Union Square Free Night of Theater Celebration!
Union Square Free Night of Theater Celebration!
Hundreds of NYC theatre artists, leaders and supports rallied, in the face of a Nor'easter, to create an inspiring event that demonstrated both the fortitude of their collective spirit and the brilliance of their diverse body of work.
Thank you and Congratulations to everyone involved!
Photos by Piotr Redlinski
Union Square
October 15
Noon to 6pm
11:45 Galapagos Art Space presents Maya Azucena - singing Hallelujah, a prelude.
Welcome from Teresa Eyring, Executive Director, Theatre Communications Group (TCG)
Hon. Domenic M. Recchia, Jr. Chairman, Cultural Affairs Committee presenting a city council citation
Introductions by Teresa Eyring with Kathy Evans, Executive Director, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Will Maitland Weiss, Executive Director, The Arts & Business Council of New York and Robert Zukerman, host of the Free Night of Theater Celebration, actor and Director of Theatre at the New York State Council on the Arts
12:25 René Buch, Repertorio Espanol's Co-Founder and Artistic Director presents Cabas - Multiple Grammy Nominee, composer, singer and pop sensation sings from his new musical Pantaleon y las visitadoras
Pantaleon y las visitadoras (Captain Pantoja and The Special Service)
Adapted by Veronica Triana & Jorge Ali Triana
With music by Andrés Cabas
Performed by Andrés Cabas
In Pantaleon y las visitadoras (Captain Pantoja and The Special Service,) the Peruvian Army recruits Captain Pantaleon Pantoja, a model soldier, a man of integrity and a good husband, for an outlandish mission: to create and manage a Special Service of "visitors" to fulfill the troop's necessities. Even though it is everything against his moral code, Captain Pantoja is a consummate soldier and the visiting service quickly becomes the most efficient branch of the armed forces. Captain Pantoja's official progress reports are filled with military statistics and jargon which often become the story's funniest moments.
The production includes music by multiple Grammy Nominee, composer, singer and pop sensation Andrés Cabas. Cabas has created a score infused with tropical, Andean and jazz rhythms which transmit the essence of the Amazonian region where the play is set.
Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian is the author of three novels, several films and numerous award-winning works for the theater. As an actor he has starred onstage as well as on film and television.Bogosian's best known work is "Talk Radio" in which he starred Off-Broadway and in the Oliver Stone film of the same name. In 2006, the play was brought to Broadway, garnering Tony nominations for the play and for Liev Schreiber, who starred. For the original stage version, Bogosian was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and for the film he received the prestigious Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear. In addition to "Talk Radio", Bogosian is the author of several plays, including "subUrbia", which was produced by Lincoln Center Theater in 1994. The play was adapted to the screen by Richard Linklater and revived Off-Broadway with an updated script in 2006. His most recent play, "1+1" was produced by New York Stage & Film in 2008.
Judith Malina
Co-founder of The Living Theatre
2008 Artistic Achievement Award from the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. This honor was bestowed on Malina on behalf of her peers and fellow artists of the Off-Off-Broadway community. Other awards include an honorary doctorate from Lehman College, the Lola d'Annunzio award (1959); Page One Award (1960); Obie Award (1960, 1964, 1969, 1975, 1987, 1989, and 2007); Creative Arts Citation, Brandeis University (1961); Grand Prix du Theatre des Nations (1961); Paris Critics Circle medallion (1961); Prix de L'Universite de Paris (1961); New England Theater Conference Award (1962); Olympio Prize (1967); and a Guggenheim fellowship (1985).
1:00 Dance New Amsterdam
Flash mob choreography (Fame!)
Choreographers: Teri Steele and Oliver Steele
Performers: Steeledance Company members and DNA dance students
Teri and Oliver Steele, artistic directors of Steeledance and faculty teachers at DNA, were hired to choreograph a flash mob dance to promote the new movie FAME. It was originally performed at South Street Seaport on September 23, 2009 with 96 dancers.
