La MaMa Artist Catherine Filloux @ Planet Connections

Catherine Filloux, whose play Selma '65 was seen at The First Floor Theater at La MaMa earlier this season, will have her new play, Kidnap Road, given its first public staged reading at Paradise Factory as part of the Planet Connections Festival play reading series. Kidnap Road is directed by Stan Cahill and stars Kimber Riddle and Steve Guevara.

This story is imagined as a two-person play based in part on the events surrounding Ingrid Betancourt, a candidate for president in Colombia in 2002 who was kidnapped by the terrorist organization the FARC.

A woman’s political choice.  The trauma of captivity. 

And what memory will finally come to hold.

There will be a community discussion after the play with the artists, audience, as well as Michael Soussan, a former U.N. humanitarian worker whose CNN article about education for women inspired Filloux.

Also present for the discussion will be Jenny Pacanowski, a poet, combat veteran, and veteran's advocate, especially doing outreach for female vets issues and concerns. 

The reading is FREE and will take place at 2pm on June 27th at:

Paradise Factory
64 E 4th Street
(between Bowery and East 4th Street - a few doors down from La MaMa!)
New York, NY 10003

Reservations may be made: HERE

AMERICAN THEATRE on Catherine Filloux’s Selma ’65

14 Theatrical Plans to Change the World

TCG's invaluable American Theatre magazine just published a feature entitled, 14 Theatrical Plans to Change the World, by Mark Blankenship and Stephanie Coen, which looks at artists and companies who put social and political issues at the forefront of their work.   The list included Catherine Filloux whose Selma ’65 recently premiered at The First Floor Theatre at La MaMa.

It makes sense, then, that Filloux’s latest activist-minded drama will tour the United States this year, asking Americans to confront a problem that threatens to poison our democracy all over again. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 invalidation of part of the Voting Rights Act, she’s written Selma ’65, which resurrects the legacy of Viola Luzzio, a largely forgotten civil rights activist who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan shortly after the Selma voting march.

You may read the full article HERE.

Free Event: I AM HERE

Our partner CultureHub, is hosting a free event, I AM HERE, on Saturday, October 11th at 5:30pm in conjunction with La MaMa's production of Selma '65.

Eight performers from the University of South Carolina at Lancaster share their personal stories surrounding racism, violence, and loss, as they wait for their passports to be cleared at the Rome airport. In this devised piece, these remarkable students assert their identities through theater, movement, song, and text. 

Directed by Marybeth Holloway and Andrea Paciotto, with dramaturgy by Catherine Filloux, I AM HERE grew out of a year long process that linked Filloux’s play SELMA ‘65 with students from USC Lancaster. SELMA ‘65 premieres at La MaMa September 26 and runs until October 12. 

TIP: You can attend this event either immediately before the 7:30pm performance or immediately following the 2pm performance of Selma '65 this Saturday!


CultureHub/SeoulArts/La MaMa
presents

I AM HERE

Saturday, October 11th @ 5:30pm

CultureHub
47 Great Jones Street
(Between Bowery and Lafayette Street)
New York, NY 10003

Make a free reservation: HERE

First Look: SELMA '65

Beautiful photos of Catherine Filloux's SELMA '65 just in:

(Photos: Steven Schreiber)  

La MaMa presents 

SELMA '65 

A New Play by Catherine Filloux 

Starring Marietta Hedges 

Directed by Eleanor Holdridge 

September 26, 2014 - October 12, 2014 

Thursday & Friday at 7:30pm 

Saturday at 2 & 7:30pm 

Sunday at 2pm 

First Floor Theatre @ La MaMa 

74A East 4th Street 

(between Bowery and Second Avenue) 

New York, NY 10003

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

2014 - 2015 Season Officially Begins This Week

The 2014 - 2015 Season at La MaMa officially begins this week with new shows in The First Floor Theater and The Club!

First up is SELMA '65, Catherine Filloux’s one-woman, two character play. Actress Marietta Hedges plays both Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights activist shot dead after the Selma Voting March, and Tommy Rowe, an informant for the FBI who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan.

SELMA '65 begins performances on Thursday, September 26th and runs through Sunday October 12th.  There are numerous post show panel discussions and Q&As scheduled - CLICK HERE for a full list of events.

La MaMa presents
SELMA '65
A New Play by Catherine Filloux
Starring Marietta Hedges 
Director by Eleanor Holdridge 

September 26, 2014 - October 12, 2014 

Thursday & Friday at 7:30pm
Saturday at 2 & 7:30pm
Sunday at 2pm 

Tickets: $18 for Adults; $13 for students and seniors.  A limited number of 10@$10 tickets are still available for some performances - in advance only.

