Every day is opening night.

Waterwell Launches Summer Theater Lab Under the Direction of Victor Maog

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Rick Miramontez / Elizabeth Wagner
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE


WATERWELL
LAUNCHES
S U M M E R   T H E A T E R   L A B
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
VICTOR MAOG

AT THE PROFESSIONAL PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL (PPAS)
IN NEW YORK CITY


New York, NY – Waterwell, one of the Village Voice’s Best Arguments for Devised Theater and creators of GOODBAR and #9, announces the launch of its Summer Theater Lab at the Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS) in Manhattan, under the leadership of Victor Maog. The program has two sessions: Monday-Friday, July 1 – August 3, and August 5 – 24, 2013. For more information about classes and enrollment, visit www.waterwell.org/summer.

The Waterwell Summer Theater Lab @ PPAS offers dedicated middle and high school students from across the country the opportunity to engage in a focused three-week training program with world-class practitioners in the heart of New York City's fabled Theater District. Over the course of an NYC summer, the artistic community at the Summer Theater Lab will showcase brave new works by some of the American theater's rising voices. They will premiere just steps from Times Square and, through publication, build upon the catalogue of quality age-appropriate material for theaters and schools world-wide.

Victor Maog, known for his innovative stage productions and award-winning training models, is leading this new Waterwell program. He has collaborated at theaters such the Public Theater, Hartford Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Second Stage, and directed/taught for NYU/Tisch, UPenn, Fordham and others. He's the former Director of Theater for Perry-Mansfield, the oldest performing arts school in the country, and is the current Artistic Director of Second Generation (2g) in NYC. His multi-disciplinary collaborations and groundbreaking education programs have attracted world-class faculty artists and top-tier student talent. Allyson Morgan serves as his Associate Director.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be welcoming Victor to the Waterwell family and collaborating with him on the Summer Theater Lab,” said Waterwell Artistic Director Tom Ridgely in a statement. “For years he’s been offering some of the strongest, most innovative and holistic theater training in the country, and now students will have the chance to take advantage of that surrounded by arguably the most vibrant theater scene in the world. It’s at once a natural extension of the Drama Program at PPAS and a revolution in the way we’re nurturing and preparing the next generation of artists and entertainers.”

“The Waterwell Summer Theater Lab @ PPAS is about what theater is and can be, led by master educators and professionals who are shaping the field. I'm thrilled to work with Waterwell to bring my process-centered, playmaking program to the heart of Times Square,” said Maog. “People like Alicia Keys, Claire Danes, Britney Spears and Jesse Eisenberg have all trained in this building. We know it's a place where big dreams can come true. Across the years, I've devised theater training that's balanced artistry with real-world needs and now my artistic family – collaborators, faculty, and students alike – are working all over the world. In terms of craft, industry access, and life experience – it's priceless.”

PPAS is located at 328 W 48th St in New York, NY.


Bios____________________________________________________________

VICTOR MAOG (Director of Summer Theater Lab) is a stage director, educator and producer with national and international credits. He has collaborated at the NYSF/Public Theater, Hartford Stage, Williamstown, Ma-Yi, Lark, Signature Theatre, New Dramatists, Intar and directed/taught for NYU/Tisch, UPenn, Fordham and others. Victor was one of six directors in the United States to become a Fellow of the 2004-06 NEA/TCG Career Development Program, in addition to being awarded the 2009 Sweet Briar Fellowship at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, 2005 Paula Altvater Fellowship at Cornerstone, 2000-2002 Van Lier Directing Fellowship at Second Stage, and the 1993 U.S. Dept. of Labor's Presidential Award for Outstanding Academic Enrichment for his collaborations with disadvantaged youth. A member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab, OBIE-winning Partial Comfort Productions and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Victor has been a mentor director for the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival and served as a U.S. Delegate to the 31st International Theatre Institute/UNESCO World Congress in Manila. A graduate of NYU's Gallatin School with concentrations in Global Leadership and Performance Studies, Victor is the former Director of Theatre for the Perry-Mansfield, the oldest performing arts school in the nation. A. Rey Pamatmat's Out of Joint, a play he commissioned and produced at P-M, was just honored with the 2012 Princess Grace Special Project Award. He's the newly appointed Artistic Director of Second Generation Productions (2g). www.victormaog.com

ALLYSON MORGAN (Associate Director of Summer Theater Lab) is an actress, writer, producer, arts educator and graduate of Ohio State University. In addition to working as a producer for the Waterwell Drama Program, she has been a co-founder and producer of Women's Explosive Theatre Company (Columbus, OH) and for New York Theatre Experiment, and is currently the founder and Executive Director of film and theatre collective F*It Club. Additionally, she has worked as Program Director for Broadway education company StudentsLive and as Education Associate for Manhattan New Music Project, as well as an ongoing teaching artist for Lift Every Voice. As an artist, she most recently has been seen onstage with F*It Club, aMios, Youngblood, Studio 42, NY Fringe Festival and NYTE. She has been named a “performer to watch” by reviewfix.com. Her writing has been performed in a variety of venues from Columbus, Ohio to Edinburgh, Scotland. “4 Dates,” a short film which she co-wrote and co-produced, was awarded Best Comedic Film at the Zero Film Festival in 2010 and was a selection at the Drive-In Film Festival in 2011 and her short play “What Goes Up,” was recently a finalist in the Samuel French Festival, reaching the top 10 out of 900 submissions.

WATERWELL (Arian Moayed & Tom Ridgely, Artistic Directors; Rebecca Schwartz, Director of Education) is a unique ensemble of theater artists dedicated to the creation of new work and the bold re-interpretation of classics. Founded in 2002 by Arian Moayed and Tom Ridgely, the company’s special blend of music, theater and social dialog has been nominated for three IT awards, a Drama Desk, a New York Magazine Culture Award and a Village Voice Best of NYC. The Voice calls them, “dynamic, resourceful and relentlessly entertaining.” And TheaterScene says, “There's no way a written description can do justice to their blazing energy and inventiveness.” The New York Times hails the work as, “brilliant, original and inspired. Alive enough to surprise even the performers themselves,” and Theatermania writes, “Waterwell has staked a claim on our collective conscience.”

Since 2003, Waterwell has also offered structured classes in collaborative playmaking, or “devising”, the process by which the ensemble develops its material. By 2010 those educational activities had grown and coalesced into the Waterwell Drama Program , which now delivers – in partnership with the Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS) – top-quality, year-round, in-school theater training to over 300 NYC public school students. The program addresses the student-artist holistically and demands they develop both as an interpreter and as a creator. Voice and movement work connect with scene study and devising; classroom learning supports rehearsal and performance projects; and everything is designed to be in dialog with what's going on outside the classroom – in their homes, communities and the world at large.

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