Connor Kizer

Connor Kizer was born in Rochester, NY and raised in Phoenix, NY. He attended college at SUNY Purchase. Afterward he moved to Baltimore, MD as a founding member of the Wham City Arts Collective. He has shown work across the United States with Wham City and with his own projects, and been active in Baltimore with the Annex Theater, and other local organizations.

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Connor Kizer 1123 Gorsuch Ave, Baltimore, MD 21218 [email protected] [phone] 

Collaborative Projects

2003-2012 Ram Ones

2004 Wham City's Beauty and the Beast – Lumiere, Wham City (Copycat location), Baltimore MD

2005-2012 Santa Dads

2005 Sad Little Pony – the Sire, Current Gallery, Baltimore MD

2006 A New Play – narrator, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore MD

2007 Wham City Theater Night – various Baltimore Theater Project, Baltimore MD

2007-present   The Creepers

2008 They Should All Be Destroyed:  A Jurassic Park Play – Muldoon, Northeast Tour

2009 “Letters” (co-writer) – Reality and Revenge Ten Minute Play Festival, Leg, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2009 Matsukaze – voice of Matsukaze, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2009 Wham City and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – various, Deleon White Gallery, Toronto ONT

2010 Collinsport  (co-writer) – Man in the Iron Mask, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD 

2011 Tlon (writer/director/performer)- Artscape, Baltimore MD

2010-12 Wham City Comedy Tour - various

2012- Less Miserable - Thenardier, Missoula Oblongata, Northeast Tour

2014 Chronotony – (writer/director/producer) E.M.P. Collective, Fields Festival, Baltimore MD

2014 Potatoes of August – Potato. E.M.P. Collective, Baltimore MD

2015 Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman – Grandpa, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2015 Behold! The Man – (writer/director) E.M.P. Collective, Baltimore MD

2015 The Magic Flute – Priest, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2015 Seasonings: A Musical Menu – (co-writer/director) Mondo Festo, Baltimore MD

2016 Adam’s Run – (co-director) Rodney Richards, Rhymes with Opera, New York City, NY

2016-present The Flowery

2016 The Flower Queen – (writer/director/producer/performer) Monster, Zodiac, Baltimore MD

2017 Fruits – Zane, Feral Woman, Baltimore MD

2017 A Good Man Is Hard to Find – (writer/producer) Bailey, Feral Woman, Baltimore MD

2017 (pending) Trool Day ­­– Gurgiev, Adult Swim, Atlanta GA

Theater

2004 Wham City's Beauty and the Beast – Lumiere, Wham City (Copycat location), Baltimore MD

2005 Sad Little Pony – the Sire, Current Gallery, Baltimore MD

2006 A New Play – narrator, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore MD

2007 Wham City Theater Night – various Baltimore Theater Project, Baltimore MD

2009 “Letters” (co-writer) – Reality and Revenge Ten Minute Play Festival, Leg, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2009 Matsukaze – voice of Matsukaze, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2009 Wham City and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – various, Deleon White Gallery, Toronto ONT

2010 Collinsport  (co-writer) – Man in the Iron Mask, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD 

2011 Tlon (writer/director/performer)- Artscape, Baltimore MD

2010-12 Wham City Comedy Tour - various

2012- Less Miserable - Thenardier, Missoula Oblongata, Northeast Tour

2014 Chronotony – (writer/director/producer) E.M.P. Collective, Fields Festival, Baltimore MD

2014 Potatoes of August – Potato. E.M.P. Collective, Baltimore MD

2015 Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman – Grandpa, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2015 Behold! The Man – (writer/director) E.M.P. Collective, Baltimore MD

2015 The Magic Flute – Priest, Annex Theater, Baltimore MD

2015 Seasonings: A Musical Menu – (co-writer/director) Mondo Festo, Baltimore MD

2016 The Flower Queen – (writer/director/producer/performer) Monster, Zodiac, Baltimore MD

2017 Fruits – Zane, Feral Woman, Baltimore MD

2017 A Good Man Is Hard to Find – (writer/producer) Bailey, Feral Woman, Baltimore MD

Film

2016 Adam’s Run – (co-director) Rodney Richards, Rhymes with Opera, New York City, NY

2017 (pending) Trool Day ­­– Gurgiev, Adult Swim, Atlanta GA

Lectures

2005  “On Temporal Dimensions” – Wham City Lecture Series – Wham City (Copycat location), Baltimore MD

