BIOS:

SEAN DONOVAN (writer, director, choreographer, performer, lyricist) is a director, writer, choreographer, actor, and dancer. His original works include The Reception (in collaboration with Sebastián Calderón Bentin) at HERE Arts Center, 18 ½ Minutes at JACK and Stanford University, The Climate Chronicles at Incubator Arts Project, Se Vende at FAE Festival in Panama, and Not Unclear New York University (NYC).

Sean was nominated in 2014 and again in 2017 for BESSIE Awards for Outstanding Performer for his work with several artists over the past decade. He’s worked with Faye Driscoll, Miguel Gutierrez, Jane Comfort, The Builders Association, Witness Relocation, Jennie Marytai Liu, John Jesurun, and many others. In New York, he has performed at such places as BAM, The Kitchen, Park Avenue Armory, Danspace Project, PS122, HERE Arts Center, The Joyce Theater, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York Live Arts, La MaMa E.T.C., The Chocolate Factory, and others. Recent credits include Strange Window: Turn of the Screw at BAM Harvey, Thank You for Coming: PLAY at BAM Fisher and national tour, Thank You For Coming: Attendance at Danspace Project and an international tour, Age & Beauty Part 2 at NYLA, and House/Divided at BAM (NY) along with a national tour. In 2018 he co-wrote Morning Chardonnay, a new web series with Hannah Heller. Other film and television credits include Feast of the Epiphany (2018) directed by Jeff Reichert, Laurence (2015) directed by Stephen Kellam, and others. He has also danced in multiple music videos.

He received his BFA in Theatre from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has trained and performed internationally in France, Holland, Romania, Poland, Russia, Panama, Argentina, Croatia, Greece, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Thailand and Japan working with the highly acclaimed Ildi! Eldi of France and Sankai Juku Butoh company of Japan. He has also performed and taught workshops at theaters and universities throughout the U.S.

TYLER ASHLEY (choreographer, performer) is a choreographer and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Ashley has performed in the work of Elizabeth Streb, DANCENOISE, Walter Dundervill, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Yackez, Katy Pyle, Arantxa Araujo, Biba Bell, and Charles Atlas among others. Ashley's own performances have been presented by Performa, Friends of the High Line, Times Square Alliance, NADA Art Fair, BOFFO, and seen at Art Basel Miami, The Kitchen, The Knockdown Center, The Chocolate Factory, Movement Research, Danspace Project and more. Ashley is also known as The Dauphine of Bushwick - a nightlife personality, performer, and promoter. The Dauphine started the party called BABY TEA four years ago, which has raised nearly $30k for LGBTQIA youth advocacy and queer art programs over the course of seven fundraisers. The Dauphine has performed and/or promoted at The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, NADA Art Fair, BUSHWIG ’14 - ‘18, Club Cumming, Susanne Bartsch’s KUNST, The Austin International Drag Festival, BOFFO, FIAR, The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, MANA Contemporary and more. Tyler is so excited to perform in a creation of Sean's for the first time - and alongside Brandon! Love to you both.

BRANDON WASHINGTON (choreographer, performer) is a native of Chesapeake, VA and received his BFA in Dance from the University of Florida. He currently lives in Brooklyn. In New York, he has performed at various venues including Lincoln Center, MoMA’s PS1, The Guggenheim Museum, BAM Fisher, The French Institute Alliance Française, New York Live Arts, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, 92Y, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, Dixon Place, and Judson Memorial Church among others. He has performed internationally in Vietnam, Argentina, France, Italy, Ireland, Croatia and Australia. Previous collaborations include Faye Driscoll, Ryan McNamara, Jane Comfort, Mark Dendy, Lauren Bakst, Dana Katz, Robin Becker, Alicia Ohs, Burr Johnson, Jen McGinn, Neta Pulvermacher, Megan Kendzior, Daria Faïn, and Germaul Barnes.

