Presented by The New 42nd Street in a Gotham Chamber Opera and Tectonic Theater Project production in association with Blind Summit Theatre, the engagement will mark the opera's U.S. debut.
A special gala performance of the opera, to be performed in Spanish, will take place Oct. 1. Additional performances in Spanish will take place Oct. 7 and 9; all other performances will be in English, and every performance will use English surtitles.
Neal Goren will conduct the performance, which will feature a cast of five singers and puppets created by Blind Summit Theatre.
The cast will feature Kevin Burdette, Peter Castaldi, Ginger Costa-Jackson, David Salsbery Fry, Steven LaBrie, Karin Mushegain, Valerie Ogbonnaya, Kyle Pfortmiller, Nadine Sierra, Craig Verm and Leah Wool. The featured puppeteers will include Stefano Brancato, Joe Gallina, Jonothon Lyons, Marta Mozelle MacRostie, James Ortiz, Aaron Schroeder, Jessica Scott and Teddy Yudain.
Andromache Chalfant will design the sets, Clint Ramos will design costumes, David Lander will design lighting, and the puppets will be designed by Nick Barnes and directed by Mark Down. According to press notes, El gato con botas "is an operatic version of the classic children's tale in which a charismatic and cunning cat promises a poor miller everlasting love and fortune. All he needs to pull off his ruse are a hat, a cape, a pair of boots, and his wits."
Kaufman received Tony Award nominations for directing I Am My Own Wife and for his play 33 Variations, which he also directed. He has collaborated with the company members of Tectonic Theater Project, which he co-founded, on socio-politically themed documentary theatre pieces, including The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
The Gotham Chamber Opera produces innovative stagings of rarely performed chamber operas from the Baroque era to the present. Their production of Haydn's Il mondo della luna in January 2010 at the Hayden Planetarium in the American Museum of Natural History, was acclaimed for its use of laser technology and its celestial light show.
Blind Summit Theatre specializes in creating puppetry for adults and are pioneers of a new method of training actors to perform with puppets.
Performance times for the production are Fridays at 7 PM, Saturdays at 2 PM and 7 PM and Sundays at noon and 7 PM, with an additional Thursday show Oct. 7 at 7 PM.
The New Victory Theater is located at 209 West 42nd Street. For tickets call (646) 223-3010 or visit newvictory.org.
