________________________________________________________________________________________________
Upcoming Events
as of March 30, 2001
(ALL EVENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.)
BOX OFFICE (212) 475-7710 ~ www.lamama.org
9/12 to 9/17, Annex Theater
"Night Behind the Windows" by Janie Geiser uses the elliptical story of an unknown woman's death to create an atmospheric world where the border between life and death is blurred. Geiser is an intriguing visual, performance and film artist and one of the most important voices in experimental puppet theater today. An evocative mix of film, live action and music. Part of the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater. (Special schedule and ticket prices: 9/12-15 at 8:00, 9/16 at 3:30 and 8:00, 9/17 at 3:30, $25-20.)
9/12 to 9/23, Annex Theater
"Theater of Light" by Rudi Stern, who in the '60s, with his partner Jackie Cassen, created psychadelic celebrations for Timothy Leary, designed workships for Joseph Chaikin and collaborated with The Doors, The Rascals and Stravinsky. A projected light composition with over 5,000 handpainted images. Time Out called it a "beautiful and hypnotic visual fantasia." Part of the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater. (Special schedule and prices: 10:00 pm 9/12-16, 19-23, $20-15. )
9/13 to 9/24, First Floor Theater
"Theater of the Ears," a radiophonic play performed by an electronic puppet, with a collage of texts by Valère Novarina, France's leading avant-garde playwright. Developed at Cal Arts by an international team including directors Zaven Paré and Allen S. Weiss, puppeteer Mark Sussman and radio artist Gregory Whitehead, it proposes a new means of integrating live and technological performance. Part of the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater. (Special schedule and prices: 9/13-16, 20-23 at 7:30, 9/17 and 24 at 3:00, $20-15.)
9/19 to 9/24, Annex Theater
Puppetsweat, a theater collective from New Haven, in two shadow puppet presentations: "Three Tales by Poe" and "Der Signal." The first is a shadow puppet rendition of Poe's classic tales with a powerful, graphic interweaving of inages and sound. The second, based on a 19th century Russian story, is a dramatic oratorio of bravery and sacrifice. Part of the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater. (Special schedule and prices: 9/19-22 at 8:00, 9/23 at 3:30 and 8:00, 9/24 at 3:30, $25-20.)
9/25 to 10/1, The Club
"Opera Burlesque," a variety show of classical music artists assembled by opera wranglers Desiree Vasquez and John Kolody.
9/28 to 10/15, Annex Theater
"Rumi's Mathnavi" by Mahmood Karimi Hakak and Joe Martin is a theatre poem on the unity of being, based upon the six-volume poem by the mystic poet Rumi (13th century), which is one of the world's greatest troves of parables and spiritual wisdom. Its imagery runs the gamut from ecstatic to volcanic, from chilling to rambunctious. It is not a narrative, but as Rumi described it, it is an "ocean." It speaks to people of all tongues, of all religions, believers and non-believers. Rumi is the best-selling poet in North America today, mostly by way of his lyrical poetry. But the secrets of the Mathnawi have only begun to be plumbed. Directed by Karimi Hakak.
9/28 to 10/1, First Floor Theater
"I'll Take Manhattan" by Desi Vasquez and John Kolody, a week-long festival featuring songs of Manhattan from the 1890's to the current era.
10/5 to 10/22, First Floor Theater
"Simone Alone," a movement theater work by Eponine Cuervo-Moll of Bogata, Columbia and Erica Blue of the U.S., with music and sound design by Andrew Voigt. Inspired by George Bataille's erotic novel of France in the 1920s, "Story of the Eye." Three adolescents have been driven to explore the depths of their confused sexual psyches. Years later, Simone alone recalls the suicide of the most innocent of the three. Lust and remorse intertwine in her memory. With beautiful images and glowing insanity, she asks, with reverent humor, the eternal question, "For what is love? Is it that suffocating, grasping claw? Or is there something else I did not know, something I could have, but did not, grasp?" Features Eponine Cuervo-Moll as old Sinone and Erika Blue as Young Simone. The choreography of Eponine Cuervo-Moll welds the harsh realities of German expressionist theatre, the magical poetic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the postmodernism of Butoh. Her work lives on the boundaries of the subsconscious and makes ample use of masks, shadows and visual media. Erica Blue is an American who works internationally; she was a founding member of Raw Material Moving Theatre of Amsterdam.
10/19 to 11/5, Annex Theater
"The Seagull," an Italian adaptation of Chekhov's classic, adapted and directed by Giancarlo Nanni of Teatro Vascello from Rome, Italy. This theater has hosted works by Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, Robert Lepage and Tadeusz Kantor, among others. Its method, called "scrittura scenica" (scenic writing), goes beyond the written text to discover other meanings through movement, lighting and sound together with the actor's voice and rhythm. The production is a dreamy voyage with colored lights and abstract movement that takes literally Constantine's admonition (in the play) that the theater must represent life "not how it is, not even as it should be, but in the way it appears in our dreams." Cast of nine stars Manuela Kustermann as Irina. In Italian with projected English translation.
10/26 to 11/19, First Floor Theater
"Fame Takes a Holiday" by Cassandra Danz, Mary Fulham and Warren Leight, with music by Tracey Berg; Dick Gallagher; Cliff Korman; and Marc Shaiman. Abigail Gampel, Deborah LaCoy, Susan Murphy and Mary Purdy perform classic High Heeled Women sketches in a hilarious backstage play about the aspirations and machinations of a comedy group on the threshold of success. Authors Danz, Fulham & Leight are the original writing team for the legendary all girl comedy group, The High Heeled Women. Leight penned the Broadway hit, "Sideman." Musical Director: Dick Gallagher, choreography by Barbara Allen.
10/26 to 11/19, The Club
Four-time Emmy Award-winner William Electric Black has been "fuel-injecting" the classics for years with modern style music, dress and choreography while remaining true to the stories and authors' intentions. His latest adaptation, "Frankenstein: The Rock Musical," captures the flavor and structure of Mary Shelley's 1816 romantic novel while rocking it out with an ensemble of 16 actors and 13 production numbers.
11/9 to 11/26, Annex Theater
"In Transit" (Les pas perdus) by award-winning French playwright Denise Bonal, directed by Françoise Kourilsky, translated by Timothy Johns, performed by the Ubu Repertory Bilingual Company. A poignant and humorous work that transports us to the chaotic world of a European train station, a "dock of desires, crossroad of cares, " where cultures mix, destinies collide and strangers cross paths. Eleven actors (including a twelve year-old boy) play over 40 characters. Playwright Denise Bonal is an acclaimed French actress and playwright. Her ten plays to-date have been published and performed in major theaters in Paris and abroad.
11/24 to 12/17, First Floor Theater
"Three Valises" by Stan Kaplan, directed by George Ferencz. Three one-act plays about three very different men, opening their suitcases. This new writer emerged form La MaMa's play reading series at La Galleria.
11/30 to 12/10, Annex Theater
"Rajah Mangandiri," a new dance-theatre work performed by Kinding Sindaw, choreographed and directed by Potri Ranka Manis, co-directed by Wayland Quintero. This is a Philippine version of the Ramayana, a south Asian classic, staged with with martial arts, royal court dances, Kulintang music, gongs, native drums and haunting indigenous chants. The company is dedicated to the dances, music and other art forms of the tribes of Mindanao, a region of the Southern Philippines which was untouched by American and Spanish colonizers.
11/30 to 12/17, The Club
"Mirror Images" by Aminta De Lara of Caracas, Venezuela. A multi-media solo work with filmic projections and multiple mirrors about a woman's encounter with her inner self. Original music by Maria Eugenia Atilano.
12/14 to 12/22, Annex Theater
"Menopausal Gentleman," an audacious ode to the permutations of the female body, by Obie Award-winning theatre artist Peggy Shaw, about a the hormonal changes of menopause in a 53-year-old woman passing as a 35-year-old man. Created by the legendary founder of Split Britches and the W.O.W Café, this show is a bluesy lounge act, with intimate confessions of life, love, sex and gender transformations. Complete with a lip-synch rendition of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You." Run culminates in an evening of theater celebrating the twentieth anniversary of W.O.W. Café December 23, featuring performances by Holly Hughes, Deb Margolin, Lois Weaver, the Five Lesbian Brothers, Spiderwoman Theatre, Sharon Jane Smith, Carmelita Tropicana, Split Britches, and others.
12/21 to 12/23, First Floor Theater
Song Tree, created by Yara Arts Group: salt crystals under a microscope - ancient winter songs and dances from the Carpathians - - are you going home for Christmas? Directed by Virlana Tkacz. Music by Maryana Sadovska and Yaryna Turianska. Video by Andrea Odezynska.
