MultiStages - Mission and Boards
MultiStages - Mission and Boards
MultiStages is a theatre company committed to exploring new multidisciplinary and multicultural productions that challenge and bend conventional theatre. MultiStages has received the 2008 Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; and several N.W. Dible Foundation Grants for its New Works Contests.
The mission of MultiStages is to encourage new collaborations between emerging/established playwrights and artists (from within and outside the theatre arena), and to develop new artistic ideas through the creation of multicultural, multidisciplinary works that celebrate a fusion of art forms rarely found in today’s theatre. By supporting these cross-collaborations, new works are created that enrich, explore, and reinvent the world.
We are proud to announce that MultiStages is in its tenth year of producing theatrical world premieres by emerging and established writers with collaborations that include award-winning poets, modern dance choreographers, composers, award-winning recording artists, and more
MultiStages Board of Directors:
 LORCA PERESS is the Founder and Artistic Director of MultiStages, and an across-the-boards theatre artist specializing in new works. Ms. Peress’ diverse artistic background (primarily theatre, visual arts, dance, music and writing) led her to create MultiStages, a theatre company where artists from different disciplines would work together to produce extraordinary theatre. In her role as MultiStages Artistic Director, she has developed and produced all productions, readings and festivals, and supervised four New Works Contests. Ms. Peress has also conceived and directed the majority of MultiStages’ productions, and has acted in and designed puppets and masks for several. She is a native New Yorker, a Bennington College graduate, and did her professional study at the Lee Strasberg and Eugene O’Neill National Theatre Institutes (NTI). Her formative training was through several internships with Missouri Repertory and Stage West in Massachusetts, where she assisted directors Rae Allen (former Artistic Director of Stage West), Vincent Dowling (former Artistic Director of Alley Theatre, Dublin), and Harold Scott (Broadway and Regional director). At NTI, she also assisted writer Dale Wasserman in the O’Neill Playwriting Conference and worked with Theatre for the Deaf. In addition to her work with MultiStages, Ms. Peress has appeared or directed at Missouri Repertory, Stage West, The Walnut Street Theatre, Orlando Opera Co., The Century Theatre, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Repertorio Espańol, Lambs Theatre, Dixon Place, Theatre for the New City, HERE, The Colleagues Theatre, La MaMa E.T.C., The Sackett Group’s Women’s Work Festivals, NYU Tisch, Teatro La Tea, Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, Hudson Guild Theatre, Access Theatre, the Players Club, and Latino Playwrights (Raul Julia founder). Ms. Peress has been a playwriting contest judge for Repertorio Espańol’s Nueces Voces I and II, the Ohio State Council on the Arts, La Mia Ink, Lee Strasberg One Act Contests, and the MultiStages New Works Contests. Ms. Peress has received an Inky Award from La MaMa Experimental Theatre Co. through the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, numerous MultiStages producing grants, and several La Mia Ink! playwriting awards. She has served on the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Production Committee, is Curator for NYU hotINK Festivals for Strasberg, teaches in the NYU Strasberg Studio and at the Lee Strasberg Institute, and is a member of numerous theatrical Unions and the League of Professional Theatre Women. |
 GENA BARDWELL is an actor and playwright, originally from Kansas City, Missouri. Ms. Bardwell is the co-writer of the docudrama play, “Hannah Elias,” which was a finalist in the New Harmony Playwright’s Workshop. “Hannah Elias” traces the saga of a young black woman living in Harlem in the early 1900’s, who was convicted of a crime she didn’t commit. Ms. Bardwell, who lives in Harlem, has worked as a youth development and corporate trainer helping various youth organizations, as well as Fortune 500 Companies with staff development, conflict resolution, and all levels of communication using improvisation and theater games. For two years, Ms. Bardwell was the co-director of Growing Up Performed, an organization that helps at-risk and non-at-risk children aged 6-12 create performance stories out of real life situations. She has served as the Board President for the Froghead Theater Company in Kansas City Missouri, on the Board of Directors for New Directions Theater, and now sits on the MultiStages Board. In 2001 she was Named "Best Actress" for her portrayal of Amanda in an all African-American version of “Glass Menagerie” by The Pitch News, which was produced at the Coterie Theatre, in Kansas City; she also received an OOBR (Off-Off Broadway Review Award) for Best Ensemble for her portrayal of Miss Mary in “Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery.” Ms. Bardwell received the prestigious "Women in the Arts Award" by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority for her work as an actor and arts educator throughout the Midwest. She is currently collaborating on a one-woman performance piece, and is the former Director of Special Events for The New-York Historical Society. Ms. Bardwell received an MFA from Rutgers University, and teaches voice and speech development for New York University and Touro College. |
 RENÉE BERLINER RUSH graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College in 1978. She went on to receive her J.D. in 1981 from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Ms. Rush was a litigation associate with Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hayes & Handler and a Contract Specialist for RCA Records. In the fall of 1985, Ms. Rush entered the legal search field, and is a principal partner of CMRW. Combining a reputation for honesty and thorough insight into the legal marketplace with long-standing professional relationships, CMRW distinguishes itself with a roster of contacts and resources unmatched in the industry.
