The BRB Retreat is a deep dive into FGP’s methods of delighted listening and joyful creation, providing an opportunity for artists of all mediums to initiate their own projects, build collaborative relationships, and develop their artistic process. The annual summer retreat, now in it’s sixth year, has served hundreds of theatre artists, musicians, choreographers, composers, designers, installation artists, authors, arts administrators, and podcasters.
Angela Sclafani is an NYC-based composer and performer. She is a resident of the Orchard Project Greenhouse, a two-time alumna of Ars Nova’s ANT Fest, a 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, and a first place winner of the 2018 Great American Song Contest. Angela was also a recipient of the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship and the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust Grant. Her new song cycle Passion Project: Love Songs from Women to their Work will premiere in NYC this fall. Favorite performances include Todd Almond’s Kansas City Choir Boy, starring Courtney Love, and supporting the British-pop band Years & Years as a backup vocalist on the North East leg of their Communion tour. Her recorded music releases are available to stream and download online. Angela graduated from NYU Tisch with a BFA in Drama. www.angelasclafani.com
MALLORY JANE WEISS is a Manhattan-based playwright whose work primarily spirals around female stories and pie. Select productions include Beginning (Adams Pool Theater – Harvard University), A&Z’s Escapades in Moonstruck City (The New School), and Pony Up (The New School, Princess Grace Finalist 2019). Her play, Losing You, Which Is Enough has had workshop readings at The Lark and Cherry Lane Theatre. She is developing work with Gingold Theatrical Group, where she was a member of their Speakers’ Corner writers’ group. BA: Harvard University, MFA: The New School
ADRIAN COLLINS is a Brooklyn-based artist from Austin, where she appeared in THE WOLVES (B. Iden Payne Award, Austin Critics Table Award), DNA, and ENRON. Adrian is interested in discovering where method, meaning, and organic matter intersect. She is developing the third piece of her forthcoming food performance series while at BRB. adrian-collins.com
MOLLY BEACH MURPHY is a playwright and director from Texas. Her work has been developed at New York Stage & Film + Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Orchard Project, Village Theater, Yale Institute for Musical Theater, Ars Nova, The Civilians’ R&D Group, UArts’ Polyphone, Fresh Ground Pepper. She is a Page 73 Fellowship semi-finalist and member of P73’s I-73 writer’s group. New Georges Affiliated Artist. She has worked as an associate director for Tina Landau and Jo Bonney among others. Published works in The Hairpin and Santa Ana River Review. mollybeachmurphy.com
JARED FIELD is a composer, conductor, music educator and clarinetist. He has written several musicals with his sister Jessie, including Rachel (2018 JDT Lab Selection, WINNER Outstanding Musical – 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival, 2013 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Prize for Best Original Play), and La Maupin (WINNER – 2018 MUT International Competition, WINNER Audience Favorite – 2017 Fresh Fruit Festival). In addition to his musical theater work, Jared has written classical chamber and choral music, as well as music for plays and dance pieces. Jared received his BA in Music Composition from Brandeis University, where he earned Highest Honors and graduated Summa Cum Laude. He received his MA in Music and Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Jared is currently the Director of Middle School Music at Worcester Academy in Worcester, MA, where he is a proud recipient of the O’Connell Award for excellence in teaching. www.jfieldmusic.com
JESSIE FIELD is an NYC playwright and director. Past musical collaborations with her brother, composer Jared Field, include Rachel (2018 JDT Lab Selection, WINNER Outstanding Musical – 2015 Fresh Fruit Festival, 2013 Harold and Mimi Sternberg Prize for Best Original Play) La Maupin (WINNER 2018 International MUT Competition, WINNER Audience Favorite – 2017 Fresh Fruit Festival) and Harold! The Musical (Grant Recipient in the 2009 Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts). Jessie has also written TYA straight play To The West, which was a finalist in the Growing Stage’s New Play Reading Festival and was presented as the school play at Randolph High School last year. Jessie served as 2015-’16 Directing Apprentice at Capital Stage in Sacramento, California, and has directed numerous plays in the Boston and New York areas. She works for Roundabout Theatre Company as an usher and is currently earning her MFA as a member of Cycle 29 at NYU Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. www.jessiefield.com
JOHANNA SOLEYN studied theatre at Pacific Union College. Her journey began on the stage, but quickly she discovered her passion for writing. Since her time at PUC Johanna has pursued her passion for family and raising her son. She is thrilled to be dipping her toes back into theatre and rediscovering her love for writing.
