Zamek Productions

Zamek (a Polish word for castle) was originally conceived as the production wing of OHIO, an arts center established in 1980 in the SOHO district of New York City. Zamek's executive producer and OHIO's founder Bill Taylor served as producing artistic director at the center. The OHIO facility was comprised of two rear adjoining buildings that spanned one city block from the Performance Space that fronted on Wooster Street to the Gallery Space that fronted on Greene Street.

The Performance Space hosted three resident theatre companies, each presenting two major new productions annually. In addition to the regular performance season, Zamek presented dozens of guest productions, a theatre arts workshop sponsored by New York University, and scores of special events, concerts and performance art works.

The performance schedule provided a uniquely international cross-section of artistic perspectives featuring renowned groups and individual artists from the United States, Canada, England, Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Germany, Austria, South America, Israel and Japan. Included were: Andre Gregory's Atlas Theatre Company, Teatr Gardzienice, Jacek Zymslowski's VIGIL (at left), Ping Chong, Eiko and Komo, Charlotte Mormon's Avante Garde Festival, Steve Rumbelow's Triple Action Theatre, Toronto Theatre Laboratory, Abreaction Theatre, Iowa Theatre Lab, The Living Theatre, Paul Carroll, Stephan Niedzielkowski, John Giorno, Manuel Lutgenhorst, Jeffrey Jones and Anne Bogart.

In addition to developing the schedule for the performance series at OHIO, Zamek established a visual arts symposium series together with Express Newspaper's publisher Andrew MacNair and The International Network for Art and Architecture in the center's Greene Street gallery space. The series featured premier exhibitions of works by such artists as Lebus Woods, Rem Koolhas, Christo, and other designers, artists and architects. The series was presented with the goal to provide a space for a live forum of open exchange on theories about the intersection of architecture and the visual arts as they affect the public life of the city. Following their debut at OHIO, several of these exhibits were subsequently presented at museums and galleries across the United States.

In 1983, Zamek Productions expanded the scope of its work beyond the OHIO. In addition to numerous production credits in live theatre, video and film, the company provides general management services to a broad array of companies. Sonia Moore's Conservatory Theatre, Adair Productions, Poland's Garzienicze Teatr, Alan Schuster's M-2 Productions and Andre Gregory's Atlas Theatre Company were among the names on Zamek's client list.

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