Magic Time's Past Performances

Up next....

Jerry Lieblich's - unequivocal proof for the existence of a benevolent god 

Wednesday, April 18th

"Fresh out of high school, best friends Kevin and Amy face a world ripe with possibility – there's so much to explore outside the sheltered religious community they call home. But when Kevin is chosen to join the ranks of the priesthood, he and Amy begin to drift away from each other, from their parents, from life as it used to be. Vibrant and formally daring, Unequivocal Proof tells a kaleidoscopic tale about the angst and nostalgia of growing up too fast."

CAST:
Emma Barash
Sam Bolen
Marshall Pailet
Hugh Sinclair

PLAYWRIGHT BIO:
JERRY LIEBLICH's plays include Unequivocal Proof for the Existence of a Benevolent God, Cruelty to Animals, Consummation, Nerve Damage, andA Portrait of the Artist as a Middle Aged Woman. His plays have been staged and developed at Judson Memorial Church, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, 13th Street Repertory Company, Manhattan Repertory Theater, The Well Theater Group, and at festivals from Provincetown to Australia. Jerry is a 2011 graduate of Yale University, and has studied with Anne Washburn, Deb Margolin, Donald Margulies, and Robert Woodruff. He was a 2011 finalist for Aurora Theatre Company's Global Age Project, a 2012 semifinalist for the Trustus Theatre Playwrights' Festival, and the recipient of the Morse College Creative and Performing Arts Award. He is the 2011/2012 Literary Resident at Playwrights Horizons, and a member of The Extremely Famous Writer's Group and the Dramatists Guild. Jerry also has experience handling birds of prey, and has the scars on his arm to prove it.

DIRECTOR BIO:
Stefanie Abel Horowitz is a Brooklyn-based theater director. Favorite credits include The Lovers by Marisa Michelson and Josh Cohen, and Hello Again by Michael John LaChiusa. Recently she assistant directed for Kip Fagan on Jesse Eisenberg’s Asuncion at Rattlestick and for Niegel Smith on Lady Rizo: Ordained as part of New York Voices Commission at Joe’s Pub/The Public Theater. Currently, she is working as the Interim Individual Giving and Special Events Manager at New Dramatists. She was the recipient of the of the 2008 Emory Women’s Club Arts Scholarship and is a graduate of Emory University. 

Friday March 30, 2012

Special Notes

Please make an anticlockwise rotation at the door before entering church.
Light refreshment: Jerk/garlic toasted communion wafers and red wine.
Performance is in the nude. No filming or photographs allowed
More info: lawrencegrahambrown.com

Description

A performance variable/media production based on Afro, Caribbean, and Gay Folklore via the Ras-Pan-Afro-Homo-Sapien construct. Lawrence and company will venture into socially, sexually, physically and mentally defined sacred spaces and employ liturgical actions of: cleansing/confession, exhortation, mourning/lamentation and Gay, religious, love/sex feast.

Graham-Brown's work's ritual and cathartic power draws public attention to the existence of popularly held prejudices and acts as a palliative gesture to dispel the trauma and shame to which people of color and gay people are routinely subjected. -Dean Daderko Guest curator, Disconnecting, Reconnecting...Disconnected, Aljira A Center for Contemporary Arts, 2011

Costume design, Lighting design, Olfactory notes
and Sound design by Lawrence Graham-Brown.

The project will also be supported by a digital catalog and forty-five full color, hard copy limited edition catalogs which will include: Hand made dust coffin, DVD, original artwork and essays contributed by: Dr. David Boxer, Director Emeritus and Chief Curator, National Gallery of Jamaica; Keith Morrisson, Professor and former Dean, Tyler School of Art, Temple University and Edwin Ramoran, Independent Curator, NY. signed and numbered.

This performance/variable media art work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art.

Little Lord: Pocahontas in Progress

POCAHONTAS! Indian Princess! Belle Sauvage! Motherf'ing mother of our motherf'ing country! Little Lord corrupts over 400 years of fact and fiction in order to grant America the founding myth that we all deserve. This special Magic Time showing is the culmination of our very first workshop exploring the wealth of materials pertaining to her story, and offers a glimpse at the practices and processes that Little Lord uses in order to build our shows. After many more workshops to come in 2012, the final version of Little Lord's Pocahontas will premiere at the Bushwick Starr in March 2013.

Created and performed by Julia Arazi, Lance Bankerd, Sarah Bishop-Stone, Das Elkin, Jane Jung, Randi Kleiner, Michael Levinton, Wayne Petro, Franny Silverman, Sam Soghor & Laura von Holt.

