CoHo Productions presents
HERE / HUNTERS / BEE / FLIGHTS
New works in progress from the CoHo Lab
August 18, 2019 | 8:00pm
All Tickets: Pay What You Can
ABOUT COHO LAB
CoHo Lab launched in August 2016 for CoHo Productions to provide dedicated space, time and resources to theatre artists developing new works of performance. As studio spaces become less accessible, and methods of collaborative theatre-making become more project-specific, CoHo Lab provides a crucial service and extends CoHo’s mission to nurture and support exceptional Portland-based theatre artists. Selected artists receive a 20-30 hour workshop residency to develop their work and artist stipends are provided. Each Lab includes a private/invited showing for the artists to receive professional feedback, then culminates in a ticketed showing for a public audience.
Artists in this CoHo Lab Cohort will workshop their performances at CoHo between August 4 and 18, culminating in a public showing of pieces of their works in progress on August 18. Learn more about the artists and their projects below.
SHE’S HERE: A ONE WOMAN SHOW
Lead Artist, Andrea Parson
Inspired by her great great grandmother’s Sicilian heritage, Andrea Parson explores the traditions of Italian witchcraft and its connection to her own contemporary spiritual journey through storytelling and dance. Parson will structure her piece by experimenting with form through physical monologue and the use of a record player as a primary onstage sound source.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Andrea Parson, born and raised in Hillsboro, studied dance performance at Loyola Marymount University, where she received a BA in Dance in 2009. After graduating, she joined Northwest Dance Project where she continues to perform and teach contemporary dance nationally and internationally. In 2010 she received the Princess Grace Award for dance. Since 2014 she has collaborated with costume designer and filmmaker Fuchsia Lin, choreographing and performing original work for two dance films: Crystals of Transformation, and Future Cosmos Flow. In 2018 she created the Soul Stories Dance Project (featured as part of CoHo Summerfest 2018) in co- direction with multimedia artist Susan Banyas in which she created and performed a solo entitled Amore. This summer she studied physical theater at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater.
BEETHOVEN & CHOPIN (MONSTER HUNTERS) MEET THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (A ROMANCE)
Lead Artist, Philip Cuomo
With collaboration from the CoHo Clown CoHort (Emily Newton, Sascha Blocker, Anthony Arnista, Jaime Flynn)
The CoHo Clown CoHort is at it again with this conceptual mash-up of Mary Shelley’s classic novel, Abbott & Costello’s physical shtick, intellectual and artistic Romanticism, director James Whale’s cinematic impact, an examination of the boundaries between exclusivity and acceptance, classical music, and some good old fashioned clown silliness…as the title makes perfectly clear.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Supported by a Creative Heights grant from the Oregon Community Foundation, the CoHo Clown CoHort was created to cultivate an experimental ensemble of clown performers and contextualize the value of clowning in the modern theatre landscape. Previous work includes Philip’s Glass Menagerie, an adaptation of the Tennessee Williams classic exploring whether or not an emotionally intimate story can be told truthfully and powerfully through the extreme physical expression of clowning, and Witch Hunt, a very loose kind-of-but-not-really adaptation of a famous play about witches largely influenced by the Puritan work ethic, the Federalist Papers, and current events.
Philip Cuomo is a director, actor, educator, Third Rail Repertory Theatre core company member, and CoHo’s Producing Artistic Director. His recent directing credits include Kiss (Third Rail Repertory Theatre),The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence (CoHo Season 22), The How and The Why (CoHo Season 21), The New Electric Ballroom, Or, Belleville, The Mystery of Irma Vep, and Crooked (CoHo Season 18). He has created and directed multiple shows, including La Carpa Del Ausente and La Carpa Calavera for Portland’s Milagro Theatre (Drammy winner for outstanding achievement in directing), and the clown shows Pas Deux Bits, Box O’ Briefs and Exaggeration On A Theme. As an actor he has appeared at Lincoln Center, The Hartford Stage, The Civic Theatre of Central Florida, Third Rail, Artists Repertory Theatre, Shaking the Tree, and Imago Theatre. Philip is an adjunct faculty member at Portland State University teaching movement and clown, and a founder and faculty member of the Institute for Contemporary Performance.
BEE روبنز
Lead Artist, Melody Erfani
With collaboration from
Laila Mottaghi,
Melanie Owen and
Mitra Anoushiravani
In preparation for the west-coast premier of Bee روبنز as part of CoHo Season 24, creator and director Melody Erfani will further explore the themes, characters, and devised events of her piece with local actors. Learn more about CoHo’s upcoming production of Bee روبنز , Melody Erfani, and the inspiration behind the story HERE.
OUR MUNDANE FLIGHTS
Lead Artist, Rose Proctor
With collaboration from Murri Lazaroff-Babin
How do we succeed (and fail) to communicate with those around us, especially in the context of a party? Rose Proctor and collaborator Murri Lazaroff-Babin will explore the turmoil, anxiety, ecstasy, fantasy, and isolation of socializing through gesture, expression, touch, movement, and multiple points of view. Proctor and Lazaroff-Babin aim to devise a short piece that explores a basic vocabulary for the project and goes in-depth into one example of a social interaction between two people in this party environment during their CoHo Lab residency.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Rose Proctor received a BA in Drama from Kenyon College and has trained at the National Theater Institute, the St. Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy in Russia, and the Institute for Contemporary Performance here in Portland. She was also a mentee at Third Rail Repertory Theatre.
Murri Lazaroff-Babin is an actor, fight choreographer, and teacher from Northern California. He has a bachelor’s degree in English and is a graduate of the Portland Actors Conservatory. In Portland he has performed with Chapel Theatre, Corrib Theatre, the CoHo Clown CoHort, Portland Shakespeare Project, Portland Actors Ensemble, Beirut Wedding, PETE, and Theatre Vertigo.