HOWL ! ARTS PROJECT 2009: THEATER

HOWL ! ARTS PROJECT 2009: THEATER

PRESENTED AT
45 BLEECKER STREET THEATER
45 BLEECKER STREET (JUST EAST OF LAFAYETTE AT MULBERRY STREET)

Friday Sept 18th 8pm
Saturday Sept 19th 8pm
Sunday Sept 20th 8pm
The TWEED Fractured Classics Series presents:
Pic-up: A Summer Romance
45 Bleecker Street Theater
Lobby Theater
45 Bleecker Street (Just East of Lafayette at Mulberry Street)
$20

The TWEED Fractured Classicks Series presents original interpretations of great American plays and movies. Call it parody. Call it satire. But don’t call it camp! These productions are deceptively reverent, yet hilarious spins on classic American dramatic literature.

This particular dinosaur emerged in the early fifties and ran away with most of the season awards - including the Pulitzer! The performance features drag legend Sweetie in the lead role, Broadway’s comic diva the peerless Julie Halston, and TWEED faviorites, Jay Rogers, Bradford Scobie, Steve Hayes, and Greg Wallach, with a special turn by Bree Benton.

Stephen Pell, of Ridiculous Theater fame, adapted the script, and Kevin Malony directs. Produced by TWEED TheaterWorks in association with Robbi Kearns.


Monday Sept 21st 8pm
Tuesday Sept 22nd 8pm
Wednesday Sept 23rd 8pm
Thursday Sept 24th 8pm
The Cradle Will Rock by Marc Blitzstein
Produced by Downtown Music Productions,
East Village Concert Series.
Music Direction: Mimi Stern-Wolfe
Directed and Choreographed by Lisa Brailoff
Artistic Coordinator: Jeannine Otis
45 Bleecker Street Theatre
Downstairs Green Room
45 Bleecker Street (Just East of Lafayette at Mulberry Street)
$20

On a June evening in 1938 director Orson Welles, producer John Houseman and the cast and crew of a new Broadway musical were locked out of their theater on opening night by armed servicemen under orders from the Federal Govt. Without costumes, sets, lights or sound, Welles and Houseman found an unused theater, rented an upright piano and marched their audience up Broadway for what has become the most historic theatrical opening ever recorded. The entire libretto performed from the audience by actors forbidden to step onto the stage, received a 40 minute standing ovation, as legend has it. An operetta about greed, corruption and the plight of the worker could not be more timely.


Thursday September 24th 8pm
Friday September 25th 8pm
Got You by Michael W. Small
45 Bleecker Street Theater
Lobby Theater
45 Bleecker Street (Just East of Lafayette at Mulberry Street)
$10

Every day, East Villager Adam and his wife Wendy play a private game in which they try to trick each other with outrageous lies. But when their daily routine is interrupted by what seems to be another terrorist attack, they become unwitting players in a different sort of deception -- one that reveals the fragility of their post-9/11 lives and leads them to deadly consequences.

Here’s what people are saying about Michael’s work:

THE IT GIRL:

"...a neat, very witty book." -- Clive Barnes, 2001

"A bright and breezy musical with a big future." -- Theatrical Index, 2001

"....fresh, remarkably intelligent entertainment." -- The Waterbury Republican American, 1999

"The dialog is punderful. Yes, punderful, that wonderful combination of puns and an unbelievable amount of double entendres... Just sit back and enjoy the entertainment."
-- SDtheatrescene.com, 2009

KABOOM!

"...mixes sex, greed and roguishness in a way that's highly reminiscent of the Marx Brothers...hip boisterous and puerile. It will probably be a big hit." -- Curtain Up, 2008

"...a far-fetched rollercoaster of crazy, unbridled Fringe Festival fun." -- Offoffonline.com, 2008

"So funny you might onomatopee your pants." -- Daily Candy, 2008


Friday Sept 25th 8pm
Saturday Sept 26th 8pm
Sunday Sept 27th 3pm matinee and 8pm
The Common Swallow by David Caudle
45 Bleecker Street Theater
Downstairs Green Room
45 Bleecker Street (Just East of Lafayette at Mulberry Street)
$15
To purchase tickets:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/78930

A midwestern town's annual food fair is in full swing. Locals converge along the banks of the muddy river to sample pulled pork, baked beans, and corn. Nineteen-year-old runaway Jim comes for the meth. New Yorker Karen, on a rare return to her roots, picks at her barbecued chicken, potato salad, and a very old wound. Her townie brother Tripp sharpens his teeth on some juicy ribs and a simmering sibling rivalry. All any of them really craves is a good helping of love and acceptance, and even just a taste of "welcome home."

