Cornelius Eady, creator of the Off-Broadway musical Running Man (a Pulitzer finalist), will premiere his newest music-theatre piece, Brutal Imagination Oct. 19-21 at The Kitchen.
In Brutal Imagination, Eady examines the Susan Smith case, in which a young South Carolinian mother strapped her sleeping children into her car and pushed the vehicle into a lake. She later accused a mysterious black man for carjacking her children, a man she created in her own head. Other stereotypical characters who may make appearances in the musical are John Henry, Mr. Bojangles, Uncle Ben and Uncle Tom.
Imagination is a collaboration between Eady, jazz composer Diedre Murray and her band, Tango Blu.
Weirdly enough, Imagination isn't the first theatre piece to take its cue from the Smith murders. In March 2000, Off-Broadway's adobe [sic] theatre company offered the darkly comic Down the Drain, which was developed from company improvisations on the tragic news story.
* In other Kitchen doings, a U.S. music-theatre premiere, Incursion. Tema: Fausto, will run Oct. 11-14. With music by Martin Bauer and a libretto by Maria Ines Aldaburu, Fausto was inspired by a satirical Estanislao del Campo poem about a gaucho, who believes that everything he sees on stage during the premiere of Charles Gounod's Faust is real. Carlos Lipsic directs this Argentine piece.
Also in the season are:
Sept. 6-10: Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater: Mettawee River Theatre Company's Psyche adapted by Ralph Lee and Erik Ehn, directed and designed by Lee
Sept. 20-24: Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater: Dan Hurlin's Everyday Uses for Sight: Nos. 3 and 7
Sept. 13-23: Ibrahim Quraishi and Compagnie Faim de Siecle's Shattered Boxes,, based on Heiner Muller's Medeamaterial
Oct. 5-7: the New York premiere of Julie Tolentino's The Bottom Project
Nov. 2-11: Chicago's Goat Island performance group's The Sea & Poison
Dec. 6-9: radio play/music theatre pieces, Kyle Gann's Custer and Sitting Bull and Phil Kline's Into the Fire
Dec. 14-16: Nicole Blackman's Bloodwork
Tickets to most events are $15. The Kitchen is located at 512 West 19th Street. For reservations, call (212) 255-5793. The Kitchen is on the web at http://www.thekitchen.org.
-- By Christine Ehren
