The Flying Karamazov Brothers Return To ACT

ACT - A Contemporary Theatre launches 2012 with returning favorites, multi-disciplinary artistic collaborations and initiatives including a new play reading series called The Construction Zone. The Mainstage season takes a brief hiatus until March, but the building will be alive and vibrant with the world’s quickest theatre festival, 14/48, dance, opera, arias, readings and the return of The Flying Karamazov Brothers’ internationally renowned zany antics. The coming season marks the fifth year of the Central Heating Lab (CHL), an incubator and catalyst for new works where ACT cultivates, produces, and presents artists working in all performance genres and provides an artistic home for a variety of local performance groups and artists.

ACT Artistic Director Kurt Beattie says, “ACT is especially proud of the success of these partnerships and projects. We have been able to flex our artistic muscle and provide some of the area’s most innovative artists with support previously unrealized in this environment. What we’ve been able to accomplish with the CHL is very special, and the access our patrons have had to experience New Mediums and new voices has strengthened our relationships and deepened the community’s connection to Seattle’s cultural core.”

PRODUCTIONS & EVENTS
14/48: The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival, Falls Theatre
Pinter Fortnightly, Bullitt Cabaret
The Film School, Falls Theatre
Project 5/Brahms Afoot, Seattle Dance Project & Inverse Opera, Falls Theatre
The Construction Zone, Eulalie Scandiuzzi Space
The Flying Karamazov Brothers, Falls Theatre
Smokestack Arias, by Wayne Horvitz Robin Holcomb & Dayna Hanson, Eulalie Scandiuzzi Space
Seattle Confidential with Ian Bell, Bullitt Cabaret

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS
14/48: The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival
January 6-7 and 13-14
Tickets: $20 advance, $25 day of show. Students $10/Seniors $5 or included with the ACTPass
All-Fest Pass $40 (only 50 available)
14 plays created, written, designed, scored, rehearsed and performed in 48 hours. Each weekend, seven playwrights write seven plays on a randomly selected theme on Thursday night. 12 hours later, seven directors each blindly select a play and the required number of actors to cast it. After 10 hours of fevered rehearsal with seven designers and seven musicians, the plays premiere that evening. The 8:00pm Friday audience submits themes, one of which is randomly chosen, and the process starts all over again. It all adds up to 14 plays in 48 hours you’ll never see again, but will never forget.
Pinter Fortnightly: Film, Readings and Guests
January 9, 23 and February 26
Tickets: $10 (adults), $8 (students/seniors/25 and younger) or included with the ACTPass
Countdown to the Festival! The popular Pinter Fortnightly series presents these special events as a part of the Pinter Festival 2012 Partnership. Thanks to its provocative works of theatre and the riveting post-performance discussions with Frank Corrado, the artists and audience members, the Monday night Pinter Fortnightly series has become such a staple arts attraction that a full Pinter Festival will be coming to ACT in summer 2012.
January 9: A showing of Harry Burton’s film, Working With Pinter. Mr. Burton will present the film along with a special guest.
January 23: A reading of Doug Lucie’s Fashion.
February 6: A reading of Pinter’s The Basement.
Project 5/Brahms Afoot, Seattle Dance Project and The Inverse Opera
January 19-29

Tickets: $25 (adults), $20 (students/seniors/25 and younger) or included in the ACTPass
Seattle Dance Project (SDP) presents Project 5, the culmination of its fifth season. Project 5 continues the company’s tradition of collaborating with choreographers and musicians to create new works. Headlining the performance is Brahms Afoot, created in conjunction with The Inverse Opera. Choreographed by Penny Hutchinson, founding member of Mark Morris Dance Company, and set to the timeless music of Brahms' “Liebeslieder Waltzes,” Brahms Afoot seamlessly weaves together musicians, voices and bodies to create a breathtaking whole. SDP also premieres a new work by Jason Ohlberg, former Hubbard Street Dance Chicago member, incorporating audio from dancer interviews into the score. Rounding out the program are audience favorites Planes in Air by Molissa Fenley, debuted in SDP’s 2010-11 season, and Edwaard Liang’s To Converse Too and Kent Stowell’s B6, both from SDP’s 09-10 season.

