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A.R.T., Huntington Theatre Co & ICA Announce Details For Emerging America Fest 5/14
By: Gabrielle Sierra May. 03, 2010
The American Repertory Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston have joined forces for the first time to create Emerging America - an annual festival devoted to supporting and launching new voices in American theater.
From May 14 through 16, Emerging America will bring some of the country's most promising performers, writers, companies, and directors to Boston for a weekend filled with energy, imagination, creativity, and drama.
Emerging America spans Boston and Cambridge with events happening at all three artistic homes throughout the weekend: the A.R.T. at OBERON, 2 Arrow St. Cambridge MA, the Huntington's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, and the ICA at 100 Northern Avenue, Boston.
OVERVIEW OF FESTIVAL EVENTS AND TIMES:
Podcast and Walking Tours - launching May 2 and ongoing throughout the Festival weekend. Find them at www.emergingamericafestival.org
Roam Cambridge and Boston as you discover secret locations and favorite haunts of local and national voices. Hear from artists, leaders, figureheads of Cambridge and Boston, listen to short plays by Huntington Playwriting Fellows inspired by specific locations, and more. Download original podcasts and walking tours created for this festival that celebrate the neighborhoods and artists of each organizations community, past and present.
Diane Paulus, Artistic Director, A.R.T.
Peter DuBois, Artistic Director, Huntington Theater Company
David Henry, Director of Programs, I.C.A
Robert Brustein, Founding Director, A.R.T.
Ryan Walsh, of the band Hallelujah the Hills, on David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Rachel Chavkin, Director, The TEAM (participating in Emerging America Festival); on Henry Adams
D.W. Jacobs, playwright; on Buckminster Fuller
Kelly Kerrigan, Fort Point artist
Ryan Landry, Huntington Playwriting fellow and local superstar
Ken Urban, Huntington Playwriting Fellow
Martha Jane Kaufman, Huntington Playwriting Fellow
Steven Sapp, Artistic Director, Universes (participating in Emerging America Festival); on EE Cummings
THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND OF MAY 14-16The Festival Tent - open May 14 through 16
Throughout the weekend come together at the Festival Tent, just outside OBERON at the A.R.T. where festival-goers can grab a drink and meet the artists and audiences from all over Cambridge, Boston, and the nation. Feel the festival spirit all weekend.
Tent hours:
Friday May 14, 5pm to 8pm
Saturday and Sunday May 15 & 16, 10:30am to 11:30pm
FRIDAY MAY 14
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA)
7:30 pm
Disfarmer
"Moving, poignant and occasionally hilarious, Disfarmer is a wonder."- Variety
Mike Disfarmer was an Arkansas photographer who left behind a body of work now considered one of the most significant in the history of portraiture. This haunting and original work of puppet theater explores the world of this eccentric and reclusive artist. Award-winning director Dan Hurlin takes puppetry to exquisite heights with the unique "tabletop" style: the handlers operate in full view of the audience, not just manipulating but interacting with the puppet hero. A script by Sally Oswald, a country-meets-avant-garde score by Dan Moses Schreier, and Disfarmer's own photographs complete Hurlin's portrait of this American original.
Tickets: $20 members, students, and seniors; $25 non-members
Additional performance on Saturday, May 15.
Experiment America
Kick-off party for Emerging America
9:30 pm
The Emerging America Festival jump starts on Friday night at the ICA's living-art-dance party: Experiment America. The A.R.T., Huntington Theatre Company, and ICA have brought together more than 40 performers, artists, and oddities to bring you this massive opening event. From 9:30pm to 11pm the ICA will be chock full of secrets and hidden surprises, so give yourself plenty of time to explore the new Dr. Lakra show and the unique one-night-only performances. And at 11, live music brings everyone together for a night of dancing with DJ Adam Gibbons spinning until 1am.
SATURDAY MAY 15
The Huntington Theatre Company's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
1:00pm & 4:00pm
Two Emerging Voices/One Double Bill:
Love Song in Two Voices
Written and Performed by Amy Herzog | Directed by Portia Krieger
In the wake of a whitewater rafting accident, a mother and daughter redefine their relationship in Amy Herzog's poignant solo piece.
Seven Minutes in Heaven
Written by Steven Levenson | Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt
Relive all the party games you loved/loathed from middle school in this manic, hyper-charged, genre-blurring comedy.
