PS 122 Presents The TEAM's MISSION DRIFT, Jan. 2012

Performance Space 122 is pleased to present the U.S. premiere of Mission Drift, from New York-based theater company the TEAM (Theatre of the Emerging American Moment). Mission Drift was commissioned by PS122 as part of COIL, PS122's annual performance festival. This presentation follows a critically acclaimed, sold out European tour, on which the work was awarded the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize, the Scotsman Fringe First and the Herald Angel Award.

20 performances of Mission Drift will take place Jan 8-29 (see schedule above) at The Connelly Theater. Critics are welcome as of January 9 for an official opening of January 10. Tickets are $25 ($20 for students, seniors) and can be purchased online at ps122.org or by phone at 212-352-3101. The Connelly Theater is located at 220 E 4th Street, New York City.

Mission Drift is a pioneering journey east and west through time and space in pursuit of the soul of American capitalism. This epic musical explores economic collapse and the potential for recovery through two colliding stories, one mystical and one modern. The saga includes two immortal Dutch teenagers who travel west from 1624 Amsterdam to present-day Las Vegas, where we meet a recently laid-off Vegas cocktail waitress and a Native American cowboy whose property has just been repossessed by the city. The hopes of these four characters intertwine, as the dream of the eternal American frontier becomes a crumbing myth that has gone bankrupt. Over it all reigns Miss Atomic, played by Mission Drift composer Heather Christian (2011 Off-Off-Broadway Innovator to Watch, Time Out New York), a seductive narrator inspired by the 1950s Vegas beauty pageants that celebrated the testing of atomic bombs.

Combining Elvis gyrations, lizard ballet, atomic blasts, and original music, Mission Drift marks the TEAM's first performances in New York since their critically acclaimed work Architecting, a co-production between PS122 and The National Theatre of Scotland, in 2009. A political and urgent work about creation and destruction, Mission Drift features a score that fuses Vegas glitz with Western ballads and Southern Gospel. "What a blast," declares Lyn Gardner in The Guardian, "Economics has never been more playfully dissected... the company fulfills all their much-hyped promise in this gorgeous, gaudy musical."

Renowned for fusing American history, myth, and contemporary stories, the TEAM, under the direction of Obie award-winner Rachel Chavkin (Three Pianos), conceived of Mission Drift before the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Yet in this timely work, the company wrestles with questions that are at the forefront of our current economic and political climate: How did we arrive at this financial crisis and how do we recover as individuals and as a country?

The TEAM (Theatre of the Emerging American Moment) is a New York City-based theater ensemble whose mission is to create new work that dissects and celebrates the experience of living in America today. At times a rock concert, at times a sporting event, the TEAM has been described as "Gertrude Stein meets MTV." The work crashes American history and mythology into modern stories, combines aggressive athleticism with intellectual rigor and emotional storytelling, and keeps the brain, eyes, and heart of the audience constantly stimulated. Visit theteamplays.org for more information.

 

 

 

 

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