#RimbaudinNY

2016 BAM Winter/Spring

Brooklyn Academy of Music Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board Katy Clark, President Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer

Rimbaud in New York Written and directed by Steve Cosson The Civilians Poems by Arthur Rimbaud translated by John Ashbery Produced by BAM with major support from the Poetry Foundation BAM Fisher (Fishman Space) Mar 1—5 at 7:30pm; Mar 6 at 3pm

Season Sponsor:

Major support for French programming at BAM provided by The Grand Marnier Foundation. Major support for theater at BAM provided by: The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust Donald R. Mullen Jr. The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc. The Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund The SHS Foundation The Shubert Foundation, Inc.

Scenic design by Andromache Chalfant Costume design by Paloma Young Lighting design by Eric Southern Sound design and additional compositions by Daniel Kluger Music direction by Matthew Dean Marsh Choreography by Sam Pinkleton Songs by Adam Cochran, Michael Friedman, Rebecca Hart, Joseph Keckler, Matthew Dean Marsh, and Grace McLean

#RimbaudinNY

ADAM COCHRAN

HARRIETT D. FOY

REBECCA HART

JOSEPH KECKLER

JO LAMPERT

MATTHEW DEAN MARSH

TONY TORN

DITO VAN REIGERSBERG

#RimbaudinNY CAST Adam Cochran Harriett D. Foy Rebecca Hart Joseph Keckler Jo Lampert Tony Torn Dito van Reigersberg Dance Captain Jo Lampert STAGE MANAGEMENT Production stage manager Samantha Watson Production assistant Hannah Spratt ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION CREDITS Assistant director Benjamin Viertel Casting director Geoff Josselson Assistant scenic design by Rebecca Lord-Surratt Assistant costume design by Zoë Allen Assistant lighting design by Will Delorm Associate sound design by Lee Kinney Props shopper Karin White ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Set constructed by Sightline Fabrication BAM would like to acknowledge Stephen Young, Program Director at The Poetry Foundation for his visionary support. Rimbaud’s texts used in this production are from his Illuminations, translated by John Ashbery (Norton, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by John Ashbery. All rights reserved. Presented through special arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of John Ashbery. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Subway), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Times Square), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Shooting Up), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Under Boardwalk), 1978—79 Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York

The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League Of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Rimbaud in New York—Song List

1. “Hot Mess Disaster Boy” Music by Adam Cochran Lyrics based on an interview by Steve Cosson with Lorin Stein & Violaine Huisman Performed by Full Company 2. “Phrases” Music by Grace McLean Lyrics based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Harriett D. Foy, Rebecca Hart, and Jo Lampert 3. “Tale” Music by Adam Cochran Lyrics based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Adam Cochran, Jo Lampert, and Company 4. “The Future of Poetry is Female” Music by Rebecca Hart Lyrics based on an interview by Steve Cosson with Ariana Reines Performed by Rebecca Hart 5. “Four Letters” Music by Michael Friedman Based on letters by Arthur Rimbaud Performed by Adam Cochran, Jo Lampert, Tony Torn, and Dito van Reigersberg 6. “City” Music and lyrics by Joseph Keckler Performed by Joseph Keckler 7. “Genie” Music by Adam Cochran and Matthew Marsh Based on the poem by Arthur Rimbaud, from the John Ashberry translation Performed by Jo Lampert and Company