1:15 Horsetrade presents (a)muse collective
No Traveler
Principal Artist: Penny Pollak
Performers: Penny Pollak, John Murdock
One woman's darkly funny journey through this meaningless and absurd world and life's most pivotal moments of desperation. From childhood to her adult life Rebecca is convinced that suicide is her only sure escape but her attempts are continually derailed by a mysterious comically dysfunctional dark "angel" who's method is less convincing then her motivation. Her misguided but well-intentioned mother only contributes anxiety as Rebecca tries to find and keep a reason to live. We explore the crisis of human existence, the fear and freedom of nothing stopping her whether she chooses life or death and that she has no one to blame but herself.
1:30 Thoughts on the Theatre from Kathleen Chalfant, Mike Daisey and Kamilah Forbes
Kathleen Chalfant
Kathleen Chalfant won the 1999 Obie Award for her outstanding performance of Vivian Bearing, a terminally ill cancer patient; in the play Off-Broadway play Wit. She was also in the original Broadway production of Angels in America. She has had roles in Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order, The Guardian, and The Book of Daniel.
Mike Daisey
Mike Daisey has been called "the master storyteller" and "one of the finest solo performers of his generation" by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections. His monologues, fourteen and counting, include the controversial How Theater Failed America, the six-hour epic Great Men of Genius, the unrepeatable series All Stories Are Fiction, and the international sensation 21 Dog Years. He has been nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award, two Drama League Awards, and has been the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, three Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell Fellowship.
Kamilah Forbes
Kamilah Forbes is an award winning actress, director, playwright and producer. She has been nominated for Helen Hayes Award for Best Lead Actress. In her diverse body of work, she is noted for having a strong commitment to the development of creative works by, for and about the Hip-Hop generation. As the Artistic Director of the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival (HHTF), an annual 3-week festival taking place nationwide in New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Chicago, she has seen it grow from a fledgling project into an independent non-profit organization with a truly national scope. Kamilah first came to prominence as the writer/director of Hip-Hop Theatre Junction's premier work "Rhyme Deferred."
MINE
Playwright: Bekah Brunsetter
Composer: Joe Pug
Director: Wes Grantom
Performer: Lucas Kavner
Annie, a poet with no time for poems, is caught between her wonderful, successful boyfriend and her magnetic, brokeass, aspiring musician, coffee shop co-worker. Set to the addictive, rollicking tunes of acclaimed singer-songwriter Joe Pug's Nation of Heat EP, MINE is a sharp-witted drama exploring love, identity, and the fine line between loving someone and getting what you want.
2:00 Unidentified Artists
Unidentified Artists is an underground theatre movement that produces irreverent theatre pieces in unconventional spaces.
2:30 Thoughts on the Theater from Oskar Eustis, Lisa Kron, Michael McKean, Scott Morfee and Susan Louise O'Connor
Oskar Eustis
Oskar Eustis is the artistic director at the Public Theater and has worked as a director, dramaturg, and artistic director for theaters around the country. Throughout his career, Mr. Eustis has been dedicated to the development of new plays as both a director and a producer. He was a professor of Theatre, Speech and Dance at Brown University, where he founded and chaired the Trinity Rep/Brown University Consortium for professional theater training. He also served on the faculty of The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. He received an honorary doctorate from Brown in 2001 and currently serves as Professor of Dramatic Writing and Arts and Public Policy at New York University.
Lisa Kron
Lisa Kron has been writing and performing theater since coming to New York from Michigan in 1984. Her new play, The Wake, will premiere this spring at L.A.'s Center Theater Group and Berkeley Rep. Among her previous plays are the Tony nominated Well and the Obie Award winning 2.5 Minute Ride. She is also a founding member of the OBIE and Bessie Award-winning theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers. She has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim, Lortel and Creative Capital Foundations, NEA/TCG, the Sundance Institute, NYFA, the Lark Play Development Center, and the Cal Arts/Alpert Award in Theater.
