Ellen Stewart News

Ellie Covan, Founder & Artistic Director of Dixon Place, announced today that the NYC performance company ANIMALS will be awarded the First Annual Tom Murrin Performance Award on Friday, February 8th at 9pm at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie Street). The award has been created to honor and celebrate the life and work of Tom Murrin (aka the Alien Comic) by providing a transformative career opportunity to an emerging artist, selected by a distinguished panel of producers, artistic directors and artists.

La MaMa in association with Untitled Theater Company No. 61 presents Iphigenia in Aulis. The world premiere adaptation uses indie music, puppetry and art of a graphic novelist. Adapted from Euripides original story by director Edward Einhorn, the show features music by Aldo Perez and art by Eric Shanower.

Featuring music of downtown indie rocker Aldo Perez (from the band The Renaldo The Ensemble,) and the work of graphic novelist, Eric Shanower (author of the award-winning Age of Bronze series), Edward Einhorn's new adaptation reexamines Euripides' play about democracy versus ochlocracy (mob rule) and the role of religion in popular uprisings, subjects made particularly relevant by Arab Spring.

2b theatre company -- the Halifax, Nova Scotia based troupe recognized as one of Canada's top touring companies -- returns to New York City for the U.S. Premiere of its production WHEN IT RAINS, with a preview performance on January 10 prior to an official opening January 11 at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre (66 E. 4 St.) in Manhattan.

In 'Midwinter Night: Sacred and Profane Rituals,' Yara Arts Group will perform a World Music Theater piece that includes the Koliadnyky, an ensemble of winter song singers from Kryvorivnia (Ukraine); the explosive Lemon Bucket Orkestra, a Ukrainian-klezmer-gypsy-rag-tag-punk super band from Canada; and an 18th century Baroque Nativity folk opera staged by Yara artists. La Mama E.T.C. will present the piece tonight, December 27-30 in its Ellen StewartTheater, 66 East Fourth Street (in Manhattan's East Village). Get a first look at the piece in the photos below!

With humor and vision, 'Kane and Habil in the Pizza Parlor' (http://kaneandhabil.com) explores the original family sins that are still impacting our civilization. The title characters are the children of Adam and Eve. The play is a comedy, written and directed by Serge Ernandez. The production features an adept cast headed by Obie-winner Sheila Dabney as Eve, who also directs the play's chorus. Ernandez is a veteran of The Living Theatre; Dabney is a senior member of La MaMa's Great Jones Rep. La MaMa E.T.C. will present the play's premiere run January 18 to 27 in its second-floor Club.

Can we practice goodness and create a world to sustain it? This question, posed by Shen Tei, the good-hearted, penniless and cross-dressing prostitute of Bertolt Brecht's Good Person of Szechwan, is central to the work of The Foundry Theatre. The play's concerns, and the earmarks of the Foundry's new production, make it an ideal offering from the company, which is celebrated for creating memorable theatrical events while pursuing civic inquiry and social justice. The show, starring the singular Taylor Mac as Shen Tei, is directed by Lear deBessonet and features original live music by "indie rock vaudevillians" (SPIN) Cesar Alvarez and The Lisps.

In the La MaMa return of Zagreb Youth Theatre of Croatia, a man plans and delivers a speech--a letter to the late activist playwright Heiner Müller--within the highly controlled and monitored space of Berlin's Tegel Airport.

Looking for fun that is exciting, yet natural? Well here's your chance! Bedlam Ensemble's Naturally Delicious improv troupe is here to provide you with a barrel of laughs! Like the whole foods of comedy, this troupe will allow you to have a great time without any of the preservatives or controls of a normal comedy group.

Today, December 3 and the 4th, La MaMa will hold a two-day series of conversations, workshops and panels to accompany the two productions of its European Young Directors' Forum. Participants will include European directors Bojan Djordjev (Serbia/Croatia), Paul Knieriem (The Netherlands), Bastian Kraft (Germany), Ana Tomovic (Serbia) and U.S. based directors Anne Bogart, Meiyin Wang, John Jesurun and Charlotte Braithwaite.

Now through December 2, La MaMa will present 'The Doll Ship' by Milena Markovic, directed by Ana Tomovic, accompanied by songs by Darko Rundek. The production, mounted by the Serbian National Theatre in 2009, renders the life of a woman artist, from childhood to old age, through an archetypal string of classic fairy tales. It won the Sterija Prize for the Best Play Production and the Critics' Round Table Award at the 54th Sterijino Pozorje Theatre Festival held in Novi Sad, Serbia, that year. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the production in the photos below!