Little Lord is a Brooklyn-based theater company that produces fun, irreverent, and intelligent theater, merging big-scale theatricality with small-sized resources. Focusing on offbeat adaptations of classic (or neglected) texts, Little Lord plunders the theatrical canon in order to forge new plays from old parts. Little Lord makes lively, extensively researched, unexpected theater that is accessible without being "easy." With every show, we aim to create an atmosphere of shared experience in which nostalgia, discovery, densely-layered cultural references, and a simultaneous delight in and irreverence towards text all combine to make a whole that is far more than the sum of its many parts. Originally formed in 2007 under the guidance of Target Margin Theater—a mainstay of the New York City experimental “downtown” community—Little Lord has since brought our signature homemade aesthetic to venues such as the Bushwick Starr, HERE Arts Center, the OHIO Theater, the Chocolate Factory Theater, Incubator Arts Project, and the Brick. Visit us on the web at www.littlelord.org, or find us on Facebook (Little Lord Theater), Twitter (littlelordnyc), and Tumblr (Iittlelordnyc).

Dirty Looks

ANGER/HANDELMAN
Wednesday, February 29th, 8:30 – 10:30 PM
$7 suggested donation
-Michelle Handelman, in attendance-

Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012

PROGRAM
Kenneth Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 16mm, 1954/66
Michelle Handelman, Dorian, a cinematic perfume, Video, 2012
Dirty Looks pairs a US video premiere by multimedia artist, Michelle Handelman with an occult masterwork from the magus of the American avant-garde - Kenneth Anger. With an emphasis on costume and color, these works respond to historical models of decadence and deviance to evoke hallucinatory scenes of voluptuous pleasure.

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome took its initial inspiration from the fabled “Come As Your Madness” party, featuring such luminaries as Anaïs Nin, artist and occultist Marjorie Cameron, and queer experimental and filmmaker Curtis Harrington. Anger invited these guests, in their party attire, to the home of famed Hollywood recluse Samson de Brier, who also features in Inauguration. Anger's hedonistic and hallucinatory film, which draws on the work of notorious occultist Aleister Crowley for its atmosphere of neo-pagan decadence is a “lavishly costumed magic masquerade party,” in the words of Alice Hutchinson. Inauguration builds to a delirious crescendo of editing and superimposition with an increasingly lurid color palette, as its revelers become high on a hallucinogenic brew and the celebration becomes more orgiastic.

In Dorian, a cinematic perfume, Michelle Handelman reinterprets The Picture of Dorian Gray, emphasizing the queer undertones and hedonism of the Wilde novel. Dorian features well-known personalities from the New York drag and burlesque scene, playing versions of themselves, blurring the line between performance and reality. Sequinette, a young gender-bending drag queen plays Dorian Gray. Dorian also features renowned drag performer and theremin player Armen Ra, media artist Quin Charity, video and performance artist K8 Hardy, and drag legend Flawless Sabrina. Dorian, with its excessive costumes, glitter, and color, both glamorizes and interrogates societal notions of narcissism, youth, beauty, and the cult of celebrity.

The event will also feature a complimentary publication featuring writings and original artwork.

Thom Fogarty will direct TEN TALL TALES ABOUT THE MEN I LOVE, based on the short story collection of the same name by Ronn Smith and adapted by Thom Fogarty, will be presented Friday, February 24th and Saturday, February 25th by Magic Time and Thom Fogarty. This ‘walkabout’ production, based on Ronn Smith’s short story collection and Thom Fogarty’s reimagining for the stage, is a series of 10 overlapping scenes for 10 characters in the time of AIDS dealing with love, loss and life. The cast of ten includes: Armand Anthony, Micah Bucey, Quincy Ellis, Ken Kidd, Christopher Michael McLamb, Aidan O’Shea, Adam Patterson, Carlton Tanis*, and Dustye Winniford*. Lighting design by Bill Stabile. Costume and Stage design is by Thom Fogarty

Ronn Smith is the author of Ten Tall Tales About the Men I Love: Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Three or Four Poems (from which "Ten Tall Tales About the Men I Love" was adapted by Thom Fogarty); Nothing But the Truth: A Play (based on the YA novel of the same title by Avi); Unquote Comma or REQ: A Play; and American Set Design: Interviews with Twelve Contemporary Set Designers. He is also a fundraising/development consultant, working with cultural, humanitarian, and educational nonprofits that are committed to creating positive social change. Ronn currently lives in Boston.

