The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Since being encouraged to move from Lincoln, Nebraska to New York City by Philip Glass six years ago, composer and performer John Moran has received theatrical productions of his operas Jack Benny!, The Hospital, The Haunted House, and The Trilogy of Cyclic Existence at La Mama, E.T.C.; The Manson Family at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; and Mathew In the School of Life at The Kitchen. Each of Moran's operas have had an innovative impact on the music/theatre community and have received notoriety in the press, including two Bessies and an Obie award in 1994. The Manson Family has been recorded on Point Music/Philips Classics with a provocative cast that includes Iggy Pop and Terre Roche, among others. Moran is currently a Columbia recording artist and has recently recorded Mathew in the School of Life, featuring Allen Ginsberg. Mr. Moran's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligri made its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater in 1997.

Bob McGrath's directing work at the American Repertory Theater has included Charlie in the House of Rue, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Alice in Bed. He is the winner of three OBIE awards for: Direction – Jennie Richee (2001), Best New American Work – The Carbon Copy Building (2000), and for Sustained Achievement. He has directed all of Ridge Theater's productions. Mr. McGrath was awarded a fellowship from The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, and has taught at NYU and the Eugene O'Neil Theater Center. He has directed at venues including The Kitchen; Lincoln Center; La MaMa, ETC.; MASS MoCA; The Kampfnagle (Hamburg, Germany); and The Carignano (Turin, Italy). He has worked with writers and composers including Mac Wellman, Ben Katchor, Susan Sontag, Robert Coover, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Bang On A Can, and Cynthia Hopkins. As an actor and a writer, Mr. McGrath collaborated on the Scott Saunders films The Headhunter's Sister and The Lost Words.

Scenic Designer Laurie Olinder is a founding member of the Ridge Theater, an experimental opera and theater company in New York City. Her work at the A.R.T. includes Charlie in the House of Rue, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Alice in Bed, all directed by Bob McGrath. Recent set designing credits include the John Moran operas Mathew In the School of Life, Everyday Newt Burman, and The Manson Family, all produced by Ridge Theater. She is also a painter, last exhibited in 1995 at St. Peter's Church at the CitiCorp Building in New York City. She has been awarded artist residencies at The Kitchen, Millay Colony for the Arts, and Yellow Springs.

Scenic Designer Fred Tietz is a founding member of Ridge Theater, an experimental opera and theater company in New York City. He has collaborated on many productions with Bob McGrath and Laurie Olinder, including the Ridge production of Mathew In the School of Life, and the A.R.T productions of Charlie in the House of Rue, Alice in Bed, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Mr. Tietz's technical theater credits span over thirty off and off-off Broadway productions as a designer, production manager, technical director, or technician. Highlights include work on Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, A.R. Gurney's Later Life, special prop construction for Merce Cunningham, and realization of numerous designs by John Lee Beaty. He is also currently the scene shop supervisor for Playwrights Horizons in New York City.

Catherine Zuber has created the costumes for Richard II, The Doctor's Dilemma, and over forty other A.R.T. productions including Three Farces and a Funeral, Antigone, Loot, The Idiots Karamazov, Ivanov, Phaedra, The Merchant of Venice, Valparaiso, The Imaginary Invalid, The Taming of the Shrew, Peter Pan and Wendy, The Bacchae, Man and Superman, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Woyzeck, The Wild Duck, The Naked Eye, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Tartuffe, Ubu Rock, Waiting for Godot, The Oresteia, Shlemiel the First, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, A Touch of the Poet, What the Butler Saw, The Cherry Orchard, and Orphée. Ms. Zuber's credits include work at Lincoln Center, The Joseph Papp Public Theater, Goodman Theatre, The Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera, among others. Her Broadway credits include The Triumph of Love (Connecticut Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk nomination), Ivanov (Drama Desk nomination), The Sound of Music, Twelfth Night, The Red Shoes, London Assurance, The Rose Tattoo, and Philadelphia Here I Come. Ms. Zuber was the recipient of the 1997 Obie Award for sustained achievement in design. She is the costume designer for La Fête des Vignerons de 1999, the massive Festival of the Winegrowers in Vevey, Switzerland.

Howard Thies, who designed the lighting for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is the resident Lighting Designer of La Mama ETC and the recipient of a Bessie and an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in Lighting Design. His recent designs include John Moran's Mathew In the School of Life, and Everyday Newt Burman; and Andrei Serban and Elizabeth Swados' Trojan Women.

Scenic Designer Laurie Olinder is a founding member of the Ridge Theater, an experimental opera and theater company in New York City. Her work at the A.R.T. includes Charlie in the House of Rue, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Alice in Bed, all directed by Bob McGrath. Recent set designing credits include the John Moran operas Mathew In the School of Life, Everyday Newt Burman, and The Manson Family, all produced by Ridge Theater. She is also a painter, last exhibited in 1995 at St. Peter's Church at the CitiCorp Building in New York City. She has been awarded artist residencies at The Kitchen, Millay Colony for the Arts, and Yellow Springs.

Anthony Chase, who created the films for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, specializes in films for use in live performance, often collaborating with John Kelly & Company on such projects as Light Shall Lift Them, presented as part of the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Divine Promiscue as part of the Serious Fun Festival at Lincoln Center, Akin at LaMama ETC, and Love of a Poet at the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Chase has also created films for Band in Berlin at the Geva Theatre in Rochester and for performers and creators including Dancenoise, Jo Andres, and Huck Snyder. He is a recipient of a New York Dance and Performance Award for Visual Design, Cinema. His own films include Rude Girl Picnic, Bloodless Pharaoh, and the music video Chelsea for Warner Brothers recording artists Stiffs, Inc.