BARS 2017 IS OPEN! APPLY FOR BARS WORKSHOP III HERE!
An 8-week development workshop at THE PUBLIC THEATER, NYC investigating the intersection of verse and theater.
Our masterclass digital series featuring artists at the forefront of narrative verse. THIS SESSION: Pharoahe Monch, Tommy Kail, Kamilah Forbes, Black Thought, Oskar Eustis, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, & Lemon Andersen.
The culmination of the BARS workshop and Labs. A digital medley of short verse vignettes written and performed by the workshop cohort, tied together by a common theme, all scored live and shot in one take in front of a live audience.
For the rappers, actors, poets, performers, orators, playwrights and song birds: BARS is where verse and theater come together. Come create, learn, develop & innovate firmly at the center. The poetry of speech is what brings it all together. If that is your sweet spot, we think you should enter.
THE #BARS WORKSHOP 3RD SESSION
HOSTED BY THE PUBLIC THEATER
MONDAYS 7-10pm | JUNE 19TH – AUG 21ST
The #BARS Workshop is a lab series created by artists Rafael Casal & Daveed Diggs, to serve as a space for artists to investigate the intersection between contemporary verse and Theater. The first session of #BARS concluded in June 2016, punctuated by the release of the first installment of a video series called the #BARS MIXTAPE MUSICAL MEDLEY, which received high praise from ELLE, TIME, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, TEEN VOGUE, SLATE & more! Casal & Diggs then teamed up with New York’s The Public Theater to present SESSION 2 of the #BARS workshop, which began July 18th and ended with the filming of the #BARS MEDLEY VOL. 2, which took the artistry to a whole new level, and shot across the internet via spotlights from NPR, Broadway.com, Huffinton Post, Time Out New York, Playbill etc. Now, in June of 2017, we are happy to announce that we are continuing at the Public Theater with BARS WORKSHOP VOL. 3!
“SETS THE BAR VERY HIGH”
– TIME.COM
“The Breeding ground
for Broadway’s next
Hip Hop Hope”
– (RAP)GENIUS.COM
“ASTOUNDING and gloriously fun”
– ELLE MAGAZINE
“MOST IMPRESSIVE”
– SLATE
“AWESOME” AND
“A TREAT””
– CNN
“GAME. CHANGER.”
– Daryl Eisenberg, CSA
DE CASTING, NYC
“Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs are geniuses of verse drama, hip hop artists working in the field that Shakespeare pioneered. They are rooted in history, fiercely of the moment, and busy creating the future. The Public is proud to give them a home.”
– Oskar Eustis
THE CREATORS
RAFAEL CASAL
Rafael is nationally celebrated poet, rapper and playwright. A seasoned spoken word artist, He featured on Seasons 4,5 & 6 of HBO’s Def Poetry, is a member of the Living Word Theater Ensemble, and served as Creative Director for the first Hip Hop Theater undergraduate poem in the country at the University of Wisconsin Madison. There he developed their 4-year arts curriculum and curated 3 annual theater festivals. Under his direction, the program was granted the Governor’s Arts Award for creative programming, and featured works with presenters like the Hip Hop Theater Festival NYC, the New Amsterdam Theater (Broadway) and Contact Theater in Manchester. In 2011, he was given an Art’s Residency with UW to research and create works that combined poetry, contemporary music (rap) and theater. He has released 3 music projects with band mate Daveed Diggs (Broadway’s Hamilton), toured nationally and internationally, and has had his music featured on shows for MTV and Showtime. His Youtube & Facebook work has earned him close to 4 million views for his music, poetry and comedic shorts.
IN FACT, YOU ARE ACTUALLY ON RAFAEL’S SITE!
CLICK HERE TO HEAD TO HIS HOMEPAGE
DAVEED DIGGS
Daveed Diggs is an Award-winning American actor and rapper. He is the vocalist of the hip hop group clipping., and originated the roles of both the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the 2015 musical Hamilton, for which he won a Grammy Award and a Tony Award in 2016. He was in the national tour ensemble for Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s choreopoem Word Becomes Flesh, has done numerous theater productions around the West Coast at venues like SF Playhouse, Berkeley Rep & Intersection for the Arts, and has released a solo rap album, Small Things to a Giant. He is a member of freestyle rap theater troup Freestyle Love Supreme with fellow Hamilton Cast members Lin-Manuel Miranda and Chris Jackson.
INTRODUCTION LETTER
READ FULL LETTER HERE
“…We are going to learn some techniques of rap, rituals to improve, and how to wire your brain so it’s second nature, the way a musician is with a guitar when improvising. It’s another instrument to be used and harnessed, just like your singing voice. And like the powerful history of singing and transformative history of theater, this immersive course will give context to the Art of Rap, to put you at the forefront of this emerging intersection of mediums. “
QUESTIONS?
BARSWORKSHOPNYC@GMAIL.COM
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