Tickets: $20/$15
A limited number of press seats will be available at each performance.
Club Theater Performances from the A.R.T. at OBERON
4pm
Mrs. Smith Presents... a Benefit for the Carlyle Foundation Empowerment School for People and Cats with Severe and Persistent Challenges
Created by David Hanbury and Michael Goldfried | Directed by Michael Goldfried
Starring David Hanbury and featuring Ryan Landry
A laugh-out-loud theater happening that teeters on the edge of comedy and pathos, in the spirit of Hedwig and Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theater.
Tickets: $20/$15
A limited number of press seats will be available at each performance.
6pm
Live from the Edge
Created by Universes
Universes is an ensemble company of multi-disciplined writers and performers who fuse poetry, theater, jazz, hip-hop, politics, down home blues, and Spanish boleros to create moving, challenging, and entertaining theatrical works. Live From the Edge showcases the best of the ensemble's special brand of fusion theater.
A limited number of press seats will be available at each performance.
Additional performance on Sunday, May 16 at 8pm
8pm
Particularly in the Heartland
Created by The TEAM
The TEAM is the Theatre Of the Emerging American Moment, a New York City-based theater company dedicated to dissecting and celebrating the experience of living in America today. In this play about losing sight of America and trying to fall back in love with it, visit a Kansas where parents vanish, aliens grow in cornfields, New Yorkers fall from the sky, and dead Kennedys stop by for Christmas dinner.
Additional performance on Sunday, May 16 at 4pm
A limited number of press seats will be available at each performance.
10:15pm
Post-Living Ante-Action Theater (Club Remix)
Created by My Barbarian
My Barbarian is Los Angeles-based performance collective whose interdisciplinary projects explore and exhume cross-cultural mishaps and misadventures drawn from history, mythology, art, and popular culture. Improvisation and scripted material collide as the audience is invited into exercises, dances, parlor tricks, and sing-a-longs.
A limited number of press seats will be available at each performance.
12:00am - MIDNIGHT
Late Night The Donkey Show and celebration
In a celebration of the Emerging America Festival and A.R.T's focus on club theater for this inaugural year, join us for a special midnight showing of the disco sensation that takes Cambridge and Boston by storm every weekend at OBERON. Come party on the dance floor to all the 70s disco hits you know by heart as the show unfolds around you.
Tickets from $25
SUNDAY MAY 16:
12:00pm - 2:30pm
The Huntington Theatre Company's Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Join the Conversation! Brunch.
Continue your weekend of adventure. Grab a mimosa or Bloody Mary, and snack on sweet and savory brunch items from Panera Bread. Performances go musical as the strings duo Cello Chix perform electric renditions of classic rock and Ryan Landry leads the Gold Dust Orphans in a hilarious song selection from their classic hit Showgirls. In Deane Hall, see selections from the best of the local scene: Company One's poetry-slam-meets-performance-piece ARTiculation, John Kuntz and Rick Park's lauded comedy The Superheroine Monologues, and dance theatre work by Huntington Playwriting Fellow Martha Jane Kaufman.
Club Theater Performances from the A.R.T. at OBERON
6:15pm
Vicious Dogs on Premises
Created by Witness Relocation
Witness Relocation combines dance and theater with the energy of a rock show, exploding contemporary culture into intensely physical, outrageous, poetic, and sometimes brutal performances in order to question the assumptions of the modern day experience.
Tickets: $20/$15
A limited number of press seats will be available at each performance.
10:00 pm
Festival celebration party featuring Decode
Created by Salvatore LaRussa Dance Theatre
Celebrate the end of the festival weekend with a raucous party featuring a dance performance where silent dialogues and physical commands are exchanged between dancers throughout the venue.
A limited number of press seats will be available at each performance.
RATING: Events range from all ages to 18+
Tickets can be purchased in advance at www.emergingamericafestival.org
Diane Paulus, Artistic Director of the A.R.T., commented: "Theater is more than simply a play on the stage: it's a ritual, a social occasion for people to come together and experience community. My hope for Emerging America is that the audience will be able to give feedback to the artists through conversations provoked by the social gatherings that will be at the heart of the festival."