2005-9 “Slitherpuss Stories” – various

2008 “Emergence of Consciousness into the Noosphere” – Transmodern Festival, Baltimore MD

2008  “Emergence of Consciousness into the Noosphere” – Wham City at the Walters Museum, Baltimore MD

2009 “Connor Kizer and His Psychopomoi” – Transmodern 2009 Fundraiser, 5th Dimension, Baltimore MD

2009  “Connor Kizer’s Cosmology” – Fluxus Festival, SUNY Purchase

2009 Transmodern 2010 Fundraiser co-host – Floristree, Baltimore MD

2009 “Nazi Ice World Cosmology” – Wham City Lecure Series – Zodiac, Baltimore MD

2010 “The Pain of Words and Names” – WORMS Reading Series, Zodiac, Baltimore MD 

2012 "Alien Advertising Effects Us All"- Wham City Educational Seminar, Northeast Tour

2013 “Pseudohistories” – Wham City Lecture Series, Zodiac Baltimore MD

2013 “Cosmology” – Wham City Lecture Series, Zodiac Baltimore MD

2014 “The Hope of Televsion” – Wham City Lecture Series, Zodiac Baltimore MD

2016 “Cultures That Never Were” – Wham City Lecture Series, The Crown Baltimore MD

2016 “The Dangers of Vigilantism in Tentpole Blockbusters” – Johns Hopkins Film Festival, Baltimore MD

 Curatorial

2006-2012 Wham City Lecture Series

2007 Wham City Christmas Spectacular (co-writer) – Load of Fun Theater, Baltimore MD

2008 Dreamteam performance – Wham City (Calvert Street location), Baltimore MD 

Publications

2005-present Infomorph:  Project Psychopomp, issues 1-4 – philosophical texts, self-published

2006  “The New Gender” – short story, Catatac Magazine

2008  “The Incomplete Dictionary of Zasaa” – lexicon,  Wham City Box Set #1, Whitney Museum

2009 “Connor Kizer’s Cosmology” – powerpoint/DVD, Invisible College Productions 

Music

2003-2012 Ram Ones

2005-2012 Santa Dads

2007-present   The Creepers

2007 Dan Deacon, Spiderman of the Rings (Car Park Records), studio musician (vocals)

2009 Dan Deacon, Bromst (Car Park Records), studio musician (trumpet)

2016-present The Flowery

Awards, Honors, Residencies

Resident Director – E.M.P. Collective 2015

Best Lecture Series – Wham City Lecture Series- Baltimore Magazine 2009

Best Non-Musical Bar Act – Wham City Lecture Series – City Paper Best of Baltimore 2009

Best Hive – Wham City – City Paper Best of Baltimore 2006 

Enhanced Awareness Honors – Teller of Tales that Tingle - 2012

Resident Director – E.M.P. Collective 2015

 Press

"Crazy Diamonds" - Arts section feature on Wham City - March 16, 2007

"The Sound and the Furry" - Arts section feature on Santa Dads - City Paper, April 4, 2007

“Out of Speech” – Arts section feature article on Wham City Lecture Series – City Paper, March 2, 2010

“Connor Kizer's play imagines all time as a single moment” – Arts section feature article on original play Chronotony – City Paper, April 30, 2014

“Childhood goes dark in 'The Flower Queen'” – Arts/Stage, City Paper, October, 9, 2016

“ENTER THE REALM OF THE FLOWER QUEEN: AN INTERVIEW WITH ALLISON CLENDANIEL AND CONNOR KIZER” – Theatrebloom.com, October 18, 2016

“REVIEW: THE FLOWER QUEEN AT YELLOW SIGN THEATRE” – Theatrebloom.com, October 20, 2016

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Click here for the Commission on Omens, Portents, and Signs Report Form.

