OUT HERE, a new musical

leslie Buxbaum (book & lyrics)

is a writer and director working in theater, dance, circus, puppetry and music. She is currently developing a new musical OUT HERE with composer/lyricist Erin McKeown, with support from a Mellon Fellowship for Arts Practice and Scholarship at the University of Chicago’s Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, and from Lucky Plush Productions. Recent work includes being stage director of Metamorphosis with Third Coast Percussion and Movement Art Is (Lil Buck & Jon Boogz) at Carnegie Hall and the Harris Theater. Also with TCP, Leslie stage directed Paddle to the Sea and Wild Sound, composed by Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, with performances at the MCA Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), National Forum of Music (Wroclaw), De Doelen (Rotterdam), and more. Leslie has been a collaborating creator/director with Julia Rhoads and Lucky Plush Productions since 2010. As a director with 500 Clown (2000-2010), Leslie co-created works that played throughout the US. Leslie has directed for the House Theatre of Chicago, Redmoon, Chicago Children’s Theatre, New Victory, and About Face, and toured nationally and internationally as an actor with NYC’s Elevator Repair Service. She received her BA from Brown University and PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and trained in physical theatre at Ecoles Jacques Lecoq and Philippe Gaulier. She is Associate Professor of Practice in Theater and Performance Studies at The University of Chicago.

Erin mckeown (music & lyrics)

is a musician, writer, and producer who has released 11 albums since their 2000 debut, Distillation. Erin’s first musical, Miss You Like Hell, written with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, had its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2016 and opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in 2018. Nominated for 5 Drama Desk Awards, The Wall Street Journal named it Best Musical of 2018. As a bandleader, Erin has performed at Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, and Newport Folk Festivals. McKeown’s songs are a familiar presence on NPR, the BBC, film and television. Erin has been a resident artist at Providence, RI’s AS220, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman-Klein Center, and the recipient of residencies from The Studios of Key West and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. They were the 2020-21 Professor of the Practice in Theater and Performance Studies at their alma mater, Brown University.  www.erinmckeown.com

david levin (additional conceptual development)

is the Alice H. and Stanley G. Harris Distinguished Service Professor of Germanic Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, and Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago, where, since 2018 he has also served as Senior Advisor to the Provost for Arts. His work focuses on the aesthetics and politics of performance in opera, theater and cinema. From 2011-2016 he served as the founding Director of the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry. David has served as a guest professor of Theater and Performance Studies at the Free University of Berlin as well as the Universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Konstanz, Oslo, and Mainz. In addition to his scholarship and teaching, he has worked extensively as a dramaturg and collaborator for opera, theater, and dance productions in Germany and the United States, working with, among others, Robert Altman, Ruth Berghaus, and William Forsythe. Fun fact: like Leslie and Erin, David got his BA at Brown.