'06-'07 NY Theatre Workshop Season Includes Ball, Clarke

The New York Theatre Workshop has announced its 2006-2007 season, with world premiere works by Alan Ball and Martha Clarke among the highlights.

The world premiere of ¡El Conquistador!, created by Thaddeus Phillips in collaboration with Tatiana and Victor Mallarino, and directed by Tatiana Mallarino, will kick off the season in September.  "Simultaneously a foreign film, theatre play, epic history and Telenovela, ¡El Conquistador! was created on location in Bogotá, Colombia and centres around Polonio, a peasant who flees his war-ravaged village to become a soap opera star. What he finds is a post as the doorman of the New World Building whose crazy and exotic residents are played by some of Latin America's best TV stars (who appear via video-phone system)," state notes on the NYTW website.

Next will be an (as-of-yet untitled) new work created, directed and choreographed by Martha Clarke (Vienna: Lusthaus (revisited)).  It "uses dance, live music, text and visual imagery to re-tell four Luigi Pirandello stories featured in the Taviani Brothers' 1984 film Kaos. Set in turn-of-the-century Sicily, these stories portray common people in mystical situations, heavily influenced by poverty and the violent political unrest of the time." 

Jo Bonney (The Seven, A Soldier's Play) will helm the world premiere of All That I Will Ever Be by Ball (American Beauty, "Six Feet Under," Five Women Wearing the Same Dress).   The play is  "a richly characterized tale of cultural imperialism and our eternal search for belonging as seen through the eyes of two young men in Los Angeles, one a restless native Angeleno, the other an enigmatic immigrant from the Middle East."  It will be presented in January of 2007.

In April of 2007, the theatre will present the world premiere of 24 Hours Are Not a Day, written and directed by René Pollesch, who "is a playwright and director who is one of Germany's theatre stars. He is currently the director of the Prater Theater in Berlin's celebrated Volksbühne and his work is known for breaking all the rules of classic dramaturgy. 24 Hours Are Not a Day cunningly explores the consequences of globalization on our public and private lives."

"The New York Theatre Workshop is just that... a remarkable off-Broadway theatre noted for its acclaimed and innovative productions... a workshop where artists create new work, hone their craft and collaboratively explore theatre... all rooted in our cozy East Village digs located in the heart of New York's downtown arts scene."  Among the shows that originated at NYTW are Rent, Dirty Blonde and Homebody/Kabul.

Visit www.nytw.org for more information on the New York Theatre Workshop

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