Get With The Program
Just got this email from David Cote:
Dear friends & colleagues:
This Saturday from 7 to 7:40 or so, please join critic-dramaturge Helen Shaw, playwright-essayist Jeffrey Jones and me at PS 122 for the very casual inaugural event of THE PROGRAM. What is it? An excuse for lovers of complex, extraordinary theater to get together before the show, have some wine, and learn a little about what they’re going to see. It’s also a chance for audience members who might not be familiar with the artist or his/her aesthetic context to get up to speed and have a few signposts for the work.
It inclusive, informative and fun. And there’s wine. And clever people talking.
Details and more info below:
WHAT: The Program for Jay Scheib’s Untitled Mars (This Title May Change)
WHERE: PS 122, 150 First Avenue between 9th & 10th Streets, 2nd floor
WHEN: 7pm to around 7:45
If you haven’t seen the show, see the show.
If you have seen it, come to THE PROGRAM and learn something or contribute your thoughts. I look forward to seeing you there. More such events will follow (Vineyard Theatre for God’s Ear and other shows…)
THE PROGRAM is David Cote, Helen Shaw and Jeffrey Jones— two reviewers and a playwright-cultural critic—who want the widest possible audience to feel welcome at the widest range of dramatically ambitious work. Armed with pre-show discussions and supplementary dramaturgical materials, THE PROGRAM roams from theater to theater, providing context to audiences at selected experimental productions. In the fine arts, museum-goers feel welcome at even the most abstract, difficult shows: docents, catalogues and wall text reach out to new viewers. But in the theater, we get tossed in front of the avant garde with little preparation. So, in the interest of deepening the conversation between audiences and those pieces pushing formal boundaries, THE PROGRAM offers a casual opportunity for enrichment and investigation and conversation—and maybe a glass of wine. For UNTITLED MARS, we’ll be talking to director Jay Scheib about his fascination with technology, his influences (many of them cinematic) and how his unusually collaborative process turns into the highly choreographed works that are his specialty. Join us!
To see the article that spurred THE PROGRAM into being, go to: