Ain Gordon is a three-time Obie Award-winning writer/director/actor, a two-time NYFA Fellow and the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Playwriting. His work has been commissioned/produced/presented by New York Theater Workshop, Soho Rep., The Public Theatre, 651 ARTS, Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, and HERE Arts Center (all NYC); the Mark Taper Forum (CA), the George Street Playhouse (NJ), the Krannert Center (IL), the Baltimore Museum of Art (MD), DiverseWorks (TX), Spirit Square (NC), VSA North Fourth Arts Center (NM), Jacob’s Pillow (MA), LexArts (KY), The Kitchen Theatre (NYS), and Dance Space (DC), etc. Gordon twice collaborated with choreographer Bebe Miller on works presented at the Wexner Center (OH), Myrna Loy Center/Helena Presents (MT), and the Bates Dance Festival (ME), etc. Collaborations with David Gordon were commissioned and produced by American Repertory Theatre (MA), American Conservatory Theater (CA) and American Music Theatre Festival (PA). As a performer, Gordon was in the original Off-Broadway cast of Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell and continues to tour the production to venues including UCLA Live, Guild Hall (LI), TBA Festival at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (OR), The ICA Boston (Elliot Norton Award nom), Vineyard Playhouse (MA), the Walker Art Center (MN), and Painted Bride Art Center (PA), etc. Gordon also wrote for NBC’s “Will & Grace.” Gordon has received support from the Multi-Arts Production Fund (MAP), the Jerome Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the Peg Santvoord Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Performance Network, the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, AT&T OnStage, and the Arts Presenters Ensemble Theatre Collaborations Program funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Trust etc. Gordon’s 2003 work; Art Life & Show-Biz; A Non-Fiction Play, is published in Palgrave Macmillan’s new collection “Dramaturgy Of The Real On The World Stage.” Gordon has been a guest speaker/facilitator/teacher for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (NY), the Surdna Foundation (NY), the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MD), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (NY), the Kentucky Writer’s Conference, Dance USA (DC), the University of Minnesota, Wesleyan University (CT), the University of Limerick & the Dublin Dance Festival (Ireland), Chicago Dancemakers Forum and Columbia College (IL), Ohio State University, and Dartmouth College (NH), etc. Currently, Gordon is Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Creative Research, a member of the Board of Directors of Performance Space 122, and Chair of the Danspace Project Artist Advisory Board. Gordon is Co-Founder of the Urban Memory Project and has been Co-Director of the Pick Up Performance Co(S) since 1992.

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Not What Happened

Not What Happened is rooted in the politics of historical reenactment – the recreation of the past for the present. It's a contrapuntal duet for two people who could never meet: the historical re-enactor and the person they re-enact. 

What do we purposefully eliminate in order to speak of our ourselves – how do those gaps effect the historic record – and from that record what gets cut out in order to make a story viable to the casual visitor?  Do we ever know what happened?

Featuring TRACEY MALONEY and SALLY WINGERT

A Disaster Begins

A lone woman’s unbreakable bond the hurricane that devastated the Texas island of Galveston in 1900, taking 6,000 lives in a single night.

Equipped with a pitcher of water and drinking glass she unravels the shocking truth behind this disaster, interweaving tales of presidential corruption, pubescent despair, patriotic fervor, pre-marital passion and paralyzing writer’s block.

IN THIS PLACE

Lexington, KY has several adjoining historic districts. Four Generations of historic plaques dot those precincts. Fenced inside the brass borders of each plaque are what meager facts a metal rectangle can offer. There stood one house as old as all those chosen for public remembrance – unmarked – awaiting the wrecking ball. In This Place… is based on the true story Sam and Daphney Oldham who bought their way out of slavery to build this home in 1830. Five years later they disappeared.”