Writer of “Fiction Writer’s Workshop”, novels, and short stories will read from his latest work and talk about the craft of writing.
Josip Novakovich moved from Croatia to the U.S. at the age of twenty. He has published a novel, April Fool’s Day (translated into ten languages), three story collections (Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust, Yolk, and Salvation and Other Disasters), three collections of narrative essays (e.g. Apricots from Chenobyl), and two books of practical criticism, one of which, Fiction Writer’s Workshop, was a book of the Month Selection several times. He has just completed a novel set in Russia and another collection of stories. His work was anthologized in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize collection, and O. Henry Prize Stories. He has received the Whiting Writer’s Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Ingram Merrill Award, and an American Book Award, and he has been a writing fellow of the New York Public Library. He has taught at the University of Cincinnati, Bard, Penn State, and now Concordia University in Montreal. In addition to being interested in the craft of writing fiction and nonfiction, and war stories and Eastern European and Balkan history and fiction, he has done research in literature written in English as a Second Language.
It’s no April fools, three incredible artists are in residence at the Hermitage and they’re throwing open the doors of their studios for you to see their work.
Bradley Wester in the Hermitage Studio Bradley Wester is a New York visual artist working in a hybrid medium that combines painting, sculpture, digital imaging and installation. For the past ten years Wester has worked on a project where he lives and creates in three disparate but geographically symmetrical cultures, ultimately resulting in three connected bodies of work: Rome (West) and Kyoto (East). And at the Hermitage, Wester is completing the third and last body of work; Istanbul, the geographic gateway between East And West. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the U.S. and in Europe including most recently at Margalef & Gipponi Gallery in Antwerp, Belgium. Awards include: Specialist Fulbright Fellowship to Kyoto, Japan, two MacDowell Fellowships, Pollock-Krasner Grantee, and twice-published in “New American Paintings.” Wester has also designed theater sets for Off-Broadway, television and film.
Laurie Olinder is a painter and an award-winning theatrical designer based in New York City. She has been commissioned to create multimedia visuals for many composers including John Adams, Philip Glass, David Lang and Julia Worlfe. She is founding member of Ridge Theater and has been recognized with two Obie awards, a Bessie award , and an Eliot Norton Award.
Hobey Ford is winner of puppetry’s highest honor, the UNIMA Citation of Excellence, and recipient of three Jim Henson Foundation grants. He is known for excellence in puppetry performance and craft. Adapting folk tales from various cultures for many of his performances, he is considered both an innovator in puppetry craft and a master storyteller. Ford uses his own voice to create characters and sound effects, tell stories and sing throughout his performances In conjunction with The Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education program, Ford provides teacher workshops in puppetry.
Date: Friday, April 1, 2011
Time: 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Location: The Beach at the Hermitage Artist Retreat
6660 Manasota Key Rd., Englewood, FL VIEW MAP
A wonderful and unique experience is being offered by the Hermitage Artist Retreat as part of its Artist Series at the Historic Asolo Theater. On Thursday evening, March 31, award-winning puppeteer Hobey Ford will present a program with and about his puppets.
Hobey Ford and puppet friends
A wonderful and unique experience is being offered by the Hermitage Artist Retreat as part of its Artist Series at the Historic Asolo Theater. On Thursday evening, March 31, award-winning puppeteer Hobey Ford will present a program with and about his puppets.
Two-time winner of puppetry’s highest honor, the Union Internationale de la Marionnette Citation of Excellence, and recipient of three Jim Henson Foundation grants, Ford is known for excellence in puppetry, performance and craft. He incorporates a variety of puppetry styles into his shows, including puppets he has created himself. Hobey uses his own voice to create characters and sound effects, tell stories and sing throughout his performances. He is a Kennedy Center teaching artist as well as a toy inventor with his hit toy “Peepers Puppet,” a set of eyes worn on the hand transforming the bare hand into a puppet. Ford lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011
Time: 7:30pm
Price: $5 and reservations are required by calling the theater box office at 941-360-7399.
“Two Nights on the River” was inspired by composer Eve Beglarian’s four-month trip by kayak down the Mississippi.
On Saturday, March 26 come experience the world premiere of a chamber music composition by the first Greenfield Prize recipient in Music, Eve Beglarian. A renowned composer, Beglarian has been working with musicians from the Sarasota Orchestra to present her original musical piece inspired by a four-month journey she took by kayak down the entire length of the Mississippi River. The performance will be at Holley Hall in the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center beginning at 8:00 pm. Tickets begin at $15 and can be obtained through the Sarasota Orchestra box office at 941-953-3434.