Director Thom Fogarty brings his particular sensibility to this thought provoking piece. His work, based in movement and told in an inherently theatrical style, has always dealt with the vastness of human conditions as told through the observance of small everyday gestures and their meanings. This shorthand movement vocabulary (consisting of traditional miming and gestures that are easily identifiable) allows the actors to be both profane and profound at the same time, constantly creating a duality ,is moved to tears.

*Indicates member of Actor’s Equity Association (AEA). 

THE WALL - Wednesday, February 15th

the wall

the wall is a science-fiction play that explores a projected future society, depleted of the earth’s resources; a society where a dominant community, living in the Vast Lands, live off of their oppressed neighbors by confining them within Honeycomb Reserves (walled-off communities) and using their energy to sustain their more luxurious lifestyle.

2)    About Noelle Ghoussaini

Noelle Ghoussaini is an American-Lebanese playwright, director and arts educator. She received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in Performance Studies and French and her MA in Arts Politics from NYU. She is dedicated to using arts to examine and re-imagine our society within a political, social and economic context.
 

3)    About the play

This play has been developed in collaboration with many exceptional individuals, in particular, with the actors who are currently performing in it. Throughout 2011, excerpts from the wall have been performed at La Mama Experimental Theatre and at 1242 pacific productions “The Long Hallway”.  The plan for 2012 is to do a full production in June.  

Director: Noelle Ghoussaini

Featuring: Rory Lipede, Joe Salgo, Clare Barron and Shelah Marie. 

Answers to our "5 Magic Questions":

1) What's the first play you ever saw and how old were you?

I have no idea. But I do remember always going to a small international theatre in Frankfurt, Germany (where I went to high school) with my theatre class and being so excited by the beautiful plays from all around the world that were put up in this small, 50 person café-like theatre.

2) Who was your favorite playwright at age 15? And now? If it's changed, why? 

I’ve never had a favorite playwright. I am usually most inspired by devised, ensemble-based creations. 

3) Where is your favorite venue in which you've performed and where is your favorite venue to see performance? 

I loved performing on a rooftop in Brooklyn a few years back – a modern version of La Boheme. I really enjoy checking out work at La Mama and the Public.

4)    In 10 words or less, what is your MAGIC TIME play trying to say?

What are the roots/effects of internal and external barriers?

5)    Why write plays?

To share stories that need to be heard. To explore our imaginative capacities through theatricality.

TRAINS AT THE AIRPORT - Wednesday, January 18th

Synopsis

You are walking down a long hallway… Your breath and stride are even, serene. There is a staircase at the end of the hallway. You walk down the staircase slowly, one step at a time. At the bottom of the staircase is a door, open one inch. Light floods in from the space on the other side of the door. You open the door…and start talking. Spewing from the vivid subconscious of performer/writer Aidan O’Shea and developed with director Samantha Shechtman, TRAINS AT THE AIRPORT offers intimate moments with extraordinary strangers, all portrayed by one actor, and all tightrope-walking the permeable line between finite fear and infinite possibility.

Bio
Aidan O'Shea grew up in the Pickle Family Circus in SF. Touring the country and the world mostly by bus, he eventually landed in New York six years ago, a student in the New School's MFA acting program.

During his time in school, Aidan developed a circus-based personal training method called Acrobodics. He's so happy Judson and Magic Time have provided this chance to show a work-in-progress. This piece is brand new, and it's ambitiously pointed towards winning a spot in the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe festival.

I's Twinkle: Purgatory - Wednesday, December 14th

About the Play

Presented in conjunction with Pipeline, Magic Time presents a reading of the second piece of Nate Weida's three part poem, I's Twinkle, Purgatory, which describes the patrons and events of a New York City bar from the eyes of its doorman whose vision blurs with memories of lost love.

Colored with songs, memories, thoughts, notes, tall tales, ghosts, illusions, and theatrical imaginings, Purgatory is a cautionary tale for creative types.
More information on the three part poem at www.istwinkle.com.

Nate Weida (writer): is a composer and writer living in Hell's Kitchen.

He has written 8 musicals, his last two were in the New York International Fringe Festival, one of which, The New Hopeville Comics, moved Off-Broadway at the Chernuchin Theatre in 2009.

He teaches musical theatre classes at PeriDance and has been the musical director for Atlantic Theater Company's last two Kids Shows. He currently plays in a bluegrass band called "Great Dog Almighty."