12/21 to 12/23, The Club
"Dual Solitudes" is a Palestinian-Israeli dialogue consisting of poetry and music about love, death, war and peace, performed in English, Arabic and Hebrew. The work was conceived and directed by Prof. Shimon Levy and is performed by Victor Attar and Mira Anwar Awad, with music by cellist Yuval Messner and percussionist Samer Azar. This anthology of poems has been produced in Israel by Geula Jefet Attar. It is drawn from an anthology of thirty poems that are half in Hebrew and half in Arabic. During the performance, the audience is not informed whether the poet is Arab or Israeli, but the universal pain is understood. Performed in English. Project director: Geula Jeffet Attar.
12/23 only, Annex Theater
Gala Performance Party for the W.O.W. Café: La MaMa E.T.C. celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Women's One World (WOW) Café by presenting a gala benefit featuring performances by Holly Hughes, Deb Margolin, Tammy Whynot (Lois Weaver), the Five Lesbian Brothers, Spiderwoman Theatre, Sharon Jane Smith, Carmelita Tropicana, Split Britches, and others. (7:30pm until late! Special ticket price: $25)
1/4 to 1/21, Annex Theater
"The Age of the Eye" by prominent miniaturist Theodora Skipiatares, a multi-media performance with scores of puppets in numerous separate environments, investigating the Renaissance's development of optical systems and ways of seeing, touching on Da Vinci, Michaelangelo and others.
1/4 to 1/28, First Floor Theater
"Fiddler Sub-Terrain," a new play by Oren Safdie with music by Ronnie Cohen (the creative team of the acclaimed "Jews & Jesus," La MaMa 1998-99). The work is a contemporary satire on Fiddler on the Roof, set in Montreal, dealing with Quebecoise politics.
1/24 to 28, Annex Theater (Wednesday-Sunday at 7:30pm & Sun matinee 3:00)
The Staniewski-Gardzienice Theatre of Poland performs "Metamorphosis", or The Golden Ass According to Apuleius, - a unique revival of the spirit of pre-Christian energy, joy, and lightness. All is passionately sung. Staniewski's work is known for its original singing which includes a synchronistic interweaving of text, gesture, and body movement. "Metamorphosis" is a rediscovery of the vital energy and the compelling dramaturgy of Ancient Greek theater in which the song, dance, and text are a natural execution of the extremes of human experience. http://www.doubleedgetheatre.org/staniews.htm
2/1 to 2/18, First Floor Theater
"Hymn to the Rising Sun" by Paul Green. A North Carolina prison's chain gang and its cruel Warden serve as a micrososm of fate and social justice in America. Directed by Barbara Montgomery, presented in honor of Black History month.
2/1 to 2/11, Annex Theater
"The Room on the Third Floor" by Teatro a Benzina (Italy), co-written and co-directed by Stefano Zazzera (Italy) and John Sullivan (USA). A live concert and dance performance about an angel and his passage into "The Palace of The Hell." Music by Stefano Zazzera, John Sullivan and Andrea Mescolini, lighting design by Fabrizio Gionotti, set design by Felice Berna.
2/14 and 17, Annex Theater
Astorka Korzo '90 Theatre from Bratislava, Slovakia will perform the American premiere of "Armageddon on the Grb Hill (Requiem full of life)," a postmodernist drama by Rudolf Sloboda, directed by Juraj Nvota, at La MaMa E.T.C., 74A East Fourth Street, February 14 and 17. The production is part of the multi-arts series, "Celebrate Slovakia--Art from the Heart of Europe," involving exhibitions, performances and screenings by leading Slovak artists in numerous prestigious New York venues during the month of February
2/22 to 3/4, Annex Theater
"Six Months to Live" is a work of choreographic theatre written and directed by Karim Noack, based on her struggle with breast cancer over the past seven years. Ms. Noack has choreographed a collage of Latin dance genres to illustrate the different stages of her life during the illness. The dance choreography uses Cuban Rhumba, Flamenco, Post-modem dance,Tango, and new form, Cuban Salsa. She wrote voice-overs for the play to enhance the audience's understanding of these various stages of her life, which are illustrated in the performance. The voice-overs were pre-recorded by Mira Sorvino and other actors. Features Ms. Noack and seven dancers, songs by Ms. Noack and original music by a collaboration of several musicians.
