Playwright Neil Wechsler and composer Nathan Heidelberger will discuss their ongoing collaboration, The Faust Project, an adaptation of both parts of Goethe’s Faust. The talk will focus on the adaptation process, particularly the unique challenges that come with trying to condense Goethe’s sweeping original—about seventeen hours’ worth of theater—down to an eighty-minute presentation for just four actors with musical accompaniment. A close look at a few scenes will highlight their approach and illustrate the central importance of the relationship between Faust and Mephistopheles to the progression of the play. The talk will also touch on the musical component of the project, including a listen to some of Heidelberger’s preliminary musical sketches. The final performances of The Faust Project will take place on February 3 and 4, 2017, at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, with support from the UB Creative Arts Initiative.

This UB English department colloquium presentation is free and open to the public.

ABOUT NEIL WESCHLER
Neil Wechsler’s play Grenadine won the 2008 Yale Drama Award, an international prize for emerging playwrights. Edward Albee was the judge. Grenadine was published by Yale University Press and has been produced at Road Less Traveled Productions in Buffalo, SMU in Texas, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Neil’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean premiered at Torn Space Theater in Buffalo. It was the American premiere of Emperor and Galilean. Neil’s adaptation of Ibsen’s The Master Builder premiered at Silo City in Buffalo. Neil’s play The Brown Bull of Cuailnge received its world premiere in Toronto, presented by The Room. Neil has spoken about playwriting and literature at high schools and colleges across the country.
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ABOUT NATHAN HEIDELBERGER
Composer Nathan Heidelberger’s works range in character from the uncannily beautiful to the unrelentingly didactic. His music has been performed by such groups as the New York New Music Ensemble, the New Fromm Players, Ensemble Linea, the Nouveau Classical Project, Wild Rumpus, and chamber musicians from the New York Philharmonic. He was the first composer-in-residence for the Netherlands-based Oerknal Ensemble. Nathan was a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and at the Aspen Music Festival. He received his PhD from the University at Buffalo, and he holds undergraduate degrees in both composition and English from Oberlin College and Conservatory. He is a founding member of Wooden Cities, an ensemble committed to introducing new music to audiences throughout western New York.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE ARTS INITIATIVE
The Creative Arts Initiative is a university-wide initiative dedicated to the creation and production of new work upholding the highest artistic standards of excellence and fostering a complementary atmosphere of creative investigation and engagement among students, faculty, visiting artists, and the community.

Through its Artist-in-Residence program and its innovative, interdisciplinary offerings for students, CAI is raising the profile of UB and Buffalo in world of artistic expression and revitalizing our proud tradition as a leader in contemporary art.