St. Ann’s Warehouse

for Must Don’t Whip ‘Um by Cynthia Hopkins

Cynthia Hopkins is the recipient of the 2007 Alpert Award in Theater, honoring her work as a writer, composer, performer, multi-instrumentalist, and theater artist. Her mission is to investigate new forms of theatrical communication which provoke emotion, stimulate the senses, and enliven the mind; obscuring the distinction between edification and entertainment through the creation of works which are as philosophical as they are entertaining, as intellectually challenging as they are viscerally emotional, as deeply comical as they are tragic, and as historically aware as they are immediately engaging. She is the co-founder and artistic director of the ensemble company Accinosco (www.accinosco.com) with whom she has created four full length multi-media performance works – Accidental Nostalgia (2005 Bessie Award for Creation), Must Don’t Whip ‘Um (2007 Bessie Award for Design), The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success) (conceived as Parts I, II, and III of The Accidental Trilogy); and The Truth: A Tragedy. These works feature the band Gloria Deluxe (www.gloriadeluxe.com), which Ms. Hopkins formed in 1999 and which has since produced eight full-length albums and performed at numerous venues in New York City and elsewhere. Accinosco’s critically acclaimed works have been celebrated by multiple Bessie Awards, and have been supported by a host of institutional partners (foundations and presenters) including the Jerome Foundation, the MAP Fund, NYSCA, the Greenwall Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, APAP’s Ensemble Theatre Collaborations Grant Program, the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation, the Philadelphia Performing Arts Festival, PICA’s Time Based Art Festival, REDCAT, MASS MoCA, On the Boards, the Walker Art Center, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and St. Ann’s Warehouse. Ms. Hopkins is currently at work on the creation of This Clement World, a new piece addressing the climate crisis. She is a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow.

Bio as of November, 2010.