East River Commedia Presents Emily Conbere's THE JAMAL LULLABIES, Begins 7/8

The Jamal Lullabies is a musical tribute and lament written and scored by Emily Conbere and directed by Paul Bargetto. In the piece four young, white women sing about Jamal, a beloved black student at their school who was killed at a gang shooting during a party. As the women unfold their stories it becomes clear that each of thEm Loved him in profound ways that altered the course of their lives. The Jamal Lullabies is a potently ironic exploration of love and race in the popular cultural imagination. It stars Bekah Coulter, Debbie Friedman, Kristina Teschner, and Nicole Stefonek

Playwright & Lyricist: Emily Conbere

Director: Paul Bargetto

Lighting: Derek Wright

Performed By: Bekah Coulter, Debbie Friedman, Kristina Teschner, and Nicole Stefonek
 
The Jamal Lullabies will play as part of the underground zero festival at Performance Space 122 (150 First Avenue at East 9th Street), Wednesday July 8 at 9:00 PM, Thursday July 9 at 7pm, Friday July 10 at 9pm, Saturday July 11 at 7pm, Sunday July 12 at 2pm. Tickets ($15) are available online at www.ps122.org or by calling 212-352-3101. 

Director Paul Bargetto has been presented in New York at such venues as La MaMa ETC, Collective:Unconscious, HERE, and the Connelly theatre, nationally at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and internationally in Turkey, Romania, Germany and Poland.  His production of Slawomir Mrozek's Serenade and Philosopher Fox won three IT Awards for Best Production, Best Actor and Best Director.  

Playwright Emily Conbere's work has been seen at the Daryl Roth II, Atlantic Theatre (24 Hour Plays), HERE Space, the Manhattan Theatre Source, Pantheon Theatre, Present Company Theatorium and Collective:Unconscious. In Minneapolis, her plays have been produced at the Loring Playhouse, the Red Eye Theatre (best attended Fringe musical of 1998) and Minnesota Fringe Festival.

East River Commedia is a group of International Artists founded in 1998 who collaborate on the production and development of ensemble-based performance works in New York City and abroad. Recognizing the need for greater international representation in theater and performing arts in New York, the company works closely with International Artists, consulates and cultural organizations to reach out to the city's many communities.

In addition, the members of ERC believe in the importance of a wide scope of influence and audience, and are committed to productions, tours, and residencies in foreign countries as an integral part of the group's ongoing development. The company is interested in theater that emerges at the crossroads of poetry, music and gesture. In these forms, we seek to explore human desires-for power, love, belonging and possession-and to uncover the contradictory and mysterious drives that bind audience and performer, parent and child, individual and society.

Our most powerful tool is laughter, a kind of laughter that Fellini calls: "...the intention of the real-that is, the deepest and most honest-writers of comedy," authors who want "only to tear open our most painful scars so that we feel them all the more strongly."

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