I am delighted to be working with the esteemed Barbara Pitcher on Vincent John Doe, in both the 2018 and 2019 Piccolo Spoleto productions. She has been both Director and Dramaturg, as this experimental, multi-disciplinary new play has been developed for stage. She works very deeply and is one of the last surviving students of Lee Strasberg’s private group, a direct disciple of the pure Strasberg Method. For all intense and purposes, she was part of his family for many years. It is a refreshing delight to be working with her once again; as we did on several cutting edge experimental theatre productions in NYC, back in the early 1990’s.

She and I have spent the last two years, work-shopping, deepening and honing VJD. Her gentle prodding and genuine inquiries have truly taken the play, and me personally, to an entirely new level. Honestly, it is such a pleasure to work in this way again. Whereas, so many directors in Detroit and Charleston have developed a cynical antipathy towards “method acting,” which is completely unjustified. In most situations, the actors considered “the best,” the most “professional,” are simply the ones who memorize their lines first and who hit all their marks.

Suffice it to say, there are endless riches and possibilities in working deeply, in discovering one’s personal connection to the role and to the story. In VJD, a few lucky Charleston actors are being treated to working creatively, tapping into their own individuality and power as an actor, perhaps for the first time. Working with Barbara is about as close to Strassberg’s working process that most young actors will ever get.

[email protected] www.barbarapitcher.com

DIRECTOR – RESUME

BACKGROUND: Barbara worked in New York City as a Stage Director for many years, in venues all over the City from very small intimate theatre spaces to Broadway size houses. Barbara has performed and directed plays of the classics, solo pieces, new playwrights, and experimental forms of chamber opera and music concerts.

Stage Director: Over 40 productions in more than 25 venues: Pinter, O’Neill, Salinger, Chayefsky, Chekhov, Strinberg, opera composer Mark Grant, and others, plus introduced 19 new playwrights, and whose work includes chamber opera, music concerts, solo performance, large casts and one person plays with multiple characters.

Production Director: Music Humor and Wisdom, Woodstock Fringe Festival, Woodtock, NY; Since 2005 has been the Production Director of the Annual John Lennon Tribute at Lincoln Center, Ailey Citigroup Theater, The Beacon Theatre, Le Poisson Rouge, and Symphony Space in NYC.

Resident Director: American Theatre of Actors, NYC, Permanent Director, currently. Theatre Within, NYC, Resident Performer/Director, currently. Artistic Director and Director: Friends Theatre Company, NYC, eleven years.

Actress: (Highlights):

TV: 11 years, Daytime and Prime Time, on The Doctors, Search For Tomorrow, The Haunting of Rosalind, Blessed Are The What, on major networks – NBC, CBS, ABC. — with directors Hugh McPhillips, Norman Hall, Bruce Minnox, Lela Swift.

Theatre: Opposite Al Pacino in Why Is A Crooked Letter, the Creation of Monica in Robert E. Lee’s, Sounding Brass, Ariadne in Theatro, and contrary to norms for Actors Studio work at the time, involvement lead to the lead in the off Broadway play The Pearls Stay On.

Film: Pateʼ, major role of the Maid (official Sundance selection, plus over 15 awards including the Grand Jury Award at Worldfest, shown internationally, considered for Academy Award.

Barbara Pitcher – Directing Resume

HONORS, AWARDS, AND AFFILIATIONS

Best Director:

Jean Dalrymple Award, for Countenance and Heart Sounds.

Elected to the Board of Directors as a Governor: National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Organization for Emmy Awards), New York Chapter, one of two representing working performer members.

Emmy Disc Award: Received for special contributions to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Blue Ribbon Panelist and Local TV Awards: Appointed as judge Actors for Daytime Emmys, seven years.

Judged in all areas — Local Emmy Awards for Washington DC, Chicago, and NYC.

Member of Board of Directors: New York Stage Company, NY (vice President/treasurer)

International Primal Association, IPA organization of therapists, psychologists; Theatre Within, Inc.

Artistic Consultant: New Renaissance Chamber Artists, directing cutting edge experimental performance combining diesciplines and genres. Her work on Prisms, a spoken word with chamber music piece, performed at Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall) was the subject of a Ph.D for composer Mark Grant.

European Graduate School, Leuk, Switzerland: On the connections between sensory introspective work, the effectiveness of artistic expression and its product: The emergence of the shared human spirit: Working Title: ”Luxurious Surrender; Working With Barbara Pitcher.” Member of Professional Unions: Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity Association, AFTRA – now known as SAG—AFTRA and AEA.

EDUCATION

Lee Strasberg (scholarship in famed private classes; not Lee Strasberg Institute): while working professionally: sensory, affective memory, in depth: scene, and emotional techniques. Actors Studio: “worked out” in the Actors, Directors, and Playwrights Units: exploring new or classical plays as an actor, under the watchful eye of such luminaries as Harold Clurman, Clive Barnes, and Lee Strasberg.

Alec Rubin: Theatre of Encounter Workshop: Improvisational and personal solo work.

Joshua Shelley (Junior Member of Group Theatre): “instant” performance oriented exercises.

Bobby Lewis: Ionesco Workshop, exploration of the play Rhinoceros, pre- Broadway workshop.

Microsoft Word 2007 Class, Intensive 54 hours, completed March 2011

Mac One to One Private Classes – Apple Store fifth Ave. & 58th St., NYC

Arts In Education Certificate: concentrating, on different learning techniques through special, verbal, music, visual, etc.

American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York City: scene, improv., mime, voice, fencing, etc.

Allegheny College: concentration Theater, 2 years.

SUNY, Empire State College: BA in the Arts with a concentration in Theater.