The Public Theater Kicks Off UNDER THE RADAR 2012 Tomorrow 1/4

By: Gabrielle Sierra Jan. 03, 2012

The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Patrick Willingham, Executive Director), Producer Mark Russell, and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP President and CEO Mario Garcia Durham) will begin performances for the 2012 UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL on Wednesday, January 4. This highly-anticipated 12-day festival, running through January 15, is committed to tracking new theater from across the U.S. and around the world.

All single tickets to UNDER THE RADAR shows at The Public Theater are $20; Member tickets are $15. Tickets may be purchased at The Public Theater Box Office at 425 Lafayette Street; online at www.publictheater.org or by phone at 212-967-7555. Tickets to UNDER THE RADAR shows at partner venues are $20-$25 and should be purchased directly from the venue.

Now in its eighth year, UNDER THE RADAR is an explosively diverse festival of new theater from around the world and the U.S. that spotlights artists ranging from emerging talents to masters in the field. Located at The Public Theater as well as partner venues, UNDER THE RADAR offers a crash course in theater that is exciting, independent, and experimental, created by some of the most dynamic artists working today.

Located inside The Public Theater, THE LUESTHER LOUNGE will once again offer a place for patrons and artists of UNDER THE RADAR to come together, create new connections, and exchange new ideas. The lounge will also feature live musical acts as well as a DJ. A cash bar will be available. THE LUESTHER LOUNGE, located in The Public’s LuEsther Hall, will be open Thursday, January 5 through Monday, January 9; and Thursday, January 12 through Sunday, January 15 from 9 p.m. until late night.

COMPLETE LINE-UP FOR UNDER THE RADAR (JANUARY 4 – 15, 2012):

AT The Public Theater

(Single tickets $20; Member tickets $15)

GOODBAR
January 4-15 (Running Time: 75 minutes)
Created by Bambï and Waterwell (New York)

Based on Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner
Music by Jimmie Marlowe, Lyrics by Kevin Townley

Directed by Arian Moayed and Tom Ridgely

Featuring Bambï: Hanna Cheek, Cara Jeiven, Jimmie Marlowe, Tobi Parks and Kevin Townley

$20 Tickets: publictheater.org or 212-967-7555

Waterwell, one of the Village Voice’s Best Arguments for Devised Theater (2010) and creators of #9 and The|King|Operetta, present their latest drop, the live concept album, GOODBAR. Created in collaboration with NYC glam-punk band, Bambï, GOODBAR blurs the boundaries between music and theatre while tackling one of the most controversial cult artifacts of the '70s: Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Riffing wildly on the novel by Judith Rossner, Bambï & Waterwell crank the amps up to 10 and launch a full frontal assault on modern myths of sex, independence, and persona. GOODBAR also integrates video performances by Ira Glass, Moby, Bobby Cannavale, and many others.

SONTAG: REBORN
January 4-15 (Running Time: 80 minutes)
Based on the book by Susan Sontag and edited by David Reiff
The Builders Association (New York)
$20 Tickets: publictheater.org or 212-967-7555

SONTAG: REBORN draws from cultural critic Susan Sontag’s journals, tracing her academic and personal journey from the age of 14 to her emergence as a singular public intellectual. In SONTAG: REBORN, performer Moe Angelo’s actions and words are magnified and transformed using a richly visual media environment to depict the workings of Sontag’s prismatic mind. SONTAG: REBORN creates an elegant portrait of a magnetic personality under careful construction.

Formed in 1994 and led by director Marianne Weems, The Builders Association creates original theater works about life in the 21st century. Previous works include Jet Lag, Alladeen, Super Vision, Continuous City, and House/Divided.

Super Night Shot

January 5-8 (Running Time: 60 minutes)
Gob Squad Arts Collective (Germany/UK)

$20 Tickets: publictheater.org or 212-967-7555

Thurs. Jan 5th 9pm| Fri. Jan 6th 9pm| Sun. Jan 8th 9pm

Precisely one hour before you arrive, Super Night Shot begins. In a military-style brief, Gob Squad declares a “War on Anonymity” and takes to New York City streets armed with video cameras, embarking on a set of comic and surreal adventures that celebrate unexpected encounters with strangers. You give them a rousing hero’s welcome as they return to the theater, and the footage of the fantastical mission is mixed live into a four-channel widescreen film.

