Oh man oh man…. Ice Factory this year looks like its gonna rock hard!!! from the press release:

SOHO THINK TANK’S OBIE AWARD WINNING ICE FACTORY ‘08 CELEBRATES 15 YEARS OF BLAZING THE TRAIL FOR NEW YORK’S SUMMER FESTIVAL SCENE WITH 7 NY PREMIERES

(June 23, 2008) New York, NY – Artistic Director Robert Lyons proudly

presents the 15th annual ICE FACTORY summer festival of new work. ICE

FACTORY ’08 opens July 9th, presenting seven New York premieres in seven

weeks, and wraps up August 23rd.

All performances are at the Ohio

Theatre – 66 Wooster Street (b/t Spring & Broome) in Soho. Performances

are Wednesdays–Saturdays at 7pm.

Tickets are $15 for adults

and $10 for students/seniors via SmartTix at 212-868-4444 or

http://www.SmartTix.com. Trains: R, W to Prince St. or 6, C, E to Spring

St.

For more information visit http://www.SohoThinkTank.org.

Performance Schedule and artist info after the jump. All I can say is Riot Group, Matt Maher, Maria Goyanes & Karinne Keithley, Neil Young, Oliver Butler and more….

ICE FACTORY ‘O8

15TH ANNIVERSARY PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

July 9 -12

Do Not Do This Ever Again

Written by Karinne Keithley and directed by Maria Goyanes

In a landscape of lost love and modern loneliness a company of strangers

map a tentative journey towards just letting go. A guided tour of the

memory palace. A theatrical/music composition, from simple counterpoint

voices to freestanding opera. Indoor environmental theatre in four

movements.

Developed in the 2006-2007 SoHo Rep Writer/Director Lab through a

two-year collaboration between prolific dance, video, sound, and

performance artist Karinne Keithley and director Maria Goyanes (Artistic

Associate, The Public Theatre).

July 16 – 19

TRACES/fades

Written and directed by Lenora Champagne

Music by Daniel Levi. Video by Lauren Petty and Shaun Irons. Production

design by Liz Prince.

Lost traditions. Memory gaps. Lessons forgotten. Action and images shift

in the mind of a woman with Alzheimer’s, flickering from past to

present, from her daughter’s home to the nursing home. Who are we when

we can’t remember? An intergenerational meditation on the fluid nature

of identity and our national inability to remember history. With

original music and video.

Lenora Champagne, a New Yorker by way of her native Louisiana, is a

playwright, director and performer. She is a three-time NEA Fellow, a

two-time NYFA Fellow, and a multiple MacDowell and Yaddo Fellow. She is

an alumna of New Dramatists and has received a Richard Rodgers Award

from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. TRACES/fades was

commissioned by NYSCA and developed at HERE Arts Center. This production

has support from LMCC, the Puffin Foundation and Purchase College.

July 23 – 26

Neil Young’s Greendale (a rock opera)

Written by Neil Young

Presented by Undermain Theatre (TX)

Adapted for the stage by the ensemble and directed by Katherine Owen

This song cycle, by legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young, has been

compared to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesberg

Ohio as a portrait of the changing face of small town America. Performed

with a live band and sung by an ensemble cast, Neil Young’s Greendale

explores the lives of three generations of the Green family through

themes ranging from corruption to mass media consolidation to

environmentalism. Voted one of the best albums of 2003 by Rolling Stone

Magazine.

Undermain Theatre, embarking on their 25th season, is an ensemble of

artists that performs new and experimental works in Texas, New York, and

Europe. They collaborate with playwrights; support a theater archive;

publish plays; and sustain a theater under Main Street in Dallas’

legendary Deep Ellum. “One of the best small theaters in America” – The

San Diego Union-Tribune.

July 30 – August 2

Heistman

Presented by El Gato Teatro

Written by Obie-Winner Matthew Maher and directed by Gabriella Barnstone

Featuring the inimitable Steven Rattazzi

Heistman is stuck—inside the bank he is robbing with his henchmen,

inside his own tortured head and inside the feeling he can never have

success or love. The cops have the joint surrounded and have no answers.

But the hostages do. Dog Day Afternoon meets The Unabomber Manifesto.

Dance/theater for visionaries, the weak at heart and the

pleasure-seekers alike.

Dances about neurotic people, or neurotic dances? El Gato Teatro brings

“everyman dance” to the world; fusing dance, theater, text, music and

sheer entertainment. Their work has been presented at The Chocolate

Factory, Williamsburg Art Nexus, Dixon Place, Collective Unconscious,

The Kitchen and the NYC subway.

August 6 – 9

red-haired Thomas

Written by Robert Lyons and directed by Oliver Butler

His daughter doesn’t need him. His wife might leave him. His newspaper

vender just might kill him. A gambler’s darkly comic, spiraling descent

into a paranoid mythology of power-point presentations and hostage

videos. Can Thomas Jefferson save the day? (With songs.)

Robert Lyons’ New York productions include Creature of the Deep, No Meat

No Irony, and PR Man, among many others. His last play was Doorman’s

Double Duty. “A gem” – New York Times. Oliver Butler is the co-Artistic

Director of The Debate Society, a Brooklyn-based play company. He

recently directed the downtown hit Hostage Song. “A thrilling

show…spine-tingling fun” – TimeOut NY/David Cote.

August 13 – 16

W.M.D. (just the low points)

Presented by Sponsored by Nobody

Created by the ensemble and directed by Kevin Doyle

A large-scale deconstruction of our culture’s preoccupations.

Incorporates elements of theatre, dance, film, music and installation

art. Structured around the events of a single date (January 8, 2004),

using found texts as a base to examine Americans’ relationship with

their media during wartime. A titanic attempt to rediscover the nation’s

soul.

SBN is the acclaimed Brooklyn-based theatre company committed to

developing new work that is immediately relevant to contemporary

America. Founded in 2005, SBN has established a reputation for

presenting abrasive theatre that refuses to relinquish the idea of art

as a catalyst for social change. W.M.D. will have its European Premiere

in March 2009 at The Game Is Up! Festival at the Vooruit Art Center in

Ghent, Belgium — followed by performances at the Monty Art Center in

Antwerp and the Beursschouwburg Art Center in Brussels.

August 20 – 23

Victory at the Dirt Place

Presented by Riot Group

Written & directed by Adriano Shaplin

Rival father/daughter news anchors compete for ratings in a head-to-head

prime-time showdown. Their vicious battle for supremacy becomes a

national drama as sex scandals, terrorism and dementia threaten their

careers. A wicked satire about heredity and corruption among media

royalty. Faithlessly adapted from King Lear this New York debut is fresh

off of heralded stops in Edinburgh and London.

“Slick…Ferocious…Mesmeric” – The Independent. “Twisted…Crude…Riveting” –

Evening Standard. “Smartly funny…terrific” – The Guardian.

Riot Group have performed Off-Broadway, off-West End and at numerous

international venues including Riverside Studios, Walker Arts Center and

Theatre Der Welt. The company are veterans of the Edinburgh Fringe

Festival where they previously received four Scotsman Fringe First

Awards.

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