“The Common Swallow,” was developed in the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages. David Caudle is also author of the acclaimed, award winning play, “The Sunken Living Room.”
Directed by Kirsten Kelly. Starring Annie Golden, Elizabeth Rich, Julie Jesneck, and MacLeod Andrews

“Caudle’s writing is full of humor, compassion, keen observation”
Christine Dolen, Miami Herald

“Caudle’s plays...often suprise with their mystifying aura, their dramatic punch.” Tom Kertes, Village Voice


Saturday Sept 26th at 8pm
Sunday Sept 27th at 8pm
SOP DOLL ! A Jack Tale Noh by Lee Ann Brown & Tony Torn
45 Bleecker Street Theater
Lobby Theater
45 Bleecker Street (Just East of Lafayette at Mulberry Street)
$10

A spooky Appalachian tale of witches, ghosts, and shape shifting wildcats, told in the style of Japanese ritualistic Noh drama. Special guests will be on hand to perform a hair-raising spectacle! Starring Tony Torn, Lee Ann Brown, Miranda Torn, and Julie Patton


Monday Sept 28th 8pm
Tuesday Sept 29th 8pm
Verse Theater Manhattan presents
Poets Theater Double Bill
TRY! TRY! by Frank O’ Hara
Richard Ryan Producer
45 Bleecker Street Theater
Downstairs Green Room
45 Bleecker Street (Just East of Lafayette at Mulberry Street)
$10 (with Clutter)

Try! Try!, first published in 1951, is among O’Hara’s earliest theater pieces, and remains one of his most lyrical and accessible works – in its unnerving blend of Greek tragedy and Hollywood farce it remains both delightful and unsettling.

“A wife waits for her husband to come home form the war. Her lover waits for her husband to come home from the war. Her husband comes home from the war.

“This won’t be pretty.”

The poet Frank O’Hara (awarded the National Book Award for Poetry posthumously in 1972) was a key figure in the postwar New York School of poets and painters which includes poets John Ashbery and James Schuyler, and painters Larry Rivers and Jasper Johns. Enormously influential on subsequent generations of American poets, O’Hara’s poetry was at once colloquial and dreamy, embracing high modernism, camp, pop, and surrealism in their uncanny range of styles and influences. His remarkable works for the stage were often originally produced in collaboration with the legendary Living Theater, a seminal force in the downtown arts scene of the 50s and 60s, and are important early examples of performance art as a genre.


Verse Theater Manhattan (VTM) is the preeminent theater company in the English speaking world devoted exclusively to verse drama. VTM is devoted to discovering and staging the best of old and new verse drama and bringing it to the widest possible audience. VTM's mission is both practical and high-minded: as producers we coordinate and support the theatrical effort of poets, directors, and performers working to bring verse drama to the stage; as supporters of the New York cultural environment, we unite the city's diverse theatrical and literary community.

VTM is open to all styles, genres, and periods of verse drama. VTM seeks out contemporary and ancient texts, classics and translations. VTM is especially interested in encouraging and promoting the work of living poets working to bring verse to the stage.


Monday Sept 28th at 8pm
Tuesday Sept 29th at 8pm
Verse Theater Manhattan presents
Poets Theater Double Bill
Clutter by Kristin Prevallet
45 Bleecker Street Theater
Downstairs Green Room
45 Bleecker Street (Just East of Lafayette at Mulberry Street)
$10 (with TRY ! TRY !)

Clutter, poet Kristin Prevallet's one-act lyric drama, is a love story about social absurdity and poetic crisis. A girl searches for meaning in words that make sense only to her. A boy tries to counter chaos by rearranging the furniture. Luckily they share the same muse -- a voice from the radio -- who reveals the secret that just might bring them back together.



