Please tap this play button to join the soundscape.
Please tap this play button to join the soundscape.
You won’t always hear sound from your phone: it will come and go, blending with the environment in the theater.
You will have an opportunity to silence your phone right before the performance begins.
Little Matchstick Factory and HERE present:
This is a work about belief.
This is a series of seven Magdalenes.
Each is deeply rooted in its own tradition.
This space allows for thought, meditation, and reflection.
This is a time for experiencing possibilities,
embracing contradictions,
and suspending certainty.
Created and Performed by Sylvia Milo and Nathan Davis
Directed, Script by Sylvia Milo
Music and Sound Design by Nathan Davis
Movement Director: Janice Orlandi
Choreographer: Natalie Lomonte
Additional Movement: Joanna Kotze
Video and Projection Design: Monica Duncan
Additional videography: Maria Baranova
Dramaturg: Jess Applebaum
Costume Design: Magdalena Dąbrowska
Leaf dress and hood by Carlotta Frascara
Wig in video by Małgorzata Chrastek
Lighting Design: Nick Houfek, adapted by Eric Nightengale
Hair and makeup design: Kodi Lynn Milburn
Stage Manager: Kodi Lynn Milburn
Keepers of the Cave / Production Assistants: Nora Bohannon, Daniely Duarte, and Barbara Moreno
Recorded Voiceover artists:
Adam Belvo
Steven Hrycelak
Eamon Murphy
Timothy Reynolds
Lennard Sillevis
Produced by
Little Matchstick Factory, LLC
Today’s performance will be followed by a special panel discussion with members of the Creative Team:
Sylvia Milo
Nathan Davis
Janice Orlandi
Please find their bios below.
Contemporary images of Mary Magdalene by Tanya Torres are used by permission from the artist.
Archival manuscript images are used under Creative Commons license from:
Bodleian Library
British Library
Dublin, Chester Beatty Library
Austrian National Library
Getty Museum
Galicia / Bibliothèque nationale de France
Morgan Library
OriginalBibles.com
Lichfield Cathedral
Jan Moszumański for ambisonic field recording at Sainte Baume (France)
Anai Marie Ghabrial for consultation on the Moon Circle
Valerie Hager for additional movement coaching for the scene II. Prostitute
Daniela Galli for the Eye of the Heart illustration (below)
Teresa and Bernard Mincewicz for their continued support
Carolyn Davis for continued support
Sylvia Milo is an award-winning theater artist, actress, writer and director, based in New York City, originally from Poland. Milo wrote, starred in, and self-produced her solo play, The Other Mozart, about the forgotten, genius sister of Amadeus Mozart. The play had a critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run at HERE Arts Center, earning Drama Desk and Off Broadway Alliance nominations, and 8 New York Innovative Theatre nominations, including Outstanding Full Length Script. The Other Mozart won two NYIT Awards, including Outstanding Solo Performance by Milo. The play continues on the road with over 300 performances to date, including 30 U.S. states, a run in London at St. James Theatre, in Munich at the Pasinger Fabrik, and in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Cultural Center. It was presented in Vienna at the Mozarthaus Vienna and in Salzburg at the invitation of the Mozarteum Foundation (inside the Mozarts’ Wohnhaus apartment). The play inspired the creation of an annual symposium on Maria Anna Mozart at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, and was performed as part of its first edition. In 2016, Milo was commissioned by The Guardian to write an article about The Other Mozart and its cultural impact. She and the play are featured in the Mediastockade PBS’ 2024 documentary, “Mozart’s Sister.”
Milo also created the character of Bob Dylan in the OBIE Award-winning The West Village Fragments by Peculiar Works, and as a member of the Bats at the Flea Theater she co-wrote and starred in Seating Arrangements, directed by Eric Pold of Gob Squad. She adapted and directed an all-female version of Hamlet and starred as Ophelia at the Mark Morris Dance Center. In New York, she has performed at La Mama, Ontological-Hysteric, Theatre For the New City, Dixon Place, Cherry Lane, The Ohio Theatre and at MoMA. She is a graduate of New York University, with training at the Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg Theatre Institutes, and at The Grotowski Institutes in Poland and Italy. She was a 2018 Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy and was awarded that year’s Fellowship at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York to develop Magdalene. www.sylviamilo.com
Nathan Davis “writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority” (NY Times). His opera/ballet “Hagoromo” was produced by American Opera Projects and premiered at the 2015 BAM Next Wave Festival with the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, choreographer David Neumann, and dancers Wendy Whelan, and Jock Soto. Lincoln Center presented the premiere of “Bells”, a site-specific work for ensemble, multi-channel audio, and live broadcast to audience members’ mobile phones.
Nathan received other commissions from GMEM and Ensemble CBarré (Marseille), FringeArts and the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Yarn/Wire, Claire Chase, Ekmeles, Miller Theatre, Ojai Music Festival, the Calder Quartet, and Third Coast Percussion – with premieres at Tanglewood, Park Avenue Armory, Guggenheim Museum, and Carnegie Hall. His music has been released on Starkland, Tundra, New Focus, and Bridge.
The 2018 Aaron Copland Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation, Davis received awards and fellowships from the Camargo Foundation, New Music USA, NYSCA, Meet The Composer, Fromm Foundation, Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, MATA, and ASCAP. He and Phyllis Chen won an NY Innovative Theater Award for their score to Sylvia Milo’s play “The Other Mozart”.
Also an active percussionist and member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, he appeared as a concerto soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and Nagoya Philharmonic. A graduate of Rice, Yale, and a Fulbright Fellow at the Rotterdam Conservatory, Nathan currently teaches at The New School College of Performing Arts. www.nathandavis.com
A movement specialist in period styles, historic dance, psychophysical techniques, character transformation and physical dramaturgy. Trained and co-taught with Loyd Williamson and Richard Schechner. Recent directing credits include: Bette Davis Ain’t for Sissies (Five Stars at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, St. James Studio London; Theater Row, Laurie Beechman, 59E59), Garbo Dreams (Red Room NYC). Movement Director: The Contrast (Mirror Repertory Company St Clements), An Ideal Husband and Tartuffe (Sonnet Repertory NYC). A certified teacher of Michael Chekhov and Williamson Technique. Period style specialist of Elizabethan and Restoration, Baroque, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, 1920’s-1970’s. Artistic director at Actors Movement Studio NYC, faculty at TISCH School of the Arts, Atlantic Theater Company, Tom Todoroff Conservatory, University of the Arts Philadelphia, Rutgers University, New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. Her work as an educator, director, actress and movement coach has been seen at Williamstown Theater Festival, State Theater School Denmark, Lindenberg Center for Culture Netherlands, Princeton Repertory Shakespeare Festival, Classic Stage Company, Circle Rep Lab. Founding Member of Shakespeare in the Parking Lot. Featured in BACKSTAGE and the AMERICAN THEATER MAGAZINE on current “Trends in Movement Training” in theater. Member of SAG/AFTRA, AEA, SSDC. www.actorsmovementstudio.com
Natalie Lomonte is a Choreographer, Director, Performer and Teacher in NYC. As a dancer, she collaborated to create work and toured extensively with Momix, Pilobolus, The Chase Brock Experience and Parsons Dance. She has performed on national television in the U.S., Europe and Japan and danced with Liza Minnelli in the movie Sex And The City 2. Natalie was in the original Broadway cast of Spiderman:Turn Off the Dark, where she eventually served as the Dance Captain and Dance Supervisor. In 2012 Natalie became the Movement Director for One Year Lease Theater Company and an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Fordham University. She choreographs for theater, dance, film, live events and has led creative movement workshops at Harvard University, Fordham University, Vassar College, PACE University, and Marymount Manhattan College, where she now sits on the Dance Department Advisory Board.
Natalie’s recent choreographic projects include Goddess Logic (artist: Stephanie Carlin), Sentiments Of The Shooting Stars (Ailey Citigroup Theater), Within (Joyce Theater) and Common Heart (Ailey), New York Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes,Iron & Coal (Gerald W. Lynch Theater/ Prototype Opera Festival), Rise From Our Hearts (The Soap Gallery, visual artist: Aaron Jackendoff, musician: Kasey Yale), Boys Will Be Boys (The Pond Theater Co./ 59e59 Theaters), Pieces of the Moon arial workshops & production (OYL Theater Co/ The Muse Brooklyn/ Stages Repertory Theatre). Currently, Natalie is thrilled to be working on a new musical, Estella: A Christmas Carol (creation & music by Paul Gordon, written and directed by John Caird). www.natalielomonte.com
Joanna Kotze is a Brooklyn-based dancer, choreographer and teacher. She was awarded a 2024 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant to Artists, the 2013 “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and has received support from the Nathan M. Clark, Jerome, Mertz-Gilmore, and Harkness Foundations, NYFA BUILD, New Music USA, Brooklyn Arts Council, Yellowhouse, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants. Her choreography has been presented at the UtahPresents, American Dance Festival, Wanås Konst, Bates Dance Festival, The Yard, Wexner Center, Velocity, National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Baryshnikov Arts Center, American Dance Institute, Bard College, Danspace Project, New York Live Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at Judson Church, and other venues and galleries. Joanna has had residencies throughout the US, Canada, and Europe and has taught at festivals, Universities, and dance centers all over the world. Joanna currently dances with Kimberly Bartosik (2009-present) and has worked with Wally Cardona (2000-2010, 2018), Stacy Spence, Annie-B Parson, Donna Uchizono, Tendayi Kuumba, Kota Yamazaki, Netta Yerushalmy, Sam Kim, Sarah Skaggs, Christopher Williams, the Metropolitan Opera ballet, Daniel Charon, Nina Winthrop and others. She is originally from South Africa and has a BA in Architecture from Miami University. www.joannakotze.com
Jess Applebaum is a dramaturg and public scholar whose practice is rooted in contemporary performance. As a dramaturg she works collaboratively with performance makers, academics, and activists to develop and facilitate creative processes. Her artistic relationships include directors Ashley Tata, Anna Brenner, and Simón Hanukai; choreographer Jody Oberfelder; and theater ensembles One Year Lease Theater Company and Kyoung’s Pacific. Jess is currently developing Edge Effect Media Group, a think-and-do tank that designs hybrid performances, across media, for the public good, with creative director and scenographer Nic Benaceraff. She holds both an MA in Performance Studies from NYU and an MFA in Dramaturgy from Columbia University. She is also pursuing her PhD at CUNY Grad Center’s Theater and Performance Program. Her scholarship focuses on the labor of dramaturgy: pushing the perceived boundaries of how research is performed and applied in both creative and academic work. I Am the Utterance of My Name is Jess’s second collaboration with Nathan and Sylvia. http://www.jessapplebaum.com
A Polish versatile fashion and theater costume designer, Magdalena is a graduate of Łazarski University in Warsaw and of the Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design. Her designs have been finalists at such prestigious competitions as Oskary Mody, OFF Fashion, Łódź Design and Złota Nitka. She designs unique clothes for the INNI brand and shirts for Shirt on Point. For many years she has been participating in the International Hat Creators Competition in France and the post-competition exhibition. She designed costumes for the plays, Idiota, Burza, Taksówka, Zaćmienie, Starucha, Rewizor, W starych dekoracjach, Wariat i Zakonnica, Spacerowicz, Arabela, Młodzik, Życie towarzyskie i uczuciowe (dir. I. Gorzkowski), Platonow, Antyhona, Sońka, Król Lear (dir. A. Korytkowska), Bulwar Zachodzącego Słońca (dir. M. Znaniecki) She also designed sets and costumes for Obchód Teatru, Czyli Kim Jest Wojciech B.? at the National Theatre of Poland and for the opera: „O Genowefie” (dir. I. Gorzkowski), Hamlet (dir. I. Garcia), Carmina Burana (Izrael), Szekely Fono (Budapeszt), Księżniczka Czardasza, Maria de Buenos Aires, Czarodziejski Flet (dir. M. Znaniecki). Her costume (18-foot dress) for Sylvia Milo’s “The Other Mozart” was presented at the Innovative Costume Of The 21st Century: The Next Generation exhibition in Moscow in 2019 and was featured in ELLE Italia and ELLE France.
Monica Duncan is a video and performance artist. Her time-based work investigates the nature of visual perception, audience-performer relations and queer potentiality through camouflage, stillness and collective image-making. Duncan’s video and performance work has been exhibited at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Hebbel am Ufer HAU1, zeitraumexit, Komuna//Warszawa, The Kitchen, Roulette, Parkhaus Projects, Atlanta Contemporary, Hallwalls, La Casa Encendida, ZKM, LACMA, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, amongst others. She has been a visiting artist at the Atlanta College of Art, Georgia State University, Hunter College, Signal Culture, Experimental Television Center, Scena Robocza (Poznań), PACT Zollverein and at the Institute of Electronic Arts in which she and her collaborator Senem Pirler developed and live-streamex`d their audiovisual performance Surface Connection. Duncan received her MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego and while on a D.A.A.D fellowship her MA in Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen. Duncan joined the faculty of the Department of Music, Multimedia, Theatre & Dance at Lehman College in Fall 2019.
