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PLAYS FOR THE PLAGUE YEAR
Nov 4 – 27, 2022 (The Public Theater, New York)
By Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Niegel Smith
On March 13, 2020, as theaters shut their doors and so many of us went into lockdown, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and The Public’s Writer-in-Residence Suzan-Lori Parks picked up her pen and her guitar and set out to write a play every day. What emerged is a breathtaking anthology of plays and songs that chronicle our collective experience and the hope and perseverance that occurred throughout that troubling year. Performed in the intimate music venue, Joe’s Pub, PLAYS FOR THE PLAGUE YEAR is a theatrical concert featuring the music and plays of Suzan-Lori Parks. At once, both a personal story of one family’s daily lives, as well as a sweeping account of all we faced as a city, a nation, and a global community. Niegel Smith directs this life-affirming new work that beams with humor and humanity, bears witness to what we’ve experienced, and offers inspiration as we shape our future.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Nov 4 – 27, 2022
THE WORTHY – JUNETEENTH
June 11 & June 19 – 2022 (African Burial Ground, Lower Manhattan and The Flea Theater, New York)
by Niegel Smith
featuring Talu Green, Temesgen Tocruray, and Kyra Davis
Join Artistic Director Niegel Smith, an afro-futuristic griot, on a Juneteenth walk exploring our city through the lens of liberation, black love, queer joy, and community healing. Co-led by Talu Green with his commanding Djembe drumming, The Worthy will take you through the African Burial Ground Monument, past civic buildings and through the streets of lower Manhattan as we consider the worth of Black and Queer folks. We’ll use the monument as a space for contemplation and ritual. We’ll journey to public sculptures and respond to poetic prompts. And, joined by two dancer actors, we’ll walk through the street as joyful resistance. The Walk will conclude at The Flea theater with a video installation and liberation libation in our back patio where you can hang, meet the artists and hear more about their work and inspiration.
Please join me on a walk for just a few, maybe four…
No more.
For
This
Is an intimate contemplation on
Justice
Resilience
Worth (Street)
And
Beautiful Black Men
‘Cause
It’s Juneteenth
And I’m Finally Free
Click here to purchase your tickets for June 11 or 19, 2022
THE RITUAL OF BREATH IS THE RIGHT TO RESIST
Sept 16-17, 2022 (Hanover, NH)
Oct 14-15, 2022 (Stanford, CA)
Composed by: Jonathan Berger
Visual Artist: Enrico Riley
Librettist: Vievee Francis
Conductor: Kamna Gupta
Choreography: Neema Bickersteth, Trebien Pollard, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Social Impact Directors: Dr. Shamell Bell, Gwen Carr
Stage Manager: Jason Kaiser
Featuring: Neema Bickersteth, Greg Ward, Fung Chern Hwei, Titilayo Ayengade, Mikael Darmanie, Bonnie Whiting, Trebien Pollard, Isaiah Robinson and a community chorus.
Designed by: Reza Behjat, Gabriel Berry, Peter Nigrini, Camilla Tassi
Co-Commissioned and Produced By The Hopkins Center
Co-Commissioned By Stanford Live
Creative Producer Kim Whitener
An offering. An opera in seven movements.
A call for justice.
Responding to the murder of Eric Garner, this meditative and immersive work is a creative act of resistance. Centering the voice and plea of an activist / daughter / soprano, The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist interweaves music, text, visuals and movement, gathering us together as co-conspirers—to breathe and keep breathing any way we can. The opera is preceded by six days of digital and in-person rituals, inviting participants to share in communal acts of healing and reflection. Visit the ritual website.
“[Neema] Bickersteth’s heroic and transporting performance deserves praise without measure. She was truly the show’s breath of life on opening night of a two-day run. Her achievement was supported and amplified by everything around her, from the scenic and supple projection design by Peter Nigrini to Reza Behjat’s pointed lighting, all under Niegel Smith’s disarmingly simple and lucid direction.”
-Steven Winn, San Francisco Classical Voice
Click here to purchase your tickets for Hanover, NH September 16 – 17
Click here to purchase your tickets for Stanford, CA October 14 – 15
Arden – But, Not Without You
Feb 6 – Mar 13, 2022 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By Peter Born, Diana Oh, Okwui Okpokwasili, Niegel Smith and Carrie Mae Weems
Directed by Nia Witherspoon & Niegel Smith
“If all that co-directors Smith and Nia Witherspoon had told the cast was “just do your thing and do it like your life depended on it,” that was certainly enough to bring these talents to the fever pitch that eventually exploded out into this indescribable experience.”
– Christopher Caz, Manhattan Digest
“Arden feels like a poem, an ode to new beginnings, a ritual to solemnize a space, and a group embrace. The performers let us in, open their arms, feed off our energy, and offer us blessings. Together, we can hopefully leave more at peace and bask in this much-transformed version of the Flea.”
– Christian Lewis, Theatermania
Commissioned by The Flea, Arden: But, Not Without You is raw, vibrant, and QUEER AS F*CK. Don’t miss this genre-bending new work.
Diana Oh describes Arden as “Four Generations of Deeply Intimately Bound All-Kinds-of-Doing-Shit Artists sharing of themselves in a Tender-Ass Room full of Queer Femme Shamanic Energy who Genuinely and Gently Welcome You: Social Anxieties, Yummy Freakiness, and All.”
Okwui adds: “We assume nothing. We know nothing, other than a shared desire to reach out and learn about how little we have known and how much we assume. We bring each other offerings and practices and we ask people to come and join us in these offerings. Can we come together in this spirit? There will be music, there will be dance, there might be a party. You bring what you can, we will hold a space for it.”
And Diana brings it all back, “When the world be moving so fast, and I be so gentle, this is the room I wanna be in.”
Come as you are.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Feb 6 – Mar 13, 2022
THE HANG
Photo by Maria Baranova
Jan 20 – Mar 6, 2022 (HERE Arts Center, New York)
Book and Lyrics by Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
The Hang is a ritual celebration of queerness, questions, and the eternity of a moment. Rooted in the jazz tradition and operatic form, it imagines the final hours of the life of Socrates, as he asks his friends to use every moment left to think on virtue. What transpires is a centuries-long communal consideration, full of jazz, dance, debates, and queer romps.
“Niegel Smith’s direction lends a sweet let’s-put-on-a-show ambiance to all the philosophical bickering.”
– Robert Holfer, The Wrap
“Under Niegel Smith’s direction, with lyrical choreography by Chanon Judson, the other company members acquire showcases for their lavish gifts.”
– Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times
Click here to purchase your tickets for Jan 20 – Mar 6, 2022.
The Fre
Feb 28 – Mar 20, 2020* (The Flea Theater, New York / *performances interrupted due to the Covid-19 pandemic)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
In the land of two bridges, a rambunctious group of fun loving anti-intellectuals, The Fre, spend their days cavorting in the mud. Into their midst returns Hero, now a dandy aesthete, who longs to finally sever the bridges and escape the mad mud pit. But first he must convince the leader Frankie Fre and the other fatuous inhabitants that there is a better life outside of the swamp – even as his heart calls him to stay. In this queer love story, audiences will literally and figuratively jump into the mud (a giant ball pit) with the Fre as we hash out our current cultural divide.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Feb 28 – Mar 20, 2020
Southern Promises
Mar 11 – Apr 14, 2019 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by Niegel Smith
Provocateur Thomas Bradshaw returns to The Flea, revisiting his incendiary 2008 play SOUTHERN PROMISES in a new production helmed by Artistic Director, Niegel Smith. On his deathbed, a plantation owner vows to set his slaves free, but his wife rejects the request and chaos soon erupts on the plantation. Based on slave narratives and featuring an all PoC company of actors, SOUTHERN PROMISES is a brilliant examination of the deeply disturbing and utterly corrupting power of American slavery and its lasting grip on our country’s hearts and institutions. The Flea ends its Color Brave Season bringing this haunting reality onto the stage of The Sam.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Mar 11 – Apr 14, 2019.
How to Catch Creation
Jan 19 – Feb 24, 2019 (Goodman Theatre, Chicago)
By Christina Anderson
Directed by Niegel Smith
A young writer’s life turns upside down when her girlfriend drops some unexpected news. Fifty years later, four artists feel the reverberations of that moment—and its unexpected consequences—as their lives intersect in pursuit of creative passion and legacy. In this bold, imaginative work, Christina Anderson, “a gifted playwright you want to pay attention to” (Variety), dissects the universal act of creation to inspire the dreamers and idealists in us all.
“Engrossing and meticulously plotted, the Goodman’s production of How to Catch Creation is lightning caught in a bottle, an absolute triumph for director Niegel Smith and his exquisite ensemble. Written by Christina Anderson, this joyful and visceral work is alive in a way that very few stage plays achieve.”
-Sherri Flanders, The Chicago Reader
“The pairing of playwright Christina Anderson and director Niegel Smith is a gift to modern theater. They get it right!”
-Ebony Magazine
Click here to purchase your tickets for Jan 19 – Feb 24, 2019.
Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce
Dec 14 – 15, 2019 (Power Center for the Performing Arts, Ann Arbor)
Dec 12, 2019 (Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.)
Dec 14 – 15, 2018 (Royce Hall, Los Angeles)
Dec 11, 2018 (Town Hall, New York)
Nov 21 – 30, 2018 (Curran, San Francisco)
Dec 12, 2017 (Town Hall, New York)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Taylor Mac & Niegel Smith
Christmas as calamity. Celebrating the holiday season in all of its dysfunction, Taylor Mac, is joined by longtime collaborators designer Machine Dazzle, music director Matt Ray and a band of eight to reframe the songs you love and the holidays you hate.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 14 – 15, 2019.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 12, 2019.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 14 – 15, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 11, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Nov 21 – 30, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 12, 2017.
Hype Man: a break beat play
Nov 10 – Dec 18, 2018 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By Idris Goodwin
Directed by Kristan Seemel & Niegel Smith
Featuring: The Bats, the The Flea’s resident acting company, including Tay Bass, Conor Bell, Sonja Cirillo, Justin Jorrell, Matt Stango and Shakur Tolliver.
Designed by: Anton Volovsek (Scenic Designer), Sarah Lawrence (Costume Designer), Xavier Pierce (Lighting Designer), Wendell Hanes (Music Composer/Supervisor/Editor), Jabob Brasi (Assistant Director), Haley Gordon (Stage Manager) and Keenan Hurley (Sound Designer).
In HYPE MAN: a break beat play we meet Verb, Pinnacle, and Peep One, a trio on the verge of making it big as America’s next hip hop crew. But the shooting of an unarmed black man in their hometown throws them off their beat. Their friendship is tested. Their moral compass is challenged. HYPE MAN immerses audiences in a chilling conversation amongst the beats and rhymes of pulsating hip hop.
“Co-directors Kristan Seemel and Niegel Smith’s energized staging featuring members of The Bats, The Flea’s resident company, has the actors in motion all over the space, even at one point cleverly on view through windows suggesting another place outside. There’s a gorgeously presented number with them performing a terrific rap composition. Also, the intensity of their performances are magnified by close proximity.”
