unFRAMED
by
Iyaba Ibo Mandingo
Biographies
of Key Personnel
IYABA IBO MANDINGO (Playwright/Performer)
-
poet, painter, writer, and playwright - is a native of Antigua, West Indies, who
came to the United States in 1980 as a young boy. His earliest exposures
to the arts were through his mother, a professional singer, and his
grandparents, a tailor and a seamstress who first introduced him to colors and
patterns, paving a path to the many ways of expression: drawing, painting,
sculpting, writing and performing. Iyaba studied fine arts at Southern
Connecticut State University and today teaches in and around the tri-state area
as a Master Teaching Artist.
Iyaba is a two-time Connecticut
Grand Slam champion and in 2011 won Yale University’s Martin Luther King
Birthday Invitational Slam, his third such win. He appears regularly as a
performance poet in venues across the United States and abroad, including
Nuyorican Poetry Café, Brooklyn Moon, and Next Door Café among others in the
NY area and was the keynote performer at the 2011 Westchester, NY Poetry
Festival. He was recently seen at 59E59 in Deb Margolin’s The
Expenses of Rain (Laura Barnett, director). He is the author of
three chapbooks of poetry, 41 Times, Amerikkan Exile and his latest, 40 days & 40 nites of
write. His new novel, Sins of My Fathers, will
be released in 2012. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Summer, 2011 Artist
in Residence.
Iyaba was awarded a national Percent
for the Arts Program artist grant, as well as grants from the Connecticut
Commission on the Arts, and multiple commendations from the Nassau County
African American Museum. His artwork has been included in over a dozen
group and individual shows in the tri-state area.
unFRAMED is
winner of the 2011 Excellence in Theatre Award from the DC Black Theatre
Festival and has been presented all over the east coast, including at the 2011
Art of Justice Series at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater in NYC, the All for One
Theatre Festival at Theatre 80, NYC, the Railroad
Playhouse in Newburgh, the Puffin Cultural Forum, as a Spotlight show at the DC
Black Theatre Festival; at colleges and universities (York College, NY, Nichols
College, MA, University of Baltimore, MD, Rider College, NJ); and the Hudson
Valley Writers Center.
BRENT BUELL (Director)
has taken the directorial helm on work including From Sing Sing to
Broadway, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons in NYC; his comedy The
Gem Exchange; Rosemary Hester’s You Can’t Leave That There;
Wood Bars, which he wrote with Miguel Valentin for the opening of
John Buffalo Mailer and Tom Kail’s Back House Productions; and his Las Vegas
spectacular, Undone Divas. He wrote and directed The
Terrors of Teri, a film for Ohio University’s University
College, and Goddess Films tapped him to direct its new comedy Moses (selected
for the 2011 Art of Brooklyn Film Festival) starring Rosie DeSanctis.
Buell has taught at CUNY and for The Working Theater.
For ten years, Buell volunteered with the non-profit organization Rehabilitation
Through the Arts, directing theater in New York’s maximum-security prisons.
There his productions of plays, ranging from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice
and Men to three original works by prisoners, have earned praise from
critics, including from The New York Times. His Breakin’
the Mummy’s Code premiered at Sing Sing and was the subject of a
feature article in Esquire by bestselling author, John Richardson.
His experiences provided the basis for his chapter “Drama in the Big House”
in the book Performing New Lives, Prison Theater by Jonathan Shailor.
An accomplished actor, Buell has
appeared in classic roles from Shakespeare and Ibsen to Moliere and Strindberg,
and on the big screen in both the hit comedy Grand Opening and the
soon to be released controversial thriller Al Qarem. He has
written two novels, Rapturous (early 2012) and Daniel and My
Revelation (Fall 2012). Mr. Buell received his M.A. from Ohio
University where he studied with novelist Herbert Gold.
MARGARET LISTON (Choreographer)
is associate director and dancer with the Moving Mantras Performance Group and is a Board member
of the Sean Curran Company. An MFA graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, she was a member of
the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Multigravitational Aerodance Group
and Barry Martin’s Deja Vu Dance Theatre. Margaret conceived, wrote and choreographed her one-woman show
MENTALPAUSE,
which she performed in NYC and Philadelphia. She is a certified Pilates Instructor and owner of Tappan Zee
Body Works studio.
JANE
DUBIN (Producer and Creative
Consultant) is a TONY Award winning producer and President of Double Play
Connections, a theatrical production and management company committed to
supporting emerging artists and playwrights in the development of new works.
Jane is a graduate of the Commercial Theatre Institute's 14-week (NYC) and
O’Neill Center Intensive (CT) Producing Workshops and recent Director of
Theater Resources Unlimited’s Producer Development Program. Productions: Umbrellas
of Cherbourg (London), 39 Steps (OB, Tour), Norman
Conquests (winner - TONY, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards,
Best Play Revival), Groundswell (New Group), Beebo
Brinker Chronicles (2008 GLAAD Media Award for Theatre). Other:
OPA! (Best Commercial Production, MITF 2008, NY); Take Me
America (Best Musical, MITF 2007), Count Down, and
the one-woman show, MentalPause by Margaret Liston.
Ms. Dubin is on the Board of Directors of Houses on the Moon Theater Company and a member of the Broadway League and the League of Professional Theatre Women. She is consulting producer to the Moving Mantras Performance Group, a company integrating the movement of yoga and modern dance and co-curator of the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center New Play Reading Series. She holds an MBA in Finance from NYU.
For
more information: http://www.unFRAMEDthePlay.com
To
connect on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/IyabaOnFacebook