MASS MoCA started off the new year by opening our stages and studios to the creative team behind English with an Accent, a new production in development by multidisciplinary performance artist Migguel Anggelo with musical direction by Jaime Lozano and directed and choreographed by Sarah O’Gleby. The tale of a recently emigrated “insect” in New York City, English with an Accent is inspired by Anggelo’s own story as a Venezuelan transplant, and explores the poetic parallels between the immigrant experience and the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to butterfly. The work will be released as both a concept album of original music and a video album of musical, narrative shorts for virtual presentation.

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About the artists
With the “showmanship of Desi Arnaz and the performance art of Klaus Nomi” (Theater Scene), Migguel Anggelo is a Venezuelan born, Brooklyn-based, interdisciplinary performing artist whose work combines personal storytelling with movement, costume, and original music. Invoking muses from art history and mining his journeys as a Latino immigrant and a queer man, this 2019 Joe’s Pub Working Group resident and a 2020 New York Presenters Consortium resident artist is currently developing a major, new stage work entitled ENGLISH WITH AN ACCENT which explores the poetic parallels between the immigrant experience and the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to butterfly.

Sarah O’Gleby (Director, Choreographer) is lauded for her work on stage, film, and television, Sarah’s credits include Shucked (upcoming Broadway), Annie Get Your Gun (Bay Street), High Button Shoes (Encores at City Center), Kennedy Center Honors (CBS), Mythic (London), The Wanderer (Upcoming Papermill Playhouse), and Chick Flick The Musical (Off-Broadway). Sarah also choreographs for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and SNL (NBC). As a creative director for brand events, Sarah has worked with NBC, Hermes, Target, and the Robin Hood Foundation. Some Associate credits include Disney’s Frozen (Broadway), Academy Awards 2013-15, Tony Awards opening numbers, Ted 2 (Universal), The Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood, and Peter Pan LIVE.

Jaime Lozano (Music Co‐Writer, Musical Director, Arranger) is an accomplished musician, composer, arranger, and producer, heralded as the “next big thing” by Hamilton’s Lin‐Manuel Miranda. His credits include the Yellow Brick Road (Off‐Broadway and National Tour), Carmen La Cubana (European Tour), Children of Salt (NYMF 2016 “Best of Fest” Production), among many others. A native of Monterrey, Mexico, he has an MFA from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Jaime is a 2020 Joe’s Pub Working Group resident artist, a teacher and activist for the NYC‐based not‐for‐profit organization R.Evolucion Latina. As Migguel Anggelo’s longtime collaborator, the two have co-created Anggelo’s LatinXoxo as well as performed So Close: Love & Hate and are at work on a new immigration musical with playwright Christina Quintana entitled The Last Supper.

David Stark (Producer, Production Supervisor) is a renowned New York‐based producer, designer, author, as well as the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of David Stark Design and Production. As an innovator and leader in the event production and design industries for over 25 years, Stark produces experiences that blur the line between live performance, installation art, experiential marketing, and cutting‐edge design. Over the course of his career, Stark has collaborated with a diverse array of artists and cultural institutions, including The Metropolitan Opera, Sundance Institute, Sony Music, The Shed, Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Theatre of Great Britain, SNL, Glenn Close, Brad Pitt, and Jennifer Hudson to name a handful. As a producer and production designer for Migguel Anggelo and his team, David Stark co‐produced LatinXoxo, So Close: Love and Hate, Welcome to La Misa, Baby, and Another Son of Venezuela, among others.

MASS MoCA’s Artist-in-Residence program is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Additional support is provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund, part of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund, an initiative of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with major funding from the federal CARES Act from the National Endowment for the Arts.