– Darryl Reilly, Theaterscene.net
“Goodwin’s Hype Man is a loud and clear clarion call for blacks and whites, cops and civilians, and everyone to get on up and openly, honestly discuss America’s ongoing problems of racial violence and inequality. None of us get to sit this one out.”
–Pete Hempstead, TheaterMania
Click here to purchase your tickets for Nov 10 – Dec 18, 2018.
Refrigerated Dreams
October 27, 2018 (Joe’s Pub, New York)
Directed and co-created by Niegel Smith
Nona Hendryx created Refrigerated Dreams, an immersive multimedia installation and concert transforming Joe’s Pub into the dinner party of the season. Inspired by Carrie Mae Weems’s seminal The Kitchen Table Series, the work-in-progress is directed by Niegel Smith and features choreography and performances by Francesca Harper, Josh Johnson and The Francesca Harper Project, with original music by Nona Hendryx.
From the first message announcing Refrigerated Dreams, the audience enters a world of binaries: man or woman, black or white, stay or go. In that first email, a man invites you to a dinner party, for which he has secured Nona Hendryx and her performance art band Anon as the entertainment. But lurking behind him are the images from The Kitchen Table Series. In a way, they are asking, what’s going on in the kitchen; what’s the backstory? Missing from the dinner table is ‘The Man,’ performed by Josh Johnson and ‘The Woman,’ performed by Harper. Where is she? Is she coming? Will she break out of the heteronormative?
Click here to purchase your tickets for Oct 27, 2018.
Scraps
Aug 15 – Sep 29, 2018 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By Geraldine Inoa
Directed by Niegel Smith
Featuring: Kieron anthony, Andrew Baldwin, Alana Raquel Bowers, Bryn Carter, Ure Egbuho, Christopher Garofolo, Roland Lane, Michael Oloyede, Tanyamaria & Camille Upshaw.
Designed by: Ao Li, Andy Jean, Kate McGee, & Megan Deets Cully.
Violence Choreography: Michael G. Chin
What we always hear: “Black Male Shot by White Police Officer.”
What we never see: how loved ones struggle to cope amidst their anger and grief.
“You should be paying a lot of attention to The Flea Theater after last year’s theatrical homerun Syncing Ink. Running now is Scraps, a take on the after effects of police brutality. This new play is super intense, gets a little weird in the final 20 minutes, and hits quite close to home for some of us…but, overall: it’s superbly written, directed, and performed. Trifecta alert!
Scraps is the first production of The Flea’s “Color Brave” 2018-19 season and features members of The Bats, their resident acting company that is chock full of future megastars. All five cast members shine under Flea Artistic Director Niegel Smith’s brave direction. And, heroic playwright Geraldine Inoa puts this issue front and center, forcing audiences to reckon with this devastating epidemic.“
– Sam Maher, Yes Broadway
Click here to purchase your tickets for Aug 15 – Sep 29, 2018.
Father Comes Home From The Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)
May 25 – June 24, 2018 (Goodman Theatre, Chicago)
By Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Niegel Smith
Hero, a Texas slave, faces a simple yet monumental choice: join his master in the Confederate army and be granted his freedom afterward— or remain enslaved at the plantation. Filled with music, wit and poetic wisdom, Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks’ “masterpiece” (New York magazine) challenges us to navigate our own moral compass in a country that both unites and rips us apart.
“This must-see Chicago production in the Owen Theatre truly is a remarkable feat of direction, notable for its maintenance of total truth and for its application of counterbalancing consistency to an intentionally deconstructive and eclectic piece of writing. […] But Smith makes all of that feel utterly logical: It’s much harder to pull that off than you might think, especially when you did not direct the original production. This is just not a piece that could withstand a hands-off director. Rather, Smith functions as a guide through the terrain of Parks’ historical imagination, homing in on her sociopolitical imperatives and yet also letting her struggling characters breathe, and be, and not know what to do for the best, or where history may or may not be taking them. As a result you find yourself caring deeply about the fate of almost everyone you see.”
– Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
Click here to purchase your tickets for May 25 – June 24, 2018
Flea Fridays
Oct 12 & 19, 2018 – How Color Brave Are You? (The Flea Theater, New York)
Jan 26, 2018 – How Will We Let Our Freedom Ring? (The Flea Theater, New York)
Dec 15, 2018 – How Do We Nurture Blackness? (The Flea Theater, New York)
FLEA FRIDAYS is an immersive cabaret in residence in The Flea’s indoor/outdoor theater The Pete. Each one features some of downtown’s most daring artists, who invite audiences to engage with our most pressing social questions.
Co-curated and Directed by Niegel Smith.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Oct 12 & 19, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 15 – Jan 26, 2018.
Syncing Ink
Sep 25 – Oct 29, 2017 (The Flea Theater, New York)
By NSangou Njikam
Directed by Niegel Smith
“Now what you hear is not a test/I’m rapping to the beat!”
Gordon wants to learn how to rap, thinking it will gain him respect, admiration, and the attention of a beautiful woman. What he doesn’t know is that his journey to learn how to rhyme will take him not just deeper into Hip Hop, but deeper into his legacy and his purpose. Based on true events, NSangou Njikam leads us on a lyrical voyage to discover what it really takes to freestyle.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Sep 25 – Oct 29, 2017
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music – World Tour!
October 10, 2019 (Berliner Festspiele, Berlin)
June 28 – 30, 2018 (Barbican, London)
June 2 – 9, 2018 (Kimmel Center, Philadelphia)
Mar 15 – 24, 2018 (The Theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles)
Sep 15 – 24, 2017 (Curran, San Francisco)
Oct 11 – 20, 2017 (Melbourne Festival, Australia)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Taylor Mac & Niegel Smith
We take to the road (and air) to bring this radical fairy realness ritual across continents and oceans.
A 24-hour music theater work about how communities are built as a result of being torn apart. Consisting of over 246 songs–some original and many pre-existing popular songs (popular in the US from 1776 to the present day)–as well as over thirteen hours of original text, the work is a deconstruction, reimagining, reframing, and reenactment of 240 years of US history.
Hailed as a Ring Cycle for the 21st century, A 24-Decade History will be seen outside the US for the first time in Melbourne. Part celebration and part exorcism, it’s a no-holds-barred extravaganza of music, history, performance and art.
Click here to purchase your tickets for October 10, 2019.
Click here to purchase your tickets for June 28 – 30, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for June 2 – 9, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Mar 15 – 24, 2018.
Click here to purchase your tickets for Sep 15 – 24, 2017
Click here to purchase your tickets for Oct 11 – 20, 2017
The Last Walk
July 26-27, 2016.
Conceived by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith
Presented by Elastic City
Over two days, Niegel and Todd led participants on The Last Walk. This walk was given seven times and featured re-performed prompts by past Elastic City walk artists.
Each of the seven walks included a cameo by an artist who presented their original prompt.
Contributing artists: luciana achugar, Chiara Bernasconi, Michelle Boulé, Neil Freeman, Neil Goldberg, Wayne Koestenbaum, Erin Markey, and Pamela Z.
Caretaker: Carla Kasumi.
Syncing Ink
Feb 3- March 5, 2017 (Alley Theater, Houston)
By NSangou Njikam
Directed by Niegel Smith
“Now what you hear is not a test/I’m rapping to the beat!” Gordon wants to learn how to rap, thinking it will gain him respect, admiration, and the attention of a beautiful woman. What he doesn’t know is that his journey to learn how to rhyme will take him not just deeper into Hip Hop, but deeper into his legacy and his purpose. Based on true events, NSangou Njikam leads us on a lyrical ride to discover what it really takes to freestyle. Directed by Niegel Smith, Artistic Director of New York’s Flea Theater.
“Under director Niegel Smith’s guiding hand, the characters and scenes slip easily into flashbacks, drug- induced dream sequences and spiritual epiphanies where hip hop terms like Flow incarnate into goddess-like creatures. The show is also just plain funny throughout.”
– Tarra Gaines, CultureMap – Houston
“Director Niegel Smith shoots these actors out of a cannon and expertly gives them plenty of room to fill up the space with big personality.”
– Jessica Goldman & Brandon Caldwell, Houston Press
Click here to purchase your tickets for Feb 3 – March 5, 2017
A 24-Decade History of Popular Music
Sep 15 – Oct 8, 2016 (St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Taylor Mac & Niegel Smith
Taylor Mac’s glittering performance art concerts chart a (highly) subjective history of popular music and activism in America from the nation’s founding in 1776 to the present day. Created with a bevy of collaborators, including music director / arranger Matt Ray, co-director Niegel Smith, 2015 MacArthur Fellow Mimi Lien, lighting designer John Torres, and longtime fellow traveler and costume provocateur Machine Dazzle, this highly anticipated World Premiere will be the first time Taylor Mac performs the complete 24-decade history in its entirety.
“Taylor Mac’s 24-Hour Concert Was One of the Great Experiences of My Life. I’ve slept on it, and I’m sure. “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music” is sublime.”
– Wesley Morris, The New York Times
Click here to purchase your tickets for Sep 15 – Oct 8, 2016
Take Care
Dec 1, 2015 – Jan 25, 2016 (The Flea Theater, New York)
Written by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith. Directed by Niegel Smith.
Take Care is a participatory performance that investigates the ways we respond to present and imminent danger. This evening-length performance gathers and reconfigures our personal language around emergency preparedness, abandonment, and consolation.
Take Care includes individualized prompts for audience participation alongside scripted moments for The Bats, the resident acting company at The Flea. Audiences will have the opportunity to choose their desired level of participation—they can be on stage or around it.
““Take Care,” a willfully weird, highly interactive theater piece that uses a series of playful but ominous sketches and games to explore nervous-making aspects of the world today.”
– Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
Click here to purchase your tickets for Dec 1, 2015 – Jan 25, 2016
HIR
Oct 16, 2015 – Jan 3, 2016 (Playwrights Horizons, New York)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
Somewhere in the suburbs, Isaac has returned from the wars to help take care of his ailing father, only to discover a household in revolt. The insurgent: his mom. Liberated from an oppressive marriage, with Isaac’s newly out transgender sibling as her ally, she’s on a crusade to dismantle the patriarchy. But in Taylor Mac’s sly, subversive comedy, annihilating the past doesn’t always free you from it.
“Directed by Niegel Smith with a daring combination of realism and madcap absurdity, “Hir” sometimes recalls the better works of David Rabe, Sam Shepard and Christopher Durang.
But Mr. Mac has his own gloriously skewed vision of the toxins fouling the American family from within, and in its avowedly loopy way “Hir” reflects current concerns about the decline of the middle class, as well as the trauma war veterans endure.”
– Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
“A beautiful trinity of Nielsen’s pained and profound performance, Mac’s script, and Smith’s direction.”
– Hilton Als, The New Yorker
Click here to purchase your tickets for Oct 16, 2015 – Jan 3, 2016
Ideally
Aug 5, 2015
Conceived by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith
Presented by Elastic City
Ideally, we’ll walk on water.