Saheem Ali (director): Directing credits: Marisol (Barnard College), The Wild Party (Columbia University), Romeo & Juliet (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), Spring Awakening (Northeastern University). Assistant Directing: Broadway- The Normal Heart (Golden), A Free Man of Color (LCT); Off- Broadway- Angels in America (Signature NYC); Other - Giant (Signature Arlington, VA); Romania, Kiss Me (Play Company), The Miser (American Repertory Theatre), The Ballroom (Theatre de la Jeune Lune), Wintertime (Guthrie). Awards- Shubert Fellow, New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellow, SDCF Gielgud Directing Fellow. MFA in Directing, Columbia University.

Featuring: Seth Andrew Bridges, Fernando Contreras, RJ Foster, Ben Holbrook, Daniel Johnsen, Ben Katz, Sydney Matthews, Kelsey Mills, Matt Palmer, Mike Piazza, Aaron Phillips, Andy Schneeflock, Arielle Siegel & Nicole Spiezio

Emil McGloin (guitar), John Bennett (mandolin), Sarah Goldfeather (Violin)

Chorus: Trevor Strader, Fred Rice, Jennifer Holcombe, Mary Beth Alexander

Nate Answers Our "5 Magic Questions"

1) What's the first play you ever saw and how old were you?

It’s a blur of mostly musicals when I was little. My family would go to the Ordway Theatre in Minnesota and see Garrison Keillor. I remember how he would tell long rambling stories. Beyond that, I’ll have to call my dad for this question…

He says I saw Annie there when I was 4. I also recall some Rodgers and Hammerstein -- Show Boat, Oklahoma, Carousel. I think the first straight play I saw was Born Yesterday with Ed Asner and Madeline Kahn on one of my first trips to New York when I was around 10.

2) Who was your favorite playwright at age 15? And now? If it's changed, why?

I had not been exposed to many straight plays at an early age and was mostly listening to musicals when I was 15. I was crazy about Leonard Bernstein then, particularly loving his MASS and Candide. I spent hours upon hours pacing in my room conducting Candide’s Overture and having my mind blown by the religious conflicts within MASS. Around that same age I joined a gospel choir and my tastes broadened drastically to include gospel and hip-hop.

Music has always been a guiding aspect of my plays but I feel like my education in playwrights is just beginning. So, as I start from scratch, I’m just beginning to grow fond of the classics. The Oresteia…wow! I recently wrote music for Fordham’s production of Brecht’s Life of Galileo…and then saw Pipeline’s production of Caucasion Chalk Circle. I’m guessing Brecht is old hat for modern playwrights but I’m just beginning to take in the basics of the standard repertoire.

3) Where is your favorite venue in which you've performed and where is your favorite venue to see performance?

It's hard not to love my hometown venues. I still enjoy going back and playing at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC. I also tend to imagine my high school stage where I wrote and performed my first musicals.

Otherwise, my favorite venues are the more malleable ones. I love walking into a space and being surprised by what’s there. I’ve enjoyed seeing La Mama transformed from show to show. But I also like spectacle, so I can’t help fantasizing when I’m at the Harvey Theatre at BAM. I love its history and aesthetic.

4) In 10 words or less, what is your MAGIC TIME play trying to say?

I’m so bad at coming up with 10 word descriptions.*

(*Can that count as my 10 words? No…?)

Hmm, this section of I’s Twinkle is about the many ways in which we try to hide from ourselves.

5) Why write plays?

To explore. To challenge others in positive ways. To give people what they can’t get in movies or television…or the internet. To provide something present that can literally stare you in the face. I write plays to work stuff out…in hopes that others can do the same with me, or through me. To make folks laugh and think.

Previous Magic Time Readings

UGLY: Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Please join us to hear a reading of Josh Beerman's UGLY that follows Fay, a social worker and single mother of an unruly teen, who is hired to write a history of the people involved in the murder of a Hasidic girl. As she finishes her report, unlikely revelations develop between parents and children and the lines between beauty and ugliness are blurred.

Free and open to the public.

Josh Beerman Answers Our "5 Magic Questions"

1) What's the first play you ever saw and how old were you?

I'm not sure what the first play I ever saw was. The first I remember in New York was a musical in my early teens. Something with roller skates and trains. It was bad.

2) Who was your favorite playwright at age 15?

Arthur Miller. I think.

And now? If it's changed, why?

I don't have one favorite now. I've been exposed to so many at this point and I've been influenced by so many people that now there is a whole list of people. I, of course, still love Miller, but also Chris Shinn, Jon Robin Baitz, David Mamet, Melissa James Gibson, Chekov, and Ibsen to name a few.

3) Where is your favorite venue in which you've performed and where is your favorite venue to see performance?

A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle is pretty great. It's a really amazing space. To have work up at Theatre Row is also awesome.

4) In 10 words or less, what is your MAGIC TIME play trying to say?

Ugly is a play about parenting, the sacrifices one must make to raise a child, and the beautiful and tragic results that can occur.

5) Why write plays?

I think if anything can get to the tootsie roll center of our culture and chew on it a while, a play can. Right now, people need to ask questions, and I've always felt like plays get to the truth in a way other mediums of entertainment don't.

About the Playwright

Josh Beerman is a playwright and director. His writing has been part of the FringeAct Festival of New Work at ACT Theater in Seattle, On the Table at Capitol Hill Arts Center,Theatre Schmeater’s Northwest Playwrights Competition, and in their season. In New York he has had work produced for The Collective, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and was part of the Samuel French Festival in 2010 and one of six winners in 2011. Josh has worked in casting and assistant directing for Seattle Repertory Theatre and Artist Services for Brooklyn Academy of Music. He has his MFA from the New School for Drama class of 2011 and will be a father in January 2012.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

MAGIC TIME proudly presented Matthew-Lee Erlbach'sTHE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE AMERICA AND ROCK THE SHIT OUT OF THIS BITCH - a real political campaign for U.S. Congress married to a rock concert, while having an affair with the American People.

After some late nights up at SPACE on Ryder Farm crying, cuddling, and coming to terms with our nation, writer Matthew-Lee Erlbach and composer Matt Citron began to crack the code of this piece—or really, this campaign.

"We are treading a fine line here with satire, music, and a real campaign for office, says Erlbach. "There’s a lot of American history in this as well—the renegades: prostitutes, slaves, native people, musicians, scientists, engineers, writers, abolitionists, protestors, unions. This context around who we are right now is lost in the din; understanding that context gives us agency in reclaiming everything from the economy to civil liberties."

Erlbach's future plans are "running this production/ running for office/ running Washington/ running a successful pickle truck with lots of different pickles."

MAGIC TIME Gallery from the Performance

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Matthew-Lee Erlbach answers our "5 Magic Questions"

1) What's the first play you ever saw and how old were you?

The Phantom Toll Booth. I was about six.

2) Who was your favorite playwright at age 15? And now? If it's changed, why?

At 15, it was Clifford Odets. Pinter is probably the biggest influence on my work now (with the exception of this piece). Odets was expressing something I needed articulated then: organized labor, family, struggle, that version of America. The reason for this change is probably just being more interested in how Pinter thinks as a storyteller, his aesthetic, how his stories think, what his characters say and do, the dark humor, the political conversation, and all the questions without answers. Or really, a lot of answers without questions. That's totally where we live right now and it's crazy. That’s a great place to start a story.

3) Where is your favorite venue in which you've performed and where is your favorite venue to see performance?

My favorite venue in which I’ve performed is the Adams theatre at Utah Shakespeare Festival. It’s an outdoor theatre that seats about 800. It’s pretty awesome. My favorite venue to see performances is Steppenwolf, back home in Chicago.

4) In 10 words or less, what is your MAGIC TIME play trying to say?

It's time.

5) Why write plays?

Get-rich-quick scheme.

Matthew-Lee Erlbach Credits:

Writer: HANDBOOK FOR AN AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY (Puffin Grant/Stephen Brackett, dir.); SEX OF THE BABY (Tisch/NYU; Juilliard Finalist/ David Chapman, dir.); HAPPY SUNSHINE KUNG FU FLOWER (Ars Nova/Zipper/ Darren Katz, dir.); Other: Huffington Post; WWE; Nickelodeon. Actor: ANOTHER EARTH (Sundance 2011); IMPORTANT THINGS WITH DEMETRI MARTIN (Comedy Central); Off-Bway/regional theatre stuffs. www.Matthew-Lee.com

The Inspiration for Magic Time

In the 1960s, New York City’s eager and growing population of playwrights found three new homes for their explosive work: Caffe Cino, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, and our very own Judson Poets’ Theater. The three major forces behind each of these establishments, Joe Cino, Ellen Stewart, and Al Carmines each had a unique vision that culminated in what we now call the Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement. Joe Cino's nightly exclamatory introduction to his shows has become our mantra: “It’s Magic Time!”

       Resources

             Learn more about the

             Off-Off Broadway Movement.

Playing Underground

Off-Off-Broadway Explosion

Caffe Cino: The Birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway

Return to the Caffe Cino

A Voice in the Village

The Ghastly One