• Creative Team
• Animal Tales Project Description
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• Artists Bios

PARROT (bass)

"Polly want a cracker?"
That's what I'm always asked to say
You know what, sir?
My name is Sam
Not Polly,
And I don't want a cracker
Never did
Never will

DOG (lyric baritone) - who wants to find his voice

What I want to come out
When I open my mouth wide
Is the howl of a wolf
On a moonlit night

FROG (boy soprano) - who's having trouble keeping up with his friends

I'm such a flop
A vagabond
In the pond
I'm the laughing-stock

GOLDFISH (mezzo-soprano) - who wants to get out of her bowl

I'd like to leap from the sea
In a goldfishy leap of glee
Whee!
Just an inch or three
It'd make no diff'rence to me
I'd be free in the sea.

Age Group: Family audiences, 3-103 "For the young and the young at heart"

Cast: 8 Soloists plus Community Children's Chorus

• 6 Men: Boy Soprano, Tenor, Lyric Baritone, Low Baritone, Bass Baritone, Bass
• 2 Women: Soprano, Mezzo
• Children's Chorus
       6 Experienced children from the community (ages 10-16)
       10-25 enthusiastic children - no experience necessary (ages 8-16)
       4 young artists (ages 16-24)

Orchestra:

• Premiere production: Chamber Orchestra of 15 (can be expanded to full orchestra)
      Piano
      Latin percussionist/hand drummer
      DJ
      Strings (5)
      Plucked string-double on mandolin and guitar or harp
      Woodwinds (4) - flute, oboes, saxophone/clarinet, bassoon
      Brass (2) - trumpet, trombone
• Touring production: piano, latin percussion, and DJ

In the Schools: We will be creating a 45 minute school version around the story of CAT.

CHILDREN'S CHORUS: Animal Tales integrates a "no-experience-necessary" Children's Chorus of 20-30 young people (ages 8-18) into the performance of a professional show, working alongside extraordinary singers and musicians in a professional rehearsal and performance process. The only requirements are that each one of them likes to sing, can make all the rehearsals, and wants to be on stage with a breakdancing turtle and a dog who wants to howl like a wolf. The Children's Chorus is also involved with performing the puppetry segments under the direction of master puppeteers Amy Trompetter and Alessandra Nichols.

GEORGE PLIMPTON (Story, Libretto and Lyrics) March 18, 1927 - September 25, 2003 created the genre of 'participatory journalism' and is best known and admired for being a "professional amateur", writing about his adventures in sports and many other walks of life, in books and magazine articles. He was a master of the literary short form, and has brought joy to many with his humor and positive outlook on life and the foibles of the world at large. An American journalist, author and editor of the Paris Review, Plimpton was born in NYC, attended Harvard University where he was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He then served as a tank driver in Italy for the US Army, then attended King's College at Cambridge University in England. In 1953 he joined the influential literary journal The Paris Review, becoming its first Editor in Chief, a position he continued until his death in 2003. Plimpton was most famous for competing in professional sporting events and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur

In 1960, prior to the second of baseball's two All-Star games, Plimpton pitched against the National League. His experience was captured in the book Out Of My League. Plimpton sparred for three rounds with boxing greats Archie Moore and Sugar Ray Robinson, while on assignment for Sports Illustrated. In 1963, Plimpton attended pre-season training with the Detroit Lions as a backup quarterback and ran a few plays from scrimmage in an exhibition game, subsequently penning his best known book, Paper Lion. A further book, Open Net, saw him train as an ice hockey goalie with the Boston Bruins. Among other challenges for Sports Illustrated, he attempted to play top-level bridge, and spent some time as a high-wire circus performer. Some of these events were presented on the ABC television network as a series of specials. Plimpton appeared in a number of feature films, as an extra and in cameo appearances. He was also notable for his appearance in television commercials during the early 1980s, advertising Intellivision sports video games for Mattel, and for being the host of the Disney Channel's Mouseterpiece Theatre. He appeared in an episode of The Simpsons as host of the "Spellympics" and had a recurring role as the grandfather of the Dr. Carter character on the long-running NBC medical television series, ER. Plimpton died of natural causes at his apartment in New York City at the age of 76.

