ANGELMAKERS: Songs For Female Serial Killers Comes to Feinstein's/54 Below

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents Gelsey Bell and Viva DeConcini in Molly Rice's ANGELMAKERS: Songs for Female Serial Killers on August 15th at 9:30pm.

ANGELMAKERS explores the moments and motives of female serial killers throughout history, from the 1500's to the present. The songs, as diverse in content as they are in style, are performed by an all-female band featuring New York experimental theater musicians and Pittsburgh punk-rock artists.

So why female serial killers as the focus of a concert musical? ANGELMAKERS conceivers Molly Rice and Rusty Thelin respond:

'The Keepers', 'Staircase', 'Making a Murderer'-- our culture is fascinated with true crime, but women aren't usually at the center of the story unless they're victims of male killers. ANGELMAKERS asks: how do murderous obsessions exist differently in women than in men, and does our fascination with violence change when it's a woman who's committing it? What iniquities influence the making of these "monsters"? How indelibly is victimization bound to the act of victimizing, and how does an audience's understanding of a character as both sufferer and perpetrator of suffering affect their ability to empathize?

According to its creators, ANGELMAKERS (#everyonedeservesonesong) is an exploration of radical empathy at a time when it's needed most. Using the crack-you-open power of music and the steeped-in notions of women as the more sympathetic (and empathetic) gender, this piece asks audiences to simultaneously hold both their righteous anger at destructive behavior and their awareness of the humanity inside each of us.

"We hope this piece will evoke responses of discomfort, fascination, distance, and compassion-- responses that, in a larger sense, we all need to learn to negotiate if we hope to understand those who are fundamentally different from us," Rice says.

The show was produced with generous help from The Heinz Endowments*, and was developed at the 2017 Orchard Project in Saratoga Springs, NY**, an accelerator of new work, including that of acclaimed live artists Taylor Mac, Young Jean Lee, Adam Rapp, Mo Rocca, Itamar Moses and many more (www.orchardproject.com).

Gelsey Bell and Viva DeConcini in ANGELMAKERS: Songs for Female Serial Killers plays Feinstein's/54 Below (254 West 54th Street) on August 15th at 9:30pm. There is a $25-$35 cover charge and $25 food and beverage minimum. Tickets and information are available at www.54Below.com. Tickets on the day of performance after 4:00 are only available by calling (646) 476-3551.

MORE ABOUT Gelsey Bell

Gelsey has worked with a wide range of performance creators as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, including: composer Dave Malloy, originating the roles Princess Mary in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and Pearl in Ghost Quartet; composer Robert Ashley in his opera CRASH, and the revival of That Morning Thing; and visual artist Matthew Barney and composer Jonathan Bepler, in The River of Fundament. She has released two albums, Under A Piano (2005) and In Place of Arms (2010). Gelsey has developed experimental collaborations like Prisoner's Song (2015), with visual artist Erik Ruin; This Takes Place Close By (2015), a collaboratively composed opera by thingNY; WIFE (2015), commissioned by Avant Media; Our Defensive Measurements (2013), commissioned by Roulette and the Jerome Foundation; SCALING (2011) for piano and two vocalists; and Bathroom Songs (2010), which has been performed in bathrooms all over the world. She received a 2017 sound/music grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and a residency (2015-2016) from Roulette and the Jerome Foundation. She is the Exploring the Metropolis Ridgewood Bushwick Composer-in-Residence for 2018.

Gelsey has been described by the New York Times as the "future of experimental vocalism," an "imaginative," "brandy-voiced," "winning soprano," whose performance of her own music is "virtuosic" and "glorious noise."

MORE ABOUT Viva DeConcini

VIVA plays guitar like a flaming sword, a screaming train, a ringing bell, and a scratching chicken. She sings like if Freddy Mercury had been a woman. She's played everywhere from Monterey Jazz Fest to Bonnaroo and with artists as diverse as downtown avant-garde percussionist Cyro Baptista to certified queerdo theater genius Taylor Mac. She and her rock band have performed over 200 shows from SxSw to Daytona Spring Break to Joe's Pub and some of NYC's finest underground parties and she is one of the few females to have been featured in Guitar Player magazine. Viva has written over 100 songs and released 4 records, two of which charted on CMJ and earned favorable reviews in No Depression and Vintage Guitar magazine. She is currently on tour with Taylor Mac and performs regularly in NYC.

"The love child of Little Richard and Joan Jett" - The Aquarian

"Viva DeConcini's shimmering guitar solo soared until it pierced the clouds" - The Washington Post

MORE ABOUT MOLLY RICE

MOLLY RICE is a playwright & songwriter whose work has been developed/ produced in NYC (Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick, Women's Project, NYTW, New Georges) and nationally (American Repertory Theater, Montana Rep, Salvage Vanguard, Trinity Rep, etc.). Her writing has been published in American Theater Magazine, The Dramatist, Dramatics Magazine, Kenyon Review, Play: A Journal and Indie Theater Now, and by Clarkson Potter and Heinemann Press, among others. Commissions include NYU/ Tisch MFA Acting Program, New Georges, and NYC's The Drilling Company. Residencies include the Orchard Project, the Missoula Colony, Tofte Lake Residency, Yale/ P73 Residency, & Voice and Vision Residency (Bard College). Honors and awards include Brown University's Weston Prize, Women's International Theater Festival, the New York Innovative Theater Awards (nominee), the Kesselring Fellowship (nominee), the Princess Grace Award (finalist) and the Montclair and Pace New Works Initiatives with director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812). Recent productions include the 2016 Lucille Lortel Best Musical Award-winning Futurity: A Musical by the Lisps, at ART and Soho Rep (book co-writer, additional text and story), and THE SAINTS TOUR, a site-specific traveling play occurring in neighborhoods across the country, most recently in greater Braddock in 2015 (a co-production between her company Real/Time Interventions & Bricolage). Upcoming projects: a new work for and with Pittsburgh refugee populations, the result of a 2-year grant sponsored by the Office of Public Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the City of Pittsburgh; and the Fine Foundation.

A singer/ songwriter/ band musician from an early age, Molly had a song on the top 100 charts in Alaska when she was 19. She never did find out what number it was.

MORE ABOUT FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW

Feinstein's/54 Below, Broadway's Supper Club & Private Event Destination, is a performance venue in the grand tradition of New York City nightlife. A few blocks from the heart of Times Square and just below the legendary Studio 54, Feinstein's/54 Below is a classically designed state-of-the art nightclub in the theatre district that hosts audiences with warmth and style. Feinstein's/54 Below presents iconic and rising stars from the worlds of Broadway and popular music and has set a new standard for culinary excellence worthy of the world-class entertainment on the stage.

In their description of the venue, The New York Times writes, "Feinstein's/54 Below has the intimacy of a large living room with unimpeded views and impeccable sound; there is not a bad seat in the house. Its sultry after-hours ambience is enhanced by brocade-patterned wall panels planted with orange-shaded lanterns. And the atmosphere is warmer and sexier than in Manhattan's other major supper clubs."

Located at 254 West 54th Street, Feinstein's/54 Below features up to three shows nightly with cover charges ranging from $5-$105. 54Below.com/Feinsteins

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