This conversation took place on Monday, January 31st from 5:00 – 6:00 pm ET. If you would like to watch a video replay of this conversation, please click this vimeo link.
As live productions resume across the country, theater artists and managers are working to reopen for audiences. There are several conversations they must respond to—namely the ongoing pandemic and calls for action for equity and inclusion. This series will elevate those conversations, hearing from a group of theater leaders, directors and choreographers about their experiences on returning.
Raja Feather Kelly, choreographer of SUFFS, Leigh Silverman, director of SUFFS, and Yuvika Tolani, Director of Producing at The Public will join us in conversation as they discuss the process of putting up this production.
Bios:
Raja Feather Kelly is a choreographer and director, and the Artistic Director of the feath3r theory; a dance theatre and media company based out of Brooklyn. He is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019), a 2020 Obie Award winner and Outer Critics Circle Award honoree for choreography for the Pulitzer-winning musical A Strange Loop. Raja was also the 2019–2021 Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, and a 2019 Creative Capital award recipient. His choreography has also garnered a 2018 Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), and he was Dance Magazine‘s inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018). Kelly is the 2019 SDCF Joe A. Callaway Award finalist for outstanding choreography of Fairview (Soho Rep, Berkeley Rep, TFANA and winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama). Frequent collaborators include: Lileana Blain-Cruz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Benson, and Michael R. Jackson. Over the past decade, Kelly has created sixteen evening-length premieres with his company the feath3r theory, the most recent premiere being WEDNESDAY at New York Live Arts. Raja also directs and choreographs extensively for Off-Broadway theatre in New York City. Recent Works include We’re Gonna Die at Second Stage Theater, MacBeth In Stride at A.R.T., and A Strange Loop at Woolly Mammoth. Upcoming Projects include On Sugarland at New York Theater Workshop, SUFFS at The Public Theater, and Lempicka at La Jolla Playhouse.
Leigh Silverman’s Broadway credits include Grand Horizons (2ST; Williamstown Theater Festival), The Lifespan of a Fact (Studio 54), Violet (Roundabout; Tony nomination), Chinglish (Goodman Theatre; Longacre), and Well (Public Theater; ACT; Longacre). Recent Off-Broadway credits include The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Shed); Soft Power (Public Theater; Ahmanson Theater/Curran Theater; Drama Desk nomination), Tumacho (Clubbed Thumb), Hurricane Diane (New York Theatre Workshop; Two River Theater), Harry Clarke (Vineyard Theatre/Audible, Minetta Lane; Lortel nomination), Wild Goose Dreams (Public Theater; La Jolla Playhouse), Sweet Charity (New Group), On The Exhale (Roundabout), and The Outer Space (Public Theater). Encores include Bring Me to Light, Violet, The Wild Party, and Really Rosie. Silverman received 2011 and 2019 Obie Awards for Sustained Excellence.
Yuvika Tolani (Director of Producing) (she/her) has been producing at The Public since 2015. She leads an extraordinary team — Audrey Frischman and Garlia Cornelia Jones, and Amy Lau Croyle, in guiding projects from their most nascent stages to fruition in one of the five theaters at Astor Place and The Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Prior to her time at The Public, she was part of the fundraising team at the American Repertory Theater. Last season, she joined Sarah Lunnie and Stowe Nelson as part of Telephonic Literary Union, which makes intimate theatrical experiences for very small audiences. TLU’s Human Resources was commissioned by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company for their 2020 fall programming, as well as presented at St. Louis Rep. Yuvika was a member of the 2016-18 WP Theater Lab. She holds a BA in Theater Studies from Yale University and currently sits on the Alumni Board of the Yale Dramatic Association.