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

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

~~~~~~~

Also this week at The Club @ La MaMa is DUOS! part of the Queer New York International Art Festival. This series features nightly pairings of Queer performers: DARKMATTER (Janani Balasubramanian & Alok Vaid‐Menon), Merrie Cherrie & Untitled Queen and SHOW SHOW SHOW (with Peter Cramer & Jack Waters).

La MaMa presents

DUOS @ La MaMa

Friday Sept. 26 @ 10pm

DARKMATTER: Janani Balasubramanian & Alok Vaid‐Menon

Saturday Sept 27 @ 10pm

SISTERS OF THE AGES:  Merrie Cherrie & Untitled Queen

Sunday Sept. 28 @ 6pm

SHOW SHOW SHOW: Perter Cramer & Jack Waters 

Part of DUOS at La MaMa presented as part of 

Queer New York International Arts Festival 

in partnership with Helix Queer Performance Network

The Club @ La MaMa

(between Bowery and Second Avenue)

74A East 4th Street

New York, NY 10003 

Tickets: $18 Adults/$13 Students/Seniors; Ten tickets priced at $10 are available in advance only on a first come first served basis.  Not available day of show. All 10@$10 Tickets are SOLD OUT.

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

6 Questions: Marietta Hedges

Actress Marietta Hedges plays both Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights activist shot dead after the Selma Voting March, and Tommy Rowe, an informant for the FBI who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in Catherine Filloux’s one-woman play SELMA ‘65.  Marietta answered our 6 Questions recently and here is what show had to say:

1. What is the most challenging aspect of your roles in SELMA 65?
Right now it’s memorizing the lines more than anything.

2. Why is this topic relevant to audiences today?
There has been a big backlash against women’s rights, civil rights and voting rights in particular. The voting rights act, which is what Viola Liuzzo died for, had sections of it voted down last year by the Supreme Court. These very important rights that many people died for are being systematically rolled back. Politicians are consciously putting policies in place which make it extremely difficult for African-Americans, students and poor people to vote. These politicians claim that there is enough voter fraud to justify these new laws however numerous studies reveal that virtually no fraud exists. This deliberate disenfranchisement of select group of people-people who have a tendency to vote for so called democrats and liberals, is reminiscent of what was done in the Jim Crow south.

3.  When did you know you wanted a career in the arts?
When I was 16 after I played the part of Sabina in Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of our Teeth.

4.  What is the last good book your read?
New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

5.  Who or what inspires you?
All the people who went down to Selma to march and volunteer. People who protested the war in Iraq and torture. Theater and theater artists.

6.  What does working at La MaMa mean to you?
I first worked at La MaMa when I was in grad school at Columbia. I did a few shows there and love the time I spent at the theater. It feels like an artistic home I’m returning to.

La MaMa presents

SELMA '65

A New Play by Catherine Filloux
Starring Marietta Hedges 
Director by Eleanor Holdridge 

September 26, 2014 - October 12, 2014 

Thursday & Friday at 7:30pm
Saturday at 2 & 7:30pm
Sunday at 2pm 

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

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

Catherine Filloux on NBC 4 New York

We were so excited to see SELMA '65 playwright Catherine Filloux speak with Pei-Sze Cheng on NBC 4 New York last evening. 

You can watch the interview: HERE

And don't forget to get your tickets!

La MaMa presents

SELMA '65


A New Play by Catherine Filloux
Starring Marietta Hedges 
Director by Eleanor Holdridge 

September 26, 2014 - October 12, 2014 

Thursday & Friday at 7:30pm
Saturday at 2 & 7:30pm
Sunday at 2pm 

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

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

6 QUESTIONS: Catherine Filloux

Catherine Filloux is the author of SELMA '65, opening at La MaMa this month.  Catherine took time out of rehearsals to answer 6 Questions:


1. What inspired you to write about the Selma march of 1965?

Marietta Hedges, the actress in SELMA '65, brought me the story. After I did extensive research, and after much contemplation, I became very excited about the idea of writing a one-woman show in which Marietta would play both the activist Viola Liuzzo and the FBI informant Tommy Rowe. Many people watched Bloody Sunday in 1965 on their televisions as Viola Liuzzo did, and were passionate about going to the Selma Voting March. The movie that was interrupted on their televsision sets on Bloody Sunday was JUSTICE AT NUREMBERG. A student of Marietta's, Carrie Klewin, whom I know through Theatre Without Borders, said to both of us: you two have to meet! Marietta and I are both activists. The past meets the present. We start rehearsals today. See you at SELMA '65.

2. Why is this topic relevant to audiences today?

The Supreme Court made a decision last year which gravely damaged the Voting Rights Act. It reminds me of Raphael Lemkin's Genocide Convention. Lemkin like Viola is dear to my heart. Such joy and hope are originally at the core of both of them. What does hope mean? How do we capture it? Well, you can re-capture it on stage, in the theater.

3. When did you know you wanted to be a playwright?

In high school my first role onstage was the Fortuneteller in Thornton Wilder's SKIN OF OUR TEETH. I was hooked. It's a heart, mind and body experience. I'm typing my answers to you right now on a keyboard--I wasn't an actress. I also took a typing class in high school. It was a "pre-class," a class before the usual classes started, so it was at around 7am. I graduated a year early from high school so I could get my French Baccalaureate in France. Yes, that was actually my idea. So I packed in the classes. I loved that typing class. The teacher was so good. She even taught us how to type to music. It was lovely, typing to music at dawn.