2/22 to 3/11, First Floor Theater
"Kariuki's Notebook," a new play by Rick Gray, directed by Sonoko Kawahara. A high school in Kenya has been shut down in order to make way for a tourist safari bar. But an American Peace Corps volunteer working at the school refuses to leave. The turmoil that ensues will turn colonial stereotypes on their heads as well as lead a New York soap opera actress on safari to rediscover her passion for theatre. Combining elements of farce and traditional African story-telling, "Kariuki's Notebook" will feature and African and American cast and a chorus from the Harlem School of the Arts.
3/8 to 3/11, Annex Theater
Japanese painter/theater artists Kikuo Saito and a troupe of dance students from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts bring the lost city of Pompeii back to life in "Ash Garden," an elegantly-designed dance-theater.
3/15 to 3/25, Annex Theater
American premiere of Theatre Mladinsko of Ljubljana, Slovenia in "Silence Silence Silence," an imagistic, movement-based work in five visual "sequences" directed by Vito Taufer. This extraordinary and beautiful work of dream images, anthropological fantasies and myths was awarded Special Prize of the Jury in the 1996 Bitef Festival (Belgrad, Yugoslavia) and Grand Prize in the 31st Borstnikovo srecanje (1996) in Maribor, Slovenia.
3/15 to 4/1, First Floor Theater
"Obo: Our Shaminism" - a new work by Yara Arts Group, a resident theatre company of La MaMa, and artists from the Buryat National Theatre near Lake Baikal. directed by Virlana Tkacz.
3/29 to 4/1, Annex Theater
Reprise of "Big Dicks, Asian Men" by Slant, the ensemble of Richard Ebihara, Wayland Quintero and Perry Yung, which set out in 1996 to have the very last word on Asian machismo and found an unexpectedly enthusiastic reception among Asians and round-eyes alike. The Village Voice (Laurie Stone) described it as "a satirical revue as raucous as it is deadpan, as unironed as it is deliberate, as piercing as it is self-exposing."
3/29 to 4/8, The Club
"Love Winning, Hate Losing, Part 1," written and directed by Heidi Riegler, performed with Denise Greber, Anna Kohler and Valerie Winborne. Adapted from Christine Bruckner's fictive speeches of six historically iconic women, including Eva Braun, Sappho of Lesbos, Othello's wife, and a member of the Baader Meinhof Party.
4/5 to 4/22, Annex Theater
Prose of the Transsiberian and of Little Joan of France" a new work created by Vit Horejs and the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre, based on the 1913 prose poem by Blaise Cendraras. Music by Jemeel Moondoc. Choreography by Babs Case.
4/5 to 4/22, First Floor Theater
"2001: Kwame, The Ultimate Love Story" by Erwin Kokkelkoren, directed by Bert Oele of Les Enfants Terribles, from the Netherlands
4/19 to 4/22, The Club
The mining, oil and banking interests have finally taken over the government in a virtual coup d'etat, but relax folks, that's only the downside. The upside is, we finally have a genuinely funny president! Upside number two is that a few young people would rather develop political theater than show off their leather pants and chase dot-coms. They include Company Mud, a troupe formed at Manhattan's Marymount College under the direction of Elizabeth Swados, performing "A Political Revue (Subliminable Strategeries)."
4/26 to 5/13, The Club
"Comedians" by Trevor Griffiths, directed by Ted Lambert
4/27 to 5/13, First Floor Theater
Carlo Gozzi's "Turandot," adapted by Sheri WIlner and Nicky Wolcz, featuring the graduating class of Columbia University's MFA Acting Program.
4/27 to 5/13, Annex Theater
Aeschylus' rarely-performed "Seven Against Thebes" will be staged as a dance-opera by La MaMa founder/artistic director Ellen Stewart in a new adaptation by her, with music composed by Elizabeth Swados, Genji Ito and Michael Sirota, featuring life-sized puppets by Federico Restrepo, performed by The Great Jones Repertory.
5/17-20, Annex Theater
"żdónde estás?" (where are you?) by MetaArts from Hartford, CT, led by Judy Dworin, combines poetry, puppetry and performance art in a powerful look at a heart-rendering subject, the tragedy of the "disappeared" in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s, when repressive regimes secretly arrested and killed so many of their opponents. People and life-sized puppets dance beautifully to the sound of recorded poetry read by Chilean poet Marjorie Agosin and recorded percussive music.