"Emerging America is an opportunity to experience today's art - on the waterfront, on the stage and in the streets," says Jill Medvedow, Director of the ICA. "It fits right in with the ICA's commitment to sharing the pleasures, provocation, and inspiration of contemporary art with audiences in Boston and beyond."
Peter DuBois, Artistic Director of the Huntington Theatre Company, concurred: "You can hear the exciting sounds of new American voices in the works of the Emerging America Festival."
ABOUT THE American Repertory THEATER (A.R.T.)
The A.R.T. is one of the country's most celebrated resident theaters and the winner of numerous awards - including the Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and numerous local Elliot Norton and I.R.N.E. Awards. It was recently named one of the top three theaters in the country by Time magazine. Founded by Robert Brustein in 1980, over its twenty-nine-year history the A.R.T. has welcomed major American and international theater artists whose singular visions generate and define the theater's work, presenting a varied repertoire that includes new plays, progressive productions of classical texts, and collaborations between artists from many disciplines. The Company has performed throughout the US, and worldwide in twenty-one cities in sixteen countries on four continents. Last year the organization welcomed its new Artistic Director, Diane Paulus, under whose helm the Company Began its 30th Season. Under the leadership of Diane Paulus, A.R.T. has developed a new initiative, EXPERIENCE THE A.R.T., which seeks to revolutionize the theater experience through a sustained commitment to empowering the audience. This audience-driven vision has completely transformed the way the company develops, programs, produces, and contextualizes its work. This speaks directly to the A.R.T.'s core mission - "to expand the boundaries of theater." A.R.T. resources give equal importance to the social aspects of theater and the potential for a full theater experience, including interaction and engagement with its audience before, during, and after the production. The initiative involves producing theater cycles that create a festival atmosphere and allow audiences to experience productions in the context of a larger event. By producing and promoting these cycles as citywide events, A.R.T. seeks to attract larger audiences from the greater Boston area and from the rest of the country and world.
ABOUT THE Huntington Theatre Company:
The Huntington Theatre Company is Boston's largest and most popular theatre company, hosting more than 64 Tony Award-winning artists, garnering 36 Elliot Norton Awards, and sending over a dozen shows to Broadway since its founding in 1982. In July 2008, Peter DuBois became the Huntington's third artistic leader and works in partnership with longtime Managing Director Michael Maso. In residence at and in partnership with Boston University, the Huntington is renowned for presenting seven outstanding productions each season, created by world-class artists and the most promising emerging talent, and reaching an annual audience of over 130,000. The company has premiered plays by Pulitzer Prize, Academy Award, and Tony Award-winning luminaries such as August Wilson and Tom Stoppard, as well as rising local literary stars such as Melinda Lopez, Ronan Noone, and Lydia R. Diamond. The Huntington has transferred over a dozen productions to Broadway, more than any other theatre in Boston, including the Broadway hit and Tony Award-winner Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. In 2004, the Huntington opened the state-of-the-art Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, which includes 370-seat and 200-seat theatres to support the company's new works activities and to complement the company's 890-seat, Broadway-style main stage, the Boston University Theatre. The Huntington is a national leader in the development and support of new plays, producing more than 50 New England, American, or world premieres in its 27-year history. The Huntington's nationally-recognized education programs have served more than 250,000 middle school and high school students in individual and group settings and community programs bring theatre to the Deaf and blind communities, the elderly, and other underserved populations in the Greater Boston area.
ABOUT THE ICA:
An influential forum for multi-disciplinary arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art has been at the leading edge of art in Boston for more than 70 years. Like its iconic building on Boston's waterfront, the ICA offers new ways of engaging with the world around us. Its exhibitions and programs provide access to contemporary art, artists, and the creative process, inviting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to participate in the excitement of new art and ideas. The ICA, located at 100 Northern Avenue, is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 am - 5 pm; Thursday and Friday, 10 am - 9 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 10 am - 5 pm. Admission is $15 adults, $10 seniors and students, and free for members and children 17 and under. ICA Free Admission for Youth is sponsored by State Street Foundation. Free admission on Target Free Thursday Nights, 5 - 9 pm. Free admission for families at ICA Play Dates (2 adults + children 12 and under) on the last Saturday of the month. For more information, call 617-478-3100 or visit our Web site at www.icaboston.org.
For more information, visit www.emergingamericafestival.org
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