Bated Breath Theatre Brings INTERLUDES to Real Art Ways, 7/19, 27-28 & 8/16

Bated Breath will be in residency at Real Art Ways this summer, creating new bite-sized works of interactive theatre inspired by the visual arts program.

The 5-year old company, which named Mara Lieberman as Artistic Director in February, will work in the galleries all summer, devising theatrical responses to each art installation as part of Bated Breath’s new “Interludes” program.

The “Interludes” program devises short theater pieces custom tailored especially for other organizations to engage their particular audience.

Lieberman is looking forward to engaging the Real Art Ways audience in their second collaboration. “As a director, I’m interested in making performance that does not stop at the foot of the stage and that is exactly what Bated Breath is doing this summer. We interact with the art work, the audience, and the space to create something new and exciting.”

The theatre company will be devising short theatre pieces inspired by current work in the galleries. Summer exhibitions include work by Phil Lique and Laura Marsh, Dennis Maher, Samuel Rowlett, Dave Sinaguglia, Brad Guarino, Gail Biederman, and Ronnie Rysz, on the topics of consumer culture, urban demolition and restoration, and masculinity.

“This is a fruitful collaboration,” says Will K. Wilkins, Executive Director of Real Art Ways. "We're looking forward to mixing exhibitions and theater."

From June through August, Bated Breath will perform at the Real Art Ways’ Creative Cocktail Hours, which are held on the third Thursday of each month. Performances will occur throughout the evening on July 19 and August 16, 2012.

The theatre company will also teach educational workshops as part of Real Art Ways’ ParkART program. Now in its second decade, Real Art Ways’ ParkArt program provides seven weeks of free daily workshops, ranging from the visual arts to puppetry, music and storytelling, to Parkville children.

A full evening showcasing all of Bated Breath’s works produced during the residency will be performed at 8 PM on Friday and Saturday, July 27th and 28th at Real Art Ways. For more information visit www.batedbreaththeatre.org.

Bated Breath Theatre Company is a theater collective that produces classical, contemporary and devised work in ways that breathe new life into the theatrical experience. The company’s work is often characterized by its non-traditional use of theater spaces and its unconventional engagement of the audience. In five short years, the company has performed a new translation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (by former Artistic Director Helene Kvale) at the Gene Frankel Theater in New York, The Parkville Project at The Playhouse on Park in West Hartford and Hunger at Real Art Ways last September. The company is composed of highly acclaimEd Hartford-based theater artists: Mara Lieberman, Michael Bradford, Paul Spirito, Greg Webster, Helene Kvale, Ann Sciglimpaglia and Glen Nicholes. Bated Breath collective members specialize in everything from puppetry and playwriting to performance art.

Mara Lieberman is the new Artistic Director of Bated Breath Theatre Company. As a director, actor and writer, Lieberman’s theater career spans from Chicago and New York to Hartford. Most notably, she assisted Lloyd Richards at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, co-founded The Director's Collective in New York City and wrote and performed her one-woman show, Feeling Science: The Life of Barbara McClintock, as part of her Master’s thesis in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. Feeling Science was later performed as part of the American Living Room festival co-sponsored by Lincoln Center and HERE, at Trinity College and was nominated for the William Morris Agency Award. Lieberman earned her BA in theater from Sarah Lawrence College, her Master’s Degree from Northwestern, and has trained and taught the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, the Viewpoints and Composition extensively. She’s been on the faculty of Trinity College, Eastern Connecticut State University and currently teaches at The Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and Manchester Community College.