Audiences are loving THE PILL

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Audiences are enthusiastic about THE PILL - A FAMILY MEMOIR at  La MaMa.  Performances now through February 4th only @ La MaMa!
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La MaMa presents

THE PILL - A FAMILY MEMOIR

Conceived by Marla Mase

Written by The Family

Directed by Randolph Curtis Rand

Original Score by Tomás Doncker

When Sylvia accidentally takes her anorexic daughter’s anti-depressant, panic and pandemonium ensue.  A true story, this Rashomon-like black comedy (with music) presents the event from the perspectives of five family members (mom, son, daughter, and grandparents.) Full of love, humor, and feeling, The Pill is a comic and tragic mash-up of three generations' take on living and dying.

Now through February 4, 2018

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors

The Downstairs @ La MaMa

66 East 4th Street

(between Bowery and Second Avenue)

New York, NY 10003

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Winter/Spring 2018 Brochure Preview

Click Here for a digital preview of La MaMa Winter/Spring 2018 brochure

Winter/Spring Season includes:

The Pill – A Family Memoir

Conceived by Marla Mase

Directed by Randolph Curtis Rand

Series of One:

A Solo Performance Festival

It’s All True

by Object Collection Theatre

time no line

by John Kelly 

Distant Observer:Tokyo/New York Correspondence

by Takeshi Kawamura and John Jesurun

SEAGULLMACHINE

by The Assembly

THERE'S BLOOD AT THE WEDDING: Songs for Lorca

bu Theodora Skipitares

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10@$10 Tickets now on sale 

for all shows NOW ON SALE

6 Questions: Randolph Curtis Rand

Obie-winner Randolph Curtis Rand is bringing Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death! to The Ellen Stewart Theatre in October.  Randolph took time out of rehearsals to answer our 6 Questions about Frankenstein, puppets and who inspires him.

1. What was the original inspiration for Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death!?
I first read FRANKENSTEIN as a teen, and have to say, that i did not get it. Probably, I was expecting something closer to the movies. Flash forward many years, and I inadvertently picked up a copy of the 1818 edition. STILL don’t know as I got it, but now I knew that that was the point; it's a truly strange book, and I wondered just what Mary wanted to say with it. So, asking that question, and the only way of doing that (for me) is to get it up on it’s feet, putting action to description. Also, it struck me that there was a lot of philosophy in the book. She paints a very well drawn, cosmopolitan world, from Geneva, to The Orkney Islands, to the Arctic! Poets, scientists, college students, sea captains, Italian noblemen, and Muslims! I think she paints the world she knew, from her travels, the people that were friends with her, Shelley, her father, and the books she read. And I began thinking about what the zeitgeist was like then; she sets the book in “17- “, so the late 18th century- romanticism, the American, and French revolutions, Thomas Paine, the Rights of Man, etc. I wanted to tell the story, like a jewel in the setting of the time.

2. What should audiences expect from the show?
Well, NOT the movies!! I hope they’ll see something like what it must have been like for this teenage girl to be among these brilliant iconoclasts, AND her coming into her own as an artist.

3. How did you decide to incorporate the use of puppets into this piece?
I can’t really say why, but from the very first stirrings of this piece, I knew that the creature had to be a puppet. Not an actor, per se, but something inanimate, that we animated. Perhaps that’s it- a theatrical metaphor.

4. Who has inspired you? 
Hard. There are so many. I think I’m mostly inspired by other arts. Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Mary Overlie, Lucinda Childs, Laura Dean, Francis Bacon, and Marc Rothko, John Cage, and always, always, Charles Ives!

5. What film/play/art exhibit/dance work have seen recently that made an impact on you?
So many things! I’m always fascinated when someone, or some group, seem to creating new language with their work; Elevator Repair Service’s production of Sybil Kempson’s play, at New York Theatre Workshop; a couple of years ago watching Witness Relocation do Chuck Mee’s ETERNIDAY (at La Mama); a lot of reading is inspiring me; John Cage’s SILENCE, also Barbara Dilley’s memoir/auto-biography/work book, THIS VERY MOMENT, also George Mac Donalds’ classic of fantasy, LILITH.

6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you?
Oh, it’s home! This is my 7th show here. I got my Union Card here, won my OBIE here, toured Austria, Greece, and Romania from here. A lot of the faces are different now, but it will always be coming home.

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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

6 Questions: Chana Porter

Playwright Chana Porter took time out from preparing for rehearsals of Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death! to answer our 6 Questions, in which she talks about Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and  Thomas Paine.


1 How did Phantasmagoria; or, Let Us Seek Death! come about?
I met Randy [director, Randolph Curtis Rand] in 2011 when I was 26. I had just come back to Brooklyn from a crazy strict 10 day silent meditation retreat— no phones, books, pens or paper allowed. It was a fortuitous moment, but at the time I was just delighted to talk to people again! We got to talking about Mary Shelley and he told me his idea for a play that swirled between her unconventional life and the original Frankenstein text. I actually raised my hand and said “Me! Me! I want to write this!” Then I went home and sent him every play I had ever written. Thankfully, he liked those early plays and we began to meet to talk about Mary Shelley, her circle of artists and thinkers, the French Revolution, Romantic poetry, Gothic literature, Thomas Paine— it was a real education.