HEATHER CHRISTIAN (original compositions) is an Obie Award winning composer/theater maker/performer and a 2018 Sundance Time Warner Fellow. Composing/Performing credits include her own work Animal Wisdom Bushwick Starr, in addition to Mission Drift Nat’l Theater London, The World Is Round BAM, Annie Salem Ars Nova/Sundance Theater Lab, Of Mice and Men West Yorkshire Playhouse, and North, LaMama ETC.  Film composition credits include Lemon, (2017 Sundance Film Festival and SXSW) Gregory Go Boom, (Sundance Grand Jury Prize) and most recently, Adult Swim series The Shivering Truth.  She writes incidental music for plays, most recently A Winter’s Tale  (Public Theater NY), and the entire 2016 season at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (Macbeth, As you Like It, Measure For Measure).  She was recently named one of TimeOut NY's Downtown Innovators To Watch. She has recently been seen in Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music and in Toshi Reagon’s Parable of the Sower and is a long time collaborator in devised theater with the TEAM, Jane Comfort Company, Salty Brine, Mac Wellman, Big Dance Theater, and Taylor Mac. . She has released 8 records, taught music composition at NYU and Princeton, owns and operates her own recording studio in Beacon, NY, and can be seen regularly in concert halls and dive bars as Heather Christian & the Arbornauts. www.heatherchristian.com

CAROLYN MRAZ (set designer) is a Brooklyn-based theater designer. Previously at The Bushwick Starr: Infinite Love Party, The Things That Were There, Singlet, and I'll Never Love Again (Hewes nomination). Other favorites include: Marjana and the Forty Thieves (Target Margin), {my lingerie play} (Rattlestick), Charlatan (Ars Nova), and Spaceman (Loading Dock). Carolyn teaches at the University of the Arts, and is an Oberlin College alum with an MFA in design from NYU/Tisch.

DAN DOBSON (sound designer and additional original music composition) is a founding  member of The Builders Association and has designed sound for all of their productions. In addition to editing and scoring for film he has played zither and Chapman stick for Blue Man Group since 1995.

AUSTIN SWITSER (co-video designer) recent projects include the operas Tree of Codes (Spoleto Festival USA) Onegin (Spoleto Festival USA), Trojan Women (National Theater of Korea, Singapore International Festival of Arts, LIFT, Holland Festival, Wiener Festwochen) Paradise Interrupted (Spoleto Festival USA, Lincoln Center Festival, Singapore International Festival of Arts, Taipei National Theatre), Facing Goya (Spoleto Festival USA, Singapore International Festival of Arts), Émilie (Spoleto Festival USA, Lincoln Center Festival, Finnish National Opera) and Tristan and Isolde (The Dallas Opera).  Select theatrical projects include He Brought Her Heart Back in Box (Theatre for A New Audience; Obie Award), Big Love (Signature Theatre) Sontag: Reborn, ¡El Conquistador! (New York Theatre Workshop), Strange Window: Turn of the Screw, Elements of OZ, House/Divided and Jet Lag 2010 (The Builders Association). Austin has worked regionally at the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theater, The Geffen Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, The Globe Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Syracuse Stage and Second Stage. Austin is a graduate of California Institute of the Arts, and the creative director for the Brooklyn based projection design studio Switser + Knight. www.switserknight.com

JESS MEDENBACH (co-video designer) is a video and media designer, filmmaker, editor and producer originally from The Hudson Valley in Upstate New York. Jess’s work ranges from media for theater, opera and live events to Augmented and Virtual Reality applications, short films, music videos and video installations. Jess has worked throughout the United States and Europe, had work displayed in Times Square and written about in The New York Times and The Creators Project. Jess holds a MFA in Video and Media Design from Carnegie Mellon University and a BFA in Film Production and Electronic Arts from Bard College.

WENDY YANG (costume designer) is a Bronx-based artist who designs and builds costumes for theatre, television, films, commercials, and music videos. Wendy is currently assistant costume designer to Amy Westcott on the Sopranos prequel film The Many Saints of Newark. Other recent projects include assisting on films Fonzo, Gloria Bell, and White Boy Rick, and designing costumes for Grand Lady Dance House’s Living Female Respondent or 53 Yakshi at LACMA and Movement Migration’s Lullaby at the DAP festival in Pietrasanta, Italy. Wendy is thrilled to create costumes for CABIN and has collaborated with Sean in various capacities for nineteen years.  www.wendyyangcostumes.com

AMANDA K. RINGGER (lighting designer) has been designing locally, nationally, and internationally for more than 20 years with artists such as Faye Driscoll, Doug Elkins, Cynthia Oliver, Darrah Carr, Jennifer Archibald, Alexandra Beller, Deborah Lohse, Donnell Oakley, LMnO3, Molly Poerstel, Leslie Cuyjet, Kota Yamazaki, Sean Donovan and Sebastián Calderón Bentin, Laura Peterson, Julian Barnett, and cakeface, among many others. She received a BA from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD, and an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She is the recipient of a 2009 Bessie Award for her collaboration on Faye Driscoll’s 837 Venice Boulevard at HERE Arts Center.

