The Gospel at Colonus

“No more time left to make beautiful things…” Lee 2/6/37- 1/3/21. Beloved & missed.
One of contemporary theatre’s most singular creative minds, Lee Breuer created wildly inventive work around the world both independently and with Mabou Mines, the company he co-founded in 1970. Breuer blended disciplines and techniques from widely different cultures, creating unique performance genres. His writing expands the concept of character and the use of biography in performance in works such as: Hajj, The Shaggy Dog Animation, A Prelude to Death in Venice, An Epidog, Red Beads and Porco Morto. Publications include: “La Divina Caricatura: Bunraku meets Motown”, “Sister Susie Cinema: Collected Performance Poems”, “The Fifth Voyage”, and “Getting Off: Lee Breuer on Performance”. Breuer’s celebrated stagings of radically adapted classics include: The Gospel at Colonus, Mabou Mines DollHouse, The Lost Ones, Peter and Wendy, Mabou Mines Lear, and Un tramway nommé désir (La Comédie-Française, Paris); his films include: The Book of Clarence, and Moi-même (original footage shot in Paris,1968). Breuer shone as an empowering collaborator directing 14 Obie award winning performances. His accolades include a MacArthur Fellowship and a Chevalier des Order of Arts and Literature. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library houses his archive. Lee has five children all of whom are artists.

Bob Telson is an American composer, singer/songwriter, and pianist best known for his work in musical theater and film, for which he has received Tony, Pulitzer, and Academy Award nominations. Telson grew up in Brooklyn, studying classical piano from the age of five. He studied pipe organ, counterpoint, and harmony with Nadia Boulanger and received his B.A. in music from Harvard. During the ‘70’s he played keyboards with the Philip Glass Ensemble, Tito Puente, The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Machito, among others. Telson’s collaboration with Lee Breuer began in 1979 with “Sister Suzie Cinema,” a doo-wop opera. Their major music theater works include The Gospel at Colonus, which received a 1984 Obie award for ‘Best Musical’ as well as Pulitzer, Tony, and Grammy nominations, and The Warrior Ant (BAM 1988). Telson’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, an adaptation of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, won a Tony nomination for Best Musical. Telson’s first movie score, for “Bagdad Café”, received an Oscar Nomination for the song “Calling You.” His songs have been recorded by Barbra Streisand, Natalie Cole, Jeff Buckley, George Benson, Joe Cocker, Celine Dion, Etta James, k.d. lang, Shawn Colvin, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, George Michael, and The Five Blind Boys of Alabama. His new musical, “Bantú,” created with the Uruguayan playwright Graciela Corso, was presented in Montevideo in December 2024.

Shayok Misha Chowdhury is an Obie Award-winning director and Whiting Award-winning writer, born in India, based in Brooklyn. His playwriting debut Public Obscenities (Soho Rep, NAATCO, Woolly Mammoth, TFANA) was one of three finalists for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The bilingual play, in Bangla and English, was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and named Best Theater of 2023 by the New Yorker. Misha is also the recipient of a Princess Grace Award, The Mark O’Donnell Prize, a Jonathan Larson Grant, and the Relentless Award for his musical How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia. He collaborated on the Grammy-winning album Calling All Dawns. Other favorite collaborations: Brother, Brother (New York Theatre Workshop) with Aleshea Harris; SPEECH (Philly Fringe) with Lightning Rod Special; MukhAgni (Under the Radar @ The Public Theater) with Kameron Neal. A two-time Sundance Fellow, Misha is the creator of VICHITRA, a series of sound-driven, experimental short films. Up next, Misha is collaborating with his physicist mother on a new project called Rheology (Bushwick Starr, HERE, Ma-Yi).

Bio to come.

Grangeville (Signature Theatre), Teeth (Playwrights Horizons), The Counter & The Refuge Plays (Roundabout Theatre), The Welkin (Atlantic Theater), All the Devils Are Here (DR2), The Half-God of Rainfall (NYTW), Uncle Vanya (O’Henry), On Set with Theda Bara (Exponential Festival), Obie Design Award 2023, 2018 Lilly Award Daryl Roth Prize.

Garth is a leader in high fidelity theatrical and concert sound design. His intuitive approach to sound, acoustics, mixing and amplification are at the core of his process to immersively enhance the experience of both the audience, and the performer. Garth is an expert in spatial sound, Space Map and Constellations systems in partnership with Meyer Sound.Recent Credits: ‘Illinoise’ by Sufjan Stevens/Justin Peck/Jackie Sibblies Drury; ‘Magnificent Bird/Fellow Travelers’ by Gabriel Kahane; ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Paola Prestini; ‘The Night Falls’ by Ellis Ludwig Leone; ‘Song of Songs’ by David Lang and Pam Tanowitz; ‘In Our Daughter’s Eyes’ by Du Yun; Grammy-nominated ‘Soldier Songs’, ‘Black Lodge’ and ‘Dog Days” by David T. Little; Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘p r i s m’ by Ellen Reid; ‘Aquanetta’ by Michael Gordon; Nick Cave’s ‘The Let Go’ and Peter Sellars/Regg Roc Grey’s ‘FLEXN’ at the Park Ave Armory; ‘A God of Her Own Making’ by Jojo Abot/Esperanza Spalding and ‘Spatial…no problem’ by Lee Scratch Perry/Mouse on Mars.