It’s gonna be a Broadway debut! Alum Stephen Dexter (Class of 2012) will be joining the cast of The Shark is Broken on Broadway this summer! Stephen will be the understudy for all three leads. The show opens July 25th, 2023.
Olivia Washington (’13) in ‘I’m a Virgo’ on Amazon Prime
Olivia Washington (Class of 2013) plays the super-speedy Flora in Boots Riley’s surreal satire ‘I’m a Virgo’ now streaming on Amazon Prime!
Posted in Alumni
Dance Theater: MAD Presents “Ephemera”
New York, NY – June 1, 2023: The Stella Adler Center for the Arts is presenting new work created and
performed by Sophia Treanor and Deborah Black and developed in collaboration with Mary Overlie
through its Harold Clurman Center for New Works in Movement and Dance Theater (aka MAD) from
June 22-25, 2023.
Sophia Treanor is the 2023 Artist in Residence of MAD, which promotes the development of new work.
Housed in the Stella Adler Center for the Arts, which has been developing a thriving community and
audience base since 1949, MAD has a 15+ year history of supporting new work and emerging artists.
Said Artistic Director Tom Oppenheim, “I’m very excited to support and see this new work by two
important emerging theater makers. It is my hope that MAD can nourish creative artists like Sophia
Treanor and Deborah Black while stimulating audiences in encounters and conversations about what it
means to be human.”
In a final co-creation between living artists Sophia Treanor and Deborah Black with their late collaborator
Mary Overlie, Ephemera is a dance theater performance that explores entropy and the emergence of
difference in our universe. Prompted by Overlie’s directions and her last choreographic drawing, the two
choreographers study the webs of artistic lineage within a molecular dance. Amidst a forest of sequined
cook’s aprons and caps, vacuums, microwaves, and clowns, Ephemera makes visible the invisible. The
logic and illogic of life’s beginnings are made material by explosions of movement and sound, expansion,
contraction, symmetry, asymmetry, and popcorn, to ultimately ask: Is this all there is?
PERFORMANCE DETAILS
Thursday, June 22 at 7:30pm (Q+A to follow)
Friday, June 23 at 7:30pm
Saturday, June 24 at 2pm
Saturday, June 24 at 7:30pm
Sunday, June 25 at 2pm
Location:
Stella Adler Center of the Arts
65 Broadway, Floor 2
New York, NY 10006
In the interest of removing financial barriers for audiences to access great art and conversations, tickets
are available for free at: https://ci.ovationtix.com/34682/production/1159301
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Mary Overlie was born January 15, 1946 in Terry, Montana; conceived Movement Research, a
cooperative dance organization of international renown; founded Danspace Project with Barbara Dilley, a
dance presenting organization in New York City; first teacher hired to establish the Experimental Theatre
Wing at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University; a choreographer and performer with an
international reputation in the field of experimental dance, for many years teaching and performing as a
part of theInternational Tanz Wochen working with Ismael Ivo and Karl Regensburger in Vienna.
The Six Viewpoints was her child and it has done a unique thing in the world of theater and performance
philosophy; it has a quiet and infectious ability to represent itself without her. She joined those who
worked to elevate theater. Her leveling of the creative hierarchy by focusing on the materials has
conceptually and practically innovated the performance worlds of both theater and dance.
Sophia Treanor is a director, performer, and educator. She worked with Mary Overlie as a student,
teaching assistant, performer, and close companion throughout the United States, Europe, and China from
2011 until Overlie’s death in June of 2020. Sophia served as a primary reader for the Viewpoints book,
Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice. She is currently co-directing a documentary
about Mary Overlie (www.overliefilm.com), teaching the Viewpoints internationally along with the Jean
Hamilton Floor Barre Technique, and is a faculty member of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Sophia’s
live performance work has been seen in private and public spaces, theaters, and galleries across New York
City, including Danspace Project, the Living Theater, the Center for Performance Research, CAVE,
Triskelion Arts, and Dixon Place. Sophia is the Harold Clurman Center for New Works in Movement and
Dance Theater (MAD) 2023 Artist in Residence.
Deborah Black is a dance and theater artist, writer, and educator. She has performed in the work of
Deborah Hay, Mary Overlie, and Susan Rethorst. While living in Rotterdam from 2013-16, she created
and toured with the Tuning People (BE) and Ymist Company (NO). Her choreography has been presented
in New York at the TANK, Judson Church, Roulette, Joyce SoHo, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, Dixon
Place, AUNTS and in Germany at the Lucky Trimmer Tanz Performance Serie and ArToll. Deborah
taught physical theater and dance at the Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Tilburg. She taught guest
and master classes at Goldsmiths University London, NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing, Drama Studio
London, Ohio University, as well as private workshops in New York City and all across Europe.
Sophia and Deborah’s shared questions about the intersections of theater and dance led them to work
together in various capacities: teaching the Six Viewpoints and Jean Hamilton’s Floor Barre, stewarding
the Mary Overlie Legacy Project with Nicolás Noreña and Tony Perucci, and creating Ephemera.