Ideally, this walk will reverse climate change.
Ideally, we’ll pass a bill and make it law.
Ideally, they will be accepting.
Ideally, I’ll fall in love with someone on this walk.
Ideally, you’ll cook for me.
Ideally, I’ll take the roller coaster ride of my life.
For admission to this walk, participants are asked to complete this phrase, “Ideally…” Ideally, this walk will exceed your expectations.
Caretaker: Carla Kasumi. Video: Danya Abt.
HIR
Feb 27 – Mar 22, 2015 (Mixed Blood Theatre, Minneapolis)
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
Obie Award winning drag icon, queer performance artist, and playwright, Taylor Mac has penned a hilarious and unsettling comedy that is a deconstructed family drama put through a commedia wringer in a style he coins Absurd Realism. It is simultaneously a farcical and disarming satire, a discourse on power, and a blistering critique of “troglodyte fascist hetero-normative” culture.
Isaac returns home from picking up the dismembered remains of his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan, only to find that his home has likewise been blown asunder. His house is a mess, his formerly macho father has suffered a stroke, his mother (played by Sally Wingert, Star Tribune 2013 Artist of the Year) runs the disintegrating household with tyrannical glee, and his sister is now his transgender sibling, intent on subverting traditional gender-centric paradigms and linguistic forms–replacing him and her with the play’s eponymous pronoun ‘hir’.
“Taylor Mac’s play is one of the most daring I’ve come across, and this Niegel Smith-directed production hits all its weird notes with a disturbing clarity that makes the experience bracing, nothing less than thrilling. The effect is near-perfect.
Hir is a show that will make your mind rattle like a popcorn popper, and your heart lurch with shades of the American experience and the sense of pressures having built to bursting across the suburbs both literal and figurative. It’s also, easily, one of the best shows I’ve seen in Twin Cities theater over the past half decade.”
– Quinton Skinner, MN Monthly
Click here to purchase your tickets for Feb 27 – Mar 22, 2014
Dream State of Affairs
Jan 29 – 31, 2015
By Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith
Presented by The Invisible Dog Art Center in partnership with Elastic City
For our ten year artnership, we’ve scored a performance: a where-we-are but in your shoes. There are written prompts that overlap–a set of tasks that form a fairy tale weee invite you to complete.
We’ll play with race, lust, consent, underpaid labor and childhood shit; the cat and the meow. You’ve a choice: consent to be on stage or around it, as you will. We will take care of you.
The Arts Board Member and Development Director: Erin Markey
Lighting Design: Amith Chandrashaker
Stage Management: Ana Mari de Quesada
Rigging Consultant: Jon Harper
This work was created, in part, with a space grant from BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Venus
Dec 4 – 13, 2014
Written by: Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by: Niegel Smith
In Suzan-Lori Parks’ highly theatrical, historical drama,Venus, the “Venus Hottentot,” a young Black woman in 1810 South Africa, is whisked away to England under false pretenses and sold to a freak show. After achieving great success for her employers, she attempts to make it on her own, but love and economics collide when she becomes the mistress of a white doctor. Unforgiving, humorous and tragic, Parks deftly blends theater of the absurd and romantic realism to question the perceived value of a black woman’s body in a white world.
Favorites
Oct 5, 2014
Conceived & Led by Sarah Schulman, Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith
Presented by Elastic City & co-presented with Brooklyn Museum as part of the “Crossing Brooklyn” exhibition.
The beauty, class mix and historical depth of the West Village once inspired and produced political and artistic ideas for the world. Now it is defined by excess, simulacra and homogenization. Favorites by Sarah Schulman, Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith will engage participants in the generational class-clash in the West Village, uncovering, contrasting and performing its past and present. The walk will be enhanced by the memories and current realities of queer tenants, who will reveal their favorite places that are gone and their favorite places that remain.
Storytellers: Jim Fouratt, Mark McPherson and Sur Rodney (Sur)
HAZE
July 4 – 6, 2014
Conceived & Led by Niegel Smith
Assisted by Robert Leverett and Reed Sturtevant
Presented by Vox Theater: VoxFest 2014
Do you want in? We just might have something that you want.
As a Fraternity brother, as a casting director, as a member of Christian churches and exclusively gay organizations, as an enfranchised citizen of the US, as a part of any exclusive group, artist Niegel Smith has had many opportunities to consider the ways in which social, political and religious organizations both support and impede a broad and inclusive view of self and others.
On HAZE, he invites participants to join in poetic rituals (songs, gestures, oaths and drinks) some old, some brand new, in an attempt to form, gain access to and critique exclusive communities. We will open our borders to some, close them off to others. But will we survive if we do? Will we thrive if we do? Let’s walk and see.
Rehearsal: The Perils of Obedience
July 10 – 11, 2014 (Abrons Arts Center, NYC)
Created By Itziar Barrio and Directed By Niegel Smith
As the next part of THE PERILS OF OBEDIENCE, a long-term project that researches power and its diverse embodiments, Itziar Barrio mixes performance, theater, film and live experience to confront established sets of rules and cultivate the conditions for unscripted consequences.THE PERILS OF OBEDIENCE is inspired by Stanley Milgram’s 1961 psychological experiments. In this project four characters are immersed in power dynamics within the same scene and an endless conflict.
In continuing collaboration with theater director Niegel Smith, Rehearsal TPO generates a narrative by placing the cast in specific roles and situations where power is contested, performed, and analyzed. The audience will witness the working process of a rehearsal, designed as a performance and where the entire process will be recorded and edited for a final video piece. The four participating actors were selected in the previous stage of the project, Casting THE PERILS OF OBEDIENCE, presented at the Abrons Arts Center in March 2013. Following an open call, the selection process was exposed to the audience, who could experience the excitement and seduction of an audition.
Marisol
April 10 – May 11, 2014 (Luna Stage – West Orange, NJ)
By José Rivera
Directed by Niegel Smith
Set in early 90s New York City, Oscar Nominee (The Motorcycle Diaries) José Rivera’s powerful and poetic Marisol plunges audiences into the story of a young Latina woman forced to navigate a world left in disarray when her guardian angel leaves her to fight a battle of biblical proportion. In the magic realism style of his mentor Gabriel García Márquez, Rivera creates an urban fantasy, filled with humor and pathos, urging society to recover our long-lost compassion and to wrest our world from the brink of destruction.
“Rivera’s voice is distinctive, and the play is at once brutal and poetic, fantastical and resonant of truth. At Luna Stage in West Orange, where it currently is receiving its New Jersey premiere, Niegel Smith directs a vibrant production with an excellent cast.”
– Ronni Reich, The Star-Ledger
HIR
Jan. 29 – Feb 23, 2014 (Magic Theatre, San Francisco)
**Extended through March 2, 2014**
By Taylor Mac
Directed by Niegel Smith
Newly enlightened Paige is determined to forge a deliriously liberated world for her two wayward children: Isaac, recently discharged from the Marines under dubious circumstances; and Max, tender, jaded, and sculpting a third-sex gender identity for hirself. Hailed as “one of this country’s most heroic and disarmingly funny playwrights” (American Theatre Magazine), Magic welcomes back renowned theatre artist Taylor Mac (The Lily’s Revenge) with this hilarious drama.
“the best Bay Area play I’ve seen this season. In several seasons, in fact… Niegel Smith is the perfect director for what Mac calls ‘absurd realism.’ Though every gag line draws a laugh, each stammer, brief pause or elongated silence also hits a dramatic bulls-eye. And Smith’s pacing is spot on.”
– Woody Weingarten, The Marin Scope
Click here to purchase your tickets for Jan 29 – Mar 2, 2014
Selfies
Oct 3, 2013
Conceived & Led by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith, Presented by Elastic City & The Prelude Festival
In fashion, there’s armor. Through devices, we locate, shield and shoot. If we toss this stuff, how will we re-find ourselves and each other? Well, let’s start from scratch. And sniff.
Join Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith for a mostly indoor participatory walk. A rite that roots and wrests the canvas of self. Yeah, we’re going there. And we’ll be getting naked. And we know that’s cliché. And that our “we” is different than yours. Oh lord. Come with. Undress. Together. And check yourself.
This walk holds 12 people and is commissioned by The Prelude Festival. All advance tickets are now sold out but there will be tickets available on-site in the lobby once the festival begins.
Artist note:
Asking walk participants to completely disrobe is extremely vulnerable for everyone, us included. Though we are aware that this choice might deter some from attending, our intention is to revel in that vulnerability in order to better investigate our relationships to our bodies and each other. We hope you’ll join us!
Special thanks to Selfies creative consultant, Ryan Tracy.
Eat Me, Drink Me, Homo
July 27 & 28, 2013 @ 2pm
Written and Directed by Niegel Smith
Featuring Jamyl Dobson and Jax Jackson
Produced by JACK & Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival
As a young gay in a Catholic all-boy’s high school, I was often reminded of my outsider’s perspective. But, when communion, a sacrament in which only practicing Catholics (and I have never been one) are supposed to participate, was celebrated at an all school mass, I just couldn’t help myself. I had to join in. Breaking bread. Sharing wine. And muttering Latin phrases. It was the best kind of community performance – an opportunity to transcend our individuality and draw closer through shared experience. So now I invite you to leave the rigid confines of organized religion and join in an intimate walk outside. You’ll be lead in a heightened sensory experience as you share new texts, create ritual gestures and mold the outside into your sanctuary. But, don’t forget to say your prayers, things might get rough when you try to get a little bit closer.
I’m A Nigga
July 3, 2013
Conceived and Performed by Niegel Smith
Produced by VoxFest / Vox Barter and presented by The Hood Museum
In, I’m a Nigga, Niegel Smith appropriates contemporary gallery codes, the ubiquitous Apple text speaking program and American hip-hop and rap lyrics in order to question how we use media to subject ourselves to viewership and objectification. The artist takes a classical pose sitting on a stool, his laptop sits on a stool next to him and throughout the performance, a pre-recorded description of the artist is performed by his macintosh computer. The description is an adaptation, written by the artist, of 50 Cent’s “Poor Lil Rich”.
Spread
June 26 – 28, 2013
Conceived & Led by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith, Presented by Elastic City & Visual Aids
Butter. Jam. Legs. Rumors. What do you want to spread? On this walk, participants will investigate the language and actions of spreading. We will spread ourselves like a virus, disseminating secrets and offering our desires to each other and passersby. All are welcome. Spread the word.
Admission
May 9 – 16, 2013
Conceived & Led by Michelle Boulé & Niegel Smith, Presented by Elastic City in partnership with the New Museum
Dance artist Michelle Boulé and theater director Niegel Smith invite you to unravel the codes of museum engagement as we feel the “NYC 1993” exhibition on a walk through the New Museum. Participants will respond by warming up their senses, stretching their tastes, and singing the chords in surrounding work as we move through the gallery space. We’ll pair up, go it alone, and even gang up a bit. You won’t get caught—smartphones haven’t been invented yet.
