Artists and Admirers on Ellen Stewart’s Legacy
Posted January 23, 2011 at 11:44 am
Downtown’s Pioneering Stage Mama
by Jason Zinoman, New York Times
ELLEN STEWART, who died on Jan. 13, was in her early 40s when she founded La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in 1962. At an age when some people settle into complacency, she built one of New York’s most influential cultural institutions. Half a century and more than 3,000 productions later, she leaves behind a legacy that includes pioneering the Off Off Broadway movement, importing international theater work before it was popular, and providing a home in the East Village for experimentation. While an era has ended, her theater and its vast population of artists and admirers carry on. A few of them were asked by Jason Zinoman to recall the woman known as Mama. Here are excerpts from their responses. READ MORE >>
NY Times calls WALK “inspired and inspiring”
Posted January 21, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Charles Isherwood of The New York Times weighs in on The Walk Across America For Mother Earth:
“… An inspired and inspiring new play by the downtown writer and performer Taylor Mac.
Mr. Mac, who generally appears with his face painted like a Pucci print, in outlandish garb that might have caused jaws to drop in a 1980s nightclub, has written big plays … and small plays … A singer-songwriter as well as an actor and director, he has established a devoted cult following among what’s left of the East Village glitterati. But with this new play, a sweet and satiric meditation on the beautiful folly of idealism, he establishes himself as a writer and artist of serious consequence.
… At its deepest level “The Walk Across America for Mother Earth” celebrates the people who search for meaning in life by striving for social change, even if their motives are mixed and success remains stubbornly elusive. As Mr. Mac himself observes in this smart, funny and ultimately quite moving play, for idealists — and for artists — failure and success can look an awful lot alike.”
Read the full review after the jump.
Ellen Stewart by Michael Feingold
Posted January 20, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Ellen Stewart (1919 – 2011)
Remembering the woman who helped invent downtown theater
By Michael Feingold, Village Voice
I never called her anything but “Mama.” I remember being startled the first time I actually heard someone address her as “Ellen.” Strangers, to be courteous, might say, “Ms. Stewart,” but if they lingered a few hours, they were soon calling her “Mama” like everybody else. Their courtesy came naturally: Ellen Stewart—our Mama, the creator and the lifeblood of La MaMa E.T.C.—was courteous to all visitors. She called intimates, myself occasionally included, “honey” or “baby,” but most often, during my 40 years of visits to her theater, I called her “Mama” and she called me “Mr. Feingold”—four gently enunciated syllables, nestled in a soft Cajun accent. READ MORE >>
A Standing Ovation for Ellen Stewart by Shay Gines
Posted at 2:39 pm
A Standing Ovation for Ellen Stewart
by Shay Gines
1/18/2011
“We can all start loving each other any time we want.”
- Ellen Stewart
Ellen Stewart passed away on January 13, 2011. Her memorial service was held at the St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Monday, January 17. It is a wondrous location that inspires reverence, and much like the lady herself, is theatrical, grand, and demands respect. The opulent hall was filled with friends, family and many of the artists whose lives Ellen had touched. “there is a full house here today,” said La MaMa Board President, Frank Carucci, “which would have made Ellen very happy.” READ MORE >>
Broadway to Dim Its Lights, Jan 19 in Honor of Ellen Stewart
Posted January 19, 2011 at 12:10 pm
The marquees of the Broadway theatres will be dimmed Jan. 19 at 8 PM for one minute to pay tribute to Ellen Stewart and Romulus Linney. READ MORE >>
Letter from Ginny Louloudes
Posted at 12:02 pm
January 14, 2011
Dear A.R.T./New York Members,
I want to thank the wonderful Bernard Gersten for suggesting that the theatre community, particularly the Off and Off Off Broadway theatres that are performing tonight, dim the lights in memory of our beloved Ellen Stewart, who passed away yesterday after a long illness. READ MORE >>
Tag Team
June 20, 2011 at 8:00pm
Live Mag! in conjunction with Princeton University Press presents TAG TEAM, an exquisite evening of literary throw-downs and arial spins where the poets go to the mat for you. Hosted by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright featuring David Shapiro, with Kristin Prevallet, Joanna Fuhrman, Anthony Carelli and David Henderson.
Tickets $10
Jeff Wright
Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is the author of 11 books of verse including Employment of the Apes, All in All, Drowning Light and Walking on Words. His poetry has also been in numerous magazines and several anthologies. His artwork has been in a dozen group shows and one solo show. He can be found reading, singing and wise-cracking on Youtube. Critical work appears monthly in the Brooklyn Rail.
http://livemagnyc.com
Joanna Fuhrman
Joanna Fuhrman is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Pageant (Alice James Books 2009) and Moraine (Hanging Loose Press 2006.) She is the poetry editor for Boog City and teaches creative writing at Rutgers University and in public schools. A new chapbook, The Emotive Function, is forthcoming from Least Weasel Press.
