The Talking Band
Encyclopedia
The Talking Band is a 35-year-old award-winning American experimental theater company based in New York City. The company consists of a three-person core group of artists: artistic director Paul Zimet, actor/writer/composer Ellen Maddow, and actor/director Tina Shepard.
The Talking Band is known for producing original works of theater that combine music, language, and choreographed movement in unconventional ways to create unique audience perspective on a wide range of subject material. Since its founding in 1974, The Talking Band has produced 46 original plays, and has performed its plays at theater venues around New York City and throughout the world.
, and after Chaikin disbanded the company in 1973, Zimet, Maddow, and Shepard joined with the other founding members of The Talking Band to start a new company. Along with starting The Talking Band, Zimet, Maddow, and Shepard continued to perform with Chaikin as part of his new company The Winter Project.
, featured music by Elizabeth Swados
, and used minimal staging. The piece centered on the use of actor voices and the rhythms and melodies of the language. It received critical praise from the Village Voice, which said, “it is as if the almost formal sense of using the breath opens the performers to the depths of an innerness that is sometimes like Alice in its sense of wonder and sometimes like Dante in its terribleness.”
The Talking Band’s productions evolved over the years. Incorporating poetry, dialog, and multi-media elements, alongside music and choreographed movement. Their pieces have focused on a wide range of subjects, from the travails of a housewife, to Christianity, and nuclear disarmament.
The company has been regularly praised by critics for its creative and innovative productions. American Theatre Magazine referred to The Talking Band as, “…one of the most exceptional but unsung theatre companies in the country.”
Notable Talking Band productions include The Walk Across America for Mother Earth (2011), Panic! Euphoria! Blackout (2010), Imminence (2008), Delicious Rivers (2006), Painted Snake in a Painted Chair (2003), Star Messengers (2000), Bitterroot (2001), Black Milk Quartet (1998), Party Time (1996), Betty and the Blenders (1987), No Plays No Poetry (1988), The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol (1987), Hot Lunch Apostles (1983), Pedro Paramo (1979), Worksong (1977), The Kalevala (1975).
, Peter Gordon, and “Blue” Gene Tyranny
, designers Julie Taymor
, Theodora Skipitares, Janie Geiser, Nic Ularu, Carol Mullins, Kiki Smith, and Anna Kiraly, writer and performance artist Taylor Mac, and magician Peter Samelson, among others.
, where they have produced and performed many of their plays. Their first production at La MaMa was Pedro Paramo in 1979.
The Talking Band has also performed at many of New York’s leading off-off Broadway theater venues, including HERE, Performance Space 122
, 3LD Art & Technology Center, Theatre for the New City, The Ohio Theater, Dance Theater Workshop
, Dixon Place
.
The Talking Band has also performed extensively internationally. Their list of international performance venues include The Roundhouse (London), The American Center (Paris), The Music Gallery (Toronto), Kovcheg Theater (Moscow), Teatro La Batuta (Santiago), and The National theatre of Bucharest in Romania.
The Talking Band is known for producing original works of theater that combine music, language, and choreographed movement in unconventional ways to create unique audience perspective on a wide range of subject material. Since its founding in 1974, The Talking Band has produced 46 original plays, and has performed its plays at theater venues around New York City and throughout the world.
Company History
The Talking Band was founded in 1974 by Paul Zimet, Ellen Maddow, Tina Shepard, Mark Samuels, Charles Stanley, Sybille Hayn, Margo Lee Sherman, and Arthur Strimling. The group had its roots in the work of The Open Theatre, where company members Zimet, Maddow, and Shepard worked as core company members. The Open Theatre had founded by director, actor and writer Joseph ChaikinJoseph Chaikin
Joseph Chaikin was an American theatre director, playwright, and pedagogue.-Early years:The youngest of five children, Chaikin was born to a poor Jewish family living in the Borough Park residential area of Brooklyn. At the age of six, he was struck with rheumatic fever, and he continued to...
, and after Chaikin disbanded the company in 1973, Zimet, Maddow, and Shepard joined with the other founding members of The Talking Band to start a new company. Along with starting The Talking Band, Zimet, Maddow, and Shepard continued to perform with Chaikin as part of his new company The Winter Project.
Productions
The Talking Band has produced 46 original theater productions. Its first production The Kalevala, based on the Finnish Epic poemKalevala
The Kalevala is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature...
, featured music by Elizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados is an American writer, composer, musician, and theatre director. While some of her subject matter is humorous, such as her satirical look at Ronald Reagan, Rap Master Ronnie, and Doonesbury - both collaborations with Garry Trudeau - much of her work deals with dark issues such as...
, and used minimal staging. The piece centered on the use of actor voices and the rhythms and melodies of the language. It received critical praise from the Village Voice, which said, “it is as if the almost formal sense of using the breath opens the performers to the depths of an innerness that is sometimes like Alice in its sense of wonder and sometimes like Dante in its terribleness.”
The Talking Band’s productions evolved over the years. Incorporating poetry, dialog, and multi-media elements, alongside music and choreographed movement. Their pieces have focused on a wide range of subjects, from the travails of a housewife, to Christianity, and nuclear disarmament.
The company has been regularly praised by critics for its creative and innovative productions. American Theatre Magazine referred to The Talking Band as, “…one of the most exceptional but unsung theatre companies in the country.”
Notable Talking Band productions include The Walk Across America for Mother Earth (2011), Panic! Euphoria! Blackout (2010), Imminence (2008), Delicious Rivers (2006), Painted Snake in a Painted Chair (2003), Star Messengers (2000), Bitterroot (2001), Black Milk Quartet (1998), Party Time (1996), Betty and the Blenders (1987), No Plays No Poetry (1988), The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol (1987), Hot Lunch Apostles (1983), Pedro Paramo (1979), Worksong (1977), The Kalevala (1975).
Awards
The Talking Band has been widely acknowledged by critics for its innovative productions throughout the company’s history. The company has been the recipient of 15 Obie Awards, off-off Broadway’s highest honor, including 13 Obies for their production of Painted Snake in a Painted Chair.Company Members
Founding members Ellen Maddow, Tina Shepard, and Paul Zimet remain as the current core company members of The Talking Band.Paul Zimet
Paul Zimet is a writer, director, and actor, and is Artistic Director of The Talking Band. He has directed over thirty-five original works for the company, including the following plays which he wrote: New Islands Archipelago, Imminence, Belize, The Parrot, Star Messengers, Bitterroot, Party Time, Black Milk Quartet and New Cities. He received an OBIE award for the direction of Painted Snake in a Painted Chair, and three OBIE awards for his work with Open Theatre and Winter Project. He was recipient of the 2008 NewYorkTheatre.Com People of the Year award; The Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theater; and a Playwrights’ Center National McKnight Fellowship. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists.Ellen Maddow
Ellen Maddow has written, composed, and performed in most of The Talking Band's works. Plays she has written include Panic! Euphoria! Blackout, Flip Side (published in Plays and Playwrights 2010), Delicious Rivers, Painted Snake in a Painted Chair (OBIE Award) and five pieces about the avant-garde housewife, Betty Suffer. She is a recipient of a McKnight Playwriting Fellowship, the Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theatre, a NYFA Playwriting Fellowship, NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, New York Theatre.com People of the Year Award. She was a member of the Open Theater, and an alumnus of New Dramatists.Tina Shepard
Tina Shepard is an Obie Award-winning actor and teacher at New York University and is a founding member of The Talking Band. She has performed in most of Talking Band's productions and has also worked with a number of other companies and artists including Joseph Chaikin, Anne Bogart, Target Margin, and Theater of a Two-Headed Calf. Shows with Chaikin include The Serpent (1969 OBIE), Terminal, Nightwalk, Electra, The Seagull, Tourists and Refugees (1982 OBIE), and Trespassing. Her shows with Anne Bogart include No Plays, No Poetry (1988 OBIE), American Vaudeville, and Orestes. Shepard has taught acting, directing, voice and movement at Princeton, Williams, Smith and NYU/ETW. With her students she has directed fifteen shows, most of them developed collaboratively with the ensemble.Creative Process
The Talking Band uses a collaborative creative process that incorporates the approaches and aesthetics of artists in a variety of media and arts fields. During their 35 years, the company has collaborated with influential artists from a range of backgrounds, including composers Elizabeth SwadosElizabeth Swados
Elizabeth Swados is an American writer, composer, musician, and theatre director. While some of her subject matter is humorous, such as her satirical look at Ronald Reagan, Rap Master Ronnie, and Doonesbury - both collaborations with Garry Trudeau - much of her work deals with dark issues such as...
, Peter Gordon, and “Blue” Gene Tyranny
Gene Tyranny
Blue' Gene Tyranny is an avant-garde composer and pianist. He was born in San Antonio, Texas, the adopted son of Dorothy and Meyer Sheff. He studied piano with Meta Hertwig and Rodney Hoare, and composition with Otto Wick and Frank Hughes...
, designers Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor is an American director of theater, opera and film. Taymor's work has received many accolades from critics, and she has earned two Tony Awards out of four nominations, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song...
, Theodora Skipitares, Janie Geiser, Nic Ularu, Carol Mullins, Kiki Smith, and Anna Kiraly, writer and performance artist Taylor Mac, and magician Peter Samelson, among others.
The Performance Lab
In 1996, The Talking Band created The Performance Lab, establishing a more formal structure for their collaborative development process. This process allows the company to work with young artists and guest artists to explore new creative directions and integrate new perspectives. Since 1996, Talking Band has produced 17 shows through The Performance Lab.The Talking Band and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
The Talking Band is a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre ClubLa MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for...
, where they have produced and performed many of their plays. Their first production at La MaMa was Pedro Paramo in 1979.
The Talking Band has also performed at many of New York’s leading off-off Broadway theater venues, including HERE, Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122, generally known as P.S. 122, is a not-for-profit arts organization and one of the longest standing venues dedicated to contemporary performance art in New York City. Founded in 1979 in the abandoned Public School 122 building at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street in the East...
, 3LD Art & Technology Center, Theatre for the New City, The Ohio Theater, Dance Theater Workshop
Dance Theater Workshop
Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, is a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies. Located as 219 West 19th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, DTW was founded in 1965 by Jeff Duncan, Art Bauman and...
, Dixon Place
Dixon Place
Dixon Place is an Obie Award winning, Off-Off Broadway New York City theater devoted exclusively to presenting original pieces of theater, dance, performance art and literature that are works in progress.-History:...
.
The Talking Band has also performed extensively internationally. Their list of international performance venues include The Roundhouse (London), The American Center (Paris), The Music Gallery (Toronto), Kovcheg Theater (Moscow), Teatro La Batuta (Santiago), and The National theatre of Bucharest in Romania.