La MaMa Blogs: October 2016

Monday, October 31, 2016

Video Preview: Jew vs. Malta

 
Jew vs Malta from La MaMa on Vimeo.

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La MaMa presents
JEW VS MALTA

Conceived and directed by Jesse Freedman

October 28 - November 6, 2016
Friday and Saturday at 10pm; Sunday at 6pm

The Club @ La MaMa
74A East 4th Street 
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: Adult: $20 / Student & Seniors: $15

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Video Preview: Muntergang and other Cheerful Downfalls!

 
Muntergang and other Cheerful Downfalls! from La MaMa on Vimeo.

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La MaMa presents
Muntergang and other
Cheerful Downfalls!

Created and performed by Great Small Works members:
John Bell, Trudi Cohen, Stephen Kaplin, Jenny Romaine and Roberto Rossi

With puppeteers Joseph Therrien and Sam Wilson
Music by Jessica Lurie and Hannah Temple
Script by Jenny Romaine

October 28 - November 06, 2016
Thursday to Saturday at 7:30PM; Saturday and Sunday at 2PM

First Floor Theatre
74A East 4th Street
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $20 Adults; $15 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Monday, October 24, 2016

Our Mother of Science Fiction: Monsters, Magic, and Mary Shelley


Immediately following the Sunday, October 30th performance of PHANTASMAGORIA; or Let Us Cheat Death there will be a post show discussion entitled: "Our Mother of Science Fiction: Monsters, Magic, and Mary Shelley."  Phantasmagoria playwright Chana Porter will be joined by authors Maria Dahvana Headley and Leah Schnelbach discussing Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

MARIA DAHVANA HEADLEY is a New York Times-Bestselling author and editor, playwright and screenwriter, most recently of the young adult fantasy novel MAGONIA (HarperCollins), the dark fantasy/alt-history novel QUEEN OF KINGS (Dutton), and the internationally bestselling memoir THE YEAR OF YES (Hyperion). With Neil Gaiman, she is the #1 New York Times-bestselling editor of the anthology UNNATURAL CREATURES (HarperChildrens), benefitting 826DC. With Kat Howard, she is the author of the novella THE END OF THE SENTENCE (Subterranean Press) - one of NPR's Best Books of 2014.

LEAH SCHNELBACH is a staff writer for Tor.com and the Fiction Editor of No Tokens journal. Her story, “Bracelet,“ received an Honorable Mention in Lumina’s 2013 Fiction Contest, judged by George Saunders. She was also chosen as an alternate for a Playa Fellowship in 2012. Her fiction has been published in Lumina and Anamesa, and her criticism has appeared on Electric Literature.

CHANA PORTER is a writer and teacher living in Brooklyn. Her plays and performance pieces have been developed and produced at Cloud City, 3-Legged Dog, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Cherry Lane, The Invisible Dog, Primary Stages, Movement Research, PS122, Dixon Place, and The White Bear in London. She is currently writing a series of science fiction novels, POST HUMAN CLASSICS and is the co-founder of the Octavia Project, a free summer program for Brooklyn teenage girls. Up next: Leap And The Net Will Appear, directed by Tara Ahmadinejad at Playwrights Horizons New Works Lab, Dec. 2016.

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La MaMa presents
Phantasmagoria; 
or, Let Us Seek Death!
Conceived and Directed By Randolph Curtis Rand
Written by Chana Porter
Puppetry by Benjamin Stuber
An Eric Borlaug Production

October 20 - November 06, 2016
Thursday to Saturday at 7PM; Sunday at 4PM

Tickets: $30 Adults; $25 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Special Events for Muntergang and other Cheerful Downfalls!

Friday October 28th

Opening night post show talk and reception with Dr. Edward Portnoy

Eddy Portnoy received his Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary. His dissertation was on cartoons of the Yiddish press. He also holds an M.A in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University, and is Senior Researcher and Exhibition Curator at the YIVO institute for Jewish Research.  His articles on Jewish popular culture phenomena have appeared in The Drama Review, Polin, and The International Journal of Comic Art. His investigations into the lives and work of Zuni Maud and Yosl Cutler were the seed of this production.


Thursday November 3rd

Jews For Racial and Economic Justice night

Post show discussion with the scintillating and subtle Irena Klepfisz

Irena Klepfisz is a poet, Yiddish translator, and teacher of English literature, Yiddish language and literature, and Women’s Studies. She is the author of the poetry collection A Few Words in the Mother Tongue and Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches, and Diatribes. Klepfisz is additionally a co-editor of The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women’s Anthology and Jewish Women’s Call for Peace: A Handbook for Jewish Women on the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict, and served for many years as Yiddish editor for Bridges magazine. She has been a long-time activist whose work has addressed homophobia in the Jewish community, women and peace in the Middle East, and secular Jewish identity. Klepfisz teaches at Barnard.


Saturday November 5th

Image result for Dazzle Camouflage book celebration! with Ezra Berkley Nepon

Post show Dazzle Camouflage book celebration!
with Ezra Berkley Nepon

Dazzle Camouflage: Spectacular Theatrical Strategies for Resistance and Resilience, a new book by Ezra Berkley Nepon, offers two profiles of contemporary theater artists, Jenny Romaine and the Eggplant Faerie Players, generating analysis about their shared transformative theatrical strategies. Using oral history, archival research, and experiences working with these artists, the author tells their stories and identifies the roles of Dazzle Camouflage, Re-Mixing History, and Rehearsing Resistance in their work. Both profiles are interwoven with progressive Jewish and Queer culture and politics.




La MaMa presents
Muntergang and other 
Cheerful Downfalls!

Created and performed by Great Small Works members: John Bell, Trudi Cohen, Stephen Kaplin, Jenny Romaine and Roberto Rossi 

With puppeteers Joseph Therrien and Sam Wilson 
Music by Jessica Lurie and Hannah Temple
Script by Jenny Romaine

October 28 - November 06, 2016 
Thursday to Saturday at 7:30PM; Saturday and Sunday at 2PM 

First Floor Theatre
74a East 4th Street 
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $20 Adults; $15 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Friday, October 21, 2016

First Look at PHANTASMAGORIA; or, Let Us Seek Death










 





 



All photos by Theo Cote
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La MaMa presents
Phantasmagoria; 
or, Let Us Seek Death!
Conceived and Directed By Randolph Curtis Rand
Written by Chana Porter
Puppetry by Benjamin Stuber
An Eric Borlaug Production

October 20 - November 06, 2016
Thursday to Saturday at 7PM; Sunday at 4PM

Tickets: $30 Adults; $25 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Rod Rodgers Supplies Drive for Haiti


Rod Rodgers Dance Company & Studios is asking that members of the FAB community consider donating supplies for a drive they are doing to Haiti for victims of Hurricane Matthew. The donations will be distributed by their staff members to families that live in Haiti. Please note all donations go directly to hurricane victims.

Items needed include:

Canned foods / all types
Canned & Powdered Milk
Instant Oatmeal
Powered Baby Formula
Baby Food in Pouches
Peanut Butter in Plastic Jars
Ramen Noodles in the bag (No Cups)
Reusable Shopping Bags
Comforter / Quilts
Towels
Flat bed sheets
Clothing Light weight  Tropical Weather-for Men, Women & Children (clean only)
Underwear-for Men, Women (also Bras) & Children (clean only)
Comforter / Quilts (clean only)
Towels (clean only)
Flat bed sheets (clean only)
Shoes-for Men, Women & Children
Sneakers-for Men, Women & Children
Sandals-for Men, Women & Children
Flashlights & Batteries
Toiletries:
Bar Soap
Deodorant
Toothpaste
Toothbrushes
Aspirin / Tylenol / Advil - Adults & Children - Pill form only
Antibiotic Ointment / Bacitracin / A & D Ointment
Feminine Sanitary Napkins
Pepto Bismo in Pill Form
Anti-diarrhea Pills / Imodium AD
Eye Drops
Alcohol Wipes
Peroxide
Bandage / Gauze / Surgical Tape
Cotton Balls or similar
Latex Gloves
Matches
Bug Spray
Powdered Bleach
Powdered Laundry Detergent