About The Stella Adler Center for the Arts
Established in 1949 by Stella Adler, the Stella Adler Studio of Acting was founded upon Adler’s belief in
the supreme seriousness of her art, and has, for the last seven decades, enriched every part of the
American theater and film arts. Adler’s philosophies kept many well-known members of the theater
coming back for her intelligent and passionate advice and the school has since trained many of the
brilliant actors of our time, including Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Elaine Stritch, Benicio del Toro and
Salma Hayek. The Stella Adler Studio of Acting is a not-for-profit organization, which trains over 500
actors annually and also presents world-class lectures, poetry readings, jazz, classical music, theater, and
dance theater events. www.stellaadler.com
Posted in News
Rachel Sennott (’17) in HBO’s “The Idol”
Alum Rachel Sennott (Class of 2017) plays Leia, Jocelyn’s best friend and personal assistant, in the new HBO series “The Idol” co-created by Sam Levinson (Euphoria), Tesfaye and Reza Fahim! Rachel was also recently seen in the 2022 A24 feature film Bodies Bodies Bodies as the character Alice.
Posted in Alumni
Video: History of Asian American Theater Lecture with Suzi Takahashi
This past April leading up to AAPI Heritage Month, the Stella Adler Center for the Arts presented “History of Asian American Theater and Performance from 1800 to Today” a two-part lecture with Suzi Takahashi. The recording of this free lecture series is now available online at: https://www.youtube.com/
Posted in News
Summer Part-time Workshops Announced!
The schedule for the 2023 Summer Part-time Workshop sessions has been released. Classes offered include Acting Technique, Scene Study, Voice & Speech, On-Camera Technique, Film and TV, and much more. Interviews and enrollment have begun. Classes commence the week of June 12th. Click Here for more information.
Posted in News
Abbi Hawk (’09) in ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ on Broadway
You can catch alum Abbi Hawk (Class of 2009) playing multiple iconic roles from the Harry Potter universe in the Broadway spectacle ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’!
Posted in Alumni
Sam Schacht
Dear friends,
A few hours ago Sybil Schacht, Sam Schacht’s wife, called to tell me that Sam died this morning.
Sam taught at Adler for fifteen years. He came to us from the New School where he ran the MFA program associated with the Actors Studio. Sam was an interesting presence at Adler because his formative training was done at the Actors Studio under the tutelage of Lee Strasberg with whom he worked for many years. As a Method actor/teacher, Sam had admiration for Stella’s text-based approach. It was fun to argue with him and watch him argue with himself. He both enriched and provoked our students in important ways. He provided the kind of creative tension, the kind of antagonistic cooperation, strong arts organizations need to thrive.
Sam was a wonderful teacher as well as a gifted actor with serious professional credits. He was also a good friend. When Sybil called me I thought to myself, “this is awful. I’m going to call my mother to tell her.” Took me a moment to remember we lost my mother in 2019. I have a memory of sitting on my mother’s patio in Bridgehampton back in the late aughts with Sam, Lois Smith, my mother, sister and various others. It was a warm, green and golden summer afternoon. Sam amused us by referring to himself as a poor man’s David Margulies. My mother loved Sam. They were of the same New York theater world, knew many of the same people and loved to laugh together.
Ever-evolving Sam went back to school and became a psychoanalyst. Sam had clients and was able to apply his energies to helping people. He went to the same school as my cousin Josie Oppenheim and so my connections to Sam grew.
Jimmy loved Sam. They were both strong, no-nonsense professionals. They were smart, candid, hopelessly courageous, never cowering, never sentimental. They were craftsmen and they were artists. They contained visions of greatness and commanded respect, admiration and guts. They cut paths up the mountain over very rugged terrain. Let’s follow…
Love, Tom
Posted in Toms blog
Who Decides?: The Kenneth Reams Project
Who Decides?: The Kenneth Reams Project is a multi-media program presented in partnership with Ritual4Return. This program launched January 12-14, 2023 with an installation of artwork by Kenneth Reams and Isabelle Reams in the Ellen Adler Gallery and a limited run performance. Artwork will be on display through May. This program is free and open to the public.
The Stella Adler Studio’s Arts Justice Division began bringing theater to people who are incarcerated in January 2013. Part of our attraction to this work comes as an effort to serve our mission to create an environment that nurtures humanity no matter what… Where better to test this effort and try to make a difference but in places like jails and prisons which dehumanize in the name of Justice?
Kenneth Reams was on death row for over 25 years. While he and his legal team are pursuing a federal habeas petition to overturn his conviction, Mr. Reams has turned to art, painting, writing and activism to tell his story and that of mass incarceration in America. Mr. Reams’s artwork will be exhibited along with his wife’s in the Ellen Adler Gallery through May and is a powerful testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.
Posted in News
Soojeong Son (’14) Plays Liz Kim in Netflix’s ‘Kaleidoscope’ Series
Soojeong Son (Summer Conservatory 2015) plays Liz Kim in Netflix’s latest heist drama “Kaleidoscope” which premiered on the platform on January 1st, 2023! Beyond “Kaleidoscope,” Soojeong is well known for her roles in “Servant” in 2019 and in “Search Party” in 2016.
Posted in Alumni
