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SEASON PRESS CALENDAR
Publicity photos for most shows are available for free download.
Closed productions have been removed from this list.
If you need info or photos for a production which has closed, please email
us.
JULY 29 TO AUGUST 14
CORNER LUDLOW AND BROOME STREETS, MANHATTAN
"JULIUS CAESAR" -- SHAKESPEARE IN A PARKING LOT
(LIST: THEATER)
Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot continues its 2010 season with "Julius
Caesar" set in a contemporary urban school system. Shakespeare's historical
drama asks, do we govern ourselves, through plurality or charisma? Is it individuals
who lead or systems that work? A big city's school system seemed to be a suitable
microcosm for a fresh look at this timeless question. It will feature Ivory
Aquino, cousin to the former Philippine president Corazon Aquino, as Marc Antony
and Selena Beretta, a member of The Amoralists and The Drilling Company, as
Cassius. The piece is directed by Hamilton Clancy, Artistic Director of The
Drilling Company, which annually produces the popular, gritty, outdoor New York
attraction.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/caesar.htm
JULY 31 TO SEPTEMBER 12
IN NYC STREETS, PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS
"GONE FISSION," THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY STREET THEATER TOUR
(LIST: THEATER)
Theater for the New City's award-winning Street Theater Company opens its 34th
annual tour July 31 with "Gone Fission, or Alternative Power," an
Operatta for the Street. The rip-roaring production will tour City streets,
parks and playgrounds throughout the five boroughs through September 12. The
production, free to all New Yorkers, will have book, lyrics and direction by
Crystal Field and musical score composed by Joseph Vernon Banks. In the show,
an out-of-work Account Executive takes a survival job as a Census Taker and
he visits a fish restaurant. A hurricane transforms the place to a Louisiana
Bayou, where Father Neptune is conducting a summit with the creatures of the
sea over the horrible Gulf Oil Spill. The Census Taker learns to appreciate
the powerlessness of his neighbors through the plight of the undersea community
and transforms into a community organizer. The sea creatures are played by actors
in gigantic fish costumes made by Hollywood special effects maven David "Zen"
Mansley. There are seven production numbers, a live five-piece band and a company
of 50.
Complete info: www.jsnyc.com/season/street_theater.htm
AUGUST 7 TO 8, GOVERNORS ISLAND
AUGUST 12 TO 28, RIVERBANK STATE PARK (HARLEM SUMMER SHAKESPEARE)
"MACBETH," PERFORMED BY PULSE THEATRE ENSEMBLE
(LIST: THEATER, FREE EVENTS)
As the culminating event of its twentieth season, Pulse Theatre Ensemble, under
the direction of Alexa Kelly, will present a Free Shakespeare production of
"Macbeth" in Governors Island August 7-8 and Riverbank State Park
August 12-28. The innovative adaptation sets the Scottish Tragedy in modern
occupied Islamic country, where Macbeth is a power hungry U.S. Army officer,
Duncan is a warlord and the Witches are local war widows. The tension mounts
until Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are brought down by their own greed, guilt and
fear.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/pulse_macbeth.htm
AUGUST 8 TO SEPTEMBER 5, 2010
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
DREAM UP FESTIVAL
(LIST: THEATER)
From August 8 to September 5, 2010, Theater for the New City (TNC), under the
direction of Crystal Field, Artistic Director, will present its first "Dream
Up Festival," a theater festival of plays from artists across the country
and abroad. It is curated by the theater's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price.
"Dream Up" is an all-premiere festival with 22 world premieres and
two American premieres, offering a month long anthology of wide-ranging and
original theatrical visions. The Festival opens up Theater for the New City
to artists from the country at large and to artists from overseas. Both Ms.
Field and Mr. Scott-Price feel it is especially important for the world to know
of these artists, whose work needs to be done and needs to be seen. These include
emerging writers, whose work will likely become an important contribution to
American culture and whose work is already stimulating and enlightening. There
are also mid-career artists whose work is already of great importance and should
be viewed by the public, even in a time of declining donations to the arts,
when grants not being awarded due to market conditions and there are arts funding
cuts on almost every level all across the country and abroad. Tickets prices
range from $12 to $15 (roughly the cost of a movie). Audiences will have the
opportunity to view most of the productions at least five times.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/dream_up.htm
AUGUST 19-29
VANDAM PLAYHOUSE (PART OF NY INT'L FRINGE FESTIVAL)
DIANA YANEZ IN "VIVA LA EVOLUCIÓN!"
