PILLOWTALK
Kyoung's Pacific Beat
at The Tank
SHOW TIMES AND DATES (Panels subject to change based on panelist availability)
Th 1.11 at 8pm
F 1.12 at 4:30pm (APAP addition) and 8pm
Sa 1.13 at 3pm + Panel discussion, and 8pm
M 1.15 at 8pm (opening)
W 1.17 at 8pm
Th 1.18 at 8pm + Panel Discussion
F 1.19 at 8pm
Sa 1.20 at 3pm and 8pm
- W 1.24 at 8pm
Th 1.25 at 8pm + Panel Discussion
F 1.26 at 8pm
Sa 1.27 at 3pm and 8pm (closing)
Written and directed by Kyoung H. Park
Performed by JP Moraga and Basit Shittu
Music by Helen Yee
Choreography by Katy Pyle
Sound Design by Lawrence Schober
Scenic and Lighting Design by Marie Yokoyama
Costume Design by Andrew Jordan
Dramaturgy by Jess Applebaum
Assistant Direction by Dana Greenfield
Stage Management by Jamie Rose Bukowski
Co-Produced by Kyoung’s Pacific Beat and The Tank
Presented by The Exponential Festival
Engagement + Communications Strategy by Peoplmovr
Partnerships + Engagement Lead: Shannon Matesky, Peoplmovr
New Media Strategy + Communications Lead: Denise Shu Mei, Peoplmovr
Graphic Designer: Daniel Lim
Marketing Advisor: Sooyoung Hwang
Promotional photographer: andytoad
PILLOWTALK was developed with Daniel K. Isaac, Raja Feather Kelly, Brandon Kyle Goodman, Chuan-Chi Chan, Irfan Prawira, Wade Kramm, and Luis Santiago
Set in Brooklyn 2017, PILLOWTALK brings to life one night in the lives of Sam and Buck, a recently married interracial couple. Through a formal exploration of theatrical naturalism and the codified gender norms of ballet's pas de deux, PILLOWTALK queers the intersections of race, gender, and class to challenge our assumptions of love and marriage. Confronting the backlash against marriage equality and #BlackLivesMatter, PILLOWTALK explores how liberation and oppression co-exist in our most intimate spaces, transforming social and cultural traditions into radical performances of change.
PILLOWTALK is performed by JP Moraga and Basit Shittu, two queer men of color, in a play written and directed by Kyoung H. Park (Artistic Director of Kyoung's Pacific Beat) with choreography by Katy Pyle (Artistic Director of Ballez), live music by Helen Yee, sound design by Lawrence Schober, set and lighting design by Marie Yokoyama, costume design by Andrew Jordan, and dramaturgy by Jess Applebaum. PILLOWTALK is co-produced by The Tank and Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, and presented by The Exponential Festival.
Celebrating #loveisradical, PILLOWTALK is performed in partnership with (Community Partners), who have co-created a safe space and a series of long-table conversations addressing what's next in the queer movement. These long-tables center the voices of queer people of color, in order to build community, resilience, and resistance through intersectional conversations open to our audience.
PILLOWTALK received a public reading at the Ma-Yi Writer’s LabFest (June 2014) and was developed in Target Margin Theater’s Institute for Theater-Making (March 2014) and the Lark Play Development Center (June 2015). A workshop production of PILLOWTALK was developed in part during a BRIClab Residency at BRIC House, Brooklyn, NY (September 2015). Kyoung’s Pacific Beat hosted a long-table titled “PILLOWTALK- Post Gay Marriage Politics” at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies “After Marriage” Conference (October 2016) and was part of CUNY’s 2016 Prelude Festival at the Martin Segal Center Theater (October 2016). PILLOWTALK was written with support from a Creative Mellon Fellowship at the University of Washington (February 2017) and was developed in part during a residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York NY (March 2017) and presented in LPAC’s Rough Draft Festival 2017 (April 2017). The World Premiere of PILLOWTALK is funded, in part by NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund (A Statewide Theatre Regrant Program), WOVEN (We Oppose Violence Everywhere Now), and The Indie Theater Fund.
