Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents Federal Hall: The Democracy Project

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, presents Federal Hall: The Democracy Project on Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 7:30pm. The Democracy Project is a perspective-shifting odyssey through the 531 days when New York City was the nation’s first capital; when the presidency was new; the slave trade was in debate; and the U.S. Constitution-and the rights of all America’s inhabitants-hung in the balance. Written by Tanya Barfield, Lisa D’Amour, Larissa FastHorse, Melissa James Gibson, Michael R. Jackson and Bruce Norris, and directed by Tamilla Woodard, this new play will premiere in November 2020 as part of the inaugural program for New Day at Federal Hall. This effort, led by the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy at Federal Hall, brings together the nation’s finest storytellers to create an array of multidisciplinary new works probing the ideas, ideals, flaws, and contradictions of American democracy as forged at the site. Works & Process invites this team of award-winning theater artists, joined by playwright David Henry Hwang, script consultant Adam Greenfield and producer Lynn Goldner to discuss their remarkable collaboration and present performance highlights. TICKETS & VENUE $45, $40 members (unless otherwise noted) $10 TodayTix Lottery and student rush tickets one hour before performance, based on availability (student tickets for those under 30 with valid ID) Priority ticket access and preferred seat selection starts Dec 10 for $500+ Friends of Works & Process and Guggenheim members at the Associate level and above. For more information, call 212 758 0024 or 212 423 3587, Mon-Fri, 1-5 pm, or visit worksandprocess.org. Peter B. Lewis Theater Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street Subway: 4, 5, 6, or Q train to 86th Street Bus: M1, M2, M3, or M4 bus on Madison or Fifth Avenue Lead funding for Works & Process is provided by the Ford Foundation, Florence Gould Foundation, the Christian Humann Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Evelyn Sharp Foundation, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. ARTIST BIOS Tanya Barfield’s plays include Bright Half Life, The Call, Blue Door and Of Equal Measure. In 2016, the Profile Theatre (Portland, Oregon) devoted an entire season to Barfield’s work. Tanya is the winner of a PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award, LAMDA Literary Award, a Lilly Award and Helen Merrill Playwriting Award. Tanya also writes for television and shares a Writers Guild of America Award for her work on The Americans (FX). Lisa D’Amour is a playwright and interdisciplinary artist and one half of the OBIE-Award winning performance duo PearlDamour. Her plays, including Detroit and Airline Highway have been produced by theaters across the country. Detroit was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. PearlDamour is known for creating interdisciplinary, often site-specific works, which range from the intimate to large scale. Lisa is the recipient of the 2008 Alpert Award for the Arts in theater, the 2011 Steinberg Playwright Award and is a recipient of the 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. She is a former Jerome Fellow and Core Alum of the Playwrights’ Center and an alumna of New Dramatists. Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) is an award-winning playwright, director, and choreographer. Larissa’s produced plays include The Thanksgiving Play (Playwrights Horizons, Artists Rep), What Would Crazy Horse Do? (Kansas City Rep, Relative Theatrics), Urban Rez (Cornerstone Theater Company, NEFA National tour 2019-20), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis), Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry), Vanishing Point (Eagle Project), and Cherokee Family Reunion (Mountainside Theater). Larissa was awarded the PEN USA Literary Award for Drama, NEA Distinguished New Play Development Grant, the UCLA Native American Program Woman of the Year, and numerous Ford, Mellon, and NEA grants. Melissa James Gibson is a New York City based playwright and screenwriter. Most recently she was the co-showrunner on Netflix’s House of Cards. She also wrote for the first two seasons of The Americans (FX), for which she received a Writer’s Guild of America Award nomination. Honors: OBIE Award; Guggenheim Fellowship; Steinberg Playwright Award; Kesselring Prize; Whiting Writers Award; Lucille Lortel Foundation Playwrights’ Fellowship; LILLY Award; Jerome Fellow; MacDowell Colony Fellow; NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist. MFA: Yale School of Drama; graduate of New Dramatists. THIS and Other Plays is published by TCG. Michael R. Jackson is a BFA and MFA graduate of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He wrote book, music, and lyrics for the musicals White Girl In Danger and A Strange Loop (world premiere at Playwrights Horizons Theatre, in association with Page 73 Productions). Awards and associations include: a New Professional Theatre Festival Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, an ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award, a Whiting Award, the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting and a Dramatist Guild Fellowship. Bruce Norris is the author of Clybourne Park, which premiered in 2010 at Playwrights Horizons and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the Olivier, Evening Standard, and Tony Awards. In 2018, his play The Low Road was produced at the Public Theatre (New York). In 2018-19 his play Downstate was co-produced by Steppenwolf Theatre and the National Theatre (UK). In 2017, he adapted Brecht’s Arturo Ui for the Donmar Warehouse, London. Other plays include The Qualms, Domesticated, A Parallelogram, The Unmentionables, The Pain and the Itch and Purple Heart, most of which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, where he is an ensemble member. He lives in New York. Tamilla Woodard (Director) is the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle Associate Artistic Director of WP Theater and the co-leader of WP’s Directors Lab.  As a director, her recent projects include Where We Stand at WP Theater, Associate Director on Hadestown on Broadway, Top Girls and Men on Boats at American Conservatory Theater, James Scruggs’ 3/Fifths at 3-Legged Dog, PolkaDots: The Cool Kids Musical at The Atlantic Theatre Company (Off-Brodway Alliance Award).  She is the co-founder of PopUP Theatrics, a partnership creating immersive and participatory theater for audiences in Europe, South America, Mexico and the U.S. since 2007. David Henry Hwang’s (Moderator) works include the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, Chinglish, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan. His latest show, Soft Power, written with Jeanine Tesori, premiered at the Ahmanson and the Public and was named Best Musical of 2019 by the Wall Street Journal. He is also America’s most-produced living opera librettist. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, a two-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and has been inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. Adam Greenfield, script consultant, was recently appointed to be the next Artistic Director of Playwrights Horizons, where since 2007, he has been the director of new play development. Prior to this, he was literary manager at La Jolla Playhouse and associate artistic director of The Empty Space Theatre in Seattle. In addition to his work producing, directing and developing new plays, he’s a director whose recent credits include the Humana Festival at Actors Theater of Louisville, 13P, Clubbed Thumb, and Playhouse Theater in Stockholm. Lynn Goldner is the producer of The Democracy Project.  She has produced programming for HBO Films, Sundance Channel, A & E Networks, and ABC News. Her features include Marvelous, starring Martha Plimpton and Amy Ryan; The Painted Heart, starring Will Patton and Bebe Neuwirth. With several theater and television projects in development, Goldner is working with many of New York’s foremost writers and directors. Works & Process at the Guggenheim Described by The New York Times as “an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process,” for 35 years, New Yorkers have been able to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed artists in the world, in an intimate setting unlike any other. Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. Most performances take place in the Guggenheim’s intimate Frank Lloyd Wright-designed 273-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. In 2017, Works & Process established a new residency and commissioning program, inviting artists to create new works, made in and for the iconic Guggenheim rotunda. worksandprocess.org.