Casting The Perils of Obedience
Mar 29 & 30, 2013 (Abrons Arts Center, NYC)
Created By Itziar Barrio and Directed By Niegel Smith
Intermission
Jan 27 – 31, 2013
Conceived by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith, Led by Niegel Smith, Presented by Elastic City
It’s Intermission. Stretch your legs, take a piss and walk through one last time. Niegel Smith will lead you through PS122’s historic theaters on this participatory walk. Dig in, dress up and tag that wall before it falls–the house lights are blinking.
“Intermission” holds 12 people and is a commission from Performance Space 122.
dreaming
snuggled up in the small of vermont pines, clapboards and newspapered insulation. my fleece, my dozing retriever, dreams on. snow chills the breeze, embers heat my hearth. So. i meditate. on the popping, the crackling of the kindling.Eat Me, Drink Me, Homo
October 3 – 5, 2012
Conceived & Led by Niegel Smith, Featuring Jason Zeren, Produced by PRELUDE NYC
As a young gay in a Catholic all-boy’s high school, I was often reminded of my outsider’s perspective. But, when communion, a sacrament in which only practicing Catholics (and I have never been one) are supposed to participate, was celebrated at an all school mass, I just couldn’t help myself. I had to join in. Breaking bread. Sharing wine. And muttering Latin phrases. It was the best kind of community performance – an opportunity to transcend our individuality and draw closer through shared experience. So now I invite you to leave the rigid confines of organized religion and join me for an intimate walk outside. I’ll lead you in a heightened sensory experience as we share new texts, create ritual gestures and mold the outside into our sanctuary. But, don’t forget to say your prayers, things might get rough when we try to get a little bit closer.
Macbeth
September – October, 2012 (NYU Tisch Grad, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith
Shakespeare’s great tragedy weaving ambition, seduction, and ruthlessness appears as a Year Three Graduate Acting production for the first time in decades. The path to the throne twists and turns into the way of dusty death, as a supernatural goad to the dark aspirations of Lord and Lady Macbeth transforms into a nightmare in the harsh light of day.
Poetic License
I was a poor nigga
Now I’m a ______ nigga
You can find me up in Greenpoint, chillin’ with the hipstas
In my fourth floor walkup bangin’ tranny sistas
Or the backseat puttin’ down the master fista’s
New York gay boys, copy fashion magazines,
Or tv streams, or str8t acting dreams
Fuckin’ around like there’s no more disease
Fuckin’ around like we’ze on shootin’ sprees
I’m from North Cackalacky, but got an east coast swagger
See me I got the arts and letters, BFA dagger,
I get up on the stage, point from left to right
Pushin on my actors just to get it fuckin’ right
Feel em pullin out your tears, make you laugh and holler
My muses, with my guidance, make you throw down mighty dollars
See Niegel play fa keeps, and Niegel stay wit heat
I can’t go commercial, they love my avante-garde beats
I’m a real artsy man, a MOMA loves me man
Don’t make me put you in a participatory art thing man
Walkin’ to Detroit, Still bring my queer vibe
Niggas screaming faggot, we gonna skin yo skinny hide
I was a poor nigga
Now I’m a ______ nigga
You can find me up in Greenpoint, chillin’ with the hipstas
In my fourth floor walkup bangin’ tranny Sistas
Or the backseat puttin’ down the master fista’s
adapted from 50cents ‘Poor Lil Rich’
Dream Five
“Evoking Feeling” – Dragana Skrepnik
- I was in a Condo converted into an art gallery surrounded by the owner’s private collection of sculptures and paintings and some of her own original paintings. The colors were rich hues: aqua, jade, amber, blonde, rust, bronze, cinnamon. I was surrounded by her passion, her love and care, and I had a private viewing/relationship with all the pieces.
- I was in a shower in the condo. Again aquas and jades surrounded me – the tiles. The water was warm, but almost like aloe vera, it didn’t make my skin dry.
- I was rushed out, her husband was coming home.
- Rain, rain rain. I was wearing tennis shoes, and walking through a deep public square with several inches of water sloshing around my feet. But I didn’t care. I was in Paris or Florence and people were sitting out in the rain, on the steps, in the plaza. And there were fireworks.
- I lost my sense of direction. I was alone.
Necessity
June, 2012 (New York, NY)
Conceived and Facilitated by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith, Featuring Tracy Hazas & Produced by Elastic City
This walk is what you need it to be. We’re all in this together. Since you will determine the duration, please plan accordingly.
Click here, to reserve your $20 tickets for Sunday, June 10 at 4:oopm
Cabin Fever
March 23, 2012 (Brooklyn, NY)
Conceived and performed by Niegel Smith at the artist’s home
Backstage Realness
April, 2012
Led by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith, Produced by Abrons Art Center & Elastic City
Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith of Elastic City take the whole family backstage to play paintings, swirl sounds, and ascend to stardom.
Lady Rizo: Ordained
November, 2011 & January 2012 (Joe’s Pub, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith
It’s Lady Rizo’s final performance before being ordained into the temple of glitter. Aggressively feminine and possessing a distinct absence of inhibition, she will attempt to lead you in a night praising the power of song, giggles, madness and glamorous glances. Will we survive? Yes – if her spectacular new gown has anything to say about it.
Salve
January 2012 (New York, NY)
Led by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith with Tracy Hazas, Produced by American Realness & Elastic City
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Winter chills:
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stuck in cold American
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brick hallways and leftover props.
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Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith walk you home
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to putty floors, player-paintings and back-
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stage Realness.
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Take off your snowsuits, baby. This is not a walking tour.
For a Barbarian Woman
October 2011 (Fordham University & Ensemble Studio Theatre, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Savianna Stenescu
On the edge of the Black Sea, the greatest poet of the Roman Empire, Ovid, and an American/NATO colonel are forever transformed by a barbarian woman. Two millennia apart, boundaries of politics, time and desire continue to be shattered. Who will survive?
take a bow
Monumental Walk
May – Aug 2010 & Sept – Oct 2011
Led by Niegel Smith, Produced by Elastic City
Starting at the famous fountain in City Hall Park, participants will walk, dance and commune with the architecture of our public buildings and monuments. Through a focused physical and vocal relationship we will extend the range of the objects which commemorate our society and our humanity– giving them greater sonic fields and wider physical footprints. And, using our own experiences and the existing monuments as inspiration, we will make new monuments to share with all who pass by.
Click here to see more photos from Monumental Walk!
SEED
September – October, 2011
(Classical Theatre of Harlem & Hip Hop Theatre Festival, NYC)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Radha Blank
Burnt-out social worker Anne Colleen Simpson decides to leave the field on a high note, with a book detailing her career, but when Chee-Chee, a gifted twelve-year-old from the ‘projects’ collides into her life, she’s forced to confront his young mother and the shadows of her past. Anne and Chee-Chee develop an unlikely friendship that leads to an explosive encounter threatening both their futures.
Infused with the vibrant rhythm and verse of Hip-Hop culture, Seed weaves through the fault lines of a gentrified Harlem, begging the question: How far are you willing to go to protect the future of a community and its children?
“This masterpiece of theater explores, challenges, and provokes us to take some action” -NYTHEATER.COM
Total Detroit
August 2011 (New York, NY & Detroit, MI)
Led by Niegel Smith, Caretaker: Tracy Hazas, Produced by Elastic City
My teenage years were spent in Detroit. A city in continual decline. One that refuses to lose itself to those who fetishize its ruins. It’s been 10 years since my return. I do it carefully. Can I speak for this place where I no longer live? Yes. And I’m taking you with me.
“[Detroit] belongs to those who have memories of it, and make memories in it.” -Liz, a Detroit resident, New York Times, Aug. 4, 2010.
I invite you to walk with me in Detroit. We’ll start in New York and hop on a plane to the Motor City. I’ve got some shit to work out–you too? Pack your baggage. We’ll come back with less. For 3 days and 2 nights, we’ll sculpt, listen, light and sing. We’ll give ourselves to decay and possibility through techniques derived from cultural anthropology, performance art and experimental theater. We will make monuments with our bodies in response to public spaces; project words on to abandoned buildings to give them voices; volunteer at an urban farm to feed the hungry; and cleanse one another with the help of Tanaka Min ritualistic practices.
Click here to watch a trailer for “Total Detroit”.
Click here to watch Niegel Smith reflect on “Total Detroit”.
You Make It, I Take It
“The striking thing about all consumer products — and none more so than electronic devices and applications — is that they’re designed to be immensely likable. This is, in fact, the definition of a consumer product, in contrast to the product that is simply itself and whose makers aren’t fixated on your liking it. (I’m thinking here of jet engines, laboratory equipment, serious art and literature.)”Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts.
By Jonathan Franzen, NY Times 28 Sat 2011
TOTAL DETROIT
Association
WALK DETROIT!
BuildingsofDetroit.com is a two-person effort by historians, author Dan Austin and photographer Sean Doerr to spread awareness of Detroit’s architectural history.
Dream Five
- At the beginning I was experiencing the dream from the perspective of a 22 year old Caucasian woman. With me was her 6 year old sister. By the end of the dream I was there as well as the 22 y/o, the 6 y/o, and we had been joined by a 20 something Caucasian man who had come to hurt us or steal belongings left behind. He was now helping us to survive.
- We were in a very large Victorian house in an abandoned neighborhood (was it a Detroit neighborhood?). The neighborhood had been purged of its inhabitants.
- The youngest liked to play games, and I was constantly having to get her to quiet down – to understand the severity of the situation.
- We never thought about food or water. We were always thinking about games and dancing and sometimes even watching TV. But we had to make sure no one knew we were there. So there was a constant attempt to cover the windows with sheets or slats or whatever we could find.
- At one point a bus filled with prisoners was let loose in the neighborhood. It was terrifying, but I knew that we could persevere.
Monumental Walk (London)
Sept – Oct 2010 (London)
Led by Niegel Smith, Produced by Elastic City
Participants will walk, dance and commune with the architecture of our public buildings and monuments. Through a focused physical and vocal relationship we will extend the range of the objects which commemorate our society and our humanity– giving them greater sonic fields and wider physical footprints. And, using our own experiences and the existing monuments as inspiration, we will make new monuments to share with all who pass by. An ideal walk for people of all ages.
Click here for research photos from Monumental Walk (London)!
Follow The Leader
May – August 2010
Led by Niegel Smith, Produced by Elastic-City (New York, NY)
Beginning near the steps of City Hall, you are invited to embark on a walking game of “Follow the Leader” in the neighborhood saturated with the offices of local, state and national politicians. We’ll play on the steps, stretch out in metal detectors and throw our voices – all in an effort to remind our leaders that we will not be lead silently or blindly. Together, we’ll confront contemporary notions of security and surveillance and shadow the daily business of our elected leaders through public buildings and back rooms.