COMPANY CONTACT INFO
Name: Kyoung H. Park / Kyoung’s Pacific Beat
Email: kyoung@kyoungspacificbeat.org
Tel: (718) 419-7382
Facebook URL: https://www.facebook.com/KyoungsPacificBeat/
Instagram handle: @kyoungspacificbeat
Twitter handle: @kyoung_h_park
Kyoung H. Park (Playwright/Director)
Kyoung was born in Santiago, Chile and is the first Korean playwright from Latin America to be produced and published in the United States. He is author of Sex and Hunger, disOriented, Walkabout Yeolha, Tala, and many short plays including Mina, which is published in Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas by Duke University Press. Kyoung writes and directs his own work as Artistic Director of Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, a peacemaking theater company. He is a member of the Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab, NYTW Usual Suspect, co-founder of The Sol Project, and serves in the Dramatist Guild’s Devised Theater Committee. Fellowships: Creative Mellon Fellowship, Field Leadership Fund, Edward Albee Foundation, Theater of the Oppressed j(Brazil), Target Margin Theater Inst. for Theater-Making; grants: Arvon Foundation (UK), GK Foundation (South Korea), Foundation for Contemporary Arts, TCG Global Connections, Princess Grace Special Projects; residencies: Baryshnikov Arts Center, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, BRIC Arts Media Center, Performance Project @ University Settlement, Vermont Studio Center; 2010 UNESCO Aschberg-Laureate. Kyoung has been a grant panelist for the NEA, TCG, and ART/NY. MFA: Playwriting (Columbia University). www.kyoungspacificbeat.org
Basit Shittu (Performer, Sam)
Basit Shittu is a Brooklyn based actor, artist, and activist by way of Dallas, Texas. Basit was most recently in The Demise: A Rock opera featured in the New York Musical Festival. Other credits include: Anthony; Next Faggot Nation @ HERE ARTS, Queeg; Baby Fat @ LaMama, and Hodman Bryan; Miss Evers Boys @ National Arts Festival, South Africa. Basit is beyond thrilled to be apart of the world premiere of Pillowtalk and is immensely grateful for the opportunity to represent for queer POC. IG and twitter @basitshittu and his drag persona @dionneslay.
JP Moraga (Performer, Buck)
JP was last seen as Angela in the New York Critic's pick play Street Children by Vertigo Theater Company. Regional: Powerhouse Theatre, A.C.T.'s The Costume Shop Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Riverside Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Huntington Theatre Company, Barrington Stage Company, Florida Studio Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Much Gratitude to Kyoung and The Tank. Baldwin-Wallace University Alum. Proud AEA Member. Love to my DDO team. Live, Laugh, & mostly Love. @jp_moraga.
Helen Yee (Composer)
Helen is a violinist, multi-instrumentalist and composer with experience in a broad range of genres. She has created and performed music for plays including Miss Julia, The Comfort of Numbers and Manon/Sandra. Using live looping and electronics, she solos and collaborates with artists in vocal work, dance and text improv. Helen was honored to be a 2011 fellow at Music Omi International Musicians Residency and was violinist for the eclectic string ensemble Trio Tritticali and a founding member of Invert, a two-cello string quartet that released three CDs of original music composed by its members, with roots in rock, jazz and world music. www.helenyee.com
Katy Pyle (Choreographer)
Lawrence Schober (Sound Designer)
Lawrence is a sound designer for theatre. New York: SHADES, A Deal, The Sceam of the Butterfly, Implications of Cohabitation, The Triple Threat, Primary, tiger tiger, Come Back Up, TALA, No One Asked Me. Operator of porterspace, a free rehearsal studio for theater artists: www.porterspacenyc.com
Marie Yokoyama (Set and Lighting Designer)
Marie is a Japanese set and lighting designer based in NYC. She has design sets for Kyoung's Pacific Beats for Pillowtalk, TALA, and The India Plays. Her other design credits include: Redhouse: Six Degrees of Separation, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Spelling Bee, A Man of No Importance, Gross Indecency, Oliver and 13. Gulfshore Playhouse, FL: The Hound of the Baskerville. Public: Apple Family Series European Tour. Pan Asian Rep: Film Chinois, Three Trees. Monk Parrots: Bum Phillips -All American Opera-. Yale Rep: Compulsion. Curtis, PA: Faust. Opera Theater Pittsburgh: Fantasticks, Merry Widow, and Ariadne auf Naxos.
Andrew Jordan (Costume Designer)
Andrew is a Brooklyn-based artist and costume designer. He has designed for stage and screen with recent forays into opera, ballet, parade, and experimental performance. Andrew experiments with the interplay between various art forms driven by his interest in the relationship of sculpture, installation, and puppetry to the movement and form of the human body. He received his MFA with an emphasis in sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and his BFA in Fine Arts, with a minor in Media Studies, from the Columbus College of Art and Design. Andrew is also known under the moniker andytoad.
