Mission Statement
URANIUM:
The prospect of a madman obtaining the power that this potent metal can confer has led this country into at least one war, and threatens to involve us in others. As theater artists, we see ourselves as the custodians of spiritual uranium: through our command of our empathic and critical faculties, we have the potential to unleash chain reactions of personal and social transformation. We acknowledge the awesome responsibility this entails, and set ourselves the task of creating work that honors and harnesses this potential.
MADHOUSE:
Recognizing, at the same time, the poet's injunction that "much madness is divinest sense", we see the theater as a place for madness; that is, for passionate vitality, radical freedom from constraint, and the willingness to see what others cannot or will not. We see the actor as one who is ready to surrender her whole being to the passions, cares and extreme circumstances of another, effectively inducing a kind of madness in herself, a radioactive madness. Having entered this altered state, the actor lures her audience into temporarily abandoning their immediate personal concerns and following her into the space between habits, a centrifuge wherein new forms of life can be glimpsed. We further celebrate the destabilizing power of laughter, which can expose the rigid postures that a debased culture offers as models of fulfillment.
THEREFORE:
we see both the world and the theater as a URANIUM MADHOUSE, and seek to make a home for ourselves in both. To that end, we produce plays, both contemporary and classical, that attest to the challenge and difficulty of living in such a world. We produce plays that dramatize the bombardment of the fragile, unstable isotope that is human well-being and belonging by relentless rapaciousness, aggression and cruelty. In short, we produce plays that manifest the virtue of spiritual ambition.
Artistic Leadership
Andrew Wood, Artistic Director
Andrew Wood has an MFA in directing from the Yale School of Drama and a Ph.D. in German Studies from Stanford University. In 2004, he founded the his acting studio in San Francisco, and expanded it to Los Angeles in 2008. In 2010 he founded Uranium Madhouse, and he has produced and directed four productions for the company, including his new, authorized translation of Bertolt Brecht's A Man's A Man, which was co-sponsored by the International Brecht Society and the Goethe Institut Los Angeles. Other theater companies and institutions for which Andrew has worked, in various capacities, include: the Magic Theater, the Yale Repertory Theater, Manhattan Class Company, Syracuse Stage, Mabou Mines New York, Schaubuehne am Lehniner Platz, Arc-Light Repertory Theater SF, Yale Summer School Acting Program, Northwestern University's National High School Institute, Emerging Artists (New York), The Flea (New York), Odyssey Theater Ensemble (Los Angeles), Fordham University, Fairfield University, and Clark University. He has directed productions of plays by William Shakespeare, John Webster, Maria Irene Fornes, Peter Handke, Edward Albee, Neal Bell, Eric Overmyer, Wallace Shawn, John Guare, Kandor and Ebb, Liz Duffy Adams, Julie McKee, Robert Curtis, Jody McAuliffe and Brian Bauman, among others. Andrew is blessed with the company of an incorrigible but relentlessly lovable Chocolate Labrador puppy named Hudson.
Yolanda Seabourne
Yolanda is a founding member of Uranium Madhouse. Madhouse audiences first witnessed Yolanda’s card-stacking skills in the solo piece, “House of Cards” by Charles Mee. The following year she performed the role of Widow Leucadia Begbick in Andrew Wood’s original translation of Bertolt Brecht’s “A Man’s a Man.” Yolanda is a graduate of the Theater Arts program at California State University, Fullerton and has more recently studied acting with Andrew Wood at The Andrew Wood Acting Studio and improvised idiocy with John Gilkey in his “Idiot’s Workshop.”
Alex Fishkin
Alex has been part of Uranium Madhouse since its inception, and has composed music for the company's last two productions. most recently for the Uranium Madhouse production of The Duchess of Malfi. His music for the UM production of Bertolt Brecht's A Man's a Man was praised as an "accomplished score" by LA Weekly.
Associate Artists
Brian Bauman
Brian Bauman is a playwright and the artistic director/founder of Perfect Disgrace Theater. His plays include: Atta Boy, Butane, Crack Baby Jesus, Elegy for A Midshipman, Hell's Kitchen, Motherhood in a Faucet, Porridge, Saint Cocker Spaniel, and Vanity Arsenal. His work has been performed in Boulder (Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Dairy Center for the Arts), Los Angeles (Broad Art Center at UCLA, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Company of Angels Theatre, Unhappy Hour at the Parlour), New York (Collective Unconscious, La Mama Galleria), and San Francisco (Poets Theatre Jamboree at CCA, RADAR Reading Series at SF Public Library). He is a MacDowell Colony Fellow. He earned an M.F.A. in playwriting from California Institute of the Arts.
