Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage

Founded in 1999, Banana Bag & Bodice is a Brooklyn based collaborative that makes play-shows centering on original writing, music composition and collective design. Our objective is to entertain and provoke through dysphorian humor. Our elastic approach to creating has one common goal—to celebrate and expose the inspiring awkwardness of being a human. The resulting shows vary in style and scope—from large-scale spectacles (Sandwich, a musical about killing animals) to intimate everyday portraits (Space//Space, a sci-fi study of claustrophobia)—yet each one mixes music and text with irreverence and whimsy. We are known for an intricate and complex design formed from discarded materials found in off-Broadway dumpsters. In NYC , our work has been presented at PS122, The Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, The OHIO, The Collapsable Hole, and the Abrons Arts Center and has toured nationally and internationally to San Francisco, Boston, Montreal, Kilkenny, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Adelaide.

Originally created by Banana Bag & Bodice in 2008, Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage received its World Premiere with The Shotgun Players, Berkeley, CA—Patrick Dooley, Artistic Director / Elizabeth Lisle, Managing Director—and has since toured to the Abrons Arts Center in association with PS122, the NYC Parks  SummerStage Festival and Joe’s Pub in New York City, Berkeley Rep’s Rhoda Theater, the Lion d’Or Theater as part of Les Escales Improbables in Montreal, Quebec, American Repertory Theater’s 2011 Emerging America Festival, Ireland’s esteemed 2011 Kilkenny Arts Festival, Assembly’s Dans Paleis Spiegeltent at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and most recently at the 2013 Adelaide Festival. In May, Beowulf will play the Brighton Festival & Bristol’s Mayfest in association with Bristol’s Old Vic Theater. Beowulf was awarded a Herald Angel and the Will Glickman Award.

Co-Artistic Directors
Jason Craig & Jessica Jelliffe

Managing Producer 
Laura Roumanos

Tour Agent
Menno Plukker Theatre Agent Inc.

Dave Malloy is a composer/writer/performer/sound designer making his fourth appearance at A.R.T., following the Obie Award-winning Three Pianos, Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage, and, most recently,Ghost Quartet. He has written the music for ten musicals, including Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (Richard Rodgers Award, Obie Award, and 11 Lortel nominations). Other musicals include Preludes at LCT3, Black Wizard/Blue Wizard, Beardo, Sandwich, and Clown Bible.  He has won a Jonathan Larson Grant, an ASCAP New Horizons Award, and a NEA/TCG Grant for Theatre Designers, has been a Guest Professor in devised music theater at Princeton and Vassar Universities, and is the composer for Banana Bag & Bodice. Future projects include adaptations of Moby-Dick and Shakespeare’s Henriad, commissioned by The Public and Berkeley Repertory Theater, and a piece on Taoism at ACT.  

Rod Hipskind (Co-Director) is a freelance photo stylist, art director, actor and director residing in San Francisco. Having graduated from SF State University with a double emphasis in acting and directing he brings his experience in all these fields to his continued ensemble collaborations with Banana Bag & Bodice. Ensemble work with BB&B includes: The Young War, The Sewers, The Fall & Rise of The Rising Fallen. As a company member of foolsFury he directed the Best of San Francisco Fringe production, Turn of the Screw and Twelfth Night. Acting credits with fF include, Michael Majeski in Don Delillo's, Valparaiso and as Lorko Levic in the U.S. premiere of The Devil on all Sides. As artistic director of the now defunct underground ensemble Wit's End, he directed Eric Overmeyer’s On the Verge, and adapted George Buchner's Woyzeck touring from San Francisco to Montreal in 1998.  He completed the scenic design for the West Coast premiere of Charles Mee's Gone for Crowded Fire Theater Company and for Mugwumpin’s 2010 premiere of And I Need That. This is All I Need. 

