GABRIEL KAHANE
THE AMBASSADOR
WED 7:30PM // OCTOBER 22
John Tiffany, director
Christine Jones, set designer
Jane Cox, lighting designer
Joshua Higgason, video designer
Bart Fasbender, sound designer
Brett Banakis, associate set designer
Mary-Susan Gregson, production stage manager
Annie Tippe, assistant director
Mary Ellen Stebbins, associate lighting designer
Brenndan McGuire, sound engineer
Gabriel Kahane, vocals/piano/guitar/wurlitzer
Rob Moose, electric guitars
Casey Foubert, electric bass/programming
Ted Poor, drums
Alex Sopp, keyboards/vocals/flutes
Laura Lutzke, violin
Nathan Schram, viola
Gabriel Cabezas, cello
COMPANY BIOGRAPHIES
Jane Cox, lighting designer
Jane is a lighting designer based in Brooklyn. Exciting
theater projects last season included Machinal (for which
she was nominated for a Tony and a Drama Desk award);
All the Way; Dinner with Friends and Color Purple in
London. In the previous season, Jane was awarded
the Henry Hewes Design Award for her work on The
Flick at Playwrights Horizons, as well as a Drama Desk
nomination for her work on Sondheim’s Passion at CSC.
Upcoming projects include Sondheim’s Allegro; Head
Over Heels (a new musical by Jeff Whitty); Love and Sex
at Lincoln Center, ToasT with Lemon Anderson at the
Public Theater; an opera of R.U.R. at the Prague Opera,
and Hamlet in London with Benedict Cumberbatch. Opera
designs include Lucia di Lammermoor at Sydney Opera
House and Houston Grand Opera and Don Giovanni
at New York City Opera. Jane designs regularly for the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and has been a member
of the Monica Bill Barnes dance company for fifteen years.
She also teaches classes in light in artistic expression,
theater design and collaboration at Princeton University,
and has a working relationship with the Tisch Design
Department at NYU.
Bart Fasbender, sound designer
Bart Fasbender’s New York credits include Bloody Bloody
Andrew Jackson (Bernard Jacobs and The Public),
Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Storefront
Church and Port Authority (Atlantic Theater Company);
Lonely, I’m Not and Mr. and Mrs. Fitch (Second Stage
Theatre); The Good Mother, Burning and Russian
Transport (The New Group); The Long Shrift, The
Revisionist, Ascuncion and The Aliens (Rattlestick), Apple
Cove (Women’s Project); Three Changes and Drunken
City (Playwrights Horizons); Graceland (LCT3); A Body
of Water (Primary Stages). Regional: The Guthrie, The
Old Globe, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York
Stage and Film, Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire
Theatre Festival, Bay Street Theater, Center Theatre
Group (Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas Theatre),
TheatreWorks Hartford, Virginia Shakespeare, Virginia
Playwrights Theater and Two River Theater.
Mary-Susan Gregson, production stage manager
Mary-Susan Gregson has stage managed over 25
productions for The New Victory Theater beginning
with the Opening Celebration; she also opened the
THE AMBASSADOR
New 42nd season production coordinating for Lincoln
Center Festival including Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Retrospective, Peony Pavilion, the Druid, Harold Pinter,
Brian Friel, and Beckett Festivals. At BAM: Dance Africa
35th with John Malkovich, Sizwe Bansi is Dead, Tan
Dun’s The Gate, Sufjan Steven’s BQE, and currently
Gabriel Kahane’s The Ambassador. New York: 24 Hour
Play Festival, New Island Festival on Governors Island,
Divinamente Festival, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The
Prince & The Pauper, The Jazz Nativity, Breaking the
Code, and Les Liaisons Dangereuses. For NJPAC: TD
Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival, line producer for
NJ Hall of Fame. Regional: Princeton Lewis Center for
the Arts Dance Festivals, Montclair Peak Performances,
McCarter Theatre, Yale Rep, Williamstown Theater
Festival, Mass Moca, The Huntington, and the White
House. Tours: Dance Theatre of Harlem, Elisa Monte,
Jennifer Muller, Pilobolus and Forbidden Christmas
starring Baryshnikov, St. Studios and The Duke.
