Here Presents Interactive Show CITY COUNCIL MEETING, Now thru 5/22

As part of its 2012-2013 producing Season, Here presents City Council Meeting, a participatory theatre event about empathy, democracy and power. This original work will have its New York premiere from tonight, May 9 - 22, City Council Meeting plays 9 site-specific performances at Here/Chelsea Career & Technical Education High School in Hudson Square, LaGuardia Performing Arts in Queens and El Museo del Barrio in Harlem (full schedule below).

Admission is FREE but reservations are required. Reserve tickets at www.here.org (www.here.org/show/citycouncilmtg) or by calling Here's box office at (212) 352-3101.

City Council Meeting combines local government transcripts, original writing, live and recorded video and a surprise ending, revealing the city we make together each night by performing it. Based on a set of rules and structures that suggest those in an actual government meeting, performances are created fresh in each city where City Council Meeting is presented through the participation of local artists, activists, government officials and other citizens.

At each performance, audience members have the option to participate as Councilors who conduct the meeting, Speakers who are called on to give testimony, Supporters who stand in support of others; or as Bystanders who observe the proceedings.

City Council Meeting starts with the idea of politics as performances, and ends with a broader set of questions: how do we see each other? How do we learn from each other? What are the rules and situations that bind us, and who makes those rules?

The performance schedule is as follows:

Here / Chelsea Career & Technical Education High School?

Pick up tickets at Here (145 Sixth Avenue, entrance on Dominick), then proceed across the street to Chelsea Career & Technical Education High School at 131 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013. Performances are May 9-11 at 7 p.m. with a matinee on May 11 at 3 p.m. / http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/02/M615/default.htm

La Guardia Performing Arts Center (LPAC, LaGuardia Community College)

May 16-17 at 7 p.m. with a matinee on May 17 at 3 p.m., all at: 31-10 Thomson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101 / www.lagcc.cuny.edu

El Museo del Barrio

May 22 at 3:30pm & 7:00pm at 1230 Fifth Avenue @ 104th Street, New York, NY 10029 / www.elmuseo.org

City Council Meeting was originally commissioned and developed through Aaron Landsman's residency at Here, beginning in 2010, as part of the Here Artist Residency Program (HARP). The piece was co-commissioned by Houston's DiverseWorks and San Francisco's Zspace, with funds from the NPN. The premiere performances were presented by DiverseWorks and the UH Mitchell Center For The Arts in November 2012 in three locations in Houston: an historic ballroom, a working courtroom and a multi-use gallery. In February 2013, the work was presented at ASU Gammage, a 3,000-seat theater in Tempe, AZ, which also co-developed the work. Following this New York premiere, City Council Meeting will be presented at Zspace in 2014. The script will be published in the journal Theater this fall, and the UH Mitchell Center is co-commissioning a book on the project, expected to be published in 2014.

Each season, Here premieres several of these Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. These innovative projects are grown in a diverse artistic community where artists also receive career development resources and hands-on training. HARP has been widely recognized as a unique model for artistic development for the field to emulate.

In honoring Here with the 2009 Ross Wetzsteon Award, the OBIE Committee noted, "it's become increasingly hard for artists to find a place to take risks, a safe haven where they can develop daring new work. One theater has regularly bucked the trend, making its mission to ensure that artists have a home for their research and development, and that theatregoers can sample the exciting results."

For more on City Council Meeting and all performances, visit www.here.org.

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