Michael McKean
Michael McKean is an actor, musician, producer, director, and writer. His breakthrough role came in 1976 when he joined the cast of Laverne and Shirley. McKean quickly became a recognizable name in film and television, but recently, he starred in the 40th Anniversary Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, and in 2009 he is starring in the Chicago-based Steppenwolf Theatre Company's production of Superior Donuts, by Pulitzer Prize award-winning playwright Tracy Letts.
Scott Morfee
Scott Morfee is a producer at the Barrow Group Theatre.
Susan Louise O'Connor
Making her Broadway debut in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, Susan Louise O'Connor has appeared Off-Broadway in What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends with the Four Chairs Theatre, Apostasy & Marion Bridge at Urban Stages, Walk Two Moons at the Lucille Lortel, Never Swim Alone with GO Productions, See Bob Run at the Rattlestick Theatre, and St. Scarlet with the Women's Expressive Theatre. Her regional credits include: A Sleeping Country (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), What the Butler Saw (Huntington Theatre), Wonder of the World (Barrington Stage) & Indoor/Outdoor (Portland Stage). She has appeared on film in Flying Scissors, Acts of Worship, The Day My Towers Fell, The Question, and The Moment & Parallel Passage. Television: Law & Order: C.I.
2:50 Dixon Place presents I Danse
TELLUS
Choreography: Yung-li Chen
Performer (s): Yung-li Chen, Hyosun Choi, Abby Geartner and Nicholas Wagner
Music: Mum
Tellus, conceived, directed and choreographed by Yung-li Chen, opens and concludes with a utopian society where race ceases to be a dimension of human representation.
3:00 Clowns Ex Machina
Clowns Ex Machina is troupe of all women clowns creating gleeful theatre together. Kendall Cornell, creator and director, formed the troupe to explore and reveal the unique resonance of women clowns en masse. Clowns Ex Machina's ensemble shows blend short vignettes, songs, dances, heart, and humor to make fresh, sophisticated and inspiring theatre.
3:15 Children's Theater Programming introduced by Virginia P. Louloudes, Executive Director, The Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York), Peter Avery, Director of Theater at the New York City Department of Education and John Clancy, Executive Director, The League of Independent Theater
3:30 The New York Neo-Futurists
Laika Dog in Space (excerpts) and Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind (excerpts)
Writer: The New York Neo-Futurists
Director: Dave Dalton & The New York Neo-Futurists
Performers: The New York Neo-Futurists
The New York Neo-Futurists are an ensemble of dynamic writer/performer/ directors who present the critically acclaimed, energetic show of original short plays, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind--a non-illusory collage of the comic and tragic, the political and personal, the visceral and experimental, while embracing chance, change, and chaos. The New York Neo-Futurists have roots in NYC from the mid 90's. Since re-opening TML in New York five years ago, they have created over 1700 plays and continue to present award-winning, new and vital work every weekend in the East Village, like Laika Dog In Space currently playing at the Ontological Hysteric Theater
3:35 terraNOVA Collective presents Jeff Grow with NYC's top sleight of hand artists, con men & mentalists, Make Up Artists
Jeff Grow utilizes elegant sleight of hand and surreal mind reading together to explore the diverse facets of the art of illusion. He has been featured in award winning films, and national and international commercials for Progressive Insurance, Computer Associates, Absolute Poker and others. Jeff is also a featured performer at New York City's top venues and events including Chrysler Corporation, Jive Records, Eileen Fisher, the National Football League and a plethora of private clients. He is a regular performer at Monday Night Magic, the longest running off-Broadway show of it's kind and his stage shows have been presented in venues through out New York City and Europe.
3:45 The New Victory Theater (http://www.newvictory.org/) presents Parallel Exit
EXIT STAGE LEFT
Writer: Joel Jeske
Director: Mark Lonergan
Performers: Mark Lonergan, Mike Richter
So many laughs, so little time! Parallel Exit's EXIT STAGE LEFT is a vaudeville revue for the whole family! Music! Slapstick! Magic! Tap! A backstage adventure filled with comic chaos and fast-paced action! It's like nothing you've seen before! Join the cast as they battle for the spotlight in this madcap speed-of-light physical comedy for all ages.