Note from Steve Cosson Last season, while working on The Belle of Amherst—a solo show about Emily Dickinson by William Luce, starring Joely Richardson—I wondered about how I would go about creating a show based on poetry, were I to start with the text and go from there. Specifically, I was curious about what might be gained by not centering the show on the character of the writer herself or himself. What might be revealed if one worked from the poems and how they are read, rather then how they might have been written? Is there a way to stage the multiple meanings of a poet’s work and the numerous and contradictory resonances a poet has for different readers and in different eras? These questions lingered when BAM invited me to create this show, a first-time collaboration of BAM and the Poetry Foundation. I chose Rimbaud’s Illuminations in its recent translation by the great American poet John Ashbery. There were many reasons for choosing Rimbaud, but foremost, reading these poems did something to me. It felt like an action; it felt physical—a sense of being taken through a visceral experience of image and sensation. Even more than that, Illuminations stretched my mind to see the unseeable, to try to think the unimaginable. Like stepping just partly into another dimension, these poems gave glimpses into another universe with very different laws of physics. Such an experience cracks open the ordinary world we live in. His poems are in a sense a gateway drug, but in the best possible way—to possibility, an escape hatch out of all that is boring or oppressive, and a bridge to a life lived fully awake. It was tempting to consider putting Rimbaud himself on stage. His life was nothing if not dramatic. But perhaps more than any other poet, Rimbaud evokes the opposite of character-centric. Rimbaud’s poems create and populate worlds. They have had a profound legacy with later readers and cultural movements that he couldn’t have imagined. The poems are there with the Surrealists, the New York School, the birth of punk, the downtown scenes of poetry and visual art, and among writers and readers today. Rimbaud may have had a small audience for his work when he was alive, but since then his influence has been vast, particularly considering the musician/poets he’s influenced such as Patti Smith and Bob Dylan, and others who have brought their own Rimbaudian visions to new publics. And although Rimbaud himself never came to America, he has been and still is very much present, particularly in “downtown” New York City (wherever or whatever that might mean now). In creating The Civilians’ show Rimbaud in New York, this presence of Rimbaud in downtown was my way in. I interviewed many poets, artists, and performers: Eileen Myles, Dael Orlandersmith, Adam Fitzgerald, CA Conrad, Ariana Reines, David Wojnarowicz’s biographer Cindy Carr, and John Ashbery, to name a few. And then I gathered a group of performers, songwriters, and designers to make our show set in the multiple layers of New York’s downtown cultural scenes. But the center of the event is the living, very present voice of these extraordinary poems. —Steve Cosson

Who’s Who THE CIVILIANS creates new theater from creative investigations into the most vital questions of the present. Through a number of artistic programs, The Civilians advances theater as an engine of artistic innovation and strengthens the connections between theater and society. Last season the company was the first ever theater company-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The previous season saw two highly successful Civilians shows in New York: Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play at Playwrights Horizons, which was included in eight top 10 of 2013 lists, as well as The Great Immensity at The Public Theater. Since its founding in 2001, the Obie Award-winning company has been produced at numerous theaters in New York, including the BAM Next Wave Festival, Vineyard Theater, Barrow Street Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and The Public Theater; nationally at Center Theatre Group, the TED Conference, HBO’s US Comedy Festival, ART, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and internationally at London’s Gate Theatre and Soho Theatre. thecivilians.org | extendedplay. thecivilians.org. THE POETRY FOUNDATION, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume 1 of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre, or approach. The magazine established its reputation early by publishing the first important poems of TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg, and other now-classic authors. In succeeding decades it has presented—often for

the first time—works by virtually every major contemporary poet. poetryfoundation.org. STEVE COSSON (writer and director) is a director and writer, and is artistic director of The Civilians. Recent directing credits for The Civilians include Pretty Filthy (Abrons Arts Center); The Great Immensity (The Public Theater Lab); Mr. Burns (Playwrights Horizons, top 10 lists in The New York Times, Time Out, The New Yorker, Vogue, and others); Paris Commune (Public Theater, BAM Next Wave, La Jolla Playhouse); In the Footprint (Top 10, The New York Times); This Beautiful City (Vineyard, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Humana Festival); (I am) Nobody’s Lunch (Edinburgh Fringe First Award); and Gone Missing. Other Civilians productions have appeared at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kansas City Rep, American Repertory Theater, TED Conference, HBO’s Comedy Festival, MoMA, the Baltic Triennial, the Gate Theatre and Soho Theatre in London, and many others. Other recent credits include Dael Orlandersmith’s Stoop Stories; Ethel’s Documerica (BAM Next Wave); Spring Awakening (Olney Theatre); Anne Washburn’s A Devil at Noon (Humana Festival); and Bus Stop (Kansas City Rep). His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Oberon Books, and Playscripts, Inc. ANDROMACHE CHALFANT (scenic design) is a set designer for theater and opera. Recent New York credits include: brownsville song (b side for tray) directed by Patricia MacGregor (Lincoln Center Theater); Sex With Strangers directed by David Schwimmer (Second Stage Theater); The Long Shrift written by Robert Boswell, directed by James Franco (Rattlestick); and a site-specific, sculptural installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a co-production with Gotham Chamber Opera, presenting Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and a new composition by composer Lembit Beecher, directed by Robin Guarino. Other recent designs include: A world premiere by Beth Henley called Laugh directed by David Schweizer (Studio Theater, DC); El Gato Con Botas, directed by Moises Kaufman (Museo Del Barrio); and Reverberation by Matthew Lopez (Hartford Stage). Upcoming projects include the

