Performance | Performance Space New York

Cape Disappointment

“The Debate Society’s theatrical brilliance can’t be argued with.”
-John Del Signore, Gothamist

The Debate Society’s 4th full-length play transforms the upstairs space at P.S. 122 into their own version of a Drive-In theater to present an intimate and absurd perspective of classic Americana. The Brooklyn based play-makers invite audiences to experience the Feature Presentation from the comfort of their own private 4-seater, equipped with a cooler, speaker box, and a close-up view of the action. Like an evening at the Drive-In, Cape Disappointment starts with a “cartoon” and proceeds to the feature: a road-trip epic populated by characters racing across the crumbling landscapes of bygone hey-days. There’s even an intermission tossed in just long enough to grab some popcorn.

The Debate Society is a Brooklyn based company that creates new plays through the collaboration of Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen, and Oliver Butler. Joining co-writers Bos (Gothamist Best Actress of 2007) and Thureen (Hostage Song) onstage is actor Michael Cyril Creighton (The Vietnamization of New Jersey) and acclaimed NY actress, Drama Desk and two-time Obie Award winner and Emmy nominee Pamela Payton-Wright, who is also the mother of Cape Disappointment director Oliver Butler.

Saturday, Nov 22 – Sunday, Dec 7, 2008
Mon – Saturday at 8:00pm

Jester of Tonga

tonga

Joe Silovsky woke up on his birthday in 2001 and read the paper. What he discovered dramatically affected how he would spend the next 7 years. Now the man behind the curtain steps out in his first full-length solo theatrical production. Stories diverge, money is invested, fish are bombed out of the water, and Stanley, Silovsky’s brilliant robotic creation, explains it all to us in his own words. With 20 suitcases we travel to the island nation with Silovsky who masterfully merges his first hand knowledge of Jesse Dean, the Jester of Tonga, with his love of technology.

Joseph Silovsky has been performing and making machines for the theater since 1990. He has performed solo work at St Anne’s Warehouse, PS122, Tonic’s Little Theater and Pete’s Candy Store in New York, as well as various venues in Chicago and at the Kananahk Performance Art Festival in Rakveres, Estonia. Joseph has collaborated with Victor Morales as Tutto and the Ragman as well as the Radiohole, The Builders Association,Lucky Pierre, HMS, and the Cook County Theater Department. Joseph has contributed to other theater companies by constructing robotic and/or mechanical devices for their shows: the mechanical moon for Radiohole’s Fluke; the contest winning robot in NTUSA’s What’s That on my Head?; and the human-sized R/C robot for Richard Maxwell’s Joe.

Visit silovsky.com

Photo courtesy of Richard Termine

Wed, Jan 7 – 12, 2009
As Part of the COIL 2009 Festival
Original Premiere Nov 13, 2008

The Lastmaker

lastmaker

“The Lastmaker is full of balanced contradictions as it follows a deliberately fractured internal logic. Cryptic yet transparent, it is mathematical in construction and poetic in content.”
-The Times (London)

“Goat Island is simply one of the most important theatre groups working today.”
-BBC 4 Radio (UK)

“A haunting meditation about change, finality, footprints and moving on.”
-The Herald, Glasgow

What begins as an architectural dance, in detailed triadic rounds, becomes haunted by the restless and reckless ghosts of the past. Inspired by the historical trajectory of the Hagia Sophia: church/mosque/museum, Goat Island premiers their ninth and final piece as the ultimate farewell. In their signature style of physically demanding choreography, Goat Island examines how to say “good-bye” and looks at how places hold layers of different identities over time. The Lastmaker recapitulates 20 years of Goat Island, in what will surely be a fitting conclusion to their contribution – a journey, within a restrained structure, from the intellectual to the emotional, with lasting resonance.

Goat Island is a Chicago-based collaborative performance group founded in 1987 and incorporated in 1989 as a non-profit organization to produce collaborative performance works developed by its members for local, national, and international audiences. Goat Island’s last performance will be performed in New York City at Performance Space 122.

Photo courtesy of Hugo Glendinning

November 6-16, 2008
Thu-Sun 7:30pm
Tickets from $25
$15 (students/seniors)
$10 (P.S. 122 members)

Death

death

“It’s nerve is undeniable.”
-The Village Voice

“Sara Juli gives of herself.”
-The New York Times

“A gutsier look at self worth…”
– Gia Kourlas, The New York Times (on The Money Conversation)

“A light of the downtown dance and theatre scene”
-The New Yorker

Death is scary, awkward, fearsome and inevitable-we have no choice but to face our ultimate fate. Following the success of her internationally acclaimed show, ‘The Money Conversation’, Juli asks her audience to address the one thing we all can’t escape.

With her unique arsenal of movement, spoken word, and song Sara confronts the universal demon. Let’s talk about death. No, really. Let’s face it, deal with it, think about it, laugh about it and really talk about it. In other words, let’s not change the subject. In a society that focuses all its attention on staying young, where graveyards are far removed and called the more innocuous cemeteries and “resting places,” the question is not how do we deal with death – but do we deal with death at all?

Listen to an interview with Sara Juli on the InfiniteBody Podcast

Photo courtesy of Andrea Fischman

Oct 24-Nov 2
Wed-Sun 8:30pm

Tickets from $20
$15 (students/seniors)
$10 (P.S. 122 members)

The Society

society

“Expertly straddles the fragile line between humor and horror.”
-GIA KOURLAS, New York Times (full review)

“The Jo Strømgren Kompani has never appeared in New York City. It is time it came.”
-Jennifer Dunning, New York Times

As a society of sworn coffee drinkers gather for their daily ritual the harmony is broken by a horrific incident: the discovery of a used teabag. As the investigations unfold the questions become more complicated. Do they have a domestic traitor among them or is the teabag a symbol of a much larger global scenario? How far will they have to go in order to track the traitor down, smoke him out, and bring this evil act to justice?

Jo Strømgren Kompani mirrors the macro-world by scrutinizing basic elements of contemporary phenomena: in our turbulent times the average citizen is ever more tempted to accept torture, suppression of minorities, and other violent means in order to restore order and avoid a clash of civilizations. Can theatre contribute to change this? JSK neglects any responsibility to join that debate. Rather, JSK pursues its signature fart-in-the-universe quest to pinpoint utterly sad human behavior.

Jo Strømgren Kompani’s has created its own international niche through its long-term research on abstract text. Each production performed by JSK involves a completely new linguistic alias, inspired by a specific culture or region. Worldwide success in 45 countries has proven this nonsensical language manifesto to be more than just a temporary funny idea. For all audiences: Don’t panic, the performers do not even know what is being said on stage.

Co-presented with The Abrons Arts Center.
The Society is supported by Arts Council Norway, the Royal Norwegian Consulate General, and the American-Scandinavian Foundation.

Photo courtesy of Knut Bry

October 15-19, 2008
Wed-Sat 8:30pm
Sun 6:30pm
At the Abrons Arts Center located at 466 Grand St.
Tickets from $25
$15 (students/seniors)
$10 (PS122 members)

Special Event:
OPENING NIGHT BENEFIT
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15 8:30pm
The Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St.

Support P.S. 122 and join us as we celebrate with the cast and welcome
Sissel Breie, the new Norwegian Consul General.

Ticket $100
(of which $75 is tax deductible)
Includes premium seating and post-show reception.