2012-2013 Emerging Artist Symposium
May 20, 2013 – 11:00-7:00
THE DAY
11:00 – 11:30
11:30 -- 12:45
12:45 – 2:00
2:00 – 2:30
2:30 – 3:20
3:30 – 4:20
4:30 - 5:00
5:00 – 5:50
6:00 – 6:50
CHECK IN, WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
ROBYN GOODMAN – DISCOVERING TALENT AND DEVELOPING NEW WORK
MAIJA GARCIA, SHAUN PEKNIC AND SETH SKLAR-HEYN – THE CYCLE OF ASSISTING
LUNCH! MEET YOUR PEERS.
JAMES MORGAN AND KENT NICHOLSON – THE PROCESS OF SELECTION AND DEVELOPMENT
CHET WALKER AND MARCIA MILGOM DODGE – REVIVALS PLUS
SNACKS! MINGLING!
DAN KNECHTGES – DIRECTING AND CHOREOGRAPHING NEW WORK
KAREN AZENBERG – FROM FREELANCE TO ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP
Following the symposium, a brief evaluative survey will be emailed to you.
Please complete the survey by Thursday, May 23 so that we can adequately assess this program.
THE DETAILS
11:30 -- 12:45 ROBYN GOODMAN – DISCOVERING TALENT AND DEVELOPING NEW WORK
Robyn Goodman produced two Tony Award-winning musicals, Avenue Q and In the Heights. Also, Rodgers +
Hammerstein’s Cinderella, High Fidelity, tick, tick...BOOM!, Altar Boyz and West Side Story. Plays produced
include The Performers, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Metamorphoses, Red Light Winter, Steel
Magnolias and 50 productions during her 13 years as Artistic Director/Founder of Second Stage Theatre.
Currently she is Consultant to Roundabout Theatre Company where she is the Artistic Producer of the
Underground series of emerging writers.
12:45 – 1:45 MAIJA GARCIA, SHAUN PEKNIC AND SETH SKLAR-HEYN – THE CYCLE OF ASSISTING
Maija Garcia is director of Organic Magnetics (OM), a theater arts organization that creates live installations by
sustainable design. Garcia directed, choreographed and produced Ghosts of Manhattan, an interactive historymoving audiences through five centuries of cultural evolution in NYC, at Fort Tryon Park in 2013. Tour director
and choreographer of FELA! Garcia worked alongside Bill T. Jones as Associate Choreographer to develop the
Tony award winning musical off-Broadway, on Broadway, at National Theater of London, and in Lagos Nigeria.
Garcia staged and directed US touring productions in 2012 and 2013. Recent collaborations include:
(choreography) Fats Waller Dance Party with composers Jason Moran & Meshell N'degeocello at Harlem Stage,
Kennedy Center and San Francisco Jazz Festival and (curating) a live installation for New York Live Arts Gala.
Maija currently directs a theater arts program at A. Philip Randolph High School in Harlem, teaches movement
for actors at NYU, contemporary dance at Steps on Broadway, and is co-authoring a new play about New York's
first immigrant. www.organicmagnetics.com
Shaun Peknic is a freelance theater director based in NYC. He is currently working as the Associate Director on
the Broadway, West End, and National Tour productions of Once. Select NYC Directing Credits: Pageant
Princess (Bleecker Street Theater), Unclear and Present Danger (New York University), The Girl With The Red
Balloon (The Tank), Must Be The Music (Ars Nova), Vildanden (The Wild Duck) (Theater 54), Pieces (Gene Frankel
Theater), How to Fold a Map? (Funny...Sheesh Productions), Chaser (New York International Fringe
Festival), Aimless (Theater Row), Marisol (Dreamscape Theater Company), A Streetcar Named Desire (New York
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University). Shaun is an alumnus of New York University and the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and currently
works as an adjunct professor of acting and directing at New York University/Playwrights Horizons Theater
School.
Seth Sklar-Heyn’s Broadway credits include The Phantom of the Opera (Production Supervisor), Evita (Associate
Director), A Little Night Music (Associate Director), Finian’s Rainbow (Associate Director), Mary Stuart (Assistant
Director), Rock’n’Roll (Assistant Director), Frost/Nixon (Assistant Director), The Coast of Utopia (Assistant to the
Director), Good Vibrations (Associate Director). U.S. Tour: Billy Elliot (Resident Director). Broadway stage
management credits include Legally Blonde, The History Boys, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Producers, A
Christmas Carol (MSG), Taboo, The Phantom of the Opera (Broadway and U.S. Tour), Cabaret (Studio 54),
and Seussical. Seth directed the U.S. Tour of Frost/Nixon in 2009 and he will direct the upcoming U.S. Tour of
Evita, originally staged by Michael Grandage on Broadway in 2012. Seth serves as Executive Producer for
Cameron Mackintosh Inc. N.Y. Graduate of Vassar College.