KITTY BRAZELTON (Composer) Brazelton (D.M.A. Columbia University 1994) rejoices in the keener expression she gets by infusing vernacular American dialects into deep, complex structures. Her full-length opera, Fireworks, commissioned by American Opera Projects and directed by Grethe Barrett Holby, concerns an extraterrestrial discovering the 4th of July. She leads exploded rock bands (her second CD with the nonet DADADAH, Love Not Love Lust Not Lust, was hailed by Rolling Stone as an "album of impressive nerve") and composes dynamic orchestral works (Sleeping Out of Doors (1998), her piano concerto commissioned and premiered by conductor Kristjan Järvi's Absolute Ensemble, featured electric bass and amplified classical guitar). Her chamber music ranges from the N.Y.S.C.A. - commissioned cyber-punk fantasia 5 dreams; marriage (premiered by her unique quartet, WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A BAT? with interactive computer composer Dafna Naphtali, at Sound Sumposium 2000 in Newfoundland) to innovative works for the Manhattan Brass Quintet and the California EAR Unit (heard on her recent CRI Emergency disc, Chamber Music for the Inner Ear).

Danny Felsenfeld, in his April 2002 Time Out New York review of Chamber Music for the Inner Ear, explains it this way: "Brazelton is a totalist composer, part of a generation that believes that there's more than one way to compose and that all musical genres are available for use, from high modernism to downtown funk."

Ever since, in her bands such as Hide the Babies, Dadadah, Hildegurls (with co-composer Eve Beglarian, Lisa Bielawa and Elaine Kaplinsky) and Bat?, in electronic compositions prepared at the Columbia Computer Music Center, and in special projects such as those for pianist Kathleen Supové, duos twisted tutu and Double Edge, choreographers Jody Oberfelder and Gina Gibney, ensembles Kitchen House Blend and Relâche, and operas with Grethe Barrett Holby.

GRETHE BARRETT HOLBY (Origin, Direction, & Dramaturgy) "Strong, fresh and unabashed,"* Holby has directed world premieres of new operas by composers Vincent Persichetti (Pennsylvania Opera Theater), Lisa Bielawa, Eve Beglarian (Lincoln Center Festival), Beglarian & Phil Kline (Flynn Center), Connie Beckley, Vivian Fine, Richard Peaslee, Joan LaBarbara and Ben Yarmolinsky (American Opera Projects); choreographed premieres by composers Leonard Bernstein (Houston Grand Opera, Kennedy Center, LaScala), Gian Carlo Menotti (Kennedy Center), and Lou Reed (The Kitchen), and created new productions of Faust (Opera Co of Phila & PBS), Hansel&Gretel and Rigoletto (Anchorage Opera), The Apothecary (Wolftrap Opera), Carousel (Lake George Opera Festival), in addition to having directed and choreographed productions for the opera companies of North Carolina, Memphis, Indianapolis, Toledo, Washington, Houston Grand Opera and Los Angeles.

Holby's primary mission lies in originating, collaborating on, and directing new American opera, which began with her originating role in Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's groundbreaking Einstein on the Beach. She is the founder of American Opera Projects, running that company as Executive Artistic Director from 1988-2001. Founding Family Opera Initiative in 1995, Holby is currently collaborating with composer Kitty Brazelton and the late George Plimpton on FOI's fourth opera entitled Animal Tales. She is collaborating with Eve Beglarian on The Man in the Black Suit (based on the story by Stephen King) for which Holby is also co-librettist; and directing premieres by John Cage and Eric Salzman for Center for Contemporary Opera, premiering 2007. Educated as an architect at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, M.Arch), trained in set design at the Carpenter Center Harvard University, and opera direction at Houston Opera Studio, combined with her unique background in dance and choreography, Holby brings "her ferociously independent spirit to bear on her multifaceted work." *(The New York Times)

