Created by Lisa & Todd D'Amour
Performed by Todd D'Amour
Text & Direction by Lisa D'Amour
Video design by Tara Webb
Set & Light Design by Peter Ksander
Sound Design by Jeremy Wilson
Stage Management by Ilan Bachrach

This multimedia solo performance unleashes a man who thinks he is Stanley Kowalski, from A Streetcar Named Desire, into to the year 2006, where he wanders the streets of America searching for Blanche Dubois.  Hijacking imagery from William's play and portions of the physical score from Elia Kazan's legendary film, the piece reveals a man who is part Stanley, part Brando, part living metaphor and part raw appetite.  

Visit Stanley (2006) at MySpace. 

Click here to read more from the press: Stanley (2006). 

Get Involved with three special post-show panel discussions. 

This work was developed, in part, over a year and a half through the  HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). Check out the video from one of the workshop productions by clicking on the video icon in the upper-right hand corner. 

Lisa and Todd D'Amour are a brother/sister writer/performer team originally from New Orleans, LA.   They currently live in Brooklyn.

Lisa D'Amour is a playwright and multidisciplinary performance artist who often creates site-specific work with her close collaborator, Katie Pearl.   Recent projects include Nita and Zita (for which she received an OBIE Award along with Pearl and Kathy Randels) and Anna Bella Eema , both at HERE.   Her plays have been produced by Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Refraction Arts/Physical Plant, the Red Eye Collaboration and Ten Thousand Things, among others.   Her work has received support from the Multi Arts Production Fund, the Jerome and Mc Knight Foundations. She received her MFA in playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a core member of the Playwrights' Center and a resident playwright at New Dramatists.

Todd D'Amour is a performer who often performs highly physical theater.   He works regularly with a commedia-based group in Scranton, PA, that has createdtheater inspired by the work of the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.   In New York, he has performed in work by Theater of the Two-Headed Calf and Sanctuary Theater, among others.   Todd studied theater at Syracuse University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Tara Webb (Video Designer):  Tara is a freelance theatre artist.  From 1998-2004, Tara worked on both video and costume for the Wooster Group's productions of House/Lights, North Atlantic, Hairy Ape, To You The Birdie! and the restaging of Brace Up! (2003).  Tara mostly designs costumes and has collaborated on Cynthia Hopkins' Accidental Nostalgia, Koosilja Hwang's Deadman Dancing, Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers as well as many other individual projects.  She has worked closely with the Collapsable Giraffe since 1999 and is currently performing in their production of Letters from the Earth.  Stanley is Tara's first solo video project.  She is also a graduate student in NYU's Visual Culture program.

Join HERE artists and audiences for the following post-show discussion panels organized by Royd Climenhaga:

Monday, Nov. 6

“Recontructing Brando”
Marlon Brando ripped the mask off classical acting techniques in his portrayal of Stanley Kowalski.  Is there still a place for Brando’s method on the contemporary experimental stage?   Actor Todd D'Amour talks about his reconstruction of Brando playing Stanley, and other contemporary actors about the craft of piecing together a new approach to acting for a refracted stage.

Thursday, Nov. 9

“We've Had This Date With Each Other From the Beginning”
It seemed inevitable that playwright Lisa D'Amour would one day work with her brother Todd, and that they should both gravitate toward an adaptation of Streetcar and the role of Stanley Kowalski in particular.  Beyond simply a connection between playwright and actor, sister and brother, stage and screen, or even play and its re-imagining, could this piece be a sign of the necessary future of the theatre?  Lisa, Todd,  and videographer Tara Webb talk about the collision of forces in the piece and how it may raise the potential for a theatre that still matters.

Thursday, Nov. 16

"The City that Care Forgot"
The city of New Orleans does more than simply influence writers and artists, it infects them with visceral possibility.  Already a built-in metaphor for a saturated past, how can contemporary writers walk the line between myth and reality to reclaim a new life for a city under construction?  Playwright and New Orleans native Lisa D'Amour talks with other New Orleans artists about how her take on Williams' play reflects the city's past, present and future. 

Panelists include:

Lear deBessonet, founder and Artistic Director of Stillpoint Productions, has assisted Martha Clarke, Anne Bogart, and Marianne Weems and was recently featured in Time Out New York's "25 People to Watch 2006."  New York devising/directing credits include Bone Portraits (Walkerspace), Death Might Be Your Santa Claus (a site-specific work performed at an abandoned bank next to the NY Stock Exchange), Flying on the Wing (NY Fringe, Outstanding Solo Show), The Eliots (Center Stage), transFigures (Calvary Church), The Female Terrorist Project (HERE Arts Center), L'Histoire du Canard (NYU Graduate Acting Freeplay), Bite Your Tongue (NYU Graduate Acting Freeplay), Equus (Hangar Theatre).  Internationally, Lear directed a new tri-lingual musical for the National Opera Theatre of Kazakhstan (In the Dark Ages), and a workshop of Revisions in Dublin. She has trained with DAH Theater of Yugoslavia and the SITI Company and was co-director of the Collaborative Theatre Intensive with The International WOW Company.  She is a member of the Women's Project Directors Lab and an alumnus of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, a Drama League Directing Fellow, and a Jefferson Scholar.  Her next project will be Saint Joan of the Stockyards at the Culture Project in Spring 2007.