IT
OUT OF CONTEXT- this quote provides a very exciting point of entry for contemporary performance, literary and visual art:
“To understand what it has to offer, one must learn how to read it. [It] is not a textbook, but is like an ocean with waves and currents and eddies and whirlpools and quiet caves. It calls for suspending one’s normal mode of conceptual progress until one has discovered where the tides and techniques of this new medium will carry him. Water is, to man, a distorting element, and probably whatever he sees in it will not be seen as it really is. The ecstatic surges in his body as he rides the swells will not be forgotten after he has found his feet once again on the sand. Like riding the waves, or listening to great music, this [it] wafts one to where he can perceive reality in new configurations that unite the subjective and the objective. It does not so much convey specific fact as arrange science, myth, philosophy and poetic narrative in peculiar combinations which can generate remarkable experiences…”
F.T.L.
F.T.L. Abbreviation of: Follow The Leader
425D’s First Short Film
Help! Watch 425D’s short film and win us Free Space!
Simply click here, watch our submission to the end and you bring us one step closer to winning free rehearsal space at Space on White. Be entertained and inspired, all for a good cause.
What is 425D? Watch our film to find out!
425D: Space on White
a commission by Jordan Seavey
directed by Stephen Brackett, Lauren Keating, Niegel Smith and Awoye Timpo
featuring: Jocelyn Bio as Niegel, Stephanie Dimaggio as Lauren, Lucas Kavner as Stephen and Bonna Tek & Margo Hammond as Awoye
NEIGHBORS
February – March, 2010 (The Public Theater; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Branden Jacobs Jenkins
Have you seen the new neighbors? Richard Patterson is not happy. The family of black actors that has moved in next door is loud, tacky, shameless, and uncouth. And they are not just infiltrating his neighborhood—they threaten his reputation, his family, and his comfortably progressive lifestyle. This wildly theatrical, explosive play on race marks the major debut of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a member of the Public’s Emerging Writers Group.
Poetry is for Muses
walking around town taking photos or sitting
by the lake freeballing doing nothing maybe grunting
an expletive or two
when the spirit moves us…
I love you dude – I fucking love you
Remembrances of Things Past
Very excited about heading into rehearsals tomorrow morning for NEIGHBORS – a brilliant new play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. But before I do, I’m going to take small pause for reflection and remembering…
Hanging With My Sweet Niece
Tasty Holiday Cookies
Bundled Up in the Subway
and Meeting New Folks.
QUOTEd
NY TIMES Opinionator Blog: Into the Closet
“Like it or not we will be well into the 22nd century before lesbian and gay Americans finally have their equal rights unless they get busy burning cities this century. That is what I’m afraid it will finally take. Ask a Black friend or relative about it.”
Wyman Elrod
Dallas Texas, January 15, 2010
Paris Fin!
                            fin fin fin fin fin fin
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                                        fin fin fin fin
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                                                    fin fin
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Paris Quatre
DIRTY WORD: SUCCESS
One reason for this time away is to reflect on and demystify my personal definition of success. Somehow, my understanding of success has been overburdened by certain personal, familial and social expectations: to be at the forefront of my field, to earn “lots” of money, to take care of my family, to give back to the community, to be an engaged, informed citizen, to be selfless and self actualizing, to blaze a path for all my communities, to be “happy,” to inspire.
I hope that this process allows me to distill these expectations and to better articulate a personally fulfilling and sustainable vision of success. I start with this litany.
Artistic Integrity
-Unity, Balance, Contrast, Proportion, Variety, Rhythm-Holding myself to a RIGOROUS AESTHETIC process that centers on an intellectual and emotional consideration of COMPOSITION (line, form, depth, color and text), HISTORY (a focused research of past and present objects, soundscapes, gestures, rituals, histories, laws, etc.), and SPACE (a unique environment where the compositions and histories intermingle across time and media)
-Asking CRITICAL QUESTIONS of myself, collaborators and audiences about state, culture or identity
-Inspiring DIALOGUE by acknowledging and implicating the audience
-Imparting SKILLS and ACTION by offering the audience space to create or respond
Financial Stability
-Pursuing and choosing projects that provide the FINANCIAL FREEDOM to pay my bills, afford rest/rejuvination, invest in relationships and accrue emergency savings of at least 10 percent of my income, annually-Contributing an additional 10 percent of my income to a LOW-RISK RETIREMENT SAVINGS, annually
Disciplined Rest, Rejuvenation and Reflection
-Scheduling, planning and saving for substantial BREAKS BETWEEN PROJECTS-Going on at least two NON-WORK TRIPS every year
-Committing to weekly time for WRITING, SILENCE, SOLITUDE, and THERAPY
Enduring, Intimate Relationships
-Preparing and sharing MEALS-Being FORTHCOMING with my fears, anticipations and reflections
-Planning and following through with INDIVIDUAL dates with friends and family. These dates should not be for work related events – but should occur in spaces or involve activities that inspire us to be fearless, trustworthy and supportive of one another
He’s Baaaaack
Yo yo yo – so, the last several months have been challenging and exciting and empowering. Bill T. Jones has been pushing me and the company of FELA! to make the best possible work we could ever achieve. He’s phenomenal and has lead us toward great art making. I’m sincerely thankful. And I hope many folks get to see FELA! on broadway.
10 weeks of rehearsals (5 
of which coincided with previews – rehearsals during the day, shows at night) have left me with such intimate relationships with the entire company and with Fela’s world and music. The room of artists that Bill and our producer Steve brought together was in constant creative motion – making and remaking and cutting and adding and pushing and sharing and thinking and throwing down. Whew – if every process could be this wrought with commitment, I’d never hunger.
Anywho – a post a little less diary like and a little less gushy to come – but needed to get this one out.
Love and selah!
Niegel
FELA!
August 2008 – March 2012 (37 Arts – NYC; Broadway – NYC; National Theatre – London; Ecko – Lagos; & US/World Tour)
Associate Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by Bill T. Jones, Written by Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis
His story inspired a nation. His music inspired the world. FELA!, is the true story of the legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, whose soulful Afrobeat rhythms ignited a generation. Inspired by his mother, a civil rights champion, he defied a corrupt and oppressive military government and devoted his life and music to the struggle for freedom and human dignity. FELA! is a triumphant tale of courage, passion and love, featuring Fela Kuti’s captivating music and the visionary direction and choreography of Tony-Award winner Bill T. Jones.
ETHER STEEDS
August, 2009 (Fringe NYC; New York)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Jason Williamson
Ether Steeds is a ritualistic examination of the chasms between a mother, a daughter and the sea. Set against the back drop of rural North Carolina – cheap beer, anonymous gentlemen and the ashes of the dearly departed spur Mamma and her venus-fly-trap obsessed daughter, Skeeta, toward the inevitable. WINNER – Best Ensemble, FringeNYC
WE DECLARE YOU A TERRORIST
July, 2009 (SPF; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Tim Lord
Eight hundred civilians are taken hostage during the performance of a hit Moscow musical. In the aftermath, the playwright is plagued by the story of his captor – a young woman willing to die for her cause – in an intense drama where one person’s patriotism is another’s act of terrorism.
METRO PSALM
May, 2009 (Samuel French Festival; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by J. Julian Christopher
A haunting incident onboard a NYC subway train explodes into an indictment of faith, class and personal responsibility.
so you’re one of them now
March 17th & 18th, 2009 (The Public Theater; New York, NY)
Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith as PERMISO
This performance debuted as “untitled” in the basement laundry room of the Public Theater in Manhattan. Participants were invited to join the artists in groups of two every 20 minutes. As the evening went on, the performance evolved and the ‘older’ participants taught the ‘newbies’ how to engage with the work. Fiercely physical and emotionally unbounded, “so you’re one of them now” engaged participants in the play and uncertainty when sequestered in a space with uncensored artists. The title was taken from a participant’s mouth at the end of the final performance.
Commentator
A response to: Dude, You’ve Got Problems
“ I went to a conference on bisexuality about 15 years ago. A woman there said to me, “I wish you gay men would stop putting your energy into fighting homophobia and instead put your energy into eradicating misogyny. Because the problem society has with gay men isn’t that they’re with other men – it’s that they’re men who are “acting like women.” If it were ok to be a woman in this culture, homophobia would just disappear.” I think she’s right.”
Dude, You’ve Got Problems
Hmmm…. her argument isn’t very prismatic “fighting misogyny in stead of homophobia” and her conclusion is a bit simplistic “homophobia would disappear.” But I do think that there is a very insightful observation in this quote. When we step outside of prescribed gender roles it disrupts the dominant culture. I welcome the challenge to shift. I’d argue that by emulating, celebrating and nurturing complex gender expression we will “fight” both misogyny and homophobia.
Commentator
I think the sagging pants style is remarkable and may be 
unprecedented in the history of fashion because it combines not just a static piece of clothing, the pants, but also the drama that goes along with the possibility of the pants falling. And then there’s the concomitant activity of hitching and slipping and hitching and slipping. For those of us who find young men sexy the style is compelling. It seems like a lot of work to wear your pants this way but for the viewer it is dynamic, entertaining and just really fun. Name me another clothing style that involves so much theater.
All Over My Face
hot gay artist sings about a hot gay lifestyle with inclusive gay groupies all over gay new york
hot & gay
yeah
hot gay yeah yeah yeah
Upcoming from Permiso
Dear Friends,
Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith (Permiso)
invite you to join us
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
and Wednesday, March 18, 2009
at The Public Theater
425 Lafayette St., New York, NY
Performances will begin at:
7:30pm, 8:00pm, 8:30pm & 9:00pm
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED.
To make a reservation, please visit:
http://www.brownpapertickets.
Love,
Niegel & Todd
Rest in peace Andrew Wyeth.
The artist who created one of the most stunning American paintings has moved on, passed on, let loose, newly breathed, withered, exasperated, floated away into … what? I don’t know.
It is strange.
He painted a world that was not mine – not my experience, not my private history nor the history of my forefathers, but uniquely bound up in my sense of self – my nation identity. In his detail and specificity he reminded me of the individual stories within a distinct culture which contribute to the richness/tapestry/multiplicity/layering/cocooning/budding/germinating/honeycombing/mounding/melting pot/box of chocolates/hope chests/collection plate that is our America.
Glimpsing into the struggles – the wood framed homes, obviously built by hand, the pastures plowed so knowingly/expertly, the simple coverings masquerading as clothing – offers an insight into a hearty American work ethic that I like to acknowledge as something I know intimately- though distinctly different than anyone in his paintings.
In his worlds, he revealed something common and something admirable in the human spirit.
Thankfully for us, he felt compelled to record those revelations in paintings. Paintings which will continue to inspire us – to force us to reconsider our connection to the land and our potential as reflecting beings.
A print of his painting: Christina’s World (one of my most favored possessions and a gift from my friend Akin) hangs in my room. It is a reminder, a recording, a document, a gift, a loan, a testament, a poem, a lullaby, a treasure, a friend, a contradiction, a.
His New York Times Obituary is here.
QUOTEd
NY TIMES LETTERS: Does the E-Book Have a Promising Future
“…still, I myself take pleasure in stroking the page of a book …”
Sam Goodyear
Oneonta, N.Y., Dec. 24, 2008
Dreaming
In this post, instead of my usual “dream five” – i attempt to transcribe the total experience of my dream last night. Please comment: is it clear? is it too confusing in the unabridged version? I never know what the right balance is for a blog post. I also have chosen not to change anyone’s name. It’s a dream – so everyone is innocent.
