TNC's award-winning Street Theater always contains an elaborate assemblage of trap doors, giant puppets, smoke machines, masks, original choreography and a huge (9' x 12') running screen or "cranky" providing continuous movement behind the actors. The company of 32 actors, 15 crew members, two assistant directors and four live musicians shares the challenge of performing outside and holding a large, non-captive audience. The music varies in style from Bossa Nova to Gilbert & Sullivan. Complex social issues are often presented through children's allegories, with children as the heroes, making these free productions a popular form of family entertainment.
The hero of the play is a lowly but reliable Postman, whose route runs through Jackson Heights. He has always been very happy with his job, delivering the happiness of birthday cards, news of newborns and the romance of marriage invitations. But this year, there is a terrible change--he is carrying a tsunami of unhappiness with pink slips, layoffs, businesses closings, Medicare terminations, closings of hospitals, firehouses and libraries; teacher terminations and condolences sent to the Japanese. The TV haunts his dreams and corrupts his reality, with its bizarre reality shows and its news of wars in which we're not really there, but somehow we're bombing them to pieces.
He experiences a visitation from Diablo Hysterico, the Rock 'n' Roll King of the Underworld, who reveals to him our Faustian contract with Nuclear Power. Diablo declares, "You are America! Lord and Master of the World!" Our hero resists the responsibility until he is visited by a fugitive from the future, who screams out what he has seen and pleads not to be sent back. But Diablo sings him away, and the Postman flies with him to see a people-less planet--a silent world, with nothing but grasses and overhanging trees, and little animals scurrying here and there, and the only vestige of Human Civilization...a few Pokemon characters left over from a digital remix.
The operetta shows how a strong young man, slipping quickly towards middle age, can see through the maelstrom of bad news towards a clear vision of a cleaner, more harmonious planet. Our hero fools the Devil and reminds us that a really good postman will ring three times if he has to, and even knock the door down if smoke is billowing from inside the house, and a person is screaming for help, as our planet is now.
Label: CD Baby
Joe Lycett's ART HOLE To Be Published This Autumn
by Blair Ingenthron
- April 14, 2024
Anna Valentine, Managing Director of The Orion Publishing Group, has acquired World rights to Joe Lycett's Art Hole by Joe Lycett, from Hannah Chambers at Chambers Management, in a competitive eight way auction.
24 Theater Books for Your Spring 2024 Reading List
by Nicole Rosky
- March 23, 2024
Need a great book to spring into the new season? This spring, Broadway's best have put pen to paper to turn out theatre page-turners of every kind. From theatre biographies to theatre fiction; theatre books for kids to theatre history; check out our collection of 24 new Broadway books for every theatre lover's spring reading list.
New Orleans Composer William Horne's Newest Chamber Works Featured On Album Out Now
by Blair Ingenthron
- March 09, 2024
New Orleans composer William Horne has released world-premiere recordings of three new chamber works on CHAMBER MUSIC OF WILLIAM HORNE, VOLUME THREE, available now. The album features Horne's Sonata for French Horn and Piano, Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, and Trio for Flute, Alto Saxophone, and Piano.
GLITTER & DOOM Soundtrack Out Now
by Chloe Rabinowitz
- March 08, 2024
The soundtrack to Glitter & Doom – the new film musical told through 25 iconic Indigo Girls classics – is available now in digital and streaming formats from record label PS Classics.
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