2:00 – 2:30 LUNCH
2:30 – 3:20 JAMES MORGAN AND KENT NICHOLSON – THE PROCESS OF SELECTION AND DEVELOPMENT
James Morgan is the Producing Artistic Director of Manhattan’s York Theatre Company, with which he has been
associated for almost 40 years. He has designed over 300 productions around the country, on Broadway and
Off, on tour and in regional theatres including Cincinnati Playhouse, St. Louis Rep, Coconut Grove, Laguna
Playhouse, Paper Mill, Cleveland Play House, Goodspeed, Circle in the Square, Long Wharf, Manhattan Theater
Club, etc. Most recent designs are Closer than Ever and I’m A Stranger Here Myself at York, As Bees in Honey
Drown at the Cape Playhouse, Enter Laughing at Bay Street and New Girl in Town at Irish Rep. He has numerous
directing credits as well, including the John LaTouche revue Taking A Chance on Love and Lingoland, celebrating
the wordsmith Kenward Elmslie--both at York.
Kent Nicholson is an award-winning director of new works. Most recently he directed the world premiere of
How to Write a New Book for the Bible for Berkeley Repertory, Seattle Repertory, and South Coast Repertory
Theaters. Other directing credits include the world premiere of Saint Ex (music by Jenny Giering, book and lyrics
by Sean Barry) for the Weston Playhouse, 9 Circles by Bill Cain for Marin Theater Company, and Long Story Short
(book and lyrics by Valerie Vigoda, music by Brendan Milburn) at San Diego Repertory. New York Credits include
Five Flights by Adam Bock at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Wet by Liz Duffy Adams on Theater Row. His
work has been seen at Aurora Theater Company, Magic Theatre, San Jose Stage Company, and TheatreWorks
where credits include All My Sons, Vincent in Brixton, Ambition Facing West, and Grey Gardens. From 2001-2008
Kent worked as the Director of New Works at TheatreWorks where he created the New Works Initiative. While
at TheatreWorks, he worked with over 75 artists on more than 50 projects establishing a nationally recognized
festival for new plays and musicals and a writers retreat for the creation of new musicals. Artists who Nicholson
has worked with include Andrew Lippa, Stephen Schwartz, Josh Schmidt, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Duncan Sheik.
Pieces which developed under his leadership include: The 2010 Tony award winning Memphis by David Bryan
and Joe DiPietro, Striking 12 by Rachel Sheinkin and Groovelily, Vanities by Jack Heifner and David Kirshenbaum,
Baby Taj by Tanya Shaffer, and Emma by Paul Gordon. He is currently the Director of Musical Theater and
Literary Associate at Playwrights Horizons in NYC where he has guided productions of The Burnt Part Boys, The
Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, and the current Far From Heaven (with Kelli O’Hara).
3:30 – CHET WALKER AND MARCIA MILGOM DODGE – REVIVALS PLUS
Multi-Award Winning Director/Choreographer Chet Walker has garnered acclaim onstage in theaters across the
globe, in television, film, music video and all commercial media. Chet originally conceived the 1999 Tony-Awardwinning musical Fosse which also won an Outer Critics’ Circle Award and the Toronto Theater Alliance Award for
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Choreography. Other award nominations for FOSSE include the L.A. Critics’ Award and the Outer Critics’ Circle
Award, both for choreography, and the Olivier Award for Conceiver of Best Musical. Chet is also recipient of the
L.A. Drama-logue Award for Best Choreography for Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; Sweden’s equivalent of the
Tony Award for Best Choreography for Annie Get Your Gun; and Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for his cochoreography of Pal Joey at the Goodman Theatre. Also, as director/choreographer, Chet created Sweet Charity
(Bob Fosse’s original choreography) in the United States, Holland, Japan, Mexico, Norway and London’s West
End; further credits include the London revival of Pippin at the Menier Chocolate Factory, The Tenth Anniversary
Tour of La Cage aux Follies, Chicago in Atlanta and in Norway, A Chours Line, Follies, Working in Los Angles
Funny Girl in Amsterdam, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Chicago’s Goodman Theater, Kiss
Of The Spider Woman in Mexico City (Nomination for Best Musical), Cabret in Norway and in Belgrade, Serbia,
Singing in the Rain in Madrid, The Producers in Israel, Brazil, Argentina, (ACE AWARD nomination for Best
Choreography), and the critically acclaimed The Dancing Man and Jazz on Jazz in Norway. His creative talents
have also produced five dance operas: Calor, Fever, Confession of Love, Look Back in Love and The New York
Times critically acclaimed Seduction; as well as three ballets: Anger, The Down Low, and Nightchase for Julio
Bocca’s Ballet Argentina. Chet recreated the original Bob Fosse choreography for the Chocolate Factory’s
London revival of Pippin¸ directed by Mitch Sebastian. His Broadway performing career began at the age of
sixteen when he appeared in the first revival On the Town. Other Broadway credits include: Lorelei, The
Ambassadors, and four Bob Fosse musicals: The Pajama Game, Dancin’ Sweet Charity and Pippin. Chet recently
received a Tony Award nomination for his choreography in Stephen Schwartz’s revival of Pippin now playing on
Broadway at the Music Box Theatre, directed by Diane Paulus, and which garnered an astonishing 10 Tony
Award nominations. Chet will choreograph a new production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the
Forum for the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, Israel in early 2014. Chet’s newest project in development is the
musical, Heat Wave, which he will direct and choreograph.