Anthony Carelli
Anthony Carelli was raised in Poynette, Wisconsin, and studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before completing an MFA in poetry at New York University. His poems have appeared in various magazines, including the New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Carnations is his first book.
Davie Henderson
C. Meilicke
Books of poetry include: De Mayor of Harlem; The Low East; Neo-California.
Recent publications in White Rabbit Magazine and Phat’tude.
Ariana Reines
Ariana Reines is the author ot The Cow (Alberta Prize, Fence: 2006), Coeur de Lion (Mal-O-Mar: 2007; Fence: 2011), Mercury (forthcoming Fence: 2011), and the play TELEPHONE, commissioned and produced by The Foundry Theatre in 2009, with two Obies. Volumes of translation include The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal by Jean-Luc Hennig, and Preliminary Notes Toward a Theory of the YoungGirl by TIQQUN, both for Semiotext(e), and My Heart Laid Bare by Charles Baudelaire, for Mal-O-Mar. She was Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in Poetry at UC Berkeley in 2009. Her theatre and poems have been featured in the Works+Process series at the Guggenheim Museum and in many anthologies, exhibition catalogs, and periodicals. She’s got a weird blog called YES at http://arianareines.tumblr.com
Bakar Wilson
Bakar Wilson is a fellow of Cave Canem, the prestigious organization nourishing vital new voices in African-American poetry. He has performed his work at the Bowery Poetry Club, Poetry Project, The Studio Museum of Harlem, and The Asian-American Writer’s Workshop among others. His poetry has appeared in several journals, including: The Vanderbilt Review, Stretching Panties, and The Brooklyn Rail. A native of Tennessee, Bakar lives in New York City and is an Adjunct Lecturer of English at Medgar Evers College and Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Kristin Prevallet
Kristin Prevallet is the author of four books of poetry, including I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and a PEN translation fund award. She teaches Trance Poetics (an ongoing writing and somatic process workshop) and combines integrative methods of hypnosis, energy psychology, and life coaching in her work with clients at her office in Manhattan. Recent poetry and essays are forthcoming in Fourth Genre, Spoon River Review, and the anthology “I’ ll Drown My Book”: Conceptual Writing by Women. Go to www.drunkenboat.com for more information on the call for work on the forthcoming Hypnopoeia folio. www.kayvallet.com
“Ellen Stewart, Off Off Broadway Pioneer, Dies at 91″ – NYT
Posted January 13, 2011 at 3:08 pm
After a long illness, our founder, Ellen Stewart, died early this morning. The New York Times has posted an Arts Beat item, and also published a full obituary.
Next Magazine: Taylor Mac
Posted January 11, 2011 at 11:35 am
Mac Daddy
by Dan Avery, Next Magazine
Stepping into photographer Karl Giant’s Murray Hill studio, I’m confronted with a labyrinth of pop-culture clutter—a Millennium Falcon, a Bionic Woman action figure, a copy of Joey Arias’ The Art of Conversation. In the background I hear a woman with a clipped British accent on the stereo. (It’s Ilyana Kadushin, narrating Dawn French’s autobiography, Dear Fatty.) In fact the only thing I can’t find is Taylor Mac, the man I’m here to interview about his new show, The Walk Across America for Mother Earth. READ MORE >>
AFTERSHOCK
By FAVILEK
January 12, 2011 at 7:00pm
Maricia Jean / Haitian Activist / Co-Founder of FAVILEK
Fanm Viktim Leve Kanpe / Women Victims Get Up, Stand Up
01.12.2011 / Artalk / 7pm
A performance and panel discussion to honor and remember Hatian women and girls on the anniversary of the earthquake.
Moderated by
Jayne E. Fleming Human Rights Lawyer / Catherine Filloux Playwright
FAVILEK was founded in the mid nineties by women who were victims of politically motivated sexual assault. One of their greatest achievements was the successful prosecution of a Haitian paramilitary leader within U.S. court system with the assistance of the Bureau of Advocates International, The Center for Justice and Accountability and The Center for Constitutional Rights. The case won the women of Haiti redress against their assailants by way of psychological counseling, support groups for their members as well as support for their award winning theater group. To this day, the women of Haiti’s FAVILEK continue to fight for economic and social justice within the impoverished and post quake environment of Port-au-Prince.
