Nick Benacerraf, Jess Chayes, Stephen Aubrey, and Edward Bauer of The Assembly’s “HOME/SICK”

HOME/SICK by The Assembly at The Living TheatreFor this 50th podcast of Go See a Show!, I present to you an episode recorded half a year ago, but that might be one of the most interesting interviews I’ve done.

As part of last summer’s Underground Zero Festival, The Assembly presented HOME/SICK, a brilliant, personal, beautiful, and exhaustively researched show dramatizing events in the history of the Weather Underground.

Though I knew when I recorded it that I wouldn’t be able to get this interview up before their show closed, my apologies to the good people at The Assembly for taking half a year to post this.

But it seems it was somewhat serendipitously timed, as the show was one of the last to occupy The Living Theatre’s space on Clinton Street, which was recently shuttered. Reports of the demise of The Living Theatre as a company have thankfully been greatly exaggerated (guilty as charged; see the GSAS! Facebook page for my mini-obit on the company), but whatever the current state and future of the company, here’s wishing all best to Judith, Brad, and everyone at The Living Theatre for this next chapter of the company’s long and amazing history.

Listen in as director Jess Chayes, dramaturg Stephen Aubrey, designer Nick Benacerraf, and actor Edward Bauer, all core members & artistic directors of The Assembly, discuss complicated empathy, theatre as a political act, and why the company looked to a radical political movement from over 40 years ago to create a play in the relatively peaceful U.S. of 2012.

“I don’t trust a mission statement that you can achieve on the first try.” Continue reading

Alec Duffy, director of Hoi Polloi’s production of “Baal”

Hoi Polloi's "Baal"Those of you who know me, the producer of Go See a Show!, know that I love me some Bertolt Brecht. So when I saw there was a chance to see his first play, Baal, presented by Hoi Polloi as part of the Underground Zero Festival, it was the first show I secured tickets for.

I was not disappointed. And you won’t be either — sadly, as I’m posting this there are just two more chances to catch this one, but catch it you should.

Listen in as I chat with the show’s director Alec Duffy about the fire of Baal, making immersive theatre in a former DJ bar-lounge dance-club, erasing the border between the street & the stage, and what’s next for his new Brooklyn performance space, JACK.

Hoi Polloi presents

Baal
by Bertolt Brecht
directed by Alec Duffy

part of the Underground Zero Festival

JACK
505 1/2 Waverly Ave, b/w Fulton & Atlantic
Brooklyn

July 12 – August 5 @ 8PM

Rachel Murdy & Lucille Duncan of “Little West Twelfth Night”

Little West Twelfth Night

Walking the streets of New York City, it seems there’s a performance at every corner — planned or not. But what if you could actually follow a “staged” performance around the streets of NYC?

Wonder not, and go see Little West Twelfth Night, presented by the folks behind Conni’s Avant-Garde Restaurant in the Underground Zero Festival.

Rachel Murdy (“Frankie”) & Lucille Duncan (“Maria”), and later Dave Bennett (“Orsino”), meet me at The Brass Monkey (which figures into the show, along with the Highline, the Standard Hotel, the Gansevoort Market, a creepy van, and more) to give some insight into the first non-“avant-garde restaurant” performance from the company — a historical walking-tour of the Meatpacking District, with a healthy dash of Shakespeare.

Listen in as Rachel, Lucille, Dave & I talk impossible love affairs, chance lighting design in an outdoor walking-tour show, getting towed & questioned by the police for the sake of your show, random allusions to Law & Order: SVU are made, and Lucille & Rachel give you mixing instructions for a brass monkey, “the poor man’s mimosa.”

Conni’s Avant-Garde Restaurant & the Underground Zero Festival present
Little West Twelfth Night

based on William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
conceived by Rachel Murdy
written by Peter Lettre
directed by Cynthia Croot

remaining performances:
July 23 & July 29 at 8PM
July 30 at 7AM (yep — AM! sunrise special!)

tickets available via OvationTix