FRANCO COLAVECCHIA (Set Designer) has designed productions for New York City Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, LA Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Minnesota Opera, San Antonio Festival, Glimmerglass, Chautauqua, Columbus Opera, Piedmont and Toledo Opera, Pacific Opera Canada, Juillard Opera, New Opera Theatre, BAM, Cleveland Orchestra Summer Opera, Houston Grand, Wexford Opera Eire, Monte Carlo, Den Norske Oper Oslo, and the Edinburgh Festival. His work has been exhibited at the Prague Quadriennale three times. Recent exhibits include the McNey Museum in San Antonio and "100 Years of Stage Design" at Harvard Theater Collection in Cambridge. Mr. Colavecchia's work can be seen at Oxford University and the University of Texas at Austin. His work is part of many private collections. He is a professor of design at North Carolina School of the Arts.

CAMILLE ASSAF (Costume Design) Recent New York credits include Eliot Feld's Backchat (New York City Ballet '06), and Rumors and Patootie for Feld's Ballettech (Mandance Project, Joyce Theater '04); Norman and Beatrice (Synapse Productions), Don Imbroglio at the NY Music Theater Festival, Moving Theater's Without for the Guggenheim Museum and Dance New Amsterdam, & Perseus directed by Ellen Stuart at La Mama. Regional and international credits include The King Stag at the Yale Repertory Theater, The Brighter Side of Alzheimers at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and York Theater (dir. Grethe B. Holby), Richard II at Milwaukee Shakespeare, Evita at JPAS in New Orleans. Along with Animal Tales, upcoming projects include the remount this fall of Lemkin's House ((by Catherine Filloux, Mac Ginn/Cazale space in New York), and the Asian tour of Three Children (Shanghai Fringe Festival and Hong-Kong)). A recipient of the Leo Lerman Fellowship award in costume design, she received her MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 2004.

AMY TROMPETTER (Puppetry Concept & Construction) Recent credits include directing and designing Malcolm Williamson's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince for Kentucky Opera '05 and The Barber of Seville at St. Ann's Warehouse '03, touring to Festspielhaus St. Polten, Austria, '07. Upcoming work also includes a puppet adaptation of Vaclav Havel's The Beggar's Opera at Miller Theatre Dec. '06 and a new music theater and puppet adaptation of Pushkin's The Queen of Spades with Moscow-based composer Alexander Bakshi and director Kama Ginkas '08-'09. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Barnard/Columbia Theatre Department and teaches with Bard Prison Initiative. www.amytrompetter.com

ALESSANDRA NICHOLS (Pupperty) is a 4th generation artist, tradeswoman and Master Composter (Dept.of Sanitation Certified). She has designed sets, costumes and puppets in New York City for 15 years. Among those she has worked with include Jennifer Miller (Circus Amok), Jenny Romaine, Amy Trompetter, Cathy Weis, Great Small Works, Crystal Field and Clarinda MacLow. Nichols conducts workshops in private, public and prison schools among other venues. She curates and designs The Temporary Toy Theater Museum for GSW's International Toy Theater Festivals (2001-2005). Her sculptures and paintings have shown in New York City and in Bari, Italy.

BUDDHA STRETCH (Choreographer) Buddha Stretch, the Choreographer/Dancer who spent close to a decade creating the moves behind the world famous Mariah Carey, and his dance crew, Elite Force provided the edge behind Mariah's well known videos and live shows. Stretch heavily impacted the dance world by bridging the gap between what was termed "Ol' Skool" and "New Skool". His dance style, known as Freestyle Hip Hop draws from all aspects of hip hop culture, music and dance. These moves during the early days of music videos helped to launch the popularity of dance in this medium as well as live shows. His first choreography job was for Joeski Love (Pee Wee Dance) and went on to work with the likes of Rosie Perez, Will Smith in the Men In Black and Miami videos; Michael Jackson's Remember The Time video (his most memorable experience) and more. He was nominated for two MTV Awards for Best Choreography for the Will Smith videos Men In Black, Gettin' Jiggy Wit It, and Miami. In 1989, Stretch was the first Hip Hop dancer to teach Hip Hop in a mainstream dance studio ­ New York's Broadway Dance Center. His passion for dance is exhibited every time you experience his work. Stretch believes "music is the universal language; dance is it's interpreter."