Mallory Catlett (Co-Director / Dramaturg) has been working with BB&B since 2005 (Gulag Ha Ha, The Young War, Panel . Animal, The Sewers, The Fall & Rise of The Rising Fallen, Beowulf and Space//Space). She is also a founding member of Latitude 14 whose multi-media work (Red Fly/Blue Bottle & Tinder) which premiered at HERE Arts Center NYC has toured to the Noorderzon Festival, EMPAC & The Exit Festival.  She is the Artistic Director of Restless Productions NYC, dedicated to producing on and off-site reconstructions of the classical repertoire. Currently developing a site-specific production of R ii, and Vanya, which will premiere at the Chocolate Factory in 2013. She is also collaborating with Aaron Landsman and JIm Findlay on City Council Meeting, which is being developed and will premiere at HERE Arts Center NYC in 2013 and will also have local productions in Houston (Divers Works), Phoenix (ASU/Gammage), San Francisco (Z Space) and hopefully Detroit.  She is also developing 2 new operas - The Scarlet Ibis (HERE Arts Center & American Opera Projects) and Little Crimes (Restless Productions & Vancouver New Music) in Vancouver. In NY her work has also been seen at: The Ohio, HERE, Ontological- Hysteric Theater, PS122, Collapsable Hole, 3LD, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Ma- Yi, Womens’ Interart, Labyrinth, The Public, NYTW and has been featured at CultureMart, COIL and the Prelude Festivals. Residencies include: HERE, Mabou Mines, LMCC, Chashama, Abrons Art Center, Digital Performance Institute, Ontotogical-Hysteric Theatre’s Incubator, Soho Rep Writer/Directors Lab and Yaddo. International: Western Front & Video In (Vancouver), Les Escales Improbables (Montreal), Exit Festival (Cretiel, France), Dublin Fringe Festival & Kilkenny Arts Festival (Ireland), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), the Noorderzon Festival (Gronignen, Netherlands). Upcoming: City Council Meeting by Aaron Landsman @ HERE in January & Vanya @ Mabou Mines/SUITE in April. 

Miranda Hardy (Lighting Design) is a visual artist and light designer now based in Portland, Oregon. Her work with light has been for theater, opera, dance, live music, museum and corporate events. She is a member of the performance by design collective TENT, has company affiliations with Banana Bag & Bodice and Latitude 14 as well as being a co-founder of tinyelephant, a studio dedicated to the performing object.

Writer, Arranger and Performer 

A.R.T: Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage, Oberon (2010), Emerging America Festival (2011). Harvard, Loeb Drama Center: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1987) and Aunt Dan and Lemon (1989). Rick is an OBIE Award-winning composer, performer, songwriter and playwright. His original chamber music, theater and text pieces (including Simulcast, Great Hymn of Thanksgiving, The Climb Up Mount Chimborazo, Conversation Storm and Storm Still) have been performed by dozens of ensembles in over forty U.S. cities, as well as in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, and have been published by the journals Cannot Exist, Mirage, admit2 and Plays and Playwrights. His songs have been covered and recorded by a wide variety of artists, including Holly Near, Charlie King and David Rovics, and featured on two CDs by his cabaret band The Prince Myshkins (The Prince Myshkins’ Shiny Round Object and Total Myshkin Awareness). He is a founding director of The Nonsense Company, a touring experimental music/theater trio. A CD of his complete saxophone music, Audition, was released in 2009. He lives in Brooklyn. www.rickburkhardt.com.

Charles Shell (Sound Design) is a Designer and Recording/Mixing Engineer based in New York City. He has designed for The Guerrilla Shakespeare Company (The Two Noble Kinsman, King John), Christina Campanella and Peter Norrman (Parts Are Extra, Tinder), Joe Diebes (BOTCH, Hypatia), Hoi Polloi (All Hands) and now with Banana Bag & Bodice's Beowulf. This year, Charles became the audio head at Lincoln Center Theater's new Claire Tow Theater, but when he is not designing or engineering he plays bass and guitar for various band/theater projects or just for his own amusement. 

Shaye Troha (Warrior Vocals) has co-choreographed and performed in Banana Bag & Bodice’s Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage since it’s opening in 2008.  She is an alumni member of San Francisco’s acclaimed comedy troupe Killing My Lobster, having acted at NYC, SF and Vancouver Sketchfests, ACT and more.  Other theatre credits: NYC Fringe (’07 & Encore ’09), Berkeley Rep (In The Wake), SF Playhouse, and PCPA Theatrefest, where she is a graduate.  Film: Holiday Road (Slamdance Festival, 2011) She currently resides in Los Angeles. 

A.R.T.: Moby-Dick, Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage. Off-Broadway: Henry VI: Parts 1 & 2 (Drama Desk nomination). New York: Trigger, Leviathan Lab. Regional: Macbeth, California Shakespeare Theater; It Can’t Happen Here, Berkeley Rep; The Importance of Being Earnest, Aurora Theatre; Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, A.C.T.; Water by the Spoonful, TheatreWorks. Workshops: Lucky Ones; Revenge Song; Moby-Dick. Film: I Am a Ghost; Bitter Melon. Education: BA, English Literature, Mills College.