Joshua Higgason, video designer
Joshua Higgason’s recent designs include Radiolab’s
Apocalyptical tour (video and scenic for Workhorse
Design Co; WNYC); Platonov; Or the Disinherited
(Video and Scenic; The Kitchen, NYC and La Jolla
Playhouse); Powder Her Face (Video; New York City
Opera); Ich, KurbisGeist (Video; Big Dance Theater);
Sontag: Reborn (Scenic; The Builder’s Association);
World Of Wires (video and lighting; The Kitchen, Poland
tour, France tour, ICA-Boston); Bellona - Destroyer of
Cities (video; The Kitchen, France, ICA). Video engineering for Planetarium (BAM; Sufjan Stevens, Nico
Muhly, Bryce Dessner; designer: Deborah Johnson for
Candystations); Sufjan Stevens’ Age of Adz (Euro Tour;
Designer: Candystations). He has taught interactive
media workshops at Princeton, Duke, NYU, Bennington,
and LIU: MFA.
Christine Jones, set designer
Christine Jones is a Tony Award-winning set designer
and the artistic director of the critically acclaimed
Theatre for One, a portable private performing arts
space for one actor and one audience member. For
director John Tiffany she designed Let the Right One
In, which recently closed in London. She directed the
sensational immersive nightclub dining experience
Queen of the Night, which New York Magazine has
called the “Hottest nightlife experience in town.” Her
set design for American Idiot, A Punk Rock Musical
directed by Michael Mayer won the Tony Award for
best set design in 2009, and in 2012, Jones made
her debut at The Metropolitan Opera with her design
for Rigoletto, set in 1960s Las Vegas. Her Broadway
credits include Hands on a Hardbody; On a Clear Day;
Spring Awakening (Tony Nomination); The Green Bird
with director Julie Taymor (Drama Desk Nomination);
and Everyday Rapture starring Sherie-Renee Scott.
Jones has designed sets for Coraline, adapted from
Neil Gaiman’s popular book with music by Stephen
Merritt; The Book of Longing, based on the poems of
Leonard Cohen with music by Philip Glass (Lincoln
Center Festival); The Onion Cellar (Elliot Norton Award),
which she co-created with director Marcus Stern and The
Dresden Dolls; Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare
in the Park); Burn This starring Ed Norton, Catherine
Keener, Ty Burrell and Dallas Roberts (Signature
Theatre); and True Love, for which she created The
Zipper space, infamous for its use of car seats in the
audience. Jones has designed numerous operas, including The Elephant Man (Minnesota Opera); Lucia
de Lammermoor (New York City Opera); and Guilio
Cesare (Houston Grand Opera). Her designs were
featured in the 2008 exhibition Curtain Call: Celebrating
a Century of Women Designers for Live Performance
at Lincoln Center Library for Performing Arts. She has
lectured at Princeton University and teaches at New
York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Brenndan McGuire, sound engineer
Brenndan McGuire studied at the SOHN Institute for
Audio and Electronics and has been involved heavily
with live and studio sound production since 1988.
He recorded and produced over 100 records before
becoming physically ill from the effects of multitrack
recording in the early 2000s, and now continues to mix
for live concerts by such artists as Sufjan Stevens, Feist,
Patti Smith, Lucius, Bahamas, Sam Roberts, James
Vincent McMorrow and Gabriel Kahane, to name a
few. Brenndan lives off the grid in a refurbished 1969
Airstream trailer and is a huge proponent of nano homes,
doing design and fabrication of alternative housing,
custom furniture and vehicles.
