"Imagine a beautiful garden. A garden, in order to be attractive, needs different flowers of different sizes. If the whole garden is just one species of flower or plant, it may not be so attractive. So similarly, I think the human garden of different cultures and different ways of life is the more attractive. And in order to achieve that beauty we have to take care of each individual plant."
—His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The message of the Dalai Lama is universal. Since the first production of The Buddha Prince, there has been a commitment to the diversity of culture and spirituality in our creative process. The play itself was inspired by the Dalai Lama's image of the 'human garden', as quoted above, and we have worked hard to practice and support this vision of beauty in diversity. With each new incarnation of the play, our intension is to continue to broaden the diversity of our creators, performers, administrators and audience.
If you are interested in collaborating on this production please contact us at artists@buddhaprince.org.
Collaborators
Markell Kiefer, Executive Producer/Creator/Director/Writer/Designer
Markell, Executive Artistic Director, TigerLion Arts,
has an extensive record of producing and directing
'walking plays' in the outdoors. She has a BA in Religion
and Environmental Ethics from Middlebury College and a MFA
in Lecoq-based physical theatre from Naropa University.
Markell trained for two years at Circle in the Square
Theatre School in New York City, has apprenticed European
Clown master Giovanni Fusetti since 2003, and toured,
performed, and directed nationally. She was raised a
Tibetan Buddhist and her first outdoor productions were
developed on the magical lands of Shambhala Mountain Center
in Colorado. There she created and produced Thunderstorm, a
play about the life of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, for the
consecration of The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya in 2001.
Markell went on to create The Buddha Prince, a play
celebrating the life of the 14th Dalai Lama. The Buddha
Prince has been produced in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and
New York City, where it performed again in Central Park. Other
directorial credits include: KIPO!, a circus of spirit,
song and dance from Tibet; The Brush Master, a play honoring Kobun
Chino Otogawa Roshi; The Rabbit in the Moon, a play on a
previous life of the Buddha; The Life of Milarepa; and The
Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. More about Markell.
Michael French, Writer
Born in London, England, Mr. French has spent most of his
life writing and directing his own plays, including
Bellyache, HER, and the award winning The Rainy Season.
After five years as the Artistic Director for the infamous
Glasshouse Theatre Company in England, he moved to New
York City to study the Meisner technique at the Acting
Studio. While in New York he directed several plays for the
internationally acclaimed Eva Minemar of the Angry Jellow
Bubbles Theatre Company. On moving to Boulder he co-founded
Theatre13 and directed Match by Stephen Belber (Ovation
Award finalist) and My Name is Rachel Corrie. Mr. French is
currently writing his first screenplay for producer
Elizabeth Khan.
Carlyle Coash, Writer
Mr. Coash has been steeped in the world of theatre
for much of his life. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from
Northwestern University in 1990, he remained in Chicago acting, directing,
producing, selling real-estate, delivering packages and street performing
until 1997. Highlights of that period included performances with Chongo
Bongo's Village Carnival of Catastrophe, an improvisational musical theatre
group, which he founded with long time collaborator Chris Metzger, as well
as an adaptation of Jean Cocteau's Les Enfants Terrible. He was also in
numerous children's theatre productions for Chicago-based Kidz Writes as
well as a touring production of African Tales, which involved clowning and
acrobatics. In 1995, he was one of the founders of The Actor's Gymnasium,
an alternative theatre arts school dedicated to the teaching of circus
arts, mime, clowning and all around buffoonery. The school holds close ties
to Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company. In 1999, he graduated with an MA
in Socially Engaged Buddhism from Naropa University. He worked as a
chaplain for Hospice of Boulder County and is a Board Certified Chaplain
through the Association of Professional Chaplains. He is the first Tibetan
Buddhist practitoner to receive such an honor. Despite this work, Mr. Coash
has been eager to bring into fruition the premise of his Masters thesis,
which focused on manifesting social change through the medium of theatre.
The recent collaboration with The Buddha Prince has been a highlight.
Waylon H. Lewis, Writer
Waylon, a so-called 'Dharma Brat,' was born and
raised in Boulder, Colorado's Shambhala Buddhist community and is a student
of Buddhist leader Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. After majoring in magazine
journalism from Boston University, Waylon worked at Shambhala Publications.
Returning to Colorado, Waylon spearheaded the expansion of a small rural
Buddhist retreat into a major, international, year-round public center now
known as Shambhala Mountain Center, where he also helped to guide the
completion of The Great Stupa—a 108-foot traditional Tibetan memorial to
peace, tolerance and compassion. During that time, with Markell Kiefer, he
co-authored The Buddha Prince and Thunderstorm, subsequently performing in
their premieres. Waylon now serves as editor-in-chief of
elephant, a
magazine devoted to yoga, organics, sustainability, independent business
and the arts.