3:55 Victoria Libertore aka Howling Vic
Liza Recycled
Writer: Victoria Libertore
Performer: Victoria Libertore
A blue wigged, Technicolor, altered reality that captures the essence of the great Liza Minnelli with all of her bravado, decadence and big, open heart. Off the cuff and slightly inappropriate, this character interacts with the audience, tells jokes, sings and climbs on things. Audience members have said their faces hurt from laughing so much. Victoria Libertore (Howling Vic) is an actress, playwright, improviser, curator and teacher. She has performed her work throughout New York City and in Boston, DC, Montreal, Philadelphia, Provincetown and Toronto. She is a 2008-2010 BAX Artist in Residence.
4:00 Ten Directions
ICETACLES...the Last Chance of A Lifetime
Writer: Ten Directions (written in collaboration by the performers)
Choreographer: Ron Hoffman
Performer: Lynn Berg, Audrey Crabtree, Jonathan Kaplan, Maria Parra, and Jeff Seal
Ice Castles, The Cutting Edge and Rocky collide on skates. When a has-been coach brings two sightless skaters together to win the big competition we learn that sometimes the one you love is the person you hate the most and winning is all that really matters. Ten Directions, the creators of Bouffon Glass Menajoree, bring you a blind parody on wheels.
4:10 Ronny Wasserstrom of Playdate Puppets and The Czech American Marionette Theater.
Ronny Wasserstrom will be performing his own zany form of street theater with his amazing trick marionettes. Kids can have a unique Egg-sperience inter-egg-ting with these puppets, while adults can listen in on the eggs-crutiting egg punnery. The puppets can be seen on youtube by searching "Juggling Egg Puppet" and they can be booked for events at Warsh29@hotmail.com.
4:30 Thoughts on the Theater from Dean Moss impersonating Vallejo Gantner and Mark Russell (as himself)
Vallejo Gantner
Born and raised in Melbourne, Vallejo Gantner has worked in a wide range of capacities throughout the arts including as a director, writer, performer, agent, producer and programmer. He has been the Artistic Director of Performance Space 122, one of New York's leading presenters of experimental and innovative performance arts, since December 2004. Prior to this, he was Director of the Dublin Fringe Festival from 2002 - 2004 and the Artistic Associate for the Melbourne Festival, developing a range of free outdoor and indoor performances, events, concerts and installation. Gantner has also worked in Asia and the United States as a theatre director and producer. In 2005 he was invited to speak at the prestigious Deakin Lectures in Melbourne.
Mark Russell
Mark Russell works with the Public Theater In New York City as an Associate Artistic Director. Russell produced the Under the Radar Theater Festival in collaboration with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters premiering at St. Ann's Warehouse in January 2005. The festival moved to the Public Theater in 2006. In 2007 UTR expanded to a two weekend format and it continues on as a core part of the Public Theater's season today. This year's festival is January 6-17, 2010. From 1983-2004, Russell was the Executive Artistic Director of Performance Space 122 (P.S. 122).
4:45 The Team
The TEAM is the Theatre of the Emerging American Moment, an NYC-based company that creates performance works to dissect and celebrate the experience of living in America today. The TEAM will present new songs from MISSION DRIFT, their newest work-in-progress set in Las Vegas that looks at the specific nature of American capitalism. MISSION DRIFT is a co-production with London's Almeida Theatre and NYC's Performance Space 122. Music composed by Heather Christian and performed by Ms. Christian and the TEAM.
4:55 TADA! Youth Theatre
TADA! Here We Are!
Why Are My Parents So Embarrassing?