This is Gob Squad’s second consecutive appearance at UTR after last year’s very successful Kitchen (You’ve Never Had it So Good). Their contemporary take on Andy Warhol’s experimental films of the ‘60s, Kitchen... will return immediately following the festival for a three-week run at The Public Theater, January 19-February 5, 2012.

Word Becomes Flesh
January 5-15 (Running Time: 80 minutes)

Presented in Association with 651 ARTS
Conceived and Directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph / The Living Word Project (Oakland)

$20 Tickets: publictheater.org or 212-967-7555

Presented as a series of letters to an unborn son, Word Becomes Flesh confronts fatherhood in urban communities and the mythology of the black male body – from cotton field to athletic field and all the spaces in between. Marc Bamuthi Joseph reinvents his 2003 solo performance for a new generation with an ensemble cast, using spoken word, music, and contemporary and hip-hop dance.

Word Becomes Flesh was one of the first performances seen at the original Under the Radar 2005, performed as a dynamic solo by Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The show returns to UTR transformed into a five-man ensemble work directed by Joseph.

Camille O’Sullivan: Feel

One Night Only: Friday, January 6 (Running Time: 90 minutes)
Camille O’Sullivan (Ireland)

Tickets are free but extremely limited due to seating capacity.

Free Tickets: publictheater.org or 212-539-8650

Fri. Jan 6th 7:30pm/UTR Special Event

An award-winning actress, architect and painter, Irish/French chanteuse Camille O’Sullivan is one of Ireland’s most unique artists. With five-star sell-out seasons in London, New York, Sydney Opera House, and Edinburgh, this charismatic performer presents the work of Nick Cave, Jacques Brel, David Bowie, Tom Waits, and many others in her very own distinctively theatrical style. Presented in collaboration with Culture Ireland.

El pasado es un animal grotesco (The past is a grotesque animal)
January 7-15 (Running Time: 110 minutes)

Co-presented by The Public’s Under The Radar Festival and Performance Space 122’s COIL Festival

Written and Directed by Mariano Pensotti (Argentina)
$20 Tickets: publictheater.org or 212-967-7555

In Spanish with English supertitles.

Epic and cinematic in scope, with a slowly revolving stage, El pasado… tracks the lives of four young Argentinians in a bittersweet fragmentary chronicle of a decade (1999-2009). What began as a story pieced together from damaged photographs left behind in a photolab evolves into a fast-paced record of the past, both true and imaginary.

AT UNDER THE RADAR PARTNER VENUES

Alexis. A Greek Tragedy
January 4-14 (Running Time: 70 minutes)
Co-presented by The Public’s Under The Radar Festival and La MaMa

Motus (Italy)

Directed by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò

La MaMa: 74A East 4th Street

$20 Tickets: lamama.org or 212-475-7710

Performed in Italian with English supertitles.

In 2008, 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos became an icon of youthful rebellion after he was shot by a policeman, triggering an unprecedented storm of protests against the corrupted political system in Greece. In their continued search for a modern Antigone in present-day resistance, Motus emerges with this documentary theatre piece of uncompromising theatricality. Alexis is their poetic call to action.

The Plot is the Revolution
One Night Only: January 9 (Running Time: 60 minutes)
Co-presented by The Public’s Under The Radar Festival and La MaMa

Motus (Italy)

Directed by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò

With Silvia Calderoni and Judith Malina (The Living Theatre)

La MaMa: 74A East 4th Street

$20 Tickets: lamama.org or 212-475-7710

Performed in Italian with English supertitles.

Mon. Jan 9th 7:30pm/UTR Special Event

The Living Theatre’s Judith Malina and Motus’ Silvia Calderoni create an encounter between two Antigones – spanning generations and experiences – united in the belief that theater can incite political transformation.

LICK BUT DON’T SWALLOW!
January 4-15 (Running Time: 75 minutes)

Co-presented by The Public’s Under The Radar Festival and La MaMa
biriken & Ayça Damgac? (Turkey)

Directed by biriken (Melis Tezkan-Okan Urun)

Written by Özen Yula

La MaMa: 66 East 4th Street

$20 Tickets: lamama.org or 212-475-7710

Performed in Turkish with English supertitles.