Nina Rolle, Composer
Nina Rolle is a hybrid
artist (singer, composer, storyteller, voiceover artist, actor and clown)
with a keen interest in Sonic Theater and a deep love of collaboration. She
has a Bachelor of Arts from Naropa University, where she worked with
Meredith Monk, Barbara Dilley, Lee Worley, and Allen Ginsberg. She has also
studied Butoh in Japan with its originator, Kazuo Ohno, and trained
intensively in physical theater forms with Ruth Zaporah and Anne Bogart.
From 1995-2000 Nina performed nationally as singer and accordionist with
the acclaimed Bay Area band Charming Hostess. Recordings include: eat
(1998); Trilectic (2001); punch (2002). Voiceover accounts include
Nicoderm, Nintendo, Fetzer Wine, Honda, Jenny Craig, PacMan, and Broderbund
Education Group. Recent theater credits include the role of Kublai Khan in
UMO Ensemble's Invisible Cities (Seattle); Music Director/Sound Designer
for imprints and Stardust and Stripes with Zoo District theater company
(Los Angeles); Music Director/Composer for Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus at the
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (Colorado); and Music Director/Composer
for The Buddha Prince (Los Angeles/Minneapolis/New York City). Nina's
newest creation, Zen Cabaret, is a traveling medicine show, a
"contemplative burlesque" that weaves together her various artistic
disciplines, her 15-year involvement with Shambhala Buddhism and an
ever-changing roster of collaborators from both coasts. This is Ms. Rolle's
second collaboration with Ms. Kiefer, having directed the music for
Thunderstorm in 2001.
Tenzin Ngawang, Tibetan Music Composer/Dance Choreographer
Tenzin is a native Tibetan and has been a member of the Tibetan Institute of
Performing Arts (TIPA) in Dharamsala, India, since 1993. TIPA is the first
institute of its kind, founded by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with the
objective of preserving and promoting the traditional performing arts of
Tibet. After undergoing two years of vigorous training and practice at
TIPA, Tenzin was promoted to the level of a Junior Artiste, and then after
five more years of extensive performing throughout the world, he became a
Senior Artiste at the institute. While at TIPA, Tenzin was the head of the
Aa Ka Ma Band group, which produced many modern Tibetan songs and many of
the their albums have become major hits. In 2000 Tenzin was elected as the
cultural Secretary of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress. During his
eleven years at TIPA, Tenzin performed all around the globe, earning the
respect and praise of all Tibetan communities. Being well versed in all
forms of traditional Tibetan music, instruments, and dance, Tenzin now
teaches for the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota, which represents
the second largest Tibetan community in the United States. Tenzin is now
happy to bring an authentic Tibetan voice to the final musical score of The
Buddha Prince.
Ngawang Choephel, Tibetan Music Composer
Ngawang was born in 1966 in Tibet. He had
fled the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1968, when his mother Sonam Dekyi
had carried him as a two-year-old boy on her back through the Himalayas to
India. Growing up in the Tibetan refugee settlement of Mundgod in southern
India, Ngawang Choephel was enthralled by the music of the land he had left
behind, and he found that traditional music was just about the only link he
had to home. As a teen, he taught himself to play the dramnyen; a
six-stringed lute. In 1992, after graduating from the Tibetan Institute for
Performing Arts in Dharamsala, India, Choephel earned a Fulbright
scholarship and spent a year studying ethnomusicology and filmmaking at
Middlebury College in Vermont. Ngawang taught music at a variety of schools
in India and has produced an album of Tibetan Folk Music. He currently
lives in New York City where he is pursuing his filmmaking career and his
passion for music. Ngawang most recently helped composed the final musical
score of The Buddha Prince.
Tyson Forbes, Co-Producer/Technical
Director/Set Designer/Composer
Tyson, Producing Artistic Director, TigerLion Arts,
is a theatre creator, performer, and producer. Tyson has a B.A. in Theatre from Middlebury College. He has
performed in regional theaters throughout the United States including the Guthrie,
5th Avenue, and the Ordway. Tyson is currently a company member of the Guthrie and lives in Minneapolis.
