SONTAG: REBORN to Play NYTW, Beginning 5/28

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director William Russo have announced that Sontag: Reborn, based on the books by Susan Sontag and edited by David Rieff, adapted and performed by Moe Angelos, directed by Marianne Weems, and produced in collaboration with The Builders Association, will begin performances Tuesday, May 28 at NYTW, 79 East 4 Street, between Bowery and Second Avenue. Opening night is set for Thursday, June 6 at 7pm. Sontag: Reborn is scheduled to run through Sunday, June 30.

Adapted from Susan Sontag's early journals by performer Moe Angelos, Sontag: Reborn traces Sontag's private life from the age of 14 to her emergence as a world-renowned author and activist. The young Sontag wrestles with her emerging sexuality and precocious intelligence, fraught with doubt and insecurity yet driven by her willfulness, ambition and voracious curiosity. The refuge of her diary became integral to her development as a writer, Sontag says herself, "In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could in person. I create myself."

Using The Builders Association's signature synthesis of poetic video and sound, this tightly-crafted story of self-discovery and sexual identity is both exuberant and intimate, exploring the private life, loves and idiosyncrasies of the iconic intellectual.

Moe Angelos has worked with The Builders Association as a performer since 1999, spanning two centuries and multiple productions. In addition, she has written six plays with her collaborative theatre company The Five Lesbian Brothers, two of which have been produced at New York Theatre Workshop, Oedipus at Palm Springs and The Secretaries. As a performer, she has appeared in the work of Carmelita Tropicana, Anne Bogart, Holly Hughes, Lois Weaver, Zack, Peg Healey, Dominique Dibbell, Lisa Kron, and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company.

Marianne Weems is artistic director of The Builders Association and has directed all of their productions since the company began in 1994. In the past, she has worked with The Wooster Group, David Byrne, Disney Imagineering and many others. She is the head of Graduate Directing in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University, and serves on the board of Art Matters. She is the co-author of Art Matters: How The Culture Wars Changed America (NYU Press 2000), and is co-authoring a book on The Builders Association forthcoming from MIT Press. The video design for Sontag: Reborn is by Austin Switser; sound design is by Dan Dobson; lighting design is by Laura Mroczkowski; scenic design is by Joshua Higgason; costume design is by Andreea Mincic; and makeup design is by Dick Page. The production stage manager is Lindsey Turteltaub.

Beginning in 1992 Marianne Weems worked with Susan Sontag, Ron Vawter, and Greg Mehrten on a new work tentatively titled Dark Victory-upuntil Vawter's AIDS-related death in 1994. After that Sontag participated in the early activities of The Builders Association and served as a board member until her death in 2004.

New York Theatre Workshop, now celebrating its 30th Season, is a leading voice in the world of Off-Broadway and within the theatre community in New York and around the world. NYTW has emerged as a premiere incubator of important new theatre, honoring its mission to explore perspectives on our collective history and respond to the events and institutions that shape our lives. In addition, NYTW is known for its innovative adaptations of classic repertory. Each season, from its home in New York's East Village neighborhood, NYTW presents three to five new productions, over 80 readings, and numerous workshop productions, for over 45,000 audience members. Over the past 28 years, NYTW has developed and produced over 100 new, fully staged works, including Jonathan Larson's Rent, Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul, Doug Wright's Quills, Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla, Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, and A Number, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's Aftermath, and Rick Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher. The 2002 remounting of Martha Clarke's seminal work, Vienna: Lusthaus and subsequent American tour was one of the longest-running productions in NYTW's history. NYTW's acclaimed production of Once is currently enjoying a Broadway run, and Peter and the Starcatcher, which made its New York Premiere at NYTW, has returned to off-Broadway following a successful Broadway run. NYTW supports artists in all stages of their careers by maintaining a series of workshop programs including work-in-progress readings, summer residencies, and minority artist fellowships. In 1991, NYTW received an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement and in 2000 was designated to be part of the Leading National Theatres Program by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The NYTW 2012/13 Season is dedicated to the memory of Joan Stein.

Founded in 1994, The Builders Association uses the richness of new and old tools to extend the boundaries of theater. Based on innovative collaborations, Builders' productions blend live performance, text, video, sound and architecture to tell stories about human experience in the 21st century. Productions include Master Builder (1994), The White Album (1995), Imperial Motel (Faust) (1996), Jump Cut (Faust) (1997), Jet Lag with Diller + Scofidio (1998, OBIE Award), Xtravaganza (2000), Alladeen with motiroti (2003, OBIE Award), Avanti (2003), Super Vision with dbox (2005), Continuous City (2008), House / Divided (2011) and Sontag: Reborn (2012). The company's work has been presented widely in Europe and the U.S. at venues including Kaaitheater Brussels, Singapore Arts Festival, Paris' Maison des Arts, Barbican Centre, Romaeuropa Festival, Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogota, Trafo House Budapest, Melbourne International Festival, Wexner Center for the Arts and Walker Art Center. Builders Association productions have been seen as part of the BAM Next Wave Festival in 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2012.

Sontag: Reborn plays at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East 4th Street, between Second Avenue and Bowery. The regular performance schedule is Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:00pm; Thursday and Friday at 8:00pm; Saturday at 3pm and 8pm; Sunday at 2pm and 7pm. Sontag:Reborn runs through June 30, 2013. Tickets start at $65 and may be purchased online at www.ticketcentral.com, 24 hours a day, seven days a week or by phoning Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200, noon - 8pm daily. For exact dates and times of performance, visit www.nytw.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.