Castillo honors four extraordinary

women of the theatre 
 

On November 7, more than 150 theatre artists and patrons attended the 2011 Castillo Theatre Gala Benefit at the All Stars Project's performing arts and development center, 543 West 42nd Street.  The gala, which raised a record $77,000 for Castillo and its youth-theatre training program, Youth Onstage!, paid tribute to four influential women of the theatre: Carmen de Lavallade, Gabrielle L. Kurlander, Judith Malina and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Presenting the women with the awards was a team of distinguished theatre colleagues. Emily Mann, artistic director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, presented to Rubin-Vega, whom Mann is directing in A Street Car Named Desire, opening next season on Broadway. Obie Award winner George Bartenieff, co-founder of both Theatre for the New City and Theatre Three Collaborative, presented the award to Judith Malina, the co-founder and artistic director of the Living Theatre; Amadea Edwards, the executive director of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, awarded Carmen de Lavallade, whose career in dance, theatre and film spans six decades.  Gabrielle L. Kurlander, the president of the All Stars Project, Inc., who has appeared frequently on Castillo’s stage and who is a member of the theatre’s directing team, was honored by the AUDELCO Award-winning cast of her most recent Castillo production, Playing with Heiner Müller.  Desmond Richardson, co-artistic director of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, who could not attend, sent a video message to Kurlander, with whom he has collaborated on a number of Castillo productions, congratulating her and the other awardees.

All Stars visits Robert Wilson's

Watermill Center

On August 10, nineteen All Stars alumni visited internationally renowned theatre director Robert Wilson's breath-taking Watermill Center on Long Island. Robert Wilson, himself, was leading a rehearsal and later a theatre-design meeting for two upcoming projects, which our alumni sat in on. The group also visited several other rehearsals run by visiting artists in the outdoor tent rehearsal spaces that are integral to Watermill's summer arts laboratory. The day concluded with all the artists and our students having lunch together at the long outdoor dining tables.

Photo: Robert Wilson (far left) leading an open-air creative meeting with Bernice Johnson Reagon (founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock) and other staff members. (All Stars visitors can be seen around the edges.)

The Castillo Theatre and the All Stars Project have a long history with Mr. Wilson. All Stars co-founder Fred Newman, Ph.D. and Mr. Wilson sat down several years ago for a public talk about the nature of performance. Our alumni viewed some of this conversation in preparation for the visit. 

The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities completed in 2006. Founded by theatre and visual artist Robert Wilson as a place for young and emerging artists to work, learn, create, and grow with each other, Watermill integrates performing arts practice with resources from the humanities, research from the sciences and inspiration from the visual arts. Watermill is unique within the global landscape of experimental theatrical performance, and regularly convenes the brightest minds from all disciplines to do, in Wilson's words, "what no one else is doing."

Intergenerational Theatre Workshop

Celebrates Semester of Improv

The intergenerational theatre workshop of the Castillo Theatre completed a six-week semester on Saturday, April 30 with an improv performance and a conversation with Dan Friedman, Castillo's Artistic Director.  The intergenerational theatre is led by Vicky Wallace and Craig Bannister.  This semester included four young people and six seniors.

"I'm not used to spending time with people that far away from me in age.  If you do, you're used to them telling you what to do.  Here we had fun together," said 15-year-old Darian Dawkins.  "I thought we'd sit around and talk," confessed senior Vernette Steele.  "Instead, it was like going out on a play date."  After the performance and conversation, the members of the intergenerational theatre workshop shared pizza and attended that evening's performance of License to Dream together.

COMMUNITY MEETING

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