Bold, daring works from a United States national exposition of theatrical designs assembled for the 2011 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space will be exhibited at the La MaMa La Galleria in New York City. An opening reception is slated for 7 p.m. Thursday, December 6, 2012, with many of the artists and designers exhibited in attendance.

From tonight, November 29 to December 2, La MaMa will present 'The Doll Ship' by Milena Markovic, directed by Ana Tomovic, accompanied by songs by Darko Rundek. The production, mounted by the Serbian National Theatre in 2009, renders the life of a woman artist, from childhood to old age, through an archetypal string of classic fairy tales. It won the Sterija Prize for the Best Play Production and the Critics' Round Table Award at the 54th Sterijino Pozorje Theatre Festival held in Novi Sad, Serbia, that year.

Horse Trade Theater Group will present RadioTheatre in the only LIVE ON STAGE performance of KING KONG in the history of the universe! Join us for this monumental yarn of grand adventure and fabulous fantasy, complete with our cast of storytellers, an original orchestral score and a plethora of sound effects that turn the theater itself into an environmental experience! Just bring your imagination!

The League of Professional Theatre Women has announced that its 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors women exhibiting exemplary service to the theatre, will be presented by Marsha Norman (playwright) to Joan D. Firestone, Executive Director of The Moth. In addition to its annual Lifetime Achievement Award, LPTW will have Linda Chapman (playwright) present the 2012 Lee Reynolds Award to Kia Corthron, an outstanding American dramatist and activist, and the 2012 Josephine Abady Award presented by Angelina Fiordellisi (Cherry Lane Theater) to Stephanie Ybarra, an Artistic Associate at The Public Theatre. All the awards will be presented at the LPTW's Turning Thirty Awards Celebration, in honor of the League's 30th Anniversary year, on December 6, 2012, at Scandinavia House at 58 Park Avenue, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. This year's celebration will also be the culmination of a year of celebratory events for the League.

In 'Midwinter Night: Sacred and Profane Rituals,' Yara Arts Group will perform a World Music Theater piece that includes the Koliadnyky, an ensemble of winter song singers from Kryvorivnia (Ukraine); the explosive Lemon Bucket Orkestra, a Ukrainian-klezmer-gypsy-rag-tag-punk super band from Canada; and an 18th century Baroque Nativity folk opera staged by Yara artists. La MaMa E.T.C. will present the piece December 27-30 in its Ellen Stewart Theater, 66 East Fourth Street (in Manhattan's East Village). Get a first look at the piece in the photos below!

In 'Midwinter Night: Sacred and Profane Rituals,' Yara Arts Group will perform a World Music Theater piece that includes the Koliadnyky, an ensemble of winter song singers from Kryvorivnia (Ukraine); the explosive Lemon Bucket Orkestra, a Ukrainian-klezmer-gypsy-rag-tag-punk super band from Canada; and an 18th century Baroque Nativity folk opera staged by Yara artists. La MaMa E.T.C. will present the piece December 27-30 in its Ellen Stewart Theater, 66 East Fourth Street (in Manhattan's East Village).

On December 3 and 4, La MaMa will hold a two-day series of conversations, workshops and panels to accompany the two productions of its European Young Directors' Forum. Participants will include European directors Bojan Djordjev (Serbia/Croatia), Paul Knieriem (The Netherlands), Bastian Kraft (Germany), Ana Tomovic (Serbia) and U.S. based directors Anne Bogart, Meiyin Wang, John Jesurun and Charlotte Braithwaite.

Horse Trade Theater Group (Heidi Grumelot, Artistic Director, Erez Ziv, Managing Director) will present a one night only special engagement of Kimleigh Smith's 2010 FRIGID New York Festival hit solo show, T-O-T-A-L-L-Y! which recently played to sell-out crowds at the New York, Orlando, and Los Angeles Fringe Festival's. Winner of the Best Theater and Best One Person Show in the Hollywood Fringe 2010, Editor's Pick in the Washington Post 2011, George Wallace Fabby Award at Orlando Fringe 2010 also winner of the Actor's Group Solo Festival 2010.

THE TENANT by Bill Donnelly is a play in which a working-class midtown couple take a Korean immigrant woman into their hearts. Depending on how you see it, it becomes the tragedy of a lonely woman's unsuccessful act of kindness or the perilous seduction of an innocent couple by her mystic approach to love, life and healing. It's a bittersweet everyday story of love and destiny with a TWILIGHT ZONE touch. Theater for the New City will present the play tonight, November 15 to December 2, directed by Vincent J. Balzano.