An angel comes down from heaven but finds herself in the body of a porn star. The clock is ticking – who can she save? Or is it just a dream of a porn star to save herself and the world? A hybrid of comedy, video, and existential inquiry, LICK BUT DON’T SWALLOW! was only performed once in Istanbul, due to protests by a fundamentalist newspaper.

LICK BUT DON’T SWALLOW! was directed by biriken (an interdisciplinary arts collective based in Istanbul and Paris), in collaboration with Ayça Damgac? (actress and screenwriter of Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando) and written by leading Turkish playwright Özen Yula.

The Table
January 5-8 (Running Time: 60 minutes)
Co-presented by The Public’s Under The Radar Festival and La MaMa

Blind Summit (UK)

La MaMa: 66 East 4th Street

$20 Tickets: lamama.org or 212-475-7710

Thurs. Jan 5th 9:30pm| Fri. Jan 6th 8:30pm| Sat. Jan 7th 4:30pm & 8:30pm| Sun. Jan 8th 2:30pm

A cantankerous puppet is having an existential crisis ... on a table. Blind Summit shook up the opera world with their puppetry in Anthony Minghella’s Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera. Now they bring their version of extreme puppetry to UTR. Inspired by Beckett, the Bible and Ikea, The Table was the award-winning, sold-out sensation of the 2011 Edinburgh Festival.

In the Solitude of Cotton Fields
January 5-14 (Running Time: 75 minutes)
Co-presented by The Public’s Under The Radar Festival and La MaMa

Stefan Zeromski Theatre

Directed by Rados?aw Rychcik (Poland)
La MaMa: 66 East 4th Street

$20 Tickets: lamama.org or 212-475-7710

Performed in Polish with English supertitles.

All songs are about love, and they're all like wolves. Backed by live music from the Polish cult band Natural Born Chillers, this interpretation of late French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès’s In the Solitude of Cotton Fields imagines a raw encounter between a Dealer and a Client with the swagger of an Eastern European punk-rock concert.

Last seen at UTR 2010 with Versus, Rychcik is emerging as one of the young directors to watch in international theater for his use of an intense acting technique and simple yet specific stage design.

Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and the Farewell Speech
January 5-14 (Running Time: 65 minutes)
Presented by Japan Society as part of The Public’s Under The Radar Festival

chelfitsch Theater Company (Japan)

Written and Directed by Toshiki Okada

Japan Society: 333 East 47th Street

$22 Tickets: japansociety.org or 212-715-1258

Performed in Japanese with English supertitles.

Thurs. Jan 12th 8pm| Fri. Jan 13th 8pm| Sat. Jan 14th 9pm

chelfitsch Theater Company returns to New York to perform Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and the Farewell Speech, the quirky triptych created by the internationally acclaimed playwright/director Toshiki Okada. Hot Pepper… captures the empty and ungrounded nature of Generation Y in Japan today through three humorously absurd scenes set in a corporate break room. Characterized by a seemingly insubstantial narrative accompanied by exaggerated gestures-turned-choreography, the groundbreaking works of chelfitsch (Five Days in March and Enjoy) have drawn global recognition, making them a leading theater company in Japan and abroad.

THE BEE

January 5-15 (Running Time: 75 minutes)
Presented by Japan Society as part of The Public’s Under The Radar Festival

Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre / Soho Theatre, London / Noda Map

Co-written & Directed by Hideki Noda (Japan)

Japan Society: 333 East 47th Street

$25 Tickets: japansociety.org or 212-715-1258

Thurs. Jan 5th 8:45pm| Fri. Jan 6th 7pm| Sat. Jan 7th 7pm| Sun. Jan 8th 2:30pm| Mon. Jan 9th 7:45pm

Wed. Jan 11th 7:45pm| Thurs. Jan 12th 7:45pm| Fri. Jan 13th 7:45pm| Sat. Jan 14th 7pm|
Sun. Jan 15th 2:30pm

Manga comic strip-like frenzy turns into a thought-provoking nightmare in Hideki Noda's THE BEE, co-written by Hideki Noda and Colin Teevan and inspired by a story by Yasutaka Tsutsui. This gripping production tells the tale of an ordinary Japanese businessman who turns savage after returning home to discover that his wife and son have been taken hostage. Within a minimalist set and an eerily beautiful soundtrack, the cast, composed of four members, including the director himself and Olivier Award winner Kathryn Hunter, seamlessly shifts between characters.