Selected bio’s as of 8/18/2009:

Lisa Brailoff, Director/Choreographer (member SDC) – most recently directed THE CRADLE WILL ROCK and the opera THE FIRST WORD for Downtown Music Productions and assisted director Ami Dayan on MASKED at DR2 Off- Broadway. Other New York work includes premieres of four operas for The Vineyard Theatre, at The O’Neill Center; ABOUT FACE/MONSTER at The Ohio Theatre’s Soho Think Tank Ice Festival; BALLOON and THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE for Chain Lightning Theatre; CYBELE, A LOVE STORY at the Judith Anderson Theatre; A TOAST TO THE STEINS and MUSIC AND SATIRE for St. Marks on the Bowery. She also did choreography for DEFENDING THE LIGHT at The New Federal Theatre. Regional work includes Atlantic Theatre Festival, MARRY ME A LITTLE; A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, San Diego Rep and THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She was also resident choreographer for The Asolo State Theatre in Florida creating dance for THE DRUNKARD and WAITING FOR GODOT. She directed THE TEMPEST for Shakespeare on the Sound and was resident choreographer for 11 seasons. She has directed and/or choreographed for Virginia Stage Co, Sarasota Opera Co., Alaska Repertory Theatre and Allenberry Playhouse. Ms. Brailoff was Associate Artistic Director for five seasons at Forestburgh Playhouse where she directed EVITA, SHE LOVES ME, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, PHANTOM (Kopit/Yeston), HEIDI CHRONICLES, LOST IN YONKERS and many more. Thanks to Dan and Harriet for their constant support.

Michael Small's KABOOM!, a farce about a San Francisco con man, was selected by The New York Sun as a "prestige production" in the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival; it was directed by BT McNicholl (associate director of Broadway's Billy Elliot and Spamalot) and featured Broadway star Ray Wills. Small also co-wrote the book to the musical The IT Girl, which starred Jean Louisa Kelly (from the CBS hit Yes, Dear) and was overseen by Jerry Zaks during its critically-acclaimed 2001 Off Broadway run at the York Theater. Since then, the show has been performed regionally, winning raves in July 2009 at the Coronado Playhouse in San Diego. Other works include Beautiful Foolish Arms, which was performed in a Players Club reading by The Naked Angels Theater in 2007, and The Cool Club, a two-act comedy about an East Village nightclub that had a site-specific run at New York's famously defunct CBGB 313. Formerly a writer and editor at PEOPLE Magazine, Small later ran the websites for Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone. He is now the managing director of Bravo TV's website.
(Playwright: Got You)

David Caudle is the author of several plays, including VISITING HOURS, THE SECOND HOUSE and DAMSEL. His newest play,
IN DEVELOPMENT,will premiere in October at the New Theatre in Miami, directed by Ricky J.Martinez.THE SUNKEN LIVING ROOM (Samuel French) had a co-world premiere at New Theatre and Southern Rep in New Orleans, directed by Ryan Rilette. David has adapted two original one-acts for short films: Landfill, directed by Anezka Sebek, and the award-winning Feet of Clay, directed by Carrie Preston. THE COMMON SWALLOW was developed in the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, where David is a current member. The play will be published in this Fall's issue of the acclaimed online literary journal, Blackbird.
(Playwright: The Common Swallow)

Annie Golden was discovered by Academy Award winning director, Milos Forman, fronting her rock band THE SHIRTS at CBGB's and was cast as Jeannie in his film HAIR...still crazy after all these years, Annie can be seen on the big screen on Valentine's Day, 2010 opposite Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor in their film I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS!...this downtown diva is happy to say thanks to Mr. Forman's gift of an acting career thirty years later she has done it all...if it weren't for Hilly Kristal booking the band...who knows? (Actress: The Common Swallow)

Elizabeth Rich is an award-winning actress and recent transplant from Chicago, where she performed at Steppenwolf in The Pillowman (Mother; dir. Amy Morton); Cherry Orchard (Varya; dir. Tina Landau) and A Tale of Two Cities (Mme. De Farge; dir. Jessica Thebus). She also performed at the Goodman as Kristine Linde in Doll's House (dir. Robert Falls), and Theatre J as Hannah in Hannah and Martin (dir. Jeremy Cohen), to name a few. Ms. Rich is the recipient of a 2006 Helen Hayes Nomination, 2005 Jeff Award and 2004 After Dark Award. Regional: The Alley Theatre, The Scene (dir. Jeremy Cohen); Florida Stage, Cradle of Man (dir. Michael John Garces). In New York, she has received a Talkin Broadway citation for Best Actress and a MITF Best Featured Actress nomination for her work in Non Play; shadows of a dream at the Horace Mann Theatre (dir. Mikhael Tara Garver), and Couldn't Say at the Abingdon (dir. Lisa Rothe.) (Actress: The Common Swallow)

