UAP/Arizona Theatre Matters' 2022 FESTIVAL runs May 19-22, 2022

UAP/ATM 2022 Festival

View all content at the Arizona Theatre Matters YOUTUBE Channel 
MIDNIGHT TO MIDNIGHT May 19-22

PAY WHAT YOU CAN TICKETS HERE

Made possible by grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, a State Agency

and The National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal Agency. 

THE ARTISTS

Lisa Wolpe in her universally acclaimed solo show, Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender. Internationally renowned theater artist Lisa Wolpe is a critically acclaimed actor, director, and visionary who has been leading the movement for gender parity and diversity in the arts with a special focus on Shakespeare and Gender.   https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=25PN8SXB662CA

Cornelius Hobonocker (AKA Lil’ Beezus) is a seven-year-old mixed-race muppet. His career as a rapper, DJ, humorist, and philosopher began in 2020, when he looked up from his Cracklin’ Oat Bran and realized the world was going to heck in a handbasket. His three albums, Woke, What Would Beezus Do?, and What Would Beezus Do Too? are highly acclaimed by Mrs. Krenski’s 2nd-grade class. He is currently working on his fourth album Felt. He is very excited to share his perspective and unique song stylings with ATM this year and would like to thank Jeanmarie Simpson, Samantha King, and Deb Fink for their support (because sometimes his head falls over). Samantha King hails from Northern California, where she studied at The American Conservatory Theatre, The Academy of Media and Theatre Arts, and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She did educational children’s theatre for ten years touring schools in Northern California, Denver, Dallas, and Atlanta. She then wrote The Best Me which, before COVID, toured as part of Kaiser Permanente’s Educational Theatre Programs. Her play Chicken Dance was performed at The Edmonton Fringe Festival. She was a member of The Actor’s Ensemble of Berkeley, where she choreographed and played Velma Kelly in Chicago. She also appeared as Lorraine Sheldon in The Man Who Came to Dinner, Kitty Duvall in The Time of your Life and choreographed Kiss Me Kate. At The Masquer’s Playhouse, she choreographed New Girl in Town and Kismet. She was a founding member of Central Works in Berkeley, CA, where she was in Halcyon Days, Two Precious Maidens Ridiculed, Golden Era, and wrote Roux. Her friendship with UAP/ATM Artistic Director Jeanmarie Simpson took her to Pullman, Washington, where she played Truvy in Steel Magnolias, Flo in The Odd Couple, Bonnie in Anything Goes, and Rosie in Bye, Bye, Birdie. In Reno, Nevada, Jeanmarie produced and directed a version of The Tempest interwoven to the soundtrack of Hair. Samantha choreographed and played Ariel. Sam has been teaching theater in New Orleans Public Schools since 2000. Trained in Arts Integration at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, she developed the elementary theatre program at Lusher Charter School where she taught elementary, middle, and high school students for 14 years. Currently an Arts Integration Specialist with KID smART, she develops and implements Arts Integration professional development, and has an Arts Literacy residency at Langston Hughes Academy. She is also a member of The Greater New Orleans Writing Project and has taught Creative Writing at Tulane’s Upward Bound program. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=25PN8SXB662CA   In The Shneedles, Bowart and Robison combine the raw skills of circus acrobats, the rapscallion absurdity of Monty Python, and the comedic perfection of Buster Keaton in a production about a stalking suitcase. Each night, The Shneedles begin with said suitcase standing in a lone spotlight. Robison, playing a wizened, scary-haired crank, and Bowart, his twitchy puppy-like protégé, wander onstage and unwittingly steal the limelight from the magical valise. In a story involving a toaster full of flying bread, a missing red sock, an increasingly desperate duel for the affections of a lady in the front row and a paper rat that refuses to die, the show explodes into a full-scale comic nightmare that leaves audience members of all ages breathless with laughter and buzzing with sheer delight. The production debuted in Seattle, then at Australia’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, where Bowart and Robison performed at the Opening Night Gala, and has subsequently been performed in countries around the world. The Shneedles, aglow with the flavor of an antediluvian circus, offer up a show that recalls Chaplin and Tati. -- The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, USA https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=25PN8SXB662CA BILL ROBISON  For over 25 years, Bill Robison has charmed audiences young and old around the world with his unique and masterful style of physical comedy. Using his rubber-like face, elastic body, and limitless energy, he transports audiences to a zany, unpredictable and hilarious world. His performances are a synthesis of outlandish comedy, a penchant for the absurd, and a reckless sense of abandon. His extensive background in all types of theatrical and physical performance allows him infinite creativity in creating seamless comic situations, combining the timeless feel of old Vaudeville with European-style clowning.   Photo by Jeremy Center Alistair Barnswallow's Spectacular Airship!! Bill has performed on stages large and small at Fairs and Festivals,Cruise Ships, Television, German Variete Theatres, Comedy Clubs,Cabarets, Schools, Private Events and much more.

