HERE Extends Nick Lehane's Puppet Play CHIMPANZEE Through May 5

"To endow animals with human emotion has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about animals and us." - Frans de Waal, primatologist and ethologist

In response to popular demand, HERE (Kristin Marting, Founding Artistic Director) extends the world premiere of Nick Lehane's Chimpanzee, to May 5.Currently scheduled to run until March 17, the production will pause and then resume performances April 16-May 5. Visit here.org for the performance schedule.

Sara Holdren in New York Magazine wrote, "Nick Lehane's gorgeous puppet play about an aging, isolated chimpanzee piecing together fragments of her youth with a human family is based on true events. Sometimes bleak, sometimes beautiful, it's a meticulous, deeply felt nonverbal memory play."

Chimpanzee was inspired by the stranger-than-fiction stories of chimpanzees raised in as children in human homes. These cross-fostering experiments tested the effects of raising chimpanzees as human children, specifically language acquisition. When the chimpanzees matured, or when funding dried up, some cross-fostered chimps went on to live as test subjects in a very different area of scientific research: pathogen studies performed in biomedical facilities.

Chimpanzee was developed through workshops at The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, The Jim Henson Carriage House, and Puppet BloK at Dixon Place before it premiered on March 14, 2019 at HERE as part of its nationally recognized Dream Music Puppetry Program.

Lehane's other puppet work has been shown at The Puppet Lab at St. Ann's Warehouse, Special Effects Festival at The Wild Project, and Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis. Select puppet performance credits include Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning (HERE/international tour), The Islamic Solidarity Games Opening Ceremony (Baku, Azerbaijan), Doug Fitch's Petrushka (Barbican Centre/New York Philharmonic) and El retablo de maese Pedro (Bard SummerScape), The Old Man and the Old Moon (PigPen Theatre Co.), Little Red Fish (Puppet Kitchen/New York City Children's Theater), Pip's Island, James Ortiz's The Little Mermaid and "Lore" (Amazon). Lehane studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School and holds a BFA from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama.

The cast of Chimpanzee includes Rowan Magee, Andy Manjuck, and Emma Wiseman. The creative team includes Marika Kent (lighting design), Kate Marvin (sound design), and Mariah Plante (stage manager).

Tickets, priced at $25 general admission and $45 for reserved seating, can be purchased by visiting here.org or by calling 212-647-0202. In person sales at the box office after 5pm only on performance days and two hours prior to curtain for matinees. For Group Sales, contact tickets@here.org.

Photo Credit: Richard Termine