Media Contact:
Michelle Moore
Marketing Manager
504-523-9857
mmoore@southernrep.com

 

NEW ORLEANS - November 7, 2014 - As part of its longstanding commitment to developing innovative, engaging work, Southern Rep Theatre is pleased to announce BOUDIN: The New Orleans Music Project - a 6-month multimedia collaboration that asks New Orleanians one question: "How has New Orleans music saved your soul?"

 

Supported in part by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation's Community Partnership Grant, the comprehensive project kicks off with an initiative to collect participants' responses via film, audio, photots, and narratives that will be shared digitally at www.boudinmusicproject.com. Specific stories will then be chosen and curated into a 90-minute musical production. The visual arts community will also be invited to respond to the prompt via an open submission process by creating unique "music altars," some of which will be featured as part of the production's scenic design.

 

"The project is meant to reflect a wide swath of experience, featuring true tales from New Orleans writers, musicians and regular residents," says Aimée Hayes, Southern Rep Producing Artistic Director and BOUDIN Co-Curator. "The production brings together powerful elements from live music, film, theatre, audio art, and the visual arts in a truly unique way to create a brand new, soul saving good time at the theatre."

 

In an effort to connect with large, diverse groups of New Orleanians both home and beyond, Southern Rep is presenting BOUDIN in partnership with WWOZ 90.7FM, New Orleans' listener-supported, volunteer-powered, jazz and heritage community radio station. Together, the organizations will work to uplift the New Orleans creative community by bringing together a wide-range of artists to exchange and produce new ideas.

 

"WWOZ broadcasts New Orleans music to the world each and every day of the year," says WWOZ Development Director Crystal Gross. "WWOZ listeners often share beautiful, funny, emotional, tragic and downright hilarious stories of how music - New Orleans music in particular - brings something special to their lives. This partnership between WWOZ and Southern Rep is an organic union of music, theatre, writing and storytelling. I can't wait to see, hear and share laughs and tears when the stories come rolling in."

 

Additionally, the project is being guided by an engaged and creative Advisory Board to help oversee the ambitious effort and maintain the organic vision. "This project embraces what I believe deep down," says Gwen Thompkins, host of WWNO's 'Music Inside Out.' "Never turn down an opportunity to talk about, think about, make art about music. It achieves what almost nothing can. Music makes you full without eating, drunk without drinking and soar without taking a single step. It makes you twinkle in the daytime and cradles you in the night. Being engaged with music means you are tending to your soul."

 

In addition to Thompkins, BOUDIN Advisory Board members include Claire Bangser of NOLAbeings, Crystal Gross of WWOZ, Elton Jones of SPUN-TV, David Kunian of WWOZ, Peggy Scott Laborde of WYES, Gene Meneray of Arts Council of New Orleans, Melanie Merz of WWOZ, Jim O'Quinn of American Theatre Magazine, Dr. Ray Sanders of The New Orleans Imperative, Cameron Shaw of Pelican Bomb, and Composer/Producer Jay Weigel.

 

BOUDIN: The New Orleans Music Project consists of three primary components: Storytelling & Story Krewe, Visual Artists, and The Production. Details regarding each component can be found in the addendum of this press release.

 

If you're interested in sharing your story about how New Orleans music has saved your soul, submit your response via email at boudin@southernrep.com, or directly at www.boudinmusicproject.com/sumbit.Participants can share audio, video or a written story.

 

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About Southern Rep Theatre
Now in its 28th Season, Southern Rep Theatre produces award-winning programs that are engaging, educational, and accessible for audiences of every socioeconomic background. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director, Aimée Hayes, Southern Rep Theatre's Mainstage Season work includes bold World and Regional Premieres as well as the best of Broadway, off-Broadway, and classic plays. Southern Rep Theatre's Lagniappe Series and "School to Stage Pipeline" of Arts Education Programs reflect the company's ongoing commitment to new play development by providing resources for students and burgeoning theatre professionals and supporting a more diverse theatre community. A mainstay of New Orleans' arts community, Southern Rep Theatre continues to build on its unique position as a sector leader, creative force, and important resource for contemporary American theatre. For more information, visit www.southernrep.com.

 

About WWOZ
WWOZ 90.7 FM is celebrating over 30 years as a community radio station in New Orleans, Louisiana. WWOZ is listener-supported and volunteer-programmed with over 7,500 members worldwide. Volunteer show hosts bring their passion and knowledge of music to the airwaves without commercial interests, allowing for the ultimate New Orleans music experience. For more information, visit www.wwoz.org.

 

 

GET INVOLVED WITH BOUDIN

 

THE PRODUCTION
How has New Orleans music saved your soul?
We've asked locals all over the city to answer that question, and the hilarious, poignant, powerful, and personal responses we've received thus far have got us jazzed. Now Southern Rep Theatre will mix the best of the bunch together and cook up BOUDIN: The New Orleans Music Project, a musical production that celebrates our music, history and the magic nature of New Orleans.

