Theater

This visionary adaption of Tennessee Williams last known full length show was directed by David Schweizer and presented at Culture Project in April 2012. American Montage and Theater Fanatic collaborated to create an entire catalog of media for the production including this TV commercial whcih ran on Time Warner Cable in New York City. Produced in colloboration with advertising guru Richard Lewis.

This visionary adaption of Tennessee Williams last known full length show was directed by David Schweizer and presented at Culture Project in April 2012. American Montage and Theater Fanatic collaborated to create an entire catalog of media for the production including this TV commercial whcih ran on Time Warner Cable in New York City. 

Playwright Alexander Dinalaris and actress Kathleen Chalfant tell the story behind the creation of the excellent play "Red Dog Howls". The show was presented at New York Theater Workshop as part of their Fall 2012 Season. “Red Dog Howls” was directed by Ken Rus Schmoll.  

The piece explores the horror of a forgotten genocide, the enduring strength of the human spirit and how the choices we make for our children will – for better or worse – reverberate for generations to come.

Many thanks to Billy Russo for bringing AMI to the project.

The fundrasing video AMI produced to support the production of the Amoralist "The Bad and the Better"

American Montage has always been a home to independent artists. We have had the pleasure of working with an extraordinarily talented group of visionaries, with Hanne Tierney standing out like a star in the night sky. 

Hanne Tierney is a performance artist who makes abstract theatre without actors. After seeing her most recent show Holland Cotter of the NY Times noted, “She is an extraordinary artist and performer and has produced a work with the clarity of a children's story and the weight of a morality play.”

tanding above a spider web of fishing line and pulleys Hanne animates her creations likening it to “playing and instrument.” Theater without actors is Hanne’s specialty. In the style of traditional marionettes, Hanne’s performers are fashioned out of every day objects incorporating papier-mâché, window blinds, metal coils, air-conditioning ducts, really any thing she can manipulate. 

AMI has traditionally edited versions of many of Hanne’s pieces including: Flatlands: A Romance of Many Dimensions, Blood Wedding, and How Wang-Fo Was Saved. These selections oftened served as a visual supplement for grant applications. Man the Flower of All Flesh, her most recent project, was filmed and edited by AMI.

An adaptation of the E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, this is the story of a woman and son living in a shadowy underworld ruled by a dark force called the Machine. The two spend their lives trapped in this subterranean jail fearing a mechanical failure. When it finally occurs they discover Eden just above their former confinement.

Heightening the magical atmosphere Hanne uses an extremely intimate space, utilizing subtle lighting. Challenging for any filmmaker, Eric Marciano maintained this critical detail, while creating a final product with the approproate lighting for the audience. Surpassing its goals AMI was able to capture this fleeting yet mesmerizing performance and more. To find out more about Hanne Tierney go to www.fivemyles.org

The project, like so many of American Montage’s projects, takes a very profound and little known subject that begs for exposure and explanation and combines it with challenging and exciting film making possibilities.

The subject of this teleplay is hysterectomy also known as female castration. The teleplay was commissioned by Nora Coffey the director of the HERS Foundation; a not-for-profit group devoted to informing women around the world about the consequences of hysterectomy.

Rick Schweikert, the author of un becoming, and Nora Coffey found Eric through the American Montage web site and immediately felt that he was the best person for the job.

His extensive catalogue of films and decades of experience in documenting health and wellness issues as well as understanding of how to execute the final product, a media rich DVD, including a feature length teleplay, made him the perfect fit.

The un becoming was originally produced for Off- Broadway and had an overwhelmingly successful run being compared to successful run. The initial challenge was to design succinct and exciting camera staging that would accentuate the excellent performances and illuminate the superb set design.

This is a story of one woman diagnosed with fibroids in her cervix that questions her physician and in an attempt to challenge the established belief that hysterectomies are safe, simple and undeniably necessary. Robert McDowell, a reviewer for the Still Water Theatre notes, “If you are a woman - or anyone who has a mother or wife or sister or daughter or female relative or friend - Un Becoming  is a vitally important play to bring to her attention; addressing issues every woman should consider before going under the knife”.