Director: Joanna Greer
Musical Director: Jim Colleran
Songs by Joel Gelpe (TADA!) and Miriam Daly
Performers: Members of The TADA! Resident Youth Ensemble
For 25 years, The Drama Desk Award-winning TADA! YOUTH THEATER led by Artistic Director, Janine Nina Trevens, has produced original musicals performed by kids aged 8-18 for family audiences. TADA! Offers a free year-round youth development program and exciting musical theater classes at our theater on west 28th street and musical theater and playwriting residencies to public and private schools in and around NYC. Through TADA'S high quality work, young people gain confidence and learn responsibility, communication and teamwork - skills that are critical to their success both in school and life. Our goal is to give kids the chance to explore and perform musical theater together in an artistic, educational, supportive and professional environment.
5:00 Evening programming: Victoria Bailey, Executive Director, Theatre Development Fund introducing Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer with special thanks from Teresa Eyring
5:15 Cynthia Hopkins
Songs from The Truth: A Tragedy
Writer: Cynthia Hopkins
Director: DJ Mendel
Performer: Cynthia Hopkins
The Truth: A Tragedy is a new work being created by Cynthia Hopkins on commission from Les Subsistances in Lyons, France (where it's scheduled to premiere in March 2010) and Soho Rep in New York City, where you can come check it out in May 2010! The Truth: A Tragedy is conceived as a live black comedy documentary - loosely based on structural elements adapted from classical Greek drama - which chronicles my father's decline and fall from Parkinson's Disease, through a structure more akin to a cabinet of curiosities or dime museum (of the nascent, hybrid variety) than a traditional theater performance piece.
5:30 Fashion Show of pieces from TDF's special costume collection MCed by Joey Arias
The TDF Costume Collection houses more than 75,000 costumes and accessories from Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, opera companies and touring companies. They provide these professionally designed costumes at affordable prices. The reasonable prices not only allow fledgling companies to mount more professional-looking shows; they also help theatres to produce a greater number of new works by keeping production costs down. Performing arts organizations; colleges and universities; middle and high schools; and community and charitable groups are among those eligible to take advantage of all the TDF Costume Collection has to offer.
Most recently, renowned legendary Joey Arias enjoyed a wildly successful run as the emcee "Mistress of Seduction" in the Las Vegas Cirque Du Soleil production Zumanity. Revered since the 1980s as a central figure in the underground New York art scene responsible for recreating drag as high art, Arias has performed worldwide at venues including Carnegie Hall, The Freedom Theatre in London and on a transatlantic world tour into the cabaret clubs of Paris, Tokyo, Germany, Finland, Astonia, Canada and England. Off stage, Joey has amassed an extensive resume of media appearances as an actor, vocalist and outrageous personality. On film, he has appeared in Mondo New York, Big Top Pee Wee, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Wigstock - The Movie, Flawless and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Television credits include "Saturday Night Live," Ann Magnuson's "Vandemonium" (Cinemax), Elvira's MTV Halloween Special, HBO's "Dragtime," HBO's "Real Sex" and "Gayer Than Gay" on VH1, along with numerous appearances on a wide variety of talk shows and programs. Additionally, Arias has produced several of his own recordings including Arias on Holiday, Strange Fruit, Jazzo Lozo, God Shave the Queen and live recordings of StarLust in Berlin and Bar D'O in New York.
6:15 Final Thoughts on the Theater by Robert Zukerman
6:30 Komakozie - A one man orchestra
Brooklyn-born Komakozie make music that's meant to move the masses. He is now one half of the Miami based "street lounge" ensemble The Big Bounce. From the red-bricked Northeast to the welcoming West Coast and then on to paradise, this South Beach duo ignites stages nightly with a blend of soulful sounds and irresistible charm. On separate yet seemingly parallel journeys, performer/songwriter Brendan O'Hara and vocal percussionist aka beatbox phenom, Komakozie, are now in tandem on a trajectory that has landed them at the forefront of a rather unclassifiable style of music. A rare concoction of epic vocals over powerful piano with a raw street twist, The Big Bounce represents a special kind of musical alchemy.
See you all in Union Square on October 15th!
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Special Thanks to the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.