Multidisciplinary Productions to Widen the WE
ASC produces live, original multidisciplinary performances. Through riveting spoken word, score and song, ASC’s productions explore real-world tales of choices people make in times of personal or societal change, especially unexpected grace in upheaval.
ASC includes a cutting-edge collaboration of international musicians, composers, visual artists, writers and theatrical designers.
Incorporating the Guy Mendilow Ensemble and Regie Gibson’s touring and directing on leading performing arts stages since 1998 (from Celebrity Series of Boston and “Promised Land” at Oprah Winfrey’s home to the Krannert Performing Arts Center), ASC productions have received numerous funding awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Boston Foundation and Western Arts Alliance for artistry, cultural preservation, and strengthening of communities through the arts.
Productions
The Forgotten Kingdom
Dreamlike theatrically projected sand animation, narration blending memoir and poetry, and a riveting musical score reframing Ottoman Jewish women’s song render an interwar letter from a mother to her daughter, in the form of a book of memory so that — years later, once grown — the daughter would remember how it felt to live in her parents’ vibrant, multiethnic Mediterranean world, before its unraveling.
Different Ships, Same Boat
An exploration of the multifaceted ways in which Americans live, love & laugh.
Through a series of chapters — each curating true stories — MA Poet Laureate & former Poetry Slam Champion, Regie Gibson, and composer/storycatcher, Guy Mendilow, guide audiences with humorous, poignant & poetic narration over an evocative musical score spanning lyrical American Blues, classical & songs from older immigrant homelands.
As we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, Different Ships, Same Boat is a stirring journey of the joys, tensions & complexities of what it means to celebrate, even love not only America, but Americans.
ASC residencies frequently begin with Different Ships, Same Boat to build participant motivation to work with ASC, cultivate confidence that ASC is rigorous in its artistry and production, relevant to participants’ lived experience, and emotionally resonant. Different Ships, Same Boat also establishes a values sphere of dignity, safety and full regard for the rest of the residency.
Radio Play(s) Series
Like a stage-performed podcast, each Radio Play(s) episode unpacks a timely theme through a collection of stories whether told through the spoken word, musical segments or theatrically projected sand animation. A continuous score unites each episode, drawing on classical, contemporary and Ottoman Jewish influences and performed by a world-class, multiethnic sextet. Radio Play(s) addresses mounting civic/racial tensions in the US. Co-directed by Guy Mendilow and Regie Gibson.
Around the World in Song
Joyous, interactive performances nurture children’s musicianship and multicultural inquisitiveness. Through traditional and original songs and stories from around the world, together with purposeful movement, Around the World in Song gives children tools to engage even more actively with music they love and to tap into the thrill of their own musical discoveries. Fun and pedagogically thoughtful, Around the World in Song is built on principles of Dalcroze Education and Fred Rogers’ philosophy.