Kelly Allen (Stage Manager). Credits include: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead (File 14 Productions); Silence! The Musical (Tesseract Theatre Co.); underground (David Dorfman Dance); dare to feel (Chamber Dance Project); Area of Rescue (Andhow Theater Co.); Firecracker (Theatre Lila); Black Watch (Nat'l Theatre of Scotland); Disfarmer (Dan Hurlin); Brief Encounter (Kneehigh Theatre); Bellona: Destroyer of Cities (Jay Scheib); Romeo & Juliet (Nature Theater of Oklahoma); Euro-Asian Tour of Life & Times Episodes 1 & 2 (Nature Theater of Oklahoma); Meanwhile (Brat Productions); Misterman (Enda Walsh); Chekhov Lizardbrain (Pig Iron Theatre Co.).

Mallory Catlett (Co-Director / Dramaturg) has been working with BB&B since 2005 (Gulag Ha Ha, The Young War, Panel . Animal, The Sewers, The Fall & Rise of The Rising Fallen, Beowulf and Space//Space). She is also a founding member of Latitude 14 whose multi-media work (Red Fly/Blue Bottle & Tinder) which premiered at HERE Arts Center NYC has toured to the Noorderzon Festival, EMPAC & The Exit Festival.  She is the Artistic Director of Restless Productions NYC, dedicated to producing on and off-site reconstructions of the classical repertoire. Currently developing a site-specific production of R ii, and Vanya, which will premiere at the Chocolate Factory in 2013. She is also collaborating with Aaron Landsman and JIm Findlay on City Council Meeting, which is being developed and will premiere at HERE Arts Center NYC in 2013 and will also have local productions in Houston (Divers Works), Phoenix (ASU/Gammage), San Francisco (Z Space) and hopefully Detroit.  She is also developing 2 new operas - The Scarlet Ibis (HERE Arts Center & American Opera Projects) and Little Crimes (Restless Productions & Vancouver New Music) in Vancouver. In NY her work has also been seen at: The Ohio, HERE, Ontological- Hysteric Theater, PS122, Collapsable Hole, 3LD, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Ma- Yi, Womens’ Interart, Labyrinth, The Public, NYTW and has been featured at CultureMart, COIL and the Prelude Festivals. Residencies include: HERE, Mabou Mines, LMCC, Chashama, Abrons Art Center, Digital Performance Institute, Ontotogical-Hysteric Theatre’s Incubator, Soho Rep Writer/Directors Lab and Yaddo. International: Western Front & Video In (Vancouver), Les Escales Improbables (Montreal), Exit Festival (Cretiel, France), Dublin Fringe Festival & Kilkenny Arts Festival (Ireland), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), the Noorderzon Festival (Gronignen, Netherlands). Upcoming: City Council Meeting by Aaron Landsman @ HERE in January & Vanya @ Mabou Mines/SUITE in April. 

Jen Baker (Trombone) projects her trombone into the far reaches of the conceivable, redefining the role of the performer in creative music. Since earning her degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Mills College, she has premiered and/or commissioned dozens of new works in various chamber groups and for solo trombone. As a touring soloist, she performs Lyrical Vibrations, her unique blend of composition and improvisation based on multiphonics. Her first CD, Blue Dreams (2008, Dilapidated Barns) is a collection of these pieces. She has recently performed with TILT Brass in Chris Jonas' Garden for the Intermedia Art festival in Santa Fe NM, and with Pauline Oliveros and Stuart Dempster (Deep Listening Band) for a digital simulation of the very first Deep Listening recording (done in a cistern) at EMPAC, Albany NY. As an improviser, she has performed/recorded with Fred Frith, Cecil Taylor, Dafna Naphtali, Joelle Leandre, Nate Wooley, and Damon Smith, and was featured on the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World. She played in the final performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Park Avenue Armory (NYC), and as a founding member of both Bang on a Can's Asphalt Orchestra and the musical, Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, has toured on both coasts and internationally. She performs regularly in the New York City area with a host of classical and new music ensembles, enjoying a variety of classical, multimedia, and avant-garde music.

Andy Strain (Trombone) is a Classical Musician in various orchestras and chamber ensembles in Germany, Mexico, and the US. He is a Didactic Concert writer and performer in three languages, a writer, organizer, and performer of collaborative art shows (music, dance, and visual art), and a private instructor of brass students and beginning piano students of all ages. He is interested in continuing the integration of new and modern art into collaborative concerts for the public and for schools. Strain has been touring with Musician and Singer Johanna Newsom since 2010. 