Who’s Who continuing development of a multimedia piece about autism called Uncommon Sense (Tectonic Theater Company); and The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois written and directed by Adam Rapp (Atlantic Theater Company). Chalfant is currently designing and developing an art and performance space in Red Hook, Brooklyn. She is a company member of Labyrinth Theater Company and an associate artist of The Civilians. ADAM COCHRAN (songwriter; actor) is an actor, musician, and Drama Desk-nominated composer (2010: Outstanding Music in a Play). Off-Broadway: Songbird (59E59), Juárez: A Documentary Mythology (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); regional: The Last Goodbye (The Old Globe), Pageant (Stoneham Theater); international: The La MaMa Cantata (Tokyo), A Dream Play (Abu Dhabi). He has participated in residencies with Theater Mitu at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center and New York Theater Workshop and has been a guest teaching artist at NYU Abu Dhabi and Tamagawa University. Listen to his band: plasticangelofthemonth.com DANIEL KLUGER (sound design; music composition) recently did the orchestrations for Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! at Bard SummerScape. Other credits include, in New York: The Mystery of Love and Sex, Nikolai and the Others (Lincoln Center), Significant Other, The Common Pursuit (Roundabout); Iowa and Your Mother’s Copy of the Kama Sutra (Playwrights Horizons); The Nether, The Village Bike, Really Really (MCC); I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Women or Nothing (Atlantic Theater Company); You Got Older (Page 73); Somewhere Fun, The North Pool (Vineyard); Tribes, Hit the Wall (Barrow Street Theatre); How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them, The Few, Ode to Joy, and The Correspondent (Rattlestick). Regional: The Old Globe, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, Long Wharf, Pig Iron, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, People’s Light & Theatre, and American Players Theatre. SAM PINKLETON (choreography) with The Civlians has choreographed Pretty Filthy and Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play (Playwrights Horizons). Recent work includes Natasha, Pierre

and the Great Comet of 1812 (ART, Kazino, Broadway in fall 2016); Amélie (Berkeley Rep); Significant Other (Roundabout); Machinal (Broadway/Roundabout); Kansas City Choir Boy (Prototype, ART, CTG); Heisenberg (MTC, Broadway in fall 2016); and I Promised Myself to Live Faster (Pig Iron/Humana Festival). He is co-director of the Dance Cartel’s ONTHEFLOOR and is an associate artist with The Civilians and Witness Relocation. sampinkleton.com ERIC SOUTHERN (lighting design) is an Obie Award-winning designer for theater, opera, and dance. New York: Pocatello (Playwrights Horizons); Steve (New Group); The Few, The Correspondent (Rattlestick Theater); Buyer and Cellar (London, CTG, New York, national tour); Judy (Page 73); Collected Stories with David Lang (Carnegie Hall); Play/Pause with Susan Marshall and David Lang (BAM Next Wave Festival), and Paul’s Case (Urban Arias, Prototype Festival). He has worked extensively with the Obie-winning 600 Highwaymen. Additional productions at Atlantic Theater Company, Mint Theater, Huntington Theater, Long Wharf Theater, Baltimore Centerstage, and the Guthrie Theater, among others. He received his BFA and MFA degrees from New York University. PALOMA YOUNG (costume design) in New York has worked on Broadway in Peter and the Starcatcher (Tony Award), and off-Broadway in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Lucille Lortel Award); Kazino; The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters, Fly By Night (Playwrights Horizons); Here’s Hoover, Les Frères Corbusier, Preludes (LCT3); Wildflower (Second Stage Uptown); Recall; Colt Coeur; and Brooklyn Babylon (BAM Next Wave). Young has also worked regionally at La Jolla Playhouse, American Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, South Coast Repertory, the Old Globe, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, California Shakespeare Theatre, Hand2Mouth, and Mixed Blood, among others. HARRIETT D. FOY’s (actor) work on Broadway includes Amazing Grace, Mamma Mia, The American Plan, and Once on This Island.

