WatsonArts
ORIGINAL THEATER WITH A PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON WOMEN
soon to Calgary and
LUZ Community Outreach Project
Sunday, February 5, 2012
2PM-4PM
for
LUZby Catherine Filloux
An Excerpted Reading at
Still Waters in a Storm
To be read by members of the Still Waters in a Storm Community
Discussion and Writing Project to followThe Room, 286 Stanhope St., Ground Floor, between Irving and Wyckoff, Bushwick, Brooklyn
http://www.stillwatersinastorm.org/hours-and-location/This event is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. In Kings County the Decentralization Program is administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC)
Luz, Helene and Zia, survivors of rape and torture from Guatemala, Haiti, and Sudan, seek asylum in US Immigration courts. Alexandra is their lawyer. She works for a corporate law firm, which represents corporations responsible for wreaking the environmental destruction and economic privation that underlie appalling violence perpetrated against her clients. A PR executive for one such corporation, Oliver, derides the hypocrisy of those who romanticize a world without oil, but cannot escape his son’s condemnation. From the garbage dump in Guatemala City, to the tent cities in Haiti, to the toxic ponds where birds expire, all search for hope in the unlikeliest, in-between places.
LUZ
BY CATHERINE FILLOUX
DIRECTED BY JOSE ZAYAS
World Premiere
La MaMa
Fall 2012
CATHERINE FILLOUX...about Playwriting: The Personal and the Political
“To embrace hope is a challenge, of course, in a world plagued by violence and pain. However, that is what theater is for me: a valuable art form that can help make political, living change and can build community. Theater can allow audiences to become witnesses, and through this communal act of witnessing, there can be re-imagination and even revolution.”
JOSE ZAYAS...about LUZ:
"Catherine Filloux's LUZ is a necessary play. It is a play that takes a hard look at gender based violence on a global scale and makes shocking connections between corporate and human rights law practices. It's an intelligent, passionate and fiercely political play that never loses its narrative drive and refuses to polemicize or victimize any of its characters. As a director I am fascinated by the challenges presented by Catherine's text- it is a large scale work, panoramic in its view of its subject and people, poetic and surreal, tender and violent and ultimately clear eyed but hopeful. The technical challenges are a gift to a director and I am excited to work with Catherine on shaping the production and finding exciting and innovative solutions to telling this story. We plan on using a variety of devices- from puppets to video and live music to immerse the audience in a world where the rules of narrative and logic keep shifting subtly. Over the past couple of years I have been working on a series of theatrical adaptations of novels- 'The House of the Spirits' by Isabel Allende and 'In the Time of the Butterflies' by Julia Alvarez- where the epic meets the personal and LUZ feels like a natural extension of this work. I believe in what this play has to say, I think it is important but I also think that it’s deeply humorous and entertaining- Catherine’s triumph is in crafting poetry out of horror and finding ways to show us something that we think we know about in a new light."
-------------------------Dog and Wolf
Community Outreach Calendar
November 5, 2010 @6:30 p.m.
St. Rita’s Refugee Center
2342 Andrews Ave # 1
Bronx, NY 10468November 9, 2010, 11AM - 1PM
47 Great Jones St., NY, NY 10012
Video conferencing technology will be used to link audiences in Bosnia and NYC.
The reading will be followed by discussion.
November 12, 2010 @ 1:30 or 2:00 p.m.
Independent Care System New York
25 Elm Place, 5th FloorBrooklyn, NY 11201
(between Livingston Street and Fulton Mall)
November 14, 2010 @ 2:00 p.m.
YM & YWHA of Washington Heights and Inwood
54 Nagle Avenue
New York, NY 10040November 18, 2010 @ 2:00 p.m.
Isabella Geriatric Center
515 Audubon Avenue
New York, NY 10040December 1, 2010 @ 6:00 p.m.
Anne Frank Center
38 Crosby Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10013
Coming Soon to a Fringe Festival Near You!
Susan J
eremy in BRAZIL NUTS
Susan Jeremy plays all the parts, including cats, dogs, birds, and a vacuum cleaner in her newest tour de force, Brazil Nuts, a hilarious tale of love, marriage and soccer. Fearing deportation from the USA, Fabiana, a Brazilian lesbian and soccer fanatic, marries Ron, a cowboy stripping wanna be porn publisher. Jackie, her girlfriend, activist and dog-walker for the rain forest, goes along with it, but before you can say, “Go-oo-ooo-aa-aaa-lll!!!!” all three are drop kicked into the Bermuda Triangle of U.S. Immigration.
