Words

About Performance Making

Artistic Practice and the Genre Binary
I collaborated Natalie Greene (Mugwumpin Artistic Director) and Eric Garcia (Detour Dance Artistic Director) on this article for In Dance about creating cross-genre artistic practice. 

SPEAK
I wrote this piece for In Dance about the genesis of my piece Monkey Gone to Heaven. 

A Movement of the Spirit
Playwright/Poet Brian Thorstenson’s piece in In Dance includes some beautiful reflections on our collaborative process.

Press

Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, as a Mormon who’s flown into New York from Utah, conjures a whole life waged in rectitude and hardness — but one with cracks for tenderness to creep in. And when Stuart is Ethel Rosenberg, getting to watch Roy Cohn suffer in the hospital, the twinkle in her eye hints at an ineffable interior pleasure.

This ‘Angels in America’ is the theatrical medicine you need - SF Chronicle

We hooked up with our guide, who introduced herself as Frank (short for H.R.H. Francesca) — but whom some of us recognized as the formidable Erin Mei-Ling Stuart – outside the storied Revolution Café. Frank promised to lead us to a fabled “new city,” evoking Peter Pan as she darted through the busy streets.

Tales of the Mission in Fugue from Detour Dance - KQED

Christine Linde is played so gravely by Erin Mei-Ling Stuart that each plea about a pitiable lot in life registers with battalion force

Shotgun’s pared-down Ibsen has fewer words, more power - SF Chronicle

Also of note is Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, who plays Mrs. Linde, Nora’s childhood friend, and gives an anti-performance of remarkable conviction that works surprisingly well.

Review: “Nora” at Shotgun Players - Theatre Arts Daily

Brittany, the hard-nosed negotiator already in place (a witheringly disdainful Erin Mei-Ling Stuart), quickly dismisses her as an unqualified rookie with a white savior complex.

In ‘Hearts of Palm,’ bumbling corporation aims to plunder paradise - The Mercury News

the narrative weaves back and forth in time as we observe the family dynamics among Lena, Tray, his tentative, scarred younger sister Devine (talented newcomer Mimia Ousilas) and mother Merrell (excellent Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) who abandoned Tray and Devine as a result of alcohol abuse. 

Powerful and profound: ‘brownsville song (b-side for tray)’ - Berkeleyside

The Second Girl (forceful and charismatic Angel Adedokun) is a princess who has to marry a pig (amusingly strutting Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) 

Ancient tales, songs spun into magic in ‘Iron Shoes’ - The Mercury News

A second [girl] (Angel Adedokun) marries a pig (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, with arms-akimbo bravado that contrasts delightfully with her strapped-on snout).

‘Iron Shoes’ from Shotgun and Kitka are hard to fill - SF Chronicle