 

The 90-minute production runs April 15 - May 17, 2015 as part of Southern Rep Theatre's 2014/15 Mainstage Season. Sean Daniels, Geva Theatre Center's Artist-At-Large, conceived the project with Southern Rep's Producing Artistic Director Aimée Hayes over a plate of boudin at a local New Orleans charcuterie. Daniels and Hayes, along with Co-Curator and Award-Winning Sound Designer Matt Callahan, will transform the many stories shared via the Story Krewe and boudinmusicproject.com into a non-stop evening.

 

Sean Daniels is directing with Music Direction by Composer Jay Weigel. Local musicians and actors will both perform and play the music - and maybe even cut the rug! Audiences should expect special musical guest appearances, an invitation to dance, and perhaps a plate of boudin.

 

 

About Sean Daniels
Sean Daniels is the Artist-At-Large/Director of Artistic Engagement at the Geva Theatre Center after spending 4 years at the Tony Award Winning Actors Theatre of Louisville as the theater's Associate Artistic Director (where he directed a record 17 productions including 4 Humana Festivals in his 4 seasons). Mr. Daniels is the former Associate Artistic Director/Resident Director of the California Shakespeare Theater and before that spent a decade as the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Dad's Garage Theater Company in Atlanta, Ga. Sean has been named "One of the top fifteen up & coming artists in the U.S., whose work will be transforming America's stages for decades to come." & "One Of 7 People Reshaping And Revitalizing The American Musical" by American Theatre magazine. In Atlanta, he was named "Best Director" twice. In the Bay Area, he earned the Bay Area Critics Circle and Dean Goodman Choice Awards for Best Direction and Best Production. In addition, while leading Dad's Garage it was awarded "Best Theater Company" 5 times in a row.

 

About Matt Callahan
Matt Callahan made his Geva Theatre Center debut in 2012 with THE BOOK CLUB PLAY. He served as the Resident Sound Designer at Actors Theatre of Louisville for more than 50 productions, including the World Premieres of BOB, ELEMENO PEA, GROUND, SIRENS, WILD BLESSINGS, THE HARD WEATHER BOATING PARTY, SLASHER, THE END, ROCK AND ROLL - THE REUNION TOUR, DARK PLAY - STORIES FOR BOYS, THE BEAUTIFUL CITY, THE SCENE, THE UNSEEN, SIX YEARS, PURE CONFIDENCE, and HAZARD COUNTY.

 

About Aimée Hayes
Since being named Producing Artistic Director of Southern Rep Theatre in 2008, Aimée Hayes has focused on new play development, producing various writers during her tenure, including John Biguenet, Eric Coble, Zayd Dohrn, Catherine Filloux, Jim Fitzmorris, Ross Maxwell, Tarrell McCraney, Peter McElligot, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Joe Sutton and Steve Yockey. She's also incorporated a slate of new play development programs into Southern Rep's Lagniappe Series, including 6×6, a new play slam; 3×3: THE ONE ACTS; DEBAUCHERY!, New Orleans' only live, ongoing soap opera, now in its fifth year; and THE NEW PLAY BACCHANAL, an annual two-day new play festival that includes honoring a new play by a female playwright of color with The Ruby Prize.

 

Hayes often appears on the stage as well, most recently as Hannah Jelkes in Southern Rep's THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, and prior to that, as Blanche Dubois in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Hayes was recently named a 2014 Top Female Achiever by New Orleans Magazine, and in 2012 she was named Gambit Weekly's Theatre Person of the Year. Additionally, Hayes serves as an at-large Board Member for the Theatre Communications Group (TCG). She was a directing intern at Actors Theatre of Louisville under Jon Jory, earned her directing MFA from Tulane University, and an English BA magna cum laude from Loyola University.

 

About Jay Weigel
Jay Weigel is a distinguished composer, producer, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, and contractor for film, television, recordings, and concerts. Based in New Orleans, he has worked in the film and television industry for over 28 years. His recent scores and soundtrack recordings can be heard in Warner Brother's films such as, Grudge Match, The Campaign, Green Lantern, The Lucky One, and the upcoming feature Get Hard, staring Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, seven of Tyler Perry's films; HBO's Little Britain; I Love You Phillip Morris, The Other Woman and numerous documentaries and independent films including Cobu, Bullet to the Head , Joe Sanford's Omega Point, and Gregory Kallenberg's Haynesville and Rational Middle Series.

 

Weigel currently manages two music companies, Floating City Music and Carondelet Music Group whose clients include Warner Brothers, TNT, HBO and Lionsgate. Numerous symphonies & artists around the world, including the Kennedy Center, Louisiana Philharmonic, St. Louis Cathedral, University of Southern Mississippi Symphony, the Acadiana Symphony, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, have commissioned his concert work.