Donations will be accepted at:

RRDC Studios, 62 E. 4th Street, tthrough to Friday of this week from 5 to 9pm


There will be  multiple drive but the first deadline is this Friday October 21, 2016


First shipment must be ready on the 22nd. The plan is to collect more items to send out to Haiti again next month. They will go to Jeremi and Petaon-Ville for Hurricane victims from Jeremi who have made their way to Petaon-Ville and items will also be going to Nipe, Caye, Grand Anse, Leogane & Ti Guave.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Ten Facts About Mary Shelley



1. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever shortly after Mary was born.

2. Mary began an affair with Percy Shelley when she was only 17. They began meeting each other secretly at Mary Wollstonecraft's grave in St Pancras Churchyard.

3. Frankenstein was written at Lord Byron's suggestion that he, Percy and Mary " "each write a ghost story" to entertain themselves while staying in Geneva.

4. Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus was originally published anonymously in 1818, when Mary was only 20 years old.

5. The initial reviews of the Frankenstein weren't very good. The Quarterly Review described it as "a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity."

6. Mary Shelley gave birth to four children in her life, but only one survived.

7. In addition to Frankenstein, Mary also wrote the novels Mathilda (1820), The Last Man (1826), The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, A Romance (1830) and many short stories and travelogues.

8. Percy Shelley died in 1822 in a drowning accident while sailing in the Gulf of Spezia. Mary Shelley was a widow at 24 and never remarried.

9. In 1826, Henry M. Milner's adaptation, The Man and The Monster; or The Fate of Frankenstein opened on 3 July at the Royal Coburg Theatre, London.

10. Mary Shelley dies of a brain tumour in 1851 the age of 53.


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La MaMa presents
Phantasmagoria; 
or, Let Us Seek Death!
Conceived and Directed By Randolph Curtis Rand
Written by Chana Porter
Puppetry by Benjamin Stuber
An Eric Borlaug Production

October 20 - November 06, 2016
Thursday to Saturday at 7PM; Sunday at 4PM

Tickets: $30 Adults; $25 Students/Seniors; ten tickets priced at $10 each are available for every performance as part of La MaMa 10@$10 ticketing initiative.

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Video Preview: Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death!

Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death! from La MaMa on Vimeo.


Just in time for Halloween, La MaMa presents Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death! coming October 20 - November 6, 2016, to The Ellen Stewart Theatre.

A rainy night in a Genevan castle. Debauched poetry and too much wine. A teenage girl writes a spooky story. On the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s creation, Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus, Phantasmagoria assembles a swirl of puppetry, biography, and storytelling into a market of ghosts…The dead walk among us.





La MaMa presents
Phantasmagoria; 
or, Let Us Seek Death!
Conceived and Directed By Randolph Curtis Rand
Written by Chana Porter
Puppetry by Benjamin Stuber
An Eric Borlaug Production

October 20 - November 06, 2016
Thursday to Saturday at 7PM; Sunday at 4PM

Tickets: $30 Adults; $25 Students/Seniors; ten tickets priced at $10 each are available for every performance as part of La MaMa 10@$10 ticketing initiative.

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE


Friday, October 14, 2016

First Look: PITECUS









All photos by Carolina Restrepo

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La MaMa presents
PITECUS
by Rezza-Mastrella/Teatro Vascello

October 13 - 16, 2016
Thursday - Saturday at 7:30pm; Sunday at 2pm

The First Floor Theatre
74A East 4th Street
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $20 Adults/$15 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE


Wednesday, October 12, 2016

6 Questions: Benjamin Stuber


Benjamin Stuber has created all the puppets for the world premier of Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death! coming to The Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa on October 20 - November 6, 2016. Benjamin took time out from rehearsals to answer our 6 Questions.