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C.O.P.S

The Commission on Omens, Portents, and Signs (C.O.P.S.) has been formed to serve as a central monitoring service for global divination. We invite you to report any omens, portents, or signs (whether they be tarot card readings, Yi Ching casts, dreams, or just songs that are stuck in your head) via the form provided. We will analyze these reports down to their component symbols, and use these to craft a global forecast aggregated from all reported divination. The more reports we get, from more areas of the globe, the better job we can do with our global forecasts, so please encourage others to report their omens, portents, and signs. We do not need to know any details of your life, or how your reported item relates to it, and anonymity is a priority for us. The Commission on Omens, Portents, and Signs thanks you for your help, and your participation.

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Image by Kevin Sherry

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Behold the Man is an adaptation of the 1969 novel by Michael Moorecock. The first act bounces back and forth between Karl Glogaur’s arrival amongst the Essenes of the Middle Eastern desert in the year 28AD, and Karl’s troubled, existential crisis of a life growing up in the sixties. The second act mostly follows Karl’s exploits as he becomes the figure that the Christ story is based on, with brief interludes explaining how he came by the time machine that allowed him to travel back into the past.  The actors quickly shed costumes as personas as they quickly speed through scenes that last less than a minute, portraying over 60 characters over the course of the play.

 The play was performed at the EMP Collective in Baltimore April 9-19, 2015, while Connor Kizer was a resident Director for the EMP collective. The cast was:

               Jake Budenz, Sarah Jacklin, Madison Coan, Lucia Treasure, Aaron Estes, Lorenzo Baeza, Dave Iden

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“Muezzin” performed at ScapeScape 2012. (video by Tomas Kesslerr)

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Photo and Drawing by Dina Kelberman, a sister dad

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From the WildfireWildfire website, as writen by Joshua Kelberman:

“We, The Santa Dads, create music through voice, multivocular technique, ukulele, trumpet, and the occasional french horn and organ. We create to express our philosophical, metaphysical, scientific, and religious understandings; more specifically, our perceptions, conceptions, and experience of existence, time, information theory, and the spirits. Namely, we are Joshua Kelberman & Connor Kizer.

We are based in Baltimore, MD and are founding members of Wham City, a friendly collective of artists. Since April 2005, we have played numerous shows in Baltimore and have toured repeatedly throughout the east, west, north, and south of the United States with Dan Deacon, Video Hippos and Ecstatic Sunshine.

We love and praise The Anima Mundi, The Blind Elemental Forces, The Father, The Mother, The Son, The Daughter, The Spirits, The Stars, The Planets, The Plants, The Animals, The Minerals, and all fellow Humans, et al, ad infinitum.”

– The Santa Dads

April 2007

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Episode: What is the Noosphere?

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The Infomorph’s Guide to the Noosphere is a series of PowerPoint presentations detailing my theories on the Noosphere. Episodes will include the structure of the Noosphere, Your Existence in the Noosphere, Inhabitants of the Noosphere, A Noetic History of Existence.

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Theatre Bloom Review

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Theatre Bloom Article

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Baltimore City Paper Article

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Kevin Sherry’s poster for the Flower Queen

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The Flower Queen is a play about a little girl becoming imaginary friends with the monster under her bed. This is punctuated by sacred dance performed by the Tree Maiden. The play draws on information from The White Goddess by Robert Graves. The plot is structured around a story hidden in the sacred tree alphabet that this book explores. The alphabet describes the life cycle of the Deity, and the dances of the Tree Maidens mark major life stages in that story. The play features music of the Flowery, and runs for an hour.

 The Flower Queen utilizes a technique from chaos magic that is like Carl Jung’s conception of the Shadow. A problem within the personality is externalized as a tulpa, an autonomous imaginary construct. Through interactions with this imaginary being, the main character integrates the negative personality aspect into herself in a constructive way. In the play, the young girl’s overactive imagination will not let her fall asleep, and is embodied in the monster. Through her play, the monster teaches her the relationship between girl and monster, and how to take responsibility for the creation of her own reality, giving her power over it. In the end, she goes sleep.

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Baltimore City Paper Article

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A promotional image by Carly Bales