Meet the New York Theatre Workshop
Artists at this week’s Brown Bag
Presentation!
Bring your lunch and hear brief talks by the directors
and writers of this week’s upcoming New York Theatre Workshop
presentations in an informal, welcoming setting. Q&A to follow.
Meet the Creative Artists of Wong Street Journal and Stuck Elevator
Kristina Wong
Writer and Performer of Wong Street Journal, August 22nd at 5 PM
KRISTINA WONG was recently featured in the New York Times’ Off Color series highlighting artists of color who use humor
to make smart social statements about the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious ways that race plays out in America today.
She is a performance artist, comedian and writer who has created five solo shows and one ensemble play that have toured
throughout the United States and UK. She’s been a commentator for American Public Media’s Marketplace, PBS, Jezebel,
xoJane, Playgirl Magazine, Huffington Post and a guest on FXX’s “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell." Her work has
received support from Creative Capital, The Map Fund, and the National Performance Network.
Emily Mendelsohn
Director of Wong Street Journal, August 22nd at 5 PM
EMILY MENDELSOHN is a Brooklyn-based theater director. With Kristina Wong, she directed and dramaturged Wong Street
Journal and is now working as dramaturg on the development of BJs in China. Emily directs a cultural exchange lab with
artists from Uganda, Rwanda and the US that has developed productions of Deborah Asiimwe's Cooking Oil and Erik Ehn's
Maria Kizito through residencies in Kigali, Kampala, New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. She was a TCG Global
Connections In the Lab recipient, and a Fulbright Fellow in Uganda. She holds an MFA from CalArts.
Byron Au Young
Composer of Stuck Elevator, August 22nd at 8 PM
BYRON AU YOUNG (歐陽良仁) composes songs of dislocation. His music is often scored for voices with Asian, European and
handmade instruments. Examples include the dance-music-theater work Farewell: A Fantastical Contemplation on America’s
Relationship with China, choreographed by Donald Byrd for Seattle Theatre Group and Spectrum Dance Theatre, as well as music
for the U.S. Premiere of James Fenton's adaptation of The Orphan of Zhao, directed by Carey Perloff for American Conservatory
Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse.
Site-responsive projects include Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas, 64 musical miniatures based on the I Ching 易經, performed
in waterways throughout the Pacific Northwest, TURBINE, commissioned by Leah Stein Dance Company and Mendelssohn Club of
Philadelphia for the 200th anniversary of the Fairmount Water Works, and Occupy Orchestra 無量園 Infinity Garden, influenced
by Chinese gardens, John Cage and Occupy Wall Street, performed by the Chicago Composers Orchestra.
International projects
include Edge, performed at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in Germany, Forbidden Circles, performed at the
Fukuoka Gendai Hogaku Festival and International House of Japan, and Salt Lips Touching, commissioned by the Jeonju Sanjo
Festival and premiered outside a Confucian Temple in South Korea.
Honors include a Creative Capital Award, Ford Foundation
Fellowship and Time Warner Foundation Fellowship. Internationally, Au Yong has received support from Aldeburgh Music in the
UK, the Dragon Foundation in Hong Kong, the Darmstadt Institute in Germany, and Foundation Gaudeamus in Holland.
Au Yong
holds degrees in musical theatre writing, dance studies and music composition/theory from NYU, UCLA and the University of
Washington. He has been artist-in-residence with the A/P/A Institute at NYU, Center for Migration and the Global City at Rutgers,
International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, and Yale Institute for Music Theatre. He lives in Seattle.
Aaron Jafferis
Librettist of Stuck Elevator, August 22nd at 8 PM
AARON JAFFERIS is a hip-hop poet and playwright whose musicals Stuck Elevator, How to Break, Kingdom, Shakespeare:
The Remix, and No Lie have been produced or developed by The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, Public Theater,
Sundance, and many others. Honors include a Creative Capital Award, Richard Rodgers Award, Sundance Institute/Time
Warner Fellowship, NEFA National Theatre Project Grant, two MacDowell Fellowships, Edgerton Foundation New
American Play Award, Barbour Playwright’s Award, and a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award. A former
Open Rap Slam champion at the National Poetry Slam Championships, poetry and hip-hop theatre in his hometown of New
Haven.
Ed Sylvanus Iskander
Director of Stuck Elevator, August 22nd at 8 PM
ED SYLVANUS ISKANDER is a director who reimagines the relationship between artist and audience as host to cherished guest,
with the belief that the theater is the purest form of philanthropy. Most recently, he created the world premiere of Tony winner
Jeff Whitty’s Head Over Heels – an Elizabethan-set immersive musical featuring the songs of The Go-Go’s – at the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival [OSF]. In addition he has directed the musical MEMPHIS for HoriPro Productions in Japan. Winner of the
2014 Drama Desk Special Award for the “visionary directorial excellence” of The Mysteries(The Flea) and The Golden
Dragon (PlayCo), Ed is a two-time Drama Desk nominee for Outstanding Direction of Restoration Comedy and These Seven
Sicknesses (The Flea). As Founding Artistic Director of invite-only NYC theatre collective Exit, Pursued By a Bear [EPBB], he has
served over 12,000 free home-cooked meals and shared 150 priceless nights of theater over the course of staging 8 Labs and 40
Salons (all NY or world premieres). Ed’s work with EPBB was honored with the 2013 National Theatre Conference Emerging
Professional Award, conferred by OSF’s Artistic Director, Bill Rauch. Ed is currently a New York Theatre Workshop [NYTW] Usual
Suspect, and Artist-in-Residence at Singapore Repertory Theatre. Previously honored as an NYTW Emerging Artist Fellow, Drama
League Directing Fellow, two-time OSF Resident Director and Lincoln Center Directors Lab participant, he was awarded the
Robert M. Golden Medal for excellence in the creative arts and the Sherifa Omade Edoga Prize for work involving social issues. Ed
has taught at Stanford (BA Modern Thought & Literature, and Drama) and Carnegie Mellon (MFA Directing). In Spring 2016, he
unveils an all-male The Taming of the Shrew, starring Tony winner Billy Porter in the title role at The Shakespeare Theatre.