a theatrical concert film by The Kilbanes
directed by Tamilla Woodard
“Gorgeous music, ferocious performances and a dazzlingly original structure! The Kilbanes could fly endlessly into space on a single, hypnotically executed chord… To watch this show is to be reanimated with a childlike sense that our choices have magical origins and magical ripple effects.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Weightless has a well-crafted form, and its spoken dialogue melds beautifully with the propulsive score. Weightless is an accomplished work, and an entertaining one.” —NY Times
Sisterhood. Love. Betrayal. Flight. Weaving together ancient myth and indie rock, Weightless tells the tale of two deeply devoted sisters, Procne and Philomela, separated by circumstance, who must travel across worlds and make devastating sacrifices in order to reunite, and the god who shapes and is shaped by that journey. Inspired by a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Weightless is a visual concept album—the band and the cast are one and the same—blurring the line between actors and musicians, between musical theater, video art, and rock concert, and between the virtual world and a world in which we can all hold and feel one another again.
Kilbane (Procne/Bass) and Moses (Keyboards/Vocals) are joined onscreen by fellow performer/band members Lila Blue (Philomela), Kofy Brown (Iris/Percussion), Joshua Pollock (Tereus/Guitar), and Dan Harris (Percussion). The creative team includes Video Editor Katherine Freer (Lifespan of a Fact, The Band’s Visit), Title Designer Yee Eun Nam (The Fall of the House of Usher), Cinematographer Peggy Peralta (award-winning documentaries Harana, and A New Color), Production & Costume Designer David Israel Reynoso (Sleep No More) and Sound Editor Gregory T. Kuhn (Horizon, Lortel Award). Weightless was line produced by WP BOLD Special Projects Producer, Nidia Medina.
Filmed under strict COVID guidelines at CalShakes’ Bruns Amphitheater, a spectacular outdoor performance space in the Bay Area, Weightless intertwines animation, live rock performance, and storytelling into a musical experience like no other.
The world premiere of Weightless was developed and produced by Z Space (Lisa Steindler, Executive Artistic Director) and piece by piece productions in March 2018 at Z Space in San Francisco. The show was developed at TheaterSquared as part of the Arkansas New Play Festival.
KATE KILBANE & DAN MOSES
KATE KILBANE (Author/Procne/Bass, She/Her) & DAN MOSES (Author/Keyboard, He/Him). The Kilbanes are a theatrical rock band led by married songwriting duo Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses. Their rock musical Weightless ran at ACT after productions at the Public Theatre’s Under the Radar Festival and Z Space in San Francisco. Weightless received the highest rating from the SF Chronicle as well as a Bay Area Critics Circle Awards nomination for Best New Music. Their piece, Eddie the Marvelous, Who Will Save the World, was selected for the O’Neill National Music Conference in 2018. Eddie got its start at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor and was featured at Theatreworks’ New Works Festival. The Kilbanes collaborated with SF Shakespeare Festival on a musical version of As You Like It that played throughout the Bay Area. They currently have commissions with Theatreworks Silicon Valley and ACT’s Youth Conservatory program and have collaborated on several pieces with nationallyrenowned playwright Lauren Gunderson.
TAMILLA WOODARD
(Director, She/Her) was recently named one of 50 Women to Watch on Broadway, she is the co-artistic director of Working Theater in New York; the founder of the site specific international partnership, PopUP Theatrics; and the associate director of Tony Award-winning Hadestown on Broadway. Prior to joining Working Theater, she served as the BOLD associate artistic director at WP Theater. She has directed at theaters nationally and internationally, including at WP Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, American Conservatory Theater, Classical Theater of Harlem, The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts with TheaterWorksUSA, and The Cleveland Public Theatre, among others. Recent highlights include the world premiere of Donnetta Lavinia Gray’s award-winning Where We Stand at WP Theatre, Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater, and the critically acclaimed immersive off-Broadway production of 3/Fifths, by James Scruggs. Currently, she is represented online with the visionary, interactive digital tour of American Dreams, which she directs and developed with Leila Buck. Her work has been recognized with an Off-Broadway Alliance Award and Lucille Lortel Nomination. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, where she also teaches.
KOFY BROWN
(Iris/Percussion, She/Her). An Oakland, Calif. musician, singer and songwriter, she has been a pioneering force in the Bay Area’s hip-hop soul/rock scene. She’s played the prestigious North Sea Jazz Festival, toured with Iggy Pop, and played with Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, Macy Gray and others as well as placing music on MTV, OWN and other independent films. Her band, the KBB (Kofy Brown Band), have spread the gospel of Brown’s unique style of soul, rock, funk and more all-over North America, Canada and Europe while on tour. She is also the drummer/singer for Skip the Needle and bassist/singer for Sistas in the Pit. Her new release, Child of Providence, an homage to her great, great grandfather Providence Powers, is released on her indie label Simba Music. This is her 10th release – available on all electronic formats.
DAN HARRIS
(Percussion, He/Him) has been the drummer with the Kilbanes for over 10 years. He also plays with San Francisco rock band Society of Rockets. In the early and mid-2000s he produced hip hop with various rappers in St. Louis, and played drums with the St. Louis hip hop band Sac Lunch. When not drumming, he develops cutting-edge digital audio technologies for consumer electronics and professional audio companies. He received his Master of Science degree in Music Engineering Technology from the University of Miami Frost School of Music.
