Gas & Electric Arts Presents BETWEEN TRAINS, Opens 9/1

After two years of presenting their productions in late fall, Philly Fringe favorites Gas & Electric Arts return with Between Trains, a new musical travelogue that meshes their signature blend of hybrid physical theatre, richly textured language with inventive sung music and refreshing instrumentation mixed with a Buddhist sensibility.

Between Trains is the third world premiere for the Barrymore Nominated Gas & Electric Arts, the now five-year old physical theatre specialists. The show runs for 20 performances, August 29 - September 18, 2010 at "The Bardo" at the Becker Building, 1151 N. 3rd Street in Philadelphia. The show opens September 1st. For tickets, contact the Festival Box Office at (215) 413-1318 or visit www.livearts-fringe.org. For more info, visit www.GasAndElectricArts.org. This performance is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

What if you woke up naked in a train station, someplace yet nowhere, on the edge of waiting and anticipation, goodbyes and opportunity, sound and silence, humor and hilarity? At "the Bardo," Gas & Electric Arts' fearless ensemble of physical and musical performers, who are playing multiple roles will guide audiences through the multi-sensory realms of possibility in this world premiere musical travelogue written by Juanita Rockwell with original music composed by Chas Marsh.

Brimming with humor, song and surprising twists and turns, Between Trains brings together a multi-talented team of creative collaborators committed to developing an immersive theatrical experience that will take the audience on a journey that activates mind and stimulates the imagination. Directed by Lisa Jo Epstein, the Between Trains ensemble features Mary Tuomanen, John Jarboe, Wendy Staton, Jenna Horton and Davon Williams. The design Team includes lighting by Peter Jakubowski, scenic elements by visual artists Lewis Colburn & Stephanie Koening, costume by Rebecca Eastman of Baltimore's Generous Company, and large group choreographic assistance by Christina Zani (Welcome to Yuba City, Wandering Alice).

Venturing into Between Trains, audiences will find themselves in a 21st century Alice in Wonderland meshed with Dante's Inferno and the Buddhist Six Realms of Samsara. Meet Wendell who wakes up lost and naked in a train station. She then wends her way through the natural Bardo of life---a way station between here and there, between self and other, dream and reality, venturing towards the unknown, or is it the known? Here she encounters an otherworldly, fantastic kaleidoscope of people, a crisscross of humanity--humorous, hungry, greedy, or generous--, who may or may not help her get on the right train. What happens in-between where private tales are made spectacular could depend on where the audiences are sitting, what they're seeing, and how they're listening and hearing.

Inspired by Longchenpa, the 14th century Tibetan master, playwright Rockwell imagines Wendell's mind and body as being like a human bank in which karma is deposited as imprints and habitual tendencies; she just has to learn to juggle the positive and negative emotions that get triggered and provoked as she constantly flashes sideways while waiting for some train to arrive. In Gas & Electric Arts' hands, Wendell will be like a live wire, vibrating a profusion of perceptions, a maze of patterns that transforms into a search for the purest direction for understanding the nature of her reality. Audiences will be part of those pathways because the production will be a performative travelogue: the audience will enter into Wendell's mindstream, journeying through the Bardo as she wrestles with karmic obscurations of body, energy and mind, discovering unexpected antidotes to negativities that could help her more positively and playfully attune herself to the present moment.

At Gas & Electric Arts, the ordinary and the extraordinary fluidly mingle. In their productions, they strive to make the invisible visible through provocative, evocative physicality, vocal exporation and unique scenography that embraces that embraces and explores the plasticity of bodies, voices, objects and light, cut out in theatrical space and time, thus creating an entirely new theatrical universe. Gas & Electric Arts' intrepid performance style is an athletic task for the actors' bodies, voices, imagination, heart and senses. Their intensely physical, choreographic approach to acting leaves quotidian expression behind as the actors devise vivid forms for their bodies so that thought becomes a physical activity.

Artistic Director and Director Lisa Jo Epstein's style has been greatly influenced by those with whom she has worked. She began her foray into physical theatre at Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis. She continued her training at University of TX at Austin where she obtained a Master's and Ph.D. in theatre. She then moved to Paris France for several years where she served as world -renowned Ariane Mnouchkine's assistant during the Théâtre du Soleil's year-long creation of Tartuffe. While in Paris, Lisa Jo worked at Augusto Boal's Center for the Theatre of the Oppressed. Upon returning to the US, Lisa Jo became an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Dept of Theatre & Dance at Tulane University for 7 years where she won awards for teaching and directing, both inside the university and in the community. In addition to directing Gas & Electric Arts' plays, Lisa Jo facilitates interactive experiential Theatre of the Oppressed-based workshops with a variety of populations around issues of identity and empowerment, community and social justice. On the East Coast, she has taught at Temple University, Arcadia, University of the Arts, guest artist at Towson University, and will be once again teaching Movement and Physical Presence at Rutgers University Camden in the Fall.

About Gas & Electric Arts
Gas & Electric Arts was founded in 2005 by Lisa Jo Epstein and David Brown to lead audiences to experiences that shimmer with theatricality and shiver with social reality. In our work we are passionately committed to corporeal, visual, vocal and spatial investigation, fusing the richly textured language of risk-taking playwrights with a physically rigorous performance style and compelling stage imagery. Together, we hope to offer a great sense of play which unshackles the imagination and renews our perceptions of the exquisiteness of being alive and of our mortality, the necessity of empathy and the imperative to live responsibly.

Through our productions, we are instrumental in introducing Philadelphia to exemplary, nationally-recognized playwrights who are boldly redefining American theatre. These are playwrights in love with the art of theatre as a way to respond to the ever-shifting cultural and political landscapes that comprise our lives. Their plays beckon the body and lead us to unchartered theatrical territories, enabling us to make total, fresh theatre whose images and stories linger long after the show has ended.

Productions include: Cabinet of Wonders: An Impossible History by Kira Obolensky (world premiere, supported in part by a grant from the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative through the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage), Anna Bella Eema by Lisa D'Amour (local premiere 2005, 2008 which received two Barrymore nominations for Best Lead Actress and Best Ensemble), Quick Silver by Kira Obolensky (2007, East Coast premiere), O Yes I Will (I Will Remember the Spirit and Texture of this Conversation) by Deb Margolin (2008), Voices Underwater by Abi Basch (2006, world premiere).

Between Trains performance schedule

Previews:
Sunday, August 29 - 7:30pm
Tuesday - August 31 - 7:30pm

Opening Night:
Wednesday, Sept 1 - 7:30pm

Performance run:
Thursday, Sept 2 - 7:30pm show
Friday, Sept 3 - - 7:30pm show
Saturday, Sept 4 - - 7:30pm show
Sunday, Sept 5, - 7:30pm show

Wednesday, Sept 8 - 7:00pm show
Thursday, Sept 9 - 7:00pm show
Friday, Sept 10 - 7:00pm show
Saturday, Sept 11 - 7:00pm show
Saturday, Sept 11 - 10:00pm show
Sunday, Sept 12 - 7:00pm show

Monday, Sept 13 - 7:00pm show
Wednesday, Sept 15 - 7:00pm show
Thursday, Sept 16 - 7:00pm show
Friday, Sept 17 - 7:00pm show
Saturday, Sept 18 - 7:00pm show
Saturday, Sept 18 - 10:00pm show
Sunday, Sept 19 - 7:00pm show

* Performance time changes after Sept 5th to 7pm or 10pm.

 

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