Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey
“Object Collection is NEW theater, NEW music theater that wipes clean the slate of existing theater, and begins again but with a mastery that is undeniable and convincing. It’s what those of us who had given up on theater as a serious advanced art form for our times can only welcome with relief and enthusiasm.” —Richard Foreman
by Object Collection
written by Richard Foreman
directed and adapted for the stage by Kara Feely
music composed by Travis Just
Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey is legendary experimental theater icon Richard Foreman’s first new play in 10 years, produced and performed by Brooklyn-based ensemble Object Collection. Beautiful Madeline Harvey has a problem: she is not certain whether she does or does not, in fact, exist. Handsome Roger Vincent waits for her at a boulevard café, where their eyes meet like an electric shock. A paper-thin love story within a paper-thin world, speeding towards inevitable catastrophe…or perhaps, a very serious twist.
Acclaimed for their invigorating blend of music and theater, Object Collection got their start 20 years ago in Foreman’s own Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey extends Richard Foreman’s legacy to a new generation of experimentalists.
Press Representative: John Wyszniewski, Everyman Agency
written by Richard Foreman
directed and adapted for the stage by Kara Feely
music composed by Travis Just
performers:
Maggie Hoffman – Madeline Harvey
Daniel Allen Nelson – Roger Vincent
Catrin Lloyd-Bollard – Rita
Avi Glickstein – Stephen
Richard Foreman – voice
Nicolas Noreña – Bertrand
Timothy Scott – René
Yuki Kawahisa – Louise
Alessandro Magania – Charles
musicians :
Chloe Roe – guitar, voice, synths,
Jack Lynch – bass, sampling, drum machines, synths
Travis Just – saxophones, clarinets, drum machines, synths
produced by Shannon Sindelar
scenic design by Peter Ksander
lighting by Kate McGee
costumes by Karen Boyer
sound by Robin Margolis
video by David Pym
production manager: Devon Wade Granmo
stage manager: Kate Purdum
sound technician: Erin Gray
Object Collection was founded in 2004 by writer/director Kara Feely and composer/musician TravisJust. The Brooklyn-based group operates within the intersecting practices of performance, music, and theater. They are concerned with simultaneity, complexity, and radicality, combining dense layers of text, notation, objects, and processes. They work to give audiences unconventional viewing experiences through a merging of theatricality and pedestrian activity. The company’s works upset habitual notions of time, pace, progression, and virtuosity, and value accumulation above cohesion.
Richard Foreman is the founder and artistic director of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (1968–present). Foreman has written, directed, and designed over fifty of his own plays both in New York City and abroad. Five of his works have received OBIE awards as best play of the year and Foreman earned several others for directing and “sustained achievement.” He has received the annual Literature award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the PEN Master American Dramatist Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Foreman’s plays have been co-produced by The New York Shakespeare Festival, La MaMa, The Wooster Group, the Festival d’Automne in Paris, and the Vienna Festival, among others. Over ten volumes of his plays have been published.