Playwright/performer Sylvia Milo and composer/percussionist Nathan Davis are in residency at PS21 to develop I am the utterance of my name: Divining Mary Magdalene, a music-theater piece about the web of clashing myths, beliefs, symbols, and decrees surrounding the life of Mary Magdalene.
The creators of The Other Mozart, about the forgotten genius sister of Amadeus, return this summer to complete work on their new play, with a public performance on July 10.
Equal parts theater, experimental music performance, and ritual, the artists draw on a multitude of texts and sources—biblical, Gnostic, heretical, medieval, and modern— to create a drama that unfolds in seven apparitions of Mary Magdalene, portrayed by Milo. Davis plays instruments both ancient and modern—hammered dulcimer, harmonium, and hand drums—interweaving live sound design with field recordings from sites significant to the mythology.
IN RESIDENCY MARCH 14–18 AND July 8–10
Nathan Davis and Sylvia Milo were in residency at PS21 developing I am the utterance of my name: Divining Mary Magdalene, a music-theater work that explores the ancient and modern myths, beliefs, and symbols surrounding the life and legend of Mary Magdalene, culminating in a preview premiere on July 10, 2022 at PS21.
SYLVIA MILO
Sylvia Milo is an award-winning theater artist, playwright and actress, based in New York City. Originally from Poland, she was a 2018 Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy and the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York. Milo wrote, starred in, and self-produced The Other Mozart, which had a critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run at HERE Arts Center, earning Drama Desk and Off Broadway Alliance nominations, and two New York Innovative Theatre (NYIT) Awards, for Outstanding Solo Performance (Milo) and Outstanding Original Music (Davis and Phyllis Chen).
Performed more than 300 times, including a run at London’s St. James Theatre, The Other Mozart was presented at the Mozarthaus Vienna and in Salzburg at the invitation of the Mozarteum Foundation. 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. Milo is a graduate of New York University and trained at the Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg Theatre Institutes and at The Grotowski Institute in Poland. In addition to the residency at PS21, I am the utterance of my name has been workshopped at New York City’s Theaterlab and at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, during the Baryshnikov Bogliasco Fellowship Residency she shared with composer Nathan Davis.
NATHAN DAVIS
Nathan Davis “writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority” (The New York 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. Bells, a site-specific work for ensemble, multi-channel audio, and live broadcast to audience members’ mobile phones, premiered at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2011.
Davis’s numerous commissions have premiered at Tanglewood, the Park Avenue Armory, Guggenheim Museum, and Carnegie Hall, and have been widely performed in the US and abroad. His music has been released on Starkland, Tundra, New Focus, and Bridge. In addition to his 2018 Aaron Copland Fellowship at the Bogliasco Foundation, he has received numerous other awards and fellowships. An active percussionist and member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, he has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and Nagoya Philharmonic. A graduate of Rice, Yale, and the Rotterdam Conservatory, Nathan currently teaches at The New School.