He has co-created numerous new works including Supermonkey, We are Ugly but We Have the Music,
and TigerLion Arts' latest creation, Nature, based on his great, great,
great ancestor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Tyson has studied under Del Close of Chicago's
Improv Olympic and with Clown Master Giovanni Fusetti. Acting credits include:
Macbeth, Peer Gynt, Cabaret, 1776, Fully Committed, A Streetcar Named Desire,
Equus, Don Juan in Hell, Terra Nova, and Arcadia. For more information please visit
http://www.mnartists.org/Tyson_Forbes
Katie Haggerty, Mask and Puppet Artist
Katie has been a Buddhist
practitioner for 23 years. She studied Buddhist sculpture at Naropa
University and worked for eight years on the great Stupa of Dharmakaya at
Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. The Great Stupa
is the largest and most elaborate stupa in the West, reaching 108 feet in
height. It is a memorial structure that acknowledges Chogyam Trungpa
Rinpoche's teachings and role in bringing Buddhism to the West. Katie
studied Bhutanese sculpture techniques and was chief mold maker and
technical problem solver at the Stupa.
Sky Brooks, Mask and Scenic Artist
Sky has been a Buddhist practitioner for 23
years. She paints, makes masks, mosaics, and papers and paints innumerable
objects. She has studied painting with Cynthia Moku, Joan Anderson and
Bernie Marek and has shown her work in several venues in the Boulder area,
including the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Her mask making began
while working on Markell Kiefer's Thunderstorm in 2001, and continued for
the 2004 production of The Buddha Prince in Pasadena, and the 2005
production in Central Park. Presently, Sky manages the two galleries at
Naropa University - the Lincoln Gallery and the Nalanda Gallery - works in
her studio, teaches process painting workshops, and lives with her son in
Lyons, Colorado.
Alan Fessenden, Lead Performer
 Photo by Corey Kohn |
Alice Larsson, Publicist
Alice is an artist, graphic
designer/illustrator, writer, filmmaker, educator and global networker. She
holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from the University
of Illinois; is a graduate of the Leadership in Public Policy Seminar
graduate studies program Reflective Leadership Center, Hubert H. Humphrey
Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; and has completed
coursework in screenwriting and entertainment law from the American Film
Institute, Los Angeles and Financing Tactics for Filmed Entertainment from
Arthur Young Film Symposiums in New York and Los Angeles. She has over 35
years of experience in the areas of marketing, advertising, public
relations, special event planning, fund-raising for profit and non-profit
organizations and film, video and television production. Clients have
included MGM, Warner Communications, Sheraton World Corporation, The White
House, USA for the Homeless, Gateway Pacific Foundation, Star Alliance
Foundation, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Control Data, New Orleans
Symphony, Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Kettering
Foundation, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Earth Day International, and
Earth Day USA. As a consultant to actor/environmentalist Dennis Weaver, she
distributed Dennis Weaver's Earthship, a half-hour television special that
aired nationally on PBS. She was a member of the producing team of the
Earth Day 1990 hour-long television special that aired in 124 cities
throughout the U.S. Alice served as Associate Producer of Gardens of the
World, a 1993 Emmy award-winning six part series hosted by Audrey Hepburn,
narrated by Michael York. As Director of Corporate Development for Earth
Train, a project of the Gateway Pacific Foundation, San Francisco, she
created the organizational structure, development package and coordinated
corporate sponsorship from Fortune 500 companies. During this process, she
worked closely with Jim Henson Productions, Lawrence Rockefeller III,
Ruder-Finn Public Relations (New York), and the Hyatt Corporation. As a
marketing consultant to Power Places Tours (PPT), St. Croix, Virgin
Islands, she secured media coverage in Time magazine, New Age Journal,
Associated Press affiliates throughout the country, CBS and CNN. She
secured notable keynote speakers for three consecutive international
conferences of INTA (International New Thought Alliance) and UCRS (United
Church of Religious Science) sponsored by PPT in Egypt (Mrs. Jehan Sedat),
Peru (Dr. Robert Mueller, former Under Secretary General of the United
Nations and Chancellor Emeritus of the University for Peace in Costa Rica),
and India (His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama). As a writer, her articles
have appeared in Backstage, Art Business News, Graphis International, Film
Journal International, American Cinematographer, and Create. Articles,
interviews and photo spreads related to her clients have appeared in the
Wall Street Journal, The London Times, Baltimore Sun, San Francisco
Examiner, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Denver Post, Town and Country,
SAVVY, The Natural Way and Total Health, and on live media CBS, NBC, ABC,
FOX, CNN, and radio stations throughout the U.S.
Brad Daniels, Photographer
Brad is a Professional Photographer, Designer, Fine Artist, Consultant, and
Educator. His images have been published worldwide, with a broad range of
assignments in the Advertising, Architectural, Editorial, Hospitality,
Travel and other industries. In addition to his core Photography and Design
business, Brad is an Adjunct Professor of Design at Concordia University.
To download images of "The Buddha Prince" for publicity purposes, visit
his website:
www.BradDaniels.com/buddhaprince
Kathy Crowe, Website Designer
Kathy is a web and graphic designer, and an illustrator. See more of her work at
www.KathyCrowe.com.