“Great ideas, great writing and intensely personal characters... A stand-out of the 2009 theatre season.” -- The Montreal Mirror
“Hilarious! …Moments of absurd joy!” –Toronto Eye
“Jeremy is a gifted comedian. She packs a lot of story, a barrage of laugh lines,
and a lineup of wacky characters into her shows. Brazil Nuts is no exception” -- The Gazette (Montreal)
DOG AND WOLF BY CATHERINE FILLOUX
When Jasmina, a political refugee seeking asylum in the U.S., suddenly disappears, her wheelchair-bound lawyer Joseph must track her down. Who is the dog? Who is the wolf? A psychological and political play of intrigue, identity and pursuit.
Starring NADIA BOWERS* JOHN DAGGETT* DALE SOULES*
An Equity Approved Showcase
Scenic/Video Design:ANNA KIRALY, Lighting Design: MICHAEL CHYBOWSKI, Costume Design: ALIXANDRA GAGE ENGLUND, Sound Design: ROBERT MURPHY, Property Design: SAM HORWITH, Production Stage Manager: JES LEVINE* Producer: MARY FULHAM, Production Assistant: AMY KESLER, Assistant Director: YONI OPPENHEIM, Technical Director: DANIEL JAGENDORF, Video Programmer: DAVID TIROSH, Catherine Weingarten (ASM), Marybeth McLaughlin (Assistant to the Playwright), and Alex Toigo (Assistant to the Director).
*Members of Actors' Equity Association
FEBRUARY 5 – FEBRUARY 21 2010
59E59 Theaters, Theater C
(Between Madison & Park Ave.)
SUBWAY: N/R/W to 5th Avenue (exit @ 60th St.)
4/5/6 or N/R/W to Lexington Ave/59th St.
TICKETS: (212) 279-4200
Dog and Wolf @ 59E59 in February 2010 |
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WATSON ARTS presents PANELS AND EVENTS
available for audiences following performances of
Dog and Wolf by Catherine Filloux
Directed by Jean Randich
Sunday, February 7
Post-matinee performance panel including: Cynthia Cohen, director of the Brandeis Coexistence program; Richard H. Weisberg, Floersheimer Prof. of Constitutional Law, Cardozo Law School and author of Poethics and Other Strategies of Law and Literature, and the playwright, Catherine Filloux.
Friday, February 12
Post performance panel with Jack Saul, Director of the International Trauma Studies Program, Columbia University; and Ruti Teitel, Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School.
Saturday, February 13
For audiences attending this performance there will be a special Bosnian cocktail hour at the second floor bar of the 59E59 Theater. On hand will be members of the Dog and Wolf team. The cocktail hour is a celebration of the Bosnian community, but anyone coming out to embrace Bosnian acknowledgement in theater is more than welcome to attend this performance.
Tuesday, February 16
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) Young Leaders Event: Post performance panel with Jayne E. Fleming, human rights lawyer at Reed Smith, and Aleksander Milch, asylum attorney at HIAS.
Wednesday, February 17
UCSD Alumni Association New York Chapter post-play talk and cocktail hour.
Friday, February 19
Benefit Performance in support of Watson Arts. For tickets and information email hosting@watsonarts.org.
Catherine Fillouz's new play, LUZ, exposes the global scale of gender based violence and how collusion between corporate and human rights law practices serves to perpetuate these crimes. The LUZ Community Outreach Project is an initiative to engage and connect individuals from all over the world through theater. Interested groups are invited to hold excerpted readings from LUZ, followed by discussions among the participants. It is our hope that these readings and discussions will propel audience members to take action.
To learn more about
LUZ COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROJECT PLEASE VISIT: http://watsonarts.wordpress.com/
Actions can range from a research project about a local human rights issue, to writing a letter to a representative concerning a relevant topic in the play, to sharing a personal story, to submitting art, all of which will be posted on LCOP’s blog, as well as in La MaMa's theatre lobby during the production of LUZ. We hope to build a community around the issues raised in LUZ that will help people to connect, to build awareness, to inspire hope and to bring change.
