The Castillo Theatre Honors Fred Newman, 1/27-28

The Castillo Theatre will be producing a 26-hour performance celebration of the life and theatre work of Fred Newman from 7:00 p.m. on Friday, January 27 through 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 28 at the Castillo Theatre, 543 West 42^nd Street, between 10^th and 11^th Avenues. The event is free.

Fred Newman, who passed away in July 2011, served as the artistic director and playwright-in-residence of the Castillo Theatre for 16 years. “Performing Fred Newman” will consist of continuous readings from among Newman’s forty-four politically engaged, experimental plays at the Castillo Theatre on 42^nd Street. Professional directors and actors will share the stage with amateur Newman aficionados from Castillo’s extensive community network as a tribute to Newman’s life and legacy. An on-going potluck dinner will keep the actors and audiences well fueled. 

Newman played the leading role in shaping the Castillo Theatre from its founding in 1984 into a unique kind of political theatre—progressive without being partisan, artistically and philosophically demanding, and inclusive of a diverse community. “Newman is a unique figure in the American theatre,” said Dan Friedman, a Newman collaborator who succeeded him as Castillo’s artistic director. “He was a political playwright who was both poetic and philosophically sophisticated. He knew how to connect to ordinary people and help them, through the magic of performance, to see in new ways.” 

Newman worked with a number of the most important avant-garde theatre and dance artists in America, including: Bill T. Jones, for whom he created the dance drama Requiem for Communism (1993) which was performed at the Dance Theatre Workshop; Living Theatre founder Judith Malina, who was featured in Newman’s only film, Nothing Really Happens (Memories of Aging Strippers) (2003); Woodie King, Jr., the founding producer of the New Federal Theatre, co-produced with the Castillo Theatre Newman’s Satchel: A Requiem for Racism (2008) at New Federal and directed another Newman play, Mr. Hirsch Died Yesterdayat Castillo (2010). In addition Newman maintained an ongoing (intermittent) conversation with avant-garde director Robert Wilson culminating in a public dialogue “A Conversation With Two Directors” in 2003; they shared a passion for the work of Heiner Müller, one of the most important Western playwrights of the second half of the 20^th Century. Newman was Müller’s leading director in the United States. 

Diane Stiles, Castillo’s managing director, produced all of Newman’s Castillo productions since the early 1990s. “A production under Newman’s direction was never an end in itself,” she recalled. “It was an organizing and growing experience for everyone involved — performers, designers, technicians, staff and the audience. We want this tribute to have those same qualities. It’s about bringing Fred’s friends and international colleagues together to play and create in his honor. We’re inviting the whole city to come play with his scripts.”