In 1960s Mexico, young revolutionaries took up arms in a desperate attempt to change society. A few decades later, the children of those guerilleros retrace the struggles of their elders, revealing this shadowed chapter of Mexican history through the personal experiences of one woman, Margarita Urías. El Rumor del Incendio blends witness accounts, archive film, and scale models as the actors unearth the artifacts of recent history.
It’s 1999 in Buenos Aires. Mario, Laura, Pablo, and Vicky are in their mid-twenties and ready for careers, love, and adulthood. Over the next decade, Argentina’s economy will collapse and their lives will take a series of unexpected turns. In this fast-paced, multilayered “mega fiction,” director Mariano Pensotti deftly unfolds the lives of these 4 characters. El pasado es un animal grotesco is a funny and moving portrait that takes place atop a slowly spinning turntable stage.
An assemblage of film, performance and visual art, Newyorkland follows 4 police officers struggling with the demands of their chosen profession and the high costs of working within the fraternal and secretive society of the NYPD. Inspired by the gritty cop movies of the 1970s, popular TV police procedurals and real-life cop stories, the production is staged in one of Temporary Distortion’s signature box-like structures. This installation serves as a framework for both the ensemble’s uniquely restrained acting style and as a canvas for its intricate and gorgeous video.
The Method Gun explores the life and techniques of Stella Burden, the actor-training guru of the 60s and 70s and creator of "The Approach" (referred to as "the most dangerous acting technique in the world"), which fused Western acting methods with risk-based rituals to infuse even the smallest role with sex, death, and violence. Using found text from the journals and performance reports of Burden's company, The Method Gun reenacts the final months of her company's rehearsals for their nine-years-in-the-making production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Styled like an Eastern European punk concert, director Radosław Rychcik’s contemporary spin on In the Solitude of Cotton Fields features two actors in chic suits backed by a house band, The Natural Born Chillers. Based on the French play of the same name by Bernard-Marie Koltès, the action follows an illicit, unnamed deal expressed between men known only as The Dealer and The Client. Featuring a cast from the Stefan Zeromski Theatre of Kielce, Poland.
Iconic and not-so-iconic moments from the Revolutionary War come together in a dance-driven, rock musical by Dayna Hanson. Created with Dave Proscia and Peggy Piacenza, this work takes a layered, colorful and gritty look at the roots of America’s inequities. Doubling as a live band, the show’s multi-talented cast also includes Maggie Brown, Jim Kent, Wade Madsen, Paul Matthew Moore, Pol Rosenthal and Jessie Smith.
Known for its radical and reckless theatricality, avant-garde New York troupe Radiohole's newest work is a star-spangled American meta-melodrama inspired by film director Douglas Sirk's 1950s potboilers and Milton's epic Paradise Lost. Our heroine is an all-American "Eve" who must save her home from an evil-doer while struggling to find fulfillment in a lasting relationship with a supposedly good man who looks like god. Radiohole's newest synthesis of cultural flotsam is sure to be bawdy, silly, possibly transcendent, and a touch disturbed.
Humorous, fierce and poignant, Allen Johnson draws from his experience as a visual artist, poet, truck driver and boiler mechanic to create a solo performance exploring the recklessness and vulnerability needed for an intimate encounter with God, a lover, or oneself. Directed by Sean Ryan, Another You is a series of brutally honest, interwoven monologues exploring our primal need for intimacy.
Transition is an absurd yet addictive mix of stereophonic effects, live video, geometric movement and improvisation created by comedic musician Reggie Watts and playwright/director Tommy Smith. Watts’ many talents—standup comedian, former front man of rock band Maktub, R&B soul singer and experimental performer—have made him an audience favorite at venues and festivals around the world.
Named after a place that everyone knows but no one has been, Alaska is a sensual dance theater portrayal of memory. Choreographer Diana Szeinblum uses dark humor, extreme physicality, original music and a minimal set to create a beautiful spectacle that gravitates between uneasy stillness and violent frenzy.