JOE DRYMALA is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who also writes words, mostly for the theater but sometimes for other audiences. He is a Texan by birth and upbringing but makes art in Brooklyn and Beacon. A 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, Joe wrote the score and book for the musicals STREET LIGHTS (New York Musical Theater Festival, further development at Old Globe Theater, San Diego) and SKY’S END (Winner of The Blank Theater Co.’s Young Playwright’s Festival, L.A. “Robbie” Award Nominee for Best Music and Lyrics) and he wrote the book and much of the score for the original incarnation of the musical WHITE NOISE (New York Musical Theater Festival, “Best Score” Summer Theater Awards, featured on TV newsmagazine ABC Primetime). In 2003 his opposition to the Iraq war led him to Vermont to volunteer for Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, where he ended up as Gov. Dean’s primary speechwriter, though he didn’t write the speech that people think of when you say the name “Howard Dean.” He did get to write a 5,000 word essay on poverty in America for Vanity Fair Magazine on Gov. Dean’s behalf (“How The Poor Live Now,” December 2003) and a speech on the Republican Party’s strategy of racially divisive politics which Gov. Dean delivered in South Carolina and which The Black Commentator called “the most important statement on race in American politics by a mainstream white politician in nearly 40 years.” Joe is also a founding member and composer for People Doing Math, a podcast created with director Andrew Scoville, playwright Jaclyn Backhaus and media designer Dave Tennent, in which the math-curious-but-challenged hosts explore mathematical questions through their art. People Doing Math has recorded live episodes at Ars Nova’s ANT Fest and The Public Theater’s Under The Radar Festival.
C.C. KELLOGG is a theatre and filmmaker from San Antonio, Texas. From closet dramas to multimedia installations, her work combines verse and expanded theatrical modes and has appeared at The McKittrick Hotel, The Brooklyn Art Library, The New York Public Library, AvignonLeOff, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Sekrit Theater, and Shakespeare’s Globe, among others. C.C. is the producing facilitator of Invulnerable Nothings, a Brooklyn-based performance collective which she cofounded in 2016. BA, English, Certificate in Theater, Princeton University. MA, Shakespeare in Performance with a new media emphasis, Bath Spa University. C.C.’s postgraduate research in the digital humanities focuses on live theatrical broadcast, 360 degree film, and narrative virtual reality.
OMAR VELEZ MELENDEZ is a playwright from Puerto Rico. In 2015, his play, Que ne pas, was a finalist at the UPR Humanities Literature Contest. His playwriting debut took place at the 2016 UPR Student Theatre Festival with The Natives Fight for Their Cave: Part 2. His work has also been developed by Teatro SEA and Pregones/PRTT. Other plays include We Built Our Homes Near Kingdoms of Animals and Magic (2019 Rita & Burton Goldberg Playwriting Prize), The Last Episode of El Super Mega Show and Lajasarriba.
DOUG KMIOTEK is an NYC based comedy writer. His first full-length farce, Family Affairs, was a 2019 finalist for the O’Neill New Play Conference and the Goldberg Playwriting Prize. Other playwriting work has been developed with NYU, the Amoralists and Slingshot Theater Company. His NYC debut production, Tamra Wasserman: This is Real, This is Me (An evocative autobiographical play by Tamra Wasserman), premiered at the PIT in 2018. He is a graduate of NYU’s MFA Dramatic Writing program (’18).
BRIAN ‘DYALEKT’ KUSHNER moved from St. Croix to New York to study acting and law. He also liked to rap. After witnessing civil rights injustices at the law firm he worked for, he dropped both the job and the law classes, pursuing the arts instead. Performances at the Nuyorican led him to Hip Hop Theater, writing plays that have been performed on stages across the world. He didn’t sleep on the rapping either, releasing music and touring internationally. His first album/one man play Square Peg Syndrome helped him get named to the Public Theater’s Emerging Writer’s Group. He has been a mainstay in NYC’s theater and Hip Hop scenes, rocking everywhere from the Bowery Ballroom to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. When Dyalekt was invited to present at a workshop for New York SCORES, a soccer and poetry program in Harlem and the Bronx, his perspective on performance changed. Students are much better audience members than bar patrons, and Dyalekt found he had a natural affinity for facilitation. Hip Hopping with students like he did with MCs in a cypher led to better engagement, grades, and overall attitude toward school than the usual class. After researching Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Dyalekt designed curricula lining up the elements of Hip Hop with each learning style. Through Hip Hop, or rather, by Hip Hopping, students could assess their learning tendencies and use them to their benefit. Furthermore, the community aspects of Hip Hop show students how to be responsible citizens, peer mentors, and advocates for justice. Dyalekt brought this curriculum, along with his album/play back home to St. Croix, rocking with 17 orgs and over 400 students. They produced 2 books of poetry, an album, and a documentary. He also now teaches teachers how to MC in a classroom. Dyalekt had been an entrepreneur since his teenage days, and tells his students that the only thing that gets him out of his house before 10am is talking to kids, because he would never make it working on a punch-clock schedule. Since the essence of Hip Hop is making something from nothing, Dyalekt has rapped, written, and performed every freelance gig available to his skill set. He ran rap based Lincoln-Douglas debate/battles to teach youths how to prepare and present at a job interview. He linked up with Pockets Change to help students find freedom in expression, understanding, and finances.
