place Else To Go'

September 14, 2014

I spent a rainy Sunday in Bushwick shooting an episode of No Place Else To Go. There are just a few more pick-ups left to finish out shooting episode three of the web series, which stars Blake Lowell as a hapless young man who inherits a building in Brooklyn. I play Damien, an eccentric artist who lives in the basement. Episode 3 revolves around the disposal of a dead cat. Take a look at my instagram feed for a (rather dramatic) photograph from the cemetary where we shot the central scene. 

THEATER - The Dixon Family Album at The Williamstown Theater Festival

August 8, 2014

My new musical at The Williamstown Theater Festival, The Dixon Family Album, is performing this weekend! Over the past two and a half months, Anna Kerrigan (The Talls, Five Days Gone) and I have been writing (and rewriting) furiously to create a full length, two-act musical with director Jordan Fein and eight members of WTF's Non-Eq Acting Company. We're very excited to present this first ever workshop production of the show. You can read more about The Dixon Family Album over on my projects page.

MUSIC/THEATER - DRACULA, OR THE UNDEAD Music Online!

June 25, 2014

I finally got around to posting some recordings of music from Dracula, Or The Undead, the show I composed for at Williamstown last summer. You can listen to a sampling of sounds and songs from the show (and a couple of tunes I recorded that went unused) on my SoundCloud by clicking on this embedded player! My favorites are Trance-lyvania, Dracula's Song, and Not Dracula's Song! 

THEATER - The Upper Room in The Ice Factory Festival

June 24, 2014

I play a comically old man in Rady&Bloom's new show, The Upper Room, opening tomorrow night in The New Ohio Theater's Ice Factory Festival. I get to sing some incredible music by the very talented composer/performer Catherine Brookman. Wed-Sat at 7pm! Come and check it out. More details here.

THEATER - There's A House at Vineyard Arts Project

June 23, 2014

I'm super excited to be spending a week this summer at the Vineyard Arts Project on Martha's Vineyard for a workshop of There's A House, a new musical by Shaina Taub and Kim Rosenstock, directed by Carolyn Cantor. They're writing the show for a commission from The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. You can check out further details here. I'm a huge fan of all three of the incredible artists heading up this project and am thrilled to get to be a part of the life of this show.