BrokenOpenHeart Productions

Evolution may occur and understanding can spread like wildfire

BrokenOpenHeart Productions Biographies

Tour and Workshop Director
gNatalie Rodic (Artistic Director of BrokenOpenHeart Productions & Director of International Affairs @ chashama Theatre) is a Croatian-American woman who calls her home New York City, Texas, and Otok Silba, Croatia. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting from the University of Texas in 1999, and then studied with Anne Bogart and the SITI Co. at Skidmore College for the Summer Intensive 1999, and then later in NYC. She is the Artistic Director of BrokenOpenHeartProductions and Director of International Affairs at chashama Theatre currently in the heart of Times Square.
   She is a professional working actor, dancer, and singer for stage, film, & television. Currently in New York and for the last year, she is dancing with PPAR Dance Company (who recently received an OOBer Award), and is collaborating with Julie Troost and Co. on a new theatre piece exploring freedom and Americanisms. Other recent stage credits include: Macbeth with Happy Hour Productions, The Devil With Boobs by Dario Fo, @ Medicine Show, and In & Out, a woman-show which also toured Europe in 2002. Film credits include Richard Linklater films, and Exposures, a Showtime Channel original. She is also a clown, acrobat, comedienne, and writer.
   gNatalie also spends her time as a Certified Hatha Yoga instructor, and a teacher of gymnastics and dance in early childhood programs. She has studied and taught many forms of modern, contemporary, classical, and folk dance, and various styles of singing. She is politically active and is a member of the Steering Committee for THAW (Theatres Against War): a local and international network of theatres striving for global awareness and peace.

Production Director
Anita Durst (Artistic Director of chashama, Inc.) is a founding member of chashama where she has produced, co-produced and presented over 110 productions, 10 festivals, and has transformed 7 vacant buildings into multi-arts complexes. Anita has assisted approximately 3,000 young, emerging, and established artists with space grants, production stipends, and administrative and technical support. Producing credits include: Krapp's Last Tape and Crowbar by Mac Wellman with Anne Hamburger of En Garde Arts, Mambo Mouth with Peter Askin, and The Restoration of the West Side Theatre. Anita was a founding member of Reza Abdoh's dar a luz company, with whom she co-produced Tight Right White and Law of Remains and performed in numerous productions. In 2000 Anita produced and performed in The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant (off-Broadway) at The Henry Millers Theater and for which she received a Drama Desk nomination. For her abundant support of the NYC arts community, The Resident named Anita as one of 'The Top 100 New Yorkers of 2002.' Currently, Anita is an advisory Board member of Town Hall and the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. She has conducted workshops with Saint Mary's After School Program and P.S. 211 as well as with at-risk youth groups at Spofford Juvenile Detention Center, Convent Family Living Center and Safe Space. Anita spent this past summer 2003 teaching experimental theatre workshops in the Balkan Region, former Yugoslavia.

Music Director
KATIE DOWN, multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound artist, has created and performed numerous sound scores for theatre, dance, multi-media events and installations. Katie uses unusual and homemade instruments and found sounds she collects and records throughout her travels to create original audio collages and compositions. A classically trained flutist with an M.A. from New England Conservatory of Music, Katie also performs on Middle Eastern frame drum and doumbek, guitar, ukulele, didgeridoo, and a variety of homemade percussion and found objects. She performs with different ensembles, in many musical genres including free improvisation, Jazz, Classical, Irish, Balkan, and Sephardic music. Her work as an educator includes workshops for both children and adults on improvisation, concentrating on deep exploration and integration of physical movement, voice and instruments. In 1999 she co-produced a CD with composer Dave Soldier of free improvisation with children ages 29 titled "Aliens Took My Mom!" on Mulatta Records and her work with children continues to influence her playing and composing. Katie has recently toured with BrokenOpenHeart Productions, in conjunction with Zagreb¹s Polygon Center for Arts and Research in which she co-conducted theatre, vocal and music improvisation workshops in cities throughout Croatia and Slovenia. She has also been a guest artist at the Hvar Up-beat Music Festival in which she taught improvisation to composers. She is resident composer for both the New York based company Ripe Time and Boston¹s Pilgrim Theatre and works steadily as a sound designer and composer in New York and abroad. She was a recent fellow at the Music/Omi arts colony in Hudson, NY in 2003, has been composer in residence at Mt. Holyoke Collage as well as the Composer Librettist studio at New Dramatists in 2000. In addition to her performing and teaching, she has produced and continues to produce numerous concerts, festivals and fundraisers including theatrical, poetry and experimental performance events and is music curator for a monthly music series at the Chashama gallery/performance space, TIXE. She continues to produce the semi-annual music, movement, and spoken word improvisation festival, Galumphing, and is an active steering committee member for THAW (Theatres Against War) based in New York City.
More about Katie Down
glassmusic@erols.com