Who’s Who Off-Broadway: The Total Bent, On the Levee (AUDELCO Nomination), and Crowns (AUDELCO Award). Regional: The House That Will Not Stand (Berkeley Rep—Theater Bay Award, Yale Rep—CT Critics Nomination); LMNOP, Amazing Grace (Goodspeed); The Women of Brewster Place, Polk County (Arena Stage—Helen Hayes Nominations); Seven Guitars (Center Stage); and Ambassador Satch (Dubai). Film: Winter’s Tale. Television: Billions, Orange Is the New Black, and Rescue Me. She graduated from Howard University. WGATAP! Harriettdfoy.com @divafoyh MICHAEL FRIEDMAN (songwriter) has recent credits including the musicals Unknown Soldier, Pretty Filthy, The Fortress of Solitude, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson which premiered at the Public Theater before transferring to Broadway. As an associate artist with The Civilians, he has written music and lyrics for Canard Canard Goose, Gone Missing, Nobody’s Lunch, This Beautiful City, In the Footprint, and The Great Immensity, and music for Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns. With Steve Cosson, he is the co-author of Paris Commune (BAM Next Wave Festival). Friedman has been a MacDowell Fellow, a Princeton Hodder Fellow, a Meet The Composer Fellow, and a Barron Visiting Professor at the Princeton Environmental Institute. He is artist in residence and director of the Public Forum at the Public Theater, and received an Obie Award for sustained achievement. REBECCA HART (songwriter; actor) is an actor and singer/songwriter. With The Civilians: The Great Immensity (The Public and Kansas City Rep), The End and the Beginning (Metropolitan Museum), and Let Me Ascertain You (Joe’s Pub). Other recent credits: 10 Out of 12 (Soho Rep), Luna Gale, and At the Vanishing Point (Actors Theatre of Louisville). Hart is a 2014 NAMT Showcase Alum (composer, How to Break) and is a Civilians associate artist. rebeccahart.net JOSEPH KECKLER (songwriter; actor) is currently artist in residence at University of Michigan where he is working on Let Me Die, a collage of operatic deaths. He recently

appeared off-Broadway in Preludes at Lincoln Center. Original works include Human Jukebox (La MaMa) and I Am an Opera (Dixon Place commission). His music has been featured on BBC America and WNYC and his writing has appeared in VICE and other publications. Awards: Creative Capital, NYFA, Franklin Furnace, a Village Voice “Best of NYC.” Residencies: MacDowell, Yaddo, Times Square Alliance. JO LAMPERT (actor), an NYU Tisch graduate in 2007, is a Brooklyn based performer. She recently toured the world with the band tUnEyArDs. New York theater credits include: New York Animals (with Bedlam Theater); Iphigenia in Aulis (CSC); Plum de Force (Bushwick Starr); Good Year for Hunters (New Ohio); The Last Goodbye (The Wild Project); and Dance, Dance Revolution (Dir. Alex Timbers). New York City workshops: Murder Ballad (MTC) and Fun Home (Public Theater). Recent regional credits: The Bengsons’ Hundred Days (Know Theatre, Z Space SF); Marie Antoinette (ART, Yale Rep); Prometheus Bound (ART); and The Last Goodbye (Williamstown Theater Festival). Lampert is a 2007 graduate of NYU Tisch. MATTHEW DEAN MARSH (music director, songwriter) is a New York-based composer, writer, and performer focused on the development of new theatrical/textual mediums. His compositions have been heard at Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Michigan Opera House, BAM, TriBeCa Film Festival, McKittrick Hotel (Sleep No More), and the White House in Washington, DC. Recent collaborations include Plastic Angels of the Month and Sherie Rene Scott. matthewdeanmarsh.com GRACE MCLEAN (songwriter), in addition to performing (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812; Brooklynite; Bedbugs!!!; Sleep No More), McLean was a headlining performer and vocal instructor at the SingStrong a capella festivals in Washington, DC and Chicago in 2014. Her band toured Pakistan in 2015 and performed in both the 2015 and 2016 Lincoln Center American Songbook series. McLean’s pop opera about 12th-century German mystic Hilde-

