Who is he?
About Spencer Livingston
Spencer's first stage role was the Big Billy Goat in his kindergarten production of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". This was quickly followed by a role as an angel in a church play, and the narrator of the fable "Cinderella" in first grade. At age seven he had his first lead role as "The Littlest Angel". He worked in community theatre growing up, playing, among other roles, Conrad Birdie at age 14 in "Bye Bye Birdie". At age 18 he formed the Mummers, a street theatre group in upstate New York, and later the Dada perfomance group Heatray. He also performed with the Bread and Puppet Theatre during the anitwar days of the early seventies. In 1973 he formed the Labor Theatre Workshop, an agit-prop picket line theatre group funded by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education. He also at this time began producing independent films.
In 1976 he began presenting performance art pieces at Workspace, the upstate New York arts collective. Workspace remained his venue for two years, until his relocation to New Orleans. His shows there included his experimental films, music performances, dance pieces, and theatre experiments, including the notorious "Livingston Eats Dali Like a Foot-long Hot Dog", in which he railed against the commercialism of Salvador Dali and ate one of Dali's works in protest. A later performance piece, which included his actual marriage to an actress/collaborator and the documentation of their subsequent living together, degenerated into a traumatic experience that led him to stop peforming and take up oil painting. In New Orleans, he returned to acting, performing music, writing and choreographing dance pieces, and gardening. He survived the storm and works in New Orleans today.
Resume
Spencer Livingston
email: Sclaymore9@aim.com
web site: www.spencerlivingston.com
Selected Theatre Experience:
Show Role Venue
Waiting for Godot (Beckett) Estragon SUNY Oswego Art Gallery
A Phoenix Too Frequent (Frye) The Soldier SchenectadyCommunityCollege
Bye Bye Birdie Conrad Birdie Costello Community Theatre
27 Wagons Full of Cotton (Williams) Jake Workspace, Albany, NY
Offending the Audience (Handke) Reader CDPC Theatre, Albany, NY
The Bear (Chekov) Luca True Brew Theatre, New Orleans
Snakehead The Magician Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
Southern Fried Chickie Daddy True Brew Theatre, New Orleans
Pop Goes the Dada Master of Ceremonies The Big Top, New Orleans
Performed with the Bread and Puppet Theatre, 1970-71; Artistic Director of The Mummers, agit-prop theatre group, 1970-72; Artistic Director of Heatray, dada performance art group, 1972-76; Artistic Director of the Labor Theatre Workshop, AFL-CIO funded educational theatre group, 1972-74; musician and visuals technician with Electronic Body Arts Dance Music Theatre, 1975-78; Choreographer for Savannah-Fleshapoids Dance Ensemble, 1976-78: experience in set painting, sound, lighting, stage managing, and directing.
Selected Film Experience:
Film Role Director/Production company
Teenage Drug Addiction Billy the Junkie Cyrus Veeser
Your Cheatin’ Heart The Boyfriend Grey Film Atelier
Radio/1917 Rasputin Dan McKenney
10th Perspecktive Richard Speck Robyn Menzel/Quiet Blade
One Night at the Saturn Bar Richard Robyn Menzel/Quiet Blade
The Flames of Love The Killer Dan McKenney
Ray State Senator Taylor Hackford
Love Song for Bobby Long Bar patron Shainee Gabel
A Separate Madness Victor Landry Miroslava Turk
A Perfect Day Homeless Man Peter Levin
The Riches The Driver Carl Franklin/Eddie Izzard
Curious Case of Benjamin Button Train Conductor David Fincher
Seconds From Disaster Rescuer National Geographic
The Oldest Story Ever Told Mr. Success Josh Johnson
Lucien Rivard Prisoner Charles Biname’
K-Ville Coroner Fox Television
Welcome to Academia Professor Kirk Davis
Waking Madison Art Patron Katherine Brooks
Meet the Spartans Senator Jason Freedberg
Directed and acted in over 50 self-produced independent films; voice-over and television commercial experience; professional musician and recording artist; singer; instrumentalist; composer; oil painter; photographer; writer; Spanish and Russian; printmaker; sculptor; four children; one dog; one cat; stand-up comedy; teacher and lecturer.