Propmaster / Performer
Chris Skeens is a performer, production designer, and puppeteer originally from Chicago. He attended NYU as an actor, designer, and art historian. While at NYU, Chris designed all aspects of four productions for the Hanger Theater, including The Crazy Locomotive, and designed the set for Playwrights Horizons Theater School’s production of "The Millennium Lounge" directed by Elizabeth Swedos.

In the fall of 1998 Chris traveled to India with the School for International Training where he studied Indian Culture and History as well as Hindi/Urdu. He spent time with traditional folk dancers and puppeteers and one month at the Baratya Lok Kala Mandal in Udipur, carving Rajastani marionettes and researching folk tales. Returning to NYC he staged Vikram Aditya Ka Kell a Rajastani folk tale.

In the summer of 1999 Chris traveled to the Balkans and participated in theater festivals in Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. He participated in a workshop of a new play with directors Ivan Dobchef and Margarita Maladova of Sfumato at the Varna International Festival and created an original found object puppet piece with Peter Pashaw of Atelier 13.

Back in New York Chris continued designing productions such as David Newman and Stacy Dawson’s Der Brudern at ETW and Sentence at The Whitney Museum, and PS122. He also designed props for Richard Foreman’s "Now That Communism is Dead My Life Feels Empty" (2001), and "Maria Del Bosco" (2002) as well as assisting John Jesurun on "Bardo". In 2001 he was awarded the Chashama Artist in Residence Space Grant and continues to receive generous space allocations from chashama. He continued creating short puppet pieces with collaborator David Lloyd Rabig for concerts and events including 'Puppet Puppet' (2001) and 'Kabul/ New York' (2002). His latest full-length work, "Out Of Time; A Puppet Spectacle" premiered at Chashama Time Square in 2002.

He is currently the technical theater instructor at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn.

He would like to thank Anita for everything.

Technical Assistant / Archivist
Kim Jackson is producing the documentary film of this project. (This will be built on Summer 2003's Building Bridges Tour short documentary.)

Additional Cast Members
Rick Kariolic is an actor and member of the commedia dell'arte style theater companies 47 Ninja Clowns and The Sillies. He has worked in film and television and has extensive training in physical theater. He studied acting under Richard Whiteman and Kerry Hilger and received a B.A. in C.J and Communications from Saint Xavier University in Chicago.
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Mr. Clown
Mr. Clown is a graduate of Dell'Arte International school of Physical Theatre. He has a B.F.A. in Theatre from Syracuse. He has taught Mask & Gesture at the Strasberg Institute and held workshops in clown, commedia dell'arte, mime, stage combat, puppetry, dance, street performance, voice, fencing, and yoga. He founded his theatre company, www.mrclownbusiness.com in 1998 which led to the production of hiroshima. Since then he has co-founded Los Mojados Desobligados, 47ninjaclowns, the Sillies, the Pox, the nowheres, and Dreamcaste. He was master of ceremonies for two summer programs run with the Hudson River Park Trust. He also created FilmDojo, a workshop to transfer film concepts to reality and has founded MCBU, an international school for mime and comedy.

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