David Bauman
David Bauman is an actor, writer, and teacher in Los Angeles. Originally from Wisconsin, he received his B.A. in Theater and Advertising from the University of Wisconsin, and his M.F.A from U.C.L.A. In Los Angeles Bauman has worked with the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Evidence Room Theater, Buzzworks Theater, The Blank, Theater Company's Young Playwrights' Festival and Living Room Series, and Sacred Fools, in classic and contemporary productions. Bauman has taught acting at UCLA, StageCoach School at CrossRoads, YADA (The Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts) in Los Angeles, and is currently a member of the faculty at Idyllwild Arts Summer Conservatory, where he has been writing and directing original and adapted works for more than ten years, including his adaptation of Heinrich Hoffman's Shockheaded Peter, The Red-Legged Scissorman, his musical adaptation of A League of Their Own, and his original musicals Down the Block, and The Scrugg Sisters. Bauman is currently preoccupied with the group SomeComedyThing, creating short films and webisodes.
Rick Burkhardt
Rick Burkhardt studied music composition at Harvard University, the University of Illinois, and the University of California, San Diego, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2006. He has received commissions, grants, and performances from organizations and performers such as the U.S.-Mexico Fund for Culture, the La Jolla Symphony, Ensemble Surplus, the Boswil Foundation, Janos Negyesy and Paivikki Nykter, Ensemble Ascolta, Red Fish Blue Fish, the NOISE quartet, the past(modern) duo, sfSound, Toca Loca, Mark Menzies, the Olympia Chamber Orchestra, the American Composers Forum, and Ensemble Chronophonie. During the early 1990's, he toured the US, Germany, and Swtizerland performing new music and theater with the Performers' Workshop Ensemble. In 1997, he began studying music with Chaya Czernowin and took classes in poetry from Rae Armantrout. He spent the following years inventing idiosyncratic methods for producing critical interactions of oddly integrated music and text. His hobby, the satirical political cabaret duo the Prince Myshkins (with virtuoso guitarist, singer and lifelong collaborator Andy Gricevich), became a full-time job in 2002, once the "War on Terror" had provided an alarming overflow of material to satirize, and he began dividing his time between completing his studies and touring nationally, recording two CDs of his original political songs which have been covered and recorded by musicians across the US. He is a founding member of the Nonsense Company, an experimental music / theater trio dedicated to new works and new venues. The Nonsense Company has performed in over 30 US cities, presenting new music and theater in unexpected combinations for a wide range of audiences. Their concert in Darmstadt in 2004 was hailed as "one of the most solid, free, and critical aesthetic propositions... of the festival." Their 2008 performance in NYC's Frigid Theater Festival was reviewed as "the must see show of the festival" and won Best Show and Audience Choice awards. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Cris D'Annunzio
Cris D'Annunzio was raised in a traditional East Coast nuclear family -- in the sense that his grandparents, both Italian immigrants, lived in the house and there were always bombs going off! He survived to attend Princeton University, where he played football. Cris got his start in acting when he was 'discovered' by the John Houseman Acting Company while moving instruments for the symphony orchestra at Chautauqua Institute in upstate NY -- his summer job during college. The experience of riding his bike to the theatre and performing stuck with him. After a brief stint in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills, Cris embarked on an acting and writing career that has taken him from the stage to the screen -- both big and small. LA Stage appearances include Cobb at the Falcon Theater, award winning Cockroach Nation at LATC, and the World Premiere of Beth Henley's Sisters of the Winter Madrigal. NY credits include Miss Julie at Manhattan Theatre Club. Selected film credits include Ridley Scott's American Gangster and Chasing 3000 with Ray Liotta, which Cris wrote. Cris has had numerous TV roles which include appearances on Without A Trace, and Law and Order.
Erik Flatmo
As a freelance set designer based in San Francisco, Mr. Flatmo recently designed sets for Scapin, The Government Inspector and The Imaginary Invalid for American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.), and You, Nero for Berkeley Rep and Southcost Rep. He has designed many productions at The Magic Theatre as well as the operas La Cenerentola and Transformations for San Francisco Opera's Merola Program. Other design credits include projects with Joe Goode Performance Group, California Shakespeare Theatre, and Florida's Asolo Repertory Theatre. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and teaches set design at Stanford University.
His work is on display at his website, erikflatmo.com.
