Category: Residents

Andy Sandberg appointed artistic director and CEO

Following an extensive national search, the board of the Hermitage Artist Retreat announced today that the organization has chosen Andy Sandberg as its artistic director and chief executive officer. Sandberg is an accomplished director, writer, and Tony Award-winning producer, whose national and international career has been committed to new work and artist development.

Click here to read the full announcement and learn more about Andy. Events to introduce Andy to the community will be announced at a later date.

A Letter to the Community
Andy Sandberg
Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer
The Hermitage Artist Retreat

Dear Hermitage Friends, Colleagues, Neighbors, and Alumni,

I am honored to lead the Hermitage into the next chapter of its history. Throughout my career, I have been an advocate for new work, and the Hermitage provides artists an invaluable opportunity to nurture bold ideas while planting the seeds for great works of art to sprout up around the country and throughout the world. I have been fortunate to work with so many brilliant artists over the years as a director, writer, and producer, and I am incredibly excited to be appointed the artistic director and CEO of the Hermitage, an organization that shares my longstanding commitment to artistic growth and the development of new work.

I look forward to being part of this extraordinary tradition and working with a brilliant and diverse group of artists across multiple disciplines to achieve their goals. The unique experience that the Hermitage offers is essential to our artistic landscape. The original and impactful works created at the Hermitage are going on to renowned theaters, concert halls, and galleries throughout the United States and across multiple continents.

It is a privilege to work with the board of trustees, the dedicated Hermitage staff, and our regional partners as we plan for the future of this great organization. I am grateful to Bruce Rodgers for his years of unwavering leadership, and I am eager to build on the organization’s impressive history while also reimagining what’s possible for the Hermitage in the years ahead. As we look to expand the Hermitage’s reach and impact, building new partnerships and relationships for the company, I am energized by and deeply committed to our core mission – to inspire the artists of our time.

Thank you for welcoming me into your community and into the Hermitage family.

Sincerely,
Andy Sandberg

Roberto Bentivegna’s Gucci movie to be directed by Ridley Scott with Lady Gaga in lead role

Screenwriter Roberto Bentivegna worked on his screenplay “Gucci” while he was at the Hermitage. It’s now been announced with Ridley Scott directing and Lady Gaga in the lead role. The Sarasota Film Festival and Mark Famiglio underwrote Roberto’s Hermitage residency. Read more in Rolling Stone.

Kaminsky’s opera reaches #3 on Billboard list

Congratulations to composer Laura Kaminsky, a Hermitage Fellow and board member! Since its premiere in 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, her acclaimed “As One” has not only become the most-produced modern opera in America, but it’s also risen to #3 on the Billboard Classical list. Operawire calls it “one of the major works of American opera in the 21st century.” Brava!

We also want to be sure to recognize Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed as co-librettists and creative partners with Laura in the creation of this work. The three of them make one powerhouse team that is changing the nature of opera in our time.

PoetryLife 2019 Community Favorite Poem Reading

In 2012, the featured PoetryLife poet was Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the U.S. and founder of the Favorite Poem Project. Pinsky led Sarasota community members in the city’s first-ever Favorite Poem reading – citizens of all ages reading the poetry they have come to know throughout their lives. A Community Favorite Poem Reading has been a tradition in Sarasota ever since.

PoetryLife’s Favorite Poem Reading will be held April 19 at 5:00 pm at The Hermitage Artist Retreat, 6630 Manasota Key Road, Englewood, Florida – on the beach if weather permits.

To apply to be a reader, please email the following information to PoetryLife. You may also drop off your application at Bookstore1Sarasota, which is located in downtown Sarasota at the corner of Main Street and Palm Avenue. Deadline for submissions is March 15.

The poem you select must be one that is published by a recognized poet. It may not be your own poem (published or not) or the poem of a close relative.

Please select a poem that is accessible – i.e. a poem that an audience can “get” when hearing it for the first time. And select a poem that is not overly long – look for one that is no more than two pages in length.

Select a poem that has personal meaning for you. As part of the event, readers are given one minute to explain – without notes – why they have selected that particular poem. PoetryLife is looking for personal reasons, not academic reasons.

