Joshua Dumas
February 2011
A video series.
Joshua Dumas makes short videos of himself performing in landscapes, rooms, or situations that influence the performance and contextualize the songs’ meanings. Locations thus far include a blizzard, a bubble machine, and a library’s grand hall. Songs are selections from Dumas’ back catalog, from bands like Notes & Scratches and Townline Road.
Jeremy Bessoff
January 2011
Jeremy Bessoff’s experimental stop motion animation western.
Featuring music by Joshua Dumas, Keith Kusterer, Tom McGettrick, Tom Santiago, and Sally Timms.
The tragic-comic “Red Rider’s Lament” employs vintage plastic cowboys and construction paper sets to explore the enactment of masculinity in the Old West. The Rider enters the fold just as the West’s dust is settling. His haphazard wanderings cause him to confront manifest destiny and the changes it renders to the landscape and its inhabitants.
Jeremy Bessoff
October 2010
Moon Far Ocean Deep is a new play created and performed by Theatre Run. Members of the ensemble from Switzerland, UK, New York and Chicago worked for ten months via Skype, email, video and audio posts, to conceive and develop this new work. Then after a three-week intensive rehearsal period the company presented the show in a workshop performance at High Concept Labs.
Directed by Molly Feingold. Starring Martine Eichenberger, Sophie Fletcher, Marc Frost, Alex Lane and Anne Sorce. Lights by Josh Nelson. Video by Rand Sevilla. Music/Sound by Joshua Dumas.
Anika Balaconis
July 2010 to July 2010
Jason Eckerson and Anika Balaconis and I met up at Mark Temelko and Tina Post’s farm in upstate New York. We set up a tent and built a make-shift music space. We spent our days working outside and in the evenings we played songs and recorded them. Anika made some brushes for the drums out of pine needles, we had a big bonfire, we sang with cicadas and crickets and birds.
Carl Sweets
April 2010 to May 2010
An experimental semi-opera by New Beast Theatre Works at The Building Stage
Drawing from the spare prose of Raymond Carver’s “Gazebo,” New Beast presents an original opera that spans memory and imagination via prose, song, and dramatic performance.
Devised and Directed by David Amaral. Devised and Composed by Joshua Dumas. Developed and performed by Eddie Bennett, Ruth Bistrow, Pamela Maurer, James Whittington.
Listen to the score.
November 2008 to May 2010
Rock Proper is an online music distributor providing high quality, album-length downloads with the legal consent of their creators. Please download this music, burn it, share it and stay tuned for future releases. Conceived by Casey Meehan, created and maintained by Casey Meehan, Joshua Dumas, Matt DeWine, and Bob Kuo.
March 2010 to April 2010
by Madeleine Olnek
Directed by Meghan Beals McCarthy
Produced by Caffeine Theatre
A quirky queer comedy about Emily Dickinson’s secret life.
Starring Jessica Bennett, Dana Black, Carey Lee Burton, Annie Calhoun, Amanda Hartley, Ian Novak, Ian Randall, Lauren Vitz. Directed by Meghan Beals Mccarthy. Associate Directed, Dramaturged, and Choreographed by Jennifer Shook. Assistant Directed/Stage Managed by Courtney Miller. Costumes Designed by Alarie Hammock & Samantha Umstead. Set Designed by Stephen Carmody. Lighting Designed by Casey Diers w/ Chase Corman. Music by Joshua Dumas.
January 2009 to January 2010
Monthly improvised music series featuring members of May or May Not, Notes & Scratches, A Company, Demons, Where the Moon Came From, Black Apple and more.
at the Whistler
2421 N Milwaukee Ave.
Cortney Groves
February 2005 to December 2009
Pop music group.
Anika Balaconis — horn, keys, vocals
Joshua Dumas — vocals, guitar
Jason Eckerson — bass, vocals
Robbie Hamilton — drums, vocals
Whitney Johnson — viola, keys, vocals
Music composed collaboratively, words by Joshua Dumas
On (real long) hiatus!
Have produced three recordings, Uh-Oh (2006), and To the Other Side (2009) are available for free download at Rock Proper. Grace Notes (2009) is available on our site.
Rob Brenner
March 2007 to July 2008
A thirty member choir that covers punk and rock classics completely a’cappella. Founded by Whitney Johnson, Dee Clements and Joshua Dumas. Though its founders have left, the group continues to have terrific success performing through-out Chicago at venues like the Lakeshore Theater, the Hideout Block Party, the Abbey Pub, the Vic, and Millennium Park.