Mabou Mines Presents A Three-Day 50th Anniversary Celebration Of Work

Mabou Mines presents a 50th Anniversary Celebration of Work, reaching back into the company's brimming five-decade history of innovative theater as a launchpad into the next 50 years (June 23-25; beginning 5pm June 23; 5pm-11 pm June 24; and 12pm-11pm June 25).

After a delay due to the pandemic, Mabou Mines now proudly celebrates its 50th Anniversary in person with audiences-convening a dynamic group of performers to participate in readings of nearly 30 works produced by Mabou Mines. Throughout multiple spaces in Mabou Mines' 122CC home (150 1st Avenue), audiences will be able to revisit a panorama of pieces of the company's creative history, through readings, excerpts, installations, concerts. In conjunction with the live events, an archival gallery exhibition, The Process Is The Romance: The Mabou Mines Archive, will open June 9th at the PS122 Gallery in 122CC, curated by Nicholas Martin of NYU Fales Library.

Mabou Mines' legacy of collaboration and play here continues to guide the organization towards the future. Co-founder JoAnne Akalaitis, both performing and directing for the event, says, "Mabou Mines has never had a set aesthetic, and that is really important. It has always been about the collective rather than a single artistic director's vision; when we began, I had never heard of that in theater. This celebration is an opportunity to further embrace that spirit.

Sharon Fogarty says, "Mabou Mines' body of work is such an extraordinary mix of original pieces, adaptations and musical interpretations, installations and more. It was founded as and continues as a collective and as [late co-founder] Ruth Maleczech would say, 'collective collaboration is a messy business and being comfortable with that messiness can lead to unexpected discoveries.' This is a huge undertaking and the celebration is a perfect form for people to get a sense of the ethos of Mabou Mines."

Festivities kick off Thursday, June 23 at 5pm, with a Mabou Mines birthday party in the 122CC courtyard, honoring Paula Cooper Gallery, Gail Papp and the late Joe Papp from The Public Theater, Mia Yoo and the late Ellen Stewart from La MaMa and Suzanne Weill from the Walker Arts Center and Alanna Heiss from The Clocktower Gallery, all organizations and individuals who gave the company vital early support in the 1970's.-as well as Mabou Mines founders JoAnne Akalaitis and Philip Glass, and the memory of founders who are no longer with us: Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, and David Warrilow. The celebration in the courtyard will feature a performance of "Music for Voices," an acapella musical work by Philip Glass.

Among the many works the company will revisit are Samuel Beckett's The Lost Ones, Come and Go, Play (for which Philip Glass first started writing theater music), Company, as well as Lee Breuer's Animations Series ranging from the company's first pieces, The Red Horse Animation and Shaggy Dog Animation to La Divina Caricatura. Original works by JoAnne Akalaitis such as Dead End Kids: A History of Nuclear Power and Dressed Like an Egg and adaptations of classic texts such as Mother, and Mabou Mines DollHouse the film reflect only a portion of the program (see full list below). The celebration also features an installation of Starcock, video gallery, and the US premiere of Mabou Mines DollHouse film as well as an excerpt of Moi-Même filmed in Paris in 1969 with a live score. A schedule is available at maboumines.org.

With both performers from original casts as well as actors and directors entirely new to the material-and providing fresh interpretations-this celebration of work subverts the auteurist nature of retrospectives by highlighting and expanding on the organization's unwaveringly collective spirit. These participants include Shari Addison, Joanna Adler, NJ Agwuna, JoAnne Akalaitis, Anonymous Ensemble, Ching Valdes-Aran, Elisa Bocanegra, Bill Camp, Mallory Catlett, Kathleen Chalfant, Leroy Clouden, Beverly Crosby, Mark DeChiazza, Rinde Eckert, Sharon Fogarty, Clove Galilee, Herschel Garfein, David Greenspan, Lisa Gutkin, John Hagen, Sabrina Hamilton, Julia Jarcho, Heather Johnson, Bill Irwin, Karen Kandel, Paul Kandel, Jennifer Nikki Kidwell, Mojo Lorwin, Ellen McElduff, Ellen McLaughlin, John Margolis, Sherryl Marshall, Elizabeth Marvel, John McGrath, Susan McKeown, Greg Mehrten, Maude Mitchell, Diane Garisto, Simatra Simone Nana, David Neumann, Dael Orlandersmith, Terry O'Reilly, Katie Pearl, Ralph Peña, Jay Peck, Greg Purnhagen, Jenny Rogers, Chris Royal, Sean Runette, Carl Hancock Rux, George Sanchez, Lincoln Schleifer, Mark Schulman, Black Eyed Susan, Roger Squitero, Bob Telson, Leslie Wagner, Joey Williams and many more!

Ticketing Information

All-Access Weekend Pass: $50

Provides access to all events throughout the weekend, on a first come, first served basis

All-Access Day Pass: $20

Provides access to all events on particular day on a first come, first served basis

For any must-see events on their list, customers may want to add a

Guaranteed Seat Reservation: $5/show

(in addition to a Weekend/Day Pass; for same date of performance)

GALLERY EXHIBIT

The Process Is The Romance: The Mabou Mines Archive

From the NYU Fales Library Downtown Collection

PS122 Gallery in the 122CC June 9-29, 2022

Free and Open to the Public, Friday-Sunday, 1-6pm

https://ps122gallery.org/

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