Residency 5 Playwright
A founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest, Martha Clarke has choreographed for Nederlands Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, and The Martha Graham Company, among others. As a director, Ms. Clarke’s many original productions include Vienna: Lusthaus, Miracolo d’amore, Endangered Species, An Uncertain Hour, The Hunger Artist, Vers La Flame, and Garden Earthly Delights. She directed the premiere of Christopher Hampton’s Alice’s Adventures Underground at the Royal National Theatre in London. In Opera Ms. Clarke has directed The Magic Flute for the Glimmerglass Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, Cosi Fan Tutte for Glimmerglass, Tan Dun’s Marco Polo for the Munich Biennale, the Hong Kong Festival, and the New York City Opera, and Gluck’s Orfeo and Eurydice for the English National Opera and the New York City Opera. She directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the American Repertory Theatre and a new music/theatre work, Belle Epoque, based on the life of Toulouse Loutrec at Lincoln Center Theatre. Kaos, an evening of Pirandello’s short stories presented at New York Theatre Workshop was awarded the first Tony Randall Foundation award in 2006. Ms. Clarke is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Award and grants from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation. She has received the Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards and the LA Critics Award. In 2007, the NEA awarded a grant to re-envision her Garden of Earthly Delights under a program dedicated to the remounting of American masterworks. It opened at the American Dance Festival and ran five months off Broadway. She received the Joe A. Calloway award for her choreography for Garden of Earthly Delights. In 2010, Ms. Clarke received the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award. Angel Reapers, a collaboration with Pulitzer prize winner Alfred Uhry (based on the Shakers) that toured New England with performances at the Joyce Theater, NYC 2011. She premiered a new full evening work L’Altra Meta del Cielo at La Scala Opera in spring of 2012 in Milan, Italy, and also directed The Threepenny Opera at the Atlantic Theater in 2014. Her 2013 Signature production of Cheri garnered her SDC’s Joe A. Callaway Award for choreography in 2014, and has been presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Argentina and Italy. Cheri will receive its UK premiere at the end of September 2015 at The Royal Opera House.
"What an amazing opportunity to call the wonderful Signature Theatre my home for the next five years. I am deeply grateful for the artistic freedom and support of Jim Houghton and his excellent staff."
- Martha Clarke