UTR Festival

Under The Radar Festival Symposium

A 2-day event on January 7 and 8 featuring a chance to see full productions of the festival shows as well as keynote speakers and expert panel discussions. Attendance at the Symposium is strictly limited to presenting and producing professionals in the field.

Now in its sixth year, Under The Radar is an explosively diverse kaleidoscope of new theater—examples from around the world and the U.S. that spotlight artists ranging from emerging talents to masters in the field. Located at The Public Theater as well as partner venues, Under The Radar offers a crash course in theater that is exciting, independent, and experimental, created by some of the most dynamic artists working today. Under The Radar 2010 is a project of Association of Performing Arts Presenters Annual Members Conference, with major funding by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation. The festival is produced by Mark Russell and The Public Theater. www.undertheradarfestival.com

For more information on the Symposium, please contact Associate Producer Meiyin Wang at mwang@publictheater.org or 212-539-8511.

American Document
January 6-17 (Running time: 75 minutes)
SITI Company and the Martha Graham Company

The Martha Graham Center has invited director Anne Bogart, playwright Charles L. Mee Jr. and the SITI Company to reinvent Martha Graham’s American Document using filmed excerpts, written descriptions and Graham’s handwritten notes. In several work-in-progress showings, catch a firsthand glimpse at this stirring new theatrical work featuring a ground-breaking collaboration between SITI Company actors and Martha Graham Company dancers. American Document reflects our current cultural concerns by answering the same questions Martha Graham asked over seventy years ago: What is an American? And what is America?

Chautauqua!
January 7-17 (Running Time: 75 minutes)
Created by The National Theater of the United States of America

Thurs. Jan 7^th 9:30pm | Sat. Jan 9^th 7pm | Tues. Jan 12^th 9:30pm | Thurs. Jan 14^th 9:30pm | Fri. Jan 15^th 9:30pm | Sat. Jan 16^th 9:30pm | Sun. Jan 17^th 3pm

Inspired by the wildly popular lecture circuits of the late 19^th century, NTUSA’s Chautauqua! weaves lectures on history, culture and capitalism with live music, magic, slapstick, dance and melodrama, as it discovers the place of art and impulse in our changing culture of commerce. Invested with the signature theatrical bravura that earned this company an OBIE award for Design and the Spalding Gray Award for theatrical innovation, each night’s Chautauqua! features special guest lecturers, performers and surprises in a celebration of the culture we all share and the moment in which we share it. Chautauqua is also a featured presentation of Performance Space 122’s COIL.

John Cassavetes’ Husbands
January 6 – 17 (Running Time: 180 minutes with intermission)
Dangerous Ground Productions
Conceived, Designed and Directed by Doris Mirescu

Based on John Cassavetes’ 1970s film, Husbands depicts three men shaken up by the death of their friend and by their own imminent approach into middle age. They enter a freefall into emptiness and unrest in a four-day bender that follows the funeral. Anarchic and raw, the production is a surprisingly intimate exploration of the mysteries of friendship and masculinity.

Invisible Atom
January 7-17 (Running Time: 60 minutes)
2b theatre company (Canada)

Time freezes and the normally reliable laws of motion and matter dissolve. Poised between life and death, ex-stockbroker Atom contemplates his place in a world propelled towards its destruction by the laws of physics and free market economics. Visually striking and ingeniously minimalist, Invisible Atom is a darkly humorous story that questions the nature and acceleration of human progress.

In collaboration with the celebrated UK-based Clod Ensemble, legendary New York performance artist Peggy Shaw takes the audience on a journey across the landscape of her own body. Renowned for her own gender-bending autobiographical work, she recounts her extraordinary experiences of the medical profession from her current perspective as a 65-year-old lesbian grandmother. Must weaves together the stories of a lifetime - giving birth on the way to Woodstock, her mother’s electric shock treatment in 1950s America, the loss of a loved one – with projected microscopic images, and live musicians performing a powerful score.

Silver Stars
January 8-16 (Running Time: 60 minutes)
Written by Seán Miller
Directed by Brokentalkers (Ireland)

Featuring a community chorus of gay men, Silver Stars is a moving and eloquent song cycle which tells the truly remarkable real-life stories of ordinary men in search of happiness and fulfillment, in a country that was challenged by their very existence. Based on celebrated singer/songwriter Seán Millar’s interviews with gay men from Dublin to New York, these songs capture tales of love, loss, family, spirituality, defiance and joy.

