Theater | Performance Space New York

Hello Failure

Hello Failure

Hello Failure

” a rare sort of poet who can bring you along on rhapsodic flights of storytelling, like an expert rafter running the rapids of a wild and unruly word river. ”
– Misha Berson, The Seattle Times

“One of the best new plays of the season”
– George Hunka


“the fluid, quirky groove is Kosmas’ powerfully evocative writing. Kosmas’ is a sharp, prismatic voice that refracts her characters’ language into a new world both oddly familiar and intriguingly foreign. “

– Brook Stowe, theater2k

Kristen Kosmas’ newest work is a sprawling associative neo-realistic comedy of beauty involving seven submariners’ wives, one counterfeit civil war ghost, one lusty renegade hairdresser and a poignant potted plant all making it through the day…barely.

Acclaimed playwright and co-founder of Obie-Award winning Little Theater, Kristen Kosmas will premier her new work Hello Failure at PS122 this season. In Hello Failure, Kosmas’ singular voice and distinctive theatrical sensibility create an oddly affecting and delightfully disorienting world, where bridges and communication collapse, and little attempts at kindness are botched or lost in the mail. Misha Berson of The Seattle Times says Kosmas is “a rare sort of poet who can bring you along on rhapsodic flights of storytelling, like an expert rafter running the rapids of a wild and unruly word river.” Kosmas’ work has been seen across the country and in New York City at venues including Dixon Place, Little Theater, Barbes, BRIC, Nada, the Ontological/Hysteric Downstairs Series, and The Ohio.

Directed by:
Ken Rus Schmoll

Featuring:
Michael Chick,
Benjamin Forster,
Janna Gjesdal,
Megan Hart,
Joan Jubett,
Kristen Kosmas,
Matthew Maher,
Aimee Phelan-Deconinck,
Tricia Rodley
and Maria Striar

Previews: March 2 – 4, 2008
Runs March 6 – 22, 2008
Mon, Thurs – Sat at 8:00pm,
Sundays at 6:30pm
Tickets from $18, $15 (students/seniors)

Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

1927

COIL

“Deliciously Nasty”
– Guardian

“Frighteningly gifted new theatre company”
– London Times

“A surreal performance piece that combines acting, animation,

film and live music has won every major award at the 2007

Edinburgh Fringe Festival.”
– The New York Times

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, created by the new British theater company 1927, cleverly combines live music, performance and storytelling with films and animations. Using the aesthetic of silent film, a series of comic vignettes unfold in which the performers interact with the animations.

This show sold out in London at the renowned Battersea Arts Center, takes you to the wild woods and the shipwrecked seas, from the weird underbelly of the suburbs to the tweedy world of the old rich. Hapless cats, marauding gingerbread men and cross dressing devils all make an appearance, not to mention the sinister twins and their misfortunate guests.

The show has been compared to Shockheaded Peter, David Lynch and Edward Gorey with a twist of Weimar cabaret. 1927’s world is, however, unique to their own highly crafted sensibilities. The Guardian called it “a devilishly good piece of work!”, and the Scotsman declared it “A wonderfully surreal step outside everyday life!”

This surreal satire for the discerning viewer had already gained cult status in London, which followed to the Edinburgh Fringe, where they won a Fringe First Award (from the Scotsman), the Herald Angel Award, the Total Theatre Award for Best Emerging Company and the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award. This is a clean sweep of the top awards at the Edinburgh Fringe. An amazing accomplishment!

1927 is a theatre company that specialises in combining performance and live music with animation and film. Storytelling is at the core 1927’s work. Spoken word, film and song are combined within their piece as a means of exploring innovative ways of telling stories. 1927 reinvents old idioms, silent film, music hall song, fairy tales, cabaret, to tell stories that are concerned with contemporary issues for a modern audience. Using up to date technology, 1927 mixes advanced multi-media practice with performance. The performers interact with the films and animations creating magical filmic theater. 1927’s first show has won 5 awards and sold out its Edinburgh and London runs. Reaching cultish cabaret crowds as well as seasoned theatre-goers, their work attracts a notably diverse crowd. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea begins a world tour in 2008, with performances in Australia and Korea, and then back to the US with a May date at the prestigious Spoleto Festival in South Carolina.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea features performances by Suzanne Andrade, Esme Appleton and Lillian Henley. The animation is by Paul Barritt, music by Lillian Henley and costume design by Esme Appleton.

 

BOE Award Winner

photo by Neil Hanna, Scotsman

January 9-27, 2008

The Archery Contest and The Hotel Savant

The Archery Contest, a Radio Play

The Archery Contest, a Radio Play

The Archery Contest, a Radio Play is an abstract sex comedy which follows the al fresco adventures of a quintet of players trapped between the Christian rules of the past and the Nihilistic chaos of the future.

A Reverend and his wife pursue a young girl and boy in a contest to claim them as secondary spouses. Encouraged by the teenagers’ guardian – a cemetery Sexton – the chase reaches its zenith during the ritualistic celebration of a long forgotten holiday.

Designed as a serial radio play in 4 parts, the work invokes visuals that remain unseen, challenging the notion that theatre exists only in the realm of the visual stage. A studio recording of Part 1 will be online at ART Radio WPS1.org in October 2007, while Part 2 will be recorded live in a staged performance at PS122 before going online. Part 3 and 4 will appear in 2008. The Archery Contest is an ongoing multi/media theater project whose goal is to embrace modern technology, especially the internet, as a means of disseminating theatrical content to a larger audience.

Written and Directed by John Jahnke
Soundscape by Kristin Worrall
Sound Installation by Andrew Schneider

photos by Plamen Petkov

Presented in association with Art Radio WPS1.org Web Radio Station.

For more information on The Hotel Savant, visit www.hotelsavant.com
ps1 logo

World Premiere
November 8-10, 2007
Thursday-Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday at 5:00 p.m.
Tickets from $20, $15 (students/seniors), $10 (members)

The Archery Contest, a Radio Play

The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen

The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen

The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen

“One of downtown’s most intelligent, anarchic new additions”
– David Cote, Best of 2006, Time Out New York

The multi-award winning theatre troupe and creators of The Sewers, Banana Bag & Bodice concoct their own alter ego in the form of a concept punk band by the name of The Rising Fallen.

With their guitar steel and drum-tense electro-dense lyrics, The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen catalogs these mythological legendary failures and tells tall tales of fateful, prodigious gigs on Scandinavian oil rigs where they unwittingly begat their own brand of rousing idolatry.

Banana Bag & Bodice is: Peter Blomquist, Mallory Catlett, Jennifer Wright Cook, Jason Craig, G Lucas Crane, Miranda
Hardy, Rod Hipskind, Peter Ksander, Jessica Jelliffe, Casey Opstad, Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, Heather Peroni, Jamie McElhinney, Morgan Murphey.

Tune in now at myspace.com/therisingfallenmusic and bananabagandbodice.org
Listen to “Pilot” by The Rising Fallen

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Note that –

Approximate Running Time: 1 hour

PLAYING AS PART OF
COIL FESTIVAL 08

SHOWTIMES: Jan 10th at 6.30pm, Jan 11th at 9:40pm, Jan 12th at 3.30pm, Jan14th at 9.30pm and Jan 15th at 9.30pm
Extended Run: Jan 17, Jan 18, Jan 19 at 8:30 p.m.
Tickets from $20, $15 (students/seniors), $10 (members)

PS122 Premiere
April 26 – May 12, 2007

Church

Church

Church

“Emotionally raw dispatches from an angry mind”
– David Cote, Time Out New York

“Gutsy – taboo-busting”
– New York Magazine

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Acclaimed playwright and director Young Jean Lee transforms her life-long struggle with Christianity into an exuberant church service. This is a church of celebration, designed to test the expectations of religious and non-religious alike. Come to CHURCH – an uplifting, joyous and inspirational event that may be Lee’s most miraculous – or devious – experiment to date.

Performed by Greg Hildreth, Karinne Keithley, Weena Pauly, and Katie Workum

Set by Eric Dyer, Lights by Mark Barton, Sound by Matthew Tierney, Costumes by Normandy Sherwood, Choreography by Faye Driscoll, Production Stage Management by Sam Seymour

CHURCH is co-produced by the Vienna Festival 2008, Wexner Center for the
Arts at The Ohio State University, and Performance Space 122. Additional
co-producer BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange. CHURCH is a National Performance
Network Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Walker Art Center, in
partnership with The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe, and
the National Performance Network. NPN and the NPN Creation Fund is
sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation,
Nathan Cummings Foundation, Altria, and the National Endowment for the
Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org.

This project is supported by Jerome Foundation.

For more on Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, visit youngjeanlee.org

Photo by James M. Lee

Approximate Running Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Click to read “Faith Confronted, and Defended, Downtown” an interview with director Young Jean Lee and Lear deBessonet in The New York Times


World Premiere
Opens Thursday, April 26th with reception
April 26 – May 12, 2007
$20, $15 Student/Senior


videos by Keith Skretch

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