Performance | Performance Space New York

Radioplay

Reggie Watts & Tommy Smith
RADIO PLAY

“Radio Play is meant to be listened to more than seen, which is why much of it occurs in the dark. Inspired by a media that is now virtually extinct, it features songs, stories and even commercials in the model of an old-time radio program. But these aren’t your grandma’s stories…”- The Wall St. Journal

“This freewheeling, beat-boxing, musical-comedy madman blows minds and steals hearts whether he’s opening for Conan O’Brian, appearing on Comedy Central in his own special or doing ten minutes in a Williamsburg bar.” – Time Out NY

“Nakedly entertaining! Watts, with his cloud of black hair and surprisingly beautiful voice, is loads of fun to watch”
– Variety

“Expect a nonlinear, surreal spin of songs, stories, and soundscapes that play with the politics of pop culture. Embrace the retro-fueled fun with your eyes closed and ears open.” – The Village Voice

Modeled after radio programs of yesteryear, RADIO PLAY gathers a group of actors, musicians and sound-effects artists to create a surreal sonic entertainment. Songs, stories and soundscapes collide in a comedic mash-up of non-temporal quasi-political pop-cultural tropes.

Reggie Watts (co-creator, performer, composer, musician, writer) and Tommy Smith (co-creator, writer) create absurd experimental comedic theatricals for modern performance spaces. TRANSITION played at The Under The Radar Festival at The Public Theater, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time Based Art Festival and On The Boards (Seattle); it was also the winner of the MAP Fund Award and Creative Capital award. Their previous theater piece DISINFORMATION was seen at the UTR Festival, PICA: TBA, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), and ICA (Boston). DUTCH A/V, a live environmental film performance and winner of the MAP Fund Award, was workshopped at IRT Theatre (New York) and premiered at the 2011 Under The Radar festival. When not collaborating together, Reggie and Tommy work on their “A-Side” careers, which can be seen at www.reggiewatts.com and smithsmith.wordpress.com, respectively.

Written by Reggie Watts & Tommy Smith. Directed by Kip Fagan. Performed by Reggie Watts, with H.I. Bonner, Beth Hoyt, Mary Jane Gibson, Marshall York, and Jen Rondeau on the Theremin. Lights by Seth Reiser. Additional writing by Mary Jane Gibson.

Made possible with commissioning support from Performance Space 122 and the Jerome Foundation.

COMEDY, AUDIO, THEATRE
Friday May 6 – Saturday May 28, 2011
Wednesday – Saturday at 8PM, Sun at 6PM
Late shows at 10PM:
Saturday, May 14 / Saturday, May 21 / Friday, May 27 / Saturday, May 28

Help PS122 Go Green by viewing your Radio Play program online!

Edgar Oliver

Edgar Oliver
East 10th Street: Self Portrait with Empty House

… a judiciously austere production… sweet and sinister… (Oliver is) a living work of theater all by himself.”
– Ben Brantley, New York Times

“…an outlandish cast, worthy of Dostoyevsky… creepy and droll beyond words… a pitch-perfect delivery… profoundly affecting.”
– New York Press

As I was walking in front of this old, decayed townhouse, I happened to look up just in time to see a gnarled hand reach through the Venetian blinds and tape this beat-up old paper bag to the inside of the parlor floor window. On the paper bag was scrawled in pencil, in this kind of horror handwriting – Room For Rent. So I ran up the front steps, and I rang the doorbell. The room was very small. But it had a big, beautiful window looking out onto the trees of Tenth Street.

Legendary New York theater-icon Edgar Oliver weaves a fantastical and hilarious voyage through the dark and strange rooms of his East Village tenement building; in-habited by a dwarf cabalist, possible Nazi, the landlord’s former wet nurse, – and wherein lie the secrets of his family and the unbelievable odyssey that brought him there.

Presented in 2010 at PS122 as part of COIL in association with Brian Barnhart, Axis Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions Ltd

Written & Performed by Edgar Oliver
Directed by Randy Sharp
Lighting Design by David Zeffren
Sound Design by Steve Fontaine

Photo: Paula Court

Extended:
Fri, Mar 18 – Sat, Apr 9, 2011
Fri at 8PM, Sat at 10PM

Supernormal

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Supernormal
Tom Shillue “laugh-out-loud funny… charming, heartwarming and delivered with vivid details.”

– Time Out NYTom’s stories about his life in New York and of growing up in suburban Massachusetts have been gathering a cult following at live venues, on the internet, and on satellite radio. Join him for an evening of stories so normal, they’re radical.The magazine Time Out New York labeled Tom “Professionally Clever”, and the title fits. Tom has gained a world-wide following with his highly praised Comedy Central specials and his top-selling CD, “Tom Shillue: Overconfident,” which the Boston Globe named one of the Top 10 Comedy Albums of 2007. A former correspondent on The Daily Show, Tom has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and in the feature film Mystery Team. SUPERNORMAL was developed at 45 Bleecker Street and is now making it’s official NY Premiere.

The New York Times called him “Inspired”, and the New York Post said, simply, “Brilliant”. Backstage named him the Top New York Comic, saying “There isn’t anything Shillue can’t do”, and fans on Comedy Central’s website voted Tom one of the top ten comedians in the country in their 2008 showdown. He was recently awarded best One Man Show at the ECNY awards for his show “SUPERNORMAL” at The Green Room, in which Time Out NY said he “really as a performer and a wit.”

Recently, he has expanded his audience as one of New York’s most well-known storytellers with the launch of his own monthly comedy/storytelling show at Comix, TELL: WORLD’S COLLIDE as well as regular performances at the Moth’s Mainstage and Risk! at Joe’s Pub.

Photo: Seth Olenick

Extended:
Wednesday, March 16 – Saturday, April 9, 2011
Wed, Thu, Sat at 8PM
Fri at 10PM
$20, $15 (students / seniors)

SWAN

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Jack Ferver’s QWAN Company
SWAN!!!A sexy, scary, spectacular, salacious, stunning, startling werk from Jack Ferver’s QWAN (Quality Without a Name) Company.

The same people who brought the smashing success NOTES!!! (their incredibly dramatic parodied reading of Notes on a Scandal) returns with SWAN!!! (their even more incredibly dramatic parodied reading of this years dance away smash: Black Swan).

Nina (Jenn Harris) is freaking out. She is freaking out because she really wants to play the Swan Queen in the new production of Swan Lake. She is also freaking out because she is crazy. And so is her mother (Randy Harrison). And so is the choreographer (Christian Coulson) she works under, and we mean works under. And so is the former prima ballerina Winona Ryder, we mean Beth (Matthew Wilkas).

The pressure is a lot and she finds a little release, and we mean release, when she meets hot new bad ballet girl in town, Lily (Jack Ferver). However she gets a little more than nervous when it seems Lily may want her part. Things boil up and over and there is self-mutilation and violence towards MOM and cunnilingus and jetés.

Jack Ferver’s Rumble Ghost recently premiered at PS122, and was brought back for their COIL Festival in 2011. His A Movie Star Needs A Movie was commissioned by The New Museum in 2009. It was also presented in American Realness at Abrons Art Center and at Theatre de Vanves in 2010. He was the first choreographer to be presented at The New Museum with I Am Trying to Hear Myself in 2008. He remounted the work at PS122 in 2009. In 2009 he also premiered his evening length work Death is Certain to sold out audiences at Danspace Project. Death is Certain was workshopped through the Dance Theater Workshop space grant, Studio Series. Ferver was also an artist in residence from 2008-2009 at Chez Bushwick. In 2008 Ferver premiered MEAT, his second Mondo Cane! commission from Dixon Place. Ferver’s first Mondo Cane! commission was in 2007 for his first full length work: When We Were Young And Filled With Fear. Shorter and solo works have been presented at Dance New Amsterdam (NYC), LaMaMa E.T.C. (NYC), The Culture Project (NYC), and Envoy Gallery (NYC). As an actor, credits include Strangers With Candy (Comedy Central), Christopher Durang’s Betty’s Summer Vacation (Off-Broadway), and numerous other film and theatre projects. His writing was recently published in the magazine Novembre.

Photo by Christian Coulson

WORLD PREMIERE | THEATRE
Thursday – Saturday, March 10-12, 2011
Thu + Fri at 8, Sat at 7:30 & 10

Tickets: $15

Storm Still

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The Nonsense Company
Storm Still

“After hearing what composer Rick Burkhardt can make from singing wineglasses and a scraping fork, we feel better prepared for the exquisite musicality of his text. Elegantly weird… virtuosic performers.”
– Helen Shaw, Time Out New York

“Thrilling performances… spiked with intense shots of satire. Through precise delivery and the sheer force of their concept and subject material, captivate their audience even as they disorient it.”
– Ronni Reich, Backstage New York

“Shows that expand the perspectives and materials of theater, twitching from one vantage point to another, from ghastly grandeur to snips of irony.”
– Scott Gordon, The Onion AV Club

Outside an abandoned school, a war rages. Inside, three kids have been performing an unsupervised rendition of King Lear for years. Further inside, the mad King debates the purpose of theater with his Fool, a licensed therapist.

The Nonsense Company, based in Brooklyn, NY performs new and innovative works of contemporary music and theater, with an emphasis on the musical use of speech in estranged contexts and the application in theater of techniques more commonly associated with music. The Company’s name is borrowed from Franz Schubert’s ensemble, die Unsinn Gesellschaft, who with radically spare resources spawned a revolution in the music and poetry of the nineteenth century.

The company’s current members, Rick Burkhardt (of Three Pianos), Andy Gricevich, and Ryan Higgins, have worked and studied with composers and performers such as Steve Schick, Chaya Czernowin, Red Fish Blue Fish, John Fonville, Herbert Bruen, The Performers’ Workshop Ensemble, Ed Harkins, and Brian Ferneyhough, as well as with theater directors Rachel Chaivkin, Matt Wilder, David Wheeler, and Stefan Novinski. Their programs emphasizing the works of startling emerging composers have received repeated invitations to theater and music festivals throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe.

Made possible with commissioning support from Performance Space 122 and the Jerome Foundation.

NY PREMIERE | THEATRE
Saturday, February 19 – Sunday, March 6, 2011
Wednesday – Saturday 8PM
Sunday 6PM