Ruth Margraff (Librettist) has been called a leader in the new opera, music/theater movement in America and just received a 2005-06 Fulbright Award for Greece and 2005 NYSCA Individual Artist grant for writing her commission for the Japan Society with composer Fred Ho and martial arts choreographer Tsuyoshi Kaseda from Spinnin Ronin (New York) this April, 2005 as part of a city-wide exhibit called COOL JAPAN.  She has also been performing Americana music with composer Nikos Brisco in their first English tour in June 2004 (Great Britain); studying at the Amala Summer School of Romani/Gypsy and Balkan Music, Language, Culture and Art (Valjevo, Serbia/Yugoslavia and Montenegro) July and August, 2004; playing music for Nikosí composition for Kristin Martingís ORPHEUS at Here Arts Center (New York); and writing with Dah Teatar Research Center (Belgrade, Serbia) this October 2004 through an artistic exchange with New Dramatists, Theatre Institute Prague (Prague, Czech Republic) and The Hungarian National Theatre, Hungarian Dramaturgs' League and Translators' House, (Budapest, Hungary).  Ruth is currently co-writing screenplays with Joyce Johnson and Tony Torn on Joyceís Beat memoir MINOR CHARACTERS, and with Dark Raven Productions/martial artist Jose Figueroa.  Last year Ruth was commissioned to write STADIUM DEVILDARE for the critically acclaimed Rude Mechanicals in Austin, Texas and VOICE OF THE DRAGON: SHAOLIN SECRET STORIES with composer Fred Ho for the Apollo Theater in Harlem with support from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, Caribbean Cultural Center and World Music Institute and she has been working with director Elyse Singer and composer Nikos Brisco on her new Balkan opera WELLSPRING as featured at the Public Theaterís 2004 New Work Now.   With composer Fred Ho, Ruth also wrote VOICE OF THE DRAGON 1 for The Brooklyn Academy of Musicís Next Wave Festival (2001), JVC Jazz Festival/John Harms Center for the Arts (1999) and the Guggenheim Museum (1999 and 2000), and for a national tour to performing arts centers in 33 cities with Columbia Arts Management, Inc (2003); and NIGHT VISION: A NEW THIRD TO FIRST WORLD VAMPYRE OPERA commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, and awarded production funding from the NEA, Jerome Foundation, and NYSCA for its premiere at HERE Arts at the turn of the new millennium in New York. The book and recordings of NIGHT VISION and ONCE.../VOICE OF THE DRAGON are available on CD from www.voiceofthedragon.com.

With composer Nikos Brisco, Ruth is in her third and final year of HARP residency at Here Arts Center and has toured as a musician and performer to B-2 Cool Train (Moscow, Russia); AS220 (Providence), Fire & Water (North Hampton), MAKOR/Steinhardt Center (New York), Living Room (New York), Hankís (Brooklyn), Sidewalk Café (New York), and a Texas tour in 2004 to Club Dada (Dallas), Hill Country Opríy (Kerrville), Anderson Fair (Houston), Café Mundi (Austin), Triple Crown (San Marcos), Friendly Bar (Johnson City); 2004 Greek Texan tour this June 2004 at the New Roscoe with Scottish bard Jackie Levin (Leeds, England), The Musician with the German Doug Jay Bluesband (Leicester, England), New Adelphi with Cracktown (Kingston-Upon-Hull, England), Prince of Wales (Brecknell, England); and with Micky Kemp at the Ent. Shed @The Gordon Arms (Bedford, England) through East West Promotions (Great Britain).   Both played music for director Erica Gouldís adaptation of Milorad Pavicís DICTIONARY OF THE KHAZARS at the Culture Project last season and for Ruth Margraffís Bosnian opera WELLSPRING at the Public Theater/Luesther Hall directed by Elyse Singer and will be performing for Nikos Briscoís original composition of director Kristin Martingís ORPHEUS adaptation at Here Arts Center this Fall (New York).  Her new opera CAFÉ ANTARSIA with Nikos Brisco has been invited to tour next summer to the 2005 Festivalul International Teatru De La Sibiu (Sibiu, Romania), 2005 International Hrvatski Festival Malih Scena Theatre Festival (Rijeka, Croatia), 2005 Karantena International Festival/ Art Radionica Lazareti (Dubrovnik, Croatia) and invited to perform with The Merlin International Theater (Budapest, Hungary) And Muzeul Literaturii Române/Museum Of Literature (Bucharest, Romania) in June 2005. 