Marcia Milgrom Dodge’s work as a director & choreographer has been seen throughout the United States,
Canada, Great Britain and South Korea. She directed and choreographed the acclaimed Broadway revival
of Ragtime after its sold-out run at The Kennedy Center (2010 Tony Award Nomination for Best Director of a
Musical, Drama Desk Award nominations for direction & choreography, Astaire Award nomination for
choreography and she received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction of a Resident Musical.) New
York productions include Off Broadway’s Venus Flytrap, Seussical (Theatreworks USA, Lortel Award
nomination), Cookin’, Radio Gals, Closer Than Ever, Romance In Hard Times (The Public) and The Music
Man (New York City Opera.) Regional: Reprise, Maltz Jupiter, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Riverside, Bay Street,
Music Circus, Goodman, Lyric Stage, Goodspeed, Huntington and Arena Stage. Exciting collaborations with Julie
Andrews, Stephen Sondheim, Rupert Holmes, Robert Falls & John Logan and Des McAnuff. Television: Sesame
Street and AMC’S Remember Wenn. Marcia is also a published and produced playwright. Faculty: AMDA. For
more visit www.marciamilgromdodge.com
4:30 - 5:00 SNACKS AND MINGLING
5:00 – 5:50 DAN KNECHTGES – DIRECTING AND CHOREOGRAPHING NEW WORK
Dan Knechtges’s Broadway credits: Lysistrata Jones (Direction & Choreography), Xanadu (directed by Chris
Ashley, Tony nomination, Drama Desk nomination), Sondheim on Sondheim (directed by James Lapine), 110 in
The Shade (starring Audra McDonald) and The 25thAnnual Putnam County Spelling Bee (directed by James
Lapine.) Off-Broadway – The 25thAnnual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Second Stage, which earned him a Lucille
Lortel Award nomination, Merrily We Roll Along for Encores! at City Center (directed by James
Lapine), Vanities at Second Stage and Lysistrata Jones for the Transport Group. International credits include Der
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Schuh Das Manitu (Berlin, Germany). Regional theatres include – Goodspeed, Dallas Theatre Center, La Jolla
Playhouse, Papermill Playhouse, Baltimore Centerstage, Theatreworks Palo Alto, Hangar Theatre. Indianapolis
Opera, Opera Illinois, Surflight Theatre. TV/Film credits include Palindromes, Dark horse and White Collar, and
the 2011 TV Land Awards with Liza Minnelli. Dan also choreographed FatboySlim’s #1 music video “It’s a
Wonderful Night.” Dan is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and holds a BFA in theatre from
Otterbein College.
6:00 KAREN AZENBERG – FROM FREELANCE TO ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP
Karen Azenberg is in her first year as Artistic Director of the Pioneer Theatre in Salt Lake City where she has
directed and/or choreographed productions of Rent, Next to Normal, Miss Saigon, and Les Miserables. Most
recently she directed A Christmas Memory for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival her previous work there has
included choreography for Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol-The Musical, and Beehive. . In New York she directed
and choreographed Prom Queens Unchained, Blocks an early work by the Pulitzer Prize winning creator of RENT
Jonathan Larson, and choreographed Richard Greenberg’s acclaimed The Dazzle at the Roundabout Theatre.
Karen’s other credits include national tours of Carousel and Brigadoon and 15 productions of West Side Story.
She directed the regional theatre premiere of LAUGHTER ON THE 23RD FLOOR at the Geva Theatre in Rochester
NY, Oklahoma (Ordway Theatre, California Musical Theatre), The World Goes ‘Round (Cape Playhouse), I Do, I
DO(Birmingham Theatre), Biloxi Blues (Indiana Repertory Theatre), The Barber of Seville (Augusta Opera) and My
Fair Lady(Michigan Opera Theatre). She has received the Hollywood Dramalogue Award for outstanding
choreography, Indianapolis’ Corbin Patrick award for outstanding direction and a Joseph Jefferson Award
nomination in Chicago. Karen is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School and the President of The Stage Directors and
Choreographers Society.
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