Space Panorama
January 7 – 17 (Running Time: 30 minutes)
Created and Performed by Andrew Dawson (UK)

Presented with support from Broadway Across America

Acclaimed British director and performer Andrew Dawson recreates a documentary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing using only his hands and a black-draped table. Accompanied by Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 and a dramatic, lively narration, Dawson takes audiences from Houston to the moon and returns them safely to Earth, conveying the colossal distances and the risks involved simply through his skilled hand movements and wry facial expressions. Dawson has performed Space Panorama at theaters and theater festivals throughout the world, most recently at the Kennedy Center to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Apollo 11.

The Word Begins

January 8-16 (Running Time 75 minutes)

Written and Performed by Sekou Tha Misfit and Steve Connell

Developed and Directed By Robert Egan

Nominated for three Helen Hayes Awards, The Word Begins is an exciting journey with two young men as they struggle to come to terms with belief and morality in America today. Taking on race relations, religion, sexuality, and the power of mass communication --- among other great American issues, they travel from the inner city to the malls to the heartland of our country. Blending spoken word, comedy and hip hop, Steve Connell and Sekou (tha misfit) travel rapidly through the chaotic and confusing world of what the national landscape of politics looks like to a young white man and a young black man.

Versus – In the Jungle of Cities
January 6 – 17 (Running Time 80 minutes)
Produced by Teatr Nowy (Poland)
Directed by Radek Rychcik

Presented in Polish with English subtitles

In this exhilarating adaptation of Brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities, Versus traces a figurative wrestling match that arises inexplicably between two men in the big city. With only four actors, rising Polish directing star Rychcik reinvents the epic clash with pop music and explosive choreography.

UNDER THE RADAR 2010 PARTNER VENUES

L’Effet de Serge
January 7- 16 (Running Time: 75 minutes)
Vivarium Studio (France)
Conceived, Directed and Designed by Philippe Quesne
3LD Art & Technology Center 80 Greenwich @ Rector, NYC

$15 tickets at 3LDnyc.org or 212-352-3101

Thurs. Jan 7^th 7:30 | Fri. Jan 8^th 7:30pm | Sat. Jan 9^th 7:30pm | Sun. Jan 10^th 7:30pm | Mon. Jan 11^th7:30 |Thurs. Jan 14^th 7:30pm | Fri. Jan 15^th 7:30pm | Sat. Jan 16^th 7:30pm

On Sunday afternoons, in his living room and for a very small audience, Serge performs 1-3 numbers with low-tech special effects. Serge’s focused concentration on his own universe highlights the implicit futility in our daily rituals and at the same time exposes the pleasure and necessity of these routines. L’Effet de Serge is drama on a small scale, void of traditional thematic breadth and complex intrigues, and shows us a man who finds the sublime in the trivial.

Gin and “It”
January 7 – 16 (Running Time: 80 minutes)
Directed by Reid Farrington
3LD Art & Technology Center 80 Greenwich @ Rector, NYC

Co-presented by Performance Space 122 as part of COIL.

$15 tickets at 3LDnyc.org or 212-352-3101

In Farrington’s Gin and “It” his video theater work mirrors the technical feats of Hitchcock’s daring film experiment in “Rope” with its own boundary-pushing melding of projected imagery and live drama. With his background as The Wooster Group’s video designer, Reid Farrington’s innovative approach to integrating sophisticated videoscapes into live theater will find instant favor among fans of ensembles like The Builders Association and Big Art Group.

This Fable Is Intended For You: A Work-Energy Principle
January 9-12 (Running Time: 90 minutes)
MK Guth
Arts>World Financial Center Winter Garden, 220 Vesey Street
Free Admission

Sat. Jan 9^th 2-3:30pm | Sun. Jan 10^th 2- 3:30pm | Mon. Jan 11^th 12:30- 2pm | Tues. Jan 12^th 12:30- 2pm

This Fable Is Intended For You: A Work-Energy Principle is a public project that amplifies the human presence and connections of the people living and working in Lower Manhattan. The project involves a public residency, a working exhibition and a series of performances. The residency and the exhibition act as animated sites of production as well as social sites of interaction. Material contributions by audience members will shift and affect the outcome of the work being created. The residency and exhibition culminate in a series of performances at the World Financial Center Winter Garden where the objects made at these sites become the materials that intertwine 24 people in an evolving set of temporary geometric sculptural shapes.