JOSH POLLOCK
(Tereus/Guitar, He/Him) is an actor, composer, and musician who’s performed throughout the world in about 4,000 bands and in collaborations with the likes of John Cale, Flea, Acid Mothers Temple, and Van Dyke Parks, amongst others. He was last seen on stage as Catesby in Cal Shakes’ The War Of The Roses, on television as Wolverine #2 in the series Trauma (NBC), and on film as Coughing Man in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. He can also be heard narrating the audiobook of I’m Your Man: The Life Of Leonard Cohen, by Sylvie Simmons. JoshPollockInc.com
Katherine Freer
(Editor She/Her) Katherine Freer is a multimedia artist, filmmaker, organizer, and educator. Her artistic practice lives at the intersection of story, technology, and civic engagement. It is rooted in joy, curiosity, mutual learning, and the pursuit of justice for all living beings. She is core collaborator with All My Relations Collective, Projections Design Instructor at University of the Arts (Philadelphia), and a Teaching Artist with Roundabout Education. She is a proud member of Wingspace Theatrical Design and United Scenic Artists Local 829. katherinefreer.com
Hilton J. Day
(First Assistant Director, He/Him) is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. Born in Chicago, IL and raised in the East Bay Area, his passion for filmmaking began at a very young age and followed him throughout his life. Day graduated from San Francisco State University in 2012 with a degree of Bachelor of the Arts in Cinema, as well as a minor in Africana Studies. After college, he began to work professionally in the AD Department on feature films, television shows, commercials, and music videos.
Day works primarily as a 1st Assistant Director. Fluid communication between departments is his top priority whenever he is working on a project. In pre-production, Day is diligent and thorough in establishing a detailed script breakdown and realistic shooting schedule. On set, his duties are to keep the entire crew safe and the production on schedule, all while working to ensure every shot is executed with precision. Day has worked on several feature film and television productions including ‘Sorry To Bother You’ 2018, ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’ 2019, and ‘Black Bear’ 2020.
GREGORY T. KUHN
(Sound Editor, He/Him) is a multidisciplinary collaborator in the performing and fine arts with decades of production, composition, sound and visual design credits. He collaborates on diverse projects for opera, theater, dance, multimedia, and contemporary music performances. Recognition includes the Isadora Duncan Award for S.F. Ballet’s Ballet Mori (2007, Goldberg/Packer), and the Lucille Lortel Award for Rinde Eckert’s Horizon (2008, dir. David Schweizer.) He also served as Production Manager for SFJAZZ (2013-15) and Director of Production for Kronos Quartet (2015-17.) Recent premieres include World’s On Fire by ODC (Weare/Way) and Iron Shoes (Kitka/Shotgun Players.)
YEE EUN NAM
(Title Design, She/Her) is an award-winning set and video designer for opera, theater and any form for live performances based in LA. Recent design works include The Fall of the House of Usher (Boston Lyric Opera/ Opera Box.tv), Close Quarters (Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra), Ghost Gun (Goodman Theatre), Legacy Land (Kansas City Rep), Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Aubergine, The Canadians (South Coast Rep), Black Super Hero Magic Mama (Geffen Playhouse), Sweat (Mark Taper Forum), Bordertown Now (Pasadena Playhouse), Mother of Henry, Members Only (Latino Theater Company), Citizen: An American Lyric (Kirk Douglas Theatre, Fountain Theater. Since 2020, she has been creating digital content and video art for the San Francisco Symphony, Boston Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, LA Opera On Now, Goodman Theatre, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, The Movement Theatre Company. She is currently working as one of the production designers of Close Quarters with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Yee Eun has multiple nominations for LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award and is a winner of LADCC Theatrical Excellence for CGI/Video in 2020. She is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829. MFA in Theater Design at UCLA. BFA in Design and Metal Craft at SNU in Seoul, Korea. Portfolio: www.yeeeunnam.com
PEGGY PERALTA
(Cinematographer, She/Her) Born and raised in the Philippines, Peggy at age 23, migrated to San Francisco in pursuit of living a creative life. There she earned an MFA in Motion Pictures from the Academy of Art University, fell more deeply in love with cinema and discovered her love for flying cameras. She is now a certified Steadicam Operator, one of the very few women practitioners in the industry world-wide. As a cinematographer, her work is distinct for its heart, energy and perspective. Every project she dives into becomes an opportunity to discover, create and inspire. She was awarded Best Emerging Filmmaker by SF International Women’s Film Festival in 2005. Since then, she has continued to be a trusted collaborator of many directors, shooting projects funded by organizations like San Francisco Film Society, Danish Arts Council and French National Center of Fine Arts. Her works have screened in film festivals around the globe including the Rotterdam International Film Festival & Busan International Film Festival among others. In 2013, she received a Cinematography Special Jury Award from the LA Asian Pacific Film Fest for lensing the documentary Harana. A New Color, her 2nd feature documentary, premiered at the 2015 Mill Valley Film Festival. Both feature documentaries won Audience Awards in various film festivals and have aired on PBS. She is passionate about telling stories that amplify alternative voices. She believes in the power of cinema to not only entertain but to also challenge our ways of seeing, thinking and feeling. She continues to thrive as an artist in San Francisco, a city she’s proud to call her second home. In 2019 she embarked on an indie feature called This Is Your Song, a cinematic feat that challenged her to light and shoot a 97 minute handheld oner.
DAVID ISRAEL REYNOSO
(Production & Costume Designer, He/Him) is an internationally renowned, scenic, costume, and exhibit designer, as well as the Obie Award–winning costume designer of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More (Boston, New York and Shanghai). His celebrated theatrical designs have been featured at The Finnish National Ballet, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, Portland Center Stage, American Repertory Theater, Arena Stage, Seattle Repertory Theater, among many others. Reynoso is the founder of OPTIKA MODERNA and the creator of Portaleza (2020), Las Quinceañeras (2019) and Waking La Llorona (2017). His scope of work extends beyond theater/film to include designs for globally recognized theme parks and companies such as: Meow Wolf, 13Exp and The San Diego Museum of Us. www.davidreynoso.com.
