Music | Performance Space New York

The Pumpkin Pie Show

Celebrating its tenth year, the Pumpkin Pie Show is a rigorous storytelling session amplified by its own live soundtrack. In junta high, Clay McLeod Chapman, a New New Stuff 2005 favorite, crafts a Sweet Valley-styled high school for terrorists where cheerleaders double as suicide bombers and guidance counselors are taken hostage by the A/V club. Holy causes worth dying for galvanize school spirits, blood is shed on the football field every Friday night and the Hungry March Band fervently plays on.

Original music written and performed live by the Hungry March Band.

Thursday, March 23: SPECIAL POST-SHOW PANEL DISCUSSION
with Michael F. Oppenheimer and Paul Rieckhoff.
Perception v. Reality: An in-depth conversation about government policy, media representation and what’s happening in Iraq – as well as the crucial role of the arts in addressing this ever-widening disconnect.

See what the Press are saying about junta high:

Under the collective name the Pumpkin Pie Show, novelist-monologuist Clay McLeod Chapman and a rotating roster of performers have spent the past decade reinventing the art of the campfire tale by injecting live music with visceral theatricality. This planned evolution takes a disturbing and invigorating turn in Chapman’s latest effort, Junta High.

Staged as a pep rally (replete with color guard and wooden gym floor), this is no mere collection of monologues — the high intensity of the performers is scored throughout by the Hungry March Band, a kick-ass brass ensemble that helps turn this storytelling huddle into an orgasmic nightmare of school spirit gone violently wrong. The concept casts the grim effects of complex geopolitical struggle as the rivalry between opposing high school football teams: A lethal homecoming queen (the electric Hanna Cheek) relates the discovery of a mass grave under the bleachers, for instance, and a team mascot (the wickedly gleeful Abe Goldfarb) provides an infectious demonstration of fascist antics.

Though this sassy approach may prove offensive to some, its aim is neither to glorify intramural sports nor to diminish global horrors. Junta High is not metaphor, but something akin to Brecht’s alienation effect: a fresh light that forces you to read in a new, left-field context the bloody international headlines that have grown dull with repetition. At a certain point, the laughter gives way to darker emotions, and the stories start hitting a bit too close to home. Luckily, the band kicks in to make us clap our hands and stomp our feet – but that just implicates us even further, doesn’t it?
– TimeOut New York

“Social anxieties, competing cliques, and the rival pressures to stand out and conform can certainly make high school feel like a battlefield. But arch-monologuist Clay McLeod Chapman replaces the figurative with the literal in this tale of warrior football players, terrorist cheerleaders, and guidance counselor hostages. Hungry March Band supplies the music.”
– The Village Voice, Spring Arts Preview

“The art and literature world find themselves with a strange, wonderful treat on their hands… The Pumpkin Pie show is a crazy, jubilant convergence of art and words and it seems like it sprung, fully-formed, from the mind of Clay McLeod Chapman. (P)ut this on your calendars. We promise it won’t be dull.
– The Gothamist

“Chapman writes complex, witty noir fiction — but it’s doubly enjoyable to see him perform…
– Flavorpill NYC

“Think of it as (Gus van Sant’s) Elephant times ten plus tubas.”
– FREEWilliamsburg

“Makes Columbine look like kindergarten… (The Hungry March Band) is a bombastic Brooklyn-based brass outfit with a known talent for getting jaded hipsters on their feet.”
– Theatre Today

March 16 – 26, 2006
Opens Thursday, March 16
Wednesday-Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday at 4:30 p.m.
$20($10 Members)

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players On Ice

If you’ve already encountered the silver-clad trio performing live – singer-songwriter keyboardist Jason Trachtenburg, his slide-projecting/ fashion-designing spouse Tina Pi&#241a Trachtenburg and their 9-year-old daughter Rachel Pi&#241a Trachtenburg, a drummer, vocalist and crowd-pleasing raconteur – then you’ll surely agree The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players are revolutionizing “family entertainment” as we know it. They’ve charmed their way across the U.S.A. and Canada, too, with their whimsical songs, vintage slide shows, sparkling repartee and the occasional homemade cupcake and/or tamale for hungry fans. Join the Trachtenburgs this holiday season at P.S. 122!