Chekhov Lizardbrain
January 7 – 17 (Running Time 75 minutes)
Conceived, developed and created by Pig Iron Theatre Company
CSV Cultural Center (107 Suffolk Street)
$20-$35 tickets: pigiron.org

Thurs. Jan 7^th 10pm | Fri. Jan 8^th 5pm &10pm | Sat. Jan 9^th 5pm & 10pm | Sun. Jan 10^th 2pm | Mon. Jan 11^th 8pm | Wed. Jan 13^th 8pm | Thurs. Jan 14^th 8pm | Fri. Jan 15^th 8pm | Sat. Jan 16^th 2pm & 8pm | Sun. Jan 17^th 7pm

Philadelphia's Pig Iron Theatre Company returns to New York with their OBIE Award-winning concoction of neuroscience and maladroit Russian melodrama. A lonely, Aspergian botanist conjures up a parade of unsettling and comic recollections in an attempt to shape his fractured memories into a comforting fiction. Pig Iron's virtuosic physical performers spin a dizzying and poignant web of memory, vaudeville, and stories that won't stay straight.

L.A. Party
January 8– 10 (Running Time 40 minutes)
Conceived and Directed by Phil Soltanoff
Written by David Barlow
Presented by HERE Arts Center
HERE Arts Center (145 6^th Ave., between Spring and Broome)
$15 tickets: www.here.org/laparty or 212-352-3101

Fri. Jan 8^th 4pm & 9pm | Sat. Jan 9^th 4pm & 9pm | Sun. Jan 10^th 4pm & 9pm

A fanatical vegan slides off the wagon one night, falling head-first into a wild L.A. bender. The story narrated by David Barlow collides with live video in which six performers produce a compelling composite human being. A charming soupçon from the celebrated Phil Soltanoff whose collaborations with France’s CIE 111 have produced playful meldings of theatre, visual art, dance and new cirque.

The Devil You Know
January 6 - 24 (Running Time: 75 minutes)
La MaMa ETC and With Ping Chong and Company

In association with Phantom Limb
Written and Directed by Ping Chong
LaMaMa (74A E. 4^th Street)
$30 Tickets: lamama.org or 212-475-7710

Theater wizard Ping Chong and Phantom Limb’s Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff join forces in The Devil You Know, a tantalizing tale of desperate deals, second chances and democracy’s eternal promise of renewal. The classic American Faust fable, The Devil and Daniel Webster, is gleefully transformed with the help of dozens of finely-crafted marionettes, dazzling video projections, an original score by Sanko, and ingenious revolving stages. A haunting meditation on lost souls and fool’s gold, The Devil You Know is theater magic as only Ping Chong and Phantom Limb can conjure it.

Once and For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen

January 8 – 17 (Running Time 60 minutes)
Ontroerend Goed, KOPERGIETERY and Richard Jordan Productions Ltd
Presented by The New Victory Theater
The New Victory Theater (The Duke on 42^nd St, 229 W. 42^nd)
$25 Tickets ($17.50 for New Victory Members) NewVictory.org or 646-223-3010

With razor-sharp direction and an indie theater vibe, Once and For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen is a mind-blowing look at adolescence through the eyes of thirteen astoundingly talented teenagers.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
January 12 – 30 (Running Time 105 minutes)

Based on the novel by Haruki Murakami

Directed by Stephen Earnhart
Ohio Theatre 66 Wooster Street
$18 Tickets: windupbc.com or 212-352-3101

Interdisciplinary, multimedia theatrical performance based on the international best-selling novel byHaruki Murakami combining live performance and puppetry with video projections and hypnotic soundscapes.

Ads
January 6 – 31 (Running Time: 60 minutes)
NYC Players/ Richard Maxwell
Co-presented by Performance Space 122 as part of COIL.

Performance Space 122 (150 First Ave. E. 9^th Street)
$15 Tickets with code UTR: ps122.org, 212-352-3101 or at PS122 box office

Ads marks a departure in the work of celebrated downtown auteur Richard Maxwell and NYC Players. Moving beyond the traditional video screening into the realm of live performance, Ads stages three-dimensional video recordings in the theater. Recorded speeches make the appeal for independence, displaying ideas and beliefs held up to be essential. Are we humble? Are we great? Can we begin to claim back space?

Jerk
January 7 – 17 (Running Time: 55 minutes)
Directed by Gisèle Vienne (France)

Text and dramaturgy by Dennis Cooper

Performed by and created in collaboration with Jonathan Capdevielle

Performance Space 122 (150 First Ave. E. 9^th Street)
$15 Tickets with code UTR: ps122.org, 212-352-3101 or at PS122 box office

Using simple glove puppets, Jerk is an imaginary reconstruction– strange, poetic, funny and somber – of the crimes perpetrated by American serial killer Dean Corll, who with the help of teenagers David Brooks and Wayne Henley, killed more than twenty boys in the state of Texas during the 70s. Jerk is also a featured presentation of P.S. 122’s COIL.