The Bushwick Starr's 2016-17 Season Announcement

The Bushwick Starr is proud to announce our 2016-17 Season of Programming. The Season begins with our developing work program, the Propeller Project, which this year introduces a new piece by eclectic performance artist, Shasta Geaux Pop, aka Ayesha Jordan (Enter & Exit, Living Room Dance Breaks). Our Main Stage shows feature an ambitious and exciting line-up of world premiers from: award-winning theater ensemble The Mad Ones (The Essential Straight & Narrow, The Tremendous Tremendous), celebrated downtown duo Kate Benson and Lee Sunday Evans (A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes), rising star playwright Phillip Howze(abominable, Tiny Boyfriend), and multi-media cult favorites Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble(Everything One in the Disc of the Sun). Our ongoing community events and festivals, Puppet Kitchen, Brooklyn Gypsies, and Big Green Theater, will continue to present new collaborative work geared towards our Bushwick neighborhood audience, including a multi-lingual partnership between playwright WilLiam Burke (Comfort Dogs, the food was terrible) and Modesto Flako Jimenez(Brooklyn Gypsies). And finally, our free Starr Reading Series will cultivate new plays in development from some of NYC's most exciting young playwrights.

TICKETING

All tickets will be on sale through our website, generally ranging in price from $18-$25:www.thebushwickstarr.org

PROPELLER PROJECT (program for developing work):

Shasta Geaux Pop

written and performed by Ayesha Jordan

September 7-11, 2016 at 8pm

Directed by Charlotte Brathwaite; music by Justin Hicks; lighting by Tuce Yasak; video by Jennifer Hsu and James Wang

After a stint on Broadway as Lupida Nyong'o understudy in Eclipsed, multidisciplinary performing artist Ayesha Jordan, whose shows combine music, technology, and consensual audience interaction, is bringing her special brand of tongue-in-cheek frivolity back downtown. Ayesha explores humanity through the lens of her pop singer alter-ego, Shasta Geaux Pop. Expect popular culture to be celebrated...and skewered. "Shasta is like if Lauren Hill, Weird Al Yankovic, and Oran Juice Jones all exploded into one person." - Ayesha Jordan

MAIN STAGE production:

Miles for Mary byThe Mad Ones

October 2 - 29, 2016 (*possible extension through Nov. 12)

Previews Oct. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 at 8pm

Opens Oct. 8 and runs Oct. 12-14, 20-22, and 27-29 at 8pm

Created by The Mad Ones in collaboration with the ensemble

Directed by Lila Neugebauer

Featuring: Marc Bovino, Joe Curnutte, Michael Dalto, Amy Staats, Stephanie Wright Thompson, and Stacey Yen with Set Design by Amy Rubin, Costume Design by Ásta Bennie Hostetter, Lighting Design by Mike Inwood, Sound Design by Stowe Nelson and Dramaturgy by Sarah Lunnie

The latest from the Drama Desk-nominated The Mad Ones: an analogue elegy to the Camcorder 1980s, Girls Track & Field, and the consecrated American High School, Miles for Mary documents the planning and execution of a 24 hour public access telethon, organized by the Garrison High School Phys Ed Department. Across subcommittee sessions, self-help tutorials, and debating the origins of time, The Mad Ones assemble a bittersweet missive about endurance and surrender.

SPECIAL EVENT:

Furry! / La Furia! by WilLiam Burke

November 17-22, 2016 at 8pm

Written and directed by WilLiam Burke

Spanish Translation by Modesto Flako Jimenez and Mariela Regalado

Featuring: Modesto Flako Jimenez and Olander "Big O" Wilson; production design by Jeannette Yew; lighting by Dan Kent; costumes by Asta Bennie Hostetter

In a reworking of his 2013 play for one actor and a dirty Sesame Street Army, playwright and director WilLiam Burke is joining forces with Brooklyn Gypsies Collective in a new and explosive Spanish/Spanglish/human translation of FURRY!/LA FURIA! depicting the struggle of a pan handling Time Square Elmo. In order to care for his ailing son, a man dressed in his street Elmo best, attempts take over the blocks of 42nd-46th Streets, using the art of war, an army of Elmos and his deepest and most violent self.

ANNUAL PUPPETRY FESTIVAL:

The Soldier's Tale (from Two Stories About Exploring) by Puppet Kitchen

December 9-18, 2016

Evening performances Dec. 9-10 and 16-17 at 8pm

Matinees for all ages Dec. 10-11 and 17-18 at 4pm (Free)

A soldier, returning from war, makes a deal with The Devil. Suddenly, the soldier finds himself trying to make his way through what he thought was a familiar world. Everyday objects are expertly manipulated to Stravinsky's beautiful music to become roads, castles, flying coaches, even kings, princesses, and The Devil himself. At once playful and dark, the hero of The Soldier's Tale explores the changing world around him, and the consequences of his choices.

MAIN STAGE production:

Porto by Kate Benson

January 10 - February 4, 2017

Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8pm

Directed by Lee Sunday Evans; creative line producers John Del Gaudio and Rachel Karpf Reidy

A play about pleasure, sex and food in New York City, set in a serious bar on the eve of a dying empire. Porto is a regular here, where Doug the Bartender presides, Raphael the Waiter falls in love with his dream of the ideal woman, and her friend Dry Sac, beautiful and bitter, finds her way to a delicious brisket dinner. When Hennepin, a hot guy new to the bar, unexpectedly notices Porto, good times ensue, followed by an early morning conversation with Gloria Steinem and Simone de Beauvoir about how a woman might conduct a fling. We all want love, sex, good food - but is it possible to enjoy the sausage when we know how its made?

MAIN STAGE production:

Frontiéres sans Frontières by Phillip Howze

March 1 - 18, 2017 (*possible extension through March 25)

Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8pm

Directed by Dustin Wills

In a borderless land of insatiable industry, a comic trio of stateless youth navigate hunger, nightmares, nightmares of hunger, worries of the war and other typical tweenage woes - like whether they should join the guerillas, and what NOT to wear (thanks to all those glossy magazines in from Abroad!). A radical, irreverent look at displacement, Frontiéres sans Frontières explores a way of life in ruins and what happens when good intention goes too far.

ANNUAL FESTIVAL:

The 7th Annual Big Green Theater Festival presented with Superhero Clubhouse

April 28 - 30, 2017

Friday at 7pm, Saturday and Sunday at 1pm + 4pm (Free)

Big Green Theater is an annual eco-playwriting festival for Bushwick 4th and 5th grade students that culminates in a professional production of student plays, fully staged and sustainably designed. The most complex environmental issues of our time are tackled in this collection of hilarious short plays by thirty wildly imaginative young playwrights, their words and songs brought to vivid life by an ensemble of downtown NYC's brightest.

MAIN STAGE production:

The Art of Luv (Part 5): ROKÉ Cupid by Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble

May 24 - June 10, 2017

Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8pm

In the 5th installment of their ambitious multi-part series, TheArt of Luv, ROKE transforms The Bushwick Starr into a psychedelic planetarium, hypnotizing the audience with a multimedia voyage of images, recitations, and original songs, culled from online dating profiles and sacred texts.

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