The SLC Performance Lab is produced by ContemporaryPerformance.com and the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Theatre Program. Performance Lab is one of the core components of the program where graduate students work with guest artists and develop group-generated performance experiments. During the course of the year, visiting artists to the MFA Theatre Program’s Performance Lab are interviewed after leading a workshop with the MFA cohort.
Stephen Winter is interviewed Chisom Awachie (SLC 23)
Stephen Winter is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and artist. He wrote, produced and directed his 1996 debut feature film Chocolate Babies, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won Honorable Mention and Audience awards at San Francisco Frameline, SXSW, Urbanworld and OutFest. Stephen’s second feature film is Jason and Shirley (2015) co-written and co-starred artist Jack Waters and playwright and journalist Sarah Schulman. Richard Brody in The New Yorker called it “one of the year’s finest” films. As producer, Stephen’s first film was Jonathan Caouette’s landmark “narci-cinema” feature documentary Tarnation. He has worked creatively with Lee Daniels (Precious, Paperboy, The Butler), John Cameron Mitchell (Shortbus), John Krokidas (Kill Your Darlings), David France (How To Survive A Plague) and Xan Cassavetes (Kiss of the Damned). In the podcast space, Stephen is directing the science fiction drama The Space Within for Topic Studios, starring and Executive Produced by Jessica Chastain with Bobby Cannavale, Michael Stahlberg, Sturgill Simpson and Jessica Wu. In 2018, with Tristan Cowen, Stephen co-wrote and directed the pioneering fiction podcast series Adventures in New America, an afro-futuristic political satire for the Night Vale Network, “The Best New Social Thriller is a Podcast,” New York Times, compared the show to Boots Riley and Jordan Peele. https://www.stephenwinter.me/