Culturehub
47 Great Jones St. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10012
For more info / Email: Info@culturehub.org or Call: 415.659.4779
$5-$20 suggested donation to help support the work of FAVILEK
www.culturehub.org
www.facebook.com/culturehub
www.twitter.com/culturehubnyc
New York Times Review: Being Harold Pinter
Posted January 7, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Political Theater, Brought to You by the Politically Powerless
by Ben Brantley, New York Times
A playwright’s legacy throbs with anguished, enduring life in “Being Harold Pinter,” a work of harrowing intensity and commitment from the Belarus Free Theater at La MaMa, part of the Under the Radar Festival of experimental theater that began this week. Tracing the relationship between power and violence in the works of Pinter, who died in 2008, this production out of Eastern Europe is both dismaying and extraordinarily heartening. READ MORE >>
New York Times: Five Questions About “Gob Squad’s Kitchen”
Posted at 12:09 pm
Under the Radar: Five Questions About “Gob Squad’s Kitchen”
by Erik Piepenburg, New York Times
Under the Radar, the Public Theater’s annual festival of out-there performance from around the world, begins Wednesday for a 12-day run. (At $15 a ticket, it’s one of the best theater deals in town.) Over the course of the festival Erik Piepenburg will spotlight a few of the theater companies bringing their shows, many for the first time, to New York. READ MORE >>
New York Times: Belarus Free Theater
Posted January 6, 2011 at 12:23 am
Escaped from Belarus, Actors Raises Voices
by Larry Rohter, New York Times
For most performers invited to this year’s Under the Radar festival of international alternative theater, which begins Wednesday, getting to New York is simply a matter of boarding a plane. But for the Belarus Free Theater, a politically engaged troupe used to living and working on the edge in an authoritarian state, the long trip from Minsk was a little more complicated. READ MORE >>
New York Post: Under the Radar Festival
Posted at 12:18 am
All the World’s On Stage
by Frank Scheck, New York Post
The problem with being a cutting-edge theater festival is that it gets harder and harder to keep things sharp.
That’s the challenge faced by Under the Radar, presented each year by the Public Theater. This year’s edition, the seventh — beginning tonight and running through Jan. 16 — features 19 new shows from the United States and 10 other countries, including Chile, Italy, Belgium and Mali. READ MORE >>
New York Times Article: Being Harold Pinter
Posted at 12:14 am
Theater Group In Belarus Is Forced Underground
By Larry Rohter, New York Times
The Belarus Free Theater, one of the revelations of the 2008 Under the Radar alternative-theater festival, is scheduled to return for the 2011 edition of the event, which begins early next month. But a real-life drama has suddenly intruded: both founders of the troupe are now in hiding, and another member is in jail, as the result of a government crackdown on protests against a presidential election that human rights groups have described as rigged. READ MORE >>
Mixed Messages: A(I)DS, Art + Words
June 2 – July 3, 2011
Mixed Messages features over forty text-based works reflecting reactions to and connections through HIV/AIDS across generations.
A mix of painting, print, sculpture, installation, and new media, the works will fully inhabit La Galleria: from doormats to door-hangers…hand-written graffiti on the bathroom walls to hand-cut vinyl text on the ceiling and ducts…and even the front desk computer’s screensaver.onal revelations and public declarations, the messages displayed are at times poignant and pointed, complemented by formal contrasts in scale and texture, from a post-card sized canvas to an 8-feet-wide banner and from neon to glitter and hand-poured glass to thickly molded porcelain.
Among the artists featured, Mixed Messages honors a mix of HIV-positive artists both living and lost and is dedicated to the memory of Lou Laurita, curatorial advisor of La MaMa La Galleria and friend of Visual AIDS.
A full-color catalog with essays by curator John Chaich and poet Justin Chin is available at the gallery, along with a limited edition tote bag designed by artists Chloe Dzubilo and T De Long.
A series of related public programs are open to the public:
Mixed Messengers Talk, Sunday June 12. 4:00 – 6:00PM. Free.
A panel discussion among the creatives behind recent HIV prevention campaigns. Moderated by Kenyon Farrow, co-editor, Letters from Young Activists, and featuring: Stephen Karpiak, PhD, of ACRIA’s HIV & aging outreach; Ivan Monforte of GMHC’s First Ladies Care & featured Mixed Messages artist; Kevin O’Malley of NYC’s GayMeth.org and Stop AIDS San Francisco’s What Makes You Strong?; and Chuck Pollard of L’Oreal’s Hairdressers Against AIDS.
Ask Me: Mixed Messages, Wednesday June 29. 7:00 – 10:00PM.
$10 suggested donation benefiting Visual AIDS.
A night of storytelling inspired by the exhibition, co-hosted by Cammi Climaco and David Crab, featuring Dan Fishback and more. askmestories.com.
Gallery Hours are Thursday through Sunday 1:00 – 6:00 PM.
The exhibition and events are open to the public and wheelchair accessible. Gallery Telephone: 212- 505-2476.
Tours can be arranged by calling Visual AIDS at 212-627-9855
Camp Wanatachi
By Natalie Elizabeth Weiss
January 21 – February 6, 2011
CAMP WANATACHI: A New Musical About Sex, God, and Summer Camp
NO LATE SEATING
PLEASE NOTE: Thursday – Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 2:30pm.
