Burnout Paradise
65 minutes, no intermission.
Burnout Paradise - 2024 Off-Broadway History , Info & More
St. Ann's Warehouse
45 Water St. Brooklyn, NY 11201
In a gladiatorial race against time, four performers on moving treadmills perform an escalating series of tasks. Burnout Paradise is a hilariously cathartic caricature of a painfully familiar experience: running oneself ragged trying to get everything done. In Burnout Paradise, Pony Cam welcomes audiences with a simple wager: Can the four performers meet a dizzying array of challenges while collectively running 20km on treadmills before their time runs out? If they fail—and, they often do—they offer the audience their money back.
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR Burnout Paradise
Review: Burnout Paradise at St. Ann’s Warehouse
7 / 10
Is it gimmicky? Absolutely. Gimmicky on multiple levels at once, even: the treadmills, the time clock, the merch table. It’s chaotic and splashy and overwhelming and silly. But it’s nonetheless built on a foundation of real emotions: on the one hand the “runner’s high” of thinking you’ve cracked the code of doing it all; on the other, the weary recognition of the deep, exhausted pit of burnout. (The show introduces each performer with a graphic that includes their current stress level.) And while there’s something serious at the root of it, and the performers enact their tasks with utmost sincerity–even the most ridiculous elements–the overall tone also embraces the absurdity of the whole endeavor. (And they cap it off with a little pop of joy in the form of a treadmill-based dance number that you may recognize from a music video a while back.)
Burnout Paradise: Joy In Watching Others Sweat
7 / 10
At the performance I attended, they did manage to get all of it done in record time, but even if they had failed, I wouldn’t expect any money back. For 65 minutes their “near burnout” is pure entertainment for the rest of us. It’s packed with suspense: will they succeed? There’s humor: just watch one of the guys attempt to change into a Speedo without embarrassing himself. There’s also a satisfying catharsis. And given the added option of having a drink at the bar before or after, “burnout”, at least when others are threatened with it, is “paradise” indeed.
Category
by Blair Ingenthron - November 17, 2024
Pony Cam's Burnout Paradise is making its off-Broadway premiere at St. Ann's Warehouse. Four performers on four treadmills….a delusional and physical celebration of our struggle to establish boundaries in life. Check out what the critics had to say!
by Stephi Wild - October 3, 2024
Burnout Paradise will make its off-Broadway premiere at St. Ann's Warehouse in November. Performances will run November 12-December 1.
Burnout Paradise History
Other Productions of Burnout Paradise
| 2024 | Off-Broadway |
St. Ann's Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 2026 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
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