Julie Jesneck Broadway: Rock 'N Roll. Off-Broadway: Walls, Cherry Lane; Green Girl and The Nightshade Family, SPF; Romania. Kiss Me!, The Play Co.; Mr. Marmalade (u/s), Roundabout; Abu Ghraib Triptych, EST; Mistral, Drama League. Regional: A Thousand Clowns, Intiman Theatre; The Trip to Bountiful, The Denver Center (Henry Award); Thinking Of You, Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Old Globe; The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Alliance/The Acting Co. Tour; The Ruby Sunrise, Trinity Rep and Actor's Theatre of Louisville (Humana); Mary's Wedding, San Jose Rep. Television: "Law & Order" and "Empire Falls" (HBO). Juilliard graduate. (Actress: The Common Swallow)

Tony Torn is an actor and director based in New York City and Marshall, North Carolina. He was a founding member of Reza Abdoh’s legendary theater company dar a luz, a regular presence at Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater and was a founding director of the celebrated political/satirical troupe Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping. He most recently appeared as Trinculo in CSC's production of The Tempest. His first feature as director Lucky Days, a directorial collaboration with Angelica Torn, was recently awarded best feature at the 2008 Coney Island Film Festival. He is founder, with his wife Lee Ann Brown, of The FBI (French Broad Institute of Time and the River). (Playwright: SOP DOLL ! A Jack Tale Noh)

Lee Ann Brown was born in Japan in 1963 and was raised in Charlotte, NC. She is the author of two collections of poetry, The Sleep that Changed Everything (Wesleyan University Press, 2003), and Polyverse (Sun and Moon, 1999) which received the New American Poetry Series Award ), and a song cycle, The 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time. She is editor of Tender Buttons Press, publishing experimental women’s poetry since 1989. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals including Boston Review, Jacket, The Chicago Review, Intervalles, the Interdisciplinary Transcription Issue and The Poetry Project Newsletter and in several anthologies, including Line: A Drawing Center Anthology, Best American Poetry 2001, Giant Step: African American Writing at the Crossroads of the Century, and The Garden Thrives: Twentieth Century African-American Poetry. She teaches in the English Department of St. John’s University in New York City. Poet Robin Blaser calls, her second book, The Sleep That Changed Everything “"an astonishing, wonderful book, top-of-the-line poetry…. Her ‘life long love of language’ breathes here"” and Charles Bernstein calls it "a “sprung formalist ode to the ‘open possibilities’ of song." (Playwright: SOP DOLL ! A Jack Tale Noh)

Kristin Prevallet’s most recent book is a lyric essay called I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time (Essay Press, 2007). Her previous collections are Scratch Sides: Poetry, Documentation and Image-text Projects (Skanky Possum, 2006), Perturbation, My Sister (1998) and Shadow Evidence Intelligence (Factory School, 2006). She edited and introduced A Helen Adam Reader (National Poetry Foundation, 2007). Her collaboration with the musician Esfand Poumand is featured on Bowery Poetry Club Records Live! She received a 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in poetry and she currently lives in Brooklyn. Clutter is her work for the stage. (Playwright: Clutter)

Selected photo credits as of 8/28/2009:

(Photo credit: Clutter by Kristin Prevallet poster design.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright Kristin Prevallet.)
(Photo credit: Annie Golden in The Common Swallow by David Caudle.
Used with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright David Caudle.)
(Photo credit: The Common Swallow by David Caudle.
Used with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright David Caudle.)
(Photo credit: Annie Golden in The Common Swallow by David Caudle.
Used with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright David Caudle.)
(Photo credit: David Caudle courtesy the artist.
Used with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright David Caudle.)
(Photo credit: Julie Patton in SOP DOLL! A Jack Tale Noh by
Tony Torn and Lee Ann Brown. Used with permission.
All rights reserved. Copyright Tony Torn and Lee Ann Brown.)
(Photo credit: Kristin Prevallet courtesy the artist.
Used with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright Kristin Prevallet.)