Creative Team

Conceived by composer Judd Greenstein, poet Tracy K. Smith and visual artist and director Joshua Frankel.


The Cast

With special appearances by Dashon Burton, Eric Dudley, Jeffrey Gavet, Avery Griffin and Jonathan Woody.

Music performed by NOW Ensemble
Music Director David Bloom
Choreographer Patrick McCollum

Technology Design Fubbi Karlsson & Seth Kirby
Production Design Andrea Lauer
Set Design David Ogle
Lighting Design Robert Bloom
Sound Design Greg Allen
Animation Technical Director Lily Fang
Video Playback Engineering Cameron Vokey
General Management Courtney Ozaki
Production Management Philip Naudé
Education Program created by Danielle Durchslag

Produced by Andrew D. Hamingson / ADH Theatricals, in association with New Amsterdam Presents.

Advisory Committee
Carlos Arnaiz, Founder and Principal, Carlos Arnaiz Architects
Kent Barwick, President Emeritus, Municipal Art Society of New York
Eugenie C. Cowan, Founder and Chairwoman, Exploring the Metropolis
Liz Diller, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Karrie Jacobs, Contributing Editor, Architect Magazine
Peter Laurence, Author of Becoming Jane Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania Press
Tanu Kumar, Senior Planner for Economic Development, Pratt Center for Community Development
Peter L'Official, Assistant Professor of Literature, Bard College
Macky McCleary, Director, Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation
Todd Rogers, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Elihu Rubin, Associate Professor of Urbanism, Yale School of Architecture
Anthony Sargent CBE, CEO, Luminato, Toronto


Selected Bios (more coming soon):

Judd Greenstein, composer

Judd Greenstein is a Brooklyn-based composer of structurally complex, viscerally engaging works for varied instrumentation. His work has been heard at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Amsterdam's Musiekgebouw, the Bang on a Can Marathon, and the MusicNOW festival; recent commissions include those from the Minnesota Orchestra, the Alabama Symphony, the Claremont Trio, ETHEL, yMusic, and Roomful of Teeth. Current projects include a song cycle for vocalist DM Stith and orchestra, and an opera with director Joshua Frankel and poet Tracy K. Smith.

In addition to his work as a composer, Judd is active as a promoter of new music in New York and around the country. He is the co-director of New Amsterdam Records/New Amsterdam Presents, an artists' service organization that supports musicians whose work is open to all influence, regardless of genre. He is the curator of the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York's Merkin Hall, an annual showcase of new collaborative concerts between artists from different musical backgrounds, and he is a founding member of NOW Ensemble, a performer/composer collective that develops new chamber music for their idiosyncratic instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano. Judd has studied at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Bang on a Can Summer Institute and holds degrees from Williams College, the Yale School of Music, and Princeton University.

Tracy K Smith, librettist

Tracy K. Smith served as US Poet Laureate from 2017-19. She is the author of four books of poetry: Life on Mars, which received the Pulitzer Prize; Wade in the Water, winner of the 2019 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry; Duende, recipient of the 2006 James Laughlin Award, and The Body's Question, which won the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award. She has also been the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Award, a Whiting Writers' Award, an Essence Magazine Literary Award, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University.

Joshua Frankel, director and animator

Joshua Frankel (Director and Animator) creates films, opera, and multi-disciplinary experiences, as well as paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. He grew up in Hell's Kitchen, New York City in a building filled with musicians, actors and dancers. Recently, his large-scale four channel video Within the crowd there is a quality (2023) was presented at the Moynihan Train Hall in New York City, in a program including works by William Kentridge and Derrick Adams, and was called “Sensitive” by New York Times critic Blake Gopnik and “A kinetic cloud of humanity” by Laura van Straaten, also in the Times. His work often engages deeply with music and has been presented with live musical performances by chamber ensembles and full orchestra by institutions including BAM, the Library of Congress, the San Diego Symphony, PEAK Performances, Sinfonia Cymru, and New York City's River to River Festival. Frankel’s films have been presented by institutions including the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the New Museum, and the Annecy International Festival of Animation. His film Plan Of The City (2011), created in collaboration with composer Judd Greenstein and NOW Ensemble, was called “one of the best matches of visuals to music I've seen” by Anne Midgette of The Washington Post and “gorgeous” by Alex Ross of The New Yorker. Frankel was one of the “Superforecasters” described in The New York Times bestseller by Dr. Phil Tetlock and Dan Gardner. He has also painted public murals in collaboration with his wife, artist Eve Biddle, including the recently restored Queens Is The Future (2007).

