Taylor Mac, JoAnne Akalaitis, David Greenspan and Suzan-Lori Parks are among the theatre artists whose work will be showcased.
Here is a sampling of images from shows on the schedule:
The 2011 Under the Radar lineup follows:
Ameriville
Jan. 5-16, 2011, at the Public
Written, created and performed by UNIVERSES (Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz, Gamal Chasten, William Ruiz (aka Ninja)
Directed and Developed by Chay Yew
"An explosive fusion of storytelling and the infectious rhythms of jazz, gospel, and hip-hop, Ameriville puts the state of the Union under the microscope - race, poverty, politics, history and government, examining our country through the lens of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath."
Correspondances
Jan. 7-16, 2011, at the Public
Kettly Noël and Nelisiwe Xaba
"Two women finally meet after a long period of correspondence. They come together for a raucous conversation on diverse subjects - ranging from the mundane to the profound. With text in English and French, Correspondances is a lively and sophisticated dance-theater piece that exposes the intimate
fabric of friendship while exploring themes of race, culture and gender."
Diciembre
Jan. 5-15, 2011, at the Public
Written and Directed by Guillermo Calderón
"Hatched from the brilliant imagination of writer-director Guillermo Calderón, comes this haunting and politically charged black comedy about a near-future war in Chile. Taking place on Christmas Eve 2014, the story is set in Santiago, a city surrounded by Peruvian forces. A young solider Jorge returns home to celebrate Christmas with his pregnant twin sisters. The sisters’ deeply opposing views on the war come to a head when it is revealed that Jorge is planning to go awol."
Jump
Jan. 11-15, 2011, at the Public
Performed and composed by Nora York
Directed by JoAnne Akalaitis
Written by David Greenspan
"In 1905, while performing in Victorien Sardou's melodrama La Tosca, the renowned French actress Sarah Bernhardt jumped from a balcony in the final scene, sustaining an injury that some believe contributed to the loss of her right leg. In this kaleidoscopic music-theatre exploration of the life of Sarah Bernhardt and the story of Tosca, acclaimed stage director JoAnne Akalaitis joins forces with musician Nora York and playwright David Greenspan to examine the making of art and the passion that inspires it. Jump interweaves Bernhardt’s autobiographical writings, scenes from Sardou’s play, and arias from Puccini’s Tosca with York’s original song inventions."
Too late! antigone (contest #2)
Jan. 6-15, 2011, at the Public
Devised and directed by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò with Silvia Calderoni and Vladimir Aleksic
"Sitting on the stage of the Newman Theater, the audience witnesses a woman and a man in a desperate multi-level power struggle. Silvia/Antigone/Haemon faces Vladimir/Creon in a merciless set of challenges that amplify both power games between fathers and sons and those of contemporary “New Dictators” who also try to tame the disobedient ones. Motus, one of Italy’s most adventurous theater companies, investigates Antigone with its take-no-prisoners theatrical style."
Suzan-Lori Parks: WATCH ME WORK
Jan. 5-16, 2011, at the Public
Conceived and performed by Suzan-Lori Parks
"WATCH ME WORK is a performance piece, a meditation on the artistic process and an actual work session, in which Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks works on her newest writing project in the main lobby of The Public Theater. The audience is invited to come and watch her work and/or to share the space and get some of their own writing work done. During the last fifteen minutes of the performance she will answer any questions the audience might have regarding their own work and their own creative process."
Watt by Samuel Beckett
Jan. 6-16, 2011, at the Public
Performed by Barry McGovern
Directed by Tom Creed
"Straight from Ireland’s acclaimed Gate Theatre is an exciting new work by leading Beckett interpreter Barry McGovern, directed by one of Ireland’s rising directors, Tom Creed. Watt is the extraordinary story of an itinerant character who walks one day from a train station to the home of a Mr. Knott whom he will serve. The bizarre adventures of Watt and his struggle to make sense of the world around him is told with verbal elegance, immense pathos and fierce humor."
Bonanza: A documentary for five screens
Jan. 6-16, 2011, at the Robert Moss Theatre
"This unique theatre-film event by Antwerp based multimedia collective Berlin brings to life an intimate documentary portrait of an abandoned mining town in Colorado. Unraveling somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, the lives of Bonanza’s seven remaining inhabitants are projected simultaneously on five screens underneath a scaled model of their town. The citizens lead oddly charming and independent lives, but their individual quest for solitude and spirituality is undermined by feuds, litigation, gossip and murder. A brilliant blend of film and theater, Bonanza is a captivating portrayal of a small American town – a microcosm of the world."
Being Harold Pinter
Jan. 5-16, 2011, at LaMaMA
Adapted and directed by Vladimir Shcherban
Produced by Nikolai Khalezin and Natalia Koliada
"Following their stunning performance of Generation Jeans at UTR 2008, Belarus Free Theatre returns to UTR with Being Harold Pinter, which incorporates transcripts from Belarussian political prisoners with excerpts from Harold Pinter’s lifetime of writings. Creating visually striking images with simple means and underscoring the fierceness of Pinter’s words with the intense physicality of the actors, Being Harold Pinter blurs the boundaries between art and reality, delivering a poignant contemporary commentary on violence, oppression, freedom and human dignity."
