School of the Americas — the downtown troupe's co-production with The Public Theater (where they are again in residence) — joins the previously announced developmental world premieres of Rivera's rescheduled Massacre (Sing To Your Children) and Cusi Cram's All The Bad Things.
LAByrinth will launch their new 14th season with their popular annual benefit, "Celebrity Charades," featuring stars of stage and screen in a silent battle of wits, Sept. 26.
Kate Whoriskey will direct the season opener, José Rivera’s Massacre (Sing To Your Children), Oct. 5-23 at The Public Theater's Shiva Theatre. In the work, Rivera spins a tale of seven people who join together to kill their Granville, New Hampshire neighbor who may or may not stay dead. The work, written especially for LAByrinth’s company of actors, was expected last season, but postponed due to scheduling conflicts.
Next up for LAB, starting Nov. 28, will be The Barn Series. This annual collection of staged readings (free and open to the public) of works by up-and-coming as well as established playwrights will feature Carlo Alban's Itringulis, Stephen Belber's A Small Melodramatic Story, Eric Bogosian's 1 + 1, Raul Castillo's City of Palms, Andrea Ciannavei's Pretty Chin Up, Cusi Cram's All the Bad Things, Stephen Adly Guirgis's Little Flower of East Orange, an untitled play by Brett C. Leonard, Megan Mostyn-Brown's Going After Alice and Michael Puzzo's She Talks To Rainbows.
Cram’s All The Bad Things will then go on to further development for a 15 performance engagement with performances starting in late January, 2006. The story follows Fernanda, who lives in a small Greenwich Village apartment with her sick mother and her unemployed husband when she learns of her brother-in law's recent converting to the Mormon faith and her rent stabilized apartment is about to become de-stabilized. The spring will bring another Rivera world premiere as The Public Theater teams with LAB anew on School of the Americas. Inspired by Rivera’s experience during the filming of his screen adaptation of "The Motorcycle Diaries" and based on historical fact, the new work set in the Bolivian jungle where Che Guevara was captured and held in a one-room school house where a young school teacher insists that speak to the famous revolutionary. Her conversation with Che is the basis for the work which will star John Ortiz (Anna in the Tropics, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot) as Che Guevara.
For more information, visit www.labtheater.org.