Additional performances: Wednesdays, Jan 26 & Feb 2 at 7:30pm & Saturdays, Jan 29 & Feb 5 at 2:30pm
Produced by Ian Pai (co-founder of Blue Man Group, music director of Fischerspooner), Bridget Regan (star of Disney-ABC’s Legend of the Seeker) and Lydia Cheuk, Camp Wanatachi follows the story of 13 year-old Jana—an impetuous, pubescent, born-again Christian. This summer, Jana’s world is turned upside down when her friendship with Titi O’Malley—a promiscuous, bulimic beauty— challenges her faith and forces her to wrestle with desires she’d rather leave under the covers. Under an idyllic sky and fueled by roasted marshmallows, a cast of eccentric campers and counselors struggle to understand what love truly means.
Written and composed by Natalie Elizabeth Weiss (of Unicornicopia), and featuring electronic music by glitch-hop pioneer Travis Stewart, aka Machinedrum, CAMP WANATACHI packs an unexpected punch, providing a score never-before-heard in musical theater. With a shockingly funny book co-written by Weiss and Bekah Brunstetter (OORAH!, Atlantic Theater Company), CAMP WANATACHI is side-splittingly sincere.
Directed by Matt Cowart (Sondheim: the birthday concert with the New York Philharmonic), this new musical “defies all expectations of both coming-of-age tails and musicals. The result is refreshing and uplifting.” (TimeOut New York).
Camp Wanatachi, photos by Frank Traynor
Clown Polloi
By Kendall Cornell and Clowns Ex Machina
January 23, 2011 at 5:30pm
Kendall Cornell and Clowns Ex Machina stir the pot and pick out the best bits of shows past and shows future for this eclectic evening of clowning, music and dance. Featuring the sensuous song stylings of Shirley U. Geste and the delicious tango of Valeria Solomonoff, as well as the notorious P.S. de le Resistance, herself. Come as you are – and leave any way you want to be.
A Mind The Art Anthology Vol II
By Mind The Art Entertainment
January 21 – January 30, 2011
Mind The Art Entertainment proudly returns to La MaMa E.T.C. to explore two brand new works created to question your own sense of purpose and reality.
A Woman In Progress
January 21 & 22, 2011
10:00pm
By Keelie Sheridan
Directed by Alessio Cappelletti
Montage by Luis Cordero
A Woman in Progress explores the themes of distorted beauty, the thin and often invisible line between self-improvement and self-mutilation, and the role that the mother-daughter relationship plays in a girl’s development of her sense of self-image. This one-woman piece follows a woman named Helen through three stages of her “progress.”
Story Time with Mr. Buttermen
(the disturbed man who lives in your park)
Fables for Adults Living in a Modern World
January 28, 29 & 30, 2011
Friday & Saturday at 10:00pm, Sunday at 5:30pm
By Mind The Art Entertainment’s Poetry Division|
Conceived & Directed by Christian De Gré
Join the class of the beloved Mr. Buttermen (a wonderfully disturbed man who lives in Central Park) as he leads us on a journey of learning. His fables teach us the importance of being a moral adult in the modern world with classic stories such as The Girl Who Cried Rape, Pig-Mail-Man, and The Tortoise and the Hair of the Dog. Come see these original beloved tales as they are told through the magic of music, poetry, theater, commedia, clowning, and performance art. Don’t miss the opportunity to once again giggle like a school child. (Please note: peeing your pants in the auditorium is frowned upon.)
The Walk Across America For Mother Earth
By Talking Band
January 15 – January 30, 2010
A waiting list will be available at the Ellen Stewart Theatre box office starting one hour before curtain for sold-out performances. Payment is cash only.
“… An inspired and inspiring new play by the downtown writer and performer Taylor Mac.
Mr. Mac, who generally appears with his face painted like a Pucci print, in outlandish garb that might have caused jaws to drop in a 1980s nightclub, has written big plays … and small plays … A singer-songwriter as well as an actor and director, he has established a devoted cult following among what’s left of the East Village glitterati. But with this new play, a sweet and satiric meditation on the beautiful folly of idealism, he establishes himself as a writer and artist of serious consequence.
… At its deepest level “The Walk Across America for Mother Earth” celebrates the people who search for meaning in life by striving for social change, even if their motives are mixed and success remains stubbornly elusive. As Mr. Mac himself observes in this smart, funny and ultimately quite moving play, for idealists — and for artists — failure and success can look an awful lot alike.” – Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
About WALK
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, ageing 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.
PLEASE NOTE – IRREGULAR PERFORMANCE TIMES:
Saturday at 2:30 pm 1/15 and 1/22
Sunday at 5:00 pm 1/23 and 1/30
Wednesday at 7:30 pm 1/19 and 1/26