Ruthís other works include THE ELEKTRA FUGUES, CENTAUR BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO, WALLPAPER PSALM, EXOTICA ORANGE, BACK OF THE DOLLAR LATIN, LOCKET ARIAS, GAT HIM TO HIS PLACE, ALL THOSE VIOLENT SWEATERS, FLAGS UNFURLED: 1976, WHEN THE PIE WAS OPEN, VINYL PRESSINGS etc. and have been commissioned, developed and produced mostly in New York by Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cooper Union Grand Hall, Lincoln Center Outdoors & Bang-On-A-Can Festival, Joseph Papp's Public Theater, HERE Arts, the Kitchen, New York Theater Workshop, the Guggenheim Museum, JVC Jazz Festival/John Harms Center for the Arts, La Mama Galleria, Dance Theater Workshop, Hourglass Group@Gershwin Hotel and PS122, New Georges, GAle GAtes Company, Mabou Mines, Drama League, Poetry Project, Dixon Place@Vineyard, Mac Wellman Festival, Knitting Factory, Ohio Theater, Greenwich Street, Medicine Show, Brooklyn College, Columbia University, etc. (New York); Playwrights' Center, Red Eye, Walker Art Center (Mpls); Seattle Rep. (Seattle); Northeastern University (Boston); University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa (Alabama); Undermain (Dallas); Salvage Vanguard, Rude Mechanicals, Fronterafest, Nerve Dance Co., Deborah Hay Dance Co., Sharirworks (Austin); Perishable, AS220 (Providence); Iowa Playwrights' Workshop (Iowa City); Bottom's Dream, Audrey Skirball-Kenis, Overtone Industries (Los Angeles); Film Studio (New Zealand);  Aymakent/Istanbul (Turkey); 2001 Beogradski Letnji Festival/Countess Ljubice Museum  http://www.belef.org.yu/01/prog/002.html  (Belgrade, Serbia), Bijenale Vizuelnih Umetnosti/Ukrstanja 10th Biennial of Visual Arts (Pancevo, Yugoslavia) 2002 Bolshoi Zal American Series/Library for Foreign Literature http://www.newdrama.ru/news/7_2002/more_2100/  and 2003 Novaja International New Drama Festival/Golden Mask Association/Moscow Art Theater http://context.themoscowtimes.com/plain/26092003/theater.html  (Moscow, Russia) 2003 Rebetiko Music Conference/Melina Mercouri Hall (Isle of Hydra, Greece), Theater Nohgaku/National Noh Theater of Japan (Tokyo, Japan), and an upcoming production with the Proximity Lab supported by the Canada Council (Vancouver, Canada), etc., and a recent collaboration with Immigrants Theater Project at the Mazur Theater (Chinatown NY), director Marcy Arlin and victims of war and torture from Sierra Leone, Albanian Kosovo, India, Bulgaria, Camaroon, Guyana, Columbia, etc. 

Ruth's play without music RED FROGS: A BURLESQUE FOR THE SUMMER PURGATORIO was commissioned by Performance Space 122/Hourglass Group with Jerome Foundation and NYSCA/LMCC and premiered with Hourglass director Elyse Singer at PS122 in New York.  RED FROGS was published and featured on the cover in the American Theater Magazine Vol. 19, No. 9 (TCG) November, 2002 and her operetta JUDGES 19 is published in the Winter/Spring 2003 issue of Theater Forum 22: International Theater Journal.  Her other plays have been published in NuMuse Anthology (Brown), Epoch (Cornell), More Monologues For Women By Women (Heineman), Salvage Vanguard Press, Patterson Literary Review, the Mac Wellman Festival Journal, Conjunctions:28 "Music Theater Portfolio" (Bard), Downtown Brooklyn (LIU), EDGE New York, !Factorial Press, Autonomedia/Big Red Media, The Dramatist (Dramatist Guild), CHAIN 9 (NEA/Temple University dialogue with Dr. Saídi Al-Hadithi, Kanan Makiya and Ayad Rahim),BAMCinematec, Qigong "Shaolin Temple Collector's Edition", a cover interview for Artes Marciales Y Algo Mas with choreographer Jose Figueroa (published in Caguas, Puerto Rico), Fight Master for the Society of American Fight Directors, hand-drawn opera illustrations for the Bijenale í02 "Galerija Savremente Umetnosti Svecano Otvaranja" (Pancevo, Yugoslavia) and Theater in Crisis (Manchester University/St. Mark's Press) on the future of the American theater, and for Play, Theater Topics (Johns Hopkins University Press).  Her folk operetta JUDGES 19: BLACK LUNG EXHALING recording is available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/nbrisco3 and THE ELEKTRA FUGUES is forthcoming in 2005 from BackStage Books in a new anthology called Divine Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks, and THE CRY PITCH CARROLLS and STADIUM DEVILDARE are forthcoming in an anthology from the University of Arizona.

