Annie Dorsen (born 1973) is a New York theater director. She is the co-creator and director of the Broadway musical ''
Passing Strange
''Passing Strange'' is a comedy-drama rock musical about a young African American's artistic journey of self-discovery, with strong elements of philosophical existentialism, metafiction (especially self-referential humor), and the artistic jou ...
'', and her work in "algorithmic theater" includes the plays ''Hello Hi There'', ''A Piece of Work'', and ''Yesterday Tomorrow''. Dorsen has received an
Alpert Award in the Arts
The Alpert Award in the Arts was established in the 1994 by The Herb Alpert Foundation in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, Cali ...
, a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
and a
MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...
.
Early life and education
Dorsen was born in 1973 in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to Harriette and
Norman Dorsen
Norman Dorsen (September 4, 1930 – July 1, 2017) was the Frederick I. and Grace A. Stokes Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program at the New York University School of Law, where he specialized in Con ...
.
She has two sisters.
She graduated with a BA degree from
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
in 1996, and received an MFA degree from
Yale School of Drama
The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in e ...
in 2000.
Career
In collaboration with Heidi Rodewald and
Stew
A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. A stew needs to have raw ingredients added to the gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables and ...
, Dorsen created and directed the
rock musical
A rock musical is a musical theatre work with rock music. The genre of rock musical may overlap somewhat with album musicals, concept albums and song cycles, as they sometimes tell a story through the rock music, and some album musicals and concept ...
''
Passing Strange
''Passing Strange'' is a comedy-drama rock musical about a young African American's artistic journey of self-discovery, with strong elements of philosophical existentialism, metafiction (especially self-referential humor), and the artistic jou ...
'', a semi-fictional story about Stew's life that was co-commissioned by
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Berkeley Repertory Theatre is a regional theater company located in Berkeley, California. It runs seven productions each season from its two stages in Downtown Berkeley.
History
The company was founded in 1968, as the East Bay's first resident pr ...
and
The Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American Li ...
.
The show opened
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
at The Public Theater in 2007, and had its Broadway premiere at the
Belasco Theatre
The Belasco Theatre is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater at 111 West 44th Street, between Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York Ci ...
in 2008.
While ''Passing Strange'' was running on Broadway, Dorsen also created ''Democracy in America'', an Off-Broadway satire of American politics and polling, in which anyone could pay a fee to add their own material to the script being performed.
Dorsen has collaborated with computer programmers to produce "algorithmic theater" in which custom algorithms process source material to generate live scripts and scores that are performed by
chatbot
A chatbot or chatterbot is a Software agent, software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or Speech synthesis, text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly si ...
s and human actors.
Her first piece of "algorithmic theater" was ''Hello Hi There'', in which chatbots use text from the
Chomsky–Foucault debate, the works of
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
, and
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
comments to create unique dialogue for each performance.
In the five-act play ''A Piece of Work'', chatbots and a human actor perform a script created in real-time by processing the text of ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
''.
''Yesterday Tomorrow'', the final piece in Dorsen's trilogy of algorithmic performances, uses custom algorithms to produce a live score, performed by three singers, that transitions from the Beatles song
"Yesterday" to the song
"Tomorrow" from the musical ''
Annie
Annie may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Annie (given name), a given name and a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Annie (actress) (born 1975), Indian actress
* Annie (singer) (born 1977), Norwegian singer
The ...
''.
In 2017, Dorsen received a grant from the
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), is a nonprofit based foundation in New York City that offers financial support and recognition to contemporary performing and visual artists through awards for artistic innovation and potential. It was ...
to support her play ''The Great Outdoors'', in which audience members lie down inside an inflatable planetarium and listen to a human performer read recent Internet comments selected and processed by an algorithm.
A year later, Dorsen received the Spalding Gray Award, which provided funds to produce her play ''The Slow Room''.
The play, a human performance of a fixed script assembled from virtual sex chat room messages, premiered later that year at
Performance Space New York
Performance Space New York, formerly known as Performance Space 122 or P.S. 122, is a non-profitable arts organization founded in 1980 in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in an abandoned public school building.
Origin
The former eleme ...
.
Recognition
Dorsen received one of the 2014
Alpert Awards in the Arts
The Alpert Award in the Arts was established in the 1994 by The Herb Alpert Foundation in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, Cali ...
, which recognize the work of experimental artists by providing a US$75,000 prize to each recipient.
In 2018, she
received a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
. The following year she received a
MacArthur Fellowship
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...
.
She was one of six MacArthur fellows from
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorsen, Annie
Living people
MacArthur Fellows
American theatre directors
Women theatre directors
Yale School of Drama alumni
Year of birth uncertain
1973 births