Kristin Marting is a producer, artistic director, curator, director, writer and co-founder (with Tim Maner, Barbara Busackino, Randy Rollison) of HERE, an institution functioning as a producer (under the banner HARP), presenter (under the banner The Prototype Festival co-founded with Beth Morrison), and venue housing a gallery and café as well as physical theaters (2 or 3 depending on the year) within its walls.  At first it was a collaborative concept for its founders to create their specific work while inviting outside theaters (seven including Target Margin, Elevator Repair Service, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, and Foundry Theatre) to also stage their works on the property.  The tasks of management, producing, and scheduling remained with the founders while the maintenance of the space and their audiences remained with the invited artistic groups.  As it developed, HERE, always a space for artistic collaboration, created artist-inspired projects such as the Dream Music Puppetry Program with Basil Twist’s first show SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, mentored by Twist thereafter, becoming a permanent part of HERE.  At HERE artists found a space to nurture an idea, fully funded and supported, ending with a public performance.  Marting also constructed 9 opera-theatre and music-theatre works and currently is developing 3 opera-theatre works with Stefania de Kenessey/Annie Finch, Paul Pinto, and Kamala Sankaram.  As Marting says in her interview, “None of the work we do is commercial work,” yet HERE has served over 15,000 artists, and produced and presented over 1,200 original works to an audience of over 1,000,000 people. Its core annual audience of 30,000 is in the 20-40 year old age range.  HERE has been awarded 16 OBIE Awards, 2 OBIE grants and a CUNY Booth Award for Artistic Achievement, 2 Berilla Kerr Awards, 4 NY Innovative Theatre Awards, 2 Bessie Awards, 2 Pulitzer Prizes, 1 Pulitzer nomination, 6 Drama Desk nominations, 2 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowships and most recently, 7 Tony nominations.  Some HERE productions include:  Robert Lyons’ DOSTOEVSKY COLLABORATIONS: THE POSSESSED [1991], THE FEVER [2001], THE IDIOT [2016],  Eve Ensler’s THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES [1996], Elevator Repair Service’s HIGHWAY TO TOMORROW [2000], Taylor Mac’s THE BE(A)ST OF TAYLOR MAC [2007], THE YOUNG LADIES OF...[2007], TAYLOR TALKS [2021], THE HANG [2022], THE LILY’S REVENGE [2009],  James Scruggs’ DISPOSABLE MEN [2005], RUS [2007], ARIAS WITH A TWIST [2008], LUSH VALLEY [2011], TRADE PRACTICES [2014], Geoff Sobelle & Trey Lyford’s ALL WEAR BOWLERS [2017], Kamala Sankaram/Rob Handel/Kristin Marting’s, Paul Pinto’s THOMAS PAINE IN VIOLENCE [2017], Basil Twist’s SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE [2018], PETER AND THE STARGAZER [2019], ONLY YOU WILL RECOGNIZE THE SIGNAL [2020], Heather Christian’s TERCE: A PRACTICAL BREVIARY [2024], JOAN OF THE CITY (tbd),

Kristin Marting, at the age of 12, wrote and performed in The Mysterious Death of Irwin Schwartz.  Her mother, to persuade her she’d like moving to New York City, took her to see Annie as well as to the Rainbow Room.  Marting, once in New York, followed the downtown music scene at clubs like The Pyramid Club, Danceteria, and Berlin which exposed her to multi-discipline performance artists like Karen Finley.  She was accepted into New York University’s Stella Adler Studio of Acting and then after one semester transferred to Playwrights Horizons new theater school directing program where she immediately felt at home. She directed eight full-length shows before graduating, working with John Wulp, Bernie Telsey, Robert Moss, Travis Preston, Royston Coppenger, Kevin Kuhlke, Joseph Chaikin, and Anne Bogart.  At NYU in 1986, she assisted Robert Wilson on Heiner Muller’s HAMLETMACHINE, winning an Obie.  Also working with Jennifer Tipton, she continued working with Robert Wilson on subsequent productions like SALOME touring Milan and coaching actors as well as assisting the director.  Marting co-founded with Tim Maner and Kristin Ames The Tiny Mythic Theatre Company, a company for young directors, which begot The American Living Room Festival in 1989. The scope of Marting’s work embraces multi-technical disciplines, puppets, music, dance, film and most recently opera in this country and all over the world.