News from New York State Writers Institute

For more information contact: Suzanne Lance, 518-442-5620

NYS Writers Institute Sponsors Documentary Film/Filmmaker Series and Appearance by director Michael Mayer

Writers Institute Events Week of February 4 - 8, 2008

ALBANY, NY (01/23/2008; 1113)(readMedia)-- New York State Writers Institute to Showcase Documentary Films and Filmmakers Throughout the Month of February 2008

The New York State Writers Institute and UAlbany’s newly-launched Documentary Studies Program will host four remarkable documentary filmmakers and offer screenings of excerpts from their films on February 6, 13, 20 and 26, 2008. All events will take place at 2:30 p.m. in Science Library 3rd Floor on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker Sheila Curran Bernard, author of the book “Documentary Storytelling” (2007), will present on Wednesday, February 6, 2008. Cutting-edge video and multimedia artist Bernadine Mellis will present on Wednesday, February 13, 2008. Christiane Badgley, whose acclaimed documentaries explore African and African-American subjects, will present on Wednesday, February 20, 2008. Penny Lane, a recent graduate of RPI’s Integrated Electronic Arts Program, and director of the widely-screened documentary, “The Abortion Diaries” (2005), will present on Tuesday, February 26, 2008. All events are free and open to the public.

The New York State Writers Institute and UAlbany’s newly-launched Documentary Studies Program will showcase presentations by four documentary filmmakers on February 6, 13, 20 and 26, 2008. All events are free and open to the public, and will take place at 2:30 p.m. in Science Library 3rd Floor on the University at Albany’s uptown campus.

Each presenter is a finalist for a new faculty position that will be shared by the New York State Writers Institute and the UAlbany Documentary Studies Program. The new hire will eventually teach undergraduate and graduate courses on filmmaking, and will assist the Writers Institute in the production of audiovisual projects.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008 (Science Library 340): Sheila Curran Bernard, documentary filmmaker, has received numerous Emmy, Peabody, CINE Golden Eagle, and Dupont-Columbia University Awards. She is a three-time winner of the Erik Barnouw Award of the Organization of American Historians for her work on the acclaimed PBS productions, “Eyes on the Prize” (1990), “America’s War on Poverty” (1996), and “School” (2001). Bernard is also an acclaimed textbook writer who has published a widely-used book on documentary production and scriptwriting: “Documentary Storytelling” (2007). She is currently completing a related volume on the use of archival visual sources, “Archival Storytelling” (2008).

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 (Science Library, Standish Room): Bernadine Mellis served as curator of “The Odyssey,” a highly innovative DVD/multimedia project that wove together 24 films by women filmmakers, each based on a chapter of Homer’s epic. She currently serves as visiting Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Mt. Holyoke College. Mellis also directed a feature documentary that aired on the Sundance Channel, “The Forest for the Trees” (2006), about her father’s role as the lead attorney in environmental activist Judi Bari’s civil case against the FBI. Her current project, “Struggle, Baby,” is about the “experiences and current political practices of children raised by the New Left.”

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 (Science Library 340): Christiane Badgley is a documentary director who has also worked as editor on a number of films by major Black filmmakers. She is currently producing a unique academic journal/DVD project for Amherst College titled “African Cinema: Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Age.” Her editing credits include 11 episodes of the acclaimed documentary series, “Exposé: America’s Investigative Reports” (2006); two notable films by gay activist Marlon Riggs, “Anthem” (1991) and “Black Is... Black Ain’t” (1995); and many films by major African filmmaker Jean-Marie Téno.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 (Science Library, Standish Room): Penny Lane is a recent graduate of RPI’s Integrated Electronic arts program, and currently teaches new media production at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. Her 2005 film, “The Abortion Diaries” (2005), about the abortion experiences of 12 women, has been screened at more than 175 venues in 40 states. Lane is currently working on a historical documentary film about women’s rights and the sex trade in early modern Troy, NY. The project has drawn grant support from the Experimental Television Center and the LEF Moving Image Fund.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

Michael Mayer, 2007 Best Director Tony Award Winner for the Broadway Musical “Spring Awakening” to Speak February 7, 2008

Michael Mayer, 2007 Tony Award winner for “Best Director” for the Broadway musical “Spring Awakening,” a boldly original rock musical about teenage sexuality set in 19th Germany, will deliver the 12th Annual Burian Lecture on Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m. Mayer will present an informal seminar in the same location. The events, which are free and open to the public, are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and the UAlbany Theatre Department, and funded by the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment.

Michael Mayer is a major contemporary theatre director whose work has helped to reinvent the Broadway musical for the 21st century. Widely regarded as one of the “brightest lights” of the Great White Way, Mayer has been called the “busiest director in New York City” (“Backstage” magazine).

Mayer received the 2007 Tony Award for “Best Director” for the Broadway blockbuster, “Spring Awakening” (2006), which also earned “Best Musical,” “Best Choreography,” “Best Original Score,” “Best Book for a Musical,” “Best Orchestrations,” “Best Lighting Design,” and “Best Performance By a Featured Actor in a Musical” (John Gallagher, Jr.).

A boldly original work, “Spring Awakening” is a rock musical set in 19th century Germany. It is based on the controversial 1891 Frank Wedekind play that so daringly depicted teenage sexual discovery that it was banned from the stage for almost 100 years. The play is faithful to Wedekind’s original script, a series of interlinked dramatic vignettes, but the new score provides a vital added dimension, permitting the characters to give vent to the anguish and exhilaration of puberty in the unrestrained language of rock and roll.

Charles Isherwood, writing in the “New York Times,” said, “Broadway, with its often puerile sophistication and its sterile romanticism, may never be the same.... this brave new musical, haunting and electrifying by turns, restores the mystery, the thrill and quite a bit of the terror to that shattering transformation that stirs in all our souls....”

Mayer has received three previous “Best Director” Tony nominations: for the revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge” (1998), for which he also received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director; the revival of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (1999); and “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (2001), which earned a Tony for “Best Musical,” as well as the Drama Desk Award. Other Broadway credits include the Drama Desk winner, “Side Man” (1998), which was presented as a play-in-progress by the New York State Writers Institute’s Authors Theatre program, and a Drama Desk Outstanding Revival award for Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”

Mayer made his feature film directorial debut with “A Home at the End of the World” (2004), based on the novel by Michael Cunningham. More recently he directed the family film, “Flicka” (2006).

Michael Mayer will deliver the 12th Annual Burian Lecture, a yearly event that brings leading scholars and practitioners of the art of the theatre to the Albany campus. It is funded by Jarka and Grayce Susan Burian Endowment.

The late Jarka Burian taught in the Theatre Department at UAlbany from 1955 to 1993. He was the leading American scholar of Czech theatre and author of the award-winning book “The Scenography of Josef Svoboda,” a seminal critical study of the work of one of the twentieth century’s most influential theatrical designers. Grayce Susan Burian, who received her M.A. degree from UAlbany and also taught there, is best known for her long tenure as the director of the theatre program, which she founded, at Schenectady Community College.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

“Killer of Sheep” to be Screened on February 8, 2008

“Killer of Sheep” (U.S., 1977, 83 minutes, b&w, 33 mm, directed by Charles Burnett), will be shown on Friday, February 8, 2008, at 7:30 p.m. in Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, on the University at Albany’s downtown campus. Sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute, the screening is free and open to the public.

A radically inventive, dream-like portrait of a Black slaughterhouse worker as he experiences everyday life in South Central L.A., this film was declared a “national treasure” by the Library of Congress, and was selected by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the “100 essential films” of all time. It will be shown in a much-anticipated director’s cut that was re-released to theatres in 2007.

For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

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