Writer, Arranger and Performer 

A.R.T: Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage, Oberon (2010), Emerging America Festival (2011). Harvard, Loeb Drama Center: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1987) and Aunt Dan and Lemon (1989). Rick is an OBIE Award-winning composer, performer, songwriter and playwright. His original chamber music, theater and text pieces (including Simulcast, Great Hymn of Thanksgiving, The Climb Up Mount Chimborazo, Conversation Storm and Storm Still) have been performed by dozens of ensembles in over forty U.S. cities, as well as in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, and have been published by the journals Cannot Exist, Mirage, admit2 and Plays and Playwrights. His songs have been covered and recorded by a wide variety of artists, including Holly Near, Charlie King and David Rovics, and featured on two CDs by his cabaret band The Prince Myshkins (The Prince Myshkins’ Shiny Round Object and Total Myshkin Awareness). He is a founding director of The Nonsense Company, a touring experimental music/theater trio. A CD of his complete saxophone music, Audition, was released in 2009. He lives in Brooklyn. www.rickburkhardt.com.

Lisa Clair (Academic 3): credits include: Evelyn at the Bushwick Starr, AutoMotive at P.S.122, The Material World, Dixon Place. She is a 2013 Artist in Residence at The University Settlement House with her play "Yeh, I've Been Searchin'. Her other plays have been presented at IRT Theater and Dixon Place in NYC.  Lisa performed for several seasons with the Theatre de la Jeune Lune in MPLS, Minnesota. She performed in various films and commercials and is a graduate of Bard College.

A.R.T.: Moby-Dick, Beowulf—A Thousand Years of Baggage. Off-Broadway: Henry VI: Parts 1 & 2 (Drama Desk nomination). New York: Trigger, Leviathan Lab. Regional: Macbeth, California Shakespeare Theater; It Can’t Happen Here, Berkeley Rep; The Importance of Being Earnest, Aurora Theatre; Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, A.C.T.; Water by the Spoonful, TheatreWorks. Workshops: Lucky Ones; Revenge Song; Moby-Dick. Film: I Am a Ghost; Bitter Melon. Education: BA, English Literature, Mills College.

Shaye Troha (Warrior Vocals) has co-choreographed and performed in Banana Bag & Bodice’s Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage since it’s opening in 2008.  She is an alumni member of San Francisco’s acclaimed comedy troupe Killing My Lobster, having acted at NYC, SF and Vancouver Sketchfests, ACT and more.  Other theatre credits: NYC Fringe (’07 & Encore ’09), Berkeley Rep (In The Wake), SF Playhouse, and PCPA Theatrefest, where she is a graduate.  Film: Holiday Road (Slamdance Festival, 2011) She currently resides in Los Angeles. 

Jessica Jelliffe (Academic 2) is Co-Founder/Co-Artistic Director of Banana Bag & Bodice. She has been collaborating on and performing in each of their shows since 1999. Additional roles for the company include design, direction, company management and production management.  Additional performing credits include, Shadows (Hoi Polloi, NYC), Oh What War and As You Like It (Restless Productions NYC), Valparaiso, Attempts On Her Life, and Jacques and His Master (foolsFURY, SF), History of the World Pt IV (gALE gATES et al, NY), and Gogol: a clown-opera (Exit Theater, SF). 

Sam Kulik (Guitar) works as a trombonist, bassist, and guitarist with an exciting throng of bands in New York City.  His own project Escape From Society is an album of song-poems based on lyrics he was sent by strangers on Craigslist.  He also co-wrote and performed the psychedelic opera "Talibam! and Sam Kulik Discover AtlantASS", which was released on CD with a 30-page comic book and staged last year at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York.  He plays bass in the prog band Starring and the Iranian funk band Mitra Sumara and plays trombone with David First's The Western Enisphere, Skeletons Big Band, Johnny Society, and recent theater works by Cynthia Hopkins and The Talking Band.  He has also performed and recorded with John Zorn, Amanda Palmer, and Anthony Braxton.  You can listen to Sam's podcast at www.samkulik.com.  He is a native of Worthington, Massachusetts.

