Peculiar Works To Present Site-Specific Performance AFTERPARTY: THE ROTHKO STUDIO

The OBIE and New York Innovative Theatre Award-winning Peculiar Works Project, under the co-artistic direction of Ralph Lewis, Catherine Porter, and Barry Rowell, is pleased to announce Afterparty: The Rothko Studio, a site-specific immersive performance in and around the former studio of legendary painter Mark Rothko.

Afterparty: The Rothko Studio runs Thursday through Sunday, June 27-30, with performances on Thursday - Saturday at 7:00 pm and 8:30 pm, and Sunday at 5:00 pm and 6:30 pm. Performances take place at 222 Bowery (between Prince & Spring Streets), NYC. Due to limited seating, advanced tickets are required.

Tickets are $50 (table seating includes lite fare), $25 (balcony standing includes a beverage), $40/$20 (seniors & students), and $100 (VIP seating includes a themed gift), and go on sale June 3rd at www.peculiarworks.org. Running time: 75 minutes.

Built in 1884 for the YMCA as the Young Men's Institute, 222 Bowery is renowned for the many now-famous artists who lived, worked, and played in this landmarked gem. The building's former gymnasium is significant for having been Rothko's studio, where he painted the infamous "Seagram Murals" commissioned by The Four Seasons Restaurant in 1957. Afterparty will explore this pivotal moment for downtown artists, peeling back their stories to reveal multiple layers of NYC history before the former studio is converted into commercial space later this summer.

Peculiar Works Project's creative team is designing an intimate, promenade journey through the historic architecture and artistic legacy of the building. Along the way, multi-disciplinary performances will reinterpret the legendary art parties attended by artworld luminaries-Jasper Johns, John Giorno, William S. Burroughs, Eve Hesse, Jonas Mekas, Roy Lichtenstein, LeRoi Jones, Diane DiPrima, Sol LeWitt, Andy Warhol, and more-against the backdrop of Rothko's struggle between achieving success and selling out. Audiences and performers will sit around a table together in the paint-splattered space and experience a theatrical conjuring of artistic ghosts whose impact echoes till this day.

The company creates, develops, and presents original, multi-disciplinary, site-based performances that encourage collaboration, experimentation, and a rebel spirit in artists by providing them with the tools and opportunities necessary for artistic growth. The company performs in unconventional spaces because of the belief that unique sites impact the work, the work in turn impacts the site, and audiences then experience both in surprising new ways. Since 1993, Peculiar Works has taken performance directly into local communities-city streets, landmarked buildings, gutted storefronts, and other peculiar sites throughout NYC and beyond.

Investigating influential artistic movements has been an important part of Peculiar Works' 26-year history. Projects include Off Stage: The West Village and East Village Fragments (about the birth of Off-Off Broadway), Judson House Project (celebrating Judson Church's renowned Gallery, Poets Theater, and Dance Theater), Floydada (Dadaist performance), as well as Imagining America at the Varna International Theatre Festival in Bulgaria and Planet X at Black Mountain College in North Carolina (both exploring the American avant-garde). Afterparty: The Rothko Studio continues this artistic exploration with the rare opportunity to witness the spirit of a movement and the artists who lived it.