NOW Ensemble

NOW Ensemble is a dynamic group of performers and composers dedicated to making new chamber music for the 21st century. With a unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano, the ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with the musical influences that reflect the diverse backgrounds of its members. The group has traveled to the Apples and Olives Festival in Zurich, Switzerland, Town Hall Seattle, Da Camera Houston, the Lincoln Center Atrium, and the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert series.

David Bloom, music director

David Bloom is a conductor at home in orchestral repertoire, opera, and new music. He is noted for his “rockstar energy” (Urban Milwaukee) and “graceful sensitivity” (I Care If You Listen). He is co-artistic director of both Contemporaneous and Present Music, and he has led performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Opera Omaha, Tri-Cities Opera, Teatro Grat- tacielo, The Crossing, Kronos Quartet, Ensemble Connect, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Dashon Burton, David Byrne, Isabel Leonard, and Dawn Upshaw; and at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and MoMA. He is principal conductor of the orches- tras at New York University, where he teaches conducting.

Patrick McCollum, choreographer

Credits include The Band’s Visit (2018 Tony Award for Best New Musical; Broadway, National Tour, Atlantic Theater Company); Angels in America (2018 Tony Award Best Revival of a Play; Broadway 2018); The Tempest (L.A. Philharmonic); Oh, Hello! (Broadway, Cherry Lane Theatre); The Lightning Thief (National Tour, Lucille Lortel Theater); Man From Nebraska (Second Stage); Blueprint Specials (Public Theater); Rain (Old Globe); Unknown Soldier (Williamstown Theatre Festival); You Are Here (Goodspeed Opera House); Savage Love (Public Theater); Wilderness (Abrons Arts Center); Permission(MCC). Upcoming projects include: Fall Springs (Barrington); Unknown Soldier (Playwrights Horizons). As associate choreographer for Broadway/Off-Broadway: The Last Ship, Peter and the Starcatcher, Rocky, Murder Ballad (Manhattan Theater Club); Wicked as North American Dance Supervisor.

Andrea Lauer, production designer

Andrea Lauer is a costume/set designer and multimedia artist. She is founder of Risen from the Thread, an experiential design firm that specializes in wearable/fashion technology. Clients range from MIT's Biomechatronics lab to Levi's. Recent credits include STREB's: Forces and the London Cultural Olympics; Broadway: American Idiot, Bring It On. Off Broadway: Brooklynite, What's It's All About, Murder for Two among other theatre, dance, and opera productions in New York City and around the world. Recent Stylist/Design credits include: Rolling Stone, Vogue, Interview, OUT Magazine and The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. Honors includes: A. Bahkrushin Museum in Moscow, Russia: Costume Design at The Turn of the Century: 1990-2015, awarded in 2015, Prague Quadrennial 2014, NAACP Theatre Award Nominee 2013, and Baryshnikov Fellowship 2011.

Robert Bloom, lighting designer

Robert Bloom is a lighting designer, production designer, and photographer based in Brooklyn. He is the touring lighting designer for The Roots and The Internet. Recently, he designed the lighting for Chris Rock’s Ego Death World Tour. He has had the pleasure of creating visual experiences in a wide variety of cultural institutions, including The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Opera House, Radio City Music Hall, The Apollo Theater, The Hollywood Bowl, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and The American Museum of Natural History. He holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in theatre from The Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. A selection of his work can be seen here.

Andrew D. Hamingson, producer

ADH Theatricals, LLC, founded and run by Andrew D. Hamingson is dedicated to touring the highest quality drama and live performances from America and Europe to North America and beyond. In 2019, ADH Theatricals Productions co-presented the US Premiere of The King's Speech at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Previous tours included The Woman in Black, and the National Theatre of Great Britain's production of An Inspector Calls directed by Stephen Daldry. Previous projects include a US national tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company/Filter Theatre production of Twelfth Night, and Paterson Joseph's Sancho. Andy was the first Executive Director of St. Ann's Warehouse as well as Executive Director of the Public Theater. While at The Public, Hair won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Before joining The Public, Andy served as Atlantic Theater Company's Managing Director from 2004. ATC's world premiere of Spring Awakening transferred to Broadway and won 8 Tony Awards including Best New Musical in 2007. Andy is the Principle and Founder of AD Hamingson & Associates, a boutique development consulting firm. He is Board Chair of Dance Heginbotham, a Trustee of 59E59 Theatres and Building for the Arts. Andy has been Faculty Advisor and Visiting Professor in the Theater Management Program of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale since 1995.