Boney Manilli

January 23 - 25, 2025 | 07:30 PM

Walker Art Centre
725 Vineland Pl, Minneapolis, MN 55403, USA

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Actor Alex Barlas plays Edgar, a visual artist overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and self-loathing who is unable to complete his play on the infamous pop music duo, Milli Vanilli. His freeloading brother Bro Bro decides to adapt "The Song of the South" by Disney Studios, into his own play about black liberation, while their mother, Momma, a failed pop singer, is slowly fading away with dementia. Their lives spin from pathetic to bizarre becoming strangely intertwined as each one's search for truth collides with each others'. Written and directed by interdisciplinary artist Edgar Arceneaux, Boney Manilli is a dark musical comedy in the shape of a pop music video, a puppet show and a burial ceremony.

To tell a story is one thing, but to paint the picture of identity and infamy within its true reality is Arceneaux's artistry at its best.

Acting Company

Terry Wayne, Jr is a Los Angeles based actor who has a passion to Tell authentic stories in many different capacities. He has been in theater since the age of 8 and has been blessed to perform all over the USA as well as internationally. He hopes to use his GOD given tools as a performer to act as catalyst to incite change and to help many people across the world.

Alex Barlas graduated with a business degree from West Virginia University, later acknowledging his aspirations to become an artist which propelled him to move to California. Alex graduated with his MFA in acting from California Institute of the Arts in 2020. Alex has performed at The Ford Theater, RedCat, and The Odyssey Theater in his short time in Los Angeles. He is excited and honored to bring Boney Manilli to life with a phenomenal director and cast. Alex is a walking testimony that “you can become anything you aspire to be.”

Efé, affectionately known as MamaE, has brought a 40-year Chicago foundation of professional concert dance, teaching and arts administration to LA where an actor flowed forth. Winning the DC Black Film Festival 2019 Best Actress Award for her role in Tony Scott’s, “TOGETHER”, Efé is grateful for opportunities extended to continue her deep commitment to a life of enlightenment, illumination and the beauty that lies in telling stories through all media outlets. Grandmother to an actor and musician, she thanks her beautiful talented daughter Mei-Ling for opening this fascinating world to her. Efé is delighted to be part of Edgar Arceneaux’s, Boney Manilli!! Instagram: grandmaefe.

Design & Production Team

Born in 1972, Los Angeles-based artist Edgar Arceneaux received a BFA from the Art Center College of Design and a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Arceneaux constructs drawings, installations, video and film works as complex arrangements of association that examine adjacencies and points of contact between implausible relations. Constantly working in new modes, Arceneaux directed his first play at the Performa Biannual in NYC in November 2015, for his first play Until, Until, Until... and was awarded the Malcolm McLaren, Best of Show Award. His new play, film and installation is entitled Boney Manilli, and is loosely inspired by the infamous pop duo Milli Vanilli. Staged in Nigeria at the Lagos Theater Festival in Spring 2019, the work will premiere in the US in 2023 at the REDCAT. Arceneaux received the prestigious Mike Kelley Foundation Award in 2019 and the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship in 2020.

Ratri Anindyajati is an Independent Producer for the arts, managing national and international tours and represents both Indonesian and international artists globally. Ratri currently sits as Director for the Indonesian Dance Festival (IDF), Jakarta’s first international contemporary dance festival. Artists she represents include Didik Nini Thowok (Indonesia) and Edgar Arceneaux (USA). Her projects include dance, theater, arts festivals, exhibitions and independent films. She has a Bachelors in Political Science from Parahyangan Catholic University (Bandung-Indonesia) and in 2017 she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Producing and Management from the Theater Department from California Institute of the Arts (Los Angeles-USA).

Xiaoyue Zhang is a Chinese interdisciplinary artist, production manager, and creative producer working at the intersection of performance, dance, photography, and film. Her producing, production management, and directing works have been shown at multiple significant venues and institutions locally and nationally, including The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, The Getty Villa, CalArts Center for New Performance, the Orchard Project, LA Performance Practice, REDCAT New Original Works Festival, Hollywood Fringe Festival, Guangdong Museum of Art (China) and Short Film Corner of the 2018 Cannes International Film Festival.

Gefei Liu is a creative producer/theater artist originally from Chongqing, China and physically based in LA. One of the founders of HowBang!Club, a virtual-based theater collective, she is interested in exploring the impact of storytelling and in creating unusual theater experiences. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Producing at California Institute of the Arts. More at gefeiliu.com

Macy E. Kunke (Stage Manager) is originally from Dallas, Texas. She is a graduate of Stephen's College and a current MFA resident at the California Institute of the Arts. During REDCAT's last season, she was assistant stage manager for Scene with Cranes. Recent credits include Beautiful, The Seagull, Men on Boats, and the world premieres of Nicky and the Angels and daughter. When she is not stage managing, Macy is an award-winning playwright for her one-acts The Appointment, Good Taste in Neighbors, and Paper Airplanes. Her next play, an intimate and immersive horror-comedy titled Unveiling the Veil, will be produced in Los Angeles in Spring 2024.

Omar Madkour is a Lighting Designer from Cairo, Egypt and currently located in the United States. His designs have been presented in various countries, festivals and venues such as The Maxim Gorki Theatre (Berlin), BoZar (Brussels), Shubbak Festival (London), D-CAF (Cairo), UNAM (Mexico City) and others. Credits vary from classical theatre to new works and experimental performance. Selected credits in Los Angeles include Young-Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die at the Bootleg Theatre; The Chandelier at The Wallis Annenberg (Heidi Duckler Dance) and No Exit at Lee Strasberg Institute.

Loren Weldon is a Costume and Fashion Designer taking inspiration from the visual, tactile, and auditory to create immersive experiences. Her most recent works include Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side at REDCAT Disney Hall (Dir: Monty Cole), Because You’re Worth It at Sharon Disney Lund Theatre (Choreographer:Tokie Wang) Summer Junebugs at CalArts Coffeehouse Theatre (Dir: Hunter Abal-Sadeq) Birds and The Curiosity at Hudson Theatre (Dir: Gefei Liu) Bacchae at CalArts Butler Building (Dir: Anthony Niklochev) Pelleas et Melisande at CalArts Virtual Theatre Festival (Dir: Charles Yee).

Yuki Shiyu Ding is a scenic designer based in LA and an MFA candidate for Scenic Design and Art & Technology at CalArts. With a background in painting and printmaking, her understanding of colors, textures, and spatial dynamics enables her designs to narrate stories in immersive and vivid ways. She enjoys listening to the stories of others and helping them visually express their narratives. You can find her at @yuki.shiyu_ding (Instagram) or yukidingdesign@gmail.com

Kam Ying (Kamyi) Lee is a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist and video designer who is interested in experimental uses of digital media for art installations and live performances. She specializes in architectural projection and has designed both nationally and internationally in theater, dance and concerts. Kamyi’s selected video design credits include Wizard of Oz (B Street Theater, Sacramento), The Chandelier (The Wallis, Los Angeles), Witkacy/Two-Headed Calf (Divine Comedy International Theatre Festival, Poland). She is the founder of Macau-based creative design studio Atelier Cocorico and has an MFA in Interactive Media for Performance from the California Institute of the Arts. More at cocorico.mo

Miguel Ayala is a multimedia artist from San Bernardino who lives and works in LA. He has been working to develop art rock band “Cardboard Department” an interdisciplinary performance collective working in performance, song, and visual work mining an interest in the usage of expanded narratives found in the histories of humor, theater, cartoons, children’s literature, and broadcast television; to further examine and navigate the interaction of art & life & the formation of narrative via storytelling and communal experience.

Boney Manilli

Acting Company

Design & Production Team

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