RANDI RIVERA (production stage manager) is a native New Yorker. She is proud to be on many theater and dance production teams both in NYC and on the road - favorites include Half Straddle, Keigwin & Company, Faye Driscoll Group, Doug Elkins Choreography Etc, Sidra Bell Dance NY, The Chocolate Factory, Andrew Schneider, Ivy Baldwin, Cathy Weis, and Phantom Limb Company. Randi is thrilled to be back with Sean & his team once again after stage managing The Reception in 2017. All of her work is for her family.

SANDRA GARNER, LINGUA FRANCA ARTS (producer) is an independent NY-based producer working through her company Lingua Franca Arts which is dedicated to the development. support and presentation of international contemporary performing arts projects. Projects and groups include 13P, Banana Bag & Bodice, Summer Play Festival, Tumult in the Clouds, Christine Jorgensen Reveals, Gary Winter, !Oye¡ Group, Radiohole, Operating Theater Company, Nellie Tinder, James Al­lister Sprang, Howard Fishman·s A Star Has Burnt My Eye, Christina Masciotti's Raw Bacon From Poland, Andrew Schneider's YOUARENOWHERE and AFTER, Suzanne Bocanegra and Patricia Noworol. Sandy is pleased and proud to be working with Sean Donovan and our team on CABIN and to be working with The Bushwick Starr for the first time. Lingua Franca Arts is about cultivating a common language among artists. art forms and audiences. More at linguafrancaarts.com.

SPECIAL THANKS:

I want to thank The Bushwick Starr for their incredible vision, support and guidance throughout the making of this show. I’d like to thank my producer Sandy Garner without whom this project would have never been made. I’d also like to thank Andrew Kircher and Mark Russell who supported CABIN through the Under the Radar Festival’s Devised Theater Working Group. I’d like to thank Adam Thompson for his video work. Special thanks to Gardiner and Claire Comfort for the use of their amazing house in Langrove, Vermont that became the design inspiration for the piece. Also to Jane Comfort for her constant support and for the use of her studio for crucial rehearsals. Big thanks to my friends especially Sebastián Calderón Bentin, Alexandra Nikolchev, David Suarez, Dexter Ciprian, Felix Ciprian, Adam White, Abby Browde, and Hannah Heller for all their support. I want to thank my family and my amazing partner Sebastien Coles (Babas).

DONORS:

CABIN is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State  Legislature, and sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). Production design support  provided by the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund, a program of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York).

CABIN has been supported through residencies and work-in-progress performances in CUNY’s Prelude Festival, The North American Cultural Laboratory, NYU Skirball, and The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival as part of their Devised Theater Working Group. The development of CABIN included a residency at NACL (North American  Cultural Laboratory) in Summer 2018 as part of a new long-term partnership with The Bushwick Starr.

INDIVIDUAL DONORS:
Ellen Poss, Michael Donovan, Susan Wagner, Valerie Stinger, Adam White, Petra van Noort, Ellen Seidman, Lesli Stinger.

KICKSTARTER CONTRIBUTORS:
Keith Aguiar, Jonathan Allen, Wendell Beavers, Sebastián Calderón Bentin, Becca Blackwell, Regina Britt, Michael Browde, Nikki Calonge, Giulia Carotenuto, Dexter Ciprian, Felix Ciprián, Jean Sebastien Coles, Jane Comfort, Catherine Coray, Anne Davison, Lydia Denworth, Courtney DeStefano, Terry Donovan, Terence Donovan, Tim Donovan, Faye Driscoll, Caitlin Duffy, Ellie Harrison Evans, Miguel Gutierrez, Hannah Heller, Julia May Jonas, Amanda Katta, Sarah Krohn, Jennie Liu, Phillip Mahoney, Jessica Massart, Bobby McElver, Patrick McGoldrick, Toni Melaas, James Mitchell, Ty Nowicki, Aya Ogawa, Sunita Prasad, Gregory Richardson, Mandy Ringger, Karen Rizvi, Nancy Rogers, Brett Scieszka, Paul Sepuya, Patricia Serino, Laurel Snyder, Calvin Stalvig, Steve Wangh, Marianne Weems, Adam White, Nikki Zialcita.