Submit the following to PoetryLife:

1. Your name

2. Your email address

3. Your phone number

4. Your occupation or, if retired, your former occupation

5. The title of the poem you would like to read

6. The author of the poem

7. Your reason for wanting to read this poem

8. A copy of the poem

Or drop your submission off at Bookstore1Sarasota, 12 South Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota.

Deadline for submissions is March 15.

Up to 20 poems will be selected for inclusion in the Favorite Poem Reading. If your poem is selected, you will be asked to present it at the event. PoetryLife will notify you by April 10 and, should your poem be selected, they will call to confirm your availability.

Missy Mazzoli earns Grammy nomination

Missy Mazzoli’s “Vespers for Violin” has been nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Classical Composition.

Missy was also recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (The New York Times) and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York). Her music has been performed all over the world by the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, pianist Emanuel Ax, Opera Philadelphia, LA Opera, Cincinnati Opera, New York City Opera, Chicago Fringe Opera, the Detroit Symphony, the LA Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, JACK Quartet, cellist Maya Beiser, violinist Jennifer Koh, pianist Kathleen Supové, Dublin’s Crash Ensemble, the Sydney Symphony and many others.

Photo by Marlene Mey

“The Calling” by Lisa Diane Wedgeworth

The Calling, new video work produced at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, August 6-19, 2018

~ Guest post and photo by Lisa Diane Wedgeworth

I have been reflecting on home, the land of my family. A calling, a tugging at my spirit to return there, if even for a brief visit to set foot upon the land my  ancestors toiled, built, walked and raised families upon.

Traveling through Alabama with my mother, visiting civil rights monuments and memorials, a deep kinship with those who endured and survived the Domestic Slave Trade stirred within me and the American South felt as much as my home as any of the places my immediate family and ancestors were called to put down their roots (Los Angeles, Ohio, Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, England and Jamaica).

While at the Hermitage, the water of the Gulf of Mexico  – although stained with the stench and destruction of the Red Tide – conjured images within my mind’s eye and whispered new work, The Calling, in my ear.

 

Thoughts from our Guest Blogger: Nerissa Street

We’re turning our blog over to Nerissa Street, a teacher, writer, speaker, and all-around amazingly creative person who will be reading and leading on our beach on Friday, Aug. 7. Nerissa is definitely a STAR at the Hermitage and back at home in Fort Lauderdale. But even though she lives in Florida, she’s never seen sharks’ teeth like we have on Manasota Key. Read all about it here and come meet her Friday.

Novel Playwrights

After Rey Pamatmat finished writing a play it just kept writing itself. More and more story kept appearing. It seemed much longer than a play.

Novelist Kia Corthron with poet Mimi Herman

After Rey Pamatmat finished writing a play it just kept writing itself. More and more story kept appearing. It seemed much longer than a play.

The idea of writing a book felt fun. Then he discovered how different books are than plays. He had been writing plays or 10 years so he knows the components and how to put them together. “But with a book, I don’t know all the parts, and what it needs” he said.

Plays are collaborative. Directors, even actors fill in between the words of the playwright, but with books you have to write everything down. “In the book I have to make decisions about things with no collaborators. I alone have to decide what people are thinking. And it has so many more words!” he said with genuine surprise. “I asked my manager how many words a book has. The answer was 60,000 to 90,000!”

The story came to a stop one-third of the way through the book because he had play commission deadlines and a revision due. He got too busy to work on the book and couldn’t write it as efficiently as he could section up and write plays in shorter patches of time. He needed an expanse of time to work on the book so when the opportunity of the Hermitage came up it seemed perfect.

Rey’s venture into this new genre isn’t the first time a playwright came to the Hermitage to write a book. While walking the beach with Kia Corthron, I listened as she mumbled and nearly stuttered the word “novelist.” “I’m here as a novelist.” Like Rey, she was struggling with her evolution as a writer. Hers wasn’t a struggle of form and components, but of self-image. She knew herself as a playwright, and her whole image had to morph. When she returned a year later, her novel was nearly done and she had no problem pronouncing the word “novelist.”