Curtis Taylor

Curtis Taylor is a writer, filmmaker, and theater artist who has successfully explored the threshold between stage and film by repurposing opera, sacred song, ballet, and vaudeville traditions with a variety of devices such as puppets, shadow plays, stage magic, and in-camera illusions. His work has been commissioned by the Northwest Film Forum, On the Boards, and the Portland Institute of Art. More recently, he has used film to consider themes of art, life, and time. As a freelance art director and production designer, Curtis has worked with the Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, the Palestinian National Theater of Jerusalem, Robin Holcomb, Britta Johnson, and Book-It Repertory Theater of Seattle. In 2008, he received a Seattle Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs’ CityArtist Projects Award.

Curtis received 2010 GAP Award funding to pay for artists’ fees related to the production of an original evening-length performance of his play about debt, flying dreams, and suicide titled A White White Day. Over the course of the story, three people attack one another in fits of loneliness and come together in ballets of work, love, and theft. The story will explore an inverse desire to not be alone. The portrayal of the liminal modern realms of A White White Day (recorded voices, the internet, delivery routes) will utilize elements of stage magic and an intricate light-and-sound design.

Curtis received 2005 GAP Award funding to be used towards the creation of the production design for Hand of Bridge, a one-act opera written by Samuel Barber. His production is to be performed by four solo voices and chamber orchestra. Depicting two couples at a game of bridge, the opera is built around the struggle of each character’s personal and private selves and will be performed at the Northwest Film Forum before evolving into a short film.