December 18-23 at 7:30 pm.
2005
Holiday Party on Monday, December 19 (no performance)

Suicide, The Musical

Schoolhouse Roxx

Schoolhouse Roxx
presents
Helen Stratford’s
Suicide, The Musical

“Suicide, The Musical” is a punk rock opera recounting the story of a woman’s decisions to leave the comfort and security of a conventional but self-destructive relationship and her subsequent struggle to survive the challenges of a depraved and nocturnal New York City landscape, relying only on gifts of poetry and music and art. It is the story of the spiritual and artistic odyssey of a female Daedalus, a story of redemption found somewhere between the sacred and the profane, the creative and the degenerative.

Parts of “Suicide, The Musical” have been received with enthusiasm and standing ovations at Cami Hall, Galapagos, Mo Pitkin’s, and Bowery Poetry Club. The PS122 presentation marks the world premiere of the work in its entirety with Choreography and Additional Direction by Julie Atlas Muz and Musical Direction by Joe McCanta. The supporting cast of downtown all-stars includes Taylor Mac, Machine Dazzle, Hattie Hathaway, James “Tigger” Ferguson, and a special appearance by New York’s foremost gender-bending maestro of the theremin, Armen Ra.

Plus two free late night underground concerts after the show.

Direct from France – you won’t believe your eyes – or ears!

Ideal Daim / Thomas Rannou +audio
Assume the attitude of a perfect stag. Ideal Daim, chanson pure, is a program of songs written, composed and performed by Thomas Rannou. The sound process is specific to this program – a dozen small speakers are deployed for the broadcast of the song, affording the listener intimacy and proximity to the words and the voice itself. The style is sober and conspiratorial, the tone off-handed and sincere.

Definitively Frenchy.
45 minutes – in French

Fuckin’ Dirty Birds / Alexia Monduit + Thomas Rannou

The song of Alexia Monduit is a battle of words. Her first English text is a poetic sound journey between a body, a speech, a breath, and image – that of Antigone. A lonely mythical recreation on a musical floor.

25-30 minutes – in English

Free for P.S. 122 members, ticket holders to any performance dates of Push, Itching of the Wings, and Schoolhouse Roxx’s Suicide, The Musical – hold onto your stubs and fasten your seatbelts.

November 3-5, 2005
9 p.m.
$15

Dear Land

International Contemporary Ensemble’s

Dear Land, directed by Berlin based Lydia Steier, is an evening of two contemporary works: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies‘ Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969) and the World Premiere of Chinese-American composer Du Yun‘s Zolle (2005). Eight Songs for a Mad King portrays the madness of King George III of England who was declared permanently insane ten years before his death. In Du Yun’s Zolle a dead woman wanders through the shadowy space between memory and reality, tracing the lines of her identity through the land she once walked: an immigrant in death as in life. Dear Land juxtaposes these two sung monodramas of radically different style, and seamlessly combines sound, text, movement and multimedia images in the examination of the mind when torn from the body.

October 27-30, 2005
Thursday-Saturday at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday at 3:00 p.m. and Sunday at 5:00 p.m.

The GoTour Road Show

Groundbreaking artist service organization The Field celebrates the first anniversary of its GoTour.org website with The GoTour Roadshow, a weekend-long multidisciplinary mini-festival of independent artists from across the country.The evening runs from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. with seatings at 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30 p.m.

7:30 p.m.

Erin Lee &Marci (MUSIC – New York, NY)

Erin Lee &Marci are New York’s hippest, new singing duo for kids and their grown-ups.Playing acoustic guitars and various percussion instruments and singing in genres ranging from bluegrass to klezmer to ’50s rock ‘n’ roll Erin Lee &Marci will have the whole family on their feet and dancing!

Relative Truth (excerpt)
Jessica Hirst (SOLO PERFORMANCE – Washington, DC)

In Relative Truth Jessica Hirst begins to unpack the fantastical story of her grandmother’s late-in-life affair with a dashing and mysterious Frenchmen by the name of Pierre-Franz Chapou.

Il trionfo della fedelta (An excerpt from Maria Antonia’s 1754 opera)
The Maria Antonia Project/April Lynn James (MUSIC – New York, NY)

The Maria Antonia Project is dedicated to restoring music by historical women composers, especially opera, to the living repertory through performance, lectures, publications and recordings. It takes its name from Maria Antonia, Electress of Saxony (1724-1780), a librettist and composer of two operas. Maria Antonia’s 1754 opera Il trionfo della fedelta takes place in Arcadia, that mythical paradise where love, peace and beauty reign.

The Dragons Project (excerpt)
Laura Schandelmeier and Stephen Clapp (DANCE/THEATER – Mt. Rainier, MD)

The Dragons Project asks “Who are the Dragons in the fairy tale of contemporary global culture?” Combining the ancient and mythical iconography of dragons with contemporary pop culture and counter-culture personifications of warriors, damsels and demons, The Dragons Project draws from mythologies and folk tales from across the globe.

Akosua Mireku (MUSIC – Oakland, CA)

Akosua Mireku is an Oakland, CA based Ghanaian-American singer-songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, flutist, and psychic healer. Akosua’s music is fusion of African Folk, American Folk, Jazz, and Latin rhythms.

8:30 p.m.

None of the Above (excerpt)
Jennifer Lanier (SOLO PERFORMANCE – Honokaa, HI)

None of the Above is a solo comic roller coaster about Jennifer’s struggles with identity (racial, gay-straight, gender) as a tail-end baby-boomer.

Spin
Kathy Dunn Hamrick (DANCE – Austin, TX)

Spin is an athletic quartet of perpetual motion, grace and shifting focal points, set to an original score by Austin musician Tim Kerr. Choreographed by award-winning Austin-based choreographer Kathy Dunn Hamrick with dancers Cherami Conley, Kathy Dunn Hamrick, Marlo Harris and Morgan Nutt.

Congregation (excerpt)
Julie Troost (MOVEMENT-THEATER – New York, NY)

Congregation tells the story of a family, God’s presence, and the beauty in death. Developed in collaboration with performers Courtney King and Camilla Maling.

The Shana and Mary Show
Mary-Elizabeth Holby &Shana David (MUSIC – Cambridge, MA and Jacksonville, FL)

Music, comedy and some lovely cake provided by Shana’s grandma.

9:30 p.m.

The Switch (MUSIC – New York, NY)

The Switch is a NYC-based band, combining electronic music with an infectious pop twist. The Switch strikes a delicate balance between computerized beats and the youthful freedom of pure rock ‘n roll energy. With Kai Altair (lead singer), Joe Pepitone (guitarist,keyboardist), Dan Onori (drummer) and Chris Loh (bassist).

Waking Down
Carrie Sargavakian (DANCE – Seattle, WA)

Waking Down is a duet moved by a restless 3am. Tangled in bed sheets hours past the chamomile tea sipping, the steamy bath taking, the sheep counting, and the soft piano music listening we find ourselves wide-eyed and heavy. Performed by Carrie Sargavakian and Katrine Behrend.

Parable
Lotta Lundgren (DANCE – Washington, DC)

Parable speaks of a man who tries to own women’s minds while letting prisoners of his war color their bodies with their own excrement. It speaks of a shape created by one, for all to fit into.

Three Greek Women (excerpt)
Thelos Theater Group (THEATER – Miami, FL)

Three Greek Women works from the classic Greek texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, intertwining the stories of Clytemnestra, Antigone and Medea to create a new story.

This Way That Way
Parallel Exit/Mark Lonergan (THEATER – New York, NY)

Inspired by the films of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, This Way That Way is a silent live-action road movie that follows the story of two con men who meet in a train station and choose to travel across the country together.

July 8 &9, 2005
7:30 p.m.
$10