1. How did you come to create puppets for Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death!?
Randy Rand [director of Phantasmagoria] and I have worked together in several capacities over the years in developing new work; he even directed my one-man show. Back around 2012 he pitched me his vision of an authentic take on Frankenstein told from Mary Shelley's perspective, utilizing puppets to bring the Creature to life. I believe Randy saw puppets I had made for Chocolate Dances at St. Mark's, Kevin Kuhlke's production of The Trojan Women, and a gargantuan mashup of Prometheus Bound and Percy Shelley's Prometheus Unbound; he thought my artistry appropriate for this new project. I met the playwright, Chana [Porter], shortly after that, so the three of us have been kicking around ideas for several years before development began in earnest.

2. How does the content of the show influence the look or style of your puppets?
I'd like to think that both have informed one another. Chana began early drafts and scenes around the time I started sketching, and the script began to take shape around the time I started construction on the puppets in the early summer of 2015. So progress on the puppets and the script have mutually informed each other. Over that time I arrived at a few basic assumptions about the Creature. Firstly, like the most terrifying monsters in literature and film, it would be multiform - not adhering to one set shape or rigid definition (like Carpenter's The Thing or Grendal in Beowulf). Second, I wanted to utilize only materials that would have been available in 1816 (wood, metal, rope - no plastics, no 3d printing), so that my best attempts to make a perfect man come to life would be thwarted by my mistakes, my limited skills, and the unknown unknowns inherent in making art. I wanted to use materials I knew would be temperamental, time-consuming, and imperfect - knowing they'd fight back against me - much like Dr. Frankenstein's relationship to his creation. Lastly, I wanted to capture the admixture of beauty and horror evoked by Lynd Ward's famous illustrations of the Frankenstein story from 1934: a Creature part angel, part Devil, and somehow wholly human.

3. What was the the biggest challenge you faced in designing puppets for this show? 
I estimate I've clocked in about 1500 hours on constructing these puppets. Hand carving a comprehensive wood skeleton, managing the physics of moving a four foot long articulative finger, and burning out crosshatching with a heat knife is challenging enough - but the real difficulty in this project has been space. I'm unable to afford the exorbitant price of a decent workshop, so I've made all the puppets for Phantasmagoria in my basement. I've tried my best to be careful and compassionate about roommates' space, noise sensitivity, safety, and patience - but it's very hard to make large-scale art in such confines and not drive yourself (and those around you) bananas.

4. Who has inspired you?
I'm not really plugged into any puppetry communities, so sadly I don't have many direct puppetry inspirations: I'm more inspired by concepts, dreams and questions. Specifically, Lynd Ward's sumptuous illustrations have been a huge motivating force for this project. I've also followed my extensive training and experience in anatomy, kinesiology, and biomechanics in inform the look and structure of these puppets. I've taught movement and Pilates for many years, and so I have insight into how bodies move and how they break down. This may be a condemnation of both talents, but I think everything I know about puppets comes from Pilates, and everything I know about Pilates comes from puppets! Therefore I've tried to make most of these puppets from a sound physiological foundation, so although the Creature looks and moves in eerily human ways the fact that wood and rope stand in for bone and muscle makes it simultaneously quite alien. I've also become very enamored of the materials I'm using - pine, rope, steel, and translucent fabrics - and have let their physical possibilities influence the aesthetics of the puppets. 

5. What was the last good book you read?
Right now I'm halfway through Slavoj Å½ižek's Absolute Recoil, but before that I reread John Crowley's Lord Byron's Novel - a great imagining of how a lost Byron epic, preserved by his daughter Ada Lovelace (yes, that Ada Lovelace) would be literally deciphered and carried into the present day. It's a great read!

6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you?
Ever since college I dreamt of making art at LaMama - its reputation shone out a as a beacon of quality experimental theatre. In 2012 I costume designed and performed in a show at LaMama: Sheila Callaghan's Port Out, Starboard Home. We were shipping the set and half the actors in from the world premiere in San Francisco and about to begin rehearsals when superstorm Sandy hit and the entire East Village found itself dark and under water I was amazed by the skillful competence and grace under pressure the staff and leadership at LaMama showed during this unprecedented time, and they got our production up and running as if nothing inclement had ever happened. I'm hugely excited to work with LaMama again, this time in much better circumstances!

