Brooklyn Academy of Music
Anne Carson on translating Antigone twice, Mark Morris on The Hard Nut, David Hare on Oscar Wilde: a century and a half of BAM, in the artists' own words.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music has put groundbreaking performances and artists on its stages for a century and a half, from theater to music, dance to radio.
BAM asked us to make an audio series that would take its performances beyond the building and leave an archive behind. Each episode follows a single production, from the weeks before it opened to the person at its heart.
Anne Carson read her own introduction to Antigone, and told us how the director Ivo van Hove, hearing she had already translated the play once, said he didn't like that version and wanted a new one. Mark Morris explained why The Hard Nut keeps to Tchaikovsky's own tempos, and why he'd rather not have children on stage. David Hare, joined by Darryl Pinckney and Liesl Schillinger, talked about Oscar Wilde.
There is John Ashbery on first reading Rimbaud at sixteen and translating him decades later; Angélique Kidjo, Walter Mosley, Nelson George, and Rudy Crew at BAM's celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.; and BAM's then executive producer Joe Melillo, its archivist Sharon Lehner, and the author Duncan Wall trying to pin down what physical theater actually is.
In all, thirteen voices took part across six episodes.
Client
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Project
Beyond BAM
Services
Concept Development - Creative Direction - Naming - Production - Interviews - Post Production - Distribution Strategy
Voices
Anne Carson, John Ashbery, Mark Morris, Angélique Kidjo, David Hare, Walter Mosley, Nelson George, Rudy Crew, Joseph Melillo, Liesl Schillinger, Duncan Wall, Sharon Lehner and Darryl Pinckney
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Our Process
Exploding beyond the walls, connecting to a global audience.
Opportunity
Few institutions draw talent like BAM; the opportunity was to bring those voices to a much larger audience, well beyond the walls of the institution.
Insight
A production runs for a few weeks. A good conversation with the person behind it can be listened to for years, which makes audio a natural archive for a performing arts institution.
Outcome
Six episodes, thirteen voices in all: an archive of artists talking about the work as it was about to open.
