Melissa Weaver John Duykers Amanda Moody
est. 1989
1990 a.ga.pe
1992 Last Stand
1995 Trespass Knot
1997 The Winchester Rosary
1997-99 residencies at Sir Francis High School
Communications Academy/California
1999-2004 Faculty/California Institute for the Arts
1999-2002 Serial Murderess
2002-2004 Caliban Dreams
2000-2005 Bitter Harvest
2006 D’Arc
Agape Performance Group was founded by director/designer Melissa Weaver and tenor John Duykers to create original music theatre works that expand contemporary limits of form and content. Agape’s collaborative process incorporates improvisation, rigorous character development, movement, spoken language, sung text, instrumental music, and the deep exploration of qualities of objects and scenic materials. With these disciplines, APG explores moral riddles, re-examines myths and elicits transformation. APG includes writers, composers, directors and performers and, in addition to producing company pieces, presents workshops and intensive trainings on the techniques and mechanics of creating and performing new works. APG began its close association with writer/performer Amanda Moody in 1995.
In 1990, Weaver worked with Duykers, movement artist Hitomi Ikuma, and designer Chad Owens to develop a.ga.pe, an East vs. West showdown, presented at Life on the Water. Last Stand examined the spotted owl/logger controversy, teaming Weaver and Duykers with performance artist Toyoji Tomita, composer/multi-instrumentalist Barney Jones and Life on the Water’s Earth Drama Lab.
Trespass Knot marked creator/director Weaver’s first collaboration with actor/singer/writer Amanda Moody in an operatic fable created with composer Miguel Frasconi and choreographer Jess Curtis. Trespass Knot featured performances by Duykers and Moody, was co-produced by Agape, The Eureka Theatre and The Paul Dresher Ensemble, and was presented at SOMAR Theatre.
The Winchester Rosary examined the life and times of the widow Sarah Winchester, the eccentric, guilt-ridden heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune. This piece was Weaver and Moody’s second collaboration, the first to pair them as a creative team. Winchester showcased Moody’s writing and solo-performance skills, with music by composer Joël Lindheimer, lighting and sets by Alexander V. Nichols. Presented at SOMAR Theatre in 1997 and again in 1998, The Winchester Rosary was co-produced by APG and The Paul Dresher Ensemble.
In their third collaboration, Serial Murderess, a play in 3 axe, Weaver and Moody investigated the terrible, terribly practical, and sometimes terribly funny reasons that drive three women to kill and kill again. In this award-winning show, rich language, surrealist imagery, original music and song pave the way deep inside the dark minds of ladies who share a taste for the ultimate sin. With Moody writing and performing, Weaver as director/dramaturge, Serial Murderess also employed the talents of visual artist Jennifer Delilah Trammell, composer Clark Suprynowicz, and oboist Mark Alburger. Serial Murderess enjoyed extended engagements in 2000 and 2002 at San Francisco’s Venue 9 Theatre, and was presented by Footloose and artistic director Mary Alice Fry.
The next new work undertaken by writer Moody and director/dramaturge Weaver was Caliban Dreams, a monster opera. Created for John Duykers, employing the situations and characters Ariel and Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Caliban Dreams spins its own original tale. It high-wire-steps the razor-edged, intimate lines between servitude and service, slaves and kings, agape and eros. Caliban Dreams was composed by Clark Suprynowicz, incorporated the remarkable, internationally acclaimed Piedmont Girls Choir prepared by Choir Master Robert Geary, and was commissioned by The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. It was performed in concert in 2003 at The Magic Theater as part of the Z Space/Magic Theatre New Works Initiative.
In December 2005, APG’s latest effort was premiered at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, California. Bitter Harvest, an American Farmer’s Oratorio, was also created for Duykers by writer Moody, director/dramaturge Weaver, and composer Kurt Rohde. In Bitter Harvest, a small family farmer, Ruby Black, stands accused by The Corporation of having raised a genetically modified crop without a license. Though it’s clear the GMO plants were volunteers, brought in on the wind, on the wings of butterflies, The Corporation is adamant in exacting a punishing justice. Tangled in a years-long legal battle, faced with the loss of his family, the legacy of his heirloom seed stock, and his land, Ruby’s inexorable ruin is analogous to that of hundreds of hard-working farmers in the US, Canada, Mexico and overseas. Bitter Harvest also featured baritone Troy Cook, soprano Henrietta Davis, and a 16-voice choir prepared by Choir Master Lynne Morrow. Weaver collaborated in its visual presentation with designer Jeremy Hamm and photographer Deborah O’Grady. Bitter Harvest was commissioned and performed by The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra for their 05/06 season of Politics & Music, and conducted by Artistic Director Kent Nagano.
In 2006, writer/performer Amanda Moody returns to the boards with D’Arc, woman on fire, marking her sixth creative collaboration with director/dramaturge Melissa Weaver and their first with composer Jay Cloidt. D’Arc is a theatrical evocation of the life and death of Joan of Arc, linking her to the lives and deaths of contemporary young activist women at home and abroad. In “D’Arc”, Joan spontaneously re-incarnates as a middle-aged house-bound woman, Joanne, whose hallucinatory visions are revealed to her through the unblinking blue eye of a black and white television set. From this nattering oracle, she gets the latest on Super-Saturday-Sales, obsesses over Laverne and Shirley re-runs, and learns of the heroic - and sometimes fatal - activism of women-in-the-news. Remembering the brave and dangerous choices made by her own daughter, Joanne is confronted by the uneasy comfort of her own apathy, while the visiting Saint Joan – now 500 years old - ruefully reviews her life’s work, her trial, her lost girlhood, and fondly recollects a rash and boldly lived youth. A developmental performance was presented by Footloose’s 2006 Women-on-the-Way Festival. Karen McKevitt of the SF Bay Guardian said D’Arc is “…riveting, suffused with aching poetry.” Stay tuned for updates of upcoming workshops, and full-up premiere!
APG has received support from the Zellerbach Community Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The California Arts Council, The San Francisco Composers Forum and Sonoma County Community Foundation Donor Advised Funds as well as individuals.