Talking Band to Conclude 50th Anniversary Season with SHIMMER AND HERRINGBONE

Talking Band Will Close its lauded and sold-out 50th Anniversary Season with the world premiere of Shimmer and Herringbone. Written by Ellen Maddow and Paul Zimet, Shimmer and Herringbone is a commissioned collaboration with acclaimed costume designer Olivera Gajic. Directed by Zimet and running May 1–19, 2024, with an opening set for Wednesday, May 8, performances take place at Mabou Mines’ Second Floor Theater at 122CC.

In this music-theater work, Maddow and Zimet, drawing inspiration from Gajic’s fantastical costume designs, have set the piece in a clothing store called Shimmer and Herringbone. The show, with music composed by Maddow for a live string trio, is a quick-paced farce of chance encounters, missed encounters, and new connections: a story of past disappointments, new love, and rediscovered meaning.

The cast includes Ebony Davis, James Tigger! Ferguson, Ellen Maddow, Lizzie Olesker, Tina Shepard, Louise Smith, and Jack Wetherall along with musicians Rachel Feldhaus, Marija Kovacevic, and Agustin Uriburu.

“Music is always important in Talking Band shows,” said Paul Zimet. “In The Following Evening and Existentialism, the wonderful music and sound design was recorded. In Shimmer and Herringbone, the music, composed by Ellen, is played on stage by a string trio. And like all Talking Band shows, the music is also in the language. It is a bright, colorful show where the characters are shedding their old identities and searching for the outfits that will express their new ones. So, there are many costumes, which grow more glorious as the story progresses.”

“Clothing as a mask is quite an interesting topic, especially at the time when we needed to mask ourselves in order to survive,” said costume designer Olivera Gajic. “But isn’t it quite similar to life in general? We ‘mask’ ourselves under these personas we’ve created so we can survive in the world. We disguise our emotional fragility. We protect ourselves under the shield of clothing. With clothing we create a self image of how we want to be seen by others and ourselves. So even in daily life clothing is a form of masking.”

The additional creative team for Shimmer and Herringbone includes Anna Kiraly (set and projection design), Mary Ellen Stebbins (lighting design), Sean Donovan(choreography), Olivia Facini (assistant director, production stage manager), and Coco McNeil (assistant stage manager). 

Fifteen performances of Shimmer and Herringbone will take place May 1–19, 2024, at Mabou Mines’ Second Floor Theater at 122CC, located at 150 First Avenue in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Friday, May 3 for an opening on Wednesday, May 8. The performance schedule is Wednesday – Saturday at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm. The anticipated running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. General admission tickets are $35 ($30 students, seniors) and can be purchased at www.talkingband.org/works/shimmer-and-herringbone. 

Talking Band’s 50th anniversary season kicked off in February with the world premiere of The Following Evening at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC). The New York Times called this collaboration with 600 Highwaymen “a meditation on mortality and renewal, art and evanescence, embrace and entanglement.” The season continued at La MaMa with Existentialism, a poetic work that reunited Talking Band with legendary director Anne Bogart 35 years after their first Obie-winning collaboration. Vulture describes it as, “a pensive, playful meditation on togetherness and solitude, love and philosophy.” Both sold-out productions were embraced by audiences and critics alike. 

The boldness of this milestone season is an accomplishment few artist-led companies have achieved.

Since its founding in 1974 by Paul Zimet, Ellen Maddow, and Tina Shepard—all former members of Joseph Chaikin’s iconic Open Theater—Talking Band has remained a cornerstone of New York City’s avant-garde theater community. Over the past 50 years, Talking Band has created over 50 new works illuminating the extraordinary dimensions of ordinary life, each marked by a commitment to radical collaboration and a fusion of diverse theatrical styles and perspectives. Combining richly textured music-theater with striking visual imagery, Talking Band’s elegant, eloquent, profound performance work is infused with creative generosity that makes each show an experience that is as emotionally moving as it is aesthetically rich. Collectively, the company and founders have earned 15 OBIE Awards and numerous other honors. Talking Band is a resident company at La MaMa and has performed at nearly all of New York City’s celebrated downtown venues. Its original productions have toured throughout the U.S. and internationally to 14 countries.

Please visit www.talkingband.org to learn more about its 50th anniversary season. 

 

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