CHOOSING EDUCATION, CHOOSING COMMUNITY
a dream transcription
Inside a subway train?
Mandy, an Associate Artistic Director: You don’t want to make plays with undergrads. It was great, but they aren’t professionals. You want to achieve so much more.
I need to get out of the subway train. I need to run from underground. I need to emerge into the light and the fresh air.
***location shift***
A meeting: Bill T. Jones, Jim Lewis, some Producers/Donors, AJ, is this for FELA or a new project? I’m feeling stifled. I feel like crying. I need to work in education. I run outside.
Cast member: (with glee) Tears!
I know they (some cast members) are talking about me. I run around the corner and finish crying. When I’m done, I go back to the meeting which is in an underground restaurant – at a round table covered with a very fine white cotton tablecloth.
Bill: (implying I’m late) Nice of you to join us.
Me: I was stuffy and needed to blow my nose. (why couldn’t I have asked someone here for a napkin)
Jim: (Hands me a bowl of soup.)
***location shift***
Super Mario Galaxy: I open a “new world,” but in order to play it I have to loose all 22 lives I already have. I decide to go into a “previous world,” but I’m ceaselessly chased in that “previous world.” The characters chase me into the real world. Why didn’t I decide to just open the “new world?” The “new world” was vivid yellows and purples and greens and reds – very very vivid – why didn’t I choose it instead?). Who cares if I would have lost all my lives except for one, I wouldn’t have been pursued by the characters in the world I decided to open up.
***location shift***
A sculpture/dance hall: presenting work.
***location shift***
A stage: in an auditorium. The auditorium was in a building, on a small lane (like European towns) cobblestone, skinny buildings crammed together. But I knew it to be Greenpoint, the neighborhood I live in – in real life. I was directing a community production of a play (Streetcar Named Desire? No, a new play much like it). It starred people from my community – people I knew really well, people I wanted to succeed. But one of the actors was out (sick?), and I had to play her roll. My scene partner missed his cue, but Hilton Als – who had become a fan of the show – was in the audience and yelled out his cue. It changed the whole feeling of the last part of the show. I was struggling to read my lines, which I couldn’t see and were hidden from audience view. I fell to the ground but kept it in character. I played the rest of the scene in partial view of the audience. It was terrifying.
***location shift***
After the end of the show I went next door to a new restaurant. It was opened by Liza (who just permanently closed Queen’s Hideaway in Greenpoint). At the her new restaurant, they were serving hot mexican soups. The chef (a very old mexican man who knew english better than I did) and the waiter (a very young mexican immigrant) nurtured me and spoke to me and told me about their sister restaurant next door (which Liza also owned) that served only hot soups! After finishing my soup I decided to go next door.
***location shift***
The cold soup restaurant: was below ground. They had dug out a little patio – making an open air, basement level piazza, complete with a large fountain in front of the main door. Behind the main door was a little foyer with yet another door that dazzled with white and silver etching and framing. I went inside and the staff was still preparing. They were going to open the cold soup restaurant the next day – because cold soup (I surmised) took longer to marinate thank hot soup. Liza was nowhere to be found, but I walked in the kitchen anyway. I saw the beautiful radishes, partially grated for their zest, lemons grated for zest, someone chopping bunches of long stemmed onions. Brilliant colors: purple, yellow, greens, whites. It was almost as though my eyes could take close up shots of all the foods.
Niegel: (to myself) they must all be organic
Sous Chef 1: What are you doing here?
Niegel: I’m a friend of Liza’s.
Sous Chef 2 (a black lady with a tattoo (of a star?) on her right cheek): You’re not supposed to be here yet. We open tomorrow.
Niegel: I know, but I wanted to see what you were up to. Did you work at Liza’s old restaurant?
Sous Chef 2: I don’t remember. I may have. I don’t remember.
Sous Chef 1: You should really leave now.
As I leave, I can sense that the head chef can see me as I’m leaving. He checks to make sure I don’t steal the keys from the door.
***location shift***
Back at the theater: My scene partner from earlier is checking on the giant muffins. We are in the cafe of the theater – where they serve giant muffins. I attempt to apologize for my performance (wow it’s hard being an actor). He seems to hear me but doesn’t acknowledge my apology. He is proud to have just gotten to work with me. His friends have gotten him a gift. It is a peach pie – brilliant brown – and they are pouring a fresh orange juice around the outside of the pie. (they’ve prepared a moat of sorts between the center of the pie and the crust.) He is loved. I hug him. He thanks me.
Niegel: I hope I get to work with you again. I never even imagined that you were an actor.
Friend: I did it once in high school. Thank you for this opportunity. It was wonderful. Please think of me next time you direct a community play.
Niegel: (truly moved – almost to tears)
Niegel: (to myself) Will I think of him? Will I direct another community play?
Still at the theater: Because I acted in the show, I’m now on the email list for the actors. I don’t just get new emails though: my iphone downloads all the previous emails too and in them I see my friend’s questions about the show, about the profession and his praise for my leadership. After reading three messages, I notice that he is a bit embarrassed. So I promise not to read anymore. I feel a stronger connection to him than I’ve felt to anyone in a long time. We hug again.
I remember that I need to wake up and try to look past the edges of the dream.
I wake up.
TALES OF THE LOST FORMICANS
November, 2008 (Fordham University; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written By Constance Congdon
Formicans are a wealth of knowledge. They have become quite adept at the annals of wisdom, and luckily their species has severe long-term memory deficiencies, so recording was easy. Visiting aliens do their best to interpret the absurd actions of a complex family unit living in a strange land – the suburbs of the United States.
COULDN’T SAY IT BETTER…
…a new addition to my blog.
“[the] target audience is the 10 percent of voters who told this week’s New York Times/CBS News poll that they did not feel as if they had received enough information to make an informed decision on the presidential race. I believe we have met them before. They are the men and women who get up at a town hall meeting after the candidate had just made a 20-minute opening speech about his/her plans for health care reform, and say: “What I want to know is, what are you going to do about medical costs?” My theory is that whenever they hear someone start to discuss the issues, they cover their ears and make humming noises, the way my husband does when I say it is time to take a look at our 401(k)s.”
Gail Collins, The NY Times
Full article here.
DREAM five
- Pronunciation: drēm fīv
- Function: noun
- Usage: often attributive
1: an exercise I use to recall and record the five most memorable sensations from my night’s dream — compare rem sleep
—————————————————————————
1. There was a beautiful young man with dark hair who spoke French. We sat on a Terraced lawn overlooking the main avenue and the coast. I asked him what would be an appropriate gift for my hosts; he offered me several of the finest teas.
2. I did not recall the name of Todd’s friend who lives with Danya. This seemed to upset her somewhat. It upset me most.
3. Two families with young children arrived at the house. They were just stopping by to take showers. This made me feel uncomfortable and cramped.
4. Something about a church and an election.
5. I was accused of leaking potentially destructive evidence about Barack Obama’s character to The Economist.
PROSAIC
THERE IS NO THERE, THERE.
-Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography
By describing the failed attempt to locate her childhood home in Oakland California, Gertrude Stein asks us to reconsider the intangible visions we often hold onto with fervor.
The obliqueness of the grammar allows ‘THERE’, the vision, to be something real or imagined in the past, present or future – removing its temporal qualities or the specificity of her search and forcing a more universal and inclusive reading.
In four words – she illuminates the space, distance, between the perceived and the hoped for and forces the question, “if THERE does not exist in its envisioned form, does it substantially frame our experience of HERE, and when we go in search of the THERE, are we denying the possibilities of HERE?”
Words to knit by.
WE LOVE
TO HATE
THE CURSE
OF LOVE
-Graffiti Artist, East Village NYC
Culture and Clarity
I don’t know the history of newspapers printing non-prose articles, in any section other than the “Arts” section, but I was extremely thrilled to see a pictorial article by one of my favorite artists in the Opinions section of the New York Times today.
a visual artist working in silhouette forms using paper, transparencies, light, and film (to name a few of her mediums) has manipulated reconstruction iconography to question the ways we view race and class in America.
And, in this thrilling article AUTUMN she again surprises me and forces me to make new insights – linking the circular experience of time (through the seasons) to give insight into the repetitive gestures of language and figures and colors that we often use to manipulate the opportunities and self-image of “conquered folks.”
Lately, I’ve had to confront my own assumptions about race. I grew up in Norwood, a small North Carolina town, where my culture (ultimately wrapped up in my race) was often mocked by white class mates. I remember in fourth grade we were studying North Carolina history and watching documentaries about our state. When we watched a video about religious practices, several white students decided that the cadence of black preachers and call & response of black parishioners was laughable. I had to endure weeks of heckling and indecent mimicry.
Having had to grow up in such an environment, I don’t usually anticipate non-blacks to embrace black culture – in fact for much of my late teens and early twenties I tried to deny black culture. So, when I see non-blacks wearing Obama paraphernalia and displaying signs, I greet it with an unhealthy amount of skepticism and unease. “Are you really supporting a ‘black’ man – or is this some part of your personal performance of liberalism?”
For me: there is more maturing to happen, more healing to happen. I look forward to having accumulated enough positive interactions and reflections to overcome the biases of my youth.
Language Responsibly
I have been terrified lately. The thought of being vulnerable – of sharing in a public space, like this blog, has made me second guess my work. I’m excited to be venturing back into this medium.
I was reading this afternoon about fear and darkness. Why is it that when in a space where our eyes have not quite adjusted, we start to use our other senses: smelling, touch, hearing to create (fill in the blanks) of the world around us. Why is it usually that, that world around us is populated with potential pitfalls? Why not potential opportunities?
I suppose as a great poet once reminded us:
We die.
That may be
the meaning of life.
yet she goes on, in the same poem, to remind us how we shape our existence:
But we do language.
That may be
the measure of our lives.
Tonight is the first of our US presidential debates. Let’s hope that both of the candidates chose their words well: words that will lead to actions which reflect the American people, words that will celebrate our civic responsibilities and words that will provide for our general welfare.
BREVITY
THE FURIES (featuring Barbara Stanwyck)
As you sow, so shall you reap. The families of America’s turn-of-the-century west struggle to define their identity through their connection to the land. Wealth and community mimic feudal world views, and the most obvious adversary is best equipped to end your means. An exceptionally convincing, aware and captivating portrayal of western womanhood.
The absurdity of life is that we even attempt to overcome the limits of our experience and weaknesses. Yet, it is through our desire to overcome the sum of our parts and through our commitment to love and fidelity that we celebrate the potential of the human spirit.
PAUL MCCARTHY: Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement Three Installations, Two Films
The span of time, when refracted, reveals a series of compelling “moment images.” The differences between those “moment images,” in time, distance and sound, can be mined for the surprising theatricality inherent in our attempt to move from point a to point c.
For Cory: Our Song
Latest edition to my blog– shout outs to my boo, man, boyfriend, main squeeze, Cory Hloska. Thanks for quenching my sweet tooth baby.