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La MaMa presents
Phantasmagoria; 
or, Let Us Seek Death!
Conceived and Directed By Randolph Curtis Rand
Written by Chana Porter
Puppetry by Benjamin Stuber
An Eric Borlaug Production

October 20 - November 06, 2016
Thursday to Saturday at 7PM; Sunday at 4PM

Tickets: $30 Adults; $25 Students/Seniors; ten tickets priced at $10 each are available for every performance as part of La MaMa 10@$10 ticketing initiative.

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Post-Show Conversation with RezzaMastrella




Thursday, October 13th there will be a special post-show conversation with RezzaMastrella (Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza) and Frank Hentschker, Executive Director and Director of Programs, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Theatre, immediatly following the 7:30pm performance of PITECUS.

In PITECUS, Rezza-Mastrella analyze the relationship between man and his perversions in demented portrayals of many different people coming to grips with the Absurd.

Rezza-Mastrella (Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella) are resident artists at Teatro Vascello, They are legendary and award-winning artists in Italy who have been creating theater, film, and installations combining visual arts and performance together since 1987. Mastrella is the one who creates the physical environment in which Rezza, the actor, lets loose his cantankerous spirits with a cockeyed humanity and relentless physicality. 
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La MaMa presents
PITECUS
by Rezza-Mastrella/Teatro Vascello

October 13 - 16, 2016
Thursday - Saturday at 7:30pm; Sunday at 2pm

The First Floor Theatre
74A East 4th Street
(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: $20 Adults/$15 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE



Thursday, October 6, 2016

Press is IN for The God Project!




"superbly convincing...ambitious multimedia play with puppets...theatrical magic"
~ Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times

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"Lone Wolf Tribe’s raucous cosmic exploration is a morbid fairytale set in a desolate paradise where God is a lonely old man searching for a secret he had forgotten....Kevin Augustine does a stunning job physicalizing the aging God with hyper-realistic prosthetics. The set design by Tom Lee thoroughly complements the style of the show, and transforms La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theatre into an eerie apocalyptic wonderland. While there are structural flaws in this production, The God Projekt is a bold theatrical statement that explores a question that is ancient and relevant. The creators’ efforts in searching beyond canon should be celebrated and emulated."
by Ran Xia, Theatre Is Easy

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"hellishly funny satire of a beneficent Father in the Judeo-Christian strain...Augustine turns in a commandingly versatile performance...If you’ve ever had a problem with the notion of a benevolent Father and wanted to raise a middle finger to the Heavens, The God Projekt might be the answer to your prayers."
~ Molly Grogan, Exeunt Magazine
 


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"Through use of simple props and quietly magical effects this is set in motion in a way which takes an angry, perceptive, hilarious, gloomy narrative to an unexpectedly, unforgettable moving conclusion — or at least a new beginning of possibility; The God Projekt is an open-ended testament worth trusting."


Adam McGovern, HiLoBrow
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"dazzling puppetry can't quite conceal some of the darker pulses roiling beneath its busy surface. Not for nothing hasVoice critic Helen Shaw called The God Projekt 'one of the most startlingly intense shows I've seen.'"
~ Danny King, Village Voice

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"Augustine's performance as God is captivating and powerful. His physicality and storytelling is incredible and the power duo of Einhorn and Ausustine direct the tale and frames the work with the careful grace of two master storytellers...Grade: A"
~ Mateo Moreno, The Artswire Weekly

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La MaMa in association with 

Untitled Theater Company No. 61 presents

THE

GOD

PROJEKT
By Lone Wolf Tribe
Conceived by Kevin Augustine
Co-written and Co-directed by Kevin Augustine and Edward Einhorn

September 30 - October 16, 2016
Thursday - Saturday at 7pm; Sunday at 4pm 
- additional performance on Monday Oct. 3 at 7pm

Tickets: $30 Adults/$25 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE