Baryshnikov Arts Center / New York City, Dec 9-12, 2015
In the fall of 2012, I assembled a group of actors in Baryshnikov Arts Center’s studio 6A to begin work on Chekhov’s THE THREE SISTERS. Our work was cut short by Hurricane Sandy. In the three years since that first residency couples have come together, had children, drifted apart; parents, friends and mentors have died, we have all made new projects, travelled, come home. The piece itself has gone through many permutations, incorporating live and online translation of Chekhov’s text, the national debt clock, live Twitter feeds; I have worked with vast group of professional actors, non-actors, visual artists and a mathematician. Their ages range from six to over eighty. Throughout all of these changes, there have been three constant presences: the actors Judith Roberts, Tina Benko, and Auden Thornton. They are now joined by designers Jim Findlay and Chris Kuhl and Terese Wadden to make a trans-disciplinary work that began with a 19th Century Russian play and has steadily, drastically, departed from it, circling back to its inner life and departing again to land in the present moment.