Dance Nation
- Written by Clare Barron
- Directed by Lee Sunday Evans
Clare Barron is a playwright and actor from Wenatchee, Washington. Her plays have been produced by Page 73, Woolly Mammoth, Clubbed Thumb and The Bushwick Starr, and will appear at Playwrights Horizons and Steppenwolf in 2018. She is the recipient of an Obie Award, the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award at The Vineyard and the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. Barron was also the co-winner of the inaugural 2015 Relentless Award established in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman for her play Dance Nation. She lives in Brooklyn.
Recent Credits include: Bull in a China Shop by Bryna Turner (LCT3), [Porto] by Kate Benson (Bushwick Starr), Caught by Christopher Chen (Play Co.), Macbeth (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), Wellesley Girl by Brendan Pelsue (Humana Festival), D Deb Debbie Deborah by Jerry Lieblich (Clubbed Thumb), A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes by Kate Benson (OBIE Award – New Georges/Women’s Project). Her work has been presented/developed at: Baryshnikov Arts Center, Sundance Theater Lab, BAX, CATCH, LMCC, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, Juilliard. Lee received the 2016 Susan Stroman Directing Award from The Vineyard Theater.
"I want you to think about all the people in the world who are suffering…And I want you to go out there…And I want you to dance for them."
Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they’ll claw their way to the top at the Boogie Down Grand Prix in Tampa Bay. But in Clare Barron’s raucous pageant of ambition and ferocity, these young dancers have more than choreography on their minds, because every plié and jeté is a step toward finding themselves, and a fight to unleash their power.
2017 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner
Featuring
Purva Bedi
ConnieEboni Booth
ZuzuCamila Canó-Flaviá
SofiaLayla Khosh
Amina (Extension)Ellen Maddow
MaeveChristina Rouner
Vanessa/The MomsThomas Jay Ryan
Dance Teacher PatDina Shihabi
AminaLucy Taylor
AshleeIkechukwu Ufomadu
LukePlaywrights: Dance Nation (Drama Desk Award). Other Off-Broadway: Passage (Soho Rep.), India Pale Ale (MTC), An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW), Uncommon Sense (Tectonic), IDIOT! (HERE), Rise of Dorothy Hale (St. Luke's). W/ Target Margin as Associate Artist: Reread Another, Tempest, Second Language, Ten Blocks on the Camino Real. Film: The Assistant, Sully, Equity, Kumare, Cosmopolitan. TV: “Billions,” “High Maintenance,” “Person of Interest,” “Madame Secretary,” “Nurse Jackie.” Williams College, BADA, Public Theatre Shakespeare Lab.
(Updated July 2019)
Playwrights debut. Off-Broadway: After the Blast (LCT3), Fulfillment Center (MTC); Sundown, Yellow Moon (Ars Nova/WP); Ultimate Beauty Bible (Page 73); Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (Soho Rep.); The Cider House Rules (Atlantic). Television: “The Americans,” “Show Me a Hero,” “Daredevil.”
Playwrights debut. Regional: Julius Caesar (Shakespeare’s Globe Theater), My Jane (Chester Theatre Company). BFA: Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Playwrights: Men On Boats (co-production with Clubbed Thumb). Selected credits: Bull in a China Shop (LCT3), Sensuality Party (The New Group), Dido of Idaho (Ensemble Studio Theater), Wyoming (Lesser America), Nobody’s Girl (New Jersey Rep), Women (Hollywood Fringe), I Am Gordafarid (Noor Theater), Romeo and Juliet (The Flea). Film: Long Nights Short Mornings. TV: “Instinct.” Web: “My Ex is Trending.” MFA in Acting: Brooklyn College, 2012.
Playwrights debut. Off-Broadway: founding member (playwright, composer, performer) of Talking Band. Favorite roles: The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, The Room Sings, The Golden Toad, Betty and the Blenders, Marcellus Shale (La Mama); The Peripherals (Dixon Place), The Lily’s Revenge (HERE). Member of the Open Theater. Obie Award, Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theatre, NYFA Playwriting Fellowship, NEA/TCG Award for Playwrights, alumnus of New Dramatists. talkingband.org
Playwrights debut. Broadway: Coram Boy. Off-Broadway: This Is the Color…, Eternal, House for Sale, Tom Ryan Thinks…, Duchess of Malfi, Halfway Home, Three Tall Women. National tour: The Laramie Project, Three Tall Women. Regional: Long Wharf, Yale Rep, Westport, Guthrie, Baltimore Center Stage, La Jolla, Old Globe, Williamstown, others. Film: Mapplethorpe, Ned Rifle, I Dream Too Much, Taking Chance, Fur, The Skeptic, others. TV: “Blue Bloods,” “Billions,” “The Good Wife,” “Elementary,” “Sex and the City,” “Law & Order,” “Law and Order: SVU,” others. Education: Yale, Juilliard.
Playwrights debut. Broadway: The Crucible, In the Next Room. He has originated roles in productions of new plays by Sarah Ruhl, Anne Washburn, Jordan Harrison, Suzan-Lori Parks, Lucas Hnath, Will Eno, Dan LeFranc, Richard Foreman, Melissa James Gibson, Craig Lucas, and Ken Urban, among others. Film: many feature films, most prominently the title role in Hal Hartley’s Cannes Festival prize-winning Henry Fool Trilogy. TV: guest starring roles on many series. Awards: Drama Desk and Callaway awards, Drama League and Gemini nominations.
