Arthur Yorinks' AMERICAN SONG Continues at The Flea in April

The Flea Theater in association with Four Arts Media will present the next 4 plays of the AMERICAN SONG 13 play series. Following the previous four plays that brought us from the turn of the century to 1939, the upcoming presentations forge ahead through World War II and end after the cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s.

Casting for each of the AMERICAN SONG plays will come from the ensemble previously performing in Yorinks's American Song series. They include Sigourney Weaver, Frances McDormand, Adam Driver, David Hyde Pierce, Danny Burstein, Annette O' Toole, Lois Smith, Reg E. Cathey, Peter Gerety, Max Gordon Moore, Jay O. Sanders, Rebecca Luker, Linda Powell, Maryann Plunkett, Stephen DeRosa, Karen Ziemba, as well as many others. The four plays are:

Trains Running
1940 ~ 1945
April 16 at 7pm
While hell rages in Europe, American soldiers ruminate about their future on the night before they ship out - and find out war is not only over there.
A play about dreams and sacrifice, fear and resilience.

Snow in Trees
1946 ~ 1949
April 18 at 7pm
Out of ashes, a new forest grows. Out of war, a family reunited faces what they abandoned.
A play about denial and redemption.

The Letter
1950 ~ 1959
April 20 at 7pm
As a suburban father walks from his house to his curbside mailbox the film of his life follows him.
A play about confronting the loneliness of daily life and the small surprises that help us keep going.

Horses Race Electric
1960 ~ 1969
April 22 at 7pm
Another war, the cultural revolution, the battle for civil rights - America erupts. Three young friends face their adulthood with uncertainty, ambition, loyalty and humor.
A play about the search for identity, with a little sex on the side.

Each of these new 13 one-hour-long AMERICAN SONG plays, written by Arthur Yorinks and directed by Jim Simpson and Arthur Yorinks, explores the American panorama decade by decade from the late 19th century to now. The plays are gripping human dramas set in various parts of America. Says Mr. Yorinks, "I'm telling a story of America through the fictional lives of ordinary people against the backdrop of little-known and well-known historical landscapes."

AMERICAN SONG takes its name from the way the narrative of each play in the series is inspired by a quintessential American song from the decade in which it is set. The songs are freshly interpreted and performed at the start of each play.

The series, in development for national broadcast on radio and mobile devices later this year, is being previewed for theater audiences.

Arthur Yorinks (Creator, Writer, Co-Director, Executive Producer) - has written and directed for opera, theater, dance, film, and radio and is the author of over thirty acclaimed and award-winning books. After veering off his path of becoming a classical pianist in his teens (studying under former Juilliard professor Robert Bedford), Mr. Yorinks has spent nearly four decades working in the performing arts, writing and directing numerous original plays including So, Sue Me, which premiered at The Kennedy Center, and the multimedia audio work, The Invisible Man which premiered at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in New York where Mr. Yorinks originated their theater initiative A New Theater of Sound. In opera, Yorinks was Philip Glass's librettist for his operas The Juniper Tree and The Fall of the House of Usher, which have been performed worldwide. Mr. Yorinks's work in dance includes collaborations with companies such as The Hartford Ballet and Pilobolus (where he helped create the full-length dance/theater piece, A Selection). In his varied and wide-ranging career, Yorinks's work brought him into collaborations with celebrated artists including Andre Serban, Bill Irwin, Richard Foreman, Maurice Sendak, Robert Redford and legendary filmmaker Michael Powell, among many others. Compelled by the use of sound in the theater Mr. Yorinks has, for twenty years, experimented with the relationship between audio and live performance. Fifteen years ago he formalized that passion into a company devoted to exploring, evolving, and redefining audio theater. Since then, Mr. Yorinks has written and directed over forty original audio plays. He has directed the radio works of Tom Stoppard, adapted Garson Kanin's stage works for radio, adapted numerous literary works for theatrical audio including Kafka's Metamorphosis and Gogol's The Portrait as well as Dickens' A Christmas Carol which was newly recorded and broadcast by WNYC Radio starring Brian Cox. Mr. Yorinks latest work for radio was his original adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. The play opened live in New York City in February 2012, and was directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson starring Roslyn Ruff and Phylicia Rashad. Mr. Yorinks directed the radio broadcast premiering in September 2012 on WNYC Radio. Mr. Yorinks's opera with Philip Glass, The Fall of the House of Usher, opened the 2013 season at Chicago Opera Theater. Mr. Yorinks's work has been broadcast nationwide on SiriusXM Satellite Radio and on WNYC radio.

Bruce Fagin (Senior Executive Producer) - has provided strategic counsel to numerous cultural and educational organizations including Carnegie Hall, National Geographic Television & Film Company, Jewish Repertory Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem, City University of New York, and New York Pubic Radio. Mr. Fagin specializes in building synergies between cultural and business partners in the areas of funding, joint ventures, branded entertainment, program design and branding. He has worked closely with leading companies like American Express, AT&T, Verizon, Starbucks, General Motors, NBC, JetBlue, NYSE/Euronext and others on cause-related cultural initiatives. Highlights of Mr. Fagin's career include co-founding the 14th Street Dance Center, a pioneer for fifteen years in presenting emerging artists to new audiences. From 1998-2000, he served as Deputy Director for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, where he led negotiations with the Port Authority of NY & NJ and Visa to underwrite a free arts festival on the plaza of the World Trade Center. The festival, Evening Stars, was in its third year on September 11, 2001. In 2002, Mr. Fagin helped found the annual River To River Festival in Lower Manhattan, which, in its inaugural season, became the largest sponsor-supported free summer entertainment festival in the U.S. with over a million audience members. Earlier in his career, Mr. Fagin was an editor and publisher for McGraw-Hill. Over a career spanning several decades, he has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars while providing strategic insight and program design in support.

The Flea Theater, under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, is one of New York's leading off-off-Broadway companies. Winner of a Special Drama Desk Award for outstanding achievement, Obie Awards and an Otto for political theater, The Flea has presented over 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances since its inception in 1996. Past productions include the premieres of Anne Nelson's The Guys, seven plays by A.R. Gurney (O Jerusalem, Screenplay, Mrs. Farnsworth, Post Mortem, A Light Lunch, Office Hours and Heresy), Cellophane and Two September by Mac Wellman, Ashley Montana Goes Ashore... and The Oldsmobiles by Roger Rosenblatt; JABU and Kaspar Hauser by Elizabeth Swados; Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman by Karen Finley, Bingo with the Indians by Adam Rapp, Oh, The Humanity and other exclamations by Will Eno, Dawn and Job by Thomas Bradshaw, Love/Stories (or But You Will Get Used to it) Itamar Moses, The Great Recession, Girls in Trouble by Jonathan Reynolds, Parents' Evening by Bathsheba Doran, Looking at Christmas by Steven Banks, the Drama Desk nominated She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen, the Drama Desk nominated These Seven Sicknesses by Sean Graney, I Hate f-ing Mexicans by Luis Enrique Gutiérrez Ortiz Monasterio, Amy Freed's Restoration Comedy and Hamish Linklater's The Vandal.

AMERICAN SONG performances are April 16, 18, 20, 22 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $25. Purchase all four plays and all handling fees will be waived. Tickets on sale to members immediately and the general public on March 5. Call 212-226-0051 x107 to purchase all 4 plays. Individual tickets are available by calling 212-352-3101 or online at www.theflea.org. The Flea is located at 41 White Street between Church and Broadway, three blocks south of Canal, close to the A/C/E, N/R/Q, 6, J/M/Z and 1 subway lines.

To post a comment, you must register and login.