Shiny Objects Updates

Here it is the middle of summer 2011.  We can’t believe it’s been a whole year since we premiered THE EXILE OF PETIE DELARGE at REDCAT in Los Angeles!

And what a difference a year has made!  The company is now based in Brooklyn, NY.   We have expanded our artistic team to include Co-Artistic Director Jesse Geiger and Artistic Associate Nathan Leigh in addition to founder and Co-Artistic Director Elizabeth R. English.  Jesse joins the company after recently completing his MFA in Directing at Brown University and brings experience running companies in New York and Chicago.   Composer and musician Nathan Leigh originally comes from the Boston area, where he has multiple IRNE awards for sound design; as a composer his work has been workshopped and performed in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, and he is a solo artist and member of the bands A Thousand Ships and Super Mirage (with writer/composer Kyle Jarrow).  Liz received her MFA in Producing from the California Institute of the Arts, is currently a member of the 2010-12 Women’s Project’s Producers Lab, and has produced work in Chicago, LA, New York, and at the Edinburgh Fringe.

We’re very excited to let you know that A Collection of Shiny Objects is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of A Collection of Shiny Objects must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.  To make a donation, click here.

It has been a busy spring and summer for us.  For those of you who are in New York next week, we’re thrilled to announce our participation in the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival, where we will be presenting a ten minute play, THE GOLDEN TICKET, another collaboration with ‘EXILE’ playwright Jennifer Barclay and directed by Jesse.  We’d love for you to come.  The festival runs July 19th-24th, and our presentation will be on the 23rd at 4:30 pm.  For more information and tickets visit: Samuel French OOB website.

And last, but certainly not least, A Collection of Shiny Objects has been given a September residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm to workshop GOODS AND SERVICES, our collaboration with playwright Greg Moss. Part coming of age story and part consumerist fantasia, GOODS AND SERVICES looks at a recent college grad and aspiring journalist who decides to live in a 24-hour Walmart as a 21st century right of passage. We’ll be using our time at SPACE to explore the physical life of our Walmart world, including an object theatre component, choreography and gesture work.  We plan to bring an ensemble of actors, puppeteer, design, and the playwright with us to this fully functioning organic farm in Brewster, NY, for five days of intensive work on the production.  In addition to spending time on the play, we’ll have the opportunity to be a part of the day-to-day working of the farm.  We can’t wait to get in there and get our hands dirty!

So that’s what’s new with us.  If you’d like to see more of the work we’ve been doing, please check out the pictures and music demos of past and current work we’ve got up on our website: www.collectshinyobjects.org  We’d love to keep in touch, you can subscribe to our newsletter on the site, be our friend by “Liking” us on Facebook, or following us on Twitter.

Much love from us,

Liz, Jesse and Nathan
The Shiny Objects Team