Nicholas Houfek is a NYC based Lighting Designer working in Music, Dance, and Theater. Selected projects include: Claire Chase’s Density Project (The Kitchen,) International Contemporary Ensemble, Natalie Merchant, Maya Beiser, Ojai Music Festival, Silk Road Ensemble, Tyshawn Sorey’s Perle Noire directed by Peter Sellars, Marc Neikrug’s A Song by Mahler, Anohni’s She Who Saw Beautiful Things at The Kitchen, Suzanne Farrin’s La Dolce Morte at the Metropolitan Museum of Art directed by Doug Fitch, George Lewis’ Soundlines featuring Steve Schick and directed by Jim Findlay (Skirball,) Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s In The Light of Air, Ash Fure’s The Force of Things (Mostly Mozart,) The 39 Steps (Olney Theatre Center). In addition to traditional lighting for live performance Mr. Houfek has been developing a light organ software interface called the ColorSynth that acts as an intermediate between a performer and their lighting. Additionally, Mr. Houfek has designed for the Martha Graham Dance Company, Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, and Ian Spencer Bell Dance; is an ensemble member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, a member USA829, and a graduate of Boston University.
Kodi Lynn Milburn is involved in all things music, theater, and media. She is amicably dubbed the “swiss army knife of theater”. NYFA PCMT ‘17. Cross discipline credits include: Sylvia Milo’s The Other Mozart (Hong Kong, U.S. Tour), Heart Strings (Atlantic), AMP (HERE), Tussaud/Antoinette (IRT), My Onliness (The New Ohio), Chess (American Theater for Actors), Uta Hagen Centennial Salon (Lincoln Center), Utterance of my name (Baryshnikov Arts Center), Sparkle Spa (BMI), Ewalt & Walker (54 Below), Mary & Max (Bobby Cronin & Crystal Skillman), Voyage en Chanson (National Sawdust), L’autre Mozart (Fringe North, Halifax Fringe), Rhinoceros (Atlantic Acting School) kodilynnmilburn.com
Honora Bohannon (she/her) is an actress, comedian, and theater creator. Her favorite past roles include #7 in The Wolves and Martha in The Children’s Hour. She is entering her second year at Bard College where she acts in student-produced and mainstage shows, is in BRAD Comedy improv, writes, and works in the costume shop. Honora joined the production team of Magdalene: I Am The Utterance of My Name for its 2022 Morris Museum residency, and she is thrilled to help bring the show to a NYC audience!
Born and raised in Brazil, Daniely Martins has always had a passion for moving people through words and a need for physical expression. Her pull towards discoveries brought her to live in Portugal, Germany and France, where she collected a great deal of experiences in human connection and theater studies. Now, she is based in New York City, where the arts are embracing her to keep exploring, growing and consolidating a strong career.
Training: two year conservatory program at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, in New York, and three year Acting in English program at Cours Florent, in Paris, France.
Barbara Moreno, born in Moreno, is starting to build a career in acting. With training from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Barbara has been part of a theater company for 9 years in Brazil called Emporio Cultural. Her dedication to the craft is complemented by skills in singing and dancing and a love for political science and mathematics. Fluent in Portuguese and English, Barbara continues to grow and learn with each new role.
Sex worker rights advocate, comedian, and writer, Kaytlin Bailey is the Founder & Executive Director of Old Pros, a non-profit media organization creating conditions to change the status of sex workers in society. Host of The Oldest Profession Podcast, she is also the creator of Whore’s Eye View, a mad dash through 10,000 years of sex worker history. A globally recognized leader in the sex worker rights movement, Kaytlin Bailey has been quoted in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, New York Post, The Village Voice, The Nation, Reason, and on NBC. She has written op-eds for The Daily Beast, Vice, and recently for 11 syndicated newspapers on California Senate Bill 357. Kaytlin Bailey has been invited to speak on Fox Business, Sirius XM, at Yale Law School, Penn University, and UCLA. Kaytlin Bailey’s views are backed by Amnesty International, The World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, and UNAids who all agree that the decriminalization of sex work is the only policy that reduces violence. https://kaytlinbailey.com
Veronica Vera championed the rights of sex workers throughout the 1980s, her years as a porn star and a sex journalist. She testified in Washington, D.C. and helped reorganize PONY (prostitutes of New York). In 1989 she founded Miss Vera’s Finishing School, the world’s first transgender and crossdressing academy. Veronica is the author of three books. She is on the board of Judson Memorial Church. Enjoy her work at veronicaverawrites.com
Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name was supported by a 2020 Project Grant from New Music USA.
Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name also received development support from PS21 (Chatham, NY), Live Arts Morris Museum (NJ), Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), Camargo Foundation (France), Baryshnikov Arts Center (NYC), All for One (NYC), and Theaterlab (NYC), and The Players Theater (NYC) for subsidized rehearsal space.