The piece is “Two Nights on the River” in two movements: “Waiting for Billy Floyd” and Early in the Morning. Eve’s inspiration for “Waiting for Billy Floyd” included Eudora Welty’s short story “At the Landing”.
Date and time: 8:00 pm, March 26 Place: Holley Hall in the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center Price: $15
The Hermitage Artist Retreat, in partnership with New College of Florida, invite the public to meet one of America’s most talented composers, Missy Mazzoli, on Wednesday, March 16, 2001, 4:00 – 5:30 pm, at the Mildred F. Sainer Art & Music Pavilion in Sarasota. There is no charge for this program.
The Hermitage Artist Retreat, in partnership with New College of Florida, invite the public to meet one of America’s most talented composers, Missy Mazzoli, on Wednesday, March 16, 2001, 4:00 – 5:30 pm, at the Mildred F. Sainer Art & Music Pavilion in Sarasota. There is no charge for this program.
Mazzoli will perform “Orizzonte,” an original piece for piano and electronics and will play recordings of her orchestra music “Victoire,” and the opera she is working on at the Hermitage, “Song From The Uproar.” The audience will have the opportunity to dialogue with the award-winning composer as she discusses the many different but related musical projects on which she is working.
“Blithly ignoring boundaries of genre and style, Missy Mazzoli composes music that speaks to a wide and discerning audience. Her musical vision is bold, large and inclusive,” states Stephen Miles, Director of New Music at New College and the moderator for the event.
Mazzoli’s music has been heard throughout the world in performances by many of the leading orchestras. She has been a featured composer at several prominent music venues and was commissioned to create new pieces by such organizations as the Whitney Museum and Carnegie Hall. Mazzoli studied music composition at the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Boston University. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands and has won the 2007 and 2008 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is currently the Executive Director of the MATA festival of New Music in New York City, which is dedicated to promoting new works by young composers. An active pianist, Mazzoli performs with her quartet that is dedicated exclusively to her own compositions. According to Bruce E. Rodgers, Hermitage’s Executive Director, “Missy is one of America’s newest music superstars. Her talent is extraordinary as her compositions range from complex symphonies to those that were performed at the Bang-On-A-Can New Music Marathon. The Hermitage is pleased to offer this artist-in-residence a quiet place to compose her newest piece – an opera.”
In partnership with New College, the Asolo Repertory Theatre, and The Gulf Coast Foundation, the Hermitage presents a screening of “The Theater of War,” a documentary about the making of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, as produced by NYC’s Public Theater in Central Park. Oskar Eustis, Tony-award winning artistic director for NYC’s Public Theater, will be at the screening to talk about the making of the play, and enter dialogue with the audience.
In partnership with New College, the Asolo Repertory Theatre, and The Gulf Coast Foundation, the Hermitage presents a screening of “The Theater of War,” a documentary about the making of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, as produced by NYC’s Public Theater in Central Park. Oskar Eustis, Tony-award winning artistic director for NYC’s Public Theater, will be at the screening to talk about the making of the play, and enter dialogue with the audience.
Event date: Sunday, March 27 at 1:00 pm
Price: FREE, but reservations are required. Seating is limited. Call the Asolo Theatre reservation line 941-351-9010 x 4710.
Location: The Sainer Pavilion at New College, 5313 Bay Shore Road Sarasota, Florida 34243
Hermitage Fellow Robert Cording will read poems written at, and some inspired by the Hermitage Artist Retreat along with poems from his new book “Walking with Ruskin” at Bookstore 1 on Thursday, March 10 at 6:00pm. (1359 Main Street, Sarasota)
Hermitage Fellow Robert Cording will read poems written at, and some inspired by the Hermitage Artist Retreat along with poems from his new book “Walking with Ruskin” at Bookstore 1 on Thursday, March 10 at 6:00pm. (1359 Main Street, Sarasota)
Poet Robert Cording reads from his work on the stage of the Historic Asolo at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. He shared the stage the evening of January 6, 2011 with writer and pianist Lisa Weiss and composer Laura Kaminsky. It was a magical evening and Bob’s poem, 1964 gives you a good idea why.
