Curated by the All For One community of faculty, performers, Advisory Board members, and staff, the All For One Theater Festival in New York City launches on November 11, 2011 at the 160-seat Theatre 80 St. Marks Off-Broadway. Night-time and weekend programming will feature up 15 full-length solo shows and 6 shorter pieces and there will also be master classes, workshops, and panels guided by leading solo show creators, performers, directors, and producers.
The festival celebrates solo theatre importance. On the importance of solo performance and why it matters, Deb Margolin shares her thoughts, “I attribute the rise of modern solo performance to the emergence of the woman’s movement and third-wave feminism! If we move into modern times, skipping over the oral traditions that include Homer singing the Odyssey out loud before a spellbound audience, we come to the upheaval of the 1960’s, the anti-Vietman protest movement, the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers; the time of resistance and change.
During that time, women found that their concerns were ancillary to those of their male counterparts, and the modern feminist movements began, with women meeting in living rooms and basements, and telling their individual stories. Arguably, the ascendence of the solo voice came out of this movement; women wanted to tell their own stories in their own words; were tired of being depicted by men, having their voices scripted by men, and the theater world came to be the inheritor of solo voices on the stage, emerging out of those living rooms.
In the early days of Cafe Cino, LaMaMa and other landmark solo and avant-garde performance spaces, men came to share and sometimes to eclipse the voices of solo women artists; nevertheless, the excellence of such solo artists as Roberta Sklar and Sondra Segal, Claudia Shear, Whoopie Goldberg, Aviva Jane Carlin, Jenny Allen, Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, Holly Hughes, Margaret Cho, and many more represented a new way of making women’s voices and bodies present and alive on terms newly reclaimed by authors/actors themselves.”
The schedule of 2011’s line up in November can be found here.
Renee Blodgett is the Founder and Managing Editor of We Blog the World, a global travel, culture and lifestyle publication exploring the world through the lens of meaningful experiences, human connection and cultural depth. Having lived in 10 countries and traveled to 95, Renee has spent much of her life immersed in the people, traditions, landscapes and ideas that shape how we experience the world.
Since launching We Blog the World in 2007, she has written and produced extensive editorial coverage spanning boutique and luxury travel, culinary experiences, arts and culture, wellness, adventure, technology, spiritual traditions and transformative travel. Her work is rooted in the belief that travel is about more than where we go—it is also about what a place, culture or encounter awakens within us.
Renee brings more than three decades of experience across journalism, photography, media, brand strategy, technology, wellness and global storytelling. She has worked with companies and organizations around the world on brand positioning, communications, product launches, media strategy, speaker positioning and storytelling. Through Blue Soul Media, she works with authors, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and purpose-driven brands to clarify their message and expand their impact, which includes speaker coaching/training for high-profile stages such as TED and bringing authors’ work to market while retaining authors rights.
She is also the co-founder of Blue Soul Earth, an educational platform exploring consciousness, ancient wisdom, spirituality, healing and the intersection between science and the nature of reality. Renee is the producer and host of the award-winning Blue Soul CHATS, a conversational series bringing together leading voices in science, technology, consciousness, wellness and spirituality.
Her growing body of work also includes Blue Soul Living, which extends her interest in consciousness and well-being into the spaces we inhabit, exploring how intentional design, energy and environment can support greater harmony and connection.
Renee is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling Magdalene’s Journey and founder of the Magdalene Collection, inspired by women’s voices, stories and wisdom across cultures and generations.
A longtime photographer and storyteller, Renee has documented people, places and cultures around the world and produced photographic collections focused on destinations including the Galápagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome and Ecuador. She also co-founded Traveling Geeks, an international initiative that brought entrepreneurs, journalists, creators and technology leaders together with their counterparts in other countries to exchange ideas and explore innovation across cultures.
Renee’s work has been recognized by Forbes, the United Nations and others for her influence in media and social storytelling. Across her work in travel, media, consciousness and culture, a common thread remains: curiosity about the world, the stories that connect us and the ways meaningful experiences can change how we see ourselves and one another.