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 LEONARD FUSCO AIA is a founding partner of GF55 Architects. He leads the firm in Design, Project Management and Technical Issues. Fusco has been the Partner-in-Charge for the following: multi-family apartment buildings, suburban developments (i.e., townhouses, apartment buildings and site planning, including the award winning senior housing project in Ohio and townhouses featured in Builder Magazine); government agency projects for the NYC Dept. of Design and Construction, NYS Urban Development Corp, NYC Department for the Aging, and the New York County District Attorney’s Office, and for projects that involve specialized technical requirements such as the design of medical facilities. At GBQC, Fusco was a Designer for the Alabama Power Company Headquarters and the new wing of the Albert Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia. At James Stewart Polshek and Partners, he worked on the renovations of the Customs House and Carnegie Hall in NYC. Leonard Fusco, AIA, graduated from Columbia University with a BS degree in Civil Engineering in 1977 and the University of Pennsylvania with a Master of Arch. in 1980. At graduate school, he was an E. Lewis Dales Traveling Fellow, a Stewardson Memorial Competition Finalist, and a Theophilius Chandler Fellow. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of the Salvadori Center on the Built Environment, a member of Professional Women in Construction, and a member of the AIA, where he serves on the Health Care Facilities Committee. He is a registered architect in New York, Ohio, Connecticut, New Jersey, Tennessee, Florida, and Alabama; he also holds a certificate from the NCARB. |
 MARYANN MAZZACARO is an early childhood educator and consultant who teaches at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. She is a graduate of Bennington College and the Bank Street College of Education, and has served as a board member and officer of the New York City Association for the Education of Young Children. In addition, Ms. Mazzacaro was a tacher and director of Camp Win, run by Women in Need, Inc; this program assists women and their families who find themselves without housing and/or support services. Ms. Mazzacaro was the recipient of an Earthwatch scholarship for her participation in an archeological project in Great Britain in the Summer of 1998. Ms. Mazzacaro is also a published poet, and a lover of the arts. |
 VALORIE NICCORE has been part of the theatrical community most of her life. She was awarded a scholarship to a performing arts center in Michigan and, at later was an AEA apprentice. Valorie attended a high school with a separate performing arts dept. and in her senior year attended classes in the day and performed at night at Vanguard Playhouse, an AEA theatre in Detroit. After graduating from Wayne State University she did post graduate work in Kiev, Ukraine at the Karpenko-Karii Theatre Institute in the Stanislavsky System of acting and, also, at the Kiev Choreography Lycee in folk choreography. As an actor Valorie appeared Off Broadway in Revenge In The Mob, an interactive comedy, for two years. She has also worked on television and regional theatre in roles ranging from Lady Narborough in The Picture Of Dorian Gray, the Actress in La Ronde, Ariel in The Tempest to Countess Geschwitz in Lulu and the First Witch in Macbeth. On television she’s been seen on All My Children, Loving, and Another World. Valorie particularly enjoys working in new plays and, hence her interest in MultiStages. |
MultiStages Advisory Board:
Joel Bassin, Ph.D., Wooster Group
Hadley Boyd, Writer
William H. Hickok, N.W. Dible Foundation
René Keller, TV/Theatre Producer
Jane Lowe, Actor
Sheldon Patinkin Writer/Director
Judith Pearlman, Film Documentarian
Maurice Peress, Music Conductor
Anita Velez Mitchell, Writer/Theatre Artist |