Playwright Arthur Kopit will be reading from his latest work and answering questions on Monday, February 7 at 2pm in a free program at New College’s Sainer Pavillion in the New College Campus.
Don’t miss the chance to spend an hour with celebrated American playwright Arthur Kopit. On Monday, February 7, 2011 the Hermitage Artsit Retreat , New College of Florida, and the Asolo Repertory Theater will sponsor a free program featuring the author of Chamber Music, Wings, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in th Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad, and the book to the musical, Nine. Kopit is a 3-time Tony Award nominee for Indians, Wings, and the book to the musical, Nine. Mr. Kopit will read from his latest work, and Asolo Rep producing artistic director Michael Donald Edwards will moderate questions and answers following the reading.
The program will take place at 2pm at the Sainer Pavillion on the New College campus. Admission is FREE.
Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2011 Greenfield Prize has been awarded this year in Drama to Playwright John Guare. The award will be presented at a Celebration dinner on Sunday, March 27th at Michael’s on East in Sarasota. Oskar Eustis, Tony-award winning artistic director of New York’s Public Theatre, will be the keynote speaker.
Photo courtesy of Paul Kolnik Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2011 Greenfield Prize has been awarded this year in Drama to Playwright John Guare. The award will be presented at a Celebration dinner on Sunday, March 27th at Michael’s on East in Sarasota. Oskar Eustis, Tony-award winning artistic director of New York’s Public Theatre, will be the keynote speaker.
“Our prestigious jury has done it again,” remarked , executive director of the Hermitage Artist Retreat. “John Guare is one of America’s great playwrights. We are thrilled that over the next two years, he will be working on a new play for American theaters that will be created at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and have its first public introduction in Sarasota in 2013.”
John Guare is an award-winning playwright well known to many regular theater-goers. Among his most recognized plays are Lydie Breeze; A Free Man of Color; Bosoms and Neglect; and The House of Blue Leaves, which won an Obie and NY Drama Critics Circle Award for the Best American Play of 1970-71 and four Tonys in its 1986 Lincoln Center revival. Six Degrees of Separation received the NY Drama Critics Circle Award in 1991 for its LCT production and the Olivier Best Play Award in 1993. Additionally, Guare wrote the lyrics and co-authored the book for the 1972 Tony-winning Best Musical, Two Gentlemen of Verona. His screenplay for Louis Malle’s Atlantic City earned him an Oscar nomination. In 2003 he won the PEN/Laura Pels Master Dramatist Award; in 2004, the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2005 the Obie for sustained excellence. He is a council member of the Dramatists Guild and co-editor of The Lincoln Center Theater Review.
The Greenfield Prize winner is selected each year by a panel of experts in the arts discipline for that year’s award, which rotates annually through three arts areas, drama, music, and an open “wild card” year. This year’s category was drama, making John Guare the second playwright to receive the Greenfield Prize. Guare was selected from a pool of over 30 playwrights, nominated by a prestigious jury, three voting and three non-voting. Voting jurors were Michael Bigelow Dixon, chair and current assistant professor of theater at Goucher College, former literary manager at the Guthrie Theatre and Actors Theatre of Louisville; Carey Perloff, artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; and Eduardo Machado, playwright currently writing for HBO television, and past artistic director of INTAR in New York City. Non-voting members included Bruce E. Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Joni Greenfield, representing the Greenfield Foundation and Michael D. Edwards, producing artistic director of Asolo Rep.
“We are grateful to the Greenfield Foundation for making it possible to inspire new works of art from America’s most important artists,” Rodgers continued. “The Greenfield Prize is contributing to the artistic legacy of America at this time and will continue to contribute into the future. The Hermitage Artist Retreat is proud to play a central role in this process.”
The Greenfield Prize was established in 2009 by longtime Sarasota residents Bob and Louise Greenfield through the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation. The prize is a means by which a groundbreaking, enduring work of art will be created each year at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. The Prize consists of a $30,000 commission of an original work of art, a residency at the Hermitage, and a partnership with a professional arts organization to develop the work, and assistance in moving the work forward into the American arts world. A distinguished six-person panel consisting of some of the most highly respected authorities in American art select each Greenfield Prize recipient. Three voting members on each jury are joined by representatives of the producing partner, the Greenfield Foundation and the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Since its inception, past prize winners include playwright Craig Lucus, composer Eve Beglarian and visual artist Sanford Biggers.