(LIST: THEATER)
"Viva la Evolución!" (www.vivalaevoluciontheshow.com), the
comic actress Diana Yanez, a first-generation Cuban-American, takes us on her
journey from Castro to Disco in a one-woman comedy of growing up Cuban and queer
in Miami. Directed by Marjorie Duffield, the play will be presented August 13
to 29 at the Vandam Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, as part of the 14th annual
New York International Fringe Festival - FringeNYC.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/viva_evolution.htm
SEPTEMBER 30 TO OCTOBER 17
LA MAMA E.T.C.
"I FIORETTI IN MUSICA-OPERA IN DANZA"
(LIST: OPERA)
"I Fioretti in Musica-Opera in Danza" is an original opera with concept,
libretto, direction and set design by Gian Marco Lo Forte and music composed
by Sasha Zamler-Cahart and Ryan Carter. The piece transplants to New York rituals
enacted in the towns of Umbria, Central Italy that are inspired by St. Francis
of Assisi. Labeled an Opera in Danza, the work's form is inspired by Commedia
Harmonica Italiana, a typical Italian stage form of the late 15th Century where
the singers perform in concerto and the dancers are the visual interpreters
of the music throughout the stage. The work is performed in Italian with English
subtitles. This adaptation asks "What if St. Francis lived today in New
York City?" and answers, "He'd probably be a homeless guy with a shopping
cart, preaching to the pigeons." So the "little flower" poems
based on his miracles are rendered with puppets made of recycled materials and
refuse from the streets, joined by four dancers and five singers.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/fioretti.htm
OCTOBER 10
TENRI CULTURAL CENTER
"THE WORLD BELOW G," A CD LAUNCH CONCERT BY VIOLINIST MARI KIMURA
(LIST: MUSIC)
On October 10 at Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A West 13th Street, Mari Kimura
will perform "The World Below G," a concert to launch her CD, "The
World Below G: Works by Mari Kimura," to be issued by Mutable Music (www.mutablemusic.com).
Described as "A plugged-in Paganini for the Digital Age" (All Music
Guide), Ms. Kimura is a viruoso composer/performer. The New York Times has written,
"Ms. Kimura is a viruoso playing at the edge" and New Music Conoisseur
has written, "Mari Kimura is the the violin what perhaps Henry Cowell and
later John Cage were to the piano in the 1920's and 30's--taking it into the
future with extended techniques and sounds." Ms. Kimura embraces the worlds
of extended violin techniques and interactive computer music, making them her
own. She is also well known for developing the extended technique of "Subharmonics"--
playing notes below the open-G string without lowering the tuning of the instrument.
Ms. Kimura has been awarded a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition
and is presently a 2010 Composer in Residence in musical research at IRCAM
in Paris.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/mari.htm
OCTOBER 14 TO 24, LA MAMA E.T.C.
"Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads"
(LIST: THEATER)
"Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads"
is the kind of play that could only be written from the experience of Dario
D'Ambrosi, who for over 30 years has worked with mentally disabled people in
Italy. It is the American debut for Set/Puppet Designer Aurora Buzzetti (Rome).
Translation is by Celeste Moratti. It is a theatrical fantasy about mentally
ill children in institutions, whose thoughts are cloudy but whose souls are
clear, who are bespattered with pain but whose dignity shines. In fairy tale
style, it dramatizes how their imaginations are limitless and how they flourish
when they are loved. The story is told with live music, singing, dance and puppets.
Although it deals directly with lives of most troubled people, the play is fantastical
and nonthreatening. It is recommended for audiences of all ages.
In the '80s and '90s, Dario D'Ambrosi marched irresistibly into the forefront of Italy's theatrical ambassadors, a cohort led by Pirandello, DiFilippo and Dario Fo. In 1994, he received the equivalent of a Tony Award in his country: a prize for lifetime achievement in the theater from the Instituto del Drama Italiano. D'Ambrosi first performed at La MaMa in 1980 and has been in residence there nearly every year thereafter. Rosette Lamont wrote in Theater Week, "The yearly appearance of the Italian writer/performer Dario D'Ambrosi at La MaMa is cause for celebration."
Last October, D'Ambrosi opened a new theater in a converted warehouse in a norther section of Rome. Named The Pathological Theater, it is home to his resident company of professional actors and a drama school for psychiatric patients. Set/Puppet Designer Aurora Buzzetti, a fast-emerging artist of Rome's theatre crafts community, is a resident artist there. This world premiere, however, will be performed by American actors, as has been D'Ambrosi's practice in each of his New York productions since 2004.
This production opens the La MaMa Puppet Series. ( www.jsnyc.com/season/lmseries4.htm)
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/bong.htm
OCTOBER 21 TO NOVEMBER 7, LA MAMA E.T.C.
