Adam Seelig (born 1975) is a Canadian-American poet, playwright, director, composer, and the artistic director of the One Little Goat Theatre Company in Toronto.
Background and Education
Seelig's early experience in theatre included directorial apprenticeships at the Arts Club Theatre Company in
Vancouver and the
Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.
[Alex Kliner, Jewish Western Bulletin, 30 Jan 1998, p.26.] One of Seelig's early poems was published in
Saul Bellow’s and
Keith Botsford's
The Republic of Letters.
["Kafka to Brod (Four Unheard Variations)" by Adam Seelig in News from the Republic of Letters, eds. Saul Bellow & Keith Botsford, Issue no.9, 2001.]
Born in Vancouver, Canada,[A. M. Segal, "Play about national security, civil rights raises questions," Canadian Jewish News, 8 Nov 2007, p.53.] Seelig is the child of an Israeli father and an American mother.[Michael Seelig, Professor at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia ([1]), and Julie Hurwitz, an Urban Planner for Metro Vancouver ( Queen's Quarterly, December 22, 1996).]
As an undergraduate at Stanford University, Seelig studied English literature with John Felstiner, Marjorie Perloff, and Gilbert Sorrentino, as well as theatre with Carl Weber, completing a BA in 1998 with a thesis on Samuel Beckett's original manuscripts.
Directing
In the early 2000s, Seelig founded the One Little Goat Theatre Company in New York City and
Toronto.
With the company, he directed dramatic works by poet-playwrights
Yehuda Amichai,
,
,
,
[ Luigi Pirandello,][Dongshin Chang, "Democracy at War: Antigone: Insurgency in Toronto," Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage, edited by Erin Mee & Helene Foley. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 267–285. Also see Marianne Apostolides, "A Review of Antigone: Insurgency, Canadian Theatre Review, Issue 137, University of Toronto Press, Winter 2009, and Jon Kaplan, "Timely Tragedy," NOW Magazine, November 15, 2007.]
Seelig's work aims to create poetic theatre.[ "EMERGE NSEE: GET HEAD OUT OF ASS: and Poetic Theatre," The Capilano Review , "Poets Theatre" issue, Spring 2010, pp. 32-52. Complete [http://static1.squarespace.com/static/50e1f650e4b015296ce49000/t/50eb7edae4b0a5b2685d7b86/1357610714238/SEELIG-Charactor-web%26pix+%232.pdf essay online.]
His direction avoids naturalism.
[Rachel Saltz, "Three Irritable Siblings, Ready to Pounce," The New York Times , 1 Oct 2010. Also characterized as "idiosyncratically avant-garde" by J. Kelly Nestruck, "The Rob Ford Musicals," Globe and Mail'', 19 Sep 2014.]
In 2017, Seelig's direction of Smyth/Williams, a dramatic recounting of a verbatim confession of Russell Williams, was criticized by victims' families.
Writing
Beginning with the 2010 publication of
Every Day in the Morning (slow),
Seelig's writing combines poetic
Lyric poetry with
concrete poetry.
Written largely in the second person, the work uses punctuation to form what has been described as a "continuous concrete-lyric-drop-poem novella".
Since 2010, Seelig's plays employ the same drop-poem technique where "words often align vertically, configured spatially."[ The format has been described by critics as "a musical score,"][ a "poetry trick,"][Jacob McArthur Mooney, "Sam Is a Person: An Electronic Conversation with Poet and Playwright Adam Seelig," The Walrus, 18 Feb 2011. Web. Accessed 21 Feb 2011.] and "eye hockey."
Music
For
Ubu Mayor, "a play with music," Seelig wrote eight songs and played piano in the band for the production premiere.
The play has been referred to as an "anti-musical."
For , Seelig wrote seven songs and played a
Rhodes piano in the band for the production premiere.
The sheet music for both of these plays is included in their print and electronic publications.
Music is foregrounded (rather than being assigned to the background) in Seelig's productions.["Flexible Impossibilities: On Claude Gauvreau's The Charge of the Expormidable Moose," Rampike Magazine, University of Windsor, Ontario, Vol.22 No.2, 2014, pp.16-19.] Music also plays a role in Seelig's "drop-poem novella" Every Day in the Morning (slow), with particular emphasis on Minimal music composers such as Steve Reich
Essays
-
"Beckett's Dying Remains: The Process of Playwriting in the 'Ohio Impromptu' Manuscripts."
[ Modern Drama, Vol. 43.3, University of Toronto, 2000, pp.376-392.]
-
“The Anonlinear Aesthetic."
[ Poetics.ca, Ottawa, Summer 2005. Web. Accessed 23 Oct 2015. Includes examples from works by Maurice Blanchot, David Markson, Rosmarie Waldrop, and others.]
-
"Transcending Hyperspecificity."
-
"EMERGE NSEE: GET HEAD OUT OF ASS: '' and Poetic Theatre."
[
]
-
Contemporary Canadian poets Seelig has reviewed or interviewed include Gregory Betts,
[Gregory Betts interview by Adam Seelig, Filling Station, Calgary, No.38, 2007, pp.26-9.] Sylvia Legris,["Nerve's Quill: Nerve Squall by Sylvia Legris," Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.12 Nos.5&6, May/June 2006, p.5.] Donato Mancini,["A/DRIFT," Review of Lisa Robertson's Rousseau's Boat, Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.11 Nos.11&12, November/December 2005, p.15-16.] Jordan Scott,[Review of Jordan Scott's Silt, Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, May 2004.] and playwright-novelist Sean Dixon.["First Person Plural: The Novel at Play - Adam Seelig Interviews Sean Dixon," Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.13 Nos.5&6, May/June 2007, pp.8-9.]
Translation
Seelig has translated Hebrew works by modern Israeli poets
Yehuda Amichai and
Dan Pagis,
["Covenant" and "Diagnosis" by Dan Pagis, translated from the Hebrew, World Literature Today, Oklahoma, May 2004.] as well as contemporary poets
Navit Barel[. Web. Accessed 23 Oct 2015.] and
Tehila Hakimi.
With
Harry Lane, he translated
Someone is Going to Come by Norwegian playwright
Jon Fosse.
External links
