Photo © Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation

Monday, November 16

Segal Theatre
3pm Screenings + 6:30pm Readings, Discussion

FREE + Open to public. First come, first served.

A day honoring the work of legendary German filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who would have turned 70 this year. Rainer Werner Fassbinder died at the age of 37 after having completed forty feature films, two television series, and twenty-four stage plays in less than fifteen years. Fassbinder began his highly influential career directing and acting for the theatre before becoming the leading force in the new German cinema.

The afternoon will feature rare documentaries related to Fassbinder’s theatre work. The evening will start with an introduction of Fassbinder’s theatre work, followed by an interview via skype with Juliane Lorenz, widow of Fassbinder, editor of his last films and head of the Fassbinder Foundation. We will talk about Fassbinder’s continuing influence worldwide. The evening will also feature three excerpted readings and a discussion about Fassbinder, the stage, and his influence on the current generation of theatre makers including Jess Barbagallo, Caitlin Ryan O’Connell, and Ashley Tata. Co-curated by Antje Oegel.

This event is made possible with generous support from Juliane Lorenz of the Fassbinder Foundation and Verlag der Autoren.

Fassbinder’s theatre work has been published through PAJ Publications. Bonnie Marranca, Editor. Please contact: [email protected]
Stage rights, please contact AO International Agency at [email protected]

Screenings
3:00pm – 5:00pm

Rainer Werner Fassbinder – der Theatermensch (Rainer Werner Fassbinder – Man of the Theatre)
by Bruno Schneider/Metropolis Film
Documentary | 2002 | 45 minutes
US Premiere | Live translation

Ende einer Kommune (The End of a Commune)
by Joachim von Mengershausen
Documentary | 1970 | 50 minutes
A documentary about Fassbinder’s legendary company anti-teater.

Readings
6:30pm

Bremer Freiheit (Bremen Freedom)
Translation by Denis Calandra
Excerpt directed by Jess Barbagallo

Katzelmacher
Translation by Denis Calandra
Excerpt directed by Ashley Tata

Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant)
Translation by David Tushingham
Excerpt directed by Caitlin Ryan O’Connell

Readings followed by a discussion with the directors.

Jess Barbagallo is a an actor, writer, dramaturg and director. He has performed and collaborated with Big Dance Theater, Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf (and its Dyke Division), Builders Association, Half Straddle, Tina Satter, Andrea Geyer, Casey Llewellyn, The Drunkard’s Wife, Hoi Polloi, Cat Galasso, Katherine Brook, Trish Harnetiaux, Nellie Tinder/Julia May Jonas, Eliza Bent, Becca Blackwell and Jody McAuliffe. Jess has written the plays Grey-Eyed Dogs, I’ll Meet You in Tijuana, Saturn Nights, Men’s Creative Writing Group, Good Year for Hunters and Great Romance, and is responsible for the ongoing comedy Without Me I’m Something or Karen Davis Does … Jess was a 2009-10 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab Member, 2011-12 Queer Arts Mentorship Fellow, 2012-13 BAX Artist-in-Residence, a 2013 MacDowell Colony Fellow, and a 2014-15 New York Live Arts Writer-in-Residence. He has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB Blog, The Poetry Project Newsletter, by 53rd State Press and at homoflix.wordpress.com, a review site for gay and lesbian Netflix. Currently, Jess is a participant in the Persona Seminar at The New Museum, a think tank composed of artists and academics exploring urgent themes (like persona) in contemporary culture. Melancholy over feminism, but persistently feminist. BFA: Acting, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Wing.  MFA: Playwriting, Brooklyn College (Advisor: Mac Wellman).

Ashley Tata is a Brooklyn-based theater & opera director. Recent credits include the world premiere of Mojiao Wang’s opera Encounter at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing as part of the Beijing Modern Music Festival; David T. Little’s Soldier Songs with video by Bill Morrison (Atlas Theatre, DC and the Holland Festival, produced by Beth Morrison Projects); Guard (2014) (part of The House is Open at the Fisher Center, Bard College); Venture Opera’s Don Pasquale (National Opera Center, NYC and Kay Meeke Center, Vancouver); Lainie Fefferman’s Here I Am (Roulette Intermedium, NYC); Into the Woods (LIU Post); The Censorship of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour (Martin E. Segal Center); Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living (Revolve Productions, NYC); Menotti’s The Telephone (Alchemical Theater Laboratory, NYC). She has assisted Rinde Eckhert, Daniel Fish and Robert Woodruff, among others. BA Marymount Manhattan College. MFA Columbia University. www.ashleykellytata.com

Caitlin Ryan O’Connell is in her third and final year at Brown/Trinity Rep MFA in Directing. At Brown/Trinity: Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, Will Eno’s GNIT, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and her upcoming fall thesis production of The Love of the Nightingale by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Caitlin is a former directing intern at Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has worked with The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, LCT3, Trinity Repertory Company and Clubbed Thumb. Caitlin trained with the National Theater Institute, St. Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Simon McBurney’s Complicite, and The NY Neofuturists. She is a teaching artist with The International Theatre and Literacy Project and has worked the past two summers in Rwanda devising plays with Rwandan Youth. She is an alumna of Wellesley College.