4. What is the last good book your read?

BENDING TOWARDS JUSTICE by Gary May. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the book in her dissent.

5. Who or what inspires you?

La MaMa.

6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you?

That's a great segue. Home, family. Melissa and Kiku were ordering an ice cream cake for someone in the office yesterday. Today is her birthday. :-) I liked listening to their decision-making regarding the many flavors of ice cream they were choosing. One of their last concerned questions before they placed the order was: "Is that enough?"

La MaMa presents
SELMA '65
A New Play by Catherine Filloux
Starring Marietta Hedges 
Director by Eleanor Holdridge 

September 26, 2014 - October 12, 2014 

Thursday & Friday at 7:30pm
Saturday at 2 & 7:30pm
Sunday at 2pm 

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

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE

SELMA '65 Announces Post-Performance Discussions

There will be multiple post-performance discussions and Q&As around the  production of Catherine Filloux's SELMA '65 with various activists, artists, and scholars on the critical themes and events of the play.

The schedule of related events is as follows:

Saturday, September 27, 2014, 2:00pm Performance

Post-matinee performance panel with Gary May, the author of The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo, and Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy. In Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent from the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, where she argued that the law should be kept intact, Ginsburg cited May’s book.  Bill Moyers calls his book “masterful.”


Saturday, September 27, 2014, 7:30pm Performance

Post-performance Q & A with playwright Catherine Filloux, actress Marietta Hedges and director Eleanor Holdridge.

Sunday, September 28, 2:00pm Performance

Post-matinee performance panel with Reverend Richard Leonard, author of Call to Selma: Eighteen Days of Witness, and one of 300 who marched the entire Selma Voting March from Selma to Montgomery. He is Minister Emeritus, All Souls Unitarian Church, New York City.

Friday, October 3, 2014, 7:30pm Performance

Post-performance Q & A with Steven Carbó, Director of Voting Rights and Democracy Initiatives, Center for Popular Democracy.  Steven is a national voting rights expert with more than two decades of experience in advancing civil rights and social justice policies at the federal, state and community levels. He works closely with partner organizations to broaden voter registration opportunities, eliminate voting restrictions for former prisoners, and protect the right to vote.

Saturday, October 4, 2014, 7:30pm Performance

Post-performance panel with Victoria Sanford, Director, Center for Human Rights & Peace Studies, Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College & the Graduate Center City University of New York.

Thursday, October 9, 2014, 7:30pm Performance

A proud daughter of Detroit, Michigan, Kay Turner is an artist and folklorist who currently teaches courses on gender, oral narrative, and temporality theory in the Performance Studies Dept. at NYU. Among other books, she is the author of Beautiful Necessity: The Art and Meaning of Women’s Altars and Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms. For San Francisco’s National Queer Arts Festival 2014 Turner directed and starred in “When Gertrude Met Susan,” an imaginary meeting between Gertrude Stein and Susan Sontag she originally produced at Dixon Place in NYC. In 2013 Turner conceived, wrote music for, and hosted “Otherwise: Queer Scholarship into Song,” also at Dixon Place. Turner is currently at work on “Frau Trude: The Musical,” based on the Grimms’ tale about a witch and the girl who pursues her. She, actress Marietta Hedges, and playwright, Catherine Filloux, will discuss Kay growing up in Detroit, knowing Viola Liuzzo.

Friday, October 10, 2014, 7:30pm Performance

Post-performance panel with Eleanor J. Bader, who will interview the artists of SELMA ’65. Bader is a freelance journalist, who writes for Truthout, RHRealityCheck, Theasy, and other blogs and magazines.

Saturday, October 11, 2014, 7:30pm Performance

Post-performance panel with Serena Solomon, a reporter/producer for DNAinfo. An Australian, Serena, started out as a social worker, working with homeless teenagers and moved to the East Coast to work with the New York Times on “The Local” and then local news website DNAinfo.

Serena will interview Vishal Agraharkar, Counsel for the Democracy Program at Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

Sunday, October 12, 2014, 2:00pm Performance (Closing Performance)

Post-matinee performance panel with Cynthia Cohen, Director of Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University, and David Cunningham, author of Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era KKK. Cunningham is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, and the Chair of the Social Justice & Social Policy Program at Brandeis University. He will address the legacy of KKK violence, and organized vigilantism.  Cohen is co-editor of Acting Together on the World Stage: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict. She is Chair of Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation and will speak about Peacebuilding and the Arts and its relationship to social justice. (Sponsored by Brandeis Minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation.)

La MaMa presents
SELMA '65
A New Play by Catherine Filloux
Starring Marietta Hedges 
Director by Eleanor Holdridge

September 26, 2014 - October 12, 2014 

Thursday & Friday at 7:30pm
Saturday at 2 & 7:30pm
Sunday at 2pm 

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

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE