NEWS:
August 28, 2010
The Woolly Mammoth Theater in DC appears to have a hit on their hands with Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play which opened last night. James supplies the composition and sound design, a piano score that ended up being some of the more sophisticated compositions he’s put himself up to. Thanks to all the cast, designers, staff and to Howard Shalwitz for a tireless and brilliant vision of this play.
details here:
May 18, 2010
Participating, as an actor, in Theatre for a New Audience’s “American Directors Project”. Two weeks of work with Ciscely Berry and Andrew Wade, voice teachers from the Royal Shakespeare Company, exploring Shakespeare text and the voice. If you are not familiar with Ciscely Berry, check out her books, “Voice and the Actor” or “Text in Motion”. Incredible workshop freeing and resonating the voice directly through the words and forms of The Bard.
May 5, 2010
Pig Iron performs the Obie and Barrymore Award winning Hell Meets Henry Halfway at the Emelin Theater for the Performing Arts in Mamaroneck, NY.
April 20, 2010
Pig Iron workshops ideas around the text of Midsummer Night’s Dream in preparation for their summer 2011 production. Focus is mainly on the “problems” of the fairies and the forrest.
April 13-17, 2010
Wandering Alice, performance installation, with music written and performed by Mike Kiley and James Sugg, is performed at Indiana University.
March 3, 2010:
Romeo and Juliet, directed by Matt Pfeiffer, opens at the Arden Theater Co. James is composer/sound designer. All you Philadelphians, come and see.
by Mark Cofta
Published: March 9, 2010
“Then he skips dialogue to thrust us into brutal, high-speed combat between warring clans, the Capulets and the Montagues, underscored by James Sugg's throbbing music, and we're instantly involved in the timeless tragedy.””involved in the timeless tragedy.
Feb 9, 2010:
James composes, sound designs and co-music directs...
ORESTES,Adapted by Anne Washburn and Directed by Aaron Posner opens at The Folger Theatre in Washington DC.
By Tom Avila
Published on February 10, 2010, 9:48pm
Much of that tone, the brilliant underpinning of Washburn's adaptation of the Euripides play, comes from the pulsating and utterly arresting Greek chorus. The ensemble – comprised of Lauren Culpepper, Rebecca Hart, Marissa Molnar, Margo Seibert, and Rachel Zampelli – haunts the theater with an intricate, a capella braid of chant, hand beat rhythms, and raw lyricism. James Sugg, who not only composed the music for Orestes but also served as its sound designer, has crafted a lovely, dark swirl that envelops the audience and gathers us in.
February 4, 2010 by Tim Treanor
They are aided by a fabulous Greek chorus (Lauren Culpepper, Rebecca Hart, Marissa Molnar, Margo Seibert, and Rachel Zampelli), singing James Sugg’s astonishing score. The question of how to use the Greek chorus in a modern staging is always a matter of some debate, but Sugg and Posner evince no uncertainty: the chorus is like the musical portion of the high mass, expressing emotions too profound to leave to plain unmusical language. While it seems unfair to single anyone out in a chorus this good, Hart sings as though she has the god DNA herself.
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 8, 2010
They're kept company by the vigilant Chorus, vibrantly embodied here by five young actresses, who provide the diverting incantations, songs and dances that serve as dramatic breaks in the action...delectably embroidered by composer James Sugg's choral hymns.
by Chris Klimek
The otherworldly musical interludes, meanwhile, have none of the presentational, self-congratulatory quality of the songs in a traditional musical. Composed by James Sugg, who also sampled fragments of Euripidies’s text— some of them in the original Greek — for the chorus to perform a cappella, the songs feel primal and scary. When they abruptly terminate, we’re right back into the dramatic fray before all that energy can be dissipated by applause — though the chorus’s limber performance surely warrants it.
Feb 1, 2010
James on the cover of American Theater magazine and Pig Iron featured article.
Dec 2009:
December issue of Philadelphia Magazine features James as their “PULSE” personality.
