A Brief History
Paul Bernstein, Director of UPONtheOTHER
Paul is at the core of this interdisciplinary performance factory, creating and supporting work that operates by dramatic, choreographic, filmic, or musical means. These highly unusual plays and performance works have been produced extensively on both coasts of the United States, in Southeast Asia, and in eight European countries.
Bernstein conducts performance research that continues to transform his work as a physical theater artist. His interdisciplinary approaches to composition for the stage and screen have become the signature for UPONtheOTHER, a company that is deeply aligned with the experimental. The result is perhaps best described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “work that accumulates layer upon layer of illusion and intrigue.”
In 2010, after completing a ten year body of work with physical theater, Bernstein returned to playwriting and screenwriting by creating a new body of work consisting of three full length plays: Night Lawn With Stranger (2018) The Gray Matter of Sweet (2015) De Murker Uland (2014) six one-act plays: Eva, the Marshall, and the Tollbooth Frog (2017) How We Are Dead (2016) Train Usher Night (2014) Vernon Upon the Other (2013) Carpet Wars: Under Piano (2013) Girl at a Funeral, Girl at a Dance (2010) In addition, Bernstein created 11 solo, duet, and trio works: Seth Ides: How Romance Returns (solo 2018) The Way A Tied Up Boat (trio 2018) Hoyt Jenks: Once A Rover (solo 2017) Upon the Other (duet 2016) Clown Savior with Mr. Sherman On Accordion (duet 2015) Trunkbit & Mugilicutty (duet 2014) Family With Suitcases: How We Never Left (trio) (2013) Hoy Doy – The Spouting Boys, in: Now, Norman (trio 2012) Vita Nuova Hrabal (duet 2011), El Macho Rojo (duet 2010) Hershel, A Wandering Jew, in: The Abandoned Synagogue (solo 2010)
Between 2011-2017, Paul Bernstein wrote four film scripts and performed in six films directed Robert A. Emmons Jr., including: Hoyt Jenks: Greatest Hits (2018) AND NEVER CHANGE YOUR dead POINT OF VIEW (2013) Pale Green Kitchen (2013) Other Distants (2011)
Bernstein also played the role of FBI Agent Finch in Emmon’s film, Sickos Making Movies. He recently appeared in New York as Hans Christian Anderson in bed, in the new musical, The Snow Queen at HERE Arts Center in New York City. Also at HERE, he performed as Aunt Leaf in the play Aunt Leaf by Barbara Wiechmann, directed by Jeffrey Mouseau. Other recent acting credits include Hershel in Hershel and the Hannukah Goblins at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia – an original solo commissioned by Gas & Electric Arts. He played Estragon in the Japanese/American workshop production of Yattekita Godot at New York Theater Workshop, written by Minoru Betsuyaku and directed by Suzi Takadashi. He has performed at Lincoln Center and The Public Theater in New York. As an aging Robin Hood, Bernstein is currently developing a new work with Red Thread Arts of New York, entitled Sire Backwards Speak I, for Fall 2019.
Engagements in Europe have included performances at de Melkweg Fontenzaal in Amsterdam, Tanz Ombrosa of Vienna, Ludwig Museum of Modern Art in Budapest, the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art and L’Mono Theatre in Bilbao, Spain, and a lecture/demonstration/film showing series at Evaros Lorand University in Budapest during the summer of 2013. In 2018, Bernstein served as congressional member of ISPA, the International Society of the Performing Arts in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. His work will be presented in New York for an ISPA tour in August of 2019.
Bernstein’s most recent publication was the article: Artistic Imperatives: Merging Theater and Film, was published in 2014 by The International Journal of New Media, Technology and the Arts, Common Ground Publishing LLC. His new written work is derived from his lectures on Theater of the Absurd, revisited by a band of roving squirrels.
The UPONtheOTHER brand of sharp-edged performance work emphasizes a broad range of transformational possibilities, new forms of acting, playwriting, and vocal choreography for a highly physical theater. Bernstein and Co’s work is a continual merging of performance disciplines. This interdisciplinary process involves collaborations with individuals whose visions have also comprised UPONtheOTHER.
As a professor of theater, Bernstein served for ten years on the faculty at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, including three years at Hunter College, St. Johns, and Queens College, and five years on the faculty of the International Theater School at the University of Amsterdam. He taught for one one year at the London Academy of Drama. Currently, he serves as an Associate Professor of Theater at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, where he has directed 12 Main Stage productions. His research with the merging of theater and film in live performance has covered 13 years of collaborations and fifteen interdisciplinary productions involving theater and film on the Camden campus.
Of course, most of this work is best experienced in live or full-length versions. We hope the video segments on this website serve to give a sense of the real thing. To see more, book a performance, film showing, Physical Theater or Performance Writing Workshop, contact UPONtheOTHER by clicking on “Contact Information” in the Main Menu. We hope you stay in touch!
Eleanor Wood, UPONtheOTHER
Founder & Managing Director
UPONtheOTHER@gmail.com
917-674-2426