Shailja Patel’s award-winning MIGRITUDE is forthcoming from Kaya Press in Fall 2010.

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES PROJECTS FOR PILOT THEATRE LABS AT MASS MoCA AND ON GOVERNORS ISLAND
ORIGINAL WORKS BY ADAM BOCK, SHAILJA PATEL, JENNIFER MAISEL, JASON GROTE, LAURA JACQMIN AND HARRISON RIVERS SELECTED

John Kelly Named Sundance Institute Time Warner Storytelling Fellow in Residence at MASS MoCA

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute announced today the projects chosen to participate in its two new Theatre Labs at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) and on Governors Island, to be held in March and June of this year, respectively. Under the artistic direction of Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program, the Labs will provide these projects with guidance in the development of new work for the stage.

The pilot Labs were created because of a temporary loss of space at the Sundance Resort in Sundance, Utah, due to renovation. The new Labs will serve as many playwrights as in previous years.

“The current season represents a departure from our history and is unquestionably one of Sundance Institute’s most innovative,” said Himberg. “The Lab at MASS MoCA is a fascinating collaboration between Sundance Institute and a major cultural institution that shares our values. The Lab on Governors Island is our first non-residency program, allowing local writers to work in a retreat setting during the day and return to their homes each night. We expect to learn a great deal about how best to support these artists as we take a step away from the familiarity of our fantastic Utah home and collaborate with new partners.”

MASS MoCA

This program will run March 28 – April 11, 2010 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass.

A Small Fire by Adam Bock; Directed by Trip Cullman
A Small Fire asks us: When life hands you a big change, how do you respond? Do you try to return to the way things were, or do you take a chance and change even more? People love and hate change, because it demands that we be clear about who we are, and who we want to be.

Bwagamoyo by Shailja Patel; Directed by Liesl Tommy
Bwagamoyo charts a voyage from colonial Zanzibar to Kenya’s 2008 post-election violence, by way of the male body. Drawing on the history of the artist’s father, born and raised in Zanzibar, and Patel’s personal involvement with Kenya’s post-election crisis, Bwagamoyo shows how the architecture of Empire is codified on the bodies of men. How the stories of our bodies are intimately mirrored in the larger Body Politic, and our national histories. Bwagamoyo is the second work in Patel’s four-part opus, Migritude.

-moreOut of Orbit by Jennifer Maisel; Directed by Jackson Gay
A mother and her teenage daughter. The Jet Propulsion Lab Scientist and the underachiever. Sara lives on Mars time, spearheading the Mars Rover Expedition, visiting a planet she cannot touch, while her daughter, Lis, on earth time, falls under the spell of the cyber-cypher Edgar2330. Sometimes it takes being worlds apart for an exploring woman and a longing-to-be-explored girl to find each other in our increasingly disconnected universe.