2 What do you find interesting about Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein?
First of all, the story around the book’s creation is so incredible. It began as a contest, inspired by “the year without a summer” in 1816 when it was too cold for frolicking outside. I love that Mary’s story is the only one that really had much of a life, because she actually finished it! As a writer, I can’t take enough inspiration from that: your work will only live on if you see it through. Keep going.

For the Frankenstein sections of the play, I went back to Mary’s original manuscript, which you can find published aside the original 1818 version. It’s choppy and very modern, with not much punctuation. The slapdash manuscript of a brilliant teenage girl. I was entranced by the language, the sophisticated Creature with his love of John Milton, the idea of alchemy from ancient science-philosophers like Paracelsus and Agrippa. Of course, the question of mastery over death. But there’s so much more! You can read Frankenstein in the vein of parental responsibility, or look at it through the lens of medical ethics or environmentalism. As modern readers, Frankenstein just keeps giving us gifts.

3 Can you talk about the queer aspect(s) of the play?
I was most interested in exploring this slice of history from a queer feminist frame. In Shelley’s circle of free thinkers, who were experimenting with what they termed “free love” and embracing their queerness, straight sex still had such social and physical repercussions for the women. As a bisexual queer woman, I feel deeply for Mary and her circle. They were trying to remake the world and were crushed by it, again and again. (Of course, everyone had different agendas. It didn’t seem like Lord Byron was concerned about social issues at all— he found talk of revolution and class politics gauche.) So the women would run off with these men who promised to love and support them without the tyranny of marriage, only to be financially and socially ruined upon abandonment. And the men were crushed by these times too. Remember, in England during the entire lifetime of Byron and Shelley, men as young as adolescents were hanged for having sex with each other. Mary and her scorchingly brilliant step-sister Claire, ran off to Italy and later Switzerland with Percy Shelley, where the laws were not so oppressive and they were out of the public eye. It was under this new freedom that she conceived Frankenstein. But the demands and judgements of the outside world did not stay away from them for very long. I don’t want to give too much away, but I could argue that Mary’s life was actually just as grisly as Frankenstein. Death and heartbreak followed her. That’s part of why we choose that subtitle, Let Us Seek Death, which is actually from Paradise Lost (the Creature’s favorite book!) We can’t skirt around death in this production, so we decided to run towards it, to embrace it, to face the abyss head on.

4 Who are some writers you admire?
I’ve always been interested in science fiction and horror, particularly writers who use the fantastical to talk about potent social issues or explore possibilities for alternative futures. I’m currently loving the horror writer Victor LaValle and speculative fiction author N.K Jemisin. Octavia Butler is an all-time favorite. I adore the creeping biological horror of Jeff VanderMeer’s excellent Southern Reach Trilogy. For scarily delightful plays, Erin Courtney’s A Map of Virtue does all the things to me— it upsets me while making me recognize the beauty of small objects and chance encounters. Every time I pass a Christmas tree lot I think of Julia Jarcho’s terrifying yet tender Grimly Handsome. And Kristine Haruna Lee will soon be taking over the world. 

 5 What is your favorite scary movie and why?
This is really difficult, but I probably just have to say John Carpenter’s The Thing. Wait, no! All time favorite is Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1978 version. Oof, that movie! My SF novel, Seep, is like the utopian version of that movie, where aliens in the form of a viscous substance completely remake the world through human-alien symbiosis.

But in Body Snatchers it’s not so nice! I love that the aliens don’t ever seem interested or even able to actually communicate with the people they’re taking over. We are the same as flowers to them. They have no sense of human speech or morality, they infiltrate and consume, while the people run around and try to make sense of what’s happening. And I love a good love story. Donald Sutherland is crazy charismatic in that movie. Sometimes it really takes the end of the world to tell someone how you feel. And then it’s too late! Because now you’re both pod people, bwahahaha. Yes, I love to be gut-wrenched.

6 What does working at La MaMa mean to you?
I’m so honored to be working at La MaMa, especially in the historic and gorgeous Ellen Stewart Theatre. I’ve been coming to see shows at La MaMa since I was in undergrad, traveling down from Massachusetts as a baby experimental theater nerd. I’m really excited about the La MaMa archives being open to the public this year, to watch and read past performances and now to be a part of that legacy. Life is too good. I’m all gratitude. 

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

Fall 2016 La MaMa Brochure

Loco7 Dance Puppet Theatre

Untitled Theatre Company #61/Lone Wolf Tribe

Zvonimir Dobrović

Split Britches

Teatro Vascell

Randolph Curtis Rand

Great Small Works

Israel Horovitz / Andrea Paciotto

Jesse Freedman

Erik Ehn / Glory Kadigan / Planet Connection

Lourds Lane

Safe Harbors Indigenous Collective

and MORE!

Click here to view the digital brochure