THEATER
ALBERT CAMUS' THE FALL
The red-light district in Amsterdam circa 1956: It’s cold, damp, and foggy, and the crowded streets are illuminated by neon lights. In a lengthy confession to a stranger in a bar called Mexico City, former Parisian lawyer Jean-Baptiste Clamence revisits his moments of moral uncertainty and hypocrisy. This reading, in English, is a preview of our full length production slated for next season.
Ronald Guttman as Jean-Baptiste Clamence
Theatrical Adaptation by Alexis Lloyd
Directed by Didier Flamand
In March of 1971, one of the greatest music legends the world would ever know was performing the final set of shows he would ever play at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. But the audiences who adored him onstage never really saw the man behind the trumpet. In Terry Teachout's searing and surprisingly intimate play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, we encounter Louis Armstrong where few ever had the chance to see him: backstage. Reflecting on his own unlikely career amidst a rapidly changing society, the icon is stripped bare, revealing complexities and contradictions that his omnipresent smile, horn, and handkerchief belied. Critically acclaimed actor John Douglas Thompson, seamlessly morphing between Armstrong, his manager Joe Glaser, and fellow trumpeter Miles Davis, gives one of the most vivid portraits ever created for the stage.
An american play by Aaron Posner, based on the best-selling novel by Chaim Potok (The Chosen), set in post-war Brooklyn, which tells the coming-of-age story of a boy prodigy who must be a painter at any cost - against the will of family, community and tradition. It is a luminous portrait of a young artist with a universal theme to follow our passion. The New York Premiere follows an acclaimed sold-out run at the Tony Award-winning Long Wharf Theatre.
Led by Director Gordon Edelstein (The Road to Mecca, Glass Menagerie), the distinguished creative team includes set design by Eugene Lee (Wicked, Ragtime); lighting design by James F. Ingalls (Glengarry Glen Ross); costume design by Ilona Somogyi (Clybourne Park) and original music/sound design by John Gromada (Gore Vidal's The Best Man, The Columnist).
This critically acclaimed solo show thrusts the audience into a bustling Tel Aviv café, moments before a suicide bomber enters. Through her razor sharp characterizations, Iris Bahr brings to life members of all strata of Israeli society, as well as its observers and critics, remarkably capturing the humor and humanity of their existence under the most tragic of circumstances.
Playwright and Performer: Iris Bahr
This award-winning play about three Palestinian brothers tackles the cultural divide at the heart of the Middle East conflict. Masked depicts the tragedy of one family torn between obligations, kinship, principles and survival. It is the first play by an Israeli playwright about the Intifada (Palestinian uprising).
Playwright: Ilan Hatsor
Director: Ami Dayan
Cast: Sanjit DeSilva, Daoud Heidami and Arian Moayed
Christine Jorgensen was born George Jorgensen, Jr. on May 30th, 1926 to unsuspecting middle-class Danish-American parents in the Bronx. She was drafted into an unsuspecting United States Army where she served out her time at a desk at Fort Dix in New Jersey from 1948 to 1950. She then flew to Copenhagen, Denmark where she was re-born as Christine Jorgensen, the first American transsexual.
In 1958 Christine Jorgensen walked into a recording studio in New York and allowed herself to be interviewed—for 51 minutes. Arguably the most revealing, truthful and riveting 51 minutes ever set down on vinyl.
Christine Jorgensen Reveals is a one-man-tour-de-force-paintakingly-acurate-reincarnation of those searing and revolutionary 51 minutes.
Creator: Bradford Louryk
Director: Josh Hecht
Cast: Bradford Louryk, Rob Grace
SIX
A jet-lagged, sun-drenched, six-day trip to contemporary Israel collides with family, politics and the Six-Day War.
Writer: Zohar Tirosh-Polk
Director: Ian Morgan
Cast: Hani Furstenberg, Daniel Oreskes, Quincy Dunn-Baker, Kate Skinner, Shelly Feldman, and Richard Zakaria
Presented by: The Jewish Plays Project and LABA: The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture
The play takes a startling and surprisingly humorous, upside-down view of what happens when the Western world intrudes on an ancient, so-called primitive culture, telling the story from the native people’s point-of-view. Set among the Asmat tribe of New Guinea, the play explores the still-unsolved disappearance in 1961 of Michael C. Rockefeller, the 23-year-old son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and a celebrated anthropologist who collected artifacts from the Asmat culture during two expeditions there. The Asmat culture—which developed for thousands of years in isolation before being discovered in the mid-20th century, and whose woodcarving traditions are now world-renowned—expresses its revered, centuries-old spiritual relationship between the living and their dead ancestors in rituals such as head-hunting and cannibalism.
