Adam Seelig (born 1975) is a Canadian-American poet, playwright, theatre director, composer, and artistic director of the One Little Goat Theatre Company in Toronto.

Background and Education Adam Seelig was born in Vancouver, BC, Canada,A. M. Segal, "Play about national security, civil rights raises questions," Canadian Jewish News, 8 Nov 2007, p.53. to an Israeli father and an American mother.Alex Kliner, Jewish Western Bulletin, 30 Jan 1998, p.26.Michael Seelig, Professor at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia ( ), and Julie Hurwitz, an Urban Planner for Metro Vancouver (Queen's Quarterly, December 22, 1996).

Seelig's early theatre experiences included directorial apprenticeships at the Arts Club Theatre Company in Vancouver and the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. One of his early poems was published in Saul Bellow and Keith Botsford's The Republic of Letters."Kafka to Brod (Four Unheard Variations)" by Adam Seelig in News from the Republic of Letters, eds. Saul Bellow & Keith Botsford, Issue no.9, 2001.

As an undergraduate at Stanford University, Seelig studied English literature with John Felstiner, Marjorie Perloff, and Gilbert Sorrentino. He studied theatre with Carl Weber, completing a BA in 1998 with a thesis on Samuel Beckett's original manuscripts. During his undergraduate studies, he wrote and directed a play entitled Inside the Whale (named after an essay by George Orwell). Seelig also founded an organization known as the "Silly Society of Stanford."

Directing In 2002, Seelig founded the One Little Goat Theatre Company, in New York City and Toronto. With the company, he directed works by poet-playwrights Yehuda Amichai, Thomas Bernhard, Jon Fosse, Claude Gauvreau, Luigi Pirandello, as well as his own plays, which include reinterpretations of classic material.Dongshin Chang, "Democracy at War: Antigone: Insurgency in Toronto," Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage, edited by Erin Mee & Helene Foley. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 267–285. Also see Marianne Apostolides, "A Review of Antigone: Insurgency, Canadian Theatre Review, Issue 137, University of Toronto Press, Winter 2009, and Jon Kaplan, "Timely Tragedy," NOW Magazine, November 15, 2007.

Seelig's work focuses on developing poetic theatre. This includes the concept of "," which entails the combination of an actor's onstage persona with their offstage nature. He also addresses the "prism/gap" between actor and audience, as well as the ambiguity that exists between them."EMERGENSEE: GET HEAD OUT OF ASS: 'Charactor' and Poetic Theatre," The Capilano Review, "Poets Theatre" issue, Spring 2010, pp. 32-52. Complete essay online. His direction avoids naturalism.Rachel Saltz, "Three Irritable Siblings, Ready to Pounce," The New York Times, 1 Oct 2010. Also characterized as "idiosyncratically avant-garde" by J. Kelly Nestruck, "The Rob Ford Musicals," Globe and Mail, 19 Sep 2014.

In 2017, Seelig's direction of Smyth/Williams, a dramatic recounting of a verbatim confession of Russell Williams, was criticized by the victims' families.

Writing Beginning with the 2010 publication of Every Day in the Morning (slow), Seelig's writing combines poetic lyricism with concrete poetry. Written largely in the second person, the work uses punctuation to form what has been described as a "continuous concrete-lyric-drop-poem novella".

Since 2010, Seelig's plays employ the same drop-poem technique where "words often align vertically, configured spatially." The format has been described by critics as "a musical score," a "poetry trick,"Jacob McArthur Mooney, "Sam Is a Person: An Electronic Conversation with Poet and Playwright Adam Seelig," The Walrus Magazine, 18 Feb 2011. Web. Accessed 21 Feb 2011. and "eye hockey." This format allows actors to "pace and emphasize the text" as they see fit.

Music Music is a central element in Seelig’s work rather than a background feature."Flexible Impossibilities: On Claude Gauvreau's The Charge of the Expormidable Moose," Rampike Magazine, University of Windsor, Ontario, Vol.22 No.2, 2014, pp.16-19. This approach appears across both stage and prose projects.

For Ubu Mayor, described as “a play with music,” Seelig wrote eight songs and played piano in the band at the production’s premiere. The work has been characterized as an “anti-musical.”

For Music Music Life Death Music: An Absurdical, Seelig wrote seven songs and played a Fender Rhodes electric piano at the premiere. Sheet music for both productions is included in their print and digital editions.

Music also plays a significant role in Seelig’s drop-poem novella Every Day in the Morning (slow), with particular emphasis on minimalist composers such as Steve Reich.

Essays "Beckett's Dying Remains: The Process of Playwriting in the 'Ohio Impromptu' Manuscripts."Modern Drama, Vol. 43.3, University of Toronto, 2000, pp.376-392. “The Anonlinear Aesthetic."Poetics.ca, Ottawa, Summer 2005. Web. Accessed 23 Oct 2015. Includes examples from works by Maurice Blanchot, David Markson, Rosmarie Waldrop, and others. "Transcending Hyperspecificity." "EMERGENSEE: GET HEAD OUT OF ASS: '' and Poetic Theatre." Contemporary Canadian poets Seelig has reviewed or interviewed include Gregory Betts,Gregory Betts interview by Adam Seelig, Filling Station, Calgary, No.38, 2007, pp.26-9. Sylvia Legris,"Nerve's Quill: Nerve Squall by Sylvia Legris," Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.12 Nos.5&6, May/June 2006, p.5. Donato Mancini, Lisa Robertson,"A/DRIFT," Review of Lisa Robertson's Rousseau's Boat, Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.11 Nos.11&12, November/December 2005, p.15-16. Jordan Scott,Review of Jordan Scott's Silt, Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, May 2004. and playwright-novelist Sean Dixon."First Person Plural: The Novel at Play - Adam Seelig Interviews Sean Dixon," Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers, The Mercury Press, Toronto, Vol.13 Nos.5&6, May/June 2007, pp.8-9.

Translation Seelig has translated Hebrew works by modern Israeli poets Yehuda Amichai and Dan Pagis,"Covenant" and "Diagnosis" by Dan Pagis, translated from the Hebrew, World Literature Today, Oklahoma, May 2004. as well as contemporary poets Navit Barel. Web. Accessed 23 Oct 2015. and Tehila Hakimi. With Harry Lane, he translated Someone is Going to Come by Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse.

References

External links Adam Seelig at One Little Goat Theatre Company Adam Seelig at Poetry Foundation Adam Seelig at BookThug