Playwrights debut. Regional: Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Long Wharf). Film: Amira & Sam, David. TV: “Jack Ryan,” “Daredevil,” “Madam Secretary.” MFA: NYU Grad Acting.
Playwrights debut. Off-Broadway: Fondly, Collette Richland (ERS, NYTW); The Sound and the Fury (ERS, The Public); Ancient Lives (Half Straddle, The Kitchen); The Select: The Sun Also Rises (ERS, NYTW). Regional: The Town Hall Affair (Wooster Group), The Select: The Sun Also Rises, Gatz (ERS). TV: “Madam Secretary,” “Bull, Horace and Pete,” “Limitless.” Training: VCA (Australia). Thank you Mum and Dad and August and all the babysitters. lucytaylor.org
Creative Team
Arnulfo Maldonado
Scenic DesignÁsta Bennie Hostetter
Costume DesignBarbara Samuels
Lighting DesignBrandon Wolcott
Sound DesignErin Gioia Albrecht
Production Stage ManagerBryan Bauer
Assistant Stage ManagerArnulfo Maldonado is a New York City based set and costume designer. He is a recent Tony Award® Nominee for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for the Broadway production of Buena Vista Social Club (Schoenfeld Theatre, dir: Saheem Ali), as well as for A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson (Lyceum Theatre, dir: Stephen Brackett). In addition, Arnulfo received the 2020 Obie for Sustained Excellence in Set Design, as well as a Special Citation Obie as part of the Creative Team of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson. Arnulfo is a recipient of a Princess Grace Fabergé Theater Award and a multiple Henry Hewes Design. Lortel Award, and Drama Desk nominee
I am proud to have designed the world premieres of many new plays including:
Infinite Life, John, Usual Girls, Dance Nation, Porto, The Wolves, Men on Boats, 10 out of 12 and You Got Older.
Opera: Recent projects include world premiere of 10 Days in a Madhouse dir. Joanna Settle, and numerous student productions with the New School and the Curtis Institute.
I am mad for the Classics, including my work on Taming of the Shrew dir. Shana Cooper and Dom Juan dir. Ashley Tata. I enjoy the scale of emotion and freedom available when working in the canon.
Barbara Samuels (Lighting & Set Designer) (she/her) is an Obie and Henry Hewes Award winning queer designer, organizer and producer creating design-forward live events that prioritize generosity, equity, and representation. New York credits include designs at Soho Rep, Signature, MCC, Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, TFANA, NYTW, Playwrights Horizons, NAATCO, Ma-Yi, WP Theater, The Bushwick Starr, Monica Bill Barnes & Company, Target Margin, Beth Morrison Projects, New Georges, Little Island, The Public and Clubbed Thumb. Regional: Pig Iron, Bard Summerscape, The Alley, Long Wharf, ACT, Woolly Mammoth, Playmakers, Kansas City Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Shakespeare Theater Company, and Trinity Rep. New Georges Affiliated Artist. 2016 Target Margin Institute. Wingspace Member. WP Lab 2022-24.BA, Fordham; MFA, NYU. Proud Member USA829. www.barbarasamuels.com
Brandon Wolcott is a Brooklyn based sound designer, composer and DJ. His work has been felt and heard at dozens of venues in the U.S. and around the world, including: BAM, The Pubic Theater, Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, The Shed, Mass Moca, Museum of Contepmorary Art Chicago, Le Pompidou, La Mama ETC, Invisible Dog, 3LD, PS122, Playwrights Horizon, Clubbed Thumb, Walker Museum of Art, Fusebox, A.R.T., Mark Taper Forum, CTG, La Jolla Playhouse, Salzburg Festival, Noordezon, Edinburgh Festival and many more… As a sound designer and composer, Brandon has collaborated on a diverse array of projects, including work in dance, theater, installation and film. Collaborations include 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Taylor Mac, Faye Driscoll, Geoff Sobelle, Kevin Newbury, Lee Sunday Evans, Lila Neugebauer, Lear DeBessonet, Taibi Magar, Tyne Rafeli, and many others. As a DJ and producer, he has released music with Nicolas Jaar’s Other People, Wolf+Lamb, Archipel and Kingdoms. His Smirk project performed live sets at festivals around the world, including highlights: Mutek Montreal, Unsound Krakow, Dispatch Belgrade and Save Moscow.
Playwrights Horizons: Bella, A Life, Men On Boats, Marjorie Prime, The Christians. Broadway: Bullets Over Broadway, Matilda, Bronx Bombers, Hands on a Hardbody. Other Off-Broadway: Charm, Punk Rock, The Village Bike, The Third Story (MCC); Sundown, Yellow Moon (Ars Nova/WP Theater); Red Speedo (NYTW); Abundance (TACT); Venice (The Public); Bronx Bombers (Primary Stages). Regional: multiple productions at The Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse, most recently the development of John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons. MFA: UC San Diego.
Experienced Stage Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the performing arts, both in New York and regionally. Strong theatrical professional with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) and Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A) from Oklahoma City University.
I have seen the future, and it is Dance Nation.
Critic’s Pick! A blazingly original play from the insanely talented Clare Barron. Directed and choreographed with gloriously rough magic by Lee Sunday Evans, marvel at how close what you see cuts to the bone.
We recommend this show for ages 15 and up due to strong language and locker room nudity.