Backstory
Victoria Bugbee is an award winning filmmaker, playwright, visual artist and journalist. She was born in Northampton, PA and grew up in Catasauqua, PA. Her parents who had six kids encouraged them to be creative and encouraged her interest in art, music and theater. As a Rotary Exchange student she studied visual artist at the National University of Cordoba, Argentina and at Kutztwon University in Pennsylvania. There she worked in drawings, sculpture, earth projects and performance art.Her mentors were James Carroll who founded New Arts Program and James Kelly. Visiting artist from NYC were Vito Acconci and Willoughby Sharp influenced her exploration of performance as an art form. Her first show was "Sex, Pornography and The Law," in the college library.
Atlanta
Bugbee married the artist Santo Bruno who taught painting at The Atlanta College of Art. She taught art at their private art school Artist In Residence. She also designed & painted needlepoint canvases for Papplilon. As an art specialist at the progressive school Paidei a Bugbee also was an assistant teacher. Bruno and Bugbee along with 7 other artists founded The Atlanta Art Workers Coalition and ran the non-profit out of their apartment for the first couple of years. Bugbee was point person for the monumental art show The Omni. Twenty-five artists refurbished a raw 12,000 square foot space in downtown Atlanta for their collective art show. The organization provided a hub for artists including a newsletter that became Art Papers, insurance and a small gallery in a space provided by Department of Cultural Affairs,(DCA) City of Atlanta.
During this period, her artwork revolved around musical notation.
This changed when she was Resident Manager of Le Pavilion Hotel and Apartment Complex on 17th Street between Peachtree and West Peachtree Streets. Her art studio was the apartment where Margaret Mitchell completed "Gone With The Wind." When preparing for a one woman show of her drawings and paper sculpture based on the hotel, the artist had an epiphany and decided to build a cross-section of the hotel in the Java Gallery windows. She wrote and staged a performance based on David Lee's short story "Murder."
"Murder at Le Pavilion Hotel" was funded through a grant from Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Atlanta, who generously funded Bugbee's two more on-site performances."The Vacation: Worlds of Desperation" took place in an urban parking lot on 17th Street. It featured a couple whose marriage was desolving while they were camping in Canada. "Laundry" took place in The 10th Street Laundromat and featured an auction of Great American Boxers Laundry Items. Gerald Jones videotaped the performance. While living in New York City Bugbee later worked with Editor Alicia Loving Cortes combining archival footage of boxing greats like Joe Louis and Jack Johnson and called it "Boxer Shorts."
New York City
Bugbee moved to New York City with artist George Warren and they lived in a loft in Chinatown. She was determined to work in the film and video industry and got a job as a receptionist at Digital Effects Inc. DEI was one of the first computer graphic companies in the world and created assets for "TRON," "Xanadu" and project with The Clash, Keith Haring, Todd Rundgren and more. She and Warren also designed the trailer for David Cronenberg's film "Videodrome" starring James Woods and Debbie Harry.
While at Digital Effects Bugbee began writing for the trades. Her feature articles appeared in American Cinematographer ("The Making of 'Stranger Than Paradise'",) Sequence (Paris), Backstage, Computer Pictures, Millimeter, Shoot and Television Broadcast News. She was also Excutive Producer of George Parker Productions and Doros Animation.
At the same time she continued to make art. Her fireworks series and large pastels of Chinatown were in "Ten Downtown," a collective of artists living below 14th Street who showed at Michael Benson Gallery that was above Benson's Furniture Store on Houston Street & Avenue A on The Lower Eastside. Bugbee was in awe of the big furniture windows and Michael Benson agreed to let the artist create a performance for opening night.
"Life & Death With Business In Between" was based on the life stories of the Mrs. Carrie Camiso who was the housemother of Bugbee's apartment building. Part of the action was in the windows and another scene on the street. The audience was outside looking in. Later, Bugbee received a New York Foundation for the ArtsFellowship in Playwrighting and turned "Life & Death ... into a full length musical with composer Joe Deihl whom she has collaborated on her projects.
