Nic Benacerraf

On Wednesday, November 8th @ 12:15pm, Nic Benacerraf visits the Coffee House Club lunch at the Salmagundi. Nic is a designer, facilitator, and performance scholar, who engineers consent-based systems and environments for genuine human encounters in theaters, classrooms, concert halls, and streets. He is the director and founding partner of Edge Effect, a polydicsciplinary "think-and-do-tank," following 15 years as a founding co-artistic director of The Assembly. (Favorite Assembly projects include and .)

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For over a decade Nic developed original techniques to build design in collaboration with performers and authors in the rehearsal environment. His award-winning work as a scenographer has brought him into collaboration with Trusty Sidekick ( at Lincoln Center), Soul Inscribed ( at La MaMa), Waterwell (GOODBAR at the Under the Radar Festival), The Living Theatre ( by Judith Malina), Baba Israel (. at BAM), Meiyin Wang ( La MaMa), Kristin Marting ( & Looking At You at HERE) and Goat in the Road ( in New Orleans). He has assisted luminaries such as Richard Foreman and Mimi Lien (and co-created a websitein her honor).

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Currently, Nic teaches in the MFA Directing program at Brown University / Trinity Rep. Before that, he was on faculty at Brooklyn College, CalArts, and Kean University, and has lectured or conducted workshops at Sarah Lawrence College, Wesleyan University, Hamilton College, Colgate University, The New School, Hunter College, etc., and at Richard Schechner’s courses at NYU.

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Nic likes classrooms. He is a proud graduate of Wesleyan University (BA in Theater and Sociology) and CalArts (MFA in Scenic Design; MA in Aesthetics & Politics). ​Currently, he is finishing a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance at the CUNY Graduate Center, where his research exposes Public Relations as a form of capitalist persuasion, which covertly uses theatrical techniques to manipulate our social perceptions of reality.​​​

Host or Publisher Coffee House Club