Morgan Gould + Matthew Olmos
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE: THEATER
MORGAN GOULD — I’m originally from Cape Cod, MA. I moved to New York to attend Fordham University at Lincoln Center, where I got my B.A. in Directing and Performance. After school, I knew that I wanted to focus on developing new plays, so I worked for two seasons at the Lark Play Development Center (where I met Matthew Paul Olmos). After my time at the Lark, I moved into a position at Playwrights Horizons as a directing resident where I assisted on CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION and CLYBOURNE PARK. I then began working with experimental director / playwright Young Jean Lee. When I completed my residency at Playwrights Horizons, I stayed on with Young Jean and I’m now the Associate Artistic Director of her company, Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. I’ve worked by her side on LEAR (Assistant Director, Soho Rep), THE SHIPMENT (Tour Director), PULLMAN, WA (Tour Director, Chelsea Theater, UK/ PS 122), WE’RE GONNA DIE (Associate Director, 13P/ Joe’s Pub) and our current show UNTITLED FEMINIST SHOW (Co-Choreographer/ Associate Director, BAC/ PS 122). My own directing work has been seen at Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, New Georges, Fordham University, Cherry Lane, The New York Fringe Festival and more. I’m also a former Ensemble Studio Theatre Resident Director, a member of New George’s writer/ director lab, and a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab.
MATTHEW PAUL OLMOS — I was born in Montebello, CA, grew up in Southern California, and moved to New York City in August 2001. I was recently selected by Sam Shepard as the inaugural recipient of La MaMa ETC’s Ellen Stewart Emerging Playwright Award. I am also a Sundance Institute Time Warner Storytelling Fellow, two-time Resident Artist at Mabou Mines/Suite, BBC International Playwriting “Top Prize of the Americas” awardee, Ensemble Studio Theatre lifetime member, Rising Circle INKtank Playwright, and 2012 terraNOVA Groundbreakers playwright. A recent finalist for InterAct Theatre’s 20/20 Commission; semi-finalist for Princess Grace, P73 Fellowship, O’Neill Conference, alternate Van Lier recipient at New Dramatists, and Playwrights of New York (PONY) nominee.
Co-founder and former Artistic Director of woken’glacier theatre company (two time New York Innovative Theater Award nominee), an NEA New Play Development reader, a New York Innovative Awards judge, a member of No Passport, and a core staff member of over five years at the Lark Play Development Center. I hold an M.F.A. in Playwriting from The Actor’s Studio Drama School, a B.A. in Playwriting from UC Santa Barbara, and was given UCLA’s GOP Award for Graduate Playwriting. I am a regular contributor to The Brooklyn Rail‘s In Dialogue series as well as New York Theatre Review, and am soon-to-be-published in their annual book on downtown theater with an essay on Mabou Mines. My work has been presented and developed by Sundance Theatre Institute, Mabou Mines/Suite, P.S. 122, HERE Arts Center, Intar Theatre, The Working Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, LaMicro, Lark Play Development Center, The Kennedy Center with The Inkwell, the Gala Theatre in DC, Teatro del Pueblo in Minneapolis, and in Spain. I am currently working on several television pilots, and a three-play cycle entitled so go the ghosts of méxico, about the U.S./México drug wars. In spring 2012, i put the fear of méxico in’em will be published by No Passport Press and in spring 2013, I will world-premiere a new work at La MaMa ETC.
Project Description
MONKEY is an absurdist comedy which concerns a privileged Caucasian woman who takes in an urban youth as a means of safekeeping after he commits an impassioned felony. The characters include the Woman From Whitesville, her white butler Winthorp, an aged cholo, Speedy, and his estranged daughter who sparks a love with the urban youth. It takes place in an imagined suburbia just outside of an every’city and is inspired by the film Trading Places. The piece came to me as I am always struck by the disconnect between those’that’have and those’that’do’not. And so, in a ridiculous world, I imagine the two meeting. To perhaps illustrate how far we all are still, and how despite our differences in zip code, lifestyle, and temperament, there is always a need and human curiosity to connect.
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