Bugbee and Warren renovated a co-op apartment on Mott Street, got married on The Staten Island Ferry (The JFK that was recently bought by Colin Jost and Pete Davidson) and had three children - Georgia, Dylan and Tess. She wrote and performed two one woman plays "Confessions of a Baby Slave," and "Art Angel." She performed both as a visiting artist at New Arts Program at Kutztown Univesity. She was commissioned by Creative Time and Lincoln Center Out of Doors to write, direct and produce "A Surreal Soap Opera-Toxic Waste Meets Beach Resort." Audience immersive, the ecological disaster black comedy featured suicidal seagulls, faux breast implants and a pas de deus in giant inner tubeswas performed as a weekly at The Village Gate on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Think Pee Wee's Playhouse meets "Rocky Horror Picture Show."
Hastings on Hudson, NY
With the arrival of their third child Bugbee and Warren bought an old boarding house in the small town 12 miles north of Manhattan. Rather than do a gut reno the couple decided to restore the century old house that still had original details.
Bugbee was asked to join The Actors Lab that was created by Maureen Garrett who starred on CBS's "The Guiding Light." Bugbee wrote the play "The Divorce of Tammy & Chet" and workshopped it with Garrett and her fellow cast members. Readings happened at CBS and Ossinging's First Playwrights Marathon. A part of a sermon on commitment, a monologue from the play was read by actress who sat with her feet in a baptismal fount at South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry. For the Ossinging Playwright's Marathon Guiding Light actors Carrie Cromelin and Kurt McKinney were Tammy & Chet.
Bugbee rewrote parts of the play and added a new ending. With support from River Arts and Arts Westchester a staged reading was held in OverSeas Autobody Shop. She retitled the play"The Gas Station Project" and added a Narrator in a red convertible played by Caroline Winterson. Carrie Cromelin and Kurt McKinney reprising their roles. Cherie Fortis produced and Bugbee directed.
Working with at risk teens who were in residence at Clark Academy at St. Christophers in Dobbs Ferry, Bugbee and Fortis restaged in play in the auditorium. This time The Narrator was played by Jasmine Way on a motorcycle. The kids transformed the lobby to look like the office of a gas station. It was a great community outreach program and the students were thrilled to have "real" television actors perform in their school.
B Productions
For 15 years Bugbee worked with Director Bill Marpet and Andy Biskin Production Manager as Special Projects Producer at B Productions of New York. B was the premier fashion video company whose clients included the top designers in New York as well as international clientel. Bugbee rebranded the company and brought in Conde Nast. Her projects included GQ's 49 screen videowall at MAGIC in Las Vegas, Wedding on Madison, a 3 day 36 event for Brides Magaine, The 25th Anniversary Reunion of the Cast of "Murphy Brown" for Starz, and "Fashion's Night Out Runway Show" TV Special CBS. She also produced "Mac&Milk" that included videotaping and editing 22 runway shows for AOL and large video walls at The High Line in the Meat Packing District.
Victoria Bugbee Productions
After working for many production companies, Bugbee decided to make her first feature. Production was long overdue since she united with her distant cousin, Charlie Bugbee, in 1992 to write the screenplay "Out of State." The Multimedia artist was fresh off the success of "A Surreal Soap Opera..." Charlie's debut feature "Just Off The Coast" had recently won Best First Feature at San Sebastián Film Festival. Both were on fire creatively. Charlie went to LA to look for funding when he became seriously ill. He recovered but a few years later succumbed to cancer.
With permission from his brother, Vicky decided to make the film in Charlie's honor. In the interim, a documentary about Samoan Warriors was made with the same title so the writer/director added the subtitle "A Gothic Romance" to set her film apart. The film stars Sarah Moliski, Caroline Winterson, James Nester,A. Ryder Turner, Tess Warren, Lynne Goldberg, Matthew Brueckner, Dave Scheffler, Peter Bugbee, & Paola Tawa. With a tiny budget and a small crew she called a tripod - camera (Ilya Schnitser), sound and an assistant (Tess Warren) - Bugbee shot over 100 scenes in 21 days in her Victorian house and garden in Hastings on Hudson. A few extra shots were lensed to denote the change in seasons - i.e winter scenes and the magnolia tree in full bloom Before shooting scenes the cast and crew would say "For Charlie." We think he would be proud.