Who’s Who gard von Bingen has been developed at CAP21, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and Goodspeed. Natural Disaster and Make Me Breakfast are available on iTunes. gracemclean.com TONY TORN (actor) has acted and directed in many different kinds of theater, film, and performance: Broadway, downtown experimental, Hollywood remakes, and underground cinema. Recently, he appeared in Stephen Winter’s controversial film Jason & Shirley in its world premiere run at MoMA; directed Juliana Francis Kelly’s play The Reenactors at Abrons Arts Center (a project developed in The Civilians’ R&D Lab); and performed the lead role in Ubu Sings Ubu at the Oberon (ART). and on the mainstage of BB King’s Blues Club in Times Square. Married to poet Lee Ann Brown, Torn is one of the many obsessed with Rimbaud since age 16. DITO VAN REIGERSBERG (ensemble) is a co-founder of Pig Iron Theatre Company and has performed in almost all of Pig Iron’s productions since 1995, including the Obie winners Hell Meets Henry Halfway and Chekhov Lizardbrain. A graduate of Swarthmore College, he trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Martha Graham School. His hirsute alter-ego, Martha Graham Cracker, has been performing monthly for more than 10 years at L’Etage in

Philadelphia; she also performs regularly at Joe’s Pub. SAMANTHA WATSON (production stage manager) has previously worked at BAM on The Master Builder, Shuffle Culture, Mic Check, The Bridge Project’s Richard III (also Old Vic and International Tour). Broadway: The Real Thing. Off-Broadway: Lazarus (New York Theater Workshop); Significant Other (Roundabout); Posterity, Our New Girl, The Jammer, Harper Regan (Atlantic); Taking Care of Baby (MTC); A Man’s a Man (CSC); and Stay (Rattlestick). Regional: La Jolla Playhouse, NYSAF. International: Lear Dreaming, The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields (TheatreWorks Singapore). She holds an MFA from UC San Diego. GEOFF JOSSELSON (casting director)’s New York credits include the Broadway production of The Velocity of Autumn starring Estelle Parsons and the acclaimed productions of Southern Comfort, Yank!, Enter Laughing, AltarBoyz, Septimus & Clarissa, John and Jen, and Pretty Filthy. Regional theater credits include Arena Stage, Bay Street Theatre, Denver Center, Cleveland Playhouse, North Shore Music Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kansas City Starlight, Sharon Playhouse, and the York Theatre Company. geoffjosselson.com

THE CIVILIANS STAFF Steven Cosson, Artistic Director Jane Jung, Managing Director KC Luce, Development & Communications Manager Jeremy Olson, Grant Writer Megan McClain, R&D Group Coordinator Patricia Taylor, Bookkeeper

Jacey Erwin, Literary Associate Tommy O’Malley, Artistic Associate JD Carter, Editorial Associate Lizzy Marmon, Development Assistant The Civilians are produced and represented by Octopus Theatricals: Artistic Advisor/Producer, Mara Isaacs Project Consultant, Julia Glawe