5/17 to 6/3, First Floor Theater
Shakespeare's "Henry IV," parts 1 and 2, performed in repertory by Eleventh Hour Theatre Company, directed by Alexander Harrington. The company debuted at La MaMa in 1999 with "Henry V" and subsequently presented its own "Richard II," both times to vigorous acclaim by the New York Post's Donald Lyons, who applauded the productions' superb performances and clarity of vision. Eleventh Hour is becoming known for its distinctive style of bare-boned Shakespeare with gorgeous acting and vocal work. Callum Keith-King, who played the leading roles in both previous productions, returns as Prince Hal.
5/17 to 6/3, The Club
Edgar Oliver, "the Poe of East Tenth Street," and friends in "MY BOYS FRIGHTEN ME," an evening of four new performance pieces: "I am not a ghost" by Edgar Oliver, "dinner in the void" by Aaron Howard and David Francis, "Scenes from Borderline" by Eric Roemele and "Saga of a dismembered post-preppie survivalist balladeer" by Michael Wiener.
5/26-6/10, Annex Theater
Time & Space Limited (www.timeandspace.org) in "Blind in Time," a new performance piece written by Linda Mussmann in collaboration with Claudia Bruce. "Blind in Time" opens in the year l961 and casts a glance from there across Mussmann's coming-of-age years. Facts from her personal history are placed against the political backdrop of the period from 1961 to 2001. The multi-media performance begins with Eisenhower's farewell speech, his warning of the mighty military industrial complex looming on America's future, Kennedy's inauguration, and America's first flight into orbit around the earth. The performance space is washed with images and sounds of the events that Mussmann has taken from actual footage. She cuts, chops, and grinds history and intermixes it with her own. She searches for what has happened to America during the last forty years as well as what has happened to her and her partner as they have traveled into the 21st Century.
6/7 to 6/24, First Floor Theater
"Bitterroot" by Paul Zimet with original music composed by Peter Gordon. A new music-theatre work about Meriwether Lewis and the Corps of Discovery - a quintessential American adventure performed by the celebrated Talking Band.
6/7 to 10, The Club
"The Tempest," as performed by Thaddeus Phillips in a children's wading pool.
6/14-17, Annex Theater
Return engagement for "The Age of the Eye" by prominent miniaturist Theodora Skipiatares, a multi-media performance with scores of puppets in numerous separate environments, investigating the Renaissance's development of optical systems and ways of seeing, touching on Da Vinci, Michaelangelo and others.
6/14 to 7/1, The Club
"Pastures of Plenty" by Colin Hodges, loosely based on John Ford's "'Tis a Pity She's a Whore" and inspired by actual events, follows the incestuous relationship of a brother and sister, Jesse and Junie Lee, the birth of their children and their subsequent troubles with the law. Separated by birth they found each other 20 years later and fell in love. Despite an ordeal of flight and incarceration, their love burns passionately to this day. This achingly honest play, Hodges' playwriting debut, challenges preconceived notions of love and beauty and will be surprisingly hard for audiences to leave at the theater.
6/21 to 7/1, Annex Theater
Sin Cha Hong (Laughing Stone Dance Company of Korea) in "The Woman Laughing," a six-part dance theater work, autobiographically-inspired, that traces a woman's life journey through contemplation, conflict, acceptance and ultimately, laughter. Ms. Hong, who "fills the stage with stunning silence" (Jennifer Dunning, NY Times), fixes a fearless gaze on her subject and expresses its essence through a searing minimalism. Sin Cha Hong is one of East Asia's most important creative artists. She has been recognized as one of the ten most influential Korean artists of the 20th century. The Chinese dance historian Ou Jian Ping named her as one of the preeminent choreographers of modern times, alongside Duncan and Nijinsky.
6/28 to 7/1, First Floor Theater
"Single Action Shotgun," written by Mike Gorman (The Fabulous Giggin Brothers), is a seven-character comedy set in rural New England that relishes the local color and quirky characters of the region. Co-directed by Gorman and Rick Gomez. A beloved local swamp is threatened by a real estate developer from Poughkeepsie. This inspires new-found harmony in a Massachusetts community of fractured farmers, car mechanics, country matriarchs and a boy who transforms into a beaver. There is an allegory at work--the community is to be taken as the American family and the play as a serious statement on what's missing in it. The production includes live music, dance and a humongous beaver puppet designed by Federico Restrepo. .
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