Believer Skeptic Podcast is a podcast that delves into strange and humorous phenomena including seeing Jesus on your toast, supernatural sightings, crypto-zoology, and so much more. Cody and Chris have created a platform on which they can discuss both sides of the phenomena (real or bulls**t) while sipping on booze and spirits that represent their chosen topic. They hope to entertain, enlighten, and maybe even educate you on all things fun and weird. Whose side will you be on? Are you a believer or a skeptic? Chris R. Chávez is a native of Northern New Mexico and has been living in Phoenix since 2003. He has always had a deep interest and love for strange and macabre subjects since as far back as he can remember. This can probably be attributed to his introduction to horror movies by his mom as a kid. Chris is a believer or a believer in the possibility of many of the subjects they discuss. He has been a huge fan of Podcasts for some time and finally decided it was time to give it a go himself. When not podcasting, Chris works in higher education and intermittently dabbles in community theatre. Chris lives in the arid desert of Phoenix with his cat Zebulon. Stay strange, stay spooky, and most of all, let him make a believer out of you. Cody Wagner loves talking about random crap. Chris actually introduced him to podcasts and he's quickly become obsessed, listening to at least two of them. Since then, he thought it's the perfect place to introduce his love of crap. Talking about it, that is. Cody is also an author. His award-winning debut novel, The Gay Teen’s Guide to Defeating a Siren, recently “came out”. See what he did there? Check out his writing and see more of his wackiness at www.wagner-writer.com or find him on Twitter @cfjwagner, Goodreads at www.goodreads.com/wagner_writer, and Amazon at www.amazon.com/Cody-Wagner/e/B016NYGV40. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=25PN8SXB662CA

L Martina Young ARTICULATING BODIES: a meditation A scholar of Comparative Mythology and poetic perception, a multi-year recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a concert dance artist, Somatic Movement, and Certified Labyrinth Facilitator, and master Pilates Educator, L. Martina Young, Ph.D. was born with good fortune to wise parents who raised her in an open, accepting, and culturally-diverse environment. From her visual artist father, a painter and political cartoonist of African American Blackfoot Indian French Creole lineage, and her opera-trained and political activist mother born of Russian Jewish parentage, Martina inherited an expansive worldview, a moral imagination, and a deep sense of humanitas. Coming of age in a working-class home, Martina lives by a primary ethic: the intrinsic dignity of every human being — a core ethos at the heart all of her work. A practitioner and theorist of the indigenous wellness practices of her cultural roots, Ms. Young perceives our sentient body-selves as transparent and highly intelligent, wholly human, offering nuanced expressivity throughout our lifespan. The culture-at-large, according to Ms. Young, need only cultivate and apply a deeper sentience to both private and public endeavors in order to make sustained, positive affects on all our lives. She brings attention to shared global concerns as physical, spiritual, psychological, biological, aesthetic, ethical, and caregiving persons. “What the World Needs Now/A Grammar of Empathy©” — an immersive, community-based workshop informed by 30 years of work with youth and adults on cultivating empathy — was invited as a Talk for the 2020 Northern Nevada Diversity Summit. Her artistic collaboration as the solo dancer-choreographer in filmmaker Julie Dash’s film, Four Women, to Nina Simone’s song of the same title, positioned Martina to assist with initiating the first Black Film Festival in 2021 at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she served as a Humanities Lecturer from 2017-21. Martina is also known as the solo dancer in Stevie Wonder’s Ribbon in the Sky music video, an industry in which she worked in Los Angeles from 1982-86. For more information, please visit: www.apoeticbody.com https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=25PN8SXB662CA

