Becoming Hole - A Celebration of Perforation with Pianola, Musings, Films, Readings

Doors open 6:30 pm, cash bar, hors d'oeuvres

Special Guests
Tim Newell
Kristen Tripp Kelley

To Bob Berkman, the player piano is not a thing of the past.

Though he often uses his intimate connection with the instrument and its lore to illuminate vanished days, his mastery of both the player piano and the craft of roll making enable him to continually expand the instrument's possibilities with expertise, humor, and an increasingly serious sense of purpose.

Becoming Hole is about sharing a life immersed in the possibilities of the player piano—its past, present and future. The instrument and its rolls haven't been central to most people's experience, but they mean a great deal to Bob Berkman.

Fears about art in the age of mechanical reproduction can be dispelled—or at least deferred—when spontaneity and experimentation are brought to bear in ways neither the instrument's defenders nor its detractors may have considered. Interacting with the machine and its software, and combining them with visual images and literary citations, can flavor its history with metaphor and alter our thinking about art, entertainment, technology, and even sexuality.

Though he often uses his intimate connection with the instrument and its lore to illuminate vanished days, Bob Berkman's mastery of both the player piano and the craft of roll making enable him to continually expand the instrument's possibilities with expertise, humor, and an increasingly serious sense of purpose. After nearly 35 years as music director at QRS, the last of the piano roll manufacturers, he now performs with his Pianola at venues across the U. S. including UCLA and the National Gallery of Art, as well as at Buffalo's Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Burchfield-Penney Art Center. He is presently engaged in producing new roll recordings of 20th Century works ranging from rags by Artie Matthews to solo works by John Cage to the etudes of György Ligeti, all played by contemporary pianists of note. The first in an open-ended series of 21st Century works is scheduled for completion in 2014.

Tim Newell has been an active member in Buffalo's theatre community since making his return to the stage in Ross Hewitt's When October Goes, which it had its Western New York premiere at UJIMA Theatre Company. This debut marked Tim's return to the stage after a 10 year absence.

Formerly of Westfield, NY, Tim moved to New York City in 1986 to pursue his acting career. While there, he sang with the Collegiate Chorale and performed at Carnegie Hall, St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, and Avery Fischer Hall, at Lincoln Centre. Finding the competition of the theatre world to be too unbearable, and not having enough experience to get him by, he "retired" from acting and decided to communicate through paint, rather than the spoken word. Tim honed his talents as an abstract expressionist painter, and had a month long showing of his work at the Dept. of Education in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, along with a smattering of group shows and solo exhibits in Manhattan's coffee shops and cafes.

Tim moved to Buffalo in 1993, and in the winter of 1995, decided to return to the stage. Since 1996, he has appeared in dozens of productions with most of the city's premiere houses, and is a four time recipient of the Artvoice Artie Award for his work as an actor and director. His truest claim to fame is his portrayal of Jack Benny, in Mark Humphrey's Artie nominated Mr. Benny, which, just this winter, had a very successful run at the Jewish Repertory Theatre of Western New York. In June of 2010, Tim was voted Western New York's Favorite Actor of 2010 by Buffalo Spree magazine. In the Spring of 2012, he made his acting debut in Chicago (Shattered Globe Theatre), appearing in Her Naked Skin by Rebecca Lenkiewicz.

Kristen Tripp Kelley has had the good fortune of collaborating with a wide array of Buffalo's theater companies. She has performed with the Kavinoky Theater (Sarah in Time Stands Still, Brooke in Other Desert Cities, Ivy in August Osage County), Torn Space (Dan in Aunt Dan and Lemon, Helen in Some Explicit Polaroids), Irish Classical Theater (Marquis Therese Du Parc in La Bete, Lily in Ah, Wilderness!, Thea in Hedda Gabler), Shakespeare in Delaware Park (Ariel in The Tempest, Hermione in Winter's Tale), Jewish Repertory Theater (Isobelle in Crossing Delancey), and Road Less Traveled Theater where she is an Ensemble Member (Mary Magdalene in Last Days of Judas Iscariot). She earned a B.A. in Theater as a Performing Arts Honors Scholar at the University at Buffalo, and an MFA in Acting from Purdue University. She teaches theater and serves as Arts Department Chair at Nichols School.