The Blessed Unrest Gala, 2008
A Dionysian celebration to support our unprecedented international collaboration with Teatri Oda of the newly independent Kosova

Come party with Blessed Unrest and our glamorous company of artists, enjoy delicious food and drink, acquire fabulous auction items, and dance the night away!

The evening will include:

• An open bar with a selection of fine wine, beer, and liquor
• Gourmet hors d'oeuvres
• Live and silent auctions including dinners at chic restaurants, private yoga instruction, guitar lessons, rare wines, gym memberships, theatre tickets, and much more
• Live music and entertainment
• DJ dancing into the wee hours

An International Collaboration

The Moment
Blessed Unrest will be the first American theatre company to host a Kosovar theatre company in the United States. This next step in the collaboration will expose our artists and audiences to a new creative process and bilingual form of storytelling. With their declaration of independence from Serbia this February, Kosova (Albanian spelling of Kosovo) is in the process of defining itself as a new nation, and the arts can play a critical role in forming a nation's identity. This project will shed light on Kosovar and Albanian culture, history, and language. By coming to New York, Teatri Oda fulfills its desire to be a cultural ambassador for their new nation.

When Blessed Unrest visited Kosova in 2006 we were inspired as artists, welcomed as honored guests, and shown a hospitality we had never experienced before. We look forward to returning the generosity and openness shown to us in Kosova, and to the continuation of these collaborations and friendships long into the future.

The Project
This autumn, Blessed Unrest will host Teatri Oda for the creation of an original bilingual (English/Albanian) play based on the Albanian legend of Doruntine. In September the two companies will rehearse separately, building pieces of this story of love, loss, and the power of a vow. The Oda artists (one director and three actors) will travel to New York in late September for an intense, collaborative rehearsal process where Jessica Burr and Florent Mehmeti will co-direct the final production. Doruntine will be performed in New York City in October, 2008.

This project is being funded by Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council/NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Theatre Communications Group/International Theatre Institute, and the generosity of individual donors.

The History
In April 2005, Jessica Burr and Matt Opatrny of Blessed Unrest met Teatri Oda Artistic Director Florent Mehmeti in Kosova. They attended an Oda performance, spent many hours in conversation about their artistic missions, and began planning to develop work together.

In May 2006, six artists from Blessed Unrest traveled to Prishtina, Kosova's capital. The two companies rehearsed together to integrate a bilingual Oda actor into Blessed Unrest's play Lying as a new character and a narrator/interpreter. The play was presented at Teatri Oda, the companies led workshops with Kosovar theatre students to share methods of actor training, and held a public roundtable discussion about creating and producing independent theatre. The experience of the six Blessed Unrest artists in Kosova was truly incredible. During that trip, Burr, Opatrny, and Mehmeti began planning the next phase of their collaboration to take place in New York City.

The Companies
Blessed Unrest is committed to producing dynamic, disciplined, and exuberant new works for the stage by training and collaborating as an ensemble of artists, building original pieces, and reconstructing established texts. We believe that the most intimate form of communication is artistic collaboration, and that the arts have the power to break down cultural barriers. We are a non-profit, experimental theatre company based in New York City, and have been generating original work and producing new and classic plays since 1999.

Teatri Oda is committed to the development of the theatrical arts, building a strong cultural foundation for coming generations, and powerfully influencing the building of a democratic and open Kosova. The founding of Teatri Oda, the only independent arts organization in a region where all arts are traditionally government funded, was unprecedented. They are an extremely motivated and bold group of artists making strides towards defining the future of independent arts in the Balkans.

Written by
Matthew Opatrny

Based on the life and poetry of
James Wilde

Journey through the heart of the Congo rainforest, a rice paddy in Vietnam, an asylum in Turkey, and a nervous first date in a Parisian café in this exploration of the real-life adventures of war correspondent James Wilde. This dynamic new play examines what motivated Wilde to obsessively pursue extreme human suffering as a reporter, and offers a new perspective on the news of war and the people who bring it to us.

James Wilde (b. 1929) spent thirty-two years tracking stories across the world as a journalist for TIME Magazine. He began his career by breaking the story of the Russian arms buildup in North Vietnam and retired after the first Gulf War. Now seventy-eight, a published poet and prolific storyteller, he has asked blessed unrest to tell his story on stage.

Featuring
Jessica Burr, Zenzelé Cooper, Dave Edson,
Jason Griffin, Anna Kepe, Eunjee Lee, Celli Pitt,
Matthew Sincell, Darrell Stokes, Laura Wickens

Director Damen Scranton
Choreographer Kelly Hayes
Stage Manager Amy E. VonVett
Lighting Design Benjamin C. Tevelow
Costume Design Sarah Lafferty
Painting Coach Ian Robertson Duncan

Two worlds collide as blessed unrest hosts the New York University Percussion Ensemble in a percussive theatre collaboration. The NYU percussionists, led by Conductor Jonathan Haas, join us as we combine the languages of classical percussion, body percussion and physical theatre to create this explosive event. The theatre may be too small to contain this show. Let's see what happens...

Actors
Zenzelé Cooper, Dave Edson,
Jason Griffin, Eunjee Lee, Matthew Sincell,
Mai Ushiroku, Laura Wickens, Jason Winfield

Percussionists
Simon Boyar, Jesse Brickel, Matt Donello,
Jeffrey Eng, Danielle Fortner, Paul Frucht,
Garrett Lanzet, Alexandra Reynolds, Jacqueline Russo

Director Anna Kepe
Musical Direction Jonathan Haas
Movement Advisor Kelly Hayes
Stage Manager Amy E VonVett
Lighting Design Benjamin C. Tevelow

A contemporary adaptation of Chekhov's Ivanov from the original Russian by Laura Wickens

Nick has a house he can't afford, filled with live-in relatives and a dying wife. The sexy young daughter of his creditor offers to rescue him. His acceptance might just bring down the house. Fiercely comic, intense and provocative, this is Chekhov as you never imagined.

Featuring
Dave Edson, Catherine Gowl, Jason Griffin,
Anna Kepe, Eunjee Lee, Celli Pitt, Damen Scranton,
Matthew Sincell, Darrell Stokes, Laura Wickens

Director Darren Gobert
Stage Manager Amy E VonVett
Lighting Design Benjamin C. Tevelow