Composer, guitarist and vocalist Howard Fishman began his musical career on the streets of New Orleans and in the subways of New York before making his debut at The Algonquin Oak Room in 1999.  He has since headlined in major venues both in the States and abroad, including: The Steppenwolf Theater, The Blue Note, MassMOCA, The Bottom Line, and Le Petit Journal in Paris. The All-Music Guide has called him "an important force in creative music," and The New York Times has written that his work "transcends time and idiom."  Fishman has been a featured guest on NPR's FRESH AIR with Terry Gross and WORLD CAFE with David Dye.  He maintains a full-time touring schedule and has recorded five critically-acclaimed CDs.  Fishman's always-eclectic sound and visceral, explosive live shows have become legendary, garnering the singer/guitarist a devoted legion of fans worldwide. He'll be presenting his brass band project at JOE'S PUB on November 26, 2006 (with special guests the Original Pinstripe Brass Band) and in February 2007, Fishman will have his LINCOLN CENTER debut as part of the American Songbook series.  Fishman's theatrical folk-jazz oratorio "we are destroyed" will have its premiere at the Penobscott Theater in Maine in May of 2007. www.howardfishman.com

Maggie Hadleigh-West is an internationally recognized social justice activist, filmmaker, producer and public speaker.  Through her humor, wit and experience, Hadleigh-West skillfully explores personal experience and transforms it into socio-political activism using film, short stories, workshops, trainings and educational programs.  The primary focus of her work is around issues of sexism, sexual harassment, sexual assault, racism, homophobia, diversity and trauma.  Hadleigh-West has appeared on numerous national and international television and radio programs including “20/20,” “The Today Show,” “CBS News,” “The Oprah Show,” “Lifetime Live,” “Oxygen Media,” BBC, NPR, and CNN.  She is a 2005 Alcyon Fellow, 2004 New York State Council on the Arts Fellow, 2001 University of Louisville Distinguished Professor Nominee, 2000 Rockefeller Fellow Nominee, 2000 Tiny Tony Award Winner and a 1998 Caligari Prize Nominee.  She received a BA with Honors in Visual Communications from George Washington University and holds a MFA with a Merit Award from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Lori Kent is a New York City resident who spent her childhood on the edge of the French Quarter and as a frequent visitor to the Fairgrounds racetrack.  In 2001, she received a doctoral degree in the College Teaching of Art from Columbia University’s Teachers College.  She is currently adjunct faculty of art at Hunter College, CUNY and the College of New Rochelle.  The study of Critical and Creative Thinking from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, (MA 1992) and work in numerous museums began her interest and continuing research in critical pedagogy, creativity and art making.  Dr. Kent is a 2006 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a Puffin Foundation Grant and residencies at the Anderson Center and the Harvey Foundation, Venice.  Her most recent project, ”Fear of Water,” was a community-based arts project uniting seven New Orleans visual artists for two days of printmaking and storytelling on the subjects of life after Hurricane Katrina and the cultural rebuilding the city.

John Lawson has been working with recycled plastic mardi gras for the past 10 years.  He is  a recent recipient of the Gottlieb Art Foundation Award and is represented by  the Kim Foster Gallery, Chelsea, NY and Wisznia Associates, New Orleans, Louisiana. His work has been featured on PBS national Radio, Sundance Film Festival, MTV and at the American Visionary Museum in Baltimore. He has given guest lecturers at The Pratt Institute of Design and most recently The New York Center for the Arts.  For more information visit www.lawsonworks.com.

Aimee K. Michel, a Louisiana native, was the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane for ten years, from 1996 to 2006.  She has directed at numerous theatres across the country including the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Berkshire Theatre Festival, the Hangar Theatre and Circle Repertory Theatre in NYC among others.  With SFT she has directed:  Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Richard II, The Winter's Tale, Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello.  She has also directed several productions for the Tennessee Williams Festival including the Louisiana premiere of A House Not Meant to Stand, Williams' last play.  Before SFT she was the Artistic Director of the Drama League of NY's Directors Project, where she continues her affiliation as a Master Teacher.  She is a former recipient of the Directors Project and Boris Segal Directing Fellowships.  Currently, she teaches theatre and directs at Simon's Rock College of Bard in Massachusetts.

Nina Nichols was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina.  After departing from school to hop freight trains and discover an adoration for circus, vaudeville and stop motion animation, she began attendance at the University of New Orleans in the vein of film and theatre arts.  Whilst in New Orleans, Miss Nina Carolina Nichols continued her career in sideshow, whipping cigarettes from the lips of Howl Pop fashion models and participating in numerous stage acts, including her old time apocolypse rock band, "Crooks and Nannies."  Most circus shows took place at the Hi-Ho Lounge on St. Claude or in the back lot of Rosalie Ally by the Voodou Temple, where as others took place at the State Palace Theatre.  Nina held bicycle drive-ins, projecting movies onto factory walls or shop windows featuring local film makers and their work.  The week preceeding the hurricane, Nina had returned from a national tour with her rock puppet operetta, "The Tragical Ballad of Black Bonnet."  Nina evacuated to Brooklyn, where she is finishing her bachelors in Stop Motion Animation and playing with the Bywick Bushwater Revue (a variety show and musical act) and The Black Forest Fancies, her rock puppet operetta collective, alongside Matthew Varvil and Pandora Gastelum.  Nina will be returning to New Orleans before a world tour this coming January.

Matthew Varvil is a native of southeast Michigan.  Well trained in several disciplines of performance, including Classical Flute, Guitar, Jazz, acting and singing, and self-taught on countless others.  A graduate of Detroits' Cass Technical School of Fine and Performing Arts, Matthew spent two years in New Orleans working on becoming a solo performer.  Currently performing as a puppeteer in the now New York based troupe, The Black Forest Fancies, and steadily pusrsuing a career in music, Matthew will tour the United States twice next year to spread the word about self-expression and independence.