WHERE AND WHEN:
March 13 to 23, 2025
La MaMa E.T.C. (The Club), 74A East Fourth Street
Presented by La MaMa E.T.C.
Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 PM, Sundays at 3:00 PM
Adults: $30, Students/Seniors: $25. First ten tickets are $10 (limit 2 per person). Ticket prices are inclusive of all fees.
Buy tickets: <www.lamama.org> and <https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1227052>, (646) 430-5374.
Running time: 60 min.
Critics are invited on or after March 13, opens March 13.
Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KTyWbAHDvRA2MsSbA

NEW YORK, March 7 -- In "Above Ground - Not Exactly a Comedy," ten senior actors reflect on how they deal with the undeniable fact of getting old, regaling the audience with improvised personal experiences of maturity, illness and loss mixed with childhood memories. The show is a proof-of-concept showcase of Real-Time Acting, a new convention and acting technique for postmodern theater that has been developed by Paul Binnerts and Nancy Gabor. It is performed by members of You're Never Too Old to Play, an acting workshop at Westbeth for seniors 65 and older. La MaMa E.T.C., America's premiere producer of Experimental Theater, will present the world premiere of the work March 13 to 23, 2025 in The Club at La MaMa, the intimate third-floor space in its newly renovated home building at 74 East Fourth Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue).

Real-time acting has Brechtian and Open Theater roots. The actors are an intermediary between the performance and the audience. The real-time actor acknowledges the audience and communicates directly with it. What is "real" is the acting, the stage, the audience, and the theater itself, not what is acted or the illusions maintained in the play and on the stage. The real-time actor creates “the reality of the illusion, not the illusion of the reality.” The convention is non-realistic and non-illusionistic.

In "Above Ground - Not Exactly a Comedy" the actors, age 74 to 98, share their experiences of getting older using improvisation, storytelling and dance. Revisiting memories of childhood, recalling moments of happiness and sadness, their stories evolve into vignettes framed by music. Without attempting to "play" the children they once were, their remembrances, enriched by improvisation, music and dance, give their stories a lightness that reflects their present vitality. The piece was developed in the Community Room of Westbeth, the home base of You're Never Too Old to Play. A workshop performance in the Spring of 2024 was very successful and led to an invitation by La MaMa to do a series of eight performances.

"Above Ground – Not Exactly a Comedy" is directed by Nancy Gabor and Paul Binnerts. The actors are Ilana Abramovitch, Susan Binet, Nora Galer, Jonathan Ned Katz, Christine Koenig, Gloria Miguel, Sally Plass, Joanne Riel, Lorraine Marx-Singer and Harold Thomas. Soundtrack is by Paul Binnarts.

Commenting on the Westbeth workshop, Christina Maile, a Greenwich Village-based artist and fine art printmaker, wrote "It was like sitting in an amphitheater in ancient Greece and for the first time understanding what it means to be human inside of time.” Greg Taubman, a director and dramaturg, wrote "Participating in a workshop by Nancy Gabor and Paul Binnerts is like being in one room with Joseph Chaikin and Bertolt Brecht at the same time."

You're Never Too Old to Play is an acting workshop for seniors 65 and older at Westbeth, Home to the Arts. It was founded in 2019 by Nancy Gabor and Paul Binnerts with sponsorship by Westbeth Artists Residents Council and is open to residents of Westbeth and beyond. Currently its oldest participant is 98 and its youngest is 74.  Hitherto the group has created two previous performance pieces: "Stories, a Collage," which was sponsored and performed at the opening festivities of Little Island in 2021, and "America, Stories About America," which was presented by Little Island the following year.

Nancy Gabor (co-director) joined Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theater and was part of the ensemble which created "The Serpent." At La MaMa she was part of the ensemble which created La MaMa's famed "Medea," directed by Andrei Serban and composed by Elizabeth Swados. She directed Joseph Chaikin in "The War in Heaven" (by Chaikin and Sam Shepard) and "Struck Dumb" (by Jean-Claude Van Itallie) at the American Place Theater. She and Chaikin collaborated on an adaption of Beckett’s "Texts for Nothing" which played in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp. She started the You’re Never Too Old to Play ensemble to explore the creative possibilities with older people, believing that everybody can play, and that age is no barrier. 

Paul Binnerts (co-director) studied Dramaturgy and explored the epic theatre of Bertolt Brecht in experimental performances of "The Measures Taken," (with composer Louis Andriessen), "The Exception and the Rule" (with composer Heiner Goebbels) and "Man is Man." He has won European awards with his own plays "Black Box," The Same Sea" (both based on novels by Amos Oz), and "Mephisto" (based on the novel by Klaus Mann). He has written plays and novels in English and has taught acting and directing at universities and drama schools in The Netherlands, UK, USA, Germany and Japan. His book, "Acting in Real Time" (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2012), describes the techniques and history of this contemporary form of acting.

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theater. La MaMa's 63rd Season, The “La MaMa Beyond Season,” expands its efforts to develop creative methods and tools for greater access to the arts.  Pop up performances and installations will be happening in parks, neighborhood community centers, as well as online. By going beyond La MaMa’s physical campus, new audiences and artists from different contexts are welcomed into the creative process. La MaMa has been honored with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie Awards and Villager Awards, the 2018 Regional Theater Tony Award, and most recently a 2023 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation. La MaMa is a creative home to artists and resident companies from around the world, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Bette Midler, Ping Chong, Jackie Curtis, Robert De Niro, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Cole Escola, Bridget Everett, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Charles Ludlam, Tom Eyen, Spiderwoman Theater, Tadeusz Kantor, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Meredith Monk, David and Amy Sedaris, Stephanie Hsu, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Tom O'Horgan, Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, and Andy Warhol. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work from all nations, cultures, races and identities remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961.

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Critics are invited on or after March 13, opens March 13.
Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KTyWbAHDvRA2MsSbA