Playwright: Jeff Cohen, based on a short story by Christopher Stokes
Director: Alfred Pressier
Cast: Daniel Morgan Shelley, David King, David Brown, Jr., Aaron Strand, Ayesha Ngaujah, Shayshahn MacPherson, Tracy Jack
Having just begun to rebuild a life on the outside, Marie (Pill) is confronted with her past when former cellmate Lorraine (Falco) shows up unannounced on her doorstep. The two outcasts, once so close on the inside, struggle to navigate a friendship beyond the prison walls - which may threaten their prospects to start over. This Wide Night is a heartfelt and witty portrait of two lost souls trying to find their way in an unforgiving world.
This Wide Night was commissioned and first produced by Clean Break – a London-based theatre company that works with women affected by the criminal justice system - and premiered to critical acclaim in July 2008 at The Soho Theatre in London. The Times in London called the play “comic, colorful, full of pain and tenderness and truth. Raw and riveting.” In 2009 the play was awarded the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honoring women playwrights in the English-speaking theatre.
Playwright: Chloe Moss
Director: Anne Kauffman
Cast: Edie Falco, Alison Pi
A TALE OF A TIGER
A Tale of a Tiger is an award-winning Israeli-American adaptation of an Italian Nobel Prize Laureate play, based on an ancient Chinese theatre folk tale, with roots in an Indian myth. A seriously hilarious tale of a soldier who is shot in the Himalayas and left to die. The soldier is saved by a tigress who feeds him of her milk and heals his wounds with her saliva. His life regained, the soldier re-determines the personal and moral standards by which he is to live.
Playwright: Dario Fo
Director and Performer: Ami Dayan
This was the role of my dreams! I trained tirelessly for this performance, practicing and perfecting my act for hours on end. I wanted to truly embody the essence of the role, and fully get into character. The performance received rave reviews from viewers and was a huge success.
ROPE
The setting is a house in Mayfair, London in January 1928. The story, based loosely on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, is about two students, Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo (whom Brandon calls "Granno"), who murder fellow student Ronald Kentley as an expression of their supposed intellectual superiority. They hide Kentley's body in a trunk, and invite their friends (including Kentley's father) to dinner, using the trunk as a dining table.
Director: David Warren
Cast: Sam Trammell, Chandler Williams, Christopher Duva, John Lavelle, Ginifer King, Neil Vipond, Lois Markle, Zak Orth
Executive Directors: Douglas Carter Beane, Michael S. Rosenberg
Out of all my performances, nothing brought the “wow” factor quite like this one. After spending weeks preparing for this role and setting my own expectations extremely high, I was eager and excited to get out there and perform. The reaction from audiences has been incredible, and I received excellent feedback from critics.
A unique blend of music, comedy, dance, theater, and juggling that is sure to dazzle young and old alike, 4PLAY features The Flying Karamazov Brothers, New York's favorite lunatics at the apex of their ambidextrous and alliterative ability. Their show is a combination of humor, both physical and verbal, ranging from high brow to low brow to mono brow.
Each of the Brothers brings his area of expertise to the enterprise. Mark Ettinger (Alexei) is the resident musician, composer and conductor. Rod Kimball (Pavel)is the master juggler. Paul Magid (Dmitri) is the writer, director, and founder. Stephen Bent (Zossima) is exceptionally tall.
As one of my breakout performances, this project holds a very special place in my heart. I couldn’t have worked with a better team, who provided me the support and guidance I needed to elevate my act. I’m proud to say that my performance received outstanding reviews, as did the work of the entire cast and crew.
THE FALL
Written by Albert Camus
Adapted for the Stage by Alexis Lloyd
Directed by Didier Flamand
Ronald Guttman as Jean-Baptiste Clamence
A 60 minute workshop performed in front of a live audience at Soho Playhouse, Huron Club, NYC. A full production is planned for next season.