Mary Ellen Stebbins, associate lighting designer
Mary Ellen Stebbins is a New York City-based lighting
designer. Recent work: Columbine’s Paradise Theater
(eighth blackbird - tour), The Wedding Singer (New
York Film Academy), The Traveling Imaginary (Orbiting
Human Circus - tour), The Seven (Columbia Stages),
On the Verge (NewRep). NYC credits include work
with Gotham Chamber Opera; Sightline; Atlantic Arts
Foundation; Columbia Stages; Target Margin; Waterwell;
THE AMBASSADOR
Heiress; Royal Family; and Ritual Theatre. Regional
credits include eighth blackbird; New Repertory Theatre;
Peabody Essex Museum; Bristol Valley Theater; UCSD
Dept. of Music; Princeton University; and Interrobang.
Mary Ellen is the resident lighting designer for the
Encounters Ensemble at the Peabody Essex Museum
and also for Sightline Theater. She received the 2011
USITT Barbizon Lighting Design Award and was a
2009 Hangar Theatre Lab Company Design Fellow.
She holds an MFA from Boston University and an AB
from Harvard College.
Annie Tippe, assistant director
Annie Tippe is thrilled to be working with John and
Gabriel on The Ambassador. Directing credits include
Dave Malloy’s Ghost Quartet (The Bushwick Starr);
Aaron/Marie (w. Rachel Chavkin, Under the Radar
Incoming! Series; PRELUDE Festival; Ars Nova ANT
Fest), I Heard Sex Noises (ANT Fest), Debutante
(Bernie Wohl Center; ANT Fest), A Quiet Sip of Coffee
(Summerworks Festival & Wildside Festival, Canada),
The Fall of Hotel Mudafier (SWIFT) and Dinosaur Play
(HERE Arts). She was the associate director for the
TEAM’s production of Mission Drift, Australia/Hong
Kong Tour (dir. Rachel Chavkin). Williamstown Theater
directing intern 2012, and a director for HERE Arts’
Smith & Tinker Writers Group 2013.
MUSICIANS
Gabriel Cabezas, cello
Gabriel Cabezas, “an intense player who connects to
music naturally, without artifice, and brings a singing
line to the cello” (The Oregonian), is one of America’s
most sought after young musicians. In the 2014-15
season, Cabezas tours as part of New York’s yMusic;
collaborates with the musicians of the Marlboro Festival;
tours Japan with violist Nobuko Imai; and plays with
Edgar Meyer and the San Francisco-based LINES
Ballet. Cabezas has appeared as soloist with America’s
finest orchestras, including those of Philadelphia,
Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit,
Pittsburgh, and Nashville. This season he performs
with the Amarillo Symphony, Decatur Symphony and
Grant Park Orchestra. He also appears on Chicago’s
Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts. Cabezas studied
at the Curtis Institute of Music with Carter Brey, and is
a winner of the 2014 Astral Artists National Auditions,
joining their roster of musicians this season. Cabezas
is involved with Midori’s Partners in Performance, the
Sphinx Organization and Chicago’s Citizen Musician
movement.
Casey Foubert, bass/programming
Casey Foubert is a producer, engineer, songwriter
and multi-instrumentalist currently living in Madison,
Wisconsin. In addition to his work with Gabriel Kahane
he has worked with Sufjan Stevens, Richard Swift,
David Bazan, Damien Jurado, and many others.
Laura Lutzke, violin
Laura Lutzke enjoys a musically versatile career, with a
passion for solo playing, chamber music and new ways
of making music. She has performed and taught at the
Caramoor, Bowdoin, and Birdfoot international music
festivals. She also participates regularly in the Cervo
Chamber Music festival in Italy, Saronic Chamber Music
Festival in Poros, Greece, Lake Tahoe SummerFest in
California, and Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove.
She is a current member of the critically acclaimed
American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME),
based in New York City. She has collaborated with
Gabriel Kahane, Johann Johannsson, Nico Muhly,
Stars of the Lid, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Yann
Tiersen, among others. Laura earned her bachelor of
music and master of music degrees from the Juilliard
School as a student of Lewis Kaplan, and she has
most recently completed a second master of music with
distinction with David Takeno at the Guildhall School
of Music and Drama.