If you see Cory and I walking down the street, feel free to yell out the chorus to this song. We’ll gladly join you in the refrain.
Pilfered Content
Today is my day off from rehearsal. I’m associate directing the new musical FELA!, which is co-conceived, co-written, directed and choreographed by the imitable Bill T. Jones – a hero of mine, but I’ll write more on that another day.
So, I’m going to take this day off and leave you with an interview of Bill by the Wall Street Journal.
An African Giant’s Last Dance
By CAROL HYMOWITZ
July 18, 2008; Page W7C
Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Nigerian Afro-beat musician and political activist who died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1997, was hugely popular throughout Africa in his lifetime and still has a devoted following today. In the U.S., however, he isn’t as well known as Bob Marley and other black global musicians. Choreographer Bill T. Jones, who runs his own modern-dance troupe and won a Tony last year for his choreography of the Broadway hit “Spring Awakening,” aims to change that. He’s directing — for the first time — and choreographing “Fela!,” a musical that will include live performances of Fela’s music, a fusion of jazz, funk and traditional African styles. Off-Broadway preview performances start on July 29. We talked with Mr. Jones recently about pidgin English, African dictatorships and directing.
WSJ: What do you want people who aren’t familiar with Fela to experience at the show?
Bill T. Jones: First, it should be an evening of good theater. Even though he was so concerned with issues of oppression and empowerment, Fela’s music on the surface is very entertaining. It’s “let’s get down and dance” music. When I listen to Fela, my hips begin moving; my body hears the music first.
Concrete Womb
Came across a Brooke Hodge’s blog post about the John Lautner exhibit at LA’s Hammer Museum, and it almost made me float out of my chair.
I’m always engaged by Modern architectural design that also envelops humanism. There’s something beautifully serene and inspiring about clean lines, uniformity and post-war building materials used to make spaces that reflect our communal experience and possible world views.
I know, I know – a bit of an academic rant, but it comforts me. I hope you find some comfort in it as well.
Subject: Punished for being HIV-Positive?
Dear Friend,
Can you imagine not being allowed to travel to another country or apply to become a legal resident because of a medical condition?
Under current U.S. law, our government is telling countless individuals living with HIV that they are banned from the United States. The discriminatory HIV Travel Ban prevents HIV positive individuals from entering the country or obtaining legal U.S. citizenship.
Right now a repeal to the ban is in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) legislation – which, if passed, would abolish the ban and finally put an end to this unjust policy. But just as Congress is preparing to vote on PEPFAR legislation, anti-gay members of Congress are pushing to remove this critical provision so that the inhumane HIV Travel Ban remains a U.S. law.
Congress has a chance this year to finally abolish the travel ban and end this discriminatory policy! Please join me in asking them to stand up to anti-gay Senators who are trying to keep this unjust U.S. policy on the books. Just click below – it only takes a minute.
http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/hivtravelban?rk=VpdiYRYqOJjOW
ZOOM ZOOMS
…or THE SECRET LIFE OF TUK TUKS
I just can’t get enough of these single occupancy buggies.
It started with a chance spotting while waiting at the Austin airport, and now I have to take a photo every time I see them.
There’s just something about the scale of mobility and the implied reference: one motor vehicle to one person.
Engaging and disturbing.
QUOTEd BREVITY
“brevity” and “quoted” all in the same post? Hopefully my blog won’t implode.
If you over-consume food, you’ll be overweight, but if you over-consume Disney musicals, you’ll fall in love.
and
RollsRoyceRevenge commenting on Gawker’s Wall-E article:
“If anything, the problem with the film was that the human characters were too nice. One little weed in a shoe and they were ready to ditch their luxury mall in the sky and go back to hoeing black-eyed peas? Fuck that–there should have been a cabal fighting for the right to hover in the pretty purple nebula forever. Perhaps they should have named the nebula the Grimace Nebula, you know, in honor of the shakes.Best thing about this movie was Sigourney Weaver as the ship’s computer. Gee, Ellen Ripley, talk about turning into your M.O.T.H.E.R.”
Rosie O’Donnell Post for the Summer
yet another new addition to my blog:
stylistic improvisations on the blogging art of Rosie O’Donnell
of that
rambunctious
youngun
Hamburgers
lattes
or
shakes – overmilked
kisses melting on ice
another day in paradise
this is how internet rumors are started
todd caught me in an “indecent pose” during one of our video skype conversations the other day (if you want to chat with me on skype, my handle is niegelsmith).
believe it or not, we were discussing our grant proposal for Creative Capital.
if you work for Creative Capital… please give us some money. we like to make art stuff, and we’re so passionate about it, we take our shirts off.
some images don’t need descriptions
p.s. I love when artists appropriate popular iconography and give it an urgent new perspective
impossible is nothing
maybe if we both imagine hugging one another at the same moment… there will be a rip in the fabric of space and time… and we’ll actually embrace for an instant.
ok…
let’s try….
1, 2, 3…
confusion break bone
“Sufferhead must go. Jeffahead must come.”
– Fela Kuti
In rehearsal, our associate choreographer is most often the spiritual center for the company, and, as associate director, I most often keep a passionate distance – questioning and considering the choices we make.
This afternoon, with the associate choreographer gone, I became acutely aware of how distanced I had become in my relationship to the creative team. I found myself in a unique position to be a generating artist, critical outside eye and engaged nurturing force.
I hope to make room for more of this spiritual vulnerability as rehearsals continue.
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
The goal is to live in a world where one doesn’t have to compromise her spirit.
But, if one never compromises her spirit, is there ever any consideration for others? Is there every any struggle and subsequent reflection?
So, maybe the goal is to live in a world where we are constantly aware that we are pursuing our desires within a community, with an honest and acute respect for other’s pursuits.
this was the only place I knew to go
April 2008 (Brooklyn, NY)
Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith as PERMISO
“this was the only place I knew to go” was performed inside the bathrooms of Galapagos, a music/art venue in Brooklyn. We enlisted non-actors to expose their most intimate secrets with an unassuming public and to start a dialogue from within the stalls.
Associate Director: Andrea Williams
Performers: Jarah Moesch, David Shaenfield, Shannan Shaughnessy, Andrea Williams
CONVERSATIONS IN TUSCULUM
February – March 2008 (The Public Theater; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith, Written & Directed by Richard Nelson
Conversations in Tusculum reimagines the intense interaction among Brutus (Aidan Quinn), Cassius (David Strathairn), and Cicero (Brian Dennehy) leading up to the assassination of Julius Caesar, the leader they had once followed into battle but whom they have come to despise. Passionate in their beliefs but torn by their sense of loyalty, they struggle to continue believing in him despite their fear that his actions may pose great dangers to the nation.
DONT CALL ME! Text me baby.
The story has finally broken in a major US pub…
I really am surprised that it’s taken this long for a major study to find evidence that prolonged exposure of your brain to lithium ion and little polarized chips might mutate your cells.
Anywho, text me baby – I’ll keep my device at arms length.
Study: Cell Phones Could Be More Dangerous Than Cigarettes
Monday, March 31, 2008
A study by an award-winning cancer expert shows that cell phone use could kill more people than smoking, it is reported. According to the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, the study, headed by Dr. Vini Khurana, shows that there is a growing body of evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Khurana — one of the world’s top neurosurgeons — based his assessment on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide. That is three times higher than people who smoke. Smoking kills some five million globally each year. He warned that people should avoid using handsets whenever possible and called on the phone industry to make them safer. France and Germany have already warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children, it is reported. The study is said to be the most damning indictment of cell phone use. According to the Independent, cancers take at least 10 years to develop, which has influenced earlier cancer studies showing relative safety when using cell phones. Click here to read the full report in the U.K.’s Independent Newspaper.
WHAT I DID FOR MY WINTER VACATION
todd is my friend.
sometimes we go places, like el tigre,
and we swim there in the fresh water,
and we cover ourselves in mud.
todd introduces me to his friends like Martin Churba.
Martin Churba likes to make pretty clothes for people.
He is a “maestro de textiles.” He put me in a fashion show.
i like todd’s friends.
sometimes i like to be by myself.
i get to think about things and to observe nature in its natural surroundings,
like when i went for a canoe adventure.
some people might say that todd is a jew.
some people might say that i am a darkie.
i like to think of us as a couple of fruits.
the end.
The Train
i gave up my seat on the train – to an older woman. she thanked me.
i dismissed her greeting, nonchalant.
i melted – having missed an opportunity to accept and truly receive her thanks.
i noticed my body. my jacket. my shirt. my hair.
The train pulled into the station.
i lost my balance and almost fell.
RETURN of the JEDI
APOLOGIES & EXCUSES
Almost two months have gone by… in a rehearsal room, in tech, in previews for a stunning new show Conversations In Tusculum and in a week-long workshop for the new musical FELA!.
I now return to my regularly scheduled blogging….
Hamlet: What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!
the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—
and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Rosencrantz:
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 303–312
The photo above is research for a new performance Todd and I have conceived, Weigh In. We plan to transform a defunct reading room in New York’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library into a boxing arena where visitors can join performers in a mixed-media battle between accurate and inaccurate information.
DANCE, DANCE, REVOLUTION
this is a song from Todd Shalom’s latest mix, Telenovela. enjoy.
TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF WHEN YOU DANCE – Frank Zappa
i went dancing this morning in therapy.
dropping it like it’s hot with the brooklyn girls, hitting arrhythmic markings with the williamsburgers, jitterbugging back in north carolina, ugly-dancing with kim and kaje, booty shaking at the now defunct roxy…
everyone is invited to my party. no more judgments.
BREVITY
Tonight, I’m starting a new addition to my blog: one-sentence responses to film, art, performance, etc. I’m thinking of it as a way to track initial thoughts, interactions or tangential associations. If you want to chime in, leave a one-sentence comment.
A compelling melodrama that delves into the passions and fears which manipulate our point-of-view.
Missing the mark a few times can often lead to hitting the mark eventually.
A brilliant indictment of the corporate impulse and manifest destiny, embodied by individual motivation and fulfillment.
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS AFTERNOON
- Furniture made from scrap materials.
- My double button collar.
- My tall vanilla latte.
- A downpour, followed by clear skies.
- Post-Structuralism: A Very Short Introduction by: Catherine Belsey.
ACTION/REACTION
Notes on a performance.
- Prepare 415 personal secrets, desires or fears that I have shared with fewer than five people.
- Call each of the 415 contacts in my cell phone.
- With permission, record the conversation.
- Using a statistics randomizer, reveal one of the personal secrets, desires or fears to the person on the other end of “the line.” (Even though we aren’t connected by telephone lines anymore.)
- On my website, post a .pdf document of the 415 secrets, desires and fears, and post audio recordings of the conversations (erasing my voice from each conversation, leaving only the responses from the person called).
A GOOD FRIEND IS HARD TO FIND
                                        textiles & todd – 2007
REFLECTION
Self Indulgent Post for the New Year
On 12/31/07 Todd and I performed in Buenos Aires.
