Hoi Polloi's THREE PIANOS Opens 2/25 At The Ontological

Hoi Polloi Three Pianos runs February 25-March 20, 2010, performed everyday except Mondays and Wednesdays at 8p.m.

Written and Performed by Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy
Directed by Rachel Chavkin

Three Pianos is a theatrical explosion of Franz Schubert's Winterreise song cycle written, arranged and performed by three inventive theater artists - Rick Burkhardt of the Nonsense Company, Alec Duffy of Hoi Polloi and Dave Malloy of Banana Bag & Bodice. Rachel Chavkin of the theater company The TEAM directs. Three friends, each at their own piano, lead the audience through their respective passions for Schubert's famous song cycle on winter heartbreak, performing the songs, grappling with fundamental questions about the nature of music, slipping into the skins of Schubert and friends during one of their famous Schubertiads, and drinking way too much. Compositional mayhem, shifting rivalries, and some unfortunate butchery of the German language ensue. Ultimately, the three separate understandings of Schubert's mastery and impact collide, and what starts as a reasoned exploration of the music ends in mayhem. Filled with fantastical touches and inventive arrangements of Schubert's music, Three Pianos is a colorful and imaginative piece of chaos that brings these three talents together onstage for the first time.

Hoi Polloi is a New York-based collaborative theater company formed in 2007 by director/playwright Alec Duffy. The company creates original work that strives to explore how we, as Americans, come together and how we fall apart. Recent original work includes The less we talk: a meditation on group singing and Dysphoria (Ontological Theater). In 2007, the company was selected by The Public Theater to be a part of its 365 Days/365 Plays Festival, presenting seven short plays of Suzan-Lori Parks in community gardens in the West Bronx, Jamaica Queens and East Harlem, as well as at The Public Theater.

Rick Burkhardt (Writer/Performer/Composer) is an award-winning composer, songwriter, and playwright whose original chamber music, theater, and text pieces have been performed by dozens of ensembles in over forty US cities, as well as in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He is a founding member of the Nonsense Company, a touring experimental music/theater trio, and songwriter/accordionist for the Prince Myshkins, a political cabaret/folk duo whose songs have been performed and recorded by a wide variety of musicians across the US.

Alec Duffy (Writer/Performer) is a director/playwright and is the founder of the theater company Hoi Polloi. Recent original work includes The less we talk: a meditation on group singing, Dysphoria (Ontological Theater) and The Top Ten People of the Millennium Sing Their Favorite Schubert Lieder, which premiered in New York and toured to Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. Duffy is a Drama League Directing Fellow and was one of seven directors nationwide to be selected for the 2007-09 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors.

Dave Malloy (Writer/Performer/Composer) is a composer/sound designer/performer, winner of a 2009 Jonathan Larson Grant and a recipient of the 2009-11 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Designers. His most recent large-scale work, Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, a Banana Bag & Bodice SongPlay commissioned by Berkeley's Shotgun Players featuring dueling trombones and 40's vocal jazz harmonies, enjoyed sold out runs in Berkeley and NYC, received the 2008 Glickman Award and appeared on the Best of 2008 lists of every major Bay Area paper (including two #1 spots).

Rachel Chavkin (Director) is the Artistic Director of the TEAM, a New-York based theater company that creates original work dedicated to dissecting and celebrating the experience of living in America today. With the TEAM, Rachel has directed/co-authored Particularly In the Heartland, Give Up! Start Over! (In the darkest of times I look to Richard Nixon for hope), Howl, based on the poem by Allen Ginsberg, and Architecting - produced by the National Theatre of Scotland. Outside of her work with the TEAM she has collaborated on a number of new works, including collaborations with performer/playwright/composer Taylor Mac on The Lily's Revenge at HERE and Peace (based on the play by Aristophanes), playwright/composer Molly Rice and composer Ray Rizzo on Canary, playwright Steve Yockey on Wonder (NYU Grad Acting program), and playwright Talaya Delaney and composer/lyricist Dave Malloy on Haarlem Berlin. She has directed All the Great Books (Abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (Hangar Theatre), Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (Classic Stage Company), and the NYC revival of Kurt Vonnegut's Happy Birthday, Wanda June. Rachel is an Artistic Associate at Classic Stage Company, a New Georges affiliated artist, a member of the Women's Project Lab, and a Drama League alumnus. She earned her BFA at NYU where she now serves on the directing faculty at Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and earned her MFA at Columbia University.

About the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator
Artistic Director Richard Foreman founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in 1968 with a mission to make high-quality, intellectually resonant work for a large and diverse audience. Foreman's "total theater" unites elements of the performing arts, visual art, music composition, philosophy, psychoanalysis and literature to produce a unique result. Core programming consists of Foreman's theater pieces with over 50 original shows created in the last 41 years.

Since taking up its home at the Ontological Theater at St. Mark's in 1992, the OHT has also been nurturing a new generation of artists who share Foreman's goals and passion for theater. In 2005, the OHT reorganized its programming for emerging artists under the name Incubator, which today includes full productions, festivals, work-in-progress programs and a concert series, as well as artist roundtables and workshops.

The Incubator is led by managing and programming director Shannon Sindelar and curators Brendan Regimbal, Peter Ksander, Samara Naeymi and Travis Just. The Incubator also partners with the organization free103point9, which co-produces two festivals focusing on the genre of transmission arts and experimental sound every year.

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