World Renowned Theater Artist™
Yehuda Duenyas
welcomes you to the internet!

This explosive official website is not only an extensive online portfolio of director Yehuda Duenyas’s major and minor works, it is an insight into the furtive history of Yehuda Duenyas himself. It attempts to reach the essence of Yehuda Duenyas.

WHO IS YEHUDA DUENYAS ?

WHAT PUMPS HIM?

WHY IS HE SO REWARDING?

Herein you'll find details of Yehuda Duenyas's life, full biography, bibliography, and documentation of his escalade to World Renowned Theater Artist™.

There is information about his theater projects, plays, publications, and upcoming events calendar, as well as behind the scenes access to his film work, clandestine side campaigns, future secret projects,
and details of how to support him.

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Artist Statement

I like to build theaters. I typically transform unassuming spaces—storefronts, warehouses, display windows, trucks, grain silos—into lavish, intimate, theater-micro-spectacles, worlds in and of themselves that playfully engage with the conventions of attending the theater. I am consistently interested in subverting the theatrical frame. Through continually challenging the relationship between audience and performer I strive to create of the viewers a unified group out of what began as a random collection of individuals. The audience in my work typically inhabits an active, unified role that is intrinsic to the production. I believe that the powerful circuit created between subject and viewer in the right context ignites an enormous potential to unify people, bring about a dynamic shift in consciousness and lead to social change.

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Bio

Yehuda Duenyas is a director, and founding member of the Obie Award–winning theater collective the National Theater of the United States of America.

Directing credits include Thomas Bradshaw’s PURITY (world premiere, PS 122), 00:07 SEC (an original work based on the best-selling book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, NYU/Experimental Theater Wing), The Citizens Band (Hiro Ballroom), NTUSA’s ABSN:RJAB (Obie award for design, PS 122), George Saunders’s Pastoralia (Timeout NY–top 10 of 2005, PS122), and Young Jean Lee’s Christmas (The Brick). His original works include X9601733 (here), The Disappearing Act (Ontological), Brains (Walker Space), 7 Minutes in Heaven (Ontological), 5 (SoHo Rep.), hors-là (chashama), Phase I–selling out to the bare walls (created with Ryan Bronz; chashama).

With the NTUSA, he has worked in multiple capacities, including director, on the critically acclaimed underground hits Garvey & Superpant$!: Episode #23 and Placebo Sunrise (chashama, ESB Dublin International Fringe Festival), Jack Russell’s Super-Confidence!™ Seminar (Galapagos) and What’s That on My Head!?! (NEST/2-Trees DUMBO).

Yehuda has performed and toured with Richard Maxwell’s Obie Award–winning House, Richard Foreman’s Obie Award–winning Pearls for Pigs, Phil Soltanoff’s to whom it may concern, and has performed in and designed for various venues and festivals around the world, including BITEF (Serbia), Festival D’Automne (Paris), Theatre Der Welt (Berlin), the Holland Festival (Amsterdam), the Dublin Fringe Festival, Wienner Festwochen (Vienna), Festival Theatre des Ameriques (Montreal), Teatro San Martin (Argentina), Teatro Valle (Rome), The Roxy Theater (Prague) and the Williamstown Theater Festival, among others.

Yehuda was also chashama’s technical director from 1998 to 2002 and helped to convert five of their storefronts on 42nd Street into operational theaters.

He has adapted one novel and one short story for the stage—Molloy by Samuel Beckett and “Pastoralia” by George Saunders. He is currently developing new adaptations of Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling book Blink, and George Saunders’s short story “Brad Carrigan, American.” He is the recipient of a MacDowell fellowship, studied theater and clown with Philippe Gaulier and holds a BS in theater cum laude from Skidmore College. In fall 2007 Yehuda will present a new original work called One Million Forgotten Moments for the LMCC as part of the River to River Festival.

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