RINDE ECKERT

Rinde Eckert, the 2009 recipient of The Alpert Award in the Arts for his contributions to Theatre and finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, is a writer, composer, performer and director. His Opera / New Music Theatre productions have toured throughout America, and to major theater festivals in Europe and Asia.

Eckert’s career began as a writer/performer in the 1980’s, writing librettos for Paul Dresher (Pioneer, Power Failure, Slow Fire, Ravenshead). He subsequently began composing dance scores for choreographers Sarah Shelton Mann and Margaret Jenkins, including the evening-length Woman, Window, Square for The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. He began composing and performing his own music/theater pieces with The Gardening of Thomas D, a 1992 homage to Dante which was performed on tour in the United States and France. Eckert’s staged works for solo performer include An Idiot Divine, Romeo Sierra Tango and Quit This House. Shoot the Moving Things and Four Songs Lost in a Wall were written for radio. Recent writing credits include Horizon (2007-2008 Drama Desk Nominations for Best Play and Best Director, Lucille Lortel Award: "Unique Theatrical Experience"); Orpheus X (Pulitzer Prize nomination); Highway Ulysses and Four Songs Lost in a Wall (The American Academy of Arts and Letters 2005 Marc Blitzstein Award); And God Created Great Whales (OBIE Award: Best Performance, Drama Desk Nomination: "Unique Theatrical Experience"); and the two, one-act plays An Idiot Divine, performed at Zankel Hall in New York City. Three of his plays - And God Created Great Whales, Horizon and Orpheus X - have had successful off-Broadway runs.

His work for the theater has been produced by Theatre for a New Audience, the New York Theatre Workshop, The Foundry Theatre and Culture Project in New York, American Repertory Theatre, Center Stage in Baltimore, Dobama Theatre Company and Berkeley Repertory Theater. Tony Taccone, Robert Woodruff, David Schweizer, Richard ET White and Ellen McLaughlin have directed his plays. Rinde Eckert has directed his own and others’ plays and operas for The Asia Society, Juggernaut Theater, Opera Piccola and the Paul Dresher Ensemble.

Writing and directing projects involving new music productions include The Schick Machine with virtuoso percussionist Steven Schick in a solo-theater work composed/produced by Paul Dresher, Imaginary City with So Percussion, Sound Stage for the ensemble Zeitgeist, and Steven Mackey’s oratorio Dream House. Eckert wrote the text and performs in Slide with composer/guitarist Mackey and eighth blackbird, which is touring to major university campuses. Mackey and Eckert are members of BIG FARM, the 4-person ‘prog-rock’ band. Rinde Eckert’s uniquely eclectic music is available on the Intuition label in Germany and through Songline/Tonefield Productions. The critically acclaimed Sandhills Reunion (music by Jerry Granelli, text by Eckert) was released in 2005.

Following his success teaching a course in creativity at Princeton University in 2007 and began a 3-year residency in Spring 2009. He was the 2008 Granada Artist-in-Residence at the University of California at Davis Department of Theater and Dance where he wrote and directed Fate and Spinoza, and was in partnership with the University of Iowa to create, direct and perform in Eye Piece, a play exploring the loss of vision and involving 30 theater students. Gurs Zyklus, a new music/performance/multi-media installation and collaboration with sound sculptor Trimpin debuts at Stanford University in May 2011. Rinde Eckert lives in New York with his wife, Ellen McLaughlin, the playwright and actress.

http://www.rindeeckert.com/rinde/rinde_bio.html
Updated March 2010