Managing Partner Michael Wildes is pleased to announce that Wildes & Weinberg P.C. has secured O-1 visa classification on behalf of Alan Kliffer, Commercial Theater Producer.
Mr. Kliffer has won the Dora Mavor Moore Award in Toronto, Canada, and will be coming to New York to work on the smash show for kids, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, which starts its re-mount in September at the DR2 Theatre.
After graduating from a prestigious Triple Threat Academy for the Performing Arts in Toronto, having an illustrious performance career and working at The Second City, Mr. Kliffer began his company Kliffer Entertainment. He began by producing his monthly comedy show Mixed Company. The show features some actors on script and the others improvising, and has featured numerous celebrity performers such as Scott Thompson of Kids In the Hall, Jayne Eastwood, Colin Mochrie, Degrassi High stars, and others. This show, with 16 actors at each performance, has been playing for 4 years at a comedy bar in downtown Toronto and never stops attracting talent who seek to perform to its vast repeat and non-repeat audience. The Torontoist magazine awarded this a ‘Critics Pick,’ and the important Canadian Comedy Awards nominated it as Best Variety Show in their yearly competition in the year 2015. In 2016, his creation, ‘One Night Only: The Greatest Musical Never Written’, an improvised full-length musical, was produced in Toronto in a large independent theater, garnering 4 Dora nominations and the Audience Choice Award. Mr. Kliffer’s advocacy paved the way for improvisational theater to be considered by the Dora Jury. One of the actresses in One Night Only received the Toronto Theater Critics Award. Mr. Kliffer was then engaged as Lead Producer for the arts venture capital company Kabin. Mr. Kliffer acquired and produced La Chasse-Galerie (The Wild Hunt Bewitched; A Quebec folk tale). Chasse-Galerie played to outstanding success in a highly important theater in Toronto, Soulpepper. This show also garnered nominations and awards including the Doras and Toronto Theater Critics Association Awards.
We welcome Mr. Kliffer to the exciting and diverse stages of Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatres across America, and are extremely honored to have been part of his path to the US. He is one to watch!
In order to qualify for an O-1 visa which allows individuals of extraordinary ability in the arts, sciences, athletics, education or business to live and work in the United States, a foreign national must provide adequate documentation to demonstrate that he/she has sustained national or international acclaim in their field.
In addition, the individual must provide substantial evidence to prove that he/she meets 3 of the 6 evidence categories defined by statute, as well as a written advisory opinion from a labor union or relevant peer group. The O-1 visa applicant must also show that he/she has an offer of employment in the United States to work in his/her field of expertise (or several offers of employment from multiple sources, along with a third-party Agent to petition on the individual’s behalf and connect him/her to the multiple employers).
For more than fifty six years, the firm of Wildes & Weinberg has concentrated its practice in all aspects of U.S. immigration and nationality law, servicing the immigration requirements of prominent American and International individuals and corporations, banks, industrial, financial and manufacturing concerns, and law firms in connection with the personnel needs of their foreign national employees. In addition, the firm has a distinguished clientele and has done substantial immigration work for investors, scientists, physicians, bankers, performing artists, directors, writers, models, actors, athletes, fine artists, art dealers, curators, musicians, and literary agents.
For more information on the O-1 visa category, which allows individuals of extraordinary ability in the arts, sciences, athletics, education and business to live and work in the United States, please visit our Immigration 101 page or contact Michael Wildes at michael@wildeslaw.com.