Jess Applebaum (Dramaturg)
Dana Greenfield (Assistant Director)
Jamie Rose Bukowski (Stage Manager)
Jamie Rose graduated from the Pace University School of Performing Arts, with a B.A. in Stage Management. Some professional credits include: NYC: Solstice Party (Live Source Theatre Group), The Assignment (Houses on the Moon), Otello (LoftOpera), Macbeth (LoftOpera), DISENCHANTED! (Theatre at St. Clement's), The Hot L Baltimore (T Schreiber Studio), Obie Awards, 2015/2016. She has also PSMed for Drunk Shakespeare, Live In Theater, and Quisisana Musical Theatre Resort.
Kyoung’s Pacific Beat (Co-Producer)
Kyoung’s Pacific Beat (“KPB”) is a peacemaking theater company based in Brooklyn, New York, which promotes a culture of peace through the production of new works of theater written and directed by Kyoung H. Park. KPB develops its work over the course of multiple years, in collaboration with artists from different cultures and different disciplines. During this process, KPB researches and engages in local communities to explore personal and communal experiences of oppression and transforms these stories through radical experimentations with theatrical forms, bringing together like-minded individuals that believe peace matters.
The Tank (Co-Producer)
The Exponential Festival (Presenter): The Exponential Festival presents and promotes theatrical performances created by New York-based artists and exhibited across Brooklyn and Manhattan. Since 2016, Exponential has partnered with artists and venues like Title:Point, The Brick, Darian Dauchan, The Bushwick Starr, Banana Bag & Bodice, Vital Joint, Eliza Bent, Chez Bushwick, BOOM BAT GESTURE, Triskelion Arts, Designated Movement Company, The Glove, Megan Hill, JACK, LMnO3, CPR, Witness Relocation, Oye Group, and Kate Benson/Lee Sunday Evans. We celebrate the increasing growth and importance of unique venues and local artists, working together to keep theatre kicking. For more info, visit http://www.theexponentialfestival.org
Peoplmovr (Engagement + Communications Strategy)
Peoplmovr is an engagement and communications strategy practice. We partner with artists, organizations, and communities on the development and delivery of strategies designed to bring arts and culture closer to the people and people closer to arts and culture. We are committed to undoing racism and we center the principles of equity and inclusion in all areas of our work. This commitment is grounded in our belief that a more just, equitable, and inclusive world is possible. We all benefit when oppression is recognized and eliminated. For more information, visit http://www.peoplmovr.com.
Denise Shu Mei (New Media Strategy + Communications Lead)
Denise Shu Mei (she/they) is a mover, arts and cultural worker, project manager, and new media producer. Denise organizes with Artists Co-Creating Real Equity (ACRE) and is a founding member of the New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op. Current and past working relationships include: PURPOSE Productions, Restless NYC/Mallory Catlett, Jim Findlay, Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc), Look & Listen Festival, Deconstructive Theatre Project, LEIMAY, EmcArts, HERE, Sinking Ship Productions, Banana Bag & Bodice, and more.
Shannon Matesky (Partnerships + Engagement Lead)
Shannon Matesky is an actress, writer, director, producer and an organizer from Berkeley, California. She is creator and curator of Queer Abstract, a monthly performance series in Brooklyn that has been featured in AM New York, Time Out New York, and The New York Times. As an actress Shannon has worked with a range of theater companies including The Inconvenience, The Hypocrites, The Goodman Theatre, and Steppenwolf Theater. Shannon's poetry has been featured with Nylon, BET, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and HBO's Def Poetry Jam. The author of four solo performance, Heartbreak Hotel: Whitney follows, She Think She Grown, We Gotta Eat, and The Saga of the Return. Shannon has produced campaigns and festivals across the United States, including the Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Festival, Life is Living, and The Fly Honey Show. For more information visit www.shannonmatesky.com
Sooyoung Hwang (General Manager)
Sooyoung is Financial Services Associate at Nonprofit Finance Fund, a Community Development Financial Institution and Advisory Services firm that serves nonprofit clients nationally. As part of the East Coast Business Development team, Sooyoung conducts initial due diligence and financial analysis for nonprofit clients looking for financing. Prior to joining NFF, she specialized in new play development as an associate producer at CJ Entertainment & Media, one of the largest entertainment companies in Asia. She also was Associate Managing Director of Yale School of Drama/Special Events at Yale Repertory Theatre, where she oversaw student productions and international projects, and worked at AMS Planning & Research, supporting strategic planning for regional nonprofit theaters. B.A., Yonsei University. M.F.A., Yale School of Drama.