Dutch A/V
Jan. 5-16, 2011, at LaMaMa
By Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith
"Infused with sonic landscapes performed live by Reggie Watts, Dutch A/V is a live-edited environmental film that seeks to replicate the first hand experience of being a flâneur in another city. Reggie — with collaborator/playwright Tommy Smith and Seattle journalist Brendan Kiley — traveled to Holland and shot over 26 hours of footage, exploring its cities using spy-glasses that recorded everything they saw and heard. Dutch A/V seeks to re-present this footage using projection technology and stereophonic sound, turning the interior space into portals to a foreign landscape thousands of miles away."
Living In Exile
Jan. 6-16, 2011
By Jon Lipsky
Directed by Christopher McElroen
"Featuring T Ryder Smith, [Living in Exile] is a radically intimate two-character retelling of Homer’s Iliad performed in a private living room. Eloquent, moving and often violent, Living in Exile is a meditation on the costs of prolonged warfare, imperialist culture shock, and the citizen-as-spectator. Actors and audiences will experience the play in the same intimate setting: an American living room."
Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good)
Jan. 6-8, 2011, at LaMaMa
"It’s 1965 and everything is just about to happen. Gob Squad take the hand of the King of Pop himself, Andy Warhol, and take a trip back to the underground cinemas of New York City, back to where it all began. Gob Squad set themselves the task of reconstructing “Kitchen” and other Warhol films. How can they get it just right? How do they know if they’re going wrong? How did people dance in 1965? What did they talk about? Had feminism happened? Or was it yet to begin? Gob Squad’s Kitchen becomes a journey back in time and back to the future again."
Show Your Face
Jan. 10-11, 2011, at LaMaMa
By Betontanc and Umka LV
"An empty snowsuit is transformed into a contemporary everyman on a dark odyssey through the 20th century in a world without hope. Based on a comic strip, this award-winning collaboration by avant-garde Slovene physical theater troupe Betontanc, Latvian object theater masters Umka LV, and the Slovene pop-electronic group Silence combines puppetry, physical and object theater, and live music for a truly virtuosic performance."
The Walk Across America for Mother Earth
Jan. 15-16, 2011, at LaMaMa
Written by Taylor Mac
Directed by Paul Zimet
"The Walk Across America for Mother Earth combines Taylor Mac’s exuberant theatricality with the richly scored work of Talking Band to tell the story of a nine-month protest walk from New York to a Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Eighteen and eager to flee his suburban conservative upbringing, Taylor joined this group of political activists, aging hippies, baby hippies, punks, anarchists, dykes, radical fairies, men, women, senior citizens, and children on a nine-month walk across the United States. Re-told and re-imagined by Taylor, Walk asks its artists and audiences to take a second look at how the idea of community sometimes fails to unite us, and sometimes brings us together in the most surprising ways."
Vice Versa – Based on Cock and Bull by Will Self
Jan. 6-15, 2011, at Dixon Place
From Collectif idil! Eldi
"John Bull is a decent guy, a rugbyman, and has suddenly discovered a strange looking gash growing behind his knee. Seeking help from his doctor Alan Margoulis and his charming secretary, Bull enters an absurd and sensual journey with his new appendage. Freely adapted from the novel of Will Self, the enfant terrible of British literature, Vice Versa is a surreal and comedic look at the confusions of the sexes, its ambiguities and pitfalls."
Your brother. Remember?
Jan. 5-16, 2011, at Dixon Place
By Zachary Oberzan
"Your brother. Remember? splices and dices home videos, Hollywood film footage, and live performance. As kids in Maine, Zachary and his older brother Gator loved making parodies of films, most notably Jean-Claude Van Damme’s 'Kickboxer,' and the notorious cult film 'Faces of Death.' Then 20 years passed. Zack returned to his childhood home to re-create these films, shot for shot, as precisely as possible--but now seen through a twenty-year lens of emotional and physical wear and tear. Born in Belgium or America, the simple childhood desire for love gets confused with fame, drugs, & ambition. But with Mr. Van Damme in their corner, Zack and Gator step into the ring one last time for a title shot at redemption."
Vision Disturbance
Jan. 12-14, 2011, at Abrons Arts Center
By Christina Masciotti
Directed by Richard Maxwell
Performed by Linda Mancini and Jay Smith
"Two lost souls in Reading, Pennsylvania converge: Mondo, a Greek immigrant whose eyesight suffers from a grueling divorce, and Dr. Hull, the retina specialist who treats her."
Phobophilia
Jan. 5-10, 2011, at HERE
From 2boys.tv (Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard)
"Twenty-four spectators are led to a secret location to witness a peculiar interrogation. Phobophilia unfolds through a complex meshing of sound, action, ritual and video projection. Using its micro-cinema of Cocteau-inspired projections shown on an elaborate, ever-shifting pop-up book, Phobophilia is a surrealist and dreamlike examination of fear, pleasure, voyeurism and the visual archive of war."
Daniel Kitson’s The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church
Jan. 6-16, 2011, at St. Ann's Warehouse
By Daniel Kitson
"In this singular 90-minute monologue, the celebrated comedian and theatrical storyteller tells the tale of a man whose suicide is perpetually deferred by all the goodbye letters he must write—and the responses some of them provoke."
Single tickets to Under the Radar productions performed at the Public will go on sale Dec. 1. Phone (212) 967-7555 or visit PublicTheater.
The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette Street in Manhattan.
