Commissioned Artists
Eisa Davis
It all begins with an idea. Eisa Davis is an award-winning performer, writer, musician and composer working in multiple aesthetics on stage and screen. Stageworks include the Pulitzer Prize finalist Bulrusher, her stage memoir Angela's Mixtape, and the score for Devil In A Blue Dress: The Musical. This September, her performance piece The Essentialisn't will premiere at HERE, and in the spring, her new play ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| will premiere in a co-production between ACT and the Vineyard Theatre. She has released two albums of original music, Something Else and Tinctures (with Daniel T. Denver), and co-created the Warriors concept album with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Notable performance work includes Kindred, Mare of Easttown, The Wire, Relay, Ex-Husbands, Kings, Preludes, This, the musical of The Secret Life of Bees, and Passing Strange. Eisa lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Sxip Shirey
Sxip Shirey is an international composer, producer, sound artist, and sonic pioneer. His compositions, performances and curated evenings “Sxip’s Hour of Charm” established him as a fixture in New York’s underground art scene and internationally. He makes music, sound design and Foley for theater, dance and film. His community-inclusive, immersive choral works, "The Gauntlet," developed with Coco Karol, have been created for Rockefeller Center, The Sydney Opera House, Bard College, Friends of the Highline, Cleveland Museum of Art, and virtually in 3D immersive sound for NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center. He is a collaborator of singer, scholar, and song composer Rhiannon Giddens, and released tracks together that include “All Babies Must Cry,” “Woman of Constant Sorrow,” and “Just the Two of Us.”