"CHOPIN-AN IMPRESSION" BY BY BIALYSTOK PUPPET
THEATRE OF POLAND
( LIST: THEATER)
"Chopin-An Impression" will be a kind of drama
essay that unites music, visual art, and marionette performance. This extremely
challenging technique in puppetry requires unusual technical design as well
as extraordinary skill in animating the marionette. Fryderyk Chopin compositions
will be rendered both by a pianist and a marionette representing the genius
composer - a marionette controlled with strings, measuring a couple of dozen
centimeters and displaying virtuoso agility and perfection in the hands of its
puppeteer - combined with an attempt to find answers to questions on the sources
of inspiration determining the work of every artist. Apart from Chopin's music
performed live by one of Poland's most talented pianists Krzysztof Traskowski,
the show features actors, puppets (marionettes), objects, plastic art forms
and visual presentations.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/lmseries4.htm
OCTOBER 28 TO NOVEMBER 7
"WAKE UP, YOU'RE DEAD" BY BROOKLYN ART DEPARTMENT
(LIST: THEATER)
With puppets, dance, film and aerial work, Brooklyn
Art Department brings you a new mythology about finding your light. In the spirit
of Halloween and Day of Dead this theatre romp, created by Aaron Haskell who
is also one of the original designers for Nightmare: NYC's Haunted House, is
a boisterous party that will have you on your feet! Join the creatures of the
"otherworld" in this high-energy event. The
Club theater at La MaMa will be turned into a live installation. It's a boisterous,
joyous romp in the spirit of the Halloween season. Aaron
Haskell is one of the original designers of The Haunted House, a New York attraction.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/lmseries4.htm
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/lmseries4.htm
OCTOBER 23 TO NOVEMBER 7
"FOLKTALES OF ASIA AND AFRICA" BY JANE CATHERINE SHAW
(LIST: THEATER AND KIDS)
Jane Catherine Shaw, while making bread, discovers that she has guests, so while
waiting for the dough to rise, she tells three stories using the kitchen tools
as found object puppetry. In a Burmese tale called "The Old Man and The
Moon," a flour sifter becomes an old man, a cookie cutter becomes his pet
rabbit and a donut maker is the moon goddess. This story explains why the Burmese
see the shapes of an old man and a rabbit in the shadows on the moon. "The
Lantern and The Fan" is a Japanese folktale that tells of how the traditional
lantern and fans came to be a part of Japanese culture. Egg beaters dressed
in cloth napkins become two Japanese sisters dressed in kimonos and four steak
knives play the "sharp" wise men. The third story is an African tale,
a very old version of Mufaro's "Beautiful Daughters" from Zimbabwe.
Like the Cinderella tale, it has many variants, but in this one, wood salt and
pepper shakers are the two sisters, a large barbeque basting brush is their
father and there are many other characters, all found objects from a kitchen.
Part of La MaMa Puppet Series.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/lmseries4.htm
NOVEMBER 11 TO 28, LA MAMA E.T.C.
"IN RETROSPECT" BY LOCO 7 DANCE PUPPET THEATRE COMPANY
(LIST: THEATER)
Federico Restrepo is Founder and Director of LOCO7,
a dance/puppet theatre company that is creating a new work called "In Retrospect,"
which maps our life's journey of family love. The multi-disciplinary work will
present vivid images and stories through spoken word, large marionettes, masks,
body-puppets, dance, live music, unique lighting design, and video. Restrepo
is a Colombian-born master of puppet theater and physical theater who stages
epic thoughts using giant puppetry, acrobatic choreography and tempestuous music.
Created with Denise Greber (concepts, costumes) and Elizabeth Swados (musical
score). Part of La MaMa Puppet Series.
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/lmseries4.htm
DECEMBER 2 TO 12, THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER'S 2010 SPECTACLE AND CIRCUS
(LIST: THEATER AND KIDS)
For the 39th year, Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater will return to
Theater for the New City with two new works, one for adults and one for family
audiences. Bread and Puppet Theater is an internationally recognized company
that champions a visually rich, street-theater brand of performance art that
filled with music, dance and slapstick. Its shows are political and spectacular,
with huge puppets made of paper maché and cardboard; a brass band for
accompaniment, and anti-elitist dance. This year's shows are in development
as of this writing. They will likely be based on Bread & Puppet's Summer
2010 productions, presented July 2 to August 27 at the Bread & Puppet Farm
in Glover, VT, which includes "The Nothing Is Not Ready Pageant" and
"The Decapitalization Circus."
COMPLETE INFO: www.jsnyc.com/season/B&P.htm
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