AOH has invited theater artists from the region—Mariah Ayscue, Frank Boyd and Heather Christian—to develop and present new work in virtual staged readings.
These are live events and will not be recorded for later viewing so book your spots now!
HEATHER CHRISTIAN
None: A Practical Breviary
Friday, August 7 at 8p & Sunday, August 16 at 7p
A Breviary (also referred to as “The Divine Offices” or the “Canonical Hours” is a series of 8 short masses that are sung at 3 hour intervals throughout the day by Catholic cloistered nuns and monks.
A Practical Breviary is an attempt to adapt these masses for atheists and agnostics and ameteur physicists and devouts of all religions. The “None” is a mass that takes place at 3pm, which, in Christian traditions, is an hour of despair and isolation. The psalms traditionally chosen for the hour convey a feeling of abandonment by the Creator— its subsequent readings balm the wound. In non-Christian traditions throughout history, warriors are made by trials of isolation, which is an applicable message in our current moment of enforced separation from our communities. This is a rollicking hour of musical hybrids, mixing classical forms with pop music, jazz and blues set up against NASA recordings of the “music” the different planets in our solar system are “singing” to create a new kind of cosmic gospel.
HEATHER CHRISTIAN is an Obie Award winning composer/performer and 2018 Sundance Institude Time Warner Fellow. Recent composing/performing credits include her own work Oratorio for Living Things (Ars Nova), Prime: A Practical Breviary (Playwrights Horizons Soundstage) Animal Wisdom ( The Bushwick Starr,) in addition to being a lead artist on devised works Mission Drift Nat’l Theater London, The World Is Round BAM). Recent Film and TV: (The Shivering Truth (Adult Swim), Lemon (Dir. Janicza Bravo). She was named one of TimeOut NY's Downtown Innovators To Watch and is a 2019 Harold an Mimi Steinberg Trust commissionee. She’s released 10 records, taught at NYU and Princeton, operates her own recording studio in Beacon, NY, and can be seen regularly in concert as Heather Christian & the Arbornauts. www.heatherchristian.com.
MARIAH AYSCUE
Mother Hope
Sunday, August 9 at 7p & Friday, August 14 at 8p
Presented in collaboration with Girl Be Heard
Mother Hope is the story of Buffy and Liv, who are romantically together during the novel Covid-19. Their story reflects on the Resistance movement, the Say Her Name Movement and the MMIW crisis. Mother Hope asks us: Where do we find hope amidst a pandemic? How are people with mental illness coping during this time? Will these iconic movements be remembered post Covid-19? What happens when we Politicize Trauma?
MARIAH AYSCUE (She/Her/Queen) is a Spoken Word Poet, Playwright, Director, Performer, Activist, Healer and Liberator from Montclair, New Jersey. Mariah has trained at ATC Studios in Clifton, New Jersey and is a graduate Directing Fellow and Company Member with Girl Be Heard in Brooklyn, NYC. She dreams of reclaiming the narratives, education and healing of the QTBIPOC community. It is the work she wants to do for the rest of her life.
FRANK BOYD
Live From Lodge #274: Auction Preview (working title)
Saturday, August 8 at 8p & Saturday, August 15 at 8p
Inspired by findings from garage sales, estate auctions, thrift stores and eBay, Live From Lodge 274: Auction Preview, rummages through personal artifacts from everyday American life for perspective on the loss, reckoning and general strangeness of the current moment. Staged as a charity auction event being held by the Elks Club, the piece draws on the work of Buster Keaton, 90s hip hop, and the complicated history of “benevolent” American institutions.
FRANK BOYD is a NY based actor and writer. Original works include The Holler Sessions (Guthrie Theater and at AOH in 2017) and Patti & The Kid (On the Boards). In 2020 Frank performed in NYC and on tour with Half Straddle in Is This A Room. Frank has also performed with Elevator Repair Service in Gatz and The Select, with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company in Straight White Men, and with the TEAM in Architecting. TV: Z Nation. Film: Thin Skin.