OBIE WINNING SITI COMPANY 2010-2011 SEASON INCLUDES 'RADIO MACBETH,' 'WAR OF THE WORLDS,' 'UNDER CONSTRUCTION'
Published 2010-06-29
Acclaimed director Anne Bogart and her seven-time Obie winning Siti Company are pleased to announce their 2010-2011 second full New York Off Broadway season. The fall season kicks off with Radio Macbeth to be performed October 5-16 for a two-week run after only three performances at the Miller Theater in July 2009. The weekend performances (October 8, 9, 15 and 16) feature a special double bill which includes SITI's first radio play, War of the Worlds, followed by Radio Macbeth allowing New York audiences the opportunity to see both shows performed back to back for the first time ever. From April 20 through May 7, SITI presents the New York premiere of Charles L. Mee's Under Construction, the third in a collection of four projects inspired by American artists. All events will take place at Dance Theater Workshop.
Co-directed by artistic director Anne Bogart and sound designer Darron L West, Radio Macbeth brings a fresh take to Shakespeare's briefest and most magnetic tragedy. Conceived as a play-within-a-radio-play-within-a-play, Radio Macbeth takes places late at night in the guts of an abandoned theater, where actors gather to rehearse. Darkness plays tricks on their minds making the imagination churn, and the ghosts that have haunted the story since the play's inception flicker and glow. The actors cling to the sanity of the words as the chaos of history becomes undeniably present in the room. Radio Macbeth is SITI's second adventure with Shakespeare (following the 2004 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream). It received work-in-progress performances at Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater and premiered at the Wexner Center for the Arts in 2007.
Offered as part of a special double bill on October 8, 9, 15 and 16, War of the Worlds (which inspired Radio Macbeth) is SITI's restaging of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater's legendary broadcast. On October 30, 1938, mass hysteria seized thousands of people as Welles and "The Mercury Theater On the Air", Ed Howard Koch's adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel, The War of the Worlds (Invasion from Mars). Even with several station and program identification breaks, this hour-long radio program convinced anxious listeners that the Earth was the target of a full -scale invasion by aliens. Also co-directed by Bogart and West, War of the Worlds premiered in New York City's West Bank Café in 1999. It was also seen in the city at The Public Theater's Joe's Pub in January 2000.
Charles Mee's Under Construction (2009) is a collage of America today inspired by the twentieth-century painter Norman Rockwell and the contemporary installation artist Jason Rhoades. Neither Rockwell nor Rhoades is a character in the piece. Instead, Mee uses their art and utterly opposed sensibilities as a jumping-off point to talk about who we are as Americans, how we live and what we want. Rockwell's images of small-town life conjure thoughts of an America that was simpler and more innocent than the one we inhabit today - one that, perhaps, never existed. Jason Rhoades' installations are huge and messy; non-representational but highly evocative; unafraid to offend and impossible to ignore. Juxtaposing the fifties and the present, the play retraces the historical move from Rockwell to Rhoades while offering a portrait of a nation that is constantly reinventing itself - or permanently "under construction."
PERFORMANCE INFO:
RADIO MACBETH
Directed by Anne Bogart & Darron L West
Created and performed by Siti Company
Adapted from the play by William Shakespeare
October 5th at 8PM; October 6th, 7th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th at 7PM
Talkbacks with Anne Bogart and Company members: October 6th, 7th, 11th, and 12th
Dance Theater Workshop, 219 West 19th Street, NYC
Tickets: $35/$25 (students)
Tickets on sale August 3rd
Set and Costume design by James Schuette
Light design by Brian H Scott
Soundscape by Darron L West
Cast: Akiko Aizawa (Angus, Fleance, Lennox, Seyton, Son, Young Siward); Will Bond (Duncan, Macduff, Murderer, Doctor); Gian Murray Gianino (Ross, Messenger, Donnalbain, Murderer, Siward); Ellen Lauren (Lady Macbeth); Kelly Maurer (Witch, Porter, Lady Macduff, Gentlewoman); Barney O'Hanlon (Banquo, Malcolm, Murderer, Servant); Stephen Webber (Macbeth)
SPECIAL DOUBLE BILL!
SITI's Radio Plays: War of the Worlds & Radio Macbeth
WAR OF THE WORLDS - The Radio Play
A staged dramatization of the original Orson Welles & Mercury Theater on The Air
Written by Howard Koch
Directed by Anne Bogart and Darron L West
Created and performed by Siti Company
4 performances only!
October 8th, 9th, 15th, 16th at 7PM
Approximate running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including one intermission.
See both shows on the same night and save on this special package!
Tickets for both shows: $50/$35 (students)
Tickets on sale August 3rd
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
New York Premiere
by Charles L. Mee
Directed by Anne Bogart
Created and performed by Siti Company
April 20-May 7, 2011 (Time to be announced)
Dance Theater Workshop, 219 West 19th Street, NYC
Tickets on sale March 7, 2011.
Set design by Neil Patel
Costume design by James Schuette
Light design by Brian H Scott
Sound design by Darron L West
With Akiko Aizawa, J.Ed Araiza, Leon Ingulsrud, Ellen Lauren, Tom Nelis, Barney O'Hanlon. Makela Spielman, Samuel Stricklen, Stephen Duff Webber
For more information, visit www.siti.org
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