The Construction Zone: New Play Development
January 30
Tickets: $10 (adults), $8 (students/seniors/25 and younger) or included with the ACTPass
Co-curated by Anita Montgomery and Christine Sumption, The Construction Zone provides playwrights with opportunities to develop and share new work, while providing audiences with an intimate and meaningful exposure to the process. Plays chosen for the series will be of the moment, of particular interest to ACT, and feature gifted playwrights from around the country. Performed by professional artists and followed by discussions, The Construction Zone will occur on select Mondays throughout the year in our intimate, new Eulalie Scandiuzzi space. The series promises to serve as a valuable incubator of new plays for ACT and our producing partners, while inviting Seattle audiences who crave new work to witness and participate in its evolution.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers
February 2 – 12
Tickets: Tickets go on sale in early December and will be included in the ACTPass
The Flying Karamazov Brothers are rumbling back into Emerald City! Fresh from a year Off-Broadway, a summer in London’s West End, a month in Madrid and a weekend off in Peoria, their critically incriminating eponymous show is ripe and ready for Rain City. The Brothers will wash away your winter blues with red fire and yellow yolk. These (ok OK!, neither Russian, fraternal, nor aviatory) pranksters dance, prance, pun, sing, dunce, aspire, perspire and mesmerize their way through an evening of reinvention. “A Triumph!” yells the NY Times. “The Marx Brothers meets the Juilliard String Quartet” adds the Boston Globe. Your world will be new-made through this mad collision of skill and sincerity, gutter lies and shimmering beauty. Come join the crowd as these Seattle favorites juggle everything except your spouse – Bring an object for The Challenge (a juggling feat), and bring your mom and grandchildren, who will all savor this saucy dish of laughter and delight.

Smokestack Arias, by Wayne Horvitz Robin Holcomb and Dayna Hanson
February 2 – 12
Tickets: $22 advance/$25 day of show. $15 (students/seniors/25 and younger) or included with the ACTPass

Inspired by the 1916 labor uprising and resultant deaths, now known as the Everett Massacre, Smokestack Arias is a song cycle for soprano voice, piano and pre-recorded electronics and is accompanied by dance performances. Each song assumes the perspective of a different woman affected by the uprising and the deaths of the slain protesters, giving a personal account of a seminal event in the history of the labor movement in the Pacific Northwest. Composed by Wayne Horvitz with text by Robin Holcomb the performances will take place in collaboration with Christina Valdes (piano), Maria Mannisto (soprano) and Dayna Hanson will be directing and assisting Mr. Horvitz in creating the overall piece.

Ian Bell: Seattle Confidential
February 13
Tickets: $15 (adults), $10 (students/seniors) or included with the ACTPass
February’s theme: How we met

Host Ian Bell and Seattle's finest actors will bring the most intriguing true stories to life, on the stage. Seattle Confidential is a fun, fascinating evening that just may have you looking at the audience sitting with you in the dark... in a whole new light!

Quarterly, Seattle Confidential present a different provocative topic on which Seattleites are invited to anonymously share their most personal stories. Drop-boxes will be placed throughout the city, and a secure website will be set up to accept anonymous submissions. Submissions may be uploaded to www.seattleconfidential.org .

About The Central Heating Lab
Launched in 2007, The Central Heating Lab at ACT serves as an incubator and catalyst for new works. ACT cultivates, produces, and presents artists working in all performance genres and provides an artistic home for a variety of local performance groups and artists. Relationships develop daily with individual actors, performers and playwrights while established partnerships with groups such as the Contemporary Classics, 14/48, SOIL, RAWSTOCK, Pinter Fortnightly, Seattle Dance Project, and Icicle Creek Theatre Festival grow and develop. New programs are added throughout the year. With year-round programming produced by The Central Heating Lab at ACT alongside ACT’s Mainstage plays, ACT offers its patrons a unique opportunity to maximize their theatre experience – the ACTPass: all you can see for only $25 per month. ACTPass Members can attend nearly all ACT produced performances throughout any given month, provided tickets are available. It is the new, more flexible, more affordable way to see more performances for one low price, and is the first of its kind in the region. ACTPass members may cancel at any time, and there is no limit to the number of times a Pass Member can attend.

About ACT: A Theatre of New Ideas - Raising Consciousness Through Theatre
Located in the heart of downtown Seattle and serving a population of curious, open-minded, and brave audiences, ACT - A Contemporary Theatre is the only theatre in Seattle dedicated to producing contemporary work with promising playwrights and local performing artists since 1965. A theatre of new ideas, ACT serves as a cultural engine that makes plays, dance, music, and film that touch us through its annual Mainstage play series and new works generated from the Young Playwrights Program, The Hansberry Project, the Central Heating Lab, and New Works for the American Stage commissioning program. Because contemporary life demands examination, ACT is driven to inspire and strengthen our diverse community through works that advance our understanding of human life. With more than 100,000 people who attend shows annually, ACT is an interactive community where artists and the public witness, contemplate, and engage in dialogue on today’s thought-provoking issues, ideas and art, presented with intelligence, insight, and humor.

ACT gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our 2011 Season Sponsors: ACT Foundation, ArtsFund, The Eulalie Bloedel Schneider Artists Fund, The Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and The Shubert Foundation.