Jeff Gardner
Jeff is an actor/sound designer born and raised in Los Angeles. He has performed with The Shakespeare Theatre, DC, The Studio Theatre, A Noise Within, The Kennedy Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival and is a member of The Antaeus Company in North Hollywood. Jeff has toured with his award-winning solo show, KILL YOUR TELEVISION, can be seen at LA Theatre Works where he regularly performs live sound effects and is resident sound designer for the Westridge School in Pasadena. Acting credits include MACBETH, KING LEAR (The Antaeus Company); HAMLET (The Globe Playhouse); THE TEMPEST (A Noise Within); LITTLE WOMEN (Kennedy Center, National Tour); SKYLIGHT (The Studio Theatre); HENRY V w/ Harry Hamlin, MEASURE FOR MEASURE w/ Kelly McGillis (The Shakespeare Theatre, DC); Other regional credits include OUR TOWN w/ James Whitmore and THE SEAGULL w/ Christopher Walken (Williamstown Theatre Festival).
Travis Shakespeare
Travis Shakespeare started acting early on in theater as a teenager in his home state of Colorado. His first recognition as an actor came from his performance in Flowers Out of Season, a Williamsesque drama about a borderline psychopath in Waco, TX. The Denver Post called his work a "bravura performance," which gave him all the reason he needed to head to NY to try for the big time. After college Travis studied acting with Susan Grace Cohen and at The Actor's Studio. He had a recurring role on The Guiding Light, and featured roles in Spike Lee's Malcolm X and Woody Allen's Celebrity. He appeared in many independent films & commercials, as well as over 20 New York stage productions. Ultimately he nabbed a leading role on Broaday in the Lincoln Center production C'est La Vie, in which he played a young artist vying for success in New York society. That experience sent him on to Los Angeles in 2001. Critics singled him out in A Charlie Brown Commercial Xmas as "brilliant"(LA Weekly) and "outstanding" (LA Times). A year later Daily Variety, Access Hollywood & Extra! all featured Travis in the industry spoof hit Allyn McBeal. In 2004 Travis started producing documentary television, which meant less time to pursue acting, but he never lost his love for performing. In 2008 he decided to start auditioning again, and was cast in the Swiss short Big Sur, which garnered much festival recognition and a Swiss Academy Award nomination. In 2009 Big Sur was remade as a feature film, set to debut in the Spring. He also signed with Innovative Artists for commercials. He also works as a televsion producer, and is now the Director of the Unscripted Division at BBC Worldwide.
Stanton Wood
Stanton Wood is a dramatic writer in a variety of media. His play THE NIGHT OF NOSFERATU, produced by Rabbit Hole Ensemble and subsequently moved to Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, received 5 Midtown International Theatre Festival "Best of Fest" nominations as well as 6 New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations (including Outstanding Full Length Script) and was featured on a number of "Best of 2007" lists. Three of his plays, THE SNOW QUEEN, THE MAGICAL FOREST OF BABA YAGA, and THE BLUE BIRD, (co-written with Lori Ann Laster) were produced in NYC by Urban Stages Theatre Company over successive seasons, and he was the recipient of that company's Emerging Playwright Award in 2007. Other plays include THE TRAGIC STORY OF DOCTOR FRANKENSTEIN, CANDIDE AMERICANA, BIG THICK ROD (all produced by Rabbit Hole Ensemble), DOWN THE DRAIN (adobe theatre company), and MR. HOOVER'S TEA PARTY (Offworld Theatre Company), . In addition to being a resident artist at Rabbit Hole Ensemble and Urban Stages, he has received developmental support from Algonquin Theatre Company, Manhattan Class Company, Playwrights Horizons, The Hangar Theatre, Primary Stages, New York Theatre Workshop, City Theatre in Pittsburgh, and the Carnegie Mellon Showcase of New Plays. His plays have been published in a number of literary magazines, by Original Works, and by Playscripts. His credits in film and television include a stint as dialogue writer on South Beach Story, a daytime drama, and as screenwriter on Heart to Heart.com, an independent feature film comedy now distributed by the Starz Network. He has also done radio and stage comedy, appearing as a writer/performer on the BBC in England, on local NPR, and live on stages in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of the comedy troupe Reverend Gary's Church of Fun. The proud contributing author to the screamingly funny Message Insertion System and Method (Patent Number 09/955,678), he has also worked extensively in the game industry, writing dialogue and designing characters for award winning projects at Zoesis Studios and Pandemic Studios, including Otto and Iris, Mr Bubb in Space!, and Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers. He has an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Administrative Staff
Ron Ginsberg, Administrative Coordinator
Ron brings years of experience in property management and advertising sales to the Madhouse, in addition to deep expertises in Linux and Windows systems administration. He is a proud Buddhist and vegan. His eternal question: how can I help?
Partners