Mario J. Maggio (Clarinet/Bass Clarinet) is a multi-instrumentalist/composer that currently resides in the Catskill mountains of New York.  Most of his time is spent performing and touring with various bands/projects.  He plays hot clarinet with traditional jazzers Jessy Carolina & The Hot Mess and Old Fish Jazz Band.  He plays lap steel, a home made chair-guitar, and freaked out tenor sax with the mutant soul band PC Worship.  He is a singer, guitarist, and composer for the weirdo dark folk group Ommie Wise.  He is the clarinet/bass clarinetist for the outstanding show Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage.  He also tampers with music boxes.

Brian McCorkle (King Hrothgar/ Piano) is a composer, sound artist, and musician. He is the Co-Director of the Panoply Performance Laboratory (panoplylab.org), creating interdisciplinary work that operates in the performance art, music, and experimental theatre fields. With PPL, Brian has composed the operas On the Cranial Nerves of Barbarians (Dixon Place, ABC No Rio, The Manhattan Theatre Source and elsewhere), The Last Dreams of Helene Weigel or How to Get Rid of The Feminism Once and For All (ABC No Rio, Surreal Estate, Cabinet Magazine Event Space and over PostTV), Institute_Institut (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, the cell), NATURE FETISH (University Settlement, City Reliquary, Grace Exhibition Space, and in Berlin at: KuLe Theater, ACUD, BLO Ateliers, Sucked Orange Gallery) and incidental and interactive music, sound design, and technological set-ups for other projects like The Silviculture Museum (chashama installation with Pine Thumbs sound software) and Calmly Engaged (Flux Factory and Wilderness Gallery). Brian and PPL also collaborated with new music ensemble thingNY to create TIME: A Complete Explanation in Three Parts (The Brick Theater) and Brian's projects with PPL have been a part of SUPERFRONT's Public Summer at Industry City, BOB the Pavilion at Columbia University, the BABEL exhibition in a QMAD pop-up gallery, IV Soldiers Gallery, the Delancey, Vaudeville Park, BARTERTOWN, and FIGMENT on Governor's Island. With PPL, he has been the beneficiary of Swing Space from LMCC (14 Wall Street for Workforce/Forced Work), two residencies through chashama, the LAB Residency at LPAC, and a residency through the Performance Project at University Settlement. Brian's works, collaborations, and compositions have been covered by the New York Times, the Freize Magazine, Time Out New York, the Village Voice, L Magazine, the Detroit News, New York Arts, Flavorpill, nytheatre.com, the Guardian UK, online music blogs, and elsewhere. 

A.R.T.: Oedipus, Orpheus X, Julius Caesar, Blue Flower. Bassist with Jeff Robinson Trio, performing with Amiri Baraka, Patricia Smith, Askia Toure, and Quincy Troupe; and recording “Next On the Mic” (2007, Rounder Records). Bassist with MusAner (touring Italy and Switzerland 2010, recording "MusAner", 2012; ), Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, and Agachiko (recording "Yes", 2013) Plays with Gamelan Galak Tika, recording "Gamelan Galak Tika" (2000, New World Records), "Dangerous Things" (2002), "Bronze Age Space Age" (2009). Played Carnegie Hall toured Bali with Galak Tika in 2005, and played Lincoln Center in 2012. Performed in Orpheus X with A.R.T. at the Edinburgh International Festival, 2007, Hong Kong Int. Festival of the Arts (2008), and Theatre For a New Audience, NYC (2009). Performed Julius Ceasar on tours of France (2009, 2010), and Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogotá Colombia (2012). Composed score for play As If We Live to Bear No Scars, 2007. Toured Senegal with Ibrahima Camara and Safal, 1998. Performances and/or recordings with David Murray, Ran Blake, Big Jack Johnson, Duke Robillard, John Sinclair, Charles Neville, Bruce Katz, Butch Morris, Jon Faddis, David Maxwell, Iva Bittova. BM Berklee College of Music. Studied with Gary Peacock, Charlie Haden, and Dave Holland. Please visit www.blakenewman.org.

Peter Wise (Drums) grew up playing music in Stockbridge, MA and studied percussion at the Eastman School of Music and SUNY Stony Brook.  Currently splitting his time between Brooklyn and the Berkshires, he plays with an eclectic array of ensembles including Newspeak, Oliphant, JG Thirlwell’s Maxorexia and Banana Bag & Bodice.  He is one of the co-founding artistic directors of The Berkshire Fringe in Great Barrington, MA. [berkshirefringe.org] He also does freelance website design. [squarecandydesign.com]