WOLFE BOWART IN HIS SOLO SHOW, LETTER's END The son and grandson of writers and painters, Wolfe Bowart was always encouraged to pursue his passion. His innate talent for physical expression showed itself early – Bowart learned the circus arts from age 9 and began performing as a teen. On gaining his classical training at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts (the specialist visual arts and performing arts university), Bowart furthered his studies with mentors as diverse as performance artist Rachel Rosenthal and members of Cirque du Soleil. ​ As a playwright and multidisciplinary performer, Wolfe Bowart’s work has been produced for the theatre in the U.S., Australia and in Europe. Harold’s Big Feat and Smoke Fire Fish had their premieres at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum, where in the 1990s Bowart was installed as the Resident Clown. The California Youth Theatre commissioned Seven Baskets for Khalid, Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis produced Table Settings and Maine’s Arts Centre at Kingdom Falls commissioned and produced Bowart and fellow performer Beverly Mann in The Daft and the Daring. Bowart's play Lemmings and Pallbearers won the Best of the Festival at the New City Theatre Festival in Seattle. Charcos Secos was created for Atenau Popular in Barcelona, Spain. The award-winning Through the Sipapu was co-written with friends Steve White (Blue Man Group) and Bill Robison.  In 2002, Bowart founded the company Spoon Tree Productions. Under this banner he has written, performed and garnered international recognition for The Shneedles, LaLaLuna, and the Helpmann Award® nominees Letter’s End and The Man the Sea Saw. In 2013, Bowart was the recipient of the Creative Development Fellowship, awarded by the West Australian Department of Culture and the Arts. In the same year, Bowart was a Finalist in the 2013 Australian Arts in Asia Awards, honoring his tours of The Man the Sea Saw and LaLaLuna in Hong Kong and South Korea. As a director and artist-in-residence, Bowart has brought physical theatre to people of all ages in conjunction with the Los Angeles Music Centre, Wolf Trap, the Ahmanson Theatre, the Playwrights Project, California Youth Theatre, the Virginia Avenue Project, the Mark Taper Forum and Australia’s National Institute of Circus Arts. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=25PN8SXB662CA

Jeanmarie Simpson in JEANNETTE RANKIN RETURNS. Jeanmarie wrote and performed hundreds of times (including a run Off-Broadway) the play A Single Woman, about the life of first US Congresswoman and lifelong pacifist Jeannette Rankin. She also starred in the film version that featured Judd Nelson, the voices of Martin Sheen and Patricia Arquette, and the music of Joni Mitchell. In 2007, she appeared at the historic Beverly Hills Theatre 40 in the American premiere of the solo tour-de-force Shakespeare’s Will, directed by Leonard Nimoy. Jeanmarie toured internationally with Coming In Hot, which she co-adapted and in which she played 19 American women who had served in the military from Viet Nam to Iraq-Afghanistan. She was commissioned by the Be the Change project to create a piece based on interviews with DREAMers; Liberty’s Children premiered at the Potential Workshop in Reno, Nevada, From 2011-19. She toured the world again with her original solo performance work, HERETIC. The piece explores the life and struggles of Quaker martyr Mary Dyer, hanged in Boston in 1660. In the past year, her plays Pineapple and Other Options and The Jewish Question were performed worldwide via Zoom. In 2022, her plays Bambino Mio – Bright Little Flame, The Jewish Question and When Churchyards Yawn are having readings in public spaces, both in the US and Canada.  When Churchyards Yawn was one of the few theatre offerings in ARTOWN’s celebrated 2021 festival. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=25PN8SXB662CA