Rob Moose, guitars
Rob Moose has emerged in the last decade as one of
the most sought after instrumentalists, arrangers and
producers of his generation. As violinist and guitarist,
Moose has toured with Antony & the Johnsons, Sufjan
Stevens, My Brightest Diamond, Beth Orton and Glen
Hansard. In 2011, he joined Bon Iver, writing arrangements and recording strings for the group’s sophomore
album. Highlights of that experience included sold-out
concerts at Radio City Music Hall, Wembley Arena and
the Sydney Opera House, appearances on Saturday
Night Live, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and the Colbert
Report, a gold record, and two Grammy wins, for “Best
New Artist” and “Best Alternative Album.” As violinist
and violist, Moose is an active recording artist, having
played on over 200 albums by artists ranging from
Vampire Weekend to John Legend to Joshua Bell, as
well as appearances on Grammy Award-winning albums
by Arcade Fire and Loudon Wainwright III. Equally in
THE AMBASSADOR
demand as an arranger, his work has been performed
or recorded by Alabama Shakes, The National, tUnEyArDs, Interpol, St. Vincent, The Decemberists, Trey
Anastasio, and Punch Brothers.
Ted Poor, drums
Upon graduating from the Eastman School of Music
in 2003, drummer Ted Poor moved to New York City,
where he has made a deep impression on the jazz and
improvised music scene. Modern Drummer describes
his playing as “adventurous, truly dynamic, and forwardthinking.” Jazz Review writes, “Ted has an uncanny
ability to shape the music and a refreshingly unique,
organic approach to playing the drums.” Ted has toured
the world over and is a regular member of many bands,
including those of Grammy award winning trumpeter
Cuong Vu, guitarist Ben Monder, Todd Sickafoose, and
the Respect Sextet. He leads several projects of his
own including Mt. Varnum, Triggerfish, and the Ted Poor
Quartet. As an in-demand sideman, Ted has appeared
on dozens of recordings and has shared the stage with
many world renowned artists such as Kurt Rosenwinkel,
Bill Frisell, Myra Melford, Eric Revis, Kenny Werner,
Chris Potter, Shara Worden, Ben Street, Aaron Parks,
Maria Schneider, and Ralph Alessi. Ted is currently
an artist in residence at the University of Washington
in Seattle.
Nathan Schram, violin
Nathan Schram is the violist of the Bryant Park Quartet
as well as a member of the Carnegie Hall-trained
ensemble Decoda. He has been hailed by The New York
Times as an “elegant soloist” with a sound “devotional
with its liquid intensity.” Nathan explores other musical
interests by playing with an array of adventurous
ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, ACME, New York
Baroque Incorporated, Le Train Bleu, and the Wordless
Orchestra. He is also a founding member of the jazz
string trio Speed Bump, an ensemble devoted to improvisation and performing their own compositions. Nathan
is the founding director of Musicambia, a New Yorkbased initiative establishing a creative network of music
conservatories within prisons and jails. In addition to
their work in the US, Musicambia has collaborated with
projects in Venezuela and Scotland.
Alex Sopp, keyboards
Alex Sopp is the flutist of The Knights, yMusic and
NOW Ensemble, and frequently performs with the
New York Philharmonic, Silk Road Ensemble and
International Contemporary Ensemble. She has
recently made guest appearances with the Mariinsky
Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Alex made
her Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist with the New
York Youth Symphony and was featured as a soloist
with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of
David Robertson. She has commissioned, premiered,
recorded and closely collaborated with the most exciting
composers and songwriters of our time including Nico
Muhly, Paul Simon, Philip Glass, Jonsí, Glen Hansard,
Oswaldo Golijov, Gabriel Kahane, Ben Folds, Sufjan
Stevens, The National, Björk, Dirty Projectors, Son Lux
and St. Vincent. In addition to her musical adventures,
Alex is active as a visual artist and has done artwork
for several albums and websites as well as private
commissions. Alex is a native of St. Croix, US Virgin
Islands, and completed her education at The Juilliard
School.