Galileo in America 2012

the artists behind Galileo in America

Robert Allen (director) + Antoinette LaFarge (writer, visuals, programming) are an artistic team whose previous credits include Hangmen Also Die (2010, Laguna Art Museum); WISP or World Integrated Social Proxy (Chicago, 2009); Playing the Rapture (2008, Baltimore Theatre Project); Demotic (2006, Baltimore Theatre Project); The Roman Forum Project (2003, Beall Center for Art & Technology); Virtual Live (2002, Location One); The Roman Forum (2000, Side Street Live); and Still Lies Quiet Truth (New York International Fringe Festival, 1998). Their solo credits are listed below.

Robert Allen is a theater movement specialist and teaches movement for actors when he is not directing. Upcoming projects include Earthbound, a web adaptation of August Strindberg's Dream Play. Recent projects include Dream Play by August Strindberg, adapted by Courtney Baron (Cal State Long Beach, 2003); Zwischen Fear und Sex: Fünf Proben (Hellerau, Germany, 2002); Twilight by Anna Deveare Smith (Cal State Long Beach, 2002); How I Got That Story by Amlin Gray (NY, August 2001); Dear Anton (Chekhov Now Festival, 1999); The Creditors (New York International Fringe Festival, 1999); August in January, a festival celebrating August Strindberg's 150th birthday (Theater 22, 1999); Le Ménage (LaMama E.T.C. 1998); and The Good Night (Theatre for the New City, 1998). Robert has an M.F.A. in Theater from Columbia University, where he studied directing with Anne Bogart. His work as a director is grounded in prior experience as a choreographer and performer in German Tanztheater, working with Reinhild Hoffmann (a contemporary of Pina Bausch) and other German directors. Robert also possesses an M.F.A. in modern dance from UCLA and a B.F.A. in visual art from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Antoinette LaFarge is Professor of Digital Media at the University of California, Irvine. An artist and writer with a special interest in virtual and mixed realities, she is the founding director of the Plaintext Players, an Internet performance group that uses net-based virtual worlds to stage their performances. Her recent work includes the integrated media projects Chronovacuum (2009, Noxiterra (2008) and Reading Frankenstein (2003). Her writing has appeared in several books, including Searching for Sebald (2009) and the Anthology of Art (2002), as well as in such periodicals as Wired, Leonardo, Tout-Fait, and Gnosis. She is also the founder of the Museum of Forgery, a virtual institute dedicated to the aesthetics of forgery. She has an M.F.A. in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts, New York.

Philip White (composer) was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. He majored in Drama at Tufts University and Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA. In Los Angeles, he has been a member of the Open Fist Theater Company, where he has acted in productions of Casanova, Macbeth, Impromptu, The Abdication, Exmass, and How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients. He has also composed music for The Wooden Breeks, The Mound Builders, and The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek for the Syzygy Theater Company. He has been actively involved with Tufts' Magic Circle Theater, where he composed and directed a musical based on Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. He is currently a graduate of USC's film-scoring program.

Ian Garrett (lighting design) is a designer, producer and administrator, dedicated to innovative arts infrastructure. He served as the lighting curator for Scenofest at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial and is the resident designer for the Indy Convergence, an annual artistic open-space/pop-up residency in Indianapolis. He received the 2006 LA Weekly Theater Award for best lighting for Permanent Collection at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and was the lighting designer for 2008’s Song of Extinction with Moving Arts Theater, which won the 2008 LA Weekly Theater Award for Production of the Year. He is co-founder and a director of the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA), a leader in the conversation on sustainability development and the arts.

Melody Brocious (costume design) received her M.F.A. in costume design from the University of California, Irvine.

Ashley Henley (stage manger) is a Drama major at the University of California, Irvine.

Sam Breen (Bertolt Brecht) is an actor.

Toussaint Jean-Louis (Galileo/Charles Laughton) is an actor.

Kristina Kahveciyan (Virginia) is a Drama major at the University of California, Irvine.

Christopher Rivas (FBI Agent 1) is an actor.

Tasha Tormey (Clown 1) is a Drama major at the University of California, Irvine.

Jay Wallace (Clown 2) is an actor.