Ruth has been the recipient of an artistsí residency with composer Joshua Fried and Iraqi folklorist Dr. Sa'di Al-Hadithi at the Villa Serbelloni (Bellagio, Italy) through the Foundazione Rockefeller in 1998 and was "artisita in visita" at La MaMa's Umbria International (Spoleto, Italy).  She has been awarded three Rockefeller Foundation commissions for 1998, 1999 and 2001, a 1995-96 Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, a 1996-97 McKnight Advancement Grant, a 1998 New York State Council for the Arts Individual Artist grant, a 2001 ITI-United States/TCG Travel Grant and University of Texas Research Grant (to Bosnia, Greece and Turkey), an NEA/TCG 1999-2000 playwriting residency at HERE Arts Center in New York, a 2003 Arts International Fund for U.S. Artists and a 2003 and 2004 ITI/TCG travel grant (to Moscow, Russia) and (to Belgrade, Serbia); a 2004 NEA Creativity Fellowships and Services to Arts Organizations & Artists and 2003 TCG/Metlife Extended Collaboration Grant to work with the Rude Mechanicals in Austin, Texas.  Ruth was nominated for the Sherwood Award from the Mark Taper Forum, invited to be Guest Juror for the First Contemporary Theater Festival (Riga, Latvia), nominated for the CalArts 2002 Alpert Award in Theater and was a finalist for the Harvard Radcliffe Bunting fellowship, and presented her work at the Bay Area Playwrights panel on "Theater & Social Justice" (San Francisco) in August, 2003.

Ruth has taught at St. Josephís College and Long Island University in Fort Green and Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  She is one of Paula Vogel's MFA playwright's workshop graduates from Brown University, a member of a playwrights' lab at the Public Theater, and a NYTW Usual Suspect.  Ruth was Asst. Prof. Of Playwriting for the University of Texas at Austin/Michener Center for Writers from 1999-2003, Visiting Associate Professor of Playwriting at Brown University from 2001-2003 and is a visiting professor at Fordham University/Lincoln Center and Allihies Language & Art Centre (West Cork, Ireland) and with Mark Bly for three years at the Yale School of Drama.  She is a member of the Tony-award-winning New Dramatists since 1997, a supporting member of Theater Without Borders and is represented by Abrams Artists in New York. 

Nikos Brisco (Composer) Born the son of a Texas oil rigger and a Greek belly dancer who met in Libya, Africa, Nikos was raised in Dallas, where he is famous for his acclaimed alt-country band FEVER IN THE FUNKHOUSE signed to Polygram Records in 1992, as one of the defining pioneers of the Deep Ellum music scene. In 1993, Brisco recorded his first solo work PLUTO with the internationally renowned ìgypsy classicalî/jazz band Café Noir. Nikos plays gypsy guitar, Greek trichordo & tetrachordo bouzoukia, tzouras & baglama, mainland laouto and Turkish oud. Nikos has studied Rroma (Gypsy) music at the Amala School (Valjevo, Serbia-Montenegro) through TCG/ITI and Arts International, and began an extended collaboration with Dah Teatar in Belgrade, Serbia with Ruth Margraff. His folk opera CAFÉ ANTARSIA enjoyed sold out houses at HEREs Culturmart Winter Festival 2005 and will be presented in concert at PS122, Iowa City Playwrightsí Workshop this Spring. 

Elyse Singer (Director) Off-Broadway directing credits include the first NYC revival of Mae West's play SEX, Deborah Swisher's Hundreds of Sisters & One BIG Brother, Love in the Void and Ruth Margraff's Red Frogs at P.S. 122. Recent directing credits include Kirsten Greenidgeís Curious George, Jake-ann Jonesí new musical Magic Kingdom as part of Hourglassís Next Stage Festival and the US revival presentation of Mae West's The Pleasure Man starring Charles Busch and a cast of 40 at the 45 Bleecker Theater. Her work has been seen at the Public, Playwrights Horizons and New York Theatre Workshop as well as in San Francisco, LA, Boston, Providence and Edinburgh. Her play Frequency Hopping was commissioned by the EST/Sloan Project, and developed through the Drama League and Yaddo. A Yale graduate, Singer is a Usual Suspect at NYTW and an alum of the LCT Directors Lab. She is Artistic Director of the Hourglass Group and proud new(ish) mom of Sophia Singer Brahmi.