Chimera
January 5-15 (Running Time: 70 minutes)
Presented by HERE as part of The Public’s Under The Radar Festival

Suli Holum and Deborah Stein (New York)
HERE Arts Center: 145 6th Avenue
$20 Tickets: here.org or 212-352-3101

Welcome to the world of Jennifer Samuels, who has just discovered that she is her own twin. Inspired by a real-life horror story, Chimera takes you on a journey from the frontiers of modern science to the seeds of ancient mythology. Co-creators Deborah Stein and Suli Holum have launched a highly theatrical exploration of medical chimerism – the phenomenon of containing two different sets of DNA within one body – in order to explore what happens when technology shatters our ideas of who we think we are.

Gob Squad “Resource Room” at the Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
January 7-28

Presented in Association with the Goethe-Institut New York

Gob Squad Arts Collective (Germany/UK)

Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building: 5 East 3rd Street

Admission: FREE

In an unprecedented month-long residency Berlin-based Gob Squad will bring two shows and a visual exhibit/resource room to New York. Spanning the Under The Radar Festival and a three-week limited engagement at The Public Theater (January 19-February 5, 2012), this is a rare chance to encounter this talented company with their humorous, poignant, and provocative take on the human condition.

In addition to three showings of Super Night Shot, Gob Squad is curating an interactive “Resource Room” that covers their unique methods of making performance and details their history of groundbreaking events. Drop by during the day to learn the backstory of Gob Squad.

Under The Radar Professional Symposium

January 5-6

The Professional Symposium is a two-day event on January 5 and 6, featuring a chance to see full productions of the festival shows as well as keynote speakers and expert panel discussions. Attendance at the Symposium is strictly limited to presenting and producing professionals in the field. For more information on the Symposium, please contact Associate Artistic Producer Meiyin Wang at mwang@publictheater.org or 212-539-8511.

UNDER THE RADAR is a pre-conference event of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (Arts Presenters) and takes place at the Annual Members Conference. With over 1,900 members worldwide, Arts Presenters is the largest national service and advocacy organization dedicated to bringing artists and audiences together through presenting and touring. For more information on this year’s conference and Arts Presenters, visit www.apapnyc.org.

BIOS:

The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Patrick Willingham, Executive Director) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation’s preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, and productions of classics at its downtown home and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public Theater’s mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day onstage and through extensive outreach programs. Each year, more than 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe’s Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public Theater’s productions have won 42 Tony Awards, 158 Obies, 42 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. Fifty-four Public Theater Productions have moved to Broadway, including Sticks and Bones; That Championship Season; A Chorus Line; For Colored Girls…; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tempest; Bring In ‘da Noise, Bring In ‘da Funk; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Passing Strange; the revival of HAIR; Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and The Merchant of Venice. www.publictheater.org.

Mark RusselL (Director, Under the Radar Festival) created the Under the Radar Festival in 2005. The festival moved to The Public in 2006 and became an integral part of its season. From 1983-2004, Russell was the Executive Artistic Director of Performance Space 122 (P.S. 122). Russell is now the Director of the Devised Theater Initiative at The Public Theater.

THE ASSOCIATION OF PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTERS based in Washington DC, is the leading service organization for the field of arts presenting, with nearly 2,000 organizational members worldwide and more than 5,000 registered individuals. Members range from the world's leading performing arts centers, to civic and university performance facilities, and the full spectrum of artist agencies, managers, consulting practices that service the field, and a growing roster of self-presenting artists. In addition to presenting the annual APAP|NYC Conference (January 6-10, 2012), Arts Presenters also provides a broad array of professional and leadership development programs, research, information and advocacy services.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets for UNDER THE RADAR 2012 are on sale now. Single tickets for shows at The Public Theater are $20 and may be purchased at The Public Theater Box Office at 425 Lafayette Street; online at www.publictheater.org or by phone at 212-967-7555. Member tickets for shows at The Public Theater are $15. Seating for all UTR shows at The Public Theater is general admission. Seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Latecomers are seated at the discretion of house management.

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