We shared with one another names, events and places that filled us with hope and anxiety in the past year and that we hope to carry with us into the new year. We wrote many of these reflections down on sheets of paper and burned them together.
In this action, which I consider to be a public acknowledgment of fear and courage, I felt vulnerable and empowered. Like the reminders of Ash Wednesday and meatless Friday night dinners during Lent, this performance gives me a sense of purpose and clarity that I reflect on every day.
December 31
December 31, 2007 (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Niegel Smith in collaboration with Todd Shalom as PERMISO
Outside Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith scratched personal reflections and offerings from the previous year on sheets of paper, read those thoughts aloud, burned the papers and walked away.
ARRIVING in ARGENTINA
Argentina is beautiful. My driver he swerves between lanes, with no caution for the dotted white lines. He points out the futbol fields and the houses of worship with the glee of a school-boy.
It is 8 am and the sun is already dominating. The highway, the airport is flanked by a savannah dotted with a myriad of trees. South America. In minutes the trees are replaced with crude apartments. On the façade of these buildings I can 
see the handiwork of their creators, hundreds of men who have smeared plaster over concrete. La ciudad. I recognize from my guidebook, the Korean and Jewish neighborhood, my driver points out another church and we zip off the expressway, crossing two lanes at once onto the off ramp an into a city surprisingly awake and about for a Christmas morning.
Men grab their crotches and lean against bus stops to take the place of their spines. Women walk with ferocious vigor and purpose. I am at Todd’s.
“Gracias.”
“De Nada.”
My driver zooms off. I never caught his name.
I am now settled into Todd’s place – we each have a station to work at, at the table by the window, computers mirroring one another. I love the sharing and the autonomy of the moments.
We venture outside, Todd sharing with me his adopted home. Quickly, in the comfort of a massive foreign space — surrounded by another language and protected by a canopy of trees that line every avenue — we begin to return to our familiar proximity, living in and articulating our fears and dreams and the unique anxiety that surrounds us both. I am with Todd. I am at home.
QUOTEd
utterings with which I agree…
“I’ve always said I want the library to be a crossroads in the city’s intellectual and cultural life,” Mr. LeClerc said.
Full story on the Humanities and Social Sciences Library’s crumbling facade here.
1907
copyright 2007, New York Times
2006
SATURDAYS ARE…
You make it, I take it.
1. Nostalgic TV theme song meets poignant contemporary sensibilities…
2. Underage coed is taught to talk like a sailor in order to save famous dad’s career…
*Most prized pilfered content of the year.
on INSTITUTIONAL HOLIDAY PARTIES
                          unweildy public gatherings make me queezy
wrap me up
                          in old friends
                          or
                          a cup of hot tea
FAMILIA
          my baby brother is here.
          We watch movies
          and eat;
                              I enjoy taking him for granted.
mmmm…TASTY
This is my favorite recipe for a Saturday morning breakfast.
The key to fluffy pancakes is not to over mix the batter; it should not be beaten smooth. If serving these pancakes with bacon, reserve half a teaspoon of bacon drippings to grease the griddle instead of butter.
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, unbleached
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 3 cups buttermilk
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus 1/2 teaspoon for griddle, plus 1 tablespoon for serving
- 1 cup seasonal berries
- Maple Syrup to taste
COLLABORATIONS
Pablo Neruda
Fleas interest me so much
that I let them bite me for hours.
They are perfect, ancient, Sanskrit,
machines that admit of no appeal.
They do not bite to eat,
they bite only to jump;
they are the dancers of the celestial sphere,
delicate acrobats
in the softest and most profound circus;
let them gallop on my skin,
divulge their emotions,
amuse themselves with my blood,
but someone should introduce them to me.
I want to know them closely,
I want to know what to rely on.
SLEEP
Kj Swanson
Trying to sleep; What
happened to those nice things I
used to think about?
SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND
Karen Dalton’s In My Own Time
Yesterday any way you made it was just fine,
So you turned your days into night-time,
Didn’t you know, you can’t make it without ever even trying?
And something’s on your mind, isn’t it
Let these times show you that you’re breaking up your mind
Leaving all your dreams too far behind,
Didn’t you see, you can’t make it without ever even trying?
And something’s on your mind.
Maybe another day you’ll want to feel another way, you can’t stop crying,
You haven’t got a thing to say, you feel you want to run away
There’s no use trying, anyway.
I’ve seen the writing on the wall,
Who cannot maintain will always fall,
Well, you know, you can’t make it without ever even trying.
And something’s on your mind, isn’t it
Tell the truth now, isn’t it
And something’s on your mind, isn’t it
THANK YOU ANDREW WYETH
I am terribly afraid of intimacy and using language to explore my experiences.
Alas.
Focused reflection,
on a personal level,
is not a strength of mine.
In fact,
I often shrug opportunities
to discuss the events and moments
of my life.
Present readers,
Kj and Todd, excluded.
When I share with you, I feel stronger, more focused and loved. When I struggle to share with others or myself, I often feel inadequate, meandering, fool-hearted. This may be the greatest barrier or obstacle between me and creating new communities and truly investing in my current ones.
Maybe there is something unique in my relationship to Todd and Kj that I need to uncover in myself and the other folks around me.
DOCUMENTATION
I finally got it together enough to start documenting my theater work.
in this post: A few photos from my production of TOPDOG/UNDERDOG at Dartmouth College.
The title page of the play, written by Suzan-Lori Parks, reads:
The Players
Lincoln, the topdog
Booth (aka 3-card), the underdog
PUSHING FORWARD
Write everyday.
Observe. A photo. A sketch. A clipping.
Write down where you’ve come from. Write down where you went, which will, in a few moments, be where you’ve come from.Read. A passage. A script. A poem.
Write down what you’ve read. Write down what you are reading, because in a few moments, it will be what you’ve read.
On Directing: craft frees the artistic impulses.
Learn to shape moments. Have a gameplan based on ‘succesful’ forms/formulas.Be eager to use and know the language of adaptation.
FRAME the action. This is your lens, your point-of-view. This says to the audience, “here we go. This is how we’re going about this journey. Everything hencforth will be in reference to ‘this’.”
TOPDOG/UNDERDOG
October, 2007 (Dartmouth College; Hanover, NH)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Suzan-Lori Parks
In Suzan-Lori Park’s magnificently etched theatrical landscape, two African-American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, attempt to cheat fate as they navigate women, work, poverty, gambling, racism and their troubled upbringings.
MAUD – The Madness
May – June, 2007 (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Consumed by grief due to his father’s untimely death, the protagonist of Tennyson’s “little Hamlet” rages at a world of injustice and hypocrisy. When Maud, his beautiful childhood friend, resurfaces and gleams with the possibility for reconciliation and renewal, she becomes the one bright thing that may save him from the violent extremes of emotional triumph and despair. The New York premiere of the drama Tennyson’s contemporaries described as ” prose run mad.”
Processional (2007)
May 2007 (Union Square, New York)
Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith as PERMISO
For Processional (2007), we led a silent walk in concentric circles around Manhattan’s Union Square in memory of those killed in the Virginia Tech shooting and the Iraq War. For 40 minutes, we spoke solely with the mass movement of our bodies and interrupted the public space to offer a moment of reflection and community through shared experience.
Participants: Jamyl Dobson, Kim Hamlin, Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith.
Fallout
September 11, 2006 (New York, NY)
Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith as PERMISO
On September 11, 2006, there was an official ceremony in downtown Manhattan to remember those affected by the attack on the World Trade Center. Four blocks away (at the tip of Bowling Green Park) unheard voices emerged in a performace at Arturo DiMoica’s “Charging Bull” sculpture. “Fallout” used the live radio broadcast of the official ceremony as its score.
Performers: Christian Croft, Sarah Edgar, Natalia Ivanova, Tiffany Jewel, Jared Ray, Todd Shalom, Niegel Smith and Jonathan Tindle
RAINY DAYS & MONDAYS
August – September, 2006 (Fringe NYC & Fringe Encores; New York, NY)
Directed by Niegel Smith, Written by Andrew Barrett
Music throbs. Drugs flow. Sex unites. It’s the 90’s. And the enticing world of the Circuit Party beckons. A comedic and unapologetic look into an exclusive world that inevitably comes crashing to an end by Monday morning.
A SOLDIER’S PLAY
Ocotober – November, 2005 (Second Stage Theatre; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by Jo Bonney, Written by Charles Fuller
It’s 1944 and the mysterious murder of a black Sergeant set’s off an exploration of the complicated anger and resentment that some African Americans have toward one another, and the ways in which many have absorbed white racist attitudes.
LIMBS: A PAGEANT
July 2005 (Here Arts Center; New York, NY)
Conceived and Directed By Niegel Smith
Written by Nathan Christiansen, HIllary Miller, Zachary Price, Alva Rogers & Jordan Seavey
Five amputated soldier’s from WWI to the Korean War to Shock and Awe arrive in the living room of American Family. Ushered through early morning news shows, fast food lines, a makeover by a queer-eyed-guy and ultimately landing in front of a television at the local Veteren’s Hospital – each of these forgotten heroes yells, whispers and sings to share their buried voice.
THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE
January – March, 2005 (Second Stage Theatre; New York, NY)
Assistant Directors: Niegel Smith & Darren Katz
Directed by James Lapine, Written by William Finn & Rachel Sheinkin
Six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser. This hilarious tale of overachievers’ angst chronicles the experience of six adolescent outsiders vying for the spelling championship of a lifetime.
DISPOSABLE MEN
February – March, 2005 (Here Arts Center; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by Kristen Marting, Written & Performed by James Scruggs
King Kong, African American men, and Frankenstein collide in humor-laced tales about theme restaurants featuring mutilation with dessert, and party motivators with major minstrel twists. Disposable Men is a richly interactive live multimedia performance. It explores the uncanny relationship that African American men and classic Hollywood monsters share . . . the unfounded fear of, and the imaginative ways that they are killed.
CAROLINE, OR CHANGE
Sept 2003 – Aug 2004 (The Public Theater & Broadway; New York, NY)
Assistant Director: Niegel Smith
Directed by George C. Wolfe, Written by Tony Kushner
In 1963 Louisiana, against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, Kennedy’s assassination and the Vietnam war, the friendship between Caroline Thibodeaux, a divorced African American maid and Noah Gellman, the eight-year-old son of the Jewish family for whom she works, suffers from uncontrollable shifts. The acceptance of change – from taking money from a child to coping with memories of the past – does not come easily and threatens to crush Caroline’s relationships and spirit. It’s finally through her independent teenage daughter’s vision and strength that Caroline realizes that change can, in fact, set her free.
FUNNYHOUSE
April 2003 (Non-Stop-Flight; Providence, RI)
Produced & Directed by: Niegel Smith
A deconstructed romp, splicing and dicing the original text of Adriane Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro with a maddening Africani score mixed live by Providence’s DJ Mikey! An easily forgettable, but none-the-less captivating 20-minute performance in loop. Proof that I needed to crawl before I could walk.
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