Artist in Residence: Sarah Gancher and Jared Mezzocchi Staging History Workshop

Participants will be guided in writing scenes about their family history and/or ghosts. How does the past influence the present? How does the present echo and iterate the past? Prompts will be sent to workshop participants ahead of time. Then, we will experiment with staging these scenes using zoom, Isadora, and live projection.

Residency Plan:
We will use our residency at Bethany Arts to brainstorm, draft, and begin work on the creation of our new piece, UNTITLED RED HOOK HISTORY, a co-commission from the Vineyard Theatre and En Garde Arts. UNTITLED RED HOOK HISTORY will unite in-person theatrical performance with live online performance, via projections in a single space and, simultaneously, an online performance portal.

Bio:
Sarah Gancher’s writing has been seen on stages worldwide including London’s National Theatre, Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, The Public Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, Steppenwolf, Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Hartford Stage, RoundHouse (DC), Seattle Rep, and Ars Nova. (Upcoming: Playwrights Horizons Soundstage, Geva Theater, and Vineyard Theatre/En Garde Arts.) Recently, the online production of her play Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy (dir. Jared Mezzocchi & Elizabeth Williamson, Theaterworks Hartford/Theatre Squared/The Civilians) was included in the New York Times’ Top 10 Theater of 2020 list. Other honors include the Richard Rodgers Award, New York Stage and Film Founders’ Award, The Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, the James Stevenson Prize for Comedy, the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Award, a Toulmin Foundation commission, several Lortel, Drama Desk, and Drama League nominations, and the AR Gurney Prize. An alumna of Ars Nova Play Group, WP Lab, P73 and The Playwrights’ Realm, she is a current resident at New Dramatists. She also plays jazz violin. MFA: NYU. 

Jared Mezzocchi is an Obie award winning director and multimedia designer. Mezzocchi’s work has been seen throughout the United States at notable theaters such as: The Kennedy Center (How To Catch A Star), The Geffen Playhouse (Someone Else’s House), Vineyard Theater (On The Beauty of Loss), Arena Stage (Intelligence), Woolly Mammoth (The Nether, Women Laughing Alone with Salad, Chad Deity), and many more. In 2016, he received The Lucille Lortel and Henry Hewes Award for his work in Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone at the Manhattan Theatre Club. In 2021, The New York Times highlighted his multimedia work during the pandemic, alongside four artists including Paula Vogel and Andrew Lloyd Webber. His work was celebrated as a New York Times Critic Pick on Sarah Gancher’s Russian Troll Farm (Co-Director & Multimedia Designer) where it was praised for being one of the first digitally native successes for virtual theater. He is a two-time Macdowell Artist Fellow, a 2012 Princess Grace Award winner, and spends his summers as Producing Artistic Director of Andy’s Summer Playhouse. Jared is an Associate Professor at The University of Maryland, leading the MFA Design Program for the Projection and Multimedia Track. Over the pandemic, Jared founded Virtual Design Collective (ViDCo), aiding in the development of over 50 new digital and hybrid works over the last 2 years including the current season of Paula Vogel’s Bard At The Gate, co-produced by McCarter Theater. MFA: Brooklyn College. 

Residencies and programs at Bethany Arts Community are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor’s office and the New York State Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Westchester, and numerous individual donors.