Michael Caci’s Action for LUZ
“I’VE ALWAYS FOUND COMFORT IN BIRDS. THEY’RE CLOSER TO DEATH. OR LIFE. IN BETWEEN…”
–Alexandra, from LUZ, A new play by Catherine Filloux
“When I started this series of bird images in 2011, I was deeply engrossed in thinking about the similar ‘in-between’ spaces which seem to plague Alexandra and Oliver in the play LUZ; spaces between life and death, growth and stasis, belief and non-belief. There’s this sense of transition and getting a foot caught in a snare or finding that what you thought was important in your life is not so much, that the way you framed the world is perhaps an illusion. In this space, irony rules…”
–Michael Caci, Seattle-based artist
P.S.69
Susan Jeremy brought her hit show, P.S. 69 to the 2011 Montreal Fringe Festival
Susan Jeremy plays an entire New York City school – frazzled teachers, pushy parents, and hip hop kids in this hilarious and fast-paced tale of a substitute teacher who finds herself and love at Public School 69 in Brooklyn. P.S.69 won the Best of Venue Award at the Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal Fringes, and was a smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Based on Jeremy’s real-life experiences as a teacher in New York City public schools, P.S. 69 has played to sold-out houses across the United States, Canada and the British Isles. Susan Jeremy, a solo performance artist, is known for her lighting quick characterizations and comic chops.
“Flawless and funny from beginning to end!” -- The Montreal Mirror
“Full of humor and insight!…doesn’t disappoint for a moment!” –Talkin’Broadway.com
“Accept no substitutes! Jeremy’s the real deal!” –Winnipeg Free Press
“This is an extraordinary piece of theatre!...She morphs in the turn of a line, her body language transmuting along with her accent. She is breathtakingly impressive.”-- The Scotsman
“Effervescent!…an endlessly inventive shape-shifter!” -The Village Voice
“Hot…Hilarious, brilliant…utter theatrical magic…so smart…it touches the soul even as it bops the funny bone!!” -The Montreal Hour
“A performer you should see!” - CBC
“Brilliant!...Fantastically talented!”
– Montreal.com
MORE RAVES FOR SUSAN JEREMY
“Jeremy's brilliant, protean acting style drives a script that is not only funny, but also a poignant look at the class system in American culture. One of the most talked-about entries in this year's Fringe, this play answers the high expectations with unforgettable characters, spot-on direction and a sensitivity that grows more acute with each roaring laugh.”
-Montreal Hour
“Bravura command of gestures and speech!” - The Boston Globe
“Brilliant! …The fantastically talented Jeremy dissolves into the characters she creates while the story, penned by Jeremy and Fulham, moves us effortlessly along.”
- Montreal.com
“Jeremy is a sharp-as-nails comedic actress whose characters live and breathe before you, but she can also serve up keen social commentary.”
Uptown Magazine – Winnipeg’s Online Source for Arts
“ A wonderful storyteller with a flair for accents and impressions, the New York girl paints an incredible picture of her often hilarious family life and her trip down the road to obscurity…a must-see!”
- Uptown Magazine – Winnipeg’s Online Source for Arts
“She's a performer you should see… The writing itself (with co-writer and director Mary Fulham) is sharp. As a performer, Jeremy has a dry comic sensibility and an almost childlike charm in the way she tells a story.
- CBC
CATHERINE FILLOUX
is an award-winning playwright who has been writing about human rights and social justice for the past twenty years. Her plays have been produced in New York and around the world. Filloux wrote the book and lyrics for Where Elephants Weep (Composer Him Sophy), a musical, which received its world premiere in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She is the librettist for The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown (Composer Jason Kao Hwang), selected as a Critics Choice in Opera News. Awards include: PeaceWriting Award (Omni Center for Peace), Roger L. Stevens Award (Kennedy Center), Eric Kocher Playwrights Award (O'Neill), Callaway Award (New Dramatists.) Filloux’s plays are published by Playscripts, Inc., and her recent anthology Silence of God and Other Plays is published by Seagull Books, “In Performance.” Filloux is a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders and has served as a speaker for playwriting and human rights organizations around the world. http://www.catherinefilloux.com
LINKS:
Kadmus Arts Podcast: Interview with Catherine Filloux
Watson Arts Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. Contact: Mary Fulham, Artistic Director hosting@watsonarts.org