Ensemble for the Romantic Century (Eve Wolf, Executive Artistic Director) is proud to announce that the cast Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart, the final production of the 2017-'18 season, at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between Dyer and 10th Avenues) beginning May 17th. Opening Night is set for May 31st. This limited Off-Broadway engagement runs through June 17th only.
Donald T. Sanders will direct a cast that features
Joey Slotnick in the title role (Broadway: Junk directed by
Doug Hughes - LCT; The Front Page, directed by
Jack O'Brien; The Big Knife with
Bobby Cannavale; Off-Broadway: Dying for It,
Ethan Coen's Offices, Almost An Evening, Happy Hour; TV: "Boston Public," "The Good Wife," "Nip/Tuck");
Shorey Walker (Seussical, Caligula Off-Broadway); tenor Adrian Kramer (Edmonton Opera - HMS Pinafore; Opera Philadelphia - Lucia di Lammermoor; San Diego Opera - La tragédie de Carmen; with musicians Ji (declared "the real star of the 2016 Grammy Awards" by People Magazine); cellist Ari Evan (Bordone Quartet); violinist Stephanie Zyzak (the youngest recipient ever to be awarded the Aspen Music School New Horizon Fellowship); and Daniel Mantei, ballet dancer/choreographer for
American Ballet Theatre for 15 years.
Written by ERC Executive Artistic Director
Eve Wolf, Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart will have scenic and costume design by
Vanessa James, and lighting design by
Beverly Emmons.
In a strange relationship that lasted fourteen years and that was conducted exclusively through letters, Tchaikovsky and his patroness Nadezhda von Meck were united through the invincible power of a disembodied love in which they both found refuge. Plagued with doubts about the greatness of his music, tormented by the fear of discovery of his homosexuality, and trapped in a marriage to a woman who was eventually committed to an insane asylum, Tchaikovsky found in von Meck an "invisible angel." ERC honors their unique relationship in a theatrical production featuring Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A Minor and some of his most moving songs.
Ensemble for the Romantic Century, now in its 17th Season, has set out to achieve the impossible: Time Travel. ERC was founded by pianist
Eve Wolf in 2001 with the intention of creating an engaging and innovative approach to chamber music concerts. ERC's theatrical concerts interweave letters, memoirs, diaries, poems, and other literature with chamber and vocal music; the music's historical context is reinforced through its connections with history, politics, philosophy, psychology, and the other arts to create a compelling new performance experience. These unique productions merge dramatic and fully staged scripts with music, recapturing the past with a sense of immediacy that transports, illuminates, and captivates. The scripts, drawn from historical material that includes letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, poetry, and literature create an intricate counterpoint to the musical program. The subject matters span across centuries, from Tolstoy to Toscanini, from Verne to Van Gogh, all brought to life through the fusion of drama and music. By illuminating the interplay between literature, biography and music ERC has transformed the concert experience. The Romantic Century was about imagination and experimentation. Elevating the human condition through art: that is the spirit we hope to summon. ERC has created over 40 original theatrical concerts at such institutions as BAM (
Brooklyn Academy Of Music); Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA; The Jewish Museum of New York; the Archivio Fano of Venice, Italy; the Festival de Musique de Chambre Montréal; the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts/MIFA; the French Institute-Alliance Française/FIAF, New York; the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University; the
Italian Cultural Institute of New York; and the City University of New York (CUNY). ERC's programs are distinguished by their artistic excellence, breadth of repertoire, and variety of subject matter. In its relatively short history, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century has enriched the music scene with highly innovative productions that are also historically informed, aesthetically exquisite, and emotionally transporting.
Eve Wolf is Founder and Executive Artistic Director of ERC. Recent credits include Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone (BAM, 2016; New York Times Critic's Pick); and
Jules Verne: From the Earth to The Moon (BAM, 2015; also a New York Times Critic's Pick). Ms. Wolf founded Ensemble for the Romantic Century in 2001 with the mission of creating an innovative and dramatic concert format in which the emotions revealed in memoirs, letters, diaries, and literature are dramatically interwoven with music, thus bringing to life the sensations and passions of a bygone era. For the past sixteen seasons, Ms. Wolf has written scripts for more than twenty-five of ERC's theatrical concerts and has performed in most of the ensemble's forty-plus original productions. Some highlights include Ms. Wolf's scripts for Van Gogh's Ear at the Festival de Musique de Chambre de Montréal; Fanny Mendelssohn: Out of her Brother's Shadow commissioned by the Jewish Museum of New York; and The Dreyfus Affair and Peggy Guggenheim Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors. In 2009, she performed before a sold-out audience at the Sale Apollinee of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in the Italian production of her script, Toscanini: Nel mio cuore troppo di assoluto.
Donald T. Sanders has been Director of Theatrical Production for ERC since 2005. In 2011, he directed Seduction, Smoke and Music at the Tuscan Sun Festival starring
Jeremy Irons and Sinéad Cusack. Other ERC productions include Toscanini: Nel Mio Cuore Troppo di Assoluto at Venice's Teatro La Fenice, Sale Apolline, and Van Gogh's Ear at New York's
Florence Gould Hall and the Festival de Musique de Chambre Montréal. He has directed productions at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater as well as the Off-Broadway plays of
Arnold Weinstein,
Eric Bentley,
Kenneth Koch and
William Russo. Sanders is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. He is the Executive Artistic Director of the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA), presenting such artists as
Mikhail Baryshnikov,
Vanessa Redgrave, England's Out of Joint and Complicite companies, and France's Comédie Française. In 2002, Sanders was made a Chevalier dans L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France.
The Pershing Square Signature Center, the permanent home of
Signature Theatre, is a three-theatre facility on West 42nd Street designed by
Frank Gehry Architects to host Signature's three distinct playwrights' residencies and foster a cultural community. The Center is a major contribution to New York City's cultural landscape and provides a venue for cultural organizations that supports and encourages collaboration among artists throughout the space. In addition to its three intimate theatres, the Center features a
Studio Theatre, rehearsal studio, a bookstore, and the Signature Café + Bar, open to the public from noon-midnight Tuesdays - Sundays. For more information on renting the Center, please visit
www.signaturetheatre.org/rentals.
Performances for Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart will be at the Ford Foundation
Studio Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (
480 West 42nd Street between Dyer and 10th Avenues). Tickets from $40 can be purchased through Ticket Central via
www.ticketcentral.com by calling 212/279-4200, or in person at Ticket Central,
416 West 42nd Street (12-8pm daily).
For more information, visit
romanticcentury.org.
Artwork by: FRAVER
