see & listen. rec from The Muse Project.
The Subject is an incredible film. On June 11th, 2020 @ 9pm it has an encore screening with The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. It’s written by Chisa Hutchinson, a wildly talented playwright and screenwriter, who has contributed work and support to Staging Film, a sister initiative. It’s directed by the endlessly perceptive Lanie Zipoy, a longtime Muse advisor. It stars Emmy Award nominee Aunjanue Ellis and Jason Biggs in completely engrossing performances. It also features Vanessa Aspillaga who was a Muse in 2018! See it. Tickets are $10. Link below.
statement from The Muse Project
May 31, 2020
The Muse Project stands in solidarity with Black artists, colleagues, audience members, & advocates. We support and stand with protesters across the country righteously requesting and insisting upon justice. The anger is not misplaced. Anger is an incredible tool to disrupt, build coalitions, instigate and sustain change.
White domination, control, and fear is a core component of the history of the United States. It is our culture’s baseline paradigm which infects all aspects of our lives: including theater, film, television, and media.
Deeply embedded violence against Black, Indigenous, POC, LGBTQ+, and female communities courses through every fiber that makes up our nation. This violence contaminates our social contract, making equitable interdependence impossible. Additionally, it stifles and prohibits the expansive creative work we wish to do and the vulnerable, wholehearted lives we wish to lead.
Black Lives Matter. Blackness matters. Black art matters.
The Muse Project’s mission is to amplify a multitude of women's voices. We actively commit to being an anti-racist organization. We are constantly examining our own roles in perpetuating inequities, and we will be active in asserting uncomfortable dialogue. We will ask questions, and we will listen to criticism. More specifically:
- We will examine our choices and practices within The Muse Project. We will continue to seek to disrupt inequity. We will actively seek to disrupt racism. We will work to find consistent, ongoing ways to do so.
- We will share resources to support our Black communities. We will also ask other organizations to share resources with Black communities as well.
- We will call upon our White colleagues to examine their participation in systemic racial violence. We will work to usurp majority White spaces (which continues to be the predominant space in American theater).
- We will examine how our creative rooms sustain white supremacism in methodology. We will seek practices which decolonize modes of content creation. We will engage and compensate our Black community members to examine and modify our current content creation practices.
- We will engage representatives, journalists, and activists as a means to amplify the unseen, unheard, unappreciated, and violated.
We are an education oriented institution. Here are some amazing, recommended resources.
We thank many in our theater community for their efforts to engage, be proactive and lead, and we thank and admire those who have been working hard to fight for a better world for a long time.
With love, curiosity, & solidarity,
The Muse Project
#BlackLivesMatter
*Some language and grammar adjustments have been made to this statement since it's original publication to more accurately reflect and correct The Muse Project's goals, intentions, and values.
White domination, control, and fear is a core component of the history of the United States. It is our culture’s baseline paradigm which infects all aspects of our lives: including theater, film, television, and media.
Deeply embedded violence against Black, Indigenous, POC, LGBTQ+, and female communities courses through every fiber that makes up our nation. This violence contaminates our social contract, making equitable interdependence impossible. Additionally, it stifles and prohibits the expansive creative work we wish to do and the vulnerable, wholehearted lives we wish to lead.
Black Lives Matter. Blackness matters. Black art matters.
The Muse Project’s mission is to amplify a multitude of women's voices. We actively commit to being an anti-racist organization. We are constantly examining our own roles in perpetuating inequities, and we will be active in asserting uncomfortable dialogue. We will ask questions, and we will listen to criticism. More specifically:
- We will examine our choices and practices within The Muse Project. We will continue to seek to disrupt inequity. We will actively seek to disrupt racism. We will work to find consistent, ongoing ways to do so.
- We will share resources to support our Black communities. We will also ask other organizations to share resources with Black communities as well.
- We will call upon our White colleagues to examine their participation in systemic racial violence. We will work to usurp majority White spaces (which continues to be the predominant space in American theater).
- We will examine how our creative rooms sustain white supremacism in methodology. We will seek practices which decolonize modes of content creation. We will engage and compensate our Black community members to examine and modify our current content creation practices.
- We will engage representatives, journalists, and activists as a means to amplify the unseen, unheard, unappreciated, and violated.
We are an education oriented institution. Here are some amazing, recommended resources.
We thank many in our theater community for their efforts to engage, be proactive and lead, and we thank and admire those who have been working hard to fight for a better world for a long time.
With love, curiosity, & solidarity,
The Muse Project
#BlackLivesMatter
*Some language and grammar adjustments have been made to this statement since it's original publication to more accurately reflect and correct The Muse Project's goals, intentions, and values.
stay tuned for announcements regarding our 2020 programming!
And in the meantime, check out Emmy winner Erin Cherry's amazing Tea Time interview with Kyra Miller. Cherry sat down with Kyra in December 2019 to discuss her career, her Emmy win, and her hit show: After Forever. Check out the full interview below! And we extend a very special thank you to Melvin McCray for making this beautiful video, and to Torn Page for hosting us.
The Muse Project welcomes...
what is The Muse Project?
The Muse Project is a paradigm shift for women actors. Muse is a theater & media production company.
what is The Muse Project's mission?
The Muse Project seeks to disrupt the imbalance of opportunity and ownership of work for women actors through the development of challenging, actor-driven theater works and focused research into their participation in American theater. Our company shifts the theater paradigm through the empowerment of women actors as creators and content generators.
The Muse Project is an actor-first process. We give individual women performers time and space, and we help them to create a dream team of collaborators (other actors, writers, directors, musicians, and so forth). Women actors are given necessary resources to arrive at a first, second, & third iteration of their work through a workshop process termed the "Mini Muse." The work is shared with audiences to incite discussion and further development.
donate to The Muse Project.
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Please support The Muse Project with a tax-deductible contribution, to help us pay all collaborators generously for their energy and talents. Together, we can raise the industry standards of compensation for the new work development process.
Thanks for fighting the hard, awkward, frustrating, but good fight. Messy, but inspiring. Messy AND inspiring. |
The Muse Project is a sponsored project of The Tank & Fractured Atlas, non-profit arts service organizations. Contributions for the charitable purposes of The Muse Project must be made payable to 'The Tank' or 'Fractured Atlas' and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. It is really important to me that the project is female-driven and actor-driven--it feels like it's much closer to the essential nature of theater. This is a rare opportunity... I love working in this way because we are working outside of the confines of the way the industry often tells us we need to work, and very interesting work is produced when we aren't trying to conform to the typical expectations of what a 'new play' is or what a 'performance' or 'audience relationship' should be. |
This way of playmaking reminds me of the heyday of The Group Theatre; how Odets wrote for specific actors in the company. When a playwright is writing specifically to the strengths of an actor, the play fits like a glove. While it's daunting to start with a blank canvas, it's also thrilling to be invested in a project from conception. To be part of a conversation about character arcs, plot points, and the overall 'message' of the